See Faux Go

'tis My Pleasure To Speak:
Reviewing Our Four Broadway Events

With only 3 nights available, we managed to find excellent seats to an assortment of plays and musicals playing on Broadway or thereabouts.

A Behanding in Spokane

I have to admit that the big draw to this play was Christopher Walken. We have admired his work for so long and we just needed to see him in his element live. He did NOT disappoint.

The story is about a man called Carmichael looking for his severed hand. Hence, the title. He has been searching for over 25 years. Martin McDonaugh, who wrote the play, also wrote another play that we enjoyed years ago entitled, The Beauty Queen of Leenane. Spiced with profanity and seriously, but seriously politically incorrect epithets, I hardly even winced. Walken's dry delivery was pitch perfect and Sam Rockwell (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind--he played the role of Chuck Barrie...) was the perfect 'foil' for his character--he plays a hotel clerk with a very, very nonchalant death wish...and a strange interest in Carmichael's predicament. Zoe Kazan (who plays Meryl Streep's daughter in the movie "It's Complicated" and Anthony Mackie (Hurt Locker) play a couple who stupidly and unsuccessfully try to convince Carmichael that they have his hand in their possession--which is where the farce begins.

The play works in so many different layers. There is a very solid chemistry between the four actors and the audience begins to connect with each character almost immediately. Kazan plays 'a lady in distress', a wily manipulator, a liar, an ingenue with so much panache that one can sense a great deal of intelligence in her seeming helplessness. Each actor held his own but when Walken is not in the scene the 'electricity' dissipates. We certainly felt his quirky, inexplicable and charming eccentricity so just being in his presence gave us a sense of being in a unique and historical company.

I give this play 5 out of 5 snaps.

Lend Me A Tenor

We had first row seats to this play and so we got spit upon a lot especially by Tony Shalhoub who spits a lot! What a sublime pleasure! This zany comedic farce with the slamming doors had I thought, casting perfection. Making his Broadway debut, Justin Bartha, (National Treasure) whose character is the link pin to all the characters and all the action, was the beneficiary of generous actors whose performances enabled his character to bloom and shine without taking away from their own terrific performances. Shalhoub was wonderful. Period. Anthony LaPaglia, was engaging as the Italian tenor who arrives in town the evening of his first performance of Othello with a bad case of intestinal distress after indulging in greasy food and libations. He looked so ill that I thought maybe he may not be able to finish the play-- well, that's when it dawned on me that 'this is just pretend'. That's how good he was. Jan Maxwell who plays the tenor's wife was hilarious and gorgeous. I have to also mention that the set was fabulously built. We laughed throughout---and I mean, belly-laughed. It was pure therapy.

Mr & Mrs. Fitch

I really wanted to like this play because I adore John Lithgow. But I finally just gave in to the realization that the play itself was....well, annoying. I think LIthgow knew it. I could tell. He delivered his lines with the greatest of elan but the script itself fabulously falls flat. Yes, I do fault Douglas Carter Beane's utterly shrill and pretentious script. He is all over the place obviously trying far too hard to bombard his audience with name-dropping and references to the intelligentsia of literary greats. The script will, in one verbose sentence reference Waugh to Voltaire and then annoyingly worship Sylvia Plath, who in my opinion is so highly over-rated anyway. I mean, come on people---she wrote ONE book and then killed herself. But that's beside the point.

John Lithgow and British actress, Jennifer Ehle, play husband and wife gossip columnists who run out of gossip fare and proceed to invent a celebrity and blah blah blah. It's all too predictable. But that's not the problem. The problem is, Beane couldn't make up his mind about this play. It's not quite a comedy. And it's not quite a tragedy. Or a drama either. I was confused. The worst part is that I just couldn't feel anything but ambivalence or worse, not really care about any of the characters. I wish I could like them, but they are so annoyingly pretentious. I wish I could hate them but they weren't that despicable either. It's like some sort of horror date night with someone who's hot but won't go all the way. Why couldn't Beane just go commando and make the characters deliciously despicable that the audience could actually have a meaningful reaction? Or decide to make it a darker, edgier dramedy so the characters can have their comeuppance? So I just wanted the play to end and take poor Lithgow out of his misery. He is all that saves the play. I wish he just played the piano and sang the old standards...which he does so but only for a very short snip.

On a positive note, I found Ehle's wardrobe very chic and the set oh so very Manhattan. She is a beautiful woman. But it bothered me a bit that she tripped over her lines several times. Well, one can hardly be too hard on her---she is a Brit speaking American. I found myself wondering how in the world these characters could afford a nice flat with such rich details on a gossip columnist salary. But I digress. Well, that's all I did for most of the play. On another plus...John LIthgow-- in person-- live. And we sat on the 5th row dead center.

Promises, Promises

I was excited to see this musical because I am a Burt Baccharach-Hal David fan. Plus this musical is based on the movie "The Apartment" which starred one of my favorite actors of my childhood, Jack Lemmon. (And a young Shirley McLane) And also because I love Kristin Chenoweth.

But Kristin Chenoweth did not deliver the goods. Her performance was...to use a cliche, oh so very wooden. And it's oh so true. Sean Hayes did not disappoint. He has an almost Matthew Broderick'ish quality. But I'll tell you what was the stand-out performance of the night: Katie Finneran, who had a small scene but a gigantic, amazing performance. She brought light and sunshine to a whimpering production. I think she saves the night.

I would say that the star of the show is really the music. In the end, I enjoyed it and I was rooting for Sean Hayes whose performance was very likeable and in some instances, touching.

And that was Broadway for me last week.

Tony Goldwin and Katie Finneran

Goldwin (Ghost) was boring in his role. But Katie Finneran...wow! We were lucky enough to have seen her spectacular performance on "Noises Off" (we were with Tascha and Hannah). She won several awards for that play including the Tony.