Theater Reviews: Capsule Reviews of “DRAG: The Musical” (Doesn’t Drag), “Mama I’m a Big Girl Now” (Is All About the Mamas), “The Devil’s Disciple” (Is Heavenly), “Sunset Blvd” (Has Fun U-Turns) and “What A Wonderful World” (About a Complicated Life)

DRAG: The Musical (c) Matthew Murphy

Theater: DRAG: The Musical 
At New World Stages 

When we first hear the Queen of Drag Queens herself, Liza Minelli, in voice-over, to set up the scene for DRAG: The Musical, I thought all was right in this messed-up world we currently find ourselves in. I am certainly not a connoisseur of the drag scene (I watched the first season of RuPaul’s Drag Race when the prize was like a hundred-dollar gift card), but the first shock of the evening wasn’t Liza, but the fact that the musical (written by Tomas Costanza, Justin Andrew Honard and Ashley Gordon) had rock-and-roll, almost grudge-style songs over what I would consider more of a drag milieu: show tunes (we are Off-Broadway) or at least club music. I got accustomed to the songs as the show proceeded (they were catchy), but it was a surprising choice. Otherwise, everything else about this show was the hoot I knew it would be. The story (as told by Liza) is about two drag queens/former besties who now own competing drag bar establishments across the block from each other and their ongoing…snatch games (again, not a watcher). It gives every member of the Fish Tank, headed by Alexis Gillmore (Broadway vet Nick Adams), as well as the ones from the Cat House, headed by Kitty Galloway (Alaska Thunderfuck), enough stage time to strut their stuff and read each other with finger-snapping regularity. These talented performers, many alums from reality TV like Lagoona Bloo, Jan Sport and Jujubee, are only vaguely familiar to me, but it was obvious by the cheers and the guffaws from the rest of the audience that they were fan favorites. Also in the show is Tom, Alexis’ estranged brother, who is, amusingly, the token “straight man” played by Joey McIntyre (finally someone from the Block I do know) and will be played by Rent star Adam Pascal starting on December 11. This is all to say that DRAG: The Musical, nimbly directed and choreographed by Spencer Liff, is one of the most unabashedly enjoyable shows in New York right now for acolytes and neophytes alike. 

Film Reviews: Three Powerful Dramas Highlight the Strength of Individuals During Stressful Times: Current Day England (“Bird”), 1930s America (“The Piano Lesson”) and 1980s Ireland (“Small Things Like These”)

Bird (c) MUBI

Film: Bird 
In Cinemas 

Earlier this year, we had a bird representing Death in the Julia Louis-Dreyfuss drama Tuesday. Now, in Andrea Arnold’s remarkable Bird, we get a human named Bird, who here represents life, at least in the eye of 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams), a product of a lower British class upbringing. Bird is embodied (the only verb that works) by the idiosyncratic and chameleon German actor Franz Rogowski. On the other end of the animal metaphor spectrum is Bailey’s father Bug who is played by the always interesting and risk-seeking Barry Keoghan, a loser of a provider but somehow making it as a responsible (if not diplomatic) parent. Bailey’s adventures also involve her violent half-brother Hunter (Jason Buda), whom she looks up to, as well as her mother (Jasmine Jobson) and her many other half-siblings living in equal squalor across town with her mum’s current boyfriend, a violent nob named Skate (James Nelson-Joyce). Although her hometown of Gravesend is mostly an urban city, Arnold surrounds Bailey with nature, not only in the farmlands nearby but also in her apartment where Bug’s latest get-rich scheme is buying a frog with lickable, psychedelic secretions. 

The Interested Bystander’s Oscar Predictions: October 2024

Dìdi (c) A24 / Saturday Night (c) Sony Pictures

Here we are in October, and I feel like I’m already late in providing reminder nominees for the Oscars before the nominees solidifies with critic awards. Already the Gotham Award nominees have thrown things askew, as they nominated Yura Borisov as the sympathetic henchman in Anora (my favorite as well) for Supporting Actor while I still think that the more scene stealing Karren Karagulian has the better chance. My two reminders are in Supporting categories with Joan Chen as the caring mother in Dìdi (the only Asian actor with a chance to make the list this year) and Lamorne Morris, who seems to be in his own movie as Garrett Morris in Saturday Night. Both stand out in the noise of their respective movies and should be seriously considered. 

Here is how I think the Oscar nominations would shake out if given out now. 

Enjoy. 

Theater Review: “Romeo + Juliet: The Jellicle Ball” Sashays Its Way to Broadway; Grover’s Corners Retain Its Power in Latest “Our Town” and “The Big Gay Jamboree” is a Big Gay Romp Off-Broadway

Romeo + Juliet (c) Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

Broadway: Romeo + Juliet 
At Circle in the Square Theatre 

A big welcome to what I’m dubbing Romeo + Juliet: The Jellicle Ball to Broadway. Unlike many revivals that highlight the playwright’s name (Arthur Miller’s Death of Salesman, Suzan-Lori Parks’s Topdog/Underdog), William Shakespeare seems more like a jumping-off point than the author of this energetic, youthful production by the deconstructionist and busy director Sam Gold. Gold’s adaptation feels like a high school senior’s dissertation of the play that focuses on odd moments (the nurse’s monologue about her child) and totally disregards bigger moments (like the fight with Paris at the end of the play) to fix his thesis. This would be fatal if it wasn’t obvious from the start that this production was less about the text and more of the spirit of two households whose feud trickles down to their children, all of high school age, where animosity and hatred are well-worn jackets. 

Film Reviews: “Memoir of a Snail” Is an Inventive and Heart-wrenching Animated Film for Adults, While “High Tide” and “We Live in Time” Give Their Respective Love Stories Some Gravitas

Memoir of a Snail (c) IFC Films

Review: Memoir of a Snail 
In Cinemas 

If I were to take a stand and declare Adam Elliot’s stop-motion Memoir of a Snail as the best animated film of 2024, then I would have to battle fans of Dreamworks’ The Wild Robot, of which there are many. I concede that Robot does indeed have the better animation, with its dueling glorious nature vistas and a vision of a tech-dominated world, but Snail, painstakingly rendered in a somewhat bleaker animated vision, has the better story. Like Elliot’s remarkable earlier films, the Oscar-winning short Harvie Krumpet and the underrated feature Mary and Max, Snail centers around an imperfect protagonist. Her name is Grace (a wonderful Sarah Snook, channeling the cadence of Hannah Gadsby), an Australian woman who, at the start of the film, mourns the loss of a friend and, as tradition, releases one of her pet snails into the garden while narrating her life up to this point. Her mother died in childbirth and her father is a failed, alcoholic street magician, so her only lifeline is her brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who would do anything, as when he is asked as a young boy to give blood to save his sister and he says yes, even though he believes he would have to die in order to do so. This kind of charming kids’ logic is pervasive throughout the film, especially when the siblings are separated, and Gilbert goes to live with a religious family and Grace goes to a couple whose extracurricular activities are too delicious to spoil here. Their separate journeys and occasional letters to each other make up the bulk of the film, both full of heartache and strife but always with a hint of (possibly pointless) optimism. Along with Elliot’s inventive animated vision, the film’s biggest assets have to be the quirky but always engaging score by Elena Kats-Chernin and the vocal performance of Snook (Emmy-winner for Succession), which, like the late Philip Seymour Hoffman in Mary, is both heartbreaking and joyful. Other outstanding voice performances include the invaluable Jacki Weaver and a smooth Eric Bana. Elliot also does not shy away from the darker aspects of human existence (Grace’s relationship with snails may be a symptom of a more serious underlying condition), so it is definitely not a children’s animated film. But in the battle between the slick Robot and the scrappy Snail, I believe the snail wins this year’s animated race by a slow, but wide, slimy mile.