theaterboy®

Who knew babies came with little hats?

Tboy has been crazy busy lately.  He's sorry for the dearth of postings, and he hopes to be able to explain why soon.

But he can't let the morning pass without welcoming Nelson Gerard Knoche, who joins us courtesy of actor Bruce Nelson and Bruce's friend Nina. 

Little Nelson was born Nov. 30.  Welcome to the brave new world, Nelson Gerard. And relax: There's not gonna be any pressure on you to be funny or anything.

First Impressions: The Bluest Eye

Who/Where: Theater Alliance, H Street Playhouse

What (in 25 words): Toni Morrison's debut -- a mournful ode to a child's crippling self-hatred -- gets a lean adaptation (by Lydia Diamond) and a restrained production, courtesy David Muse.

Tboy liked:

• the uniformity of the tone
• the lyricism of the mood
• the quiet confidence of the performances
• the understatement of the whole
• the language, preserved with all its music intact

He worries that:

• Even at 90 minutes, it flags about 4/5 of the way through.
• The understatement and the quiet and the taste and the restraint ultimately make it feel too polite to be truly moving.

The verdict: Lovely, but not transporting

Photo (Colin Hovde): Carleen Troy as Pecola Breedlove

Second impressions

If you've ever wondered how Tboy makes sense of a play to himself, you might want to compare this quick take on Arturo Ui to the full-length review.

I don't always work in that direction. Usually, I just write the full review, which is why I haven't posted as many First Impressions as I told myself I would when I first floated the idea.

But sometimes, especially if I'm having trouble getting a review started, I'll write the blurb first. (Blurb = the 100- or 200-word capsule review that will appear in CP's listings during a play's whole run.)

Or I'll bullet out my ideas about what I liked and what I didn't, and try to tell myself in 25 words or so what the play's about and what I thought of it. That helps kick-start the process. Certainly it did this week; there's a lot to talk about with a play like Arturo Ui, and sometimes I  just don't quite know where to start.

Of course if all else fails, I fall back on the Mondello Maneuver: Pick a moment, any moment, that was striking, and describe the sh*t out of it for 100 words or so. Even if you didn't like the rest of the production, you love that moment, at least long enough to do it justice.

Learned that from Himself back in 1996 or so, and it never fails.

First Impressions: The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

Who/Where: Catalyst Theater, Capitol Hill Arts Workshop

What (in 25 words): Brecht parable-izes Hitler's rise; a lurid, ludicrous tale about a Chicago cauliflower monopoly that turns chilling just when you've been lulled into laughing at it

Tboy liked:

• the sheer confident style of it (gangster suits, hard-boiled molls, shadowplay, physical precision)
• the genuine belly laughs (fun with classical acting!)
• the way it gets scary when it should (jeez, that final sequence ...)
• the scrappy noise of the live band

Not so much:

• a few flabby verse sequences
• a slowish scenery-shift or two

The verdict: Smooth, smart, entertaining work on a tough play--and a timely one. We can all use a reminder about standing up to bullies.

First Impressions: My Fair Lady at Signature Theatre

Saw the Sunday matinee. Broke the Five Block Rule* by talking about the show with Dr. H (who wasn't able to make it) over dinner at Aladdin's afterward, and of course the guy at the next table turned out to be the props manager. Or at least that's what Tboy thinks he heard him tell the waiter. Which just goes to show that rules are rules for a reason, even if you write 'em yourself. Grrrr.

Anyway, Tboy liked, among other things:

• the intimacy and honesty of some of the book scenes
• the many little references, from the green beans to the purple feather, to previous productions and/or the film
• the niches and levels Jim Kronzer creates between columns at the back of the playing space
• the very nice image of Eliza parked, like just another collectible, on the bookshelf after the ball
• the bawdiness (read: sheer unbound bosominess) of "Get Me to the Church..."
• the ensemble singing, mostly

Not so much:

• the intimacy (read: inaudibility) of some of the solos
• the molasses pacing of some book scenes
• the Chippendales outfits when the chorus boys are being uptown swells
• the wife-beaters when they're being cockneys (if you're cold enough to need a fire in a barrel, you're cold enough to wear a damn shirt)
• the bottom-of-the-river lighting, pretty much throughout
• the purple neon runway, as though Eliza were competing to be Edwardian England's Next Top Model
• the lack of chemistry between Eliza and Higgins -- and this was supposed to be the hot 'n' heavy Lady, no?

The two-piano business, Tboy could take or leave. So all in all, quite the mixed bag; not unbearable, but not especially satisfying, either.

Also, though these are piddly enough that they probably won't make the review:

• The prop newspaper says "The London Times," which is just hilarious, and Tboy would've asked the prop guy what was up with that, except that they hadn't been properly introduced.
• When Eliza returns the jewels in that fit of pique, she hands back the bracelet and the necklace and the ring--but not the tiara. What, she didn't wanna muss her hair?

Full review in this week's paper; Tboy will add a link here when it's up on the Web.

*The Five-Block Rule, established by Dr. Hottie and The Set Designer when they were a couple, holds that no discussion of a show is advisable within five blocks of the theater in which it's been produced, because that woman in the crosswalk with you is almost certainly the stage manager's lover. In Tboy's defense, Aladdin's probably qualifies as further than five blocks from Signature, but still.

First Impressions: 3/4 of a Mass for St. Vivian

Luminous, lovely thing. Fabulous design work (allowing for one slightly intrusive bit of overloud sound the afternoon I saw it).

Photo doesn't do Dan Conway's extraordinary set even a little bit of justice.

Sensitive direction (Paul-Douglas Michnewicz).  Smart, real performances (Marybeth Fritzky, Nora Woolley) in a play that, for all its intelligence and grace, could go all kinds of painfully twee in the wrong hands.

Go see it.

First Impressions: Air Pump at PTP

Tboy was taken by:

• Allison Rimmer's lively sound design
• the present-day scenes, which come off feeling engagingly lifelike
• Tara Giordano's Isobel, toward the end when her heart's broken and her hair's unbound

Not so much:

• the period scenes, which feel a bit self-conscious
• the shrillness of some of the vocal choices being made
• Tara Giordano's Isobel, toward the beginning when she's surlier and more severe than seems quite believable

Belated Impressions: Sex Habits at Signature

Just getting around to this one. (Review--a shortie--will be in Thursday's paper.) Things I liked:

• the marvelously pointed way Helen Hedman introduces that olive to that martini
• the amusing aptness of that bit with the Electrolux
• the very fine work Amy McWilliams is doing on those teeny-tiny TV screens
• the sweetness and generosity in the character Will Gartshore has created

Things not so much:

• how far in advance you see the "surprises" coming
• that none of those revelations really add up to much
• the way those teeny-tiny TV screens short-change the very fine work being showcased on them

Tboy sat up nice and close, though, so he can confirm that Nelson Pressley, who offered up that last assessment in the WashPo review, was right on the money. Most of the audience has gotta be missing what seemed to Tboy a beautifully rueful portrayal of a smart woman who's made choices she refuses to regret, but hasn't quite made her peace with either.

Shame, that.

First Impressions: Hot Feet

Oh. My. God. Where to start?

With the book scenes, which for some reason drift in and out of rhymed couplets?

With the concept, which imagines that you can somehow rework The Red Shoes in a way that's simultaneously hip, sentimental, and po-mo ironic?

With the dancing? Perhaps with the dancing: It's a show about a dancer who's driven to be the best, right? The deal here is that the devil's gonna help her be the best, right? She puts on the ruby slippers and dances everybody off the stage, right?

Except that most of the chorus can dance her off the stage.

Seriously, they're the only redeeming thing about this horrendous mess. They're pretty amazing, and the more unhinged hiphop-inspired numbers really do pop.  But then they bring on homegirl, and she waves her arms around a bit and shows off her extension, and in no way does she resemble Cassie.

This thing's set to open on Broadway? Really?

(UPDATE, April 7: The official word, courtesy of Mondello, is here.)

First Impressions: Hamlet at Rep Stage

That's one intense young man.

Karl Miller's Hamlet is so tightly wound he flinches--hell, he practically levitates--when anybody touches him. A hand on the shoulder, and the convulsion starts in his solar plexus, pulling his body in, as if around a giant knot in his stomach. He's eating the language alive, too.

I wish the production around him were as consistently watchable. The two refugees from what would appear to be a kegger at the Alpha Gamma Rosencrantz house are good fun ... that flash of unexpected levity in the Mousetrap sequence, ditto. But the Ophelia scenes (mostly) and the Claudius confessional and the graveside brawl come across like so much stagy business; the shivers aren't there.

I liked:
-- the way Gertrude's over-the-top train morphs into the hangings in her bedroom, then into a shroud for you-know-who
-- what Miller does with that skull ... [shudder] Alas poor Yorick, indeed
-- the bit of staging that lets us see Ophelia's drowning

Not so much:
-- the way that drowning bit steals focus from Gertrude, who deserves the chance to show her humanity in that speech

(UPDATE, March 31: The official word is here.

Now playing on Tboy's iTunes: Baby You Belong from the album "Cry" by Faith Hill.