On Broadway- The Ferryman

A few years ago I saw a production of Jez Butterworth's Jersusalem, starring perhaps the best stage actor on the planet, Mark Rylance. It was amazing. This past October, I got to chat with actor Brian d'Arcy James, a three-time Tony nominee, and we both confessed to our admiration for Rylance. (I recounted that I met Rylance walking his dog outside the theater and almost passed out with excitement). Brian told me I should go see The Ferryman, Butterworth's brilliant new play that just opened on Broadway.

The Ferryman

Other people I respect had also told me to go see it, but I never got around to it. Then I heard that Brian d'Arcy James was going to be in the cast of The Ferryman starting in February and that sealed the deal for me.

The Ferryman tells the story of a  Northern Irish farming family in 1981, right around the time when Irish prisoners (including Bobby Sands) were on a hunger strike, asking to be recognized as political prisoners, something Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was unwilling to do. There was a lot of violence between the IRA and the British forces.

The Carney family is preparing for the harvest, and the annual celebration that goes along with that. The huge household consists of Quinn and his wife Mary, their seven children, two aunts, an uncle, a sister-in-law and nephew. There is much joy and merriment, singing and dancing, until the local priest shows up.

Father Horrigan (a great performance from Charles Dale) has some troubling news for Quinn, news that once it gets out turns everything in the household upside down.

The Ferryman has 21 speaking parts (and a baby!) and Butterworth manages to make each character distinct, a remarkable feat. Quinn holds his boisterous family together, with the help of his brother's wife Caitlin, who cooks and cleans, as Quinn's wife Mary appears to be fragile. She spends much of her time in her room. (To be fair, she has seven children.)

Uncle Pat recounts humorous stories to the children, while his serious sister Aunt Pat monitors the hunger strike situation on the radio. Aunt Maggie gets wheeled in to sit fairly motionless in the corner, waking occasionally to speak to the children, telling them of the futures she sees for them.

Neighbor Tom Kettle (wonderfully portrayed by Shuler Hensley) is a large man who lives nearby and spends time with the family. Because he is English, some people are suspicious of him. But he is gentle giant, prone to pulling a stray rabbit of his pocket as a gift to people.

As the harvest continues, the Carneys' young cousins come to help, and as young men sometimes do,  get caught up in the situations over their head. When the local IRA boss comes to visit, things begin to unravel.

As I sat in the audience, I was wondering how this play was going to end. I truly had no idea, and when the end came, the shock of it deeply affected the audience, their gasps proof of that. (That being said, there is one plot point that pretty much everyone can guess at.)

Normally I would be wary of going to a play with a running time of three hours and fifteen minutes, but Butterworth has packed so much into this production I never once checked my watch. This is a show that I could imagine seeing more than once to go back and try and absorb things you missed the first time.

Brian d'Arcy James is perfection in the role of Quinn. He is a proud man, trying to keep all the balls in the air, keep everything together, all the while hinting at something simmering under the surface.

It is truly an ensemble production, and the young children in the cast are wonderful. They seem like young children, not actorly in any way. Emily Bergl (Mary), Holly Fain (Caitlin) and Fionnula Flanagan ( Aunt Maggie, who I fondly remember from TV's Rich Man, Poor Man) are particularly strong in their roles.

I think I would like to find the book of The Ferryman to truly get everything I can from this stunning play. It has rightly been lauded as one of the best plays of the year, and it will surely be up for many Tony awards in June, including for the brilliant direction of Sam Mendes. There are discount tickets available for this, including rush tickets. Go see it, this is a don't-miss play.

On Broadway- To Kill A Mockingbird

The hottest ticket on Broadway right now is To Kill A Mockingbird, based on Harper Lee's classic novel of the same novel. The novel was recently voted by the public as the Great American Read, and most Americans who have read the book read it in high school.

To Kill A Mockingbird

If you haven't read the novel, perhaps you saw the 1962 movie, starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, the upright and moral  laywer who defends a black man accused of raping a young white woman in 1934 small town Maycomb, Alabama.

To take this iconic book and movie and turn it into a Broadway play requires a certain amount of nerve, and the road to the stage was a rocky one, including litigation between the estate of Harper Lee and the producers. Once settled, playright and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (best known for creating TV's West Wing) wrote the script, and acclaimed actor Jeff Daniels took on the role of Atticus Finch.

Although everyone knows the story, Sorkin manages to create such tension in the courtroom scenes that you could hear a pin drop in the theater. He had previous success with another courtoom drama, A Few Good Men.

Sorkin also manages to include plenty of humor in this serious story, thanks mostly to the dialogue of the children, here played brilliantly by adults as children- Celia Keenan-Bolger is fabulous as Scout, our main narrator. She is a sure-fire Tony nominee this season. Will Pullen is also excellent as her older brother Jem, and Gideon Glick is a revelation as their friend Dill (a character Harper Lee reportedly based on her friend Truman Capote, whom she knew when they were children).  They break the fourth wall in this production with their narration.

Jeff Daniel's Atticus Finch is somewhat different than Gregory Peck's Finch. Daniels' Finch shows his temper and frustration more, and his interactions with the children is somewhat more playful. He gives new shades to his interpretation of Atticus Finch, not an easy task for a character so imbedded in the American psyche.

Gbenga Akinnagbe brings the accused Tom Robinson to life, and his courtroom testimony is absolutely riveting. You cannot take your eyes off him in that scene. Frederick Weller is also fantastic as the racist and menacing Bob Ewell, spouting language that made everyone in the audience cringe.

The biggest controversy in the show is the relationship between Atticus and Calpurnia, his black housekeeper who also cares for the children. Latanya Richardson Jackson's steely Calpurnia has a scene where she strongly shares her true feelings about the trial with Atticus, something than some people feel whould never have happened in 1934 Alabama between a white employer and his black employee. (This scene was not in the novel.) While I understand why people feel this way, I think the scene works very well for this production.

This production of To Kill A Mockingbird is a profoundly moving piece of theater, and although written in 1960 and set in 1934, sadly some of it still resonates in today's America. There is a short speech by Atticus about the danger of mob mentality that so affected much of the audience that you could hear murmurs of agreement and people catching their breath.

I'm happy to say that playwright Aaron Sorkin, director Bartlett Sher, Jeff Daniels and the rest of the cast have honored an American classic novel and movie, a Herculean task, with their unforgettable take on To Kill A Mockingbird. It is a production not to be missed at any ticket price.

On Broadway- The Front Page

One of the hottest shows on Broadway this season is the revival of the play The Front Page. It has a powerhouse cast including Nathan Lane, John Slattery, and John Goodman. Set in 1928 Chicago, the comedic play takes place in the press room in the Criminal Courts Building and revolves around a group of newspaper reporters covering the upcoming hanging execution of an accused murderer.

Given that the feeling about today's media is not one of trust, this play certainly resonates with today's audiences. Truth isn't necessarily of the utmost importance, but getting the scoop is.

This is a show where for me the performances were more enjoyable than the show itself. Nathan Lane gives his usual larger-than-life performance as Walter Burns, the editor and boss of John Slattery's star reporter Hildy Johnson. Lane doesn't show up onstage until Act II, but he makes the most of his time.

The actors who really drew my attention included Tony Award-winner Jefferson Mays as a fussy, germaphobic reporter tormented by his fellow reporters, TV veteran Holland Taylor as Johnson's impatient future mother-in-law, Micah Stock as a police officer of German decent, and Sherie Rene Scott as the doomed man's girlfriend.

Mays gets a laugh every time he opens his mouth and his physicality is spot-on as always. Taylor owns the stage whenever she bursts into the scene. I saw Stock last year in his Broadway debut in It's Only A Play, where he earned a Tony nomination and also starred with Nathan Lane. Once again he upstages veteran performers with his impeccable timing and comedic instincts. He has a bright future indeed.

Scott plays a more serious role and you might think that would be jarring in a comedy, but she pulls it off beautifully. Although she is more dramatic than comedic, you cannot take your eyes off her when she is on the stage.

It was fun to see Robert Morse and John Slattery, two stars of TV's Mad Men, reunited.

The Front Page has a limited run, and it is difficult to find discounted tickets, but this is a show worth seeing for the performances of so many talented actors. You can find more information about the show here.

On Broadway- Misery

One of my husband's favorite movies is Misery, based on Stephen King's novel and starring Kathy Bates as crazed fan Annie Wilkes. It was the movie that made her a star and she is unforgettable in that role.

When I heard that they were working on a Broadway adaptation of Misery, I thought that no one could be so good in that iconic role and that maybe it wasn't a smart idea. Elizabeth Marvel, a Broadway vet, was slated to play Annie Wilkes, and I thought that was a great choice. Unfortunately, she had to drop out, but Laurie Metcalf took on the role and was brilliant.

Many people know Metcalf from her role as Roseanne's sister Jackie in TV's groundbreaking sitcom Roseanne. I have seen her on Broadway and know how good she is on the stage, and I knew she'd be terrific. I also loved her on the HBO comedy Getting On, where she played a tightly-wound doctor in a long-term care ward of a hospital. How she hasn't gotten an Emmy for that is a head-scratcher.

Metcalf astounds as writer Paul Sheldon's "number one fan". Sheldon writes her favorite series of books, historical romances about a strong female character named Misery. The show opens with Sheldon incapacitated by a serious car accident, with two broken legs, waking up in a bed in nurse Annie Wilkes home.

At first we think Annie is just a good Samaritan, caring for the injured man. Then we come to realize that she is little bit crazy and maybe she ran him off the road herself. Paul's newest Misery book is publishing soon, and Annie is so excited to read it....until she does.

Paul kills off Misery in the latest book and that sets Annie off the edge of sanity. She holds Paul hostage, and forces him to write a new Misery book, one where Misery lives happily every after.

A basically two-person show requires that both actors be on the same page, and unfortunately, Metcalf is much stronger in her role than Bruce Willis is in his. To be fair, he spends most of the show in bed, and this is his Broadway debut, so that plays into it. But Laurie Metcalf is just on another plane here. She shows us how Annie descends into madness and we almost feel compassionate towards her.

Misery ended its run this past week, and while I wouldn't have recommended it wholeheartedly, I did really enjoy Laurie Metcalf's performance and was glad I saw it.

On Broadway- Sylvia

Annaleigh Ashford follows up her Tony-winning performance in You Can't Take It With You with another comedic tour-de-force in Sylvia.

She plays a dog that Greg, a man who seems bored with his job and his life played by Matthew Broderick, finds wandering in Central Park. Greg names the dog Sylvia and brings her home to his New York City apartment much to the dismay of his wife Kate, wonderfully played by Julie White.

Kate and Greg are now empty nesters, and Kate has gone back to school and found a job that she loves. She and Greg seem to be in a different place in life. He is bored with his job, looking for something fulfilling, and after years of raising children and caring for her husband, Kate is ready to dive into her career, and caring for a dog is not in the picture for her.

Anyone who has ever owned a dog will be charmed by Ashford's fantastic performance (and judging by the roaring laughter from the audience, most of them owned dogs). She is sassy and funny, and when she curses other dogs at the park, I laughed so hard because I imagined my dog used to think the same things.

Ashford has said that to prepare for her role she took dog obedience lessons with her own beloved dog, and her commitment shines through in her performance. She even managed the wet dog eyes. (I absolutely love her in Showtime's Master of Sex as office manager Betty, another award-winning worthy performance.)

Robert Sella steals the scenes he is in as three different characters, especially as Leslie, the therapist and Phyllis, the socialite. Broderick is very low-key in his performance, and I guess that is because Greg is so low-key.

I wasn't crazy about the ending to the show. You can't compromise when it comes to dog ownership, and someone has to give in. Let me just say that it's clear the author of the play is a man.

This is a show worth seeing for Ashford's performance, and I would recommend it as you can find discount tickets. It is a limited run show, so if you want to see it, more information is here.

On Broadway- Fool For Love

Nina Arianda & Sam Rockwell

Sam Shepard's Pulitzer prize-winning play Fool For Love has finally come to Broadway, with two powerhouse performances from Sam Rockwell and Tony winner Nina Arianda at the center of it.

The show opens in a small hotel room, an elderly man sitting off to the side of the stage, a man in cowboy hat in a chair and woman sitting on the edge of the bed, her hair covering her face, not moving. The scene is silent for more than a few minutes, making some in the audience uncomfortable.

Finally, the cowboy Eddie speaks, asking the woman May if she needs a glass of water. We find that Eddie has found May here, claiming that he has been searching for her. She doesn't believe him, and we slowly discover that he left her behind, running off with another, wealthier, woman.

Over the course of the 75 minute show, these two spar verbally and physically, and the emotions are tense and intense. They circle each other, pushing each other away, yet seemingly unable to pull away from each other. There is clearly something in their past.

May tells him that she has a date coming to pick her up, and he refuses to leave, wanting to meet the man. The poor guy, Martin, shows up, and while totally confused by what is going on, he tries to follow the action. Tom Pelphrey gives a terrific, winning performance as the confused Martin.

Eventually we find out what the deal is with Eddie and May and the old man. It's a stunning revelation, and when it happens, you can audibly hear the audience takes in its collective breath.

Fool For Love is a testament to great writing and brilliant acting by Rockwell and Arianda. It is a not-to-be-missed show, even at full price, but you'd better hurry, its run ends December 13th.

I saw Nina Arianda in her Tony-winning performance in Venus in Fur, and she proves here that she is a talent to be reckoned with.

You can find more information here.

On Broadway- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

It's great when I can combine my love of books with my love of Broadway in one post. A few years ago, I read Mark Haddon's remarkable novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, told in the voice of a 15-year-old autistic boy.

The boy is found next to the body of a neighbor's dog who has been stabbed and killed with a garden fork, and Christopher is at first thought to have done the deed. He is cleared of the crime and then decides that he will find the culprit himself since no one else appears interested.

The Broadway show, a transplant from Britain where it won every award possible, is a brilliantly conceived and executed show. It manages to take us right inside the mind of an autistic teen, and even more successfully than the book, we can hear and see how overwhelming the stimuli of a train station can be as staged in this show.

The scene in the train station is a cacophony of flashing lights and extremely loud sounds. And when Christopher descends on a escalator that appears magically out of nowhere, you could hear gasps from the audience.(I would compare it to the magic carpet in Aladdin, but even more amazing.)

Because the novel tells the story in Christopher's voice, we generally only get his point of view. In the stage show, I think we feel more of the emotions of the other characters- his mother and father, the older neighbor and his teacher. There is great sympathy for how Christopher's autism affected his parents.

Christopher can't stand to be touched, and is a math genius. His primal screams when he is touched ring through the theater, and it brings insight into how it must feel.

The show really depends on the actor who plays Christopher to succeed, and Alex Sharp is absolutely amazing in the role. It is an incredibly physically and emotionally role, and there is another actor who plays the role on matinee days because it is so demanding. I can't imagine that Sharp won't be recognized come awards season.

Ian Barford and Enid Graham, as Christopher's parents, are also wonderful at portraying the anguish and difficulty of their situation.

The staging of the show is stunning and inventive, allowing us right into Christopher's world, through his eyes.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a powerful, emotional piece of theater that resonates long after the show ends. This is a show that is worth seeing even at full-price, though discount tickets are available.

The show's website is here.