Theatre
Fall Preview
By Henry Edwards
The theater is called The Fabulous Invalid because it always seems on the verge of dropping dead on the spot. Yet it always survives and sometimes survives fabulously. The job of a fall preview is to celebrate the fabulousness of the fabulous invalid by convincing readers that every new attraction really is fabulous and qualifies as a must-see.
“The drama dies unless it is rejuvenated by new life. We must put new blood into this corpse,” wrote Emile Zola (who was very good at saying profound things about the arts).
Thus far, thirteen attractions are scheduled to set up shop on the Great White Way this fall. Some will undoubtedly turn out to be prized transfusions of new blood; others will be accused of causing near-fatal blood poisoning. Time will let you know which is which. The fabulous invalid thrives on unabashed optimism, and this is the moment when optimism reigns supreme and every new production exudes the feeling that it is destined to be a winner.
Broadway’s Big Three
Young Frankenstein
(Hilton Theater; first preview October 11, opens November 8): When Mel Brooks transformed his cult comedy motion-picture classic, The Producers, into the 2001 Broadway musical blockbuster of the same name, he unwittingly launched (for better and often for worse) the on-going cycle of song-and-dance stage versions of old movies. Setting out to prove that lightning can strike twice (especially for an 81-year-old comic genius whose first name is Mel and last name is Brooks), the multi-faceted clown, joined at the hip for the second time with Producers collaborators Tom Meehan (co-author) and Susan Stroman (director/choreographer), returns to the scene of his prior triumph with a new musical based on his riotous 1974 black-and-white horror-flick parody.
YF co-stars four sensational Tony winners: Roger Bart as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, pronounced “Fronkensteen,” the esteemed New York brain surgeon and professor who inherits a Transylvanian castle and laboratory from his grandfather, the deranged genius Victor Von Frankenstein; Shuler Hensley as the Monster for whom size really does count for a lot; Sutton Foster (Inga) and Audra Martin (Frau Blücher), along with Megan Mullally (Elizabeth), who is returning to the theater after an eleven-year absence; Fred Applegate (Kemp) and Christopher Fitzgerald (Igor).
Yes, Frederick and the Monster will once again top hats and tails and reprise “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” Yes, the Monster yet again places his inhuman stamina and “enormous schwanzstucker” on display when he kidnaps and ravishes the not-unwilling Elizabeth. Yes, all’s right in the world — with one glaring exception. The most eagerly awaited new musical of the year is booked into the sterile 1,821-seat Hilton Theatre, one of the most incommodious theaters ever to grace the Great White Way.
Rock ’n’ Roll
(Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre; first preview October 19, opens November. 4): Tom Stoppard’s new play transports audiences back and forth between the playwright’s native Czechoslovakia and Cambridge University during the tumultuous 25-year stretch between the numerous spontaneous acts of nonviolent resistance by the Czechs and Slovaks. and invasion by Warsaw Pact soldiers — the Prague Spring of 1968 — to the non-violent Velvet Revolution that signaled the fall of Communism in the Soviet Union and in Czechoslovakia.
British critics hailed the work as “an extraordinary, epic drama of politics, persecution, and protest.” There was also a complaint or two that Rock ’n’ Roll was “not quite first-rate Stoppard.” The playwright’s Coast of Utopia trilogy was last season’s New York prestige hit. R ’n’ R, by most reports an emphatically superior effort, looms as the prestige hit of this season. Brian Cox, Sinead Cusack, and Rufus Sewell repeat their performances in the London Royal Court production.
The Little Mermaid
(Lunt-Fontanne Theatre; first preview November 3, opens December 6): Keenly aware that a motion picture has to be reconceived for theatrical presentation, and that the resulting stage work has to stand on its own and transcend comparisons with the original film, Disney Theatricals captain Tom Schumacher entrusted The Lion King to experimental-theater veteran Julie Taymor. The choice paid off brilliantly when Taymor achieved a staggeringly successful artistic and commercial result.
International opera director Francesca Zambello, director of the entertainment giant’s new toon-to-tuner adaptation of its 1989 animated blockbuster, is another audacious choice. Zambello, an American who grew up in Europe, launched her American directorial career with a 1984 Houston Grand Opera production of Beethoven’s Fidelio. A series of international opera productions, including world premieres of An American Tragedy, Cyrano, and Les Troyens at the Metropolitan Opera, came next.
Zambello and her design team are given the mission of creating the magical, underwater universe of Ariel, the beautiful, headstrong 16-year-old little mermaid.
Doug Wright (I Am My Own Wife; Grey Gardens) did the adaptation (no, the little mermaid does not come out of the closet in this version), and the score contains 11 new songs by Glenn Slater and Academy Award winner Alan Menken.
Although there won’t be any water and absolutely no wires on stage, the chorus of mer-women reportedly wear bikini tops and shake their tushies in order to get their artificial tails to swing and sway in time to the music — a first for any Disney show, especially one that seems to a shoo-in as one of the forthcoming holiday season’s prime children’s- stocking stuffers.
New Plays
Mauritius
(Biltmore Theatre; first preview September 13, opens October 4): Doug Hughes (Doubt) directs a treasure trove of New York actors (Bobby Carnivale, Alison Pill, F. Murray Abraham, Dylan Baker, Katie Finneran) in the Manhattan Theatre Club production of Theresa Rebeck’s new play about the five-way tug-of-war that results after two half-sisters inherit a rare stamp collection that includes the fabled one- and two-penny postage stamps issued from the South African island of Mauritius ostensibly worth millions. Critics proclaimed a previous Boston edition “funny, sharp, beguiling” and a fine example of “high philately.” Rebeck is the only Law and Order scripter with a doctorate in Victorian-era melodrama, an additional reason to wish the writer well on her Main Stem debut.
The Seafarer [UNBOLD, UNITAL] (Booth Theater; first preview October 30, opens November 8): Irish playwright (and ex-alcoholic) Conor McPherson [ITAL] (The Weir; Shining City) [UNITAL] shines a spotlight on a group of Dublin drunks playing a game of cards on Christmas Eve who are interrupted by a mysterious stranger. British critics loved McPherson’s mix of booze and blarney (“sparkling and suspenseful,” “gripping, entertaining stuff”), accompanied by an occasional reservation (“this is ground he has covered before”).
The Farnsworth Invention
(Music Box Theater; first preview October 15, opens November 16): Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing and [ITAL] Studio 60 on Sunset Strip returns to the theater for the first time since 1988’s A Few Good Men with this biographical play about the battle for the patent for the invention of the television set. The combatants: 22-year-old genius Philo T. Farnsworth (Jimmi Simpson), who came up with the idea as a high-school student, vs. America’s first communications mogul, youthful RCA boss David Sarnoff (Hank Azaria). In Sorkin’s hands, the all-or-nothing conflict should possess a goodly dose of crackle.
New Musicals
Lone Star Love
(Belasco Theater; first preview November 1, opens December 3): Previously seen Off-Broadway in an Amas Musical Theater production, this country-and-western hoopla transports Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor to the Wild West. Expect an onstage barbeque, cattle rustlers, a moustache-wearing sissy Frenchman, a yodeling cowboy, songs by the North Carolina string band Red Clay Ramblers, and Randy Quaid as a former Confederate Army non-com named Sgt. John Falstaff.
Revivals
The Ritz
(Studio 54; first preview September 14, opens October 1): Joe Mantello directs a Roundabout Theater production of Terrence McNally’s 1975 pre-AIDs farce about a straight man who tries to escape assassination by hiding out in a gay bathhouse. Until then, Broadway had never a show as gay as this one. Rosie Perez stars as a Bette Midler prototype. Broadway campers Kevin Chamberlain and Brooks Ashmanskas come along for the ride.
Pygmalion
(American Airlines Theatre; first preview September 14, opens October 18): My Fair Lady without the songs. This Roundabout production of Bernard Shaw’s classic class- warfare comedy stars Jefferson Mays as male-chauvinist phonetics professor Henry Higgins, opposite Claire Danes, who has chosen to put Spidey on hold in order to make her Broadway debut as Eliza Doolittle, the flower girl who becomes a lady. It’s a tough play to pull off, but in the right hands it glistens.
Cyrano de Bergerac
(Richard Rogers Theater; Octpber dates to be announced) The new production of Edmund Rostand’s timeless, turn-of-twentieth-century romance reportedly will star Kevin Kline as the poetic swordsman with the super-sized schnozz and Jennifer Garner as his ward Roxanne. (Ben Affleck stays home.) David Leveaux directs this classic saga of unfulfilled love. Current plans call for a ten-week run.
Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas – The Musical
(St. James Theater; first preview November1, opens November 9): A reprise of last year’s holiday hit from San Diego’s Old Globe Theater about the holiday-hitting spoiler. The production will offer up to 15 performances a week, play through January 6, 2008, entertain armies of children, and make some very rich people even richer.
The Homecoming
(Cort Theater; first preview November 16, opens December 4): Harold Pinter’s 1965 masterpiece was a shocker then, and the very real possibility exists that it still packs a big wallop. The evening revolves around what happens when the eldest son of a brutish British working–class family for the first time brings home his wife Ruth from the United States. Turning the Oedipus complex inside out, Pinter demonstrates how Ruth’s arrival changes the dynamics in a household that is starved for a feminine touch. Refusing to return with her husband to the sterility of an American campus, she chooses instead to stay behind and work as a prostitute in order to support her newly acquired relatives, a decision guaranteed to trigger innumerable interpretations. Daniel Sullivan directs a cast that includes Ian McShane, Raoul Esparza, and Michael McKean.
Cymbeline
(Vivian Beaumont Theater; first preview November 1, opens December 2): Mark Lamos reprises his acclaimed Hartford Stage production of Shakespeare’s third-to-last play, which spins the tale of Cymbeline, a semi-legendary British king around the time of Christ’s birth, and his virtuous daughter Imogen. The complex and heady pastiche of comedy, romance, history, and tragedy triggers a “fairy tale for adults” approach from director Lamos. Said adults can look forward to a wicked queen, a headless son, life-and-death battles between Britain and Rome, a fake poisoning, a glorious reconciliation, Jupiter wielding a thunderbolt as he descends in a balloon, and two-dozen endings. And that’s just for starters.
