A Season Ends (sort of) With Strong Women

It's been over a week since I've posted here. Sorry for the silence. The Drama Desk nomination process is an arduous one that sort of overtook all of my time. But, it's done and I'll admit I'm quite proud of the slate – it's amazing how it gets done at all. Not including festival shows (Fringe, NYMF, etc.) I saw 287 shows in the 12 months since the last nominations were announced. Distilling that many shows, performances and design elements down to six per category is no easy feat. But, it's done, and so, now onto the 'new' season, even as the old winds down.

Speaking of which, there was a flurry of theatergoing for me during all of this, and in three instances, we're talking about, to paraphrase Cryer and Ford, women doing their "strong woman numbers." With these capsule reviews, along with a full review of Frost/Nixon that I'll post on ATW early next week, basically allow me to move forward into the "new" season (at least for Drama Desk purposes) with a relatively clean slate.

I'll start with The Pirate Queen – the new musical over at the Hilton from Les Miz creators Boublil and Schoenberg. Stephanie J. Block is doing some admirable work in this awfully heavy seagoing, almost swashbuckling, musical, but sadly, it never swings fully to life. To their credit, the creators have written some rather grand Elizabethan sounding arias for Queen Elizabeth (Drama Desk nominee Linda Balgord), and in act two when Elizabeth and Block's pirate queen Grace O'Malley square off, the show's rather grand. Also an asset to the show are choreographer Carol Leavy Joyce's Irish dances that are lovely variations of work seen in Riverdance. I'll admit to having had real hopes for this one, and perhaps my expectations were just too high. I left thinking that the writers, with Gary Griffin (director) and Graciela Daniele (musical staging) should have been able to fashion a truly thrilling adventure tale from this obscure piece of British history.

A similar level of female strength, albeit much more contemporary, and infinitely more cutting can be found at the Actors Temple Theatre on 47th Street where J.A.P – The Jewish American Princesses of Comedy is playing. Here Jackie Hoffman, Cory Kahaney, Jessica Kirson and Cathy Ladman each deliver 15 or 20 minutes of their standup routines all the while paying tribute to some of the women who paved the way for them in comedy field: comediennes like Jean Carroll, Betty Walker and Pearl Williams. Before the quartet of women performs, clips of these other women's routines (mostly from old television shows) are projected onto a pair of "Laugh-In"-esque flower mobiles that are a key element of Jo Winiarski's scenic design. It makes for an interesting contrast in what was and is cutting edge in women's humor. I found it hard not to want to see a more direct correlation between the old and new in J.A.P., and although, some of the Jewish flavor of "J.A.P." failed to land with this goy, the show, directed by Dan Fields, is ultimately an affable 90-minutes of standup comedy.

Finally, and in yet, another whiplash-inducing switch of styles and tones, I want to mention the subtle and often riveting performance that Vanessa Redgrave is giving in The Year of Magical Thinking at the Booth Theatre on 45th Street. As Redgrave performs Joan Didion's text – an adaptation of her memoir about her husband and daughter's deaths, Redgrave manages to be simultaneously coolly stoic and deeply emotional. For most of the evening, she sits centerstage in a wooden armchair and as the play progresses, scenic designer Bob Crowley punctuates the shifts in Didion's life with a series of scrims in mottled and muted grays and beiges, which plummet to the stage floor.

So, at least for the Drama Desks, 2006-2007 has ended…there will be second night reviews on ATW of the Broadway shows yet to open in the Tony Award realm of the past year, but for off and off-off-Broadway it's welcome to 2007-2008. (In fact, I've already been to the first show of the new season.)

Until next time,

Andy