Deador Alive??

WELL....we didn't walk out of the theatre humming the tunes tonight!

David and I saw A Little More Alive tonight at Barrington Stage 2. It has book, lyrics, and music all written by Nick Blaemire. Mr. Blaemire could take a few lessons from Jule Styne, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green, whose Bells Are Ringing we saw just a few days ago.

I was apparently born about 50 years too soon to appreciate the kind of thing Mr. Blaemire considers 'Musical Theatre'. Whereas Jule Styne takes a lyric from Comden and Green and sets it to a melody, Mr. Blaemire writes a line of dialogue and adds notes to it. That's not quite the same thing. Gian Carlo Menotti used to write both the words and music with great success. I'm just too old to get this Millennial version of Musical Theatre, I guess.

In tonight's effort, the plot centers around two sons returning home for their mother's funeral. One is a pothead and the other a successful businessman. They discover letters proving that their mother had an affair during their childhood. It goes downhill from there.

Van Hughes 



 
Daniel Jenkins

The three men, Van Hughes, Daniel Jenkins, and Michael Tacconi all had good voices but were forced to holler their songs over a much-too-loud orchestra. Since everything was being amplified, this is the fault of the director who should have balanced this in rehearsals.

Michael Tacconi

The two women, Nicolette Robinson and Emily Walton joined in the general melee of shout-singing, producing a lot of sound but almost no understandable words. When one shout-sings (I just made this phrase up), it is not possible to hear the text, especially when the orchestra is drowning out the voices.

In case you haven't figured out as yet, I didn't like this show.

The actors were all good in representing the characters they were portraying but were sunk with the music (??) that they had to shout-sing.

If this is the new era of what is considered musical theatre, I give up.

Lost in Yonkers

Barrington Stage has finally come up with a second winner. So far this season we loved Butler and didn't care for Man of La Mancha or Shining City. Tonight we fell in love with Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers.

Any play with the word Yonkers in the title had better be funny.This play is funny, touching, sad, uproarious, all wrapped up in a wonderful production and cast.

I saw the original on Broadway in 1991 with Mercedes Ruehl, Irene Worth, and Kevin Spacey. Tonight's cast matched them in every way.

  Lynn Cohen       
                                                     Paula Jon Derose

Lynn Cohen was grumpy and touching as Grandma Kurnitz, Dominic Comperatore was sympathetic as Eddie, Stephanie Cozart inhaled her sentences wonderfully as Aunt Gert, Paula Jon Derose was off the charts as Bella, David Christopher Wells was scary and tender as Louie, and Jake Giordana (in his first professional theatre role) and Matt Gumley stole the show as Arty and Jay, the two kids.

It was a great evening of theatre!

There's no business....

This has been a heady theatrical week for David and me. Tuesday was Barrington Stage 2, Friday was Barrington Main Stage, Saturday was Berkshire Choral Festival and tonight was Mr. Finn's Cabaret at Barrington Stage. Whew! That's more shows than I saw in any week when I lived in New York!

Tonight Alix Korey did her 'Ethel Merman' show, Doin' What Comes Naturally', proving that there was really only one Ethel Merman.

Ms. Korey has a very loud voice and sang a lot of Ethel's songs, but I heard Merman many times on Broadway, and Ms. Korey is no Ethel Merman.

Actually, no one is or was Ethel Merman, except Ethel.

Ethel certainly had a big voice that could be heard in the back row of any second balcony in any theatre in the country, without amplification, but it was never pushed. It was just there!

Ms. Korey put on an interesting show combining tales from Ethel's career interspersed with songs from many of her Broadway shows.

Christopher Marlowe ( no, not that one) was the able pianist.

Anyone who tries to do Ethel is almost bound to fail; she was unique.

Ms. Korey's voice always had a rough edge to it and, seeing the veins stand out in her neck, it is obvious where the voice was coming from. She has been singing like this for a number of years, apparently, so she must have an iron neck.

We get a few days off before our next theatrical venture. We'll try to be ready.