AmericanTheaterWeb Original News & Reviews

UPDATES ON JANUARY 29

Time Out New York

Review: Looking for the Pony
It is never a good sign when the audience starts rooting for the breast cancer.

New York Times

Dark Humor That’s Not Quite Ready for the Gallows
When you’re in the audience at a play about breast cancer, you don’t expect to laugh a lot. But in Andrea Lepcio’s top-notch play, spontaneous applause tends to break out.

Variety

Review: Looking for the Pony
It's not easy to criticize a play about cancer, but sometimes it's necessary: Andrea Lepcio's tenderhearted, emptyheaded four-hander offers little besides schmaltzy platitudes and unpleasant caricatures of everyone who is not our hero...

Back Stage

Looking for the Pony reviewed by Karl Levett [critic's pick]
While this is an unsentimental play about two loving sisters, the evening is also very much about two female performers at the top of their game.

TheaterMania

Review: Looking for the Pony
Andrea Lepcio's play about a woman facing breast cancer wastes the talents of four fine actors.

nytheatre.com

Review: Looking for the Pony
This new play by Andrea Lepcio, which is being presented by Vital Theatre Company, is a very wise and very moving exploration of two sisters who are dealing with life-changing events.

CurtainUp

Review: Looking for the Pony
Andrea Lepcio's wry, witty, and warm play offers keen insights on illness by focusing on the relationship between two sisters

The ignominious fate of Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, who served as the English governor of New York & New Jersey from 1702 to 1709 is presented as a metaphor for intolerance and religious persecution of gays in Cornbury: The Queen's Governor, written by late playwright Anthony Holland and William M. Hoffman. At the same time, they see Cornbury's extravagance, penchant for cross-dressing and exuberant spirit as ingredients for a latter-day, bawdy Restoration comedy. Unfortunately, neither the script nor Tim Cusack's staging manage to satisfyingly meld two diametrically opposed views of the Cornbury tale.

The play and the production are certainly graced by a number of gifted actors who give first-rate performances. As Cornbury, David Greenspan delivers a deliciously mercurial performance that's a mix of drag queen camp and well-observed naturalism. His ability to wed such distinct styles into his performance is what gives the piece genuine heft. Theatergoers are not only able to laugh at the man who lavishness has nearly bankrupted the colonies under his control, but also care about him as Pastor Cornelius Van Dam (an under-used Everett Quinton), pastor of St. Marks, and Margareta De Peyster (a flamboyantly malicious Bianca Leigh), a Dutch lady with a taste for power, plot his ouster.

These three performers deftly deliver the play's high comedy (an argument between Cornbury and Margareta borders on a catfight), and on many levels that would be enough, but unfortunately, sermonizing creeps in, as Cornbury's persecution and eventual imprisonment is condemned as being both politically, and more dangerously, philosophically, motivated. Cornbury's support of Jews, and his advisor Spinoza Dacosta (played with a mixture of sage augustness and comic flair by Ken Kliban) in particular, is referenced. Also, his rivals dismiss the respect that Cornbury extends to slaves and Native Americans, in particular, his African attendant (a shrewd performance form Ashley Bryant) and Munsee, a Native American (Eugene the Poogene), whom Spinoza trusts.

The more serious aspects of the script might not seem so obtrusive were it not for other moments in the play when broad zaniness, amateurishly performed, comes to the fore. A scene early on between two lesbian barmaids is a perfect example. One assumes the sexual cavorting of the women (Nomi Tichman and Tara Bast) is meant to be bawdy fun, but in "Cornbury" it lands with a thud. Similarly, the existential spiral that the Pastor's hunky son, Rip (played with deer-in-the-headlights sweetness by Christian Pedersen), experiences after meeting Cornbury is never fully developed; instead, it's played as both a kind of joke about gay men's effect on straight ones, and as a serious dilemma for the young man about what in life is most important, which includes a fiancé (played with coy forcefulness by Jenne Vath).

Just as the play and performances experience a curious sort of disconnect, so too do the visual elements of the production. Scenic designer Mark Beard has provided some handsome, yet appropriately worn, painted drops, and the two buff, six-pack abbed caryatids of a Native American and Caucasian explorer that support the painted proscenium induce smiles well before any performer has taken to the stage. Unfortunately, Jeffrey Wallach's costumes, which aim for a similar sort of comic tackiness, only look haphazardly executed, and while there's much to enjoy in this show, including one choice visual joke in Wallach's costume scheme for Cornbury's kleptomaniac wife Marie (played with marvelous faux-French flair by Julia Campanelli), its tonal fluctuations leave theatergoers reeling.

---- Andy Propst

Cornbury plays at Hudson Guild Theatre (441 West 26th Street). Performances are Monday through Friday at 8 PM, Saturday at 2 and 8 PM, and Sunday at 5 PM. Tickets are $18 and can be purchased by calling 212-352-3101 or by visiting www.TheaterMania.com. Further information is available online at www.theatreaskew.com

Not sure why, but I've been fascinated by the two reviews of D.J. Taylor's new book "Bright Young People" in The New York Times'. Both articles have invariably quoted Evelyn Waugh, but I've finished both thinking about Noel Coward. I finally pulled out the complete lyrics and figured I'd share:

"Bright Young People" from Cochran's 1931 Revue:

Verse:

Look at us three,
Representative we
Of a nation renowned for virility
We've formed a cult of puerility
Just for fun.
You may deplore
The effects of war
Which are causing the world to decay a bit.
We've found our place and will play a bit
In the sun.
Though Waterloo was won upon the playing fields of Eton,
The next war will be photographed, and lost, by Cecil Beaton.

Refrain 1

Bright young people,
Ready to do and to dare
We casually strive
To keep London alive
Form Chelsea to Bloomsbury Square.
We fondly imagine we're cynical elves,
IN charity tableaux we pose upon shelves.
It's just an excuse to exhibit ourselves.
What could be duller than that?

I could continue with the lyric, but that's not the real reason for this post. Rather, it's to offer up some mini book reviews of my own; thoughts on a quartet of releases from Applause Theatre and Cinema Books and Limelight Editions.

These two imprints of Hal Leonard are amazing for the sheer volume and diversity of titles that they release every year. There are four titles that I've gotten recently that I really want to highlight, starting with Denny Martin Flinn's "The Great American Book Musical: A Manifesto, A Monologue, A Manual", from Limelight. Flinn is really a traditionalist when it comes to musical theater and the book musical in particular. In this very opinionated, and often insightful treatise (which does in fact carry traits of all of the subtitles), he discusses first the evolution of the book musical and then, moves on to analyze its various components, by deftly dissecting classics like My Fair Lady, West Side Story, and Fiorello!. Readers may not always agree with what Flinn has to say, but there's little doubting his passion for the subject, and that's probably most important, because his zeal makes "Great American" a terrific read for practitioners and fans alike.

Also on the musicals front, and from Applause, is the Sixth Edition of "Broadway Musicals: Show by Show" – an updated edition of Stanley Green's invaluable reference on musical theater. This new volume has been updated by Green's widow, Kay Green, and now, "Show By Show" takes readers through the 2007 calendar year, with descriptions, cast lists, and song titles for shows like Curtains, The Drowsy Chaperone, Spring Awakening and Avenue Q. Throughout my life, whether as a musical theater aficionado or as a journalist, I've found myself referring to "Show by Show" for both factual reference and sometimes more subjective reference. I'm truly grateful that the publishers and Green continue to update this one.

From Limelight comes another reference/critical study, "The Pulitzer Prize Plays: The First Fifty Years, 1917-1967" by Paul A. Firestone. This new book chronicles the plays and musicals that have won this prestigious award, grouping them works by theme. The book begins by looking at plays chronicling "Family Life," and then, moves on topics like "Social Protest" and "Political Heroes." For each script that Firestone discusses, he details the plots in lucid detail and includes salient historical information about the pieces' first productions (cast list, opening date, and venue).

There are times when Firestone's prose sounds as if it comes from the period he's covering. When describing the plays Long Day's Journey Into Night, Look Homeward Angel and The Subject Was Roses, he writers that "in these plays, there is a great quantity of liquor consumed, bordering on alcohol addiction…Booze is the approved drug used as an escape…" And, in this style lies part of the book's charm. As readers go through descriptions of plays like Maxwell Anderson's Both Your Houses and Robert E. Sherwood's There Shall Be No Light, it almost feels as if one is reading a piece that comes from the period in which these plays were written. The book is rounded out by a fascinating appendix that lists the jurors for the Pulitzer season-by-season and a handy bibliography. It will be interesting to see if Firestone or another author can develop a similar book to take readers through the subsequent years of the Pulitzer.

Finally, let me mention one critical assessment of a single playwright that comes form Limelight: it's William W. Demastes' "Spalding Gray's America", which offers a thoughtful overview of the late monologist's life and work. Demastes' exceptionally readable prose makes "America" a title fit for both academics and the casual reader interested in Gray.

---- Andy Propst