AmericanTheaterWeb Original News & Reviews

Morning,

Well, I figured that this holiday weekend would be the ideal time to migrate the site to a faster server. More expense, but it means bringing back the serach feature.

What does this mean to you, the user? Glad you asked. Basically, it means that you might see that the site hasn't updated over the course of the weekend. (Try clearing your cache.) Or you might get "not found" errors. Be patient - ATW isn't going anywhere.

So, enjoy the weekend, and if you're celebrating holidays, accept my best wishes.

Andy Propst

AmericanTheaterWeb

Review: Chasing Manet
Confronting Life's End in the Bronx

New York Times

Sailing Off, Wheelchairs at the Prow
The quirks assigned to the characters in Tina Howe’s whimsy-clotted new play all feel preowned (as the car vendors say), as does the gimmick-driven plot.

New York Daily News

'Chasing Manet' is no masterpiece
In 1997, Tina Howe used "old lady rage" (her term) to propel "Pride's Crossing," a drama about a 90-year-old woman. In her spotty new play, "Chasing Manet," that same sort of fury fuels the story.

New York Post

Just chasing its tale
'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" meets "The Golden Girls" in "Chasing Manet," about two old women...

Hartford Courant

Michael Wilson's 'Chasing Manet' Is Sharply Observed
...Howe has written an engaging and upbeat play about aging and the loss of freedom, with smart dialogue for Catherine, and amusing confusions for Rennie, who at last seems to recognize that her beloved Herschel is gone for good. In the end, she seems to shed some of her delusions, as she joins Catherine in what promises to be a bon voyage.

Associated Press

Review: 'Chasing Manet' Shows Indignities of Aging
If you think a dementia patient can be cheerfully ditsy and if you can laugh at the sight of an angry, nearly blind woman plotting to use her wheelchair-bound roommate as a tool for escape from their nursing home, then Tina Howe's latest play, ''Chasing Manet'' is a pill you can easily swallow.

Bloomberg.com

Raving Oldsters Leave Nursing Home for Paris in Howe's `Manet': John Simon
“Chasing Manet,” at New York’s 59E59 Theaters, stars Jane Alexander and Lynn Cohen in a highly civilized play that brings Tina Howe, one of our subtler playwrights, back to the fore. It’s nice to have her back, even at her somewhat too-tame second best.

Variety

Review: Chasing Manet
Tina Howe's "Chasing Manet" almost makes you envy its mentally ill characters the good fortune of not knowing where they are.

Back Stage

Chasing Manet reviewed by David Sheward [critic's pick]
Director Michael Wilson deftly maintains a tone between broad comedy and syrupy sentiment.

TheaterMania

Review: Chasing Manet
Jane Alexander's multi-dimensional performance as a famous artist is the sole reason to see Tina Howe's sitcom-like play about the burgeoning friendship between two nursing home roommates.

CurtainUp

Review: Chasing Manet
Watching once vibrant people in various states of decrepitude, especially for those of us old enough to ponder our own last exits, is likely to overarch Tina Howe's effort to be both funny and hopeful.

 

The three wheelchairs that hover above the stage in Tony Strages' scenic design for Chasing Manet signal that theatergoers should expect flights of fancy in this new play that Primary Stages opened last night at 59E59 Theaters, and playwright Tina Howe doesn't disappoint in this tale about friendship between two women who are living out their golden years and facing the ends of their lives in a Bronx nursing home.

Legally blind and suffering from a variety of other ailments, the crotchety WASP Catherine (Jane Alexander in a gracefully nuanced and powerful turn) has been living in the home for a while, installed there by her son Royal (played with appropriate stuffiness and lovely gentleness by Jack Gilpin). As the play opens, Rennie (Lynn Cohen), a new roommate for Catherine, is wheeled in by her daughter Rita (Julie Halston) and son-in-law Henry (Donald Margulies). Vivacious and suffering from the early stages of dementia, Rennie is, through and through, Catherine's antithesis. So, too, is her family. Whereas Royal, an English teacher at Columbia, rarely visits his mother, Rennie's family see her almost daily, taking her for trips to the beauty parlor and meals at local restaurants. If it sounds like "Manet" might be a bit like a distaff, gray-haired take on Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, it is. But only on some levels.

At its core, though, "Manet" is richer than Simon's legendary comedy and examines how people, and Catherine in particular, shape their own destinies and particularly as they face their mortality. Theatergoers come to realize that Catherine has spent her life attempting to mold her own world when she describes the history of the print of Manet's “Luncheon on the Grass” that hangs above her bed. In it, a nude woman sits in a park with two fully clothed gentlemen. What shocked about the painting when it debuted, Catherine explains, is not that the woman was nude, but that the composition of the painting itself was implausible. Women just wouldn't strip in a park.

With this impromptu discourse for Rennie and a host of friends, Catherine – and Howe – sets the stage for what will happen as these two women become unlikely friends. They hatch a plan to escape the ironically named Mount Airy nursing home, and as they plan their trip to Paris aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2 no less, find some help from an unexpected ally. Along the way another patient (also played by Margulies) reveals a set of bronze bells from the Mesozoic era that he kept with him since he was on an archeological dig in his younger days. (Marguilies' reverie as the man describes this prized possession is transcendently beautiful.)

As "Manet" unfolds, there are other embellishments that take the play outside of the realm of naturalism. Collisions between the wheelchair-rolling Rennie and others are underscored with Looney Tunes-like sound effects. So as to ensure that theatergoers never forget about the suffering which the patients onstage and off are enduring, low wails and cries can be heard underneath vast portions of the action (soundscape by John Gromada). Even small details – such as Rennie's need for a passport – get spun fancifully in this work that induces smiles and ultimately has a significant emotional impact.

For all of its successes, though, "Manet" does feel as if it could benefit from an even more heightened production from director Michael Wilson. His staging feels almost too reserved, and thus, Rennie's bizarre, almost absurdist, malapropisms – delivered capably by the winning Cohen – sometimes feel overly cute or worse as if they are cruelly making fun of the woman's illness, rather than being a natural part of this piece that dares to look at the process of aging and death with simultaneous clear sightedness, gentle bemusement and a healthy dose of surrealist whimsy.

Wilson has elicited meticulous performances from not only the leading ladies, but also from Halston (who plays not only Rennie's daughter, but also a patient whose grasp on reality has completely disappeared) and the similarly multiply cast Vanessa Aspillgaga and Robert Christopher Riley.

A few years ago, Howe provided two translations of Eugene Ionesco one-acts for the Atlantic Theatre Company. It's interesting that, as we have Ionesco's meditation on death playing on Broadway (Exit the King), Howe should herself be offering her own amusing, and ultimately touching, play about mortality.

---- Andy Propst

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Chasing Manet plays at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street). Performances are Tuesday at 7pm; Wednesday through Friday at 8pm; and Saturday at 2 and 8pm. Additional performances Sunday, April 12 at 3pm; Wednesday April 15 & 22 at 2pm. No performances April 22, 23, or 30. Tickets are $60.00 and can be purchased by calling 212-279-4200 or by visiting www.TicketCentral.com. Further information is available online at www.PrimaryStages.com.

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AmericanTheaterWeb

Review: Rock of Ages
80s Rock Highlghted in This Terrific Jukebox Musical

New York Times

Big-Hair Rockers Return in a New Arena: Broadway
“Rock of Ages” is a seriously silly, absurdly enjoyable arena-rock musical.

New York Daily News

Dziemianowicz: '80s with cheese
Hey, it worked for the ABBA songbook. Now '80s classics made famous by artists like Journey, Styx, Pat Benatar and Whitesnake could mean jukebox-musical gold for "Rock of Ages," which opened Tuesday night.

amNY New York City Theater

Theater Review of Rock of Ages
When was the last time you were encouraged to drink beer during a Broadway show? Or, for that matter, wave (fake) lighters during power ballads and occasionally sing along?

New York Post

Hit parade's not rock-solid
It's the gift that keeps on giving: You've played all your favorite '80s hits on "Guitar Hero" -- now hear them on...

ny1

NY1 Theater Review: "Rock Of Ages"
"Rock of Ages" is not for everyone, but I bet a lot of people who wouldn't expect to like this goofy musical will be smitten. Count me in that group.

Bergen Record

‘Rock’ sinks like a stone
Theater reviewer Robert Feldberg takes a hard look at 1980s-inspired musical “Rock of Ages.”

Associated Press

'Rock of Ages' Tours the Music of the '80s
It's not often that a musical's narrator interrupts the show to mock its formulaic book and simple humor.

USA Today

'Rock of Ages' makes it hard to hold on to the feeling
hat do Madonna, Prince, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, U2, Bruce Springsteen, the Police and Dire Straits have in common? ....They're just a few of the artists who had enormous hits between 1980 and 1989, and whose tunes apparently lacked sufficient camp value to qualify for the jukebox musical Rock of Ages (*½ out of four).

Variety

Review: Rock of Ages
If the 1980s were a bad-fashion blur you'd rather forget, "Rock of Ages" may not be for you. But if tortured mullets, unwaxed chests, studded leather, acid-wash denim and wailing guitars make you yearn for the Reagan years, this unapologetically silly hair-metal jukebox musical will probably have you gulping tequila shots and singing along.

Hollywood Reporter

Theater Review: Rock of Ages
Bottom Line: "Don't Stop Believin' " that this 1980s rock-inspired musical will be a hit.

Back Stage

Rock of Ages reviewed by David Sheward
As directed with manic energy by Kristin Hanggi and played with an obvious wink to the audience by the hard-working cast, the show doesn't take itself seriously for one second.

TheaterMania

Peter Filichia's Diary: Three Quasi-Rock Musicals
Three quasi-rock musicals in a three-day span.

Review: Rock of Ages
This jukebox material using the hairband songs of the 1980s is deliriously entertaining.

Talkin' Broadway

Review: Rock of Ages
The migraine-inducing volume levels. The selling of alcohol not just before the show and at intermission but during the performance. A book of such cliché-riddled vapidity and indifferent relationship to the mid-1980s hair-rock songs it supposedly links that it’s practically mocking the already ridiculous notion of jukebox musicals. There are so very, very many reasons to hate Rock of Ages, which just opened at the Brooks Atkinson. So why can’t you?

 

Additions for April 8, 2009:

Associated Press

'Toxic Avenger' Tests Your Tolerance for Silliness
Get ready to put your tolerance for silliness to the test.

Time Out New York

Review: The Toxic Avenger
The 1980s cult flick gets a shamelessly schlocky and fun rock musical.

Broadway.tv

The Toxic Avenger: Wicked Green Fun
From the moment the show begins, as an actor implores the audience to leave their cell phones on, the new musical The Toxic Avenger audaciously stands out as the most uniquely theatrical comedy playing in New York City. With its inventive combination of subversive fun and malevolent mischief, the new musical manages to achieve a neatly and sweetly romantic sentiment. It is an astonishing achievement.

TheaterMania

Review: The Toxic Avenger
This rollickingly funny adaptation of the 1984 horror movie about a nerd who becomes a monster is expertly acted and directed.

New York Times

Geek Turns Superhero to Save a Town
The Toxic Avenger, the mutant superhero born of a shlocky cult movie, has inspired a dopey, intermittently funny musical.

New York Post

'Toxic' mock a monstrously funny play
Heads up, Shrek. There's a new green monster in town, and his show is hilarious. It's hard to believe any musical adaptation of...

Hartford Courant

'Toxic Avenger' Musical Is Campy Fun
"The Toxic Avenger" jams together drag bits, medium heavy metal, a green mutant victim of industrial pollution, blindness jokes, a triple role for the fabulous Nancy Opel and lots of New Jersey jokes.

Bloomberg.com

New Jersey's Toxic Ooze Yields Top-Rate Musical `Avenger': Jeremy Gerard
Loud, gross and lovable, “The Toxic Avenger” retails hoary Helen Keller jokes, horror-flick cliches and geek romance in a rock musical that raises your consciousness and gets you out in under two hours.

Variety

Review: The Toxic Avenger
A lone singer stands atop a barrel of nuclear waste and presents us with his groin as he belts the opening bars of "The Toxic Avenger." Where else could we be but New Jersey?

Back Stage

The Toxic Avenger reviewed by Jason Fitzgerald [critic's pick]
Apparently, jokes about New Jersey as the trash can of the Northeast are still funny, gentrification be damned.

Talkin' Broadway

Review: The Toxic Avenger
A show with a pejorative adjective in its title is just asking for trouble. And in the case of The Toxic Avenger, I’d love to oblige - one-word descriptions for this meltdown of a musical by Joe DiPietro and David Bryan that just opened at New World Stages don’t come much more apt than that T word. But in the interests of creativity and Nancy Opel, I’ll demur. . .

nytheatre.com

Review: The Toxic Avenger

CurtainUp

Review: The Toxic Avenger
With crisp direction by John Rando and a megawatt performance by Nancy Opel this ultimately feels a bit recycled, but fortunately, it’s been created from some quality pre-used materials