Clown Bar 2 at The AllWays Lounge through June 6
If you’re looking for a romantic clown comedy murder mystery musical–and who isn’t these days?!–head to The Twilight Room at The AllWays Lounge for The NOLA Project’s production of Adam Szymkowicz’s Clown Bar 2.
It’s a follow-up to the playwright’s Clown Bar, which NOLA Project produced 10 years ago, and, rather than try to give a synopsis of this zany show, I’ll just quote the press release: “Two years have passed since the events of Clown Bar, and Happy Mahoney – the new clown-crime boss – is missing. Foul play is suspected, so two cops from the ‘beige life’ are enlisted to go deep undercover and solve the mystery.”
That pretty much sums up this arch send-up of all things noir. While Clown Bar 2 keeps threatening to jump the shark, it holds on to a slender thread of logic to provide pure silly fun (although deep existential thoughts get sprinkled in throughout its 75-minute running time).
I’d hate to see a bad production of this slender script but Director Khiry Armstead & his krewe of clowns squeeze every morsel of humor out of it here; wisely, they don’t try to “be” funny but by playing up the tale’s drama they “are” funny. Very.
Jessica Lozano’s Popo is a masterpiece of murderous malignity; her narrow-eyed gaze could instill fear in the heart of any creature.
Keith Claverie carries the burden of the show’s songs (lyrics by Szymkowicz, music by Brandon Scott Grayson) that, under the guidance of ace Musical Director Ronald Joseph, he puts forth with a Weimar era-like world-weariness to marvelously entertaining results. Claverie achieves more with a sigh or a raised eyebrow than many actors do with 10 times the effort. Likewise, Natalie Boyd offers knowing insinuation and ironic innocence in a delicious performance of which I wish only that she had even more stage time.
Keith Claverie and Natalie Boyd in Clown Bar 2 (photo by Dmitriy Pritykin)
The same could be said of Alex Martinez Wallace’s Happy Mahoney; David Sellers as Cliteau, Cliteau, a wacky mime who studied in Paris and spoofs all things of the Marcel Marceau variety; and Kristin Witt, Joe Signorelli & Matthew Thompson in a couple of roles, all done to a T as in “terrific”. Megan Whittle and Benjamin Dougherty complete the cast as those two “beige” cops who begin to feel the pull of clown life and add their own giddy charm to the story.
Shauna Leone’s razzle-dazzly costumes, Leslie Claverie’s wildly imaginative makeup and wigs, and Joan Long’s atmospheric lighting all contribute to the production’s sheer inspired madness.
Preposterous & gonzo, Clown Bar 2 is probably best seen and enjoyed when utterly cocktailed. Given that there’s a bar in the front of the AllWays, that shouldn’t be too difficult to manage. Even stone cold sober, however, you should leave the theater with a big smile on your face.
[Tickets and more information at https://www.nolaproject.com/cb2]
New in New York
There are a number of shows on Broadway worth seeing, though which to attend depends, in part, on what you’re looking for.
If you’re in the mood for pure entertainment, head to the Broadhurst Theatre for BOOP! The Musical which brings Grim Natwick’s ageless 95-year-old cartoon character to life. Jerry Mitchell’s precise direction and old school, exuberant choreography take us from the black & white celluloid world in which Betty works and lives with her lovable Grampy to the technicolor extravagance of NYC where she has adventures galore.
Jasmine Amy Rogers and the cast of BOOP! The Musical (photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)
Bob (Drowsy Chaperone) Martin’s book kinda sorta makes sense until he decides to throw everything at the wall (Love story between cartoon character and real person! Mayoral politics! Romantic reunion between NASA scientist and Grampy! Wheeling and dealing! And lotsa self-affirmation!) and even the flimsiest of logic goes out the window. The songs by David Foster (music) and Susan Birkenhead (lyrics) are all good, none memorable.
But you know what? Those things don’t matter because Mitchell, along with a terrific cast led by the adorable Jasmine Amy Rogers as Betty, keeps the show in constant motion. Aided by Philip S. Rosenberg’s rainbow-hued lighting, Gregg Barnes’ phenomenal costumes in both black’n’white AND color, and the sets by David Rockwell & projections by Finn Ross which whiz us all around NYC, BOOP! turns out to be the ultimate crowd pleaser and, though I wished its book had been more inventive, showing rather than telling us (endlessly) how wonderful Betty Boop is, I found myself succumbing to and thoroughly enjoying the production’s razzmatazz theatricality. [https://boopthemusical.com/]
If you yearn for tunes that you come out of the theater humming, don’t miss Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends (Samuel J. Friedman Theatre through June 29), a revue of the master’s songs. It’s less a show, per se, than a spiffed-up concert; the 15-member cast appears in Jill Parker’s snazzily elegant black evening attire which she occasionally embellishes with only a headpiece or jacket to specify iconic characters (Mama Rose, Sweeney Todd).
Don’t expect narration–there isn’t any, except for a very few words at the start. That’s all well and good for the vast majority of the numbers but, for the occasional obscure song, a little context would’ve been nice; not even the program tells you where they came from (“Live Alone and Like It”? “Loving You”? Huh?)
(And while I’m quibbling, I wish we’d’ve been given something from the dark but brilliant Assassins. Admittedly, however, Old Friends’ songs are all from shows the preeminent producer Cameron Mackintosh has presented; while done on Broadway under the Manhattan Theatre Club’s banner, it’s listed as “Cameron Mackintosh’s production of Sondheim’s Old Friends”.)
If I preferred the second act to the first, it’s not because it was fleeter with about a third less numbers, but because, overall, the songs in it were sharper, more theatrically done; too many in Act One, though beautifully sung, did not fully capture the character(s) from which they had sprung.
That is, until the penultimate song before the intermission when Beth Leavel tore into Company’s “The Ladies Who Lunch” with a volcanic fierceness that magnificently conveyed the lyrics’ subtext of a lifetime of frustration and disappointment and ironic bitterness.
Other highlights came from the two Tony-winning headliners.
Lea (Miss Saigon) Salonga rendered both Rose’s “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” from Gypsy and “The Worst Pies in London” as Sweeney Todd’s Mrs. Lovett, with a determined mien, the former steely, the latter goony; I’d love to see her portray either character in a full production.
Bernadette Peters invoked knowing self-parody as a lead-in to a take on Follies’ “Broadway Baby” by all the female cast members as she’s been a star of the stage since her teenage years. Like Betty Boop, the 77-years-young Peters appears ageless but, at the performance I saw, her voice sounded funny as though she had had some dental surgery that afternoon. Despite that, watching her play the trumpet as the burlesque stripper Mazeppa in Gypsy’s “You Gotta Get a Gimmick” is a memory I shall cherish forever.
(counterclockwise from lower left) Bernadette Peters. Lea Salonga, and the cast of Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends (photo by Matthew Murphy)
The rest of the cast are all pros; how nice to hear the sound of so many polished voices in such numbers as “Sunday” (Sunday in the Park with George), “Side by Side” (Company), and the ever glorious “Tonight Quintet” from West Side Story.
Matthew Bourne’s simple staging allows Sondheim’s genius to be front and center. As it should be. [https://www.manhattantheatreclub.com/shows/24-25-season/stephen-sondheims-old-friends/]
If you prefer a musical of the more dramatic variety head uptown to Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater for Floyd Collins, Adam Guettel’s musical based on the true story from 1925 when Collins, a young man hoping to find a cave in rural Kentucky that he could turn into a tourist attraction, got trapped deep below the earth; the resulting efforts to rescue him turned into a media circus.
First done off-Broadway in 1996, I have fond memories of the 2004 NOCCA production which won 7 Ambie Awards, including Best Musical. As I recalled, Guettel’s score is filled with beautiful music which Bruce Coughlin’s orchestrations bring out to shimmering effect.
The book by Tina Landau, who contributed additional lyrics and directed, allows you to empathize with the characters who just want to find a better life for themselves. Interestingly, the arrival of H.T Carmichael, an engineer with a big company tasked with saving Collins, seems more sinister these days; he means well but, ultimately, displays an authoritarian streak as he decides who can, and cannot, get close to the rescue efforts.
Jeremy Jordan makes for an ebullient Collins full of youthful high spirits and big dreams The rest of the cast all provide just-right characterizations, as Landau’s staging cinematically achieves scenes varying between up-close and panoramic.
Jeremy Jordan in Floyd Collins (photo by Joan Marcus)
I just wish Guettel, grandson of legendary Broadway composer Richard Rodgers, could’ve written one (or two or three) memorable melodies that we would’ve emerged from the theater humming. Like his grandfather (and Sondheim) did. [https://www.lct.org/shows/floyd-collins/]
I’ll be covering some highlights of the museum scene in a future column, but among them are “Fred W. McDarrah: Pride and Protest” at The New York Historical; “Ben Shahn, On Nonconformity” at The Jewish Museum; and both “Sargent and Paris” and “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” at The Met Fifth Avenue.
