Erik King as Lucian and Nathan Lee Graham as Rey Rey in ‘Wig Out!’ Photo: Carol Rosegg.
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By Jonathan Warman
Monday, October 06, 2008
IRENA’S VOW
Tovah Feldshuh’s greatest success to date was playing Israeli prime minister in the hit one-woman show ”Golda’s Balcony.” She’s back on the New York boards in another heroic yet complex play on Jewish themes, one that is every bit as good as “Golda’s Balcony” and even more moving.
“Irena’s Vow” tells the amazing story of Irena Gut Opdyke, a Polish Catholic woman who risked everything to hide a dozen Jews for more than two years during the darkest days of World War II. While Germany occupied Poland, a well-connected German major forced Irena to be his head housekeeper. She smuggled her Jewish friends into the basement of the major’s ill-gotten country estate where, paradoxically, they would be relatively safe from the Nazis.
Playwright Dan Gordon wisely chose to avoid overplaying the story’s inherent melodrama, instead allowing his sharply portrayed characters—full of life and humor—to pull us into the very real quandaries these people faced. Director Michael Parva keeps the action brisk and unsentimental, rendering the play’s emotional high points all the more moving.
It’s the acting, though, that makes Irena’s Vow a must-see. Feldshuh is astonishing thoroughly getting under the skin of this multifaceted woman. The supporting cast is uniformly strong with stand out performances by Steve Hauck as the major’s terrified employee, Tracee Chimo as a young Jewish seamstress and Scott Klavan as a mysterious Israel who visits Irena many years later.
“Irena’s Vow,” 8 p.m. Mon., Wed.–Sat. and 3 p.m. Sun. at the Baruch Performing Arts Center, 55 Lexington Ave., $55, theatermania.com.
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
A lot of people are saying that “A Tale of Two Cities” is a blatant rip-off of “Les Miz.” That’s overstating the similarity, but there’s a nugget of truth there.
I blame director/choreographer Warren Carlyle, his team of designers and especially orchestrator Edward B. Kessel, who’ve seized on Charles Dickens’ epic of Londoners caught up in the French Revolution to make their very own “Miz.”
But I can’t blame composer/lyricist/bookwriter Jill Santoriello. Her principle talent is musical composition—she has a real gift for melodies that, while not memorable, are pleasantly lyrical and expressive. She also crafted a surprisingly lucid book from the labyrinthine original. He weakness is lyric-writing, but even that’s pedestrian at worst.
No, I have a strong sense that this “Tale” has been pressed and prodded into “Les Miz”-style bombast.
The ’80s produced two long-running musical based on Romantic era novels but in the long run they are probably an aberration in the history of Broadway hits. Perhaps “Tale” isn’t meant for musical theater.
“A Tale of Two Cities,” 8 p.m. Mon., Wed.–Sat., 7 p.m. Tue, 2 p.m. Wed. & Sat. at Al Hirschfeld Theatre, 302 W. 45th St., $59–$120, 212-239-6200, TaleMusical.com.
WIG OUT!
I don’t have first-hand knowledge of uptown drag balls, but I know people who do, and of course I’ve seen “Paris Is Burning.” So I find “Wig Out!” to be a particularly vexing show—there’s obvious affection for the ball scene here, but a bit of condescension too.
When “Wig Out!” contents itself telling the ball queens stories on their own terms it’s engaging, eye-popping and hilarious. However, playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney seems to feel that isn’t enough, so he pads the show with classical turns of language and plot that sit awkwardly with the rest of the play and add nothing of substance. It’s as though he doesn’t trust drag house language and drama to be expressive enough. And that really hacks me off!
Worst of all is the character of house father Lucien, not really a character at all but several plot devices working at cross-purposes with a strong dose of internalized homophobia thrown in for good measure. For one thing, said plot points would be more interesting coming from the house children. Most of all, no drag queen worth her Manolos would put up with a broken-down, blowhard like him for more than two seconds.
All that said, director Tina Landau has fashioned an entertainingly spectacular production, and the cast shimmies gamely through the show. The drag performances are suitably “legendary,” especially two numbers where Daniel “Sweetie” Booth as rival queen Serena shows these children how…it’s…done!
“Wig Out!” 7 p.m. Tue., 8 p.m. Wed.–Sat. and 3 p.m. Sun. at the Vineyard Theatre, 108 E. 15th St., $20–$55, 212-353-0303, vineyardtheatre.org.
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