Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat If you’re feeling a bit sleepy when Joseph begins, don’t worry, the show will slap you awake fast. And hard. This is the most frenetic show in memory, fast-paced, constantly on the go and terrifically cheesy. Nobody and nothing stops. Ever. It’s the siege of Leningrad as pop video concert. Light cues come and go like an aerial bombardment, the chintzy set pieces (a staircase or two, a table, some platforms, backdrop curtains) are shoved around by the cast and then shoved away; and the nonstop video designs by Daniel Brodie, which a few times really do look wonderful if never truly magical, are the Broadway equivalent of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Although this first collaboration between composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice has had various incarnations ever since it premiered as a cantata at a London boys school in 1968, you can date this pop opera to its 1982 Broadway premiere. But this show deserves better than it gets from this recent U.S. tour, newly directed and choreographed by Tony winner Andy Blankenbuehler (In the Heights), who seems to relish overcompensating for the show’s slimness. Sweet lord, how do you differentiate Joseph’s 11 brothers? Not even Genesis could keep them straight. If it just wouldn’t look like a two-bit Vegas revue. There are more lighting elements in Howell Binkley’s design than in a World Fair’s pavilion of electricity, and the projections, which apparently don’t have an off-switch, are tacky and cartoony, and not in a clever way. The best visual gag goes by in a flash: When the starving brothers go to Egypt to beg for food, their trek is seen as if on a rotating drum as palm trees, desert and pyramids emerge and disappear. A sign flicks by: NILEWOOD. When each plot point is a new song, maybe it’s better to keep everything awhirl and ablaze with razzle-dazzle so nobody’ll have time to think about it. Yes, the sung-through musical is padded with encores, and the story’s as slight as the two lead men are beefy, but the music saves the day. Webber’s songs positively bounce, a cornucopia of pastiche numbers, each bright, cheery and memorable. There’s bubblegum pop (the Narrator’s “Prologue”); soft rock (Joseph’s “Close Every Door”); country twang (Reuben’s “One More Angel in Heaven”); Elvis swivel (Pharaoh’s “Song of the King”); a Jacques Brel knockoff (Simeon’s “Those Canaan Days”); and even a sprightly Jamaican reggae (Judah’s “Benjamin Calypso”). The mashup works, giving the entire enterprise a delightfully oddball sense of humor, something Sir Andrew has sadly misplaced along the way to his checking account. Pharaoh as Elvis is inspired daffiness. Ryan Williams, as if chiseled by Chippendales, gyrates impressively and milks the gag shamelessly for everything it’s worth, and then some. Husband-and-wife stars Diana DeGarmo and Ace Young, as Narrator and Joseph, have made a smooth transition from American Idol to fresh Broadway babes. Both have light lyric voices that give them innocence and youth, but there’s a lack of substance that tends to push them into the background, even when they’re pinned centerstage in a spotlight. Both are appealing and charming, but our eyes too easily drift off them. Granted, Joseph has no character to speak of (he never changes from the arrogant and egotistical favorite son, no matter what troubles befall him), but Young can’t find anything within to hold our interest. He’s buff and tall, looks great in those pseudo harem pants and sings well, but he can’t hold the light, yet. Of the interchangeable brothers, three get bouncy set pieces, so naturally they stand out, putting across their songs with refreshingly old-fashioned showbiz chutzpah. Brian Golub, out of an Appalachian Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, boot-scoots deftly; Max Kumangai limbos through the Caribbean; and Paul Castree, channeling Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast, stops the show with his french-fried cafe song, accompanied by a rousing dinner scene with clanging plates and silverware. Webber and Rice would go on, later and separately, to some impressive accomplishments (Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Lion King, Aladdin), but Joseph has its own special sparkle. It has the giddy rush of kids out on a lark, making music as they see fit, laughing at the world. If only this frantic Theatre Under the Stars production wouldn’t smother their teen spirit and would let them be kids again. Through March 29. Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, 800 Bagby, 713-558-8887. — DLG
La Tragédie de Carmen Do you hear that whirring deep underground? It’s composer Georges Bizet spinning in his grave after the beating his immortal opera masterwork Carmen gets under ham-fisted director/auteur Peter Brook in his adaptation La Tragédie de Carmen. Tragedy, indeed. This one-act Reader’s Digest version from 1981, closing out Opera in the Heights’s season, is an unholy mashup of the opera, Prosper Mérimée’s 1845 novella and tons of directorial flourishes from the radical director who caused a theater stir with such Royal Shakespeare Company productions as the inmates-run-the-asylum Marat/Sade (1964) and the white-box, acrobatic A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1970). Needless to say, this 80-minute intimate piece dispenses with the opera’s colorful mise-en-scène, paring the sumptuous Spanish tapestry down to a threadbare quartet and two speaking roles. There are no Seville townspeople, no soldiers, no kids’ chorus, no brawling cigar factory girls, no gypsy smugglers, no bullfight parade. Though cut, rearranged and reorchestrated by Marius Constant, the opera’s famous numbers are somewhat intact (Carmen’s “Habanera” and “Seguidilla,”Jose’s “Flower Song,” Escamillo’s “Toreador Song,” Micaela’s “I Am Not Afraid”). They drift in and out, functioning less as character motivation, as in Bizet, than as background score to Brook’s condensed, simplified expressionism. Why mess with something that’s perfect as it is? Why redo Carmen at all? This Brook recension adds no great insight to Bizet. If anything, the distillation makes the whole affair more comic when every incident gets piled on top of one another. There’s no breathing room for the characters to develop or interact within the world that the opera so fulsomely creates. Fortunately, Opera in the Heights’s presentation has a fiery Carmen in mezzo Sishel Claverie. (Briana Hunter sings the role in the alternate Emerald cast.) Exuding erotic stage presence as if trailing cigar smoke, she steams up intimate Lambert Hall. In her red laced corset and swirling skirts, which never stay down for long, she cuts quite a figure. Feisty and free, she’s no man’s possession. Enter at your own risk. In a lovely touch, she rolls a cigar on her bare thigh. Claverie’s voice is smoky and seductive, too. Stand back or get burned. No one can touch her, although soprano Lisa Borik, as Micaela, who loves Jose from afar, is a good match. Her rich, soaring voice gives this wimpy good girl more intensity than usual, but she still doesn’t have much to do in this pocket-size version except stand aside and witness Jose’s degradation. Tenor Brent Turner, as love-mad Jose, had a more difficult time of it opening night, but came into his own after his lyric voice opened up. His “Flower Song” wasn’t ideal, slipping out of key on those treacherous high notes, but as his character grew more jealous and unhinged, his voice found the right niche, full and dramatic. (Jose Daniel Mojica sings hapless Jose in the Emerald cast.) Baritone Jared Guest was a pumped-up bullfighter, although in Brook’s version, he enters Pastia’s tavern hideout without entourage or cheering throngs, slipping in quietly as if he’s about to order tapas and sangria. Guest’s big and burly, a bit rough around the edges, but his celebrated “Toreador Song” was nicely phrased, replete with matador’s ego and roving eye. We’re in ’30s Spain under Brook, a time shift that’s almost de rigueur these days whenever Carmen is produced. Designer Jodi Bobrovsky’s Picasso-inspired cubist look fits admirably. Every scene has a fight in it, so it seems, be it knife or fist, and the cast commits wholeheartedly to Josh Morrison’s staged mayhem. Director Lynda McKnight keeps the show freighted with “fateful” poses, while young maestro Eiki Isomura leads his chamber orchestra through Bizet’s beguiling, if truncated, melodies with seductive ease. Bizet’s white-hot opera sizzles and smolders. It was one of opera’s first down-and-dirty works, and the Parisians didn’t know how to respond to such wild carrying-on, especially at the Comique, known for its lighter fare so different from the oh-so-grand Operá. In only a few months, the ferocious gypsy girl would seduce Europe, soon to conquer the known world. She’s never been out of the Top 10 in any list of the most popular operas. Brook does her no favors by stripping away background and motivation and rejiggering the music, but there’s nothing he can really do to damage our favorite Lady of Spain. She’s much more enduring than he is. Carmen‘s always had great bones, legs and voice. At Opera in the Heights, Claverie possesses all three to enchant, lure and seduce us anew. March 26, 27, 28 and 29m. 1703 Heights Boulevard, 713-861-5303. — DLG
stupid f*****g bird Thoroughly mesmerizing, never less than entertaining and provocative (how about that title, huh?), Posner’s sly Chekhov knockoff stupid f*****g bird (2013) is much more a love letter to the theater than it is to Chekhov. Yes, bird riffs on the 1895 Russian comedy as starting point, invoking most of the famous characters, plot and situations that are by now almost patented devices, but Posner filters the whole thing through postmodern gimlet eyes until the play becomes a meditation on theater itself. Is your life changed, it wants to ask, by your going out to the theater, this theater, Stages, and watching a play, this play, that has been written by one of the characters? And by the way, are you not a character in your own play right now? Haven’t you ever felt like you were watching yourself act through life? Posner keeps the avant-garde hip-hop fresh, dipping into Chekhov as if drinking at the source, using what he needs in this whirligig disquisition on life, art, family and love. He breaks the fourth wall all the time, having the actors, or their characters, sometimes both, turn to the audience to ask for advice or to debate the merits of what’s happening, or just to vent. Constantly reminding us we’re watching a play is a timeworn technique, but this author’s conceit bogs down the play unnecessarily, tripping up the drama’s momentum just when we’re getting into it. By play’s end, these irritations turn somewhat endearing, just like the fascinating characters on view who behave badly, stupidly, blindly in their quest for happiness. That Chekhovian specialty is caught by Posner and director Kenn McLaughlin with admirable facility and dexterous stagecraft. You don’t have to know anything about The Seagull to be caught up in bird‘s spell. At the lakeside house of famous actress Emma (Elizabeth Ann Townsend), son Con (Ross Bautsch) stages a play, a site-specific happening, that’s something new and modern, he hopes. He pines for lovely Nina (Emily Neves), his amateur actress, but she’s distracted by Emma’s lover, famous writer Trig (Shawn Hamilton), who does nothing to stop the infatuation. Rebel Mash (Elaine Robinson), all in black because “it’s slimming” and because “I am in mourning for my life” (a direct lift from Seagull), loves Con. Mash, in turn, is loved by sweet innocent Dev (Joseph Palmore), Con’s best friend. Omniscient and overseeing this round-robin’s nest of would-be lovers is Emma’s brother Dr. Sorn (James Belcher). When he’s not being ignored, he pines for something less tangible: more time. It’s a show about equals — equally clueless, lost, hoping — and no one keeps the spotlight for long. As surrogate playwright, Con is prime, and though he’s cursed by melodramatic overkill, Bautsch goes for broke. He whines loudest and longest of the group, so we don’t truly warm to his character, but Bautsch surprises with rich variations on a young man’s angst and hurting heart. As gorgon mother who sees passion and fame slipping away, Townsend, with a voice pitched somewhere between Tallulah Bankhead and Mount Vesuvius, is radiant, glowing from within. Robinson, as depressed goth Mash, who has an appropriate ukulele song for every various shade of her dark moodiness, is prickly and forlorn. Palmore practically steals the show with his loopy Dev, full of hope and understanding much more than anyone gives him credit for. Neves, as wily Nina using youth as lure, desires fame with the same ferocious tenacity as older rival Emma; Hamilton conveys Trig’s ego with rueful old-world charm and grace; and Belcher wraps the wistful doctor under layers of cozy compassion and regret. It’s an exemplary cast, and as in Chekhov, we like them all. Jon Young’s scenic design is simple but elegant — planked wood floor, folding chairs, a gigantic desiccated bird wing suspended upstage (okay, we get it!), and a second-act kitchen set that would be the envy of HGTV. Renee Brode’s painterly lighting and Phillip Owen’s plaintive soundscape, are, as is usual with Stages, hallmarks of the company’s meticulous production design. The play shines. Don’t let that profane title put you off. It’s only there to shock. (And there’s plenty more salt sprinkled throughout the play, so be warned.) Overripe and periodically maddening, bird ultimately soars. With an aerodynamic cast, the play glides over Chekhov on unique updrafts, a rare bird all its own. Through April 12. 3201 Allen Parkway, 713-527-0123. — DLG
This article appears in Mar 26 – Apr 1, 2015.
