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.
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Mama I'm a Big Girl Now (c) Russ Rowland
Theater: Mama I’m a Big Girl Now
At New World Stages
Marissa Jaret Winoker, Kerry Butler and Laura Bell Bundy have been friends since they starred together on Broadway in the original Hairspray production in 2002. Over twenty years later, they are back together with a fun trip down memory lane of how that Marc Shaiman/Scott Wittman-scored show changed their lives and what they’ve been doing since. The three performers are also the producers, writers and directors of this hybrid 54 Below cabaret and showbiz revue, which includes anecdotes and songs from Hairspray and other musicals on their resumes. The three are generous to not only let each have their moments in the spotlight, but also support each other with DIY props, backing vocals or whatever was needed. Winoker remembers her pre-Hairspray years in the long-running Grease revival with her one-word solo; Butler reminisces fondly about shows like Xanadu and Little Shop of Horrors while Bundy hilariously gives her side of the story when she was the lead in the musical Ruthless and a then unknown Britney Spears was her understudy. Bundy also has a snappy medley from Legally Blonde The Musical, a show I have a soft spot for, and serendipitously, her co-star from that show, Andy Karl, is playing across the New World Stages lobby in Teeth. But the most important word in the title of “Mama I’m a Big Girl Now” turns out to be “Mama” as all three are now mamas, having nontraditional or medically fraught journeys towards motherhood and have emerged stronger and more grateful (take that Mr. Vance). Those stories are the emotional highpoints of the evening, while the Hairspray songs are its fan-favorite heart. “You Can’t Stop the Beat,” indeed.
What a Wonderful World (c) Jeremy Daniel
Broadway: A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical
At Studio 54
Actor James Monroe Iglehart plays Louis Armstrong. Trumpeter Alphonso Horne plays Louis Armstrong. These two men together provide the heart and horn of this iconic musical legend in the new Broadway bio-musical bearing his name: A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical. Like many jukebox musicals before it, “A Wonderful World” tells Armstrong’s story utilizing his greatest hits as the basis of the show, saving his most famous songs, “Hello, Dolly” and “What a Wonderful World,” for the big finale. And while the beats of Armstrong’s life are familiar (shady managers, success not being all it seems, drug use), the show’s script by Aurin Squire doesn’t shy away from the major hurdle in his musical career: racism. Whether it’s the gangsters in Chicago or the Hollywood establishment, Armstrong, no matter how famous he gets, is still a black man who can be killed by crossing the wrong white man. The highlight of the show has to be the “When You’re Smilin’” duet with Lincoln “Stepin Fetchit” Perry (Dewitt Fleming Jr.) about money, stereotypes and art. Unfortunately, the show’s main focus is Armstrong’s relationship with his four wives, and while the four actresses are excellent (Darlesia Cearcy, Kim Exum Dionne Figgins and, especially, Jennie Harney-Fleming) and have great voices, the repetitive narrative of “love, disappointment, betrayal, divorce, repeat” loses its power after a while. Still, it’s James Monroe Iglehart (Tony-winner for playing the Genie in Aladdin) who keeps the audience’s attention, with Armstrong’s signature smiling growl of a voice intact. Iglehart gives emotional shadings to some Armstrong reactions, including a powerful moment when he rewrites The Pledge of Allegiance. Those unexpected and rage-fueled moments (as well as Alphonso Horne’s expert trumpeting) lifted the rest of this mostly standard bio-musical.
The Devil's Disciple (c) Carol Rosegg
Theater: The Devil’s Disciple
Presented by Gingold Theatrical Group at Theatre Row
The off-Broadway company Gingold Theatrical Group’s mission is to promote the ideals of the plays of George Bernard Shaw. I will confess, I don’t normally connect with Shaw’s plays and will need a strong production like 1985’s gorgeous Broadway revival of Heartbreak House, which I saw on PBS as a youth, to convince me otherwise. Thankfully, GTG’s current production of The Devil’s Disciple, featuring an all-female cast of five (!), is quite strong and well-acted to make me rethink my Shaw biases. This is my first time seeing this 1897 play, which surrounds the inhabitants of Websterbridge, New Hampshire, at the start of the Revolutionary War as the British forces are invading. The rascal and self-proclaimed Devil’s Disciple, Dick Dudgeon (Nadia Brown) surprises the town when the redcoats arrive to arrest and try the good Reverend Anthony Anderson (Tina Chilip)—Dudgeon pretends to be the Reverend and goes in his stead. The highlight of the play and the production is the trial, mostly because of the bravura and comic performance of Susan Cella as the British General Burgoyne, a classic Shaw know-it-all archetype. Teresa Avia Lim and Folami Williams round out the fine cast. Director David Staller’s only misjudgment is adding a framing device from the present day as if the audience would need it to see the parallels to our present political situation when Dudgeon declares America as “a new country, built on hope and freedom and determined to learn from the past to build for the future. A land where we will never again open the door to tyranny…” Someone should tell him that this American Experiment may be failing.
Sunset Blvd (c) Marc Brenner
Broadway: Sunset Blvd
At the St. James Theatre
I have always had a love-hate relationship with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1993 musical Sunset Blvd. While I do believe this is Webber’s best musical, with lush and memorable songs that service the story admirably, there’s also an excess of filler-sung dialogue that makes the over two-and-a-half-hour show an over-bloated chore. So, when I heard that director Jamie Lloyd had come up with a way to strip down the musical to its essence, I was excited to see the results. By barely having a set, giving characters only one outfit and relying on B+W video projections and fog machines to do all the heavy lifting, Lloyd has indeed reconceived the show, but like Cats: The Jellicle Ball before it, what needed the most pruning (the script and songs) are more-or-less left un-reconceived. Lloyd is able to provide one of the most memorable stage moments I have ever experienced on Broadway: the much-discussed walk outside to 44th Street and Shubert Alley at the start of Act Two where a camera following actor Tom Francis as he sings the title song, being joined by the ensemble before entering the theater through the audience, in order to sing the famous final note back on stage. That moment was thrilling and certainly worth the price of admission. Francis is the VIP of the production as he makes Joe Gillis, the hack Hollywood screenwriter, a now credible and sexy character as opposed to just being a pawn of the silent film star Norma Desmond. Desmond is, of course, played by former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger, and while she would seem too young to play a has-been actress, she is age appropriate, although I would not want to see Gloria Swanson (who played Norma in the film the musical is based on) writhing around and twerking in a black slip as Scherzinger does all night. This Doll can sing the songs (always with a fog and a wind machine as support) and she gives Desmond a winking modern camp sensibility which should win over the audience, or at least those who can forgive her for her recent social media faux pas. Sunset may be past its prime, but there’s still life in the old show yet.
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