Kingdom of Earth at Loyola’s Marquette Theatre through March 24
Through March 24, at Loyola’s Marquette Theatre, The Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans (TWTC) is revisiting the first script they produced back in 2015, 1968’s Kingdom of Earth from Williams’ later period, a tale of the Mississippi Delta filled with love, lust, familial rivalries and other such staples of the Williams canon.
Some aspects of the play I feel the same about as I did 9 years ago, others not. One thing I do still believe is that Kingdom does not fully merit its 2½ hour running time; an earlier one-act version might have been sufficient. Or I wish the TWTC-ers had done what they did for last year’s sublime production of Spring Storm, which was to trim, with exquisite precision, all but the most necessary meat from the script’s bones.
Regardless, in the name of practicing what I preach, I shall be brief.
–Not surprisingly, in the past nine years, Augustin J Correro, TWTC’s Co-Artistic Director and the director of Kingdom of Earth, has grown as an artist. He has now gotten all of the play’s rhythms just right, shaping the production with a pace that accentuates the text. His staging now has an organic flow. Working with Diane K. Bass, whose lighting is topnotch as always, scenes begin and end with the proper punctuation. If he still takes a more or less naturalistic approach, he imbues it with the simmering boil of a horror movie or the disorienting hyperreality of a fever dream.
–Scenic designer Mina Perkins’ set is suitably cluttered as befits a lived-in, decaying mansion. Unlike the set of nine years ago, however, it is not unintentionally cluttered which had made for challenging sightlines.
–The soundscape that Nick Shackleford, TWTC’s Co-Artistic Director, has created adds a perfectly calibrated ominous undertone to the proceedings, enriching the production without overwhelming it. Sound designers do not always get duly recognized; Shackleford has done consistently fine work for many seasons and deserves his own round of applause.
–Rebecca Elizabeth Hollingsworth gives Myrtle, a former showgirl/burlesque queen and the newly wed wife of Lot, the mansion’s owner, a variety of shadings, never overplaying Williams’ lyrical prose, never falling into caricature; coarse, motherly, sweet, and tough are just some of Myrtle’s qualities that Hollingsworth brings out. Sexy, yes, but of the voluptuous kind that emanates from her naturally, there’s nothing cheap or garish about this Myrtle who finds herself caught in the unenviable position between two rivals who happen to be half-brothers. What I especially liked about Hollingsworth’s performance is that she keeps an audience guessing as to whether Myrtle is “playing dumb” or really is; I suspect it’s a combination of both which shifts throughout the drama.
–As the effete, piss-elegant Lot, Benjamin Dougherty can steal a scene just by lighting a cigarette. Alternately snarky, pissy and bitchy (these may seem synonymous but each works on a slightly different tonal level), Dougherty makes Myrtle’s observation “You got a mother complex” entirely understandable. Excellent as Dougherty is, one might’ve wished he had added a pinch of camp-ish pizzaz just to liven up this somewhat dour Lot, especially in the second act when Williams restricts him to his bedroom until his final metamorphosis. Still, by making Lot exceedingly self-aware, Dougherty allows us to admire this “impotent, one-lunged, sissy with one foot in the grave” as it’s revealed that there might’ve been a decent motivation for his machinations.
–Edward Carter Simon gives dignity and intelligence to Chicken, Lot’s half-brother whose mother was “dark-complected” unlike Lot’s mother who was white. Like Hollingsworth’s Myrtle, Simon’s Chicken is coarse but in a different way, earthy vs. unrefined. Simon causes one to wonder how much more his Chicken might’ve achieved if he had had the same advantages as Lot. One might’ve asked Simon to ratchet up, just a bit, Chicken’s potential for violence if only to heighten the dramatic tension, but otherwise this is a memorable performance that balances brutishness with a keen evocation of self-worth.
Benjamin Dougherty, Rebecca Elizabeth Hollingsworth, and Edward Carter Simon in Kingdom of Earth (photo by James Kelley)
–As for the play itself, less might have been more. As mentioned, some judicious trimming might have helped but by this point in his career Williams was recycling themes and characters; Myrtle sometimes seems like an admixture of Maggie and Blanche and Maxine. As Clive Barnes wrote, in his New York Times review of the original Broadway production, “the suspicion arises that Mr. Williams is writing a parody of Mr. Williams.” (Despite the ensemble’s best efforts, there were a few moments when I couldn’t help imagining I was watching a Carol Burnett parody of a Tennessee Williams play with Harvey Korean as Lot, Lyle Waggoner as Chicken, and Burnett as Myrtle.)
Still, this is an eminently watchable, well-nigh flawless production. If you’re in the mood for a Southern Gothic saga, don’t miss it.
[For tickets and more information, go to https://www.twtheatrenola.com/]
Beautiful, The Carole King Musical at Le Petit through April 7
I had enjoyed the jukebox bio-musical Beautiful, which tells Carole King’s life story, when it played the Saenger seven years ago. If you missed it then, or want to see it again, head to Le Petit for a production that may be smaller in scale but nearly good enough to be on Broadway.
To be sure, like that other long-running jukebox bio-musical Jersey Boys, Beautiful can feel like a Wikipedia page come to singing life. But as we learn about King’s meteoric rise as a songwriter, starting when she was still just a teenager, Douglas McGrath’s book infuses the real life characters (including King’s song-writing partner and husband Gerry Goffin as well as their Brill Building colleagues Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil) with humor and some depth. Mercifully, this Tony-nominated scenario remains interesting and well-done throughout as it details the human interactions among its four imperfect subjects who just happen to be successful songwriters.
And how can you complain with all those great songs! Will You Love Me Tomorrow, Up on the Roof, One Fine Day, all by Goffin and King. You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling from the Mann/Weil catalogue. From Tapestry, King’s multi-Grammy-winning album, So Far Away, It’s Too Late, and You’ve Got a Friend. Plus many more.
Director/choreographer Jauné Buisson’s first-rate production keeps the action moving despite numerous scene changes. Buisson knows how to build a scene and adds nice touches along the way. Beautiful is not a dance-heavy musical, but Buisson recreates the period moves with utter stylishness as one would expect from this award-winning dancemaker.
One thing that I thought this production was even better at than the touring version was its dramatization of King & Co.’s creative processes which wasn’t entirely clear at the Saenger. Here it’s portrayed as some alchemical mixture of inspiration and hard work.
As Carole King, Melissa Campbell radiates a perfect down-to-earthiness salted with NYC neuroticism; she also conveys King’s drive to express herself coupled with a boundless determination to succeed. Campbell is so good, in both her singing and her acting, that at one point I wrote down in my program “Has she done this [role] before?” Nope. Be prepared to say, one fine day, “I saw her when…”
Melissa Campbell in Beautiful, The Carole King Musical
The entire rest of the cast, including Stephanie Toups Abry as a sassy Cynthia Weil, brought energy and showbiz style to their portrayals of a variety of people in King’s life and the groups who recorded her songs in the 1950s and ’60s. If they weren’t quite as jaw-droppingly wonderful as Campbell, having seen Beautiful its first weekend, I suspect they were still growing into their roles and, already quite lovely, should be even better by now.
Kathleen van Horn’s terrific costumes and Laurn Hart’s fantastic wigs and hair design keenly chart, with believable precision, the changes in styles over the years, not only, as expected, for the women, but for the men as well. Jefferson Turner’s musical direction soars to up-on-the-roof heights as always.
Call me old-fashioned but I generally prefer my musicals to take me to uncharted lands populated by such characters as Laurey & Curly, Tony & Maria, Eliza & Henry, Tevye & Goldie, Claude & Berger, etc. But when a jukebox bio-musical is done as well as Beautiful at Le Petit, real life folks are, well, beautiful.
[More information and tickets at https://www.lepetittheatre.com/]
Ain’t Too Proud at the Saenger Theatre
Speaking of jukebox bio-musicals, Ain’t Too Proud, subtitled The Life and Times of The Temptations, recently played the Saenger.
The cast’s singing was great. The dancing (choreography by Sergio Trujillo) was great. And, of course, the songs themselves (My Girl, Get Ready, Ain’t Too Proud to Beg, I Wish It Would Rain, I Can’t Get Next to You, Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me), Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone, etc.) were great.
(l.–r.) Harrell Holmes Jr., Jalen Harris, Elijah Ahmad Lewis, E. Clayton Cornelious, Michael Andreaus in Ain’t Too Proud (photo by Emilio Madrid)
Dominique Morisseau’s book, however, was not great. Interesting? Yes. Emotionally involving? No as it had Otis Williams (Michael Andreaus), the one surviving member of the original line-up, for long stretches simply addressing the audience in a simplistic, Wiki-esque, drama-free fashion. Of all the approaches Morisseau could’ve taken for telling this vital American story, she opted for the least compelling one–chronological narrative.
Maybe it’s just my imagination, but such is the history of the Temptations, filled with personal and professional rivalries and challenges, that any five minutes of Ain’t Too Proud could easily have been expanded and fueled a play of its own. And I ain’t too proud to beg (and hope) that maybe some day somebody will do just that.
[Next up at the Saenger are two musicals for kids of all ages, Annie (Apr. 5-7) and Shrek The Musical (Apr. 19-21). More info at https://www.saengernola.com/events/]
Golden Girls: The Laughs Continue at the Saenger Theatre
When I heard that a drag version of The Golden Girls would be coming to the Saenger I arranged to see it because, hey, I love those Girls–who doesn’t?
That said, reading the synopsis, gave me pause: “Picture it. United States, 2024. We find Sophia out on bail after being busted by the DEA for running a drug ring for retirees. Blanche and Rose have founded CreakN, a thriving sex app for seniors. And Dorothy is trying to hold it all together with help from a new (much) younger sex-crazed lover.”
Hmmm…
While I hoped Golden Girls: The Laughs Continue would be fab, I feared the worst, that it would just be silly and not very funny, merely cashing in on our collective memories of the beloved sitcom.
Fortunately, my fears were unfounded. Silly? Yes, Unfunny? No. And taken on its own terms, a very entertaining evening.
Confidently written by Robert Leleux, the plot does follow the above description. Preposterous? Yes, but, within the world that Leleux creates, it all makes sense, more or less, and stays true to the characters with all plot points tidied up within a just right two-hour run time.
Broadly done? Very, with seemingly an operating principle of “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing twice.” Leleux may not have thrown in the kitchen sink, but he tosses in just about everything else. So we get Cher impressions, references to Mary Tyler Moore and Maude, bad puns (“Surrender Dorothy” and “Chanel Over 65″), an LSD-fueled sequence in which two Roses appear, a rendition of Gypsy’s Everything’s Coming Up Roses, audience interaction, and sex jokes, lotsa sex jokes (Sofia re Dorothy: “It’s not usual for a Sicilian woman who isn’t a nun to go so long without sex.”).
At times, the show is even educational. When the ladies spoke about their sex app, they brought up such acronyms as “BBC” and “CBT”; while I was aware of those, I had to look up “FMLTWIA”. #learnsomethingneweveryday
Best of all was that Leleux tailored his script to NOLA so mentions of crawfish, muffulettas, and beignets were organically worked into the script. The audience understandably ate it all up.
Eric Swanson directed with panache, never letting the momentum flag which might’ve allowed the audience to think too hard about the absurdity of the shenanigans on stage.
If Ryan Bernier as Dorothy sounded the closest to his TV prototype, Vince Kelley (Blanche), Adam Graber (Rose), and Christopher Kamm (Sophia) all did their Girls justice, well-knowing how to get laughs while always staying in character. Jason Bowen appealingly played the two men in their lives.
(clockwise from upper left) Ryan Bernier, Vince Kelley, Adam Graber, and Christopher Kamm in Golden Girls: The Laughs Continue (photo by Murray and Peter Present)
At one point towards the start of the show, there were some slight technical difficulties and one of the actors said, as he dashed offstage, “I gotta go fix my microphone.” There was ad-libbing till he returned a few moments later and the show continued.
I’m still not sure if there really was a problem with the mic or if it was just something to get us in the anything-could-happen mood of the show. Whatever the explanation, that moment, and the rest of the evening, were golden.
[Upcoming events at the Saenger include Nobel Prize-winner Bob Dylan’s “Rough and Rowdy Ways” Tour on April 1; Disney Princess: The Concert in which larger-than-life animation and theatrical effects add to classic songs from Disney movies performed by a cast of Broadway veterans on April 4; and NOLA’s own Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue’s Treme Threauxdown 8 on April 27. More on these and other events at https://www.saengernola.com/events/]