Holiday Auto-Post: Review Flashback to 2010

Today is my last day of holiday vacation, so here is one last auto-post.  I tried to cram a lot of info into this post!  Oh, well, actually, now that I think about it, another one is coming later this week, if I'm being accurate... ;)


12/28/10:  At the beginning of December, a Tony-voter boss very kindly let me accompany him to Driving Miss Daisy.  I'm sorry to say, I was a tad disappointed.  Perhaps I’ve seen the movie entirely too many times, but the pacing of the play was deadly slow to me, and Vanessa Redgrave seemed very disconnected, especially at the beginning of the evening.  She did start to catch fire about halfway through, but the beginning, the first scene especially, was not good.  And I think James Earl Jones was overcompensating a bit at the beginning, kind of overdoing it in spots, but they seemed to eventually sync up.  The last scenes were very touching, thankfully.  And Boyd Gaines is quite good, as usual.  His interpretation is miles different from Dan Ackroyd in the film and it works just as well.  So…on the whole, sort of a disappointment.   Maybe now that they’ve announced an extension, I’ll try to see it again.  I’m hoping we just saw an off night.  Oh, but the Broadway Cares plea at the end was terrific.  They did an auction of an autographed apron, that Vanessa modeled, and she was so visibly thrilled by the amount of money they raised.  She seemed way more connected to the auction than the play.  Oop.  But it was a fun way to end the evening.

I went out to Brooklyn to catch a friend’s one-act in the Brick’s Fight Fest—the play was called Dar and Matey’s Christmas Spectaculargh.  I had seen a previous piece featuring pirates Dar and Matey at Manhattan Theater Source (written by all-around fun guy Larry Pontius) and had really liked it, so I was happy to catch this holiday piece.  It was silly and funny and fun, and well worth the trip out to the Brick (which, actually, is a quick trip from Manhattan).  It has pirates and Santa and multiple versions of ‘The Carol of the Bells.’  Really, what more could anyone ask??  It was directed by Robert Ross Parker, the guy who fantastically directs the Vampire Cowboy stuff, so I give it a thumbs way up.  I think it has one more performance Wednesday night, if you’re so inclined.  I was almost privy to a command performance, since I was the only audience member up until a few minutes after the advertised start time, but thankfully, more people walked in and I didn't have to be an audience of one.  Whew.

I went to the annual performance of Charles Busch’s Times Square Angel last Monday night.  I have been wanting to go for years, and I never get my tickets in time.  This year, I got a heads up when tickets went on sale (probably because I saw Divine Sister a couple of times) and pounced.  Oh my, it was ever so much fun!  There’s a little jazz combo off stage, and it’s just a fun It’s a Wonderful Life -type show, with Charles as a hard-bitten chanteuse who learns the meaning of Christmas.  I had a great time.  It was full of laughs and fun (and Julie Halston as God!), and I got a tear in my eye at the end, during the curtain call, when Charles serenaded us with ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.’  All in all, a grand evening (and Victor Garber was sitting a few rows behind me!!) and I highly recommend we all go next time.

Repeat visit to La Bete:  fantastic.  It’s even better in repeat visits.  Then, Friday night, a handsome friend had comps to see the new Off-Broadway production of Dracula at the Little Shubert Theater on 42nd Street.  Wow.  You may have read about the trials and tribulations of this production—they fired their leading lady on the first day of previews.  It's probably not very nice of me to pile on when they've had such problems, but...pile on I will.

This was truly one of the worst things I’ve seen in a long time.  And it wasn’t even ‘so bad it’s fun.’  It was just bad.  And not fun.  If the guy playing Dracula had had one scintilla of charm, the evening could’ve been more bearable.  But he was generally charm-free and not very compelling.  Eye-rolling, he could do.  Acting…not so much.  If you don’t have a seductive or compelling Dracula, forget it.  His only character development seemed to be the new-lock-of-hair-tumbling-outside-the-ponytail that appeared in each successive scene.  Yes, then, his hair was down and flowing for the final (awkward) fight scene.  Even his costume was wrong and way too baggy.  I’m thinking, really?  You couldn’t spring for a tailor?  Make that dinner jacket fit?

photo credit: Carol Rosegg

No one seemed really sure of their lines, the gals in the show were profoundly unlucky to have badly written characters along with everything else; the guy playing Renfield was camping it up like crazy (but wasn’t very good at it); poor George Hearn was trying, but his accent kept coming and going, as did his memory of his next line.  The set was terrible (really?  painted books in the library scene?) and the sound design was terrible.  The music choices were just completely uninteresting.  And the sound operator seemed to be having issues, too.  He couldn’t get anyone’s mic levels right.  It was like they were speaking through the wrong end of a megaphone.  Then, just to put a ribbon on things, at the end, to lead the actors into their curtain call, the music cue is:  the dying Swan from Swan Lake.  I believe my words were:  'oh no they didn’t!'  Or something like that.  The ‘special effects,’ such as they were, were laughable.  And we did.  Laugh, I mean.  Quietly, though.  I hate being so mean about theater, when I'm sure no one went into the enterprise thinking it would be so unsuccessful, but oh my.  A lot went wrong and it's hard to imagine there was no one who said, 'maybe we should wait? or start over?'  I don't know...

If this kind of show interests you, more power to you, but make sure you take an extra sweater and scarf.  The theater is FREEZING!  I don’t know if it’s to keep you awake, but golly it was cold in there.  In the interest of full disclosure, much of the audience seemed to enjoy the show.  I find it hard to believe, but there you have it.