Stage Door: "King Lear" in the Park

Shakespeare in the Park shutters for another year this Sunday August 17th, so you only have a couple more chances to see King Lear. I can't claim that King Lear is one of my favorite plays and as far as interpretations of it go, nobody is ever going to beat Akira Kurosawa's Ran (1985), you know?

The Bening and John Lithgow star in "King Lear" in Central Park

John Lithgow headlines and is quite strong as the rapidly declining hot-tempered looneytunes King who stupidly gives everything away to his two eldest daughters (Annette Bening and Jessica Hecht) while shunning the youngest who truly loves him. Lithgow is having a good year; I urge all of you to see his excellent work in Love is Strange when it opens later this month. I had entirely forgotten about the B story in King Lear which is like a reflection of the A story, in which another father is (literally) blinded when it comes to his sons. I didn't fully love this production where much of it was good but few things excellent. Oddly, I was most drawn to the actors I was least familiar with like Jessica Collins as Cordelia, Eric Sheffer Stevens as Edmund, and Steven Boyer as Fool. Most disappointing for me was The Bening. You know that she is my beloved but her lines were spoken without a lot of discernable emotional content (one review claimed "learned phonetically" which I thought was terribly mean but it's not her finest hour). She does memorably fire up in the final act once her loins are ah stirred by the bastard troublemaker Edmund. 

I love the tradition of Shakespeare in the Park but I wish they would go back to the time when they did more non-Shakespeare things in this summer event series like Mother Courage and Hair and Into the Woods and whatnot. This summer they only did the Bard. You know what play would be excellent to see outdoors? Tennessee Williams' Night of the Iguana.

WHAT OTHER PLAYS DO YOU THINK WOULD BE GREAT IN AN OUTDOOR SETTING?

P.S. What about Cate Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert in The Maids?

You're probably wondering why I haven't written about "The Maids" starring Huppert, Blanchett and rising actress Elizabeth Debicki (remember that wonderful first impression she made in The Great Gatsby?) and that's because I didn't get tickets. Above my price range but Shakespeare in the Park is free which is definitely within my price range! Here's a collection of reviews to read if you're interested. I've talked to two friends who've seen it and they both felt exactly the same: Debicki was best in show. How's that for a surprise... and a career-maker, at least on stage.

1973 Look Back: Biblical Musicals

Our celebration of 1973 continues with Andrew on Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar

In 1970 John-Michael Tebelak was completing work on his master’s thesis project about Jesus Christ at Carnegie Mellon University. Before long he would pair up with musician and lyricist Stephen Schwartz and in May of 1971 the musical Godspell would officially begin playing. Around the same time, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice were finalising work on a rock album, a concept musical of sorts, on the last ten days of Jesus' life. The album would be released in the fall of 1970, and one year later Jesus Christ Superstar, the musical developed from the soundtrack, would open on Broadway. By some weird happenstance the fates of the two Jesus musicals would be tied*. Two years later, the two musicals (both moderate hits on stage by that time) saw screen adaptations released in 1973.

One religious stage-musical adapted to the big screen is a curiosity; two religious film musicals – both of them from recent stage hits -  in a single year is fascinating. Two religious film musicals in the same year from recent stage hits which both cover, generally, the same subject? Too intriguing to ignore.

Two Jesus musicals, two very different Jesuses. More...

Click to read more ...

Yes No Maybe So: "My Old Lady"

Here's Andrew Kendall on a trailer I didn't get to! I've thrown my back out and I thank the team for this weekend's content for your amusement. I should be back in regular form soon - Nathaniel R

That it took an entire week for Yes No Maybe So to appear for upcoming British dramedy My Old Lady shouldn’t be seen as a sign of disinterest, or indicative of the trailer's merit. Although, on suggesting it for this series I pointed out to Nathaniel that Israel Horovitz's quiet European dramedy might not be one many are immediately passionate about. In the glut of trailers released in the past week, the modest My Old Lady seems to have been lost in the midst. Although I generally I tend to avoid trailers, I was curious to see how Horovitz would adapt his drawing-room play, which I'm fond of, to the screen.

Here's the trailer. The Yes No Maybe So breakdown featuring Maggie Smith, Kevin Kline and Kristin Scott Thomas is after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Get On Link

Towleroad The Imitation Game (we just discussed the trailer) isn't the only Alan Turing focused artwork in the ether. The Pet Shop Boys just debuted their opera Breaking the Code (yes, opera) about the man.
Theater Mania there's a stage adaptation of Shakespeare in Love in the West End. Here's a review
Vulture interviews True Blood's Nelsan Ellis on the lame actor who wouldn't make out with him on True Blood and his role in Get On Up

Kenneth in the (212) Ryan Gosling joins the waxworks at Madame Tussauds
MNPP freaks out for a John Waters retrospective this September. As well we all should.
Variety big weekend expected for Lucy. I guess this means Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow solo film will get a greenlight
Boy Culture Wonder Woman in Madonna drag. LOL
Awards Daily Heart of the Sea, the Ron Howard/ Chris Hemsworth post-Rush collaboration is test screening
/Film new poster for Mad Max: Fury Road 
Superhero Hype Batman's new costume displayed at Comic Con... but I'm sorry it looks so creepy without someone in it
AV Club Project Runway begins its 13th season tonight

And please to enjoy the Venice Film Festival Lineup. They're sharing some titles with TIFF like Good Kill, The Humbling, 99 Homes, and Red Amnesia. But ther opening night film Birdman is all theirs. Feel the envy. I'd do a whole post as with TIFF but I'm not going to Venice *sniffle* whereas I might be a TIFF and also as you read this I am fulfilling my obligations as a citizen via Jury Dutyzzz. No, for real. Feel for me as I sit in the rooms waiting for my name to be called or not.

Elaine Stritch (1925-2014)

When Colleen Donaghy died on 30 Rock in the episode "My Whole Life is Thunder" I tried to think of it as tragicomic rehearsal. A chance to acknowledge that death was coming for the beloved theater great but to laugh at it or at least about its absurd finality.

Elaine Stritch herself wouldn't have approved of my wussiness. She might've said something like "it's me who's dying, not you!" (albeit in a much funnier manner) because she had a tart tongue and was quite a truth teller. In the documentary Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me (reviewed) released early this year she references her impending death more than a little as she prepares to move back home (Detroit) and retire finally, in her late eighties, for good.

But even this documentary didn't quite convince me that she was leaving us.

I saw Elaine Stritch’s famous one woman Broadway show “At Liberty” in early 2002 a couple of years after moving to New York. I’m not exaggerating when I say that it was nothing short of spiritual ecstasy but then showbiz is my religion and actresses are my only gods. 

 I had mythologized her, you can see in that excerpt of that intro to my review of that documentary. How could Death conquer such a life force?

It wasn't until after the special screening here in NYC that Stritch (or as I like to call her "Stritchieeeeeeeee!" imitating her imitation of an angry director in At Liberty) was wheeled out to greet us that it finally sunk in. She looked undeniably more like a feeble old woman than the  giant of the theater in white shirt and black tights that I was accustomed to looking up at with awe.

The last time I'd seen Stritchieeee in the flesh before that she was also in a wheelchair. It was late 2010 when she took over for Angela Lansbury in the Broadway Revival of "A Little Night Music." She sings her big number "Liaisons" from a wheelchair. But that was just acting. More rehearsal.

When Elaine set out to do something she worked her ass off until she did it right. 

So here's to the girls on the go--
Everybody tries.
Look into their eyes,
And you'll see what they know:
Everybody dies.
A toast to that invincible bunch,
The dinosaurs surviving the crunch.
Let's hear it for the ladies who lunch--
Everybody rise!
Rise!
Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise!
Rise!

And this Tony and Emmy winning legend did it right. A final round of thunderous applause please because this time there's no more encores.