Revival Meetings: ANYTHING GOES, HAIR, and FOLLIES
Revivals pose a unique set of challenges to those who stage them, and a unique set of questions to be considered by a contemporary audience. But great shows get invited back.
Just the Songs (and Dance), Ma’am: SMOKEY JOE’S CAFE at Toby’s
The songbook of Jerry Leiber (1933-2011) and Mike Stoller (1933- ) is a natural for jukebox musical treatment, because it encompasses such variety that it requires little by way of setting to stay interesting. You don’t need a plot, you don’t need performers to talk or act, all you need is a band, some choreography and costumes, and some great singer/dancers, and you’re there.
The Joint is Jumpin’ at Spotlighters with AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’
A youthful cast, showcasing a number of talents from Morgan State University, brings out Waller’s exuberance and his ambivalence.
Shall We Dance and Think About Privilege and Race? THE KING AND I at Toby’s
Rodgers and Hammerstein designed the ending to reduce you to tears, and they knew what they were doing. Resist, even at this excellent revival,and think about the conundrums of race, class and gender that that lie just beneath the surface.
Whether to Re-Up on Marriage – FIFTY WORDS at Everyman
As playwright Michael Weller intelligently conveys, except in the most empty marriages, no matter what the parties may have done to each other, there are still ties of love holding them together. In living through these crises, then, both forces, the centripetal and the centrifugal, must have a part. To the observer, it might seem laughably incoherent, but actually it is just the way things are at such moments.
The MET’s American Buffalo: Worth An Antique Nickel
These are small-timers, and what makes their souls as small as their business, I think, is America itself, a place where there is no state religion nor any religion or code of ethics at all which anyone is required to internalize. Here you are free to be a scheming psychopath while talking a blue streak; no one will stop you. And while Mamet is clearly pointing out how amusing people who do this can be, I do not see much evidence he thinks we can learn much from them; the encounter is all. Fortunately, it is enough.
About Jack Gohn
I lived in London and Vienna before coming to the United States, and grew up mainly in Ann Arbor. I was writing plays and stories as early as grade school. My undergraduate years at the University of Pennsylvania, where I first reviewed theater, for the college paper, were succeeded by graduate study at the Johns Hopkins University, where I earned a doctorate in English Literature.