Curtains

Curtains is a new musical by famous writing duo Fred Ebb and John Kander, with an original book by Peter Stone, revised by Rupert Holmes, and under the direction of legend Scott Ellis. It stars David Hyde Pierce (in a Tony award winning role) as Boston police detective Frank Cioffi trying to solve a murder that happens on the set of a new musical having its pre-Broadway run. Everyone's a suspect and so the production is quarantined to the theatre. Cioffi has to crack the case while at the same time using his love of musical theatre to fix the show from the flop it currently is.

It's fun, if nothing else. Everything has shortcomings, but overall nothing is terrible enough to sink the show and stop it from being an over-the-top Broadway good time. Hyde Pierce is fantastic in an atypical lead role (atypical because everyone seems more like a featured player and he gets that status by default). The supporting cast of Karen Ziemba and Jason Daniely are good. But Debra Monk, as the show's producer, and Edward Hibbert, as the show's director, better embody the show's problems and strengths. They both get the brunt of delivering the majority of the show's one-liners, which range from great to terrible. While Hibbert makes all of them work with an absolutely hysterical performance, Monk isn't able to pull it off and turns in a very disappointing performance here. The direction is never bad but nothing leaps out either, making me remember Scott Ellis had anything to do with this. The only consistently impressive part of the entire show is Rob Ashford's choreography. I saw the show with two of my friends who know a great deal about dancing and they were as equally blown-away, mouths agape, as I was.

But the real reason to see Curtains has to do with death. Peter Stone (original book) died before finishing it. Rupert Holmes was brought into finish it. Then, in 2004, Fred Ebb himself died of a heart attack. Holmes helped John Kander finish the lyrics. It's only fitting that the story itself should be about people dying while trying to put up a musical. John Kander and Fred Ebb (Chicago, Cabaret, Kiss of the Spiderwoman) are icons of American musical theatre and one of the greatest songwriting duos of all time. The first act ballad entitled "I Miss the Music," sung by the composer character about how he can't write anymore now that his lyricist partner has left him is poignant enough to bring a tear to one's eye. And the second act number "A Tough Act to Follow" is perfectly fitting because it definitely will be. One should see Curtains for a frivolous good time and to pay respects to the end of the Kander-Ebb era.

Curtains is currently playing at the Al Hirschfeld Theater on 45th Street, New York, NY.

Frost/Nixon

Frost/Nixon is a play dramatizing the infamous 1977 interviews between reporter/talk-show host David Frost (played by Michael Sheen) and ex-President Richard Nixon (Frank Langella in a Tony award winning performance) in which Frost finally got Nixon to admit his guilt in and apologize to the American people for his role in the Watergate scandal.

The best thing I saw all weekend in NYC. While Deuce was a patient, contemplative drama that, if not for its star power, would have been better suited off-Broadway, Frost/Nixon was its antithesis. Technically and emotionally powerful, quick moving and dynamic, the play put on as much of a "show" as any musical up and down the street. Lights, sound, televisions, narrations by characters and taut writing accelerate the historical drama through different events leading up to the interviews. But here playwright Peter Morgan (who also wrote the screenplays for The Queen and The Last King of Scotland) reigns in the stampeding herd and lets the tension of the battle between two egotistical personalities, both at a point where failure means eternal defeat and exile from their respective industries, agonizingly build to its historically landmark climax. Never has paramount corruption by the figurehead of American democracy been more deliciously entertaining.

Frost/Nixon is playing through Aug 19th at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater on 45th Street, New York, NY.

Grey Gardens

A musical about the Bouvier Beale family of East Hampton, NY, relatives of Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. It's based on the 1975 documentary of the same name, made by the Maysles brothers. Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter "Edie" were once high-class socialites but later became Long Island's most notorious recluses. Act I portrays the family before their descent, and Act II shows their recluse days.

It's beautifully tragic and tragically funny. Christine Ebersole, in a Tony award winning performance, perfectly portrays both Edith and Little "Edie" (the former in Act 1 and the latter in Act 2). Clearly, it's not your typical Broadway musical fare, but that's why it's great. It's like seeing a super-Indie film playing on three screens at your local AMC multiplex. Here, Broadway doesn't mean hammed up and glitz-ified; it just means really really well done. You find yourself laughing at these bizarre and awkward people. But everything saddens when you remember this really happened. Edie's bright young promise did end up with her in a house overrun with cats, wearing a head scarf and alone with her crazed mother. And if that can happen to a member of one of America's most esteemed families, how can there be any hope for us ordinary folks? (That last sentence would be much more powerful if my last name weren't "Kennedy." Try and disregard that.)

Sadly, it closed yesterday, as Mary-Louise Wilson (Tony award winner for her featured performance as well) didn't want to continue on. Look for it when it pops up in the future (London '07-'08, I hear) and pray to the theatre gods that the lead has anywhere near the talent Christine Ebersole had.

Deuce

A play about two aging tennis idols who get together for the first time in thirty years at a tennis match where they are being honored for their contribution to the sport.

It's fantastic. Angela Lansbury and Marian Seldes are remarkable actresses. They captivate the audience for an hour and forty minutes by merely talking to each other. Playwright Terrence McNally has won four Tony awards (two for plays [Master Class and Love! Valour! Compassion!] and two for books of a musical [Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime]) and this script is no misstep. While hardly any action occurs, the conversation between the leads twists and turns around multiple themes, never following one single message to pound home. The play meanders along like the memory recall of an elderly person: consistently insightful about loosely connected ideas.

The play runs through August 19th at the Music Box Theatre on 45th Street, New York, NY.

Transformers

More Than Meets The - KABOOM!! - Eye.


In order to properly evaluate this Summer Blockbuster you must first understand something about it's director/executive producer, Michael Bay. It's quintessential that you know his style and his motivation so that you can appreciate the direction he took this 80's classic and the particular vision he realized. And in order to gain this understanding all you must do is read the following list of other films that Michael Bay has produced and/or directed.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The Amityville Horror
Pearl Harbor
Armageddon
The Island
Bad Boys
Bad Boys II
The Rock
Playboy Video Centerfold: Kerri Kendall


Looking at that list you can understand exactly what Transformers is going to look like under the auspicious eyes of Mr. Bay: Shit is going to blow up, and there are going to be titties.

So, knowing that, you can now evaluate the movie based on how well it adheres to this format of tits and explosions. Let's go through another list.

Megan Fox
Robots with cannon arms
Fighter jets
Military personnel
Tanks
Megan Fox

It's almost as though I don't have to even write a review. Seriously, you should know what to expect as far as action and hot chicks go. But what you shouldn't expect is a decent plot or character development. Outside of the main character (maybe characters if you count the hottie) you don't get too deep into anyone's background, even that of the transformers themselves. We kind of sort of know why they are there and we know that decepticons are bad and autobots are good, but we don't know why Jazz is hip-hop or why Bumble Bee likes humans so much or why Optimus Prime is so fucking cool. Well, we know that intuitively, I guess.

Despite the lacking substance, I'm going to recommend this film only because it's such a blast to watch. I left the theater wanting to run around like an idiot even though it was late and I was running a very little sleep. It was that energizing. If you're finnicky about paying 9 bucks to see something that's never going to win an Oscar, you can always wait for the DVD, but if you're going to do that you had better have a kick ass surround sound system and a very big, High Def screen. For this one, you're going to want to see and hear every explosion and every tight abdominal muscle like you were right there ducking for cover.