On Stage
KANFER, ETHAN
On Stage Foibles of the Grand and Humble By Ethan Kanfer IN its early years rock music was considered as perishable as last week's produce. Detractors dismissed it as a passing fad, and...
...Before things get too somber, more wonders are discovered in the old theater...
...they tell the whole world what a bad mother she was...
...McNally's dialogue is fresh and spontaneous, with grand philosophical issues bumping up against humbling human foibles...
...John attends art college, where he neglects his studies and spends most of his time with his girlfriend Cynthia (Murney) or playing music with Paul and their new band...
...Never having been a bachelor, he enjoys knocking around the club scene with the party boys of LA's music industry...
...Their rapport leads to an affair, and Gabriel decides to tell Paul the truth...
...He is balanced by Sloan, whose expressive face is reminiscent of the old silent comedians...
...The female couple fares better...
...It is his birthday, and Jessie has found the ultimate surprise...
...he makes a game yet hardly stealthy accomplice...
...Paul's dissertation raises academic hackles, but sells well...
...She has been having an affair with virile Arnold...
...It turns out Ida's pregnant, and scared she might not be able to give her own child a better life than the one she knew growing up...
...The cast is diverse: black, white, male, female, ranging in age from 20somefhings to 50somethings...
...As the play closes, the dream has become a nightmare...
...Stage portrayals of living people require their cooperation...
...He is tired of sharing her, and wants her to leave Lou...
...This time the couple is able to achieve happiness...
...If Paul and Gabriel can make a go of it, why can't they...
...Willard tells her own tragic story...
...Music becomes a secondary pursuit, as Lennon focuses on nurturing the baby...
...The phases of his career mirrored the Odyssey of the baby boomers, from youthful rebellion to political activism, spiritual meandering, psychological self-exploration, and finally sobriety and parenthood...
...Certainly his music is not well served in this presentation...
...Also on hand is Ida's boyfriend, Toby (Darren Pettie), who despite his grungy appearance proves to be a Shakespeare buff...
...Fraser's Jessie is likable, but would have benefited from greater breadth...
...John meets gallery artist Yoko Ono (multiple actors) and they fall in love...
...Lou, dressed as a bunny rabbit, sits on a toadstool awaiting his cue...
...He also has fun at the expense of Corey's naive new friend Gabriel (Christopher Sloan...
...Arnold's best efforts can't bring him back on script...
...With its simple scenes and abundance of parts for young performers, Lennon will doubtless have a second life in many a high school drama club...
...After they befriend radical Jerry Rubin, John's lyrics become highly political...
...They have a son, Sean, and John is able to complete the immigration process...
...Back east, Yoko receives urgent phone calls from record execs wanting to know when Lennon plans to get back to work...
...Efforts at reconciliation were tragically cut short by John's death...
...The device backfires as the deification rings false, and changing lead actors every 10 minutes does nothing to remedy the choppiness of the collage-like narrative...
...The act ends with flower children dancing up the aisles chanting the legendary "Give Peace a Chance...
...Willard enters with her driver (R.E...
...A screen descends from the rafters and a clip is projected of John at the piano with Yoko...
...The cast sings "Imagine," Lennon's soothing plea for peace and unity...
...Lou pleads with Mrs...
...Their bliss is cut brutally short when John is shot four times in front ofhis Manhattan home...
...Born during World War II, John is abandoned by his parents andraisedby his Aunt Mimi (Julia Murney...
...Arnold Chalk (Michael Countryman), an even-tempered Englishman who handles the technical end of Captain Lou and Miss Jessie's productions, is also mesmerized by the mountains of historic bric-a-brac...
...Kegan wants to share a home with Elsa...
...citizenship is denied...
...All of this was chronicled in Lennon's music, which forms the basis of a new "jukebox" musical at the Broadhurst Theater...
...A year later they throw a drag party that all their friends attend...
...John attracts controversy when he quips that the Beatles "mean more to kids than Jesus...
...There, not on Broadway, is where it belongs...
...To be fair, some events and relationships may have been off limits for legal reasons...
...Whitthorne shows the tender and vindictive sides of articulate, volatile Paul...
...Mrs...
...The message seems to be: John is everyone, and everyone is John...
...This reverie is cut short by the intrusion of a shadowy figure in the balcony...
...Using narration and projected slides, Act I fast-forwards through Lennon's early life...
...Fisher's buoyant and poignant script, it should be noted, has universal appeal (although four coming out stories in one play is a bit much...
...Seldes adds a sympathetic dimension to her villainous widow's role with a chillingly accurate portrayal of a degenerative illness...
...As the stranger struts down the aisle, Lou recognizes rock diva Ida Head (Miriam Shor...
...Paul senses competition, and his behavior worsens...
...It is a high price to pay for a dream, and Lou seeks Jessie's counsel...
...Here Julian is mentioned only in passing...
...Willard only insults her...
...The new music from America becomes his refuge and he befriends the most promising guitar player in the neighborhood, Paul McCartney, a role also shared by multiple actors...
...The subsequent sexual encounters are handled both inventively and tastefully...
...Pettie's Toby and Countryman's Arnold share a delightful bond as the unsung heroes whose technical know-how makes illusion reality...
...Willard, telling her Lou has cancer of the larynx and does not have long to live...
...The old widow relents, provided Lou is willing to meet her conditions...
...She, too, has listened to Lou's soliloquy and the imagery touches something in her own past...
...Yoko ignores them, needing time to nurse her own bruised feelings...
...Although Lou is a bit uncomfortable about having to feign the disease, nothing can dampen his enthusiasm as he explores the musty wonderland...
...He believes he can substantiate the theory that Jesus was gay, but with little university support he has to work overtime...
...Unbeknown to her husband, she killed the child...
...Like the collective psyche it houses, the old theater is fraught with mortal dangers too...
...Meanwhile, the boys in the band are drifting apart...
...Detractors dismissed it as a passing fad, and its most rabid enthusiasts were quick to trade in one idol for another as fashions changed...
...Old age (30 plus) was considered a disadvantage in a youth-driven marketplace...
...A cancer sufferer herself, she agreed to grant the dying man his last wish...
...Events take their toll on Lennon's personal life...
...He wants to create an empowering place for children, to inspire them and teach them good values...
...David Kaley's costumes help to establish the time and place, and Wilson Chin's set captures the romantic atmosphere of San Francisco with a starlit silhouette of the skyline...
...The family enjoys New York's casual attitude toward celebrities and feels comfortable going out in public...
...Willard...
...In time, manager Brian Epstein (Terrence Mann) discovers the lads and cleans up their image...
...But Lennon's solo writing is simply not as strong as his work with the Beatles...
...He becomes a tyrant, insulting the guests and justifying his bad behavior with political diatribes...
...Soon the Beatles are off to Hamburg, Germany, where they play nightclubs and develop a cult following...
...Lane, a longtime McNally collaborator, discards the cute persona of his musical comedy work and gives a sensitive, brooding performance as Lou...
...Gabriel insists he's straight, but Paul's "gaydar" tells him otherwise...
...Even attaining permission to enter it took determination and cunning...
...Testing the device on a mop, Toby is appalled to find that it actually works...
...Gabriel begins to spend more and more time with Darryl...
...JOHN Fisher's Joy, at the Actors' Playhouse, is a brisk cocktail of witty dialogue, mime, dance, and cabaret...
...The Beatles' breakup is reduced to a single scene in which John argues for artistic integrity while a conniving Paul merely wants to sell as many records as possible...
...Even so, fans deserve something more substantial than this Yokocentric treacle...
...Eventually, she attends a concert where John is performing with rising star Elton John...
...The moral thing to do is to turn the building over to true artists...
...Commitmentshy Elsa finally agrees to move in with Kegan when she finds a loft big enough for them to each "have their space...
...When the pain of her ailment becomes more than she can bear, she wants Lou to kill her...
...A mentor coaxed him out of the closet, schooled him well, then watched as Paul left...
...And his characters are so layered and engaging that Dedication is a rarity among contemporary dramas, a play that does not seem long enough...
...Alone with Lou after he accepts her conditions, Mrs...
...But the four members of the Beatles defied expectations by remaining significant even after the band broke up...
...Ironically, the real thing serves to emphasize how little of John Lennon Lennon has to offer...
...The finale takes place in the splendidly restored theater...
...Complications arise as Cynthia's accidental pregnancy prompts a hasty wedding...
...While he and Jessie continue exploring, Lou takes the stage alone and addresses an audience of imaginary kids...
...In the end, he remains alone...
...She had a baby who was born with a rare spinal disorder and destined never to grow up properly...
...The building, however, belongs to mean old Annabelle Willard (Marian Séides), a miserly widow...
...Further tension is added by Paul's heavy consumption of alcohol...
...Yoko and Sean cope with their grief amid the inevitable swarm of reporters...
...The party's sole saving grace is Darryl (Michael Busillo), Elsa's disarmingly sincere friend, who shows up in an ROTC uniform...
...But she has her own quandary...
...Like the older folks, the young rockers fall in love with the space, visualizing a powerhouse concert they could put on there...
...Unfortunately, the kid gloves worn by writer/director Don Scardino make Lennon ? far less honest evening than its title suggests...
...When she declares that her own time has come, Lou places a pillow over Annabelle's face and holds it there until her reflexive flailing ceases...
...The stuff of dreams remains in the gene pool...
...This grand old venue would be perfect for them, if it could only be restored...
...Single again...
...Ida remembers a painful childhood, with Jessie doing little to heal the wounds created by a father who did not care to stick around...
...The relationships blossom, and Paul and Gabriel move in together...
...Aware of the affair, Lou confronts Arnold and implores Jessie to make a decision...
...Those judging the show on its own terms will see little beyond an attractive cast dancing to the golden oldies...
...Ida catches the two together, and she and Jessie finally have their version of a heart-to-heart talk...
...When it turns out that Elsa's best friend is Gabriel, he is asked to aid in the spying...
...It is a secret she has never shared with anyone else...
...Ida is Jessie's daughter, fresh out of rehab and hungry to reconnect with her mother...
...Afraid to make the first move, she enlists Paul's help to gather information furtively...
...Most endearing is Kegan, who drops her feminist bluster and becomes awkwardly vulnerable in Elsa's arms...
...To begin with, the problem of casting the title role is solved by simply having each of the cast's nine actors alternately play Lennon...
...Paul (Paul Whitthorne) is deep into his graduate dissertation...
...It won't be an easy task...
...Only on stage can they create order...
...The dialogue allows the audience to fill in the details...
...More cruelly, John's son by his first marriage is missing almost entirely...
...Lennon the man is also sketched very superficially here...
...Her first request is a simple one: "Twirl for me...
...When the lights come up, Lou is indeed awestruck...
...All the bodies are covered by blankets as the lights cross fade from one same-sex couple to the other...
...Even stuffy Corey, accompanied by Christian, dons a Biblical dress for the occasion...
...Although the committed cast does its best, much is lost in translation...
...Their messy, compromised personal lives will never be fully sorted out...
...Taking a break, he stops at a café where he bumps into his graduate adviser Corey (Ken Barnett...
...Forgetting his lines, Lou begins rambling...
...The assassination is handled with tact: A cop (Cooper) who was the last person to see Lennon alive simply reports the details...
...The FBI compiles a file on the singer-turned-activist, and John's request for US...
...THE HERO of Terrence McNally's Dedication or The Stuff of Dreams, which premiered last summer at the Williamstown Theater Festival, is not a person but aplace and its myriad possibilities...
...For the play's Manhattan debut—a limited engagement ending October 2—set designer Narelle Sissons transformed the main stage of Primary Stages into a dilapidated vaudeville house that was once glorious...
...Under Ben Rimalower's direction, the ensemble is uniformly strong, especially the two leads...
...Epstein's suicide proves the final straw...
...In Act II Lennon finally begins to feel like a play, as conflicts arise between Yoko and John...
...Joy, for him, is a bittersweet memory...
...The comically surly Shor's Ida overpowers Jessie in some of their exchanges...
...She sees the hurt behind his bravado and decides to give him a second chance...
...Captain Lou and Miss Jessie, as they are professionally known, have strutted and fretted for years in a tiny children's theater at the local mall...
...English to the end, Arnold swallows his disappointment and gets back to work...
...The real Julian Lennon spoke of a strained relationship with an absent father who preached a message of love yet abandoned his own flesh and blood...
...Although she suspects Lou of having had infidelities of his own, she still chooses him over Arnold...
...As the curtain rises on total darkness, the voices of Lou Nuncle (Nathan Lane) and his girlfriend Jessie (Alison Fraser) reveal that she has brought him here blindfolded...
...When he was a boy, Lou says, he assumed different poses before a mirror in his mother's finery, and at that moment his theatrical ambition was born...
...The second requirement is far more daunting...
...When they break up, John and Yoko start making their own records...
...Jessie tries to be encouraging, yet can hardly profess to have all the answers...
...Yoko sends him packing and he moves to Los Angeles...
...They even sing duets together at a university fundraiser...
...With no voice of reason to guide them, the Beatles bicker in the studio and run dry of inspiration...
...Jessie fibbed to Mrs...
...The fun quickly turns sour, though, as Kegan and Elsa bicker...
...The two have a grudging mutual admiration...
...Her doctor will sign the necessary papers, and only Lou will know what really happened...
...Ida offers to buy the place, but Mrs...
...He is bright and creative, but has trouble fitting into socially rigid Liverpool...
...John Lennon, especially, continued to mature in the public eye until his shocking murder in 1980...
...For all his dedication, Lou is reduced to a grotesque manchild, twirling and twirling in his personal hell...
...Like most rock, his own songs derive their power from confessional displays of emotion rather than from solid musical construction...
...reclining in pajamas, they invite the press to interview them...
...Rodgers), and the negotiations begin...
...Director Michael Morris holds this multigenerational ensemble together, and ably steers the action from farce to horror...
...Soon they are making hit records Ed Sullivan (Chuck Cooper) introduces the Fab Four to American viewers and Beatlemania ensues...
...John literally sheds his image as a Beatle by posing nude with Yoko on the cover of Double Fantasy...
...Jessie feels indicted by Ida's lyrics...
...His using the magic of theater to evoke our appreciation of the theater's magic is an inspired example of the objective correlative...
...Corey owes much of his success to having stayed in the closet, and Paul enjoys poking at his straight façade...
...The couple then stages a "bed-in" to protest the Vietnam War...
...Willard's face...
...Toby finds a guillotine, and he and Ida fantasize about using it in their show...
...Listening to the breakup speech, Paul is reminded ofhis first gay experience...
...Had Ida stuck her head in, she would have lost it...
...Before long Kegan, who has never had an encounter with another woman, finds herself eying Elsa (Ryan Kelly), a mysterious dance major new to the campus...
...he and Cynthia split...
...But when the fairy godmother turns to him, she has Mrs...
...At a New York soiree, John gives in to the advances of another woman...
...Present as well are Kegan (January LaVoy), a militant women's studies professor, and her hunky, slow-witted paramour Christian (Ben Curtis...
...Scardino maintains that "the songs were chosen from [John's] solo catalogue, because I wanted the musical storytelling to be from John's viewpoint alone...
Vol. 88 • September 2005 • No. 5
