The New York theater season is bustling with new shows, especially Off-Broadway. November has been particularly busy, as shows open in time for the large holiday season audience. Indeed, Rockefeller Center’s annual Radio City Music Hall holiday spectacular has been up-and-running since Nov. 6, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the world-famous Rockettes this year.
Broadway itself is crowded with long run hits, but still waits for the first socko new musical of the season. The greatest success so far is a revival, Lincoln Center Theater’s new production of Ragtime, which has received universal praise and has been extended into June.
As for big-name talent—often a big tourist lure—right now the stars are powerfully aligning, with Keanu Reeves, Michael Urie, Kristen Chenowith, Don Cheadle, Bobby Cannavale, Tom Hanks, Michelle Williams, Alex Winter, Cynthia Nixon, Cedric the Entertainer and Steppenwolf Ensemble members Carrie Coon and Laurie Metcalf among the big names currently on New York stages.
But can a star alone can make a hit? The biggest new musical of the season so far, The Queen of Versailles, is a case-in-point, and was on my must-see list on a recent visit to New York, along with five other plays and musicals, gay and straight, on Broadway and Off-Broadway. The best seats for Broadway shows now cost several hundred dollars each, so reading the write-ups before you buy is wise, and also buy directly from the box office (or website) of each specific show. You’ll pay hefty fees and premiums if you purchase from any third-party ticket brokers or agencies.
The Queen of Versailles, St. James Theatre, through Jan. 4—This highly-anticipated musical has a royal pedigree: music and lyrics by Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz, starring Tony Award winner Kristen Chenoweth and Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham. It’s based on an award-winning 2012 documentary film about Florida billionaires Jackie and David Siegel, and their vast private estate called Versailles. The musical focuses on Jackie’s rise-and-fall-and-rise-again story, and her fraught relationship with her daughter. Chenoweth utterly dominates The Queen of Versailles in an energetic and astonishing star turn which is sure to earn her another Tony Award nomination. But Chenoweth really is the sole reason to see the show. Nina White as her daughter is the only other cast member with real opportunities, and she also gives a Tony-caliber performance. The score by Schwartz offers rich musical variety from his signature Broadway pop tunes, to a Country & Western parody, to a sweet pavane echoing Kurt Weill, and even a touch of coluratura. But the score lacks Wicked-style show-stoppers, and the dance elements are minimal. The larger problem, however, is that Jackie is so irredeemably mercenary, so heartlessly acquisitive that even when she suffers she does not arouse audience sympathies. That conceptual error is like failing Music Theater 101. Reviews in the New York Timesand New YorkPost (by Chicago Tribune critic Chris Jones) were positive, but most others were not. Chenoweth will carry this big, expensive show through the holidays, but then it will close.
Beau the Musical, St. Luke’s Theater, through Jan. 4—This small, unpretentious and heartfelt musical proves that sometimes less is more, at an intimate venue just steps Off-Broadway. It’s a coming-of-age story, coming-out story, family story and a country-pop musical about two generations of gay men involved in the Nashville music scene. Singer Ace Baker (boyishly appealing Matt Rodin) narrates his own story while fronting his band at a Nashville honky tonk. There’s Ace the conflicted teenager, Ace meeting the grandfather he thought was dead—the Beau of the title, Ace opening up to music, and Ace accepting his sexuality and pursuing his muse. The individual story elements are not new, but they are assembled well as conceived and written by Douglas Lyons, and performed ever-so-sweetly by Rodin and seven other excellent actor-musicians. The 100-minute show offers 12 good songs by Lyons and Ethan D. Pakchar, mostly acoustic and never too loud. The whole theater—seating 125 tops—is designed as the honkytonk, so you can kick back with a drink and enjoy the show. Off-Broadway productions rarely tour, so this fine little show will need to be staged by a local producer if Chicago is to see it. Pride Arts, Kokandy Productions, About Face . . . are you reading this?
Messy White Gays, The Duke on 42nd Street, through Jan. 11—Messy White Gays is a messy gay play that screams “Manhattan” and is enjoying a successful run in a small venue smack-dab in the Broadway Theatre District. Various controlled substances liberally sprinkled about make it literally messy, while its characters are socially messy; a rarified strata of ultra-rich, coke-snorting, apparently sex-addicted and self-absorbed gay men, far beyond any of my own legion and legendary encounters. Playwright Drew Droege, who’s also part of the five-man ensemble, may intend the play as satire but it comes off as burlesque—not the same thing—in diretor Mike Donahue’s hyper-energized, exaggerated style; think live-action animated cartoon. The setting is an impossible New York apartment with unobstructed views over all of Central Park, the Hudson and the East River, where the resident lovers have murdered their relationship third wheel and must hide the body as guests arrive for brunch. After a whirlwind “what shall we do” 90 minutes, and a couple of neat surprise special effects, it conspires that everyone has a reason to want the person dead, but the body still is lying there as the play stops rather than coming to an end. The dialog is fast and sometimes witty, but non-New Yorkers won’t get many references. Even among gay audiences, campy Messy White Gays will not appeal to all.
Liberation, James Earl Jones Theatre, open run—Among non-musical choices, Bess Wohl’s splendid feminist play is the pick-hit of autumn. Liberation concerns an early Women’s Lib group organized by young and unmarried Lizzie in ‘70s Ohio, meeting weekly at a community center. It’s a classic platoon-type play, with seven highly-varied women, from a traditional older empty-nester to a young Lesbian biker wannabe. But Wohl’s understanding of these women, and her absolutely true-to-the-ear dialog make Liberation smart, provocative, funny and completely engaging despite the relative simplicity of the staging. In addition, Liberation is raised high by the best ensemble acting I’ve ever seen in New York where—unlike Chicago—ensemble isn’t always the focus. The narrator is Lizzie’s daughter, looking back from the present, and puzzled about why the group fell apart, and why women today ask the same questions as 50 years ago. She realizes the real question is not “What did we do wrong?” but “What’s wrong with the world?”
Archduke, Roundabout at Laura Pels Theatre scheduled through Dec. 21—You are 19, uneducated, unemployed, raggedy, a virgin and dying of tuberculosis. A powerful political figure gives you food and clothing and offers you unending fame if you’ll assassinate someone to liberate your country. You’re dying anyway, right? Would you take the offer, or prefer to spend your last months enjoying a good sandwich and maybe finding a woman? That’s the choice facing Gavrilo Princip in Rajiv Joseph’s Archduke, but Joseph’s naive, sweet lad is entirely different from the real Princip, the educated and dedicated revolutionary who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, precipitating World War I. Joseph’s plays King James, Guards at the Taj and Mr. Wolf have been staged locally by Steppenwolf, where he’s an ensemble member, so viewers know he often creates an innocent or uninformed hero who is persuaded or manipulated by someone, thereby forcing the hero to think things through as audiences identify with him. So it is in Archduke, which is carried considerably by Joseph’s signature smart words, bountiful dark humor and entertaining theatricality. Director Darko Tresnjak’s entirely engaging production features lead actors Jake Berne as Gavrilo and golden-voiced Patrick Page as his manipulator. Still, the real 1914 Gavrilo was neither naive nor tubercular. He understood his cause precisely and did shoot the archduke, so I don’t understand the point of the play, which ends inconclusively, begging the question of whether Joseph’s Gavrilo turns assassin or not. Joseph has substantially re-written Archduke since its 2017 Los Angeles premiere, but perhaps a bit more work could be useful.
Laowang, Primary Stages at 59E59 Theaters, through Dec. 14—For three decades, I’ve written often about the growing body of Asian-American playwrights and the potential of still-developing audiences of various Asian communities. Rajiv Joseph (see above) is one such author. Lauren Yee, one of my favorites, is another with several Chicago credits.. However, Alex Lin’s work is new to me, so I was eager to see her world premiere, drawing on King Lear and set in contemporary New York Chinatown. Much of Lear is missing, with no equivalents to the Fool, Gloucester, Kent or Edgar. The king figure is grandmother A-Poh, a long-ago immigrant, whose shuttered restaurant property is worth millions as a tear-down. Instead of three daughters, A-Poh has two granddaughters and a grandson, two of whom connive with real estate mogul Wesley Chiu (Lear’s villainous Edmund) to gain control over A-Poh, suffering age-related dementia with only loyal granddaughter Amy (the Cordelia figure) to help her. Unlike King Lear, Lin’s play is half-comedy—especially as Chiu sexually teases the grandson and one granddaughter—until it’s not, and A-Poh reveals her own dark past through dementia-inspired flashbacks. So, Lin borrows superstructure from Shakespeare but none of the details, especially when she freely abandons The Bard to delve into the often-difficult immigrant experience in New York (A-Poh’s backstory). The shifting tone is confusing and makes one wonder about using Lear as a model at all. Plays are plentiful about fraught parent-child relationships, and the responsibilities of youngers for their elders. If Lin simply dropped the Lear reference from the title, the play would stand on its own just as well. Few viewers by themselves would identify the Shakespeare roots, which do not add that much value to the whole, in my opinion. Viewed at a late preview, the fine production is under director Joshua Kahan Brody (who directed a sparkling Lauren Yee play at the Goodman Theatre awhile back). Actor Wai Ching Ho, playing A-Poh, combines steel, sarcasm and tenderness in a manner she has patented. She’s always worth seeing, as those who’ve seen her several performances in Chicago know.
JONATHAN ABARBANEL is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and a longtime WCT contributor. His reviews can be heard each Sunday morning on “The Arts Section” on WDCB-FM Public Radio.