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Theater Reviews—Two Plays by Danai Gurira, 'Familiar' & 'Eclipsed'
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 08 April 2016 21:35
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Familiar
Written by Danai Gurira; directed by Rebecca Taichman
Performances through April 10, 2016
Eclipsed
Written by Danai Gurira; directed by Liesl Tommy
Performances through June 19, 2016
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| The cast of Familiar (photo: Joan Marcus) |
It's rare for any playwright to have two plays running in New York simultaneously, but Danai Gurira—better known to some (not me) as an actress in TV’s The Walking Dead—has done it with Eclipsed on Broadway and Familiar off-Broadway.
Familiar, though the lesser work, is in no way negligible. Set in Minneapolis, the play concerns the Chinyaramwiras, a Zimbabwean-American family frenziedly making preparations for daughter Tendi’s impending wedding. Youngest (and prodigal) daughter Nyasha has just arrived from New York while mother Marvi (short for Marvelous) rues the arrival of her eldest sister Anne from the home country, since Marvi hopes that Tendi’s wedding to local man Chris will further the family’s American success story. But—needless to say—complications ensue.
Gurira has everyone and everything in their places for her amusing, at times insightful if too, um, familiar comedy, smartly balancing arguments for assimilating with those for retaining ultural customs—Aunt Anne wants to resurrect an elaborate Zimbabwean ritual for Tendi’s ceremony, whose working out takes up a good chunk of the overlong first act—and finding the humorous absurdity in both sides.
With this group of people who speak normally and fight over every little thing both serious and frivolous, Gurira’s stage family is recognizable and real. If she relies too much on the strictures of drawing-room comedy, snowballing into Neil Simon slapstick at the close of Act I, it’s certainly forgivable.
Rebecca Taichman thoughtfully directs on Clint Ramos’ spectacular set, which exactingly captures the family house's solidly upper-middle class interior. The acting is forceful and funny across the board, with standouts being Tamara Tunie’s headstrong Marvi, Ito Aghayere’s Nyasha and Joe Tippett's surprisingly sympathetic turn as Chris’s brother Brad, whose arrival is just one of many bizarre interludes in a distinctly unfamiliar day for the Chinyaramwira family.
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| Lupita Nyong'o (center) in Eclipsed (photo: Joan Marcus) |
Stronger still is Eclipsed, set during the Liberian Civil War in the early 2000s. We meet several unnamed women in a worn-down shack, each of them designated by a number, since they are “wives” for one of the warlords, who periodically calls one of them to his bed while the others sit and wait around.
If spending two-plus hours in such company seems depressing or enervating, the reality is far from that: Gurira's potent, probing play illuminates our shared humanity, even in a place where social and cultural structures have broken down and been replaced by wholesale degradation, destruction and slaughter. The women form a bond—at one point, the only literate one among them begins reading from Bill Clinton’s autobiography, which becomes a source of endless consternation, amusement and even hope—and it’s only in the second act, when the newest arrival joins another "wife" as a rebel soldier, does Eclipsed threaten to unravel.
That it doesn’t is a tribute not only to Gurira’s incisive and unsentimental writing but also the spot-on production by Liesl Tommy, who directs five miraculous actresses (Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o is the lone marquee name, but she’s just one-fifth of a marvelously harmonious ensemble) on Clint Ramos’ imaginatively dilapidated set.
Familiar is worth attending and Eclipsed is a major achievement: playwright Danai Gurira has arrived in New York.
Familiar
Playwrights Horizons, 416 West 42nd Street, New York, NY
playwrightshorizons.org
Eclipsed
Golden Theater, 252 West 45th Street, New York, NY
eclipsedbroadway.com
April '16 Digital Week I
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 06 April 2016 03:27
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Banshee—Complete 3rd Season
(HBO)
The third season of this extremely violent but rarely dramatically potent Cinemax series ratchets up the excessive gore at the expense of coherent storytelling and plausible characters: jettisoning anything resembling credibility in order to oversell the next bludgeoning, killing or decapitation is a recipe for becoming less interesting as it continues.
It has stylishness in spades, including its ultra-attractive cast, but then the blood-letting begins again and it loses any dramatic momentum. The hi-def transfer is impeccable; extras include commentaries, deleted scenes and featurettes.
(Arrow USA)
Italian giallo master Luciano Ercoli directed his future wife, actress Nieves Navarro—who went by her stage name Susan Scott—in a pair of bloody thrillers as a clichéd damsel in distress: both 1971's Death Walks in High Heels and 1972's Death Walks at Midnight lean on Scott's winsome personality to follow her through convoluted mysteries that are minimally psychological but maximally trashy.
As always, Arrow has included both films in a classy boxed set that features a 60-page booklet, new hi-def transfers, and interviews, featurettes and introductions/ commentaries.
King Priam
Cinderella
(Arthaus Musik)
While I've never been a fan of British composer Michael Tippett, his 1962 opera King Priam is strongly dramatic and musically cohesive; based on Homer’s Iliad, it’s a knottily-plotted tale, and Nicholas Hytner's 1985 film (with Rodney McCann as Priam, Sarah Walker as Andromache, Neil Jenkins as Achilles and Anne Mason as Helen of Troy) is a tough, taut interpretation.
Conversely, it’s simply too bad about choreographer Maguy Marin's 1989 production of Cinderella, Sergei Prokofiev's most beguiling ballet: child-like masks and costumes, which may have looked charming onstage, instead come off mildly creepy on TV. Video and audio for both discs are fine.
Losing Ground
(Milestone)
Another valuable addition to Milestone Films' growing library of resurrected historically and artistically important American films and filmmakers, this two-disc set features this astute 1982 character study by provocative writer-director Kathleen Collins (who died six years later at age 46) starring Seret Scott and Bill Gunn as an artistic couple with marital problems: Collins’ genius was for showing her characters as people, not simply as black people.
Also included are The Cruz Brothers and Miss Malloy, the 1980 debut collaboration between Collins and cinematographer Ronald K. Gray, a probing 1982 Collins interview, and new interviews with Scott, Gray and Collins' daughter. The film has been lovingly restored in hi-def.
Michael Collins
(Warner Archive)
Liam Neeson's commanding portrait of the Irish independence leader from his political beginnings until his untimely (and mysterious) death in 1922 is the center of Neil Jordan's 1996 biopic, a fluid, exciting drama on a dense, difficult subject. Complementing Neeson is superb support by Stephen Rea, Aidan Quinn, Alan Rickman and Brendan Gleeson, which offsets Julia Roberts' unmagnetic presence (and wavering accent) as Collins' fiancée.
The film's belated but welcome appearance on Blu-ray helps viewers better appreciate Chris Menges' tangy cinematography; extras are an hour-long, illuminating South Bank Show episode about Collins' life and a Jordan interview.
(Anchor Bay)
I don't get the current mania for trying to make Jason Sudekis—who was merely a comic journeyman on Saturday Night Live—a leading man in the movies, but this low-energy character study of a dead pop star's widow rediscovering her importance as muse thanks to a music professor leaves a gaping hole at its center with his casting.
Happily, the widow is played by Rebecca Hall, an actress of rare grace, vulnerability and truthfulness, so all is not lost. Small roles are well-handled by Blythe Danner, Richard Masur, Dianna Agron and Griffin Dunne, helping Hall to fill the Sudekis void. The film looks decent on Blu; extras are making-of and music featurettes.
DVDs of the Week
Brotherly Love
A Fine Pair
(Warner Archive)
Although their films aren't very memorable, two star pairings provide mostly indifferent vehicles with occasionally interesting moments. 1970's unsubtle Brotherly Love, about a man's more-than-familial interest in his sister, stars Peter O'Toole and Susannah York as misfit siblings, and they get more out of the problematic relationship than it deserves.
Similarly, 1968's Fine Pair, set in shabby New York and photogenic Italy, teams Rock Hudson and Claudia Cardinale for a forgettable caper chase picture that promises little but delivers some entertainment thanks to its stars’ presence.
(The Christopher Nupen Films)
Supremely gifted English cellist Jacqueline du Pré stopped performing at age 28 due to her battle with multiple sclerosis, which she sadly lost at age 42, in 1987; the loss to the music world is immeasurable, as this disc of vintage interview clips with contemporaries, friends and loved ones discussing her force of personality, musicianship and happiness (her nickname was Smiley) shows.
We see her performing, especially the Elgar Cello Concerto, which she is most closely associated with, and hear her discuss her own love for music, and the three-plus hours of footage become a riveting portrait of a great and humane artist.
Ron Taylor—Dr. Baseball
Invisible Scars
(First Run)
The 20-minute short Ron Taylor—which recounts his baseball career, quitting the big leagues at 35 to become a doctor, then returning to baseball in a medical capacity—was made by sons Drew and Matthew as a loving document of their dad's overlooked career.
In Invisible Scars, co-director Johnna Janis opens up about sexual abuse as a youngster and how it affected her ever since: interviews with experts and victims paint a troubled portrait of how people are affected by such a tragedy, but there’s also an optimism that many—including Janis herself—are defiantly taking charge of their own lives. Taylor extras are a directors' interview and film festival Q&As; Scarsextras are extended interviews.
Theater Review—Classic Musical "1776" Returns, via Encores
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Saturday, 02 April 2016 03:11
- Written by Kevin Filipski
1776
Book by Peter Stone; music & lyrics by Sherman Edwards; directed by Garry Hynes
Performances through April 3, 2016
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| The cast of 1776 at Encores! (photo: Joan Marcus) |
Forget Hamilton. 1776 remains the champion of Revolutionary-era American musicals, and the current Encores! semi-staging furthers its case for uniqueness, brilliance and sheer entertainment, all intact since its 1969 Tony-winning production.
Smartly directed by Garry Hynes with appropriate nods to the original director, Peter Hunt (who also helmed the classic film version with original cast members William Daniels, Howard da Silva and Ken Howard), 1776 is buoyed by what is probably the greatest musical book in Broadway history: Peter Stone provides savvy, droll and endlessly quotable dialogue for the Founding Fathers (some of which came directly from them), who come vividly to life as merely flawed men who are, as Ben Franklin sagely notes, "trying to get a nation started against greater odds than a more generous God would have allowed."
But although Stone's book is the show's backbone—indeed, it would also make a wonderful straight play—Sherman Edwards' delightful songs further humanize the men (and women) who played the main roles in founding our country, and hearing his music played by the excellent Encores! Orchestra under conductor Ben Whiteley is a special treat.
Hynes' exceptional cast is led by Santino Fontana (an amusingly pig-headed John Adams), John Laroquette (an endlessly witty Ben Franklin) and John Behlmann (a sober, dashing Thomas Jefferson); if none is up to the level of the original performers, Fontana, for one, sings more powerfully than William Daniels. Nikki Renee Daniels charmingly dispatches Martha Jefferson's pretty paean to her husband, "He Plays the Violin," while Christianne Noll's articulate, funny and golden-voiced Abigail Adams makes a perfect foil to Fontana's John, especially in their glorious duets, "Till Then" and "Yours, Yours, Yours."
Edwards' score contains great songs allowing supporting characters to shine: Bryce Pinkham, as John Dickinson, gives a marvelous reading of that cutting hymn to Conservative values, "Cool Cool Considerate Men"; Alexander Gemignani brings down the house as Edward Rutledge, the Southern slave owner, when he sings "Molasses to Rum," that powerful rebuke to Northern hypocrisy when it comes to the "peculiar institution"; and John-Michael Lyles, as the courier who delivers General Washington's distressing dispatches to Congress, is quite moving in the emotional soldier's ballad "Momma, Look Sharp."
It might have been chosen by Encores! to ride the coattails of Hamilton, but 1776 is, in all respects, the superior show.
1776
New York City Center, 131 West 55th Street, New York, NY
nycitycenter.org
Off-Broadway Reviews—Kenneth Lonergan's 'Hold on to Me Darling' & Richard Nelson's 'Hungry'
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Thursday, 31 March 2016 15:28
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Hold on to Me Darling
Written by Kenneth Lonergan; directed by Neil Pepe
Performances through April 17, 2016
Hungry
Written and directed by Richard Nelson
Performances through April 3, 2016
Kenneth Lonergan and Richard Nelson write plays which ring true with the messiness of real life, however diffuse or undramatic. Lonergan's unwieldy plays often bump up against melodrama or soap opera, with characters bordering caricature and realistic dialogue that rises to a sort of quotidian poetry that provide a fiery aliveness. Nelson has pared down his writing to the essence of drama: a group of people sitting around, talking about nothing—and everything—for 90 or so minutes, laying bare our shared humanity.
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| Adelaide Clemens and Timothy Olyphant in Hold on to Me Darling (photo: Doug Hamilton) |
Lonergan's Hold on to Me Darling begins as a sort-of soap opera parody, as fantastically successful country crossover singer/movie star Strings McCrane struggles with the aftermath of his beloved mother's death: his impulsive decisions—from deciding to marry the lovely (and already married) Nancy, who gave him a massage in his hotel room, to sleeping with his distant cousin Essie after seeing her at the funeral, to quitting show biz to start a feed store with his brother Duke in their Tennessee hometown—mark someone who has never been able to deal with life on its own terms and has instead done what any multi-millionaire celebrity would: think only of himself.
For over two and a half hours, Lonergan allows his protagonist to careen wildly between sanctimony and satire, sometimes in the same scene. The biting dialogue, always Lonergan's strong suit, manages the seemingly impossible task of alternating between realism and ridiculous self-indulgence. But whatever is said, even Strings and Duke's amusing asides like "Jesus Christ in a downtown Memphis hair salon" or "Jesus Christ on the Tour de France," always sounds exactly right for whoever is speaking. Even the final scene, when Lonergan introduces a major character who was mentioned earlier, works handily, even while wearing its heart on its sleeve a bit too sincerely.
As Strings, Timothy Olyphant initially seems to be channeling an Elvis impersonator and Tim Robbins' colorful Nuke Laloosh in the movieBull Durham: but even skating on the thin ice of caricature doesn't derail Oliphant's outsized but fully realized portrait. As the women in Strings' life, Jenn Lyon (Nancy) and Adelaide Clemens (Essie) are sympathetic and touchingly funny, C.J. Wilson makes an hilariously deadpan Duke, Keith Nobbs is amusingly harried as Strings' assistant Jimmy and Jonathan Hogan makes the most of his brief onstage time as Mitch.
The play's eight locations are astonishingly realized on Walter Spangler's brilliant revolving set, while Neil Pepe's direction is acutely in tune with Lonergan's off-kilter but penetrating observations on how persons interact while building or tearing down the walls pervading many relationships.
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| The cast of Hungry (photo: Joan Marcus) |
Richard Nelson's Hungry begins a new cycle, The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family. On the heels of his Apple Family Plays, an extraordinary quartet of dramas that looked at one family, the new group of plays—of which Hungry is the first—can't hope to live up to such a high standard.
And indeed, though it is intelligent, humane and beautifully acted,Hungry marks a major playwright treading water, returning to a well that seems to be drying up. The Gabriel family of Rhinebeck, NY (where playwright Nelson lives) has gotten together after a memorial service for Thomas, famous writer and brother of George and Joyce, both visiting his home where his widowed third wife Mary lives. George's wife Hannah and Thomas's first wife Karin have also joined them, as well as their elderly mother Patricia.
Nelson's observations are personal and often poignant, the brief discussion of politics is trenchant, and there is enough naturally arising humor to gloss over his creaky central conceit: that the entire 100-minute play takes place at the kitchen table with the women making dinner and dessert while discussing things both mundane and serious, including various states of hunger.
But Nelson remains an economical writer and director, and his ensemble—Meg Gibson, Lynn Hawley, Roberta Maxwell, Maryann Plunkett, Jay O. Sanders and Amy Warren—is as unbeatable as the one in the earlier plays. (Sanders and Plunkett are the sole holdovers.) So, although Hungry leaves us hungry for more, I look forward to sampling the next two installments.
Hold on to Me, Darling
Atlantic Theater, 320 West 20th Street, Brooklyn, NY
atlantictheater.org
Hungry
Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, New York, NY
publictheater.org
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