On Stage
KANFER, STEFAN
On Stage The New Season By Stefan Kanfer "What-if" remains a favorite pastime of historians. What-if Napoleon had been the victor at Waterloo? What-if D-Day had failed? What-if the...
...But I don't wanna gripe, oh...
...As "Horse" Simmons, André De Shields, Monty's sole African-American, demonstrates that he did not get his job through affirmative action...
...And can there be a mime with a skill any finer Than the Cat in the Hat of the droll David Shiner...
...What-if Anne Meara had spent more time developing the ideas she so intriguingly broaches and so hastily abandons...
...Of the notable doctors who earned their greatfame There's a few whom we recognize quickly by name: Jonas Salkfor example, and Benjamin Spock And a third most unusual sort of a Doc...
...In a surprise ending, yet another alternate route is taken...
...They will outstrip the real strippers, divesting themselves of all outerwear and underwear...
...What-if the bullets had missed JFK...
...IN 1997 a British film called The Full Monty quietly opened in the United States...
...Their affair leads to the mawkish closeharmony song "You Walk with Me," the only one of the numbers that seems constructed by the numbers: Is it the wind then over my shoulder Is it your voice calling quietly...
...If Eugene Lee's set isn't the item it could be William IveyLong's costumes are all that they should be And the brisk choreography by Kathleen Marshall Is the sort, I confess, to which I'm rather partial...
...His achievements were not of a medical sort Yet he made many invalids rise and cavort...
...John Arnone's bare-bones set fails to suggest working-class Buffalo, or any other region for that matter, but Robert Morgan's costumes do much to compensate...
...There's no doubt better shows will be coming up later, Till that time try the big Richard Rodgers Thee-yay-ter...
...During this period of angst some male strippers bring their show to town...
...And Director G alati, whose first name is Frank Is inventive—without being of the first rank...
...The cast is in the buff for about three seconds, and illuminated from backstage so that their bare features are barely discernible...
...What doesn't sparkle enough at the Minetta Lane Theater is Down the Garden Paths itself...
...Just who was this creator who did things so well...
...For 85 intermissionless minutes it toys with the collisions of chance and will—but never gets more than scan deep...
...That having been said, something is even more morose here, Just look at the heads making me feel real gross here, We aren't even close here...
...These difficulties, they keep telling themselves, can be overcome...
...The elder Wallachs' work—particularly his impersonation of a Milton Berle-like figure and hers of a wisecracking helpmeet—are worth the price of admission...
...As we soon discover, Stella's acrimony is well-earned: She forsook a promising stage career to act as the comic's straight woman for the next 50 years...
...Down the Garden Paths presents the varied biographies of Arthur Garden (John Shea), an expert on quantum physics...
...But what-if is not confined to professionals...
...Compassion...
...Playing the gruff, much-married Jeanette, accompanist for the steelworker-strippers, she induces gales of laughter every time she sits down at the piano...
...Director David Saint does the best he can with this uncertain material...
...James Youmans' set design and David Murin's costumes enliven the proceedings...
...John Ellison Conlee is a standout in the role of Dave Bukatinsky, the show's heavyweight who makes his beer belly into a supporting character...
...Using couplets and drawings and fables with morals He acquired many royalties, tributes and laurels...
...The next scene is played as if Max had indeed gone under for the third time...
...What-if she had been a more probing playwright...
...The brightest of the unemployed is aghast, but only for a moment...
...Amy Stiller is the couple's daughter...
...Wise move...
...In Terrence McNally's play Love...
...Which is just what they are: With their plots and their twists They can still be observed on the best seller lists...
...Yazbek's unsubtle but catchy music is pure pop-rock, cannily arranged by Ted Sperling...
...Jerry's wife Pam (Lisa Datz) radiates intelligence and grit...
...Jerry Mitchell's choreography makes a virtue out of clumsiness, and Jack ?'Brien's direction stays unfailingly crisp and clean...
...Overnight, the "sleaze" becomes a hit and the talk of the town...
...That did not go unnoticed by playwright Terrence McNally or by composer-lyricist David Yazbek...
...So it's hardly surprising to see that a musical Has been wrung from theDocworks and billed as a Seussical...
...First the bills go unpaid, then the wives become the sole support of their families, and finally the children lose respect for their fathers...
...The penultimate scene shows what would have occurred had Arthur pulled Max out of the water a few seconds too late...
...Preperformance jitters arise, voices are raised, egos get bruised, internecine squabbles break out...
...Harold's wife Vicki (Emily Skinner) is the personification of a gold digger ("Two words from me and ta-da!/I'm dressed entirely in Prada...
...We are about to find out...
...Even smarter was the decision to cast the show with men who looked as if they had spent the last year on an assembly line—a refreshing change from the customary line of willowy chorus boys populating most Broadway musicals...
...and in his book for the Broadway musical Kiss of the Spider Woman, the story of a homosexual was essential to the plot...
...This guy needs a helmet, that guy needs some lipo, AndIcoiddusesome Gerito!delivered in a hypo...
...He created a pachyderm, Horton, whose end Gently sat on the nest of an avian friend...
...What-if she had provided believable alternate routes...
...Now full grown, he has the mind of a four-year-old and the impulses of an adult...
...Save for this editorializing, the book is sharply written and the transition across the Pond is smoothly negotiated...
...Yet the cast is superb...
...He went on about kangaroos, wrote about Yertle Who performed feats beyond any common old turtle...
...He turns on Sid and Stella for failing to applaud his sexual identity, and for refusing to acknowledge that his brother is an idiot...
...Also on hand are Arthur's parents, retired comedian Sid Garden (Eli Wallach) and his resentful wife Stella (Anne Jackson...
...In this version the boy survived, but with horrific brain damage...
...What cannot be ignored is a question posed by one jeering woman: Who would pay good money to see a bunch of puffing, out-of-shape guys strip down to their jockstraps...
...One of the somber recollections concerns the day Arthur saved Max from drowning at summer camp...
...Their efforts also prompt some additional what-ifs...
...At their best the lyrics exceed the melodies, varying between piquance andpathos as the situation demands...
...As an added twist, Arthur has turned out to be a sullen homosexual who recently lost his lover in a fatal gay-bashing incident...
...walking the midnight beat as a security guard...
...The few available jobs are nearly as dispiriting as going on the dole—low-level clerking at department stores...
...Anne Meara, actress-turnedplaywright, has taken this mental diversion and turned it into a hasty, schizoid play: 50 per cent comedy with dark implications, 50 per cent tragedy with humorous interludes...
...The small part of Claire, Max's wife in one episode, is played by Roberta Wallach, daughter of Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach...
...The trouble is, the pros have toned bodies and smooth moves, whereas the steelworkers are equipped with sagging stomachs, ungainly postures and not a clue about bumping or grinding...
...and Bukatinsky's wife Geòrgie (Annie Golden) coaxes laughter from miserable situations...
...He enters as a fiftysomething sway-backed retiree, then comes to boisterous life with "Big Black Man," an authentic showstopper...
...his brother Max (Adam Grupper), a shallow self-promoting TV producer...
...Sharon Wilkins, the kangaroo, sings up a storm Michele Pawk as a fowl, keeps the sentiment warm...
...With the promise of nude capering the unemployed attract a big crowd, regain their self-respect, and find the strength to prevail against economic circumstances...
...After mulling over the problem for days, the men come up with a solution...
...Seuss...
...Valour...
...Asfor Janine LaManna, she's comically frail As a bird overwhelmed by her fabulous tail...
...Jerry Stiller, Meara's husband, appears on film as the pompous German mathematician who inspired Arthur...
...To most of the desperate this is no more troublesome than a pebble in the shoe...
...Alternate Routes, his book on the subject, has just won a prestigious award...
...We can put on our own strip show and pocket the profits...
...If a bunch of strangers can peel and make money, he asks his comrades, why not us...
...I coulda torn my heart out But instead I got my chart out And I gave 'em all a lesson in the way to play the blues...
...Once more, howls and imprecations fill the air...
...When their producers acquired the rights to the movie, the team's first step was to shift the locale from northern England to Buffalo, New York...
...And as Harold Nichols, the workers' former boss, Marcus Neville makes a splendid Dickensian villain who becomes oddly sympathetic the moment he, too, gets canned by the higher-ups...
...Over the hill, down in the valley, Never alone for you walk with me...
...This one leads to a happier, though less likely, conclusion...
...The shock at the Eugene O'Neill Theater is not in how much is exposed but how little...
...Her critique of the boys' rehearsal gives Yazbek a chance to tell her story and theirs with admirable brevity: / was subbing with Stan Kenton In his seedy club in Trenton When I heard my third divorce had just gone through...
...As they rehearse, however, their bravado begins to dissolve...
...Amy Stiller and Roberta Wallach have obviously inherited the talent gene...
...As Jerry Lukowski, the leader of the pack, Patrick Wilson is a fine amalgam of ambition and rue, with just enough klutziness to make his dance steps credible...
...Then comes a third possibility...
...In Monty, there is also a brief liaison between the repressed Malcolm (Jason Danieley) and another lonely figure, Ethan (Romain Frug...
...At his apartment, the immediate family gathers to raise a glass or two...
...and his sister Sharon (Amy Stiller), recently out of drug rehab...
...Although the bluecollar men deride | the spectacle from afar, their wives and sweethearts turn out en masse...
...And described Whoville's very peculiar malaise, And invented the Grinch who despised holidays, And saluted the Cat in the Hat with a chortle As if certain that each of these things was immortal...
...In the first portion of the evening the dysfunctional family succumbs to sibling rivalries and generational misunderstandings...
...Everyone mulls the road not taken, the vocation that might have been, the accident that nearly happened...
...Speaking of clean, those who expect to be titillated by the sight of naked men showing it all are destined for disappointment...
...What would have happened, the crowd wonders, if that rescue had not taken place...
...Many new tunes by Flaherty, first name of Stephen Are mercurial, clamorous, bright but uneven: While the lyrics byAhrens, whose first name is Lynn Merely echo the author (with new gags thrown in...
...If this be nepotism, Off-Broadway could use more of it...
...Things could be better 'round here...
...When evening falls and the air gets colder When shadows cover the road I am following Am I alone, there in the darkness...
...Among the celebrants are Arthur's restless wife Liz (Leslie Lyles...
...Kevin Chamberlin's Horton Has the onlookers chucklin', applaudin 'andsnortin...
...The casting of Down the Garden Paths is, like the play itself, a family affair...
...Still, the prize for the funniest female—in this musical or any other in this young century—is the deadpan octogenarian Kathleen Freeman, veteran of countless films and sitcoms...
...The Full Monty became the sleeper of the season, and it remained a popular rental film for years afterward...
...Well, his first name was Theodore, last name Geisel But the world thought his books both profound and profuse, When they carried the strange nom de plume, Dr...
...Although Monty focuses on the story of desperate men, the women's roles are well-written and ideally cast...
...These are alleviated by explosively funny exchanges and poignant memories...
...Monty is a euphemism for going all the way, as in Bernard "Monty" Montgomery, the British Field Marshal who refused to countenance halfway measures during World War II...
...The plot seemed unpromising: Suddenly downsized, the workers at a Sheffield steel mill are at emotional and financial ebb...
...But the others can let down their guards with good reason After all, what else is therefor children this season...
...No, notalone, not alone and I'll never be Never alone, you are walking with me...
...They will, in short, do "The Full Monty...
...Many purists, of course, will object to the tampering: To this Seussical nary a one will be scampering...
...In this alternate route, guilt is liberally distributed— every member of the family knows how to play the blame game with maximum injuries all around...
Vol. 84 • January 2001 • No. 1
