A local collaboration between Ann Arbor’s Penny Seats Theatre Company and the University of Michigan’s Environmental Biotechnology Group will feature the musical Urinetown: The Musical! and water conservation research in a creative way during the next three weekends starting July 30.
This art and engineering collaboration will be featured on the radio show It’s Hot In Here 88.3 WCBN FM (www.hotinhere.us/) on Friday July 31 at noon, with the recording to be posted shortly thereafter on the Penny Seats’ website and Facebook page. An Environmental Engineering research team from the University of Michigan is studying how human urine and products derived from it need to be processed to safely fertilize food crops.
Roy Sexton
The University of Michigan is one of five institutions involved in this first large-scale pilot project of its kind in the United States. They will be providing mobile restrooms during the Penny Seats’ performances of Urinetown in hopes that patrons will help with this unusual project.
“This is a fun and unique partnership to be sure. We are thrilled with the opportunity, and this aligns with the Penny Seats mission … it’s educational, it benefits society, and it brings value to our loyal patrons who are so kind to brave the great outdoors every summer for our shows,” comments Lauren London, Urinetown’s director and the Penny Seats’ president.
Urinetown: The Musical! The Tony-award-winning hit from 2001, will be performed by The Penny Seats Theatre Company July 30, 31, Aug 1, 6, 7, 8, 13, 14, and 15 (all shows at 7 pm).
Ensemble
Set in an admittedly absurd dystopian future where one must pay to pee, the show lampoons corporate bureaucracy, pie-in-the-sky optimism, revolution without a plan, and the musical theatre genre itself. With a full pit orchestra (led by Richard Alder) on the band shell stage, the action takes place around the audience in the park. Featured performers include Brendan August Kelly (Ypsilanti), Roy Sexton (Saline), David Francis Kiley (Ann Arbor), John DeMerell (Walled Lake), Sarah Ann Leahy (Ann Arbor), Paige Martin (Ann Arbor), Cathy McDonald (Plymouth), Christina McKim (Albion), Jenna Kellie Pittman (Waterford/West Bloomfield), Linda Rabin Hammell (Detroit), Jeff Stringer (Jackson), Maika Van Oosterhout (Ann Arbor), and Daniel Bachelis (Howell). Production photos taken by Scarlett London.
Maika Van Oosterhout and David Kiley
London says the piece is a natural for the group: “Since its turn on Broadway, Urinetown has been a favorite of performers, for its snappy score and hilarious, wink-to-the-audience feeling. It’s a perfect show to place in our park, where the cast can interact up close with the audience, and take them into the show’s silly world. Our cast is filled with performers who excel at just this type of theatre, and we’re thrilled to bring it to the park.”
Advance tickets are available at the group’s website, www.pennyseats.org. Although the curtain goes up at 7:00pm each evening, pre-show picnicking is encouraged, and the group will sell water and concessions at the park as well. All performances will be at the West Park band shell.
Roy Sexton and Paige Martin
Patrons are encouraged to bring a picnic dinner to enjoy at the park before or during the show. Lawn chairs, hats, bug spray, and other outdoor gear are also encouraged. Alcohol may also be brought and enjoyed responsibly. Water and concessions will be available for purchase. More information about tickets, parking, and available packages, is available on the company’s website, www.pennyseats.org.
Photos by Scarlett London
____________________________
Reel Roy Reviews 2
Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital)In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the first book is currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language.
It’s rather remarkable to me that in however many years I’ve been writing this blog Madonna hasn’t been my subject matter once.
She and her music and her hijinks have been a constant in my life since my awkwardly painful junior high years.
I’ve voraciously consumed every album, video, single, remix, film (heaven help me), interview, performance, and gossipy tidbit in her storied career.
I’ve ridden the crest of every ill-spirited media wave announcing her imminent cultural demise, her death spiral into irrelevancy, or her controversy-fueled self-immolation.
And, yet, to paraphrase a classic Sondheim tune, popularized by the late, great Elaine Stritch, she’s still here.
Speaking of Sondheim, it was the bizarre confluence of that Broadway vet’s musical output and the white-hot light of Madonna at the peak of her fame in the summer of 1990, working on the Disney-produced, Warren Beatty-directed comic book film Dick Tracy, that cemented my love for the self-professed “Material Girl.”
To be honest, her first two albums Madonna and Like a Virgin set my teeth on edge in their moment (possibly because they were the dog-eared soundtrack for every snooty-pants kid at Memorial Park, a “magnet school” for gifted … and rich … kids, a place where the wheels temporarily fell off my self-esteem wagon). True Blue (her third offering, not counting soundtracks and remix compilations) was a slight improvement (we also moved to another town!), perhaps due to the influence of equally combustible but super-talented Sean Penn in her artistic and personal life. With Like a Prayer, shestarted to pique my interest as Madonna really began to mine the formula of agnosticism, social critique, semi-feminist moxie, and soaring dance-pop melodies that ignited my nascent musical imagination.
But it was the Dick Tracy pseudo-soundtrack I’m Breathless, a forgotten corner of Madonna’s discography (save for its inescapable throbbing uber-hit “Vogue”), that made me a fan for life. I was in Japan for a summer study abroad program sponsored by the U.S. Senate/Japanese government, back when Japan was, well, China to us, threatened as we were by their economic might. The powers-that-be threw a bunch of high school kids on a plane, and, voila, world peace?
I didn’t have a lot of spending money, no internet (obviously) nor smart phones (more obviously), so the touchstone that eased any homesick heartache was an I’m Breathless cassette tape I bought from a Japanese street vendor (I think it was legal) with all the lyrics written in kanji. (In fact, I remain a little foggy on the actual words to “Hanky Panky” to this day). I burned through two Walkmen and a host of AA batteries listening to that album, never skipping a track, but absorbing it all straight through over and over.
After that, Madonna could do no wrong (by me). My self-important, superficially-socially-conscious college days were spent torturing my roommates with repeated listens to Erotica and Bedtime Stories (the campy/naughty “I’m not your b*tch; don’t hang your sh*t on me” era – take that, smart aleck-y David Letterman), and graduate school saw Madge and me mellow a bit as she took on show tunes in the Golden Globe-winning Evita and some mystical new mommy spiritual techno hoo-ha in Ray of Light.
She (and the world) discovered Sacha Baron Cohen and the acid rock/hip hop joys of ten gallon cowboy hats with Music (“Don’t Tell Me” remains a musical/videographic highlight), and, as the 20th Century devolved in the post 9/11 chaos of the “aughts,” Madonna sported a beret and sang political rants about … pilates (?) in American Life, donned a purple/pink leotard for some Confessions on the Dance Floor, suckered us in with some poptacular Hard Candy, and left me woozy from too much MDNA.
Which brings us to the latest offering from our imperious Queen of Pop: Rebel Heart. Much has been made of the disastrous (or canny?) PR debacle leading up to her 13th (!) studio album’s release (she doesn’t count I’m Breathless in that tally for some reason – BIG mistake. HUGE.). There were numerous leaks of tracks in various degrees of completion; Madonna got a little zany with the Instagram; she had a wardrobe malfunction (no, Ms. Jackson, not that kind) that involved a ridiculously long cape and an even ridiculously longer flight of stairs; and so on. Yet, here we are at the finish line, with a more-or-less completed album, filled to the brim (19 tracks on the deluxe edition and 25 on the super-deluxe!) with potential hits (and misses).
By the way, let’s not forget Madge invented strategic “wardrobe malfunction,” in a now iconic performance from the inaugural MTV Video Music Awards, when she lost a shoe or something and, consequently, started writhing around on the stage in a white wedding dress while warbling “Like a Virgin.”
So, with this exhaustively self-indulgent preamble ended, how is the Rebel Heart album? It’s good, and it may even be classic, but like all Madonna albums, it is wildly uneven with some spectacularly transporting hooks and melodies, a healthy dose of sass, and some head smackingly cringe-worthy lyrics. What many critics now hail as a masterpiece (Erotica) was in its day (1992!) similarly received – an overlong mish-mash of dance, pop, balladry that ran the gamut from sincerely poignant to sincerely filthy to sincerely odd. Rebel Heart feels like a bookend to that now legendary compilation.
Rebel Heart‘s strongest moments (consistent with Madonna’s track record) marry heartache, petulance, and swirling disco, from the soaring, gospel-tinged first single “Living for Love” to upcoming single “Ghosttown,” a crunchy, ominous, totally dance-able ode to isolation/devotion. The album’s sillier moments work for me as well, including the anti-misogyny, reggae-lite screed “Unapologetic B*tch” to the similarly titled yet totally antithetical party anthem “B*tch, I’m Madonna” (with a great guest rhyme from most-likely-to-inherit-the-crown Nicki Minaj).
Madonna crashes the gates again of her own sexual minstrelsy with a clutch of tracks that veer from the obscene to the perverse (“Body Shop,” “Holy Water,” “Best Night,” and the funniest of the bunch “S.E.X.”). At first listen to these, I wanted to jump out of my skin as there is minimal effort for metaphor but maximal effort for shock and awe. Yet, as I gave them a second listen (still not liking them much), I realized that Madonna’s tongue was firmly in cheek (sounds kinda like one of her lyrics, actually), so these four may grow on me … like a fungus.
Gone are any aspirations to play in the bass-thumping pop sandbox of the Lady Gagas or Katy Perrys of the world (though I think those critiques have been greatly overstated) as Madonna happily reintroduces ballads to her repertoire, standouts being the shimmering “Messiah” (where religion becomes a clever proxy for humanistic self-actualization), caustic “HeartBreakCity” (I do love when Madonna gives two-timing, preening dudes a dressing down), and the capstone strum-and-drang of title track “Rebel Heart.”
It is this last number (inexplicably only available on the deluxe edition) that makes the entire nearly 90 minute running time worth the journey. With this ditty, Madonna offers arguably her most revelatory (and witty) lyrics – Madonna the songwriter is often overshadowed by Madonna the showman, but this track wraps the thesis of Rebel Heart (the album) with a heart-rending bow:
I lived my life like a masochist
Hearing my father say: “Told you so, told you so”
“Why can’t you be like the other girls?”
I said: “Oh no, that’s not me and I don’t think that it’ll ever be”
Thought I belonged to a different tribe
Walking alone
Never satisfied, satisfied
Tried to fit in but it wasn’t me,
I said: “Oh no, I want more, that’s not what I’m looking for”
And you’ve succeeded, Ms. Ciccone. Keep up the fine work, Madonna – looking forward to keeping you as the primary soundtrack to my ever-evolving life …
____________________________
Reel Roy Reviews 2
Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital)
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the bookstore … bam, the sequel! Reel Roy Reviews, Volume 2 coming January 2015 – here’s the announcement from the publisher:
“Keep ‘em coming!” is something Roy Sexton’s fans have said frequently over the past dozen months since the release of his first book of film reviews, Reel Roy Reviews: Keepin’ It Real.
Roy started out penning saucy missives about the latest Hollywood blockbusters, but lately he has been writing more about theatrical productions, concerts, and other live musical performances, as well as conducting the occasional interview.
Fellow author Tom Joyce writes, “The guy’s obviously a hardcore film geek, who’s seen a ton of movies and has a good sense of what makes a quality film. But there’s an element of populism to his approach that I see lacking in a lot of film reviewers. He understands that sometimes you’re just not in the mood for a transcendent redefinition of the cinematic art form. Sometimes you just want a fun night at the movies. In other words, he doesn’t review like a serious student of cinema, so much as a regular person who just happens to really like movies. And, since that description fits me and — I’d venture to say — the vast majority of movie viewers that makes his reviews enormously engaging.”
And enjoy this video of my mother Susie Duncan Sexton and me on The Kevin Storm Show, discussing animal rights, theatre, culture, and more … and if you’ve ever wondered what radio people do while their on-air guests are talking, now you know! Definitely some unintentionally ironic comedy here …
You’re never too old to learn, I suppose. At least that was the lesson I gained today during Seth Rudetsky‘s wonderful master class taught at Farmington Players in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Thanks to the group and specifically to Amy Lauter for organizing the event, which saw local performers go through the exercise of auditioning before Mr. Rudetsky as well as an appreciative audience of approximately 130 people.
Sitting there, starting at noon, all of us guinea pigs lined up in the front row, nervously awaiting Seth’s appearance, not sure what to expect. Would he be more Simon Cowell, all glistening fangs and catty remarks, or Mr. Rogers, full of affirmation and delightful support?
Blessedly, he was more the latter, but not without insightful critique which inspired immediate improvement from all of us performers.
Seth opened the session with a brief overview, along the lines of this YouTube video – practical (and funny!) advice about how to prepare music, how to get ready for an audition, and how to put yourself in the proper head-space to succeed …
Following that intro, Seth began drawing our names from a hat … well, a decorative bowl … and one by one, we marched up on the stage, allowing Seth to a rifle through our prized binders of sheet music and to select a cut or two for us to perform. The age of the performers ranged from 11 to “we’d-rather-not-say,” with an array of songs from Broadway canon, pop, and beyond – Sondheim, Rodgers & Hammerstein, and … er … General Hospital. You had to be there.
(I sat there nervously for hours wondering if my name was even in the bowl at all, but, finally, next to last, my name was called. I futilely tried to step directly on the stage from the front row – who needs stairs? At which time, I did this awkward army crawl/roll center stage. Yup, I know how to make an entrance. Sigh.)
Seth took his time with all of us, stopping at key points in our songs and offering us direction on how to improve our delivery: “be in the moment,” “what are you thinking about there,” “why hold that note and what are you conveying emotionally if you do so,” “plant yourself,” “take a position of strength,” “there are no songs that shouldn’t be used in auditions, but you have to find the song that features you and your talent best.” Pretty great life advice, let alone fabulous guidance for an exceptional audition.
I sang Pajama Game‘s “Hey There,” after fumbling disastrously with my own notebook, like a nervous junior high school kid. I blushed when Seth said he really likes my old-school songs (all raided from my mom’s exceptional sheet music collection). And I was a dutiful student, taking his advice on a song that I had sung so often it had become akin to “Jingle Bells” or “Happy Birthday” in my head … musical wallpaper. I was struck by how different the final performance was that resulted – thanks, Seth!!
Thanks to “Legally Blonde the Musical” pal Amy Poirier for grabbing that quick clip from this afternoon, and enjoy the following video, taken by my cousin Alexandra Poor, of my performance of the song in Spotlight Players’ 2009 production of “The Pajama Game” …
Seth said I may be a little too old to sing “Real Live Girl” or “Corner of the Sky” any more … phooey, and I would have been very curious for his reaction to my take on Tom Lehrer’s “Masochism Tango” from Tomfoolery. Maybe next time!
Thank you, Seth! I may never make it to Broadway, but I feel like Rudetsky brought a little bit of Broadway to the future of my local performing.
But me being weird ol’ me,the highlight of the afternoon for me was this … Seth encouraged all of us to sing as if we were serenading a beloved rescue pet – sing every song thinking of an animal we love, bringing out all the authentic, vibrant colors of that pure emotion. He also let us know that Roberta Flack dedicated “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” to her cat! I like that song so much better now! Seth is an active Facebooker and sprinkles his promotional efforts with many, many posts to help our animal friends. Be sure to check out and follow his Facebook page, and if he comes to a town near you, go to his live show, sign up for his class, and thank him for all his generous and gracious work.
________________________
Tomfoolery
Reel Roy Reviews is now a book! Thanks to BroadwayWorld for this coverage – click here to view.
Second performance of Tomfoolery was a hit! What a fun night – with a record attendance for us li’l Penny Seats!
Thanks to everyone who attended (and anyone I missed):
Roxane Raffin Chan and Kevin Chan, Magda Gulvezan and Dan Johnson, Sam Gordon, Linda Hemphill, Angie Choe and Sean, Jeff Weisserman, Barbie Amann Weisserman, Bob Hotchkiss, Beth Kennedy, Nick Oliverio, Meredith Brandt, Alex and Cristina Rogers, Davi Napoleon, Jason Gilbert, Trista Selene Kreutzer-Whalen, Roxanne Kring and Joe Diederich, Kyle Lawson, Sean Murphy, Rachel Green Murphy, the Biber family, and Ryan Lawson.
Get your tickets, kids, for 10/16 or 10/23 – they are almost all gone … and that’s no “tomfoolery” – http://pennyseats.org/box-office/
AND, thanks to the Farmington Players and Amy Becker Lauter for including me among Seth Rudetsky’s “students” for their upcoming master class with him on November 2 from noon to 3 pm.
Should be fun! I’m honored to be a part of this. He might kick me out of class – you don’t want to miss that!! Here’s the event description (tickets available here) …
The Farmington Players Barn (Photo by Don Sexton)
You may know Seth Rudetsky from his Sirius/XM Satellite Radio show “Seth’s Big Fat Broadway” or his viral “deconstruction” videos on YouTube where he breaks down the elements of classic musical theater songs and singers. Now our local performers and patrons have the opportunity to participate in a Master Class Workshop.
A varied and talented group of local performers have been selected to Sing for Seth – and for you! They will each get personal attention and will receive advice on how to improve their audition and overall performance skills.
Registration is still open to be an audience member for only $25! You will learn from the advice Seth provides to the singers – and get to experience some of the area’s finest performers.
Taylor Alfano
Tony Battle
Rachel Biber
Gary Castaneda
Joshua Coates
Katie Dodd
Elizabeth Heffron
Joel Hunter
Grace Knoche
Maryanna Lauter
Amy Malaney
Marc Meyers
Roy Sexton (ME!)
Nina White
Jason Wilhoite
The event begins with an informative lecture from Seth, continues with each of the Master Class Students’ performances and ends with a Q&A – so come prepared with a question.
This is a once in a life time opportunity so register today!
________________________
Tomfoolery
Reel Roy Reviews is now a book! Thanks to BroadwayWorld for this coverage – click here to view.
Oh, for the love of all things holy, what went wrong with the film adaptation of Jersey Boys? I wish director Clint Eastwood would go back to yelling at chairs. I wasn’t sure he could get any more out of touch, and then I saw his film adaptation of the uber-popular Broadway show.
What is truly disappointing is that the stage musical (see my review of its Las Vegas residency here) is so expertly, effortlessly cinematic in its original incarnation. Intentionally episodic, Jersey Boys (live) glides along like a classic Cadillac from one Goodfellas-ish moment to another on the exquisite chassis of The Four Seasons’ hit songs.
Yes, the book is slight, but theatre director Des McAnuff knows that with enough pizzazz, flashy choreography, smooth-as-silk scene changes, and cheeky wit, the audience will be enraptured. Let the music speak for itself.
Eastwood on the other hand, while a self-admitted music-phile, makes the head scratching decision to bury the fizzy pop tunes under heaps of bad TV movie bio-drama. Seriously, did anyone bother to tell him this is a musical? Aren’t we past the point of self-consciousness over the genre, with ten-plus years of hit tuner films (Chicago, Mama Mia!, Hairspray, Dreamgirls, Les Miserables) – not to mention tv series (Glee, Nashville) – under our collective belt?
Unfortunately, the majority of Jersey Boys‘ musical numbers on film are truncated to a verse and a chorus or used as background (playing on a radio!) while the actors – in bad wigs and later even worse old age makeup – struggle to make the life events of The Four Seasons interesting.
The ensemble cast soldiers through, but only Christopher Walken emerges completely unscathed. At this point in his career, that man could show up on an episode of The Bachelor and make it seem interesting.
Everyone else displays pained expressions as if they know Eastwood has ground this Tony Award-winning show to pulp. I was taken with Vincent Piazza (“Tommy DeVito”) and Erich Bergen (“Bob Gaudio”) who both exude a suitable amount of sparkle and nuance; I just wish they had been in a better movie. Sadly, John Lloyd Young (“Frankie Valli”), who won the Tony for his uncanny vocal pyrotechnics on Broadway, just seems constipated for the film’s entire 2 1/2 hour running time.
The only moment – and I mean the only moment – the movie truly comes alive is during the closing credits (!) sequence. Finally, we get a full-fledged musical number (“Oh, What a Night”), with joy and buoyancy and, yes, some cheesy backlot choreography. It’s like Eastwood grudgingly growled to his cast, “Okay, you can do some of this musical crap now. But it’s only at the end when people are walking out in disgust, popcorn stuck to their shoes. Anyone seen my chair?”
Maybe he’s still nursing a grudge about Paint Your Wagon … and this is how he punishes us all? “Hey, you musical comedy kids, get off my lawn!”
________________
Reel Roy Reviews is now a book! Thanks to BroadwayWorld for this coverage – click here to view. In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the book currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language.
Somewhere between the toxic camp of Dreamgirls and the theme park spectacle that is Motown the Musical, the real story of Berry Gordy and Diana Ross lives.
Currently playing at Chicago’s Oriental Theatre, the Broadway transplant tells the tale of Motown Records’ founding and (ostensibly) the true life story of its chief mastermind Gordy and of his key preoccupation/inspiration call-her-MISS-Ross.
(Yes, this Metro Detroit resident – yours truly – had to travel to Chicago to see a musical about the Motor City. Ah, show biz. Why this tuner isn’t in permanent residence at Detroit’s Fox Theatre I will never know.)
What I enjoyed about the show is how seamlessly it blends all of the magical hits of the Motown era into one narrative, running the gamut from Joe Louis’ historic title bout victory to the Detroit race riots to Motown’s iconic 25th anniversary television special.
The ensemble is unbelievable. A relatively small cast literally portrays hundreds of characters, many of them etched into our collective memories: Michael Jackson, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Mary Wells, Martha and the Vandellas, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, The Four Tops, and on and on.
For the most part, the cast – who must have a thousand dressers backstage and racks upon racks of costumes and wigs – avoids devolving into cheap mimicry, giving us fully realized, albeit brief, glimpses into the lives of these pop music celebrities.
A few moments made me wince, particularly the portrayal of a young Stevie Wonder, but that may have just been my oversensitivity at the strange chuckles from an audience who seemed to find Wonder’s blindness a source of amusement.
I don’t know how this cast does this jam-packed, high energy, Jerome Robbins-on-caffeine-pills show night after night. They must have the aerobic health of decathletes.
Clifton Oliver as Gordy and Allison Semmes as Ross acquit themselves in a lovely fashion with roles that are just a bit too idolatrous. Given that Gordy is a producer, I guess that adoration is unsurprising.
Semmes gives a nuanced performance, introducing as much critique of Ross’ famed ambition as she was likely allowed, evolving from 17-year-old hopeful to seasoned diva before our very eyes.
Other standouts are Nicholas Christopher who gives us a sweet-hearted, nervous-headed Smokey Robinson (providing the show’s best comic moments) and Jarran Muse whose Marvin Gaye is both epic talent and maddening flake.
This isn’t a bad show. In fact it’s quite delightful. However, it is too long by at least 30 minutes. And at times the manner in which fairly significant historical moments are reduced to song and dance amidst pretty fantastic digital projections is a little goofy.
I wanted to love this show. I wanted to leave the theater with all of these marvelous songs dancing through my head. At times, however, I felt pummeled by Gordy’s self-mythologizing, to the point I wanted to spend the rest of my life listening to hair metal.
Go for the spectacle, the amazing costumes, the brilliant use of light and minimalist set pieces, but prepare yourself for a marathon. The talented cast redeems a marginal book and does yeoman’s work reminding us why Motown’s canon was and is such zippy, socially incendiary fun.
________________
Reel Roy Reviews is now a book! Thanks to BroadwayWorld for this coverage – click here to view. In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the book currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language.
You might recall last fall that I was a staunch defender of NBC’s production of The Sound of Music (click here), which I thought suffered unfairly from a lot of social media-fueled schadenfreude. The one element that did not need defending, by me or anyone else, because it was universally lauded as perfection, was the performance by Laura Benanti as the Baroness.
Roy and Susie with poster
I am happy to report that she is even more terrific in real life.
Benanti with my dad
Throughout her fizzy cabaret show, not a note is missed – musically, comedically, thematically. She is one of the most engaging performers I’ve ever had the privilege to observe.
But even more importantly, she is kind and down-to-earth and real.
My mother and I accidentally ran into her at the elevator right before her performance. Rather than keep her distance, she walked right over to us, and with an effervescent smile, queried, “You’re coming back, aren’t you?” Of course we were! And, even though she had a two hour set to get herself psyched up for, she stood there and talked to us for several minutes.
I might add that she is just as gracious with all of her fans following the performance in what otherwise can be sometimes awkward for both audience and performer: the dreaded meet and greet. She takes time with each and every one and genuinely connects with all.
Almond with me and my mom
With my starstruck gushing aside, what about the performance itself? It is such great fun – a brilliant blend of soaring vocals, crack comic timing, cheeky irreverence, and poignant character analysis. The essence of what makes cabaret such a viable art form.
The Big Room
Benanti is marvelously aided and abetted by her amazing musical director Todd Almond who is as much sidekick and partner as accompanist, composing the original tunes, vocalizing with Benanti, and offering the periodic witty aside. And, by the way, he is equally personable, following the performance, happily taking my loony suggestions of pop nuggets they can skewer in their act – notably, my latest obsession Ariana Grande and Iggy Azalea’s “Problem.”
Why, might you ask was I so bold to suggest such a silly song for these accomplished musicians to perform in their act?
Susie and Roy Capone
Well, for someone like Benanti who moves seamlessly between My Fair Lady‘s “On the Street Where You Live” to Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” to Nine‘s “Unusual Way” (mesmerizing!) not to mention Sisqo’s “The Thong Song,” it seems a logical addition.
What you may gather from the preceding paragraph is that Benanti’s show is a gutsy synthesis of her tastes and style and identity. She wears all these songs easily … which is a remarkable gift. She is always herself yet simultaneously channeling a wild array of characters.
Benanti and me
This tour is captured live on her album “In Constant Search of the Right Kind of Attention,” recorded at 54 Below, formerly the iconic disco Studio 54. My recommendation? Buy this album now, and enjoy it like you would a cast recording before going to see a Broadway show. The album is remarkable, but seeing Benanti act and sing these songs live is something not to be missed. There are enough variances between the album and the show to keep things interesting, and I won’t spoil the surprises here. If she comes to your town, run (don’t walk) to see her.
Most compelling is the manner in which Benanti paints a picture of her life as a perpetual (though fiercely independent) underdog. About someone so talented and beautiful, that may be hard to believe, but the reality is she has always been a quirky theater kid on the outside looking in. Amusingly, she lays bare the personal turmoils of a young girl listening to cast albums, learning to play the ukulele, and dressing up as obscure musical theater characters for Halloween.
Cheers
(She also isn’t afraid to go off script, poking gentle fun at the more provincial elements of the Hoosier-land where she was performing. I love my home state, but I give Benanti many props for gently reminding her audience that tolerance and compassion and humanity are essential regardless your background or beliefs. And if one can get that message across with a smile on one’s face, it makes an impact.)
I leave you with a clip of her singing “Mr. Tanner,” a forgotten gem by Harry Chapin. This number was a highlight for me both when I first listened to the recording as well as during the live performance. It definitely gives you a sense of her empathetic philosophy and ebullient heartache. Enjoy!
Reel Roy Reviews is now a book! Thanks to BroadwayWorld for this coverage – click here to view. In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the book currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language.
Just 7 days left until the official release of ReelRoyReviews, a book of film, music, and theatre reviews, by Roy Sexton!
Don Sexton
Here’s a snippet from Roy’s review of AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY: “Whether you have survived a combative Thanksgiving family get-together, navigated the treacherous waters of a matriarch playing ‘who’s in the will/who’s out of the will’ games, or discovered relatives colluding with perfect strangers to undermine some special accomplishment of yours, you will find something to which you can relate in this caustic, fractious, anarchic dramedy. (Hey, I’m not saying the terrible things detailed above have happened to me and mine … oh, wait, who am I kidding? Of course they have.)”
No one can turn the knife quite like family. That seems to be the central premise of the film adaptation of Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play August: Osage County.
Whether you have survived a combative Thanksgiving family get-together, navigated the treacherous waters of a matriarch playing “who’s in the will/who’s out of the will” games, or discovered relatives colluding with perfect strangers to undermine some special accomplishment of yours, you will find something to which you can relate in this caustic, fractious, anarchic dramedy.
(Hey, I’m not saying the terrible things detailed above have happened to me and mine … oh, wait, who am I kidding? Of course they have.)
The film is like an episode of Carol Burnett’s/Vicki Lawrence’s old sitcom Mama’s Family … if it had been co-written by Eugene O’Neill, David Mamet and Tennessee Williams … with directorial consultation by Ryan Murphy and David Fincher. The story is a bleak one with Sam Shepard, playing an alcoholic Sooner poet whose sell-by date has long expired, committing suicide and setting off a whole raft of fireworks as his drug-addled, cancer-stricken, chain-smoking widow (portrayed by Meryl Streep) tears through her assembled family of grieving ingrates and dopes.
Streep is a hoot, throwing vanity to the wind and not once making the critical error of having contempt for her spiky character Violet. She is authentic through and through, calcified by years of disappointment, betrayals, and brutality (both genuine and mythologized).
Julia Roberts as bossypants daughter Barb is Streep’s match, their scenes together crackling with sympathetic ugliness. I lost any affinity for Roberts ages ago, but it came back in spades while watching this entry in her illustrious career. She wrings comic gold from the sympathy/revulsion/love/hate she feels for her family, which also includes the very good Julianne Nicholson and the disappointingly so-so Juliette Lewis as her two sisters Ivy and Karen as well as a heartbreaking Benedict Cumberbatch as their cousin Little Charlie.
Rounding out this star-studded cast are Chris Cooper and Margo Martindale as Charlie’s parents and the three sisters’ uncle and aunt. Martindale plays Streep’s wry, equally embattled sister Mattie Fae. These two are so good and so believable, beautifully centering the proceedings which often threaten to spin off into absurd melodrama.
Less effective are Ewan McGregor as Roberts’ yuppified, simpering husband or Dermot Mulroney as Lewis’ yuppified, slime-bucket fiance. Their respective performances are phoned in and dull, lost in the nigh-operatic ACTING! cacophony generated by their fellow cast members.
Little Miss Sunshine‘s Abigail Breslin is rather pedestrian as the daughter of Roberts and McGregor, rising to the fore only once when she delivers a deeply-felt monologue about the “fear we eat” when we consume animals. Her character is a vegetarian, and the monologue, imparted to her family at the post-funeral dinner table, clearly is a metaphor for the vicious consumption her relatives do of each others’ souls. And the fact that they all behave like jackals, immediately ridiculing the young girl’s beliefs, compounds the imagery.
I haven’t seen the stage version upon which this film is based, nor have I read it, so I can’t play the pretentious “I saw it on Broadway and I know how it is supposed to be performed so the movie sucks” card. I do suspect, however, that the film struggles, as so many adaptations do, expanding upon the insular, claustrophobic, sweaty envelope that the stage experience can so brilliantly create for an audience. Do you keep these characters trapped around the dinner table, or do you have them cavorting all about Oklahoma?
Director John Wells, who has worked primarily in television, has a workmanlike approach that doesn’t do much to open up the material, but wisely he just gets the heck out of the actors’ way and lets them do their scenery-chomping thing.
I will also suggest – and this is a criticism of the script and its source material (both written by Letts) – that the third act suffers from some over-baked, soap opera twists that I found rather silly. These plot points do set up a zinger of a scene with Roberts and Streep and some ill-fated plates of catfish, but overall they left me scratching my head a bit. Ah well.
As relentlessly dark as this material is, the film is fun and mostly moves at a brisk pace. I don’t know how well the years will treat it. I suspect it won’t age well and eventually will seem like a quirky exercise in pulpy camp. However, in its moment with most of its cast at the peak of their powers, it’s worth checking out … and probably cheaper than two hours of therapy.
![Description: Film poster; Source: Wikipedia [linked]; Portion used: Film poster only; Low resolution? Sufficient resolution for illustration, but considerably lower resolution than original. Other information: Intellectual property by film studio. Non-free media use rationales: Non-free media use rationale - Article/review; Purpose of use: Used for purposes of critical commentary and illustration in an educational article about the film. The poster is used as the primary means of visual identification of this article topic. Replaceable? Protected by copyright, therefore a free use alternative won't exist.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebel_Heart_(Madonna_album)#mediaviewer/File:Madonna_-_Rebel_Heart_(Official_Album_Cover).png)
![Description: Film poster; Source: Wikipedia [linked]; Portion used: Film poster only; Low resolution? Sufficient resolution for illustration, but considerably lower resolution than original. Other information: Intellectual property by film studio. Non-free media use rationales: Non-free media use rationale - Article/review; Purpose of use: Used for purposes of critical commentary and illustration in an educational article about the film. The poster is used as the primary means of visual identification of this article topic. Replaceable? Protected by copyright, therefore a free use alternative won't exist.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Boys_%28film%29#mediaviewer/File:Jersey_Boys_Poster.jpg)
![Description: Film poster; Source: Wikipedia [linked]; Portion used: Film poster only; Low resolution? Sufficient resolution for illustration, but considerably lower resolution than original. Other information: Intellectual property by film studio. Non-free media use rationales: Non-free media use rationale - Article/review; Purpose of use: Used for purposes of critical commentary and illustration in an educational article about the film. The poster is used as the primary means of visual identification of this article topic. Replaceable? Protected by copyright, therefore a free use alternative won't exist.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:August_Osage_County_2013_poster.jpg)