Stage Door: Asher Lev, The Jungle Book, Love's Labour's Lost
Monday, August 26, 2013 at 10:46PM How has "My Name is Asher Lev" never been made into a movie? The novel by Chaim Potok, about a young Hassidic Jew who becomes a controversial and successful fine artist (painting crucifixations of all things) is one of those mainstays of primary education so you'd think that there would be a movie. Most of those get-em-while-they're-young classic novels can claim multiple film versions. But there's only been runs at the stage. I recently saw a new adaptation by Aaron Posner at the Westside Theater.
The production was minimally staged but the set was a moody beauty. The night I attended the understudy for the female roles (there are only three actors in the production) went on. Turns out she was Chaim Potok's actual daughter! Imagine that.
Ari BrandAri Brand was constantly on the stage in the title role but adeptly swung around between various ages from little boy to grown man to track Asher Lev's artistic awakening and simultaneous emancipation from and acceptance of his faith. But the chameleon in the cast was Mark Nelson who plays quite a few characters including Asher's father and is particularly memorable as his jovial uncle and Asher's mentor artists who speaks largely in manifestos about what art is and how artists should live. Asher's struggle couldn't be more specific (a Jew painting Christian iconography) but the themes are wildly flexible to any coming of age or coming into one's own spiritual or ideological journey which is surely why people love it when they're young.
It's Your Last Chance: My Name is Asher Lev plays through September 1st at the West Side Theater.
Movies and TV Moving to the Musical Stage
Playbill warns that there's a GLEE stage musical in the works? God Antoinette Perry help us all. We've really gone over the top and back down again with the cross pollination of mediums. In September HONEYMOON IN VEGAS hits Paper Mill in Jersey and over in Boston at the Huntington Theater Company they're launching Disney's THE JUNGLE BOOK which is aiming for Broadway (eventually) and one supposes they're dreaming of another Julie-Taymor-does-Lion-King size hit. Here's a Making Of with director Mary Zimmerman, whose biggest hit Metamorphosis was so good. Let's hope she doesn't fall into the Julie Taymor trap of not being able to edit herself. Bostonian readers who've seen the show do tell us what you thought!
The great Norbert Leo Butz in BIG FISH
The migration continues directly on Broadway with Big Fish (Sept 2013), The Bridges of Madison County (Jan 2014) and Rocky (Feb 2014) among others. Which are you most interested in hearing about?
Exit Music
And did any of you get a chance to see the final Shakespeare in the Park for the season: Love's Labour's Lost? I'm still humming this particular show stopper.
Heavy rotation on my playlists.
Reader Comments (10)
Ugh, Kelli O'Hara is all sorts of wrong for Francesca in Bridges. Even excluding Meryl's remarkable performance, it's just baffling, inexplicable casting. Blonde-locked, blue-eyed, porcelain-featured Kelli O'Hara as a middle-aged, Italian housewife? Girl's got a lot going for her, but come on, just cast her in that long-gestating King and I revival and get that long-delayed Tony coronation over with.
The Bridges of Madison County interests me just because it's Jason Robert Brown.
The Jungle Book was at the Goodman in Chicago before Boston. It kicked up a bit of a racial fuss (as is common in theatre these days...). Didn't see it-- but consensus seemed to be that Broadway was maybe not a good idea...
Was the racial fuss on "The Jungle Book" over the boy who played Mowgli? Surely there are tons of talented Southeast Asian-American boys who can sing, dance and act, yes? (The pic I saw from EW looked accurate...)
It wasn't-- it was over a Mary Zimmerman interview quote about colonialism, which has been sort of a touchy spot with her work for many (she had an adaptation of The Arabian Nights that some people don't like). The whole history of The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling, etc. got dragged into it. Theatre people have been on a real racial controversy kick for the last year or two. (Most of it deserved, mind you.)
Was Mowgli not South Asian? Casting kids is crazy hard, even in a big market like Chicago. The Goodman has a wide casting net (plus they do Christmas Carol every year, so they're constantly hunting for kids), but rehearsals during school, a long run, low pay? You can probably find a talented kid OR a kid that's the "type" you want.
Isn't Dsney already struggling with less-than-stellar reviews for their stage version of Aladdin? Or maybe that's why they attempted this- to cover their bases?
Big Fish is a sweet movie and the musical's set looks gorgeous, but I'm hearing bad things. Sad.
I saw "Big Fish" in Chicago - there's a lot of good there, and if nothing else they seem to have the right cast and creative team to put it over. Pacing is hard for something with that big of a narrative scope, and there were a few sections that felt like placeholders for more elaborate set pieces once they got to Broadway, but it's more fun than not. I just hope they cut the arbitrary "wild west" number.
I wonder when the inevitable Harry Potter Broadway Musical will happen.
Pretty sure J.K. Rowling has said that she would never sign off on a Harry Potter musical, so unless she changes her mind, then the answer is never. However there is already an unofficial Harry Potter musical. Well, for all I know there are many unofficial Harry Potter musicals...
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