Cabaret Cabaret takes place in the low-down, dirty bowels of Berlin, just before the big war, when life was a screaming party. But Joe Masteroff, Fred Ebb and John Kander’s unforgettable musical is more than just entertaining. There’s a terrifying darkness to every frenzied note of this powerful show about a sexy nightclub singer named Sally Bowles (Melanie Donihoo) who tries to sing away her cares even as the Nazis rise up around her. And the darkness of this stunning show is palpable in the version now running at the Great Caruso Dinner Theater. A good part of the unnerving punch of this production has to do with the size of the venue. The dinner club is small and intimate, making the Kit Kat where Sally works seem to rise up around the audience. The wild-eyed Michael Tapley, who plays the emcee of the show like a crazy clown on speed, seems hell-bent on keeping the ragged party going. But standing on the other side of the room, just above the audience’s head, is a Nazi, who sings the beautiful “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” in the creepiest tenor voice. The horrifying ironies hidden in the music of this brilliant musical fill up the little theater. While this is not exactly dinner music, the production is a feast for the head and heart. Through April 25. 10001 Westheimer, 713-780-4900.
Crowns Even an atheist — one with at least an ounce of fashion sense — will be rockin’ and clappin’ hands at the end of Ensemble Theatre’s thoroughly joyous musical production of Crowns, adapted by Regina Taylor from the book by Michael Cunningham and Craig Marberry. Set as a stylized black Pentecostal church service in Darlington, South Carolina, the show centers around church ladies in hats and why they wear them. After the murder of her brother, punk gangsta wannabe Yolanda (played and danced by talented young actresses Jasmine Taylor and DomiNique Coleman) is sent away from Brooklyn to live with her grandmother in Darlington. As she meets the various members in her grandmother’s congregation and hears their stories, this hardened young woman mellows and eventually discovers her personal worth. All the stories that these resilient, humorous women tell are connected to their fantastic hats: confections of orange organza, sleek black-and-white pleated crepes, yellow banded turbans, domed pink cloches, sunny peach straw picture hats, gigantic disks of ruby and ebony feathers, all courtesy of milliner deluxe Michael Pollard. Gospels and spirituals — “Ain’t That Good News,” “I’m On the Battlefield” and “Marching to Zion,” among others — are central to the production. Two men complement the cast (a fine Christopher Wright sings the preacher), but it’s the seven women who carry the show. Spark plug-sized Shanica McKinney has enough energy to power Houston for a year, and her “Hat Queen rules” is a comic highlight: “Don’t touch the hat. Don’t knock the hat. Don’t hug too close (or you might knock the hat).” Loretta Gurnell stops the show with a blistering rendition of “His Eye Is On the Sparrow,” and powerful LaTreva Herndon as Mother Shaw, the “National Prayer Warrior,” leads the cast in the rousing dance number “That’s All Right.” Under Bebe Wilson’s sparkling direction, the entire ensemble is first-rate. The conviction they bring to this bright, colorful celebration is infectious, if not downright heavenly. Through May 2. 3535 Main, 713-520-0055.
Life (x) 3 The first thing anyone’s likely to love about the Alley’s production of Yasmina Reza’s Life (x) 3 is Kevin Rigdon’s stunning set. The back wall of the gorgeous room is lined with enormous curving windows covered in powdery vellum; they cradle a large living room that looks like something straight out of Architectural Digest — sleek and utterly modern. In shades of cardamom and khaki, the room looks like the epitome of intellectual cool. Unfortunately, Rigdon’s set might be the only thing the audience will end up really loving in the Alley’s crisp production. As good as director Pam MacKinnnon’s cast is, it can’t breathe life into Reza’s too-clever script about a dinner party gone all wrong. The “(x) 3” of the play’s title refers to three different versions of the same dinner party, which run the gamut from disastrous to mundane. Reza’s head-scratching point seems to have something to do with life being open to interpretation. Both Henry and Hubert are scientists who deal with the outer reaches of space, and Reza clearly wants us to make a connection between the unknowns out there and the unknowns of daily life. As Henry, Hubert and their wives discuss everything from good parenting to astrophysics, they build and break bonds. But they can’t make much drama out of Reza’s script (translated by Christopher Hampton). Each of Reza’s versions of the dinner party gets shorter and shorter and less dramatic as the night goes on, and finally, they just end. For all their hard work, these actors can’t make anything happen on stage that’s any more interesting than the set’s amazing living room. Through April 18 at the Alley Theatre, 615 Texas Avenue, 713-228-8421, $35-$52.
Our Lady of 121st Street Stephen Adly Guirgis, one of the newest voices in American theater, has been called “immensely gifted,” “startlingly fresh” and “the poet laureate of the angry.” After seeing him explode across the Alley Theatre’s Neuhaus stage, it’s easy to understand what the hoopla is all about. Guirgis is a master of the sort of black magic that comes along all too rarely in the theater: He has conjured a world full of heartbreaking characters and low-down lyrical language that blazes so hot and wild it threatens to scorch your soul — that is, if you don’t die laughing first. The story unfolds during the chaotic reunion of Sister Rose’s family, friends and ex-students, who have all crawled out of their respective dark holes of despair to pay their respects. Two of the most voluble characters are ex-lovers Rooftop and Inez. Alex Morris is the best he’s been in years as the unforgettable Rooftop, a “lyin’, cheatin’, stealin’ and humpin'” kind of guy who comes back to Harlem from Los Angeles to pay his respects to Sister Rose. As Rooftop’s ex, the bitterest woman in Harlem, Alice Gatling can’t help but walk off with the show every time her character speaks. And these are just two of the angry inhabitants of this world. The rest are played by an extraordinary ensemble, who are electric under James Black’s passionate, muscular direction. But it’s Guirgis’s haunting and funny script that makes the characters sing with the rich poison of life. He’s filled the stage with incendiary dialogue that’s unforgettably raw and real. This world will burn in the imagination long after the actors have taken their bows. Through April 18. 615 Texas Avenue, 713-228-8421.
This article appears in Apr 15-21, 2004.
