Review: 'Evita' Returns To Broadway at the Marquis Theatre

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Ricky Martin (front) with Michael Ceveris and Elena Roger (on the
balcony) star in 'Evita'.
(production photos except where noted: Richard T. Ermine)

One of the most anticipated productions of the season, ‘Evita’ represents the first Broadway revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s musical about Eva Peron since its New York premiere over 30 years ago that made stage stars of Patti Lupone and Mandy Patinkin. The show also represents the debut of singer Ricky Martin as a leading player and name-above-the-title star.

The musical chronicles Eva Peron’s life from the Argentine slums to the presidential palace as the country’s first lady. She knew what she wanted and used her smarts, charisma and many men at her will to achieve the adoration and lavish style for which she yearned. As wife of president and military leader Juan Peron, Eva cemented her role as one of the most popular and powerful women in Latin America. The character Che is shown in various roles participating or observing moments of her life.

The revival is reputed to be an authentic Latin production with Martin in the role of Che, the show’s narrator, and Argentine actress Elena Roger who is reprising the role of Eva Peron after much acclaim in the 2006 London revival. Sad to say the actress has not traveled well across the Atlantic (or to twist a line from the musical should it be said “that the actress has not learned the lines the way we like them sung”). Her accent was a given but numerous off-key notes at tonight’s performance had many in the audience shaking their heads. I saw Roger perform the role twice in London and she absolutely sounded far better there than she did in this evening’s show.
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Elena Roger

Michael Cerveris and Elena Roger

But what remains is an actress who is braving the criticism for six shows a week (as had been accustomed for the part, an alternate plays the role twice a week) as if she is just fulfilling a contract, careless of what others think and overshadowed by her male co-stars. The latter statement can be taken literally as her tiny figure is threatened to be swallowed up by the majestic sets by Christopher Oram.

It should be said that Roger is a great dancer as evidenced in “Buenos Aires” where she powerfully leads the ensemble in Eva’s introduction to the Argentine capital. But could it be her voice has fared for the worse over the years? In the more plaintive numbers such as ‘High Flying, Adored,’ ‘I Would Be Surprising Good For You’ and the anthem ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina,’ Roger’s voice recalls notes that soared when she played the role in London. Even Lupone had a tough time at making “A New Argentina” sound beautiful on the American Premiere Cast recording but Roger’s vocals suffers a similar fate becoming loud and tinny in the number making her sound like a cousin of Minnie Mouse.

Ricky Martin’s only prior Broadway credit was one of the many actors to play the supporting role of Marius during the 16-year New York run of ‘Les Miserables.’ There is no denying that Martin is a charming presence on stage. Unfortunately Martin fails to seize the role as a commentator and critic of the Perons and becomes merely a happy bystander.

Martin flashes smiles and grins whenever possible with nary a hair on his head out of place wearing a costume that fits his handsome build to a tee. But the biggest disappointment is the fire that Martin has displays in his recordings (e.g. “La Copa de la Vida”) does not materialize here. Instead it appears he is intent on enunciating the lyrics as best as possible to the point that any trace of his Spanish accent is pushed aside. But frankly Martin looks so good on stage that one just yearns for him to push his limits so that he can fully embody the role.
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Elena Roger and the company of 'Evita'.

Max Von Essen and Elen Roger.

A hint of anger in “And the Money Kept Rolling” and aversion in “Oh What A Circus” could have sparked some fireworks that is brewing just beneath Martin’s performance. Martin and Roger probably fare best in the “Waltz for Eva and Che.” Something is there that buoys the downbeat latter half of the second act.

A large blame for the lackluster performances goes to director Michael Grandage who spectacularly directed the show’s London revival in 2006 and repeats the duties on Broadway. It’s as if somewhere during the New York rehearsal process, he lost control of his two leads. Roger and Martin needed a firm directorial hand to mold their performances.

What is a shame is the critical drubbing of the stars has reignited the criticism of the through-sung score. Lloyd Webber and Rice were in their early thirties when the show premiered in London. They took a subject that few would guess to be material for a musical. Lloyd Webber infused Latin touches in a score that was tuneful, memorable and accessible. The lyrics by Rice were quite often creative with unique rhymes (e.g. paring “Lauren Bacall me” with “Christian Dior Me”) and wrote the musical’s book that highlights the life of Argentina’s beloved first lady.

At that point in the team’s career ‘Evita’ is quite an accomplishment. Their only prior Broadway credit at the time was ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’. Though they had already composed ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,’ that show would not arrive on the main stem debut until a couple of years after ‘Evita’.
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Elena Roger and Michael Cerveris.

Ricky Martin and Elena Roger.
(photo: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)

Lloyd Webber and David Cullen rethought the original orchestrations for London producing a richer sound to the show. However a heavy hand in the musical direction at tonight’s show reduced some of the numbers to a lugubrious meter most obvious in the songs performed by Martin. It’s a wonder if this was a choice to accommodate the actor.

The rumor in the auditorium before tonight’s show is Michael Ceveris who stars as Juan Peron was severely delayed for a flight back to New York. Alas he didn’t make it and his understudy (Bradley Dean) played the role if ably though not remarkably. But something has to be said about the professionalism of the company in performing the through-sung score. During the ‘Rainbow Tour’ number Dean missed a lyric. The conductor repeated the musical cue, Martin picked up on the direction and repeated his last bit of sung lines and Dean was able to deliver the missed lines.

Also missing tonight is Max Von Essen as Magaldi. The talk is he is preparing to take over the role of Che for Martin’s planned vacation next week. Matt Wall does what he can do with the small role.

What is Roger’s poor reception this evening to her erratic vocals is Rachel Potter’s triumph as Peron’s mistress. Her dulcet tones in singing “Another Suitcase In Another Hall” is a welcome relief of pure and simple vocals. It’s a wonderful moment in the show.
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Elena Roger (center) and the company of 'Evita'.

Elena Roger and Ricky Martin

What is there to absolutely enjoy about the production? Start with the fantastic ensemble that embodies the people of Argentina and take the challenge of fulfilling Rob Ashford’s thrilling choreography. Even Peron and the Argentine military officers get a workout as they fight for leadership in take on the tango.

Oram repeats design duties and creates a set that matches its operatic subject. Three grand buildings surround the central stage. They move in and out or become shrouded to become the stately interior of the presidential palace. The structures are revealed when Eva arrives in Buenos Aires to opening chords that is some of Lloyd Webber’s most exciting music capturing the vibrancy of the metropolis. This main set offers a sense of depth beyond these main buildings to not only see palm trees in the distance but other structures beyond. The designs for the rundown club in one of the first scenes gives a feel of a rundown rural Argentina town.

The subdued palate of the set is matched by the similar hues in costumes that rely on Neil Austin’s lighting work to highlight the designs. Even Eva’s array of fashionable looks keeps within these color tones. Her striking iconic ball gown for the balcony on the Casa Rosada just has a touch of sparkle through crystal beads.
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Ricky Martin (standing, center) with
Elena Roger and Michael Cerveris (seated).

Michael Cerveris (center)

Some of Grandage’s work still impresses here as it did in London. Capturing the epic scope of the play especially in Evita’s “Rainbow Tour” of Europe, he shows what can be done to capture a quickly changing local of each city aided by luggage props and massive banners of the various countries flags as they unfurl with a thunder combined with the uncluttered musical staging by Ashford.

Without seeing Ceveris and Von Essen in the proper roles, it would be hard to comment on the production as it was meant to be seen on opening night. With the shortcomings of Roger, Martin and Grandage I can’t help to wish what might have been. It’s one my favorite musicals by the author and I would be hard pressed to not recommend certain elements if not the whole show. Knowing an ‘Evita’ on this scale is unlikely to come by again any time soon, I am returning to see the show again. Perhaps I am on a fool’s errand in search of a thoroughly spectacular production of the show I long to see.

THE DETAILS

• Website: evitaonbroadway.com
• Where: Marquis Theatre
• Location: 1535 Broadway (inside the Marriott Marquis Hotel), New York
• When: Mon, Wed-Sat 8pm; Tue 7pm; Wed & Sat 2pm
• Running Time: 2 hrs 15 min
• Ticket Prices: $67-$142 (premium $227-$277)
• Opening: Apr 5, 2012 (previews from Mar 12, 2012)
• Closing: Open Ended
• Book Online: ticketmaster.com
• Ticket Services: 1-800-745-3000
• Cast Recording: New Broadway Cast Recording

Elena Roger and Ricky Martin

Michael Cerveris

The Venue: The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre Haunted By 'Ghost The Musical'

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The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on 46th Street between Broadway and 8th Avenues.

The same shot of the theatre but at night.
(above photos: TheHopefulTraveler)

The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre opened on Broadway in 1910 as the Globe Theatre. The theatre had a retractable roof to enable the theatre to stay cool and open during the summer. In 1932 the venue was turned into a movie theater until 1958 when it was gutted and rebuilt in its present configuration as a Broadway theatre.

The theatre was renamed in honor of America's foremost husband/wife acting couple, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, who starred in tis first production, 'The Visit.' Patrons to the theatre can enjoy photographs from their collection throughout the various lobby spaces.

Seating for 1,505 patrons is on two levels. Two staircases, one accessed from the box office lobby and a second accessed from the orchestra level lobby lead to the beautiful mezzanine bar and seating. Because of the box office access, the mezzanine bar opens one hour before the performance.

Click HERE to view the Lunt-Fontanne seating chart. The theatre is one of eight Broadway theatres operated by the Nederlander Organization. All online ticketing is handled by Ticketmaster.

The Lunt-Fontanne is currently home to 'Ghost The Musical' based on the 1990 feature film starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg. Previous tenants include 'The Addams Family' (2010) and two Disney musicals 'The Little Mermaid' (2008) and 'Beauty and the Beast' which moved to the Lunt-Fontanne in 1999 (it originally opened at the Palace Theatre in 1994). 'Beauty' is the show to have played the theatre the longest staying in residence for eight years. 'Titanic' an original musical based around the sinking of the ocean liner opened at the venue in 1997 and won the Tony Award for best musical.

The original Broadway production of 'The Sound of Music' (1959) played the Lunt-Fontanne for three years before moving to the Mark Hellinger Theatre a few blocks north. The hit musical played over 1,443 performances between the two theatres.

The orchestra seats beneath the mezzanine.

The chandeliers of the beautiful mezzanine bar.

Murals greets guest on the mezzanine level.

Tonight's audience entering the theatre to see a performance of
'Ghost The Musical'.

The current tenant at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. 'Ghost The Musical' opened
on April 23, 2012.
(above photos: TheHopefulTraveler)

Video: 'Ghost The Musical' on Broadway

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Below are  videos promoting 'Ghost The Musical' now playing on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. The musical is based on the popular 1990 movie starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg. Stage actors Richard Fleeshman, Caissie Levy and Da'Vine Joy Randolph assume the roles for the musical.

Click HERE to view the Ghost on Broadway YouTube videos.

Actor Richard Fleeshman tours the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre (9:38 minutes)


Broadway Trailer (clips are of the Original London Cast) 2:02 minutes


2012 Tony Awards Performance (2:22 minutes)

Spring Awakening (Eugene O'Neill Theater, January 10th, 2007)

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I’ve never been a huge fan of musicals. After performing in two of them back in high school — Grease and Brigadoon — it was clear that the form itself is often narratively flimsy, and sometimes even narratively non-existent. Almost exactly five years ago now, however, I saw the best Broadway musical that I’ve ever seen in my life, Spring Awakening. More of a pop/rock opera (based on Frank Wedekind’s 1891 German stage-play of the same title), this musical took the genre to places I’d never seen it go before, with lyricist Steven Sater and composer Duncan Sheik at the helm, alongside an ensemble of exceptionally talented young people in the original cast.

Adding to my excitement was that just a couple of hours before the show, I had the chance to meet Sater and Sheik at the now-defunct Virgin Megastore in Times Square, where they signed copies of the album with the entire cast, who performed two songs from the show as well (“Touch Me” and “Totally Fucked”), much to the surprise and delight of shoppers and onlookers. To own an autographed copy of the original cast recording is even more special, of course, because several of the show’s stars — including Jonathan Groff (as Melchior), John Gallagher, Jr. (as Moritz), and Glee’s Lea Michele (as Wendla) — have since gone on to other high-profile roles on stage and screen.

By the time we’d had dinner at Thalia and arrived at our seats in the packed and bustling theater, I was anticipating the show more than I’d anticipated one in a very long time. (The experience was made a bit more surreal because sitting directly in front of me and my friend was none other than Jerry Seinfeld!) I’d read some reviews of the show, yet I still wasn’t quite sure what to expect from it, though I’d admired Duncan Sheik’s music for a whole decade already.

The musical itself actually began very quietly, barely even noticeably. Lea Michele walked onto the stage while the house lights were still up and stood on a chair (as I recall) to sing the show’s plaintive opening number, “Mama Who Bore Me.” Throughout much of the performance, members of the cast were seated in chairs at the sides of the stage, which was designed like an old-school classroom, with the backstage ropes and pulleys and bare brick walls exposed all the way at the rear of the space. Some audience members had been seated at the edges of the stage beforehand, too, discreetly shuffled in with the ensemble.

The set was dimly lit for most of the performance, appropriate to the age of the story, one that contains a significant share of heavy, shrouded topics. The original play was considered scandalous in its own time for addressing various taboo subjects — sexual desire, masturbation, abuse, suicide, abortion — all in relation to the lives of teenagers. Even in today’s more liberal world, teens are still often treated like non-sexual beings by the culture-at-large; as a result, those kinds of issues tend to get downplayed, silenced, or ignored by the adults in their lives. Sater describes the musical’s genesis in the liner notes of the CD, mentioning that he first gave a copy of the play to Sheik in the wake of the shootings that occurred at Columbine High School in 1999:

“Soon after, I called Duncan with an idea: what if the songs in our show functioned as interior monologues? Characters would not serenade one another in the middle of scenes — instead, the songs would voice only the thoughts and feelings of each character’s private landscape. (This seemed, after all, the point: when we keep the kids out of the conversation, we can’t hear what’s going on inside them.)”

That Sheik’s score sounds so contemporary, both in style and delivery, is the musical’s greatest strength. These repressed German students from so long ago are given an opportunity to express their frustrations and hopes wholly in modern terms; the gift of time itself, and the social changes that history gradually allows, are affectionately granted to them. And to balance out that vibrant expressionism, the narrative threads of the original play are presented, for the most part, impressionistically, lightly binding the songs together here and there for cumulative effect.

I remember that on the train ride back to Boston from New York, I listened to the songs of Spring Awakening for the entire four hours. They hadn’t lost any of their power in the privacy of my headphones, and the pop elements that Sheik had planted in them sounded even more vivid on the recording than they did in live performance. The upbeat harmonies of “My Junk” appealed to me instantly during the show. A quartet of girls sings it to the character Hanschen, played by Tom Deckman, as he admires (ahem) a postcard of a beautiful woman. So many of the musical’s themes travel through the song’s verses: “It’s like I’m your lover, or more like your ghost / I spend the day wonderin’ what you do, where you go… / We’ve all got our junk, and my junk is you.” Later, Sater and Sheik tease out the title metaphor further, flirting with the notion of pop music as dreamy spiritual nirvana: “I go up to my room, turn the stereo on / Shoot up some you in the You of some song.”

The boys of the ensemble get their spotlight early in the musical, too, through the rollicking schoolhouse rock of “All That’s Known” and “The Bitch of Living,” capitalizing on how conflicted they feel in their adolescent stretches of agony and ecstasy (amply captured by Bill T. Jones’s jubilant, acrobatic choreography). During the appearance at Virgin Megastore, Sheik remarked that “Touch Me” is his favorite song from the musical, and it isn’t hard to see why. With its alternating pulses of longing that are quietly restrained and then suddenly overflowing, the song soulfully approximates the desire for physical intimacy felt by younger people, who are commonly, though understandably, kept at a distance from one another until they’ve reached a certain age. In this way, the bodies of the songs themselves replicate the bodies of the young characters and performers throughout the musical, permitting them access to realms of release and satisfaction that they might not find otherwise.

I can clearly recall and visualize how stunning the staging was for the numbers in the middle of the show, “The Mirror-Blue Night” and “I Believe,” strategically placed at the end of Act One, just before the intermission. The star-like, descending round lights of “The Mirror-Blue Night” perfectly matched the tone and spectral imagery of the song, whereas the simple device of a wooden plank suspended from ropes made an ideal, subtle platform for the prayer-like “I Believe.” Melchior and Wendla consummate their relationship upon the plank, while the other actors sit cross-legged on the stage surrounding them, gently swaying the platform from side to side. (The boys who like guys share a similar moment with “The Word of Your Body” when it’s reprised in the show’s latter half.)

Although the second act opens with Moritz’s song “Don’t Do Sadness,” the musical does proceed in that direction. His character’s increasingly frenetic disposition — which snagged Gallagher one of the show’s eight Tony Awards — spirals downward to a terrible breaking point, and most of the remaining songs refer back to that heart-stopping moment. Sheik’s poignant, guitar-centered score (with orchestrations by Simon Hale) is most affecting in that mode; I never thought any musical would move me to tears, but that happened three times. It’s rare for a piece of musical theater to construct itself around darkness and “the sorrow at the heart of everything” and actually pull it off, at least with an audience that’s willing to be taken there.

“Left Behind” and “Those You’ve Known” are for me the musical’s most powerful songs. Melchior mourns the loss of his friend Moritz with a piercing clarity that only the young are capable of, carried by Jonathan Groff’s pure-as-water vocals: “The talks you never had, the Saturdays you never spent / All the grown-up places you never went… / All things he ever lived are left behind / All the fears that ever flickered through his mind / All the sadness that he’d come to own.” The memories of those who’ve been lost culminate in a scene that's set in a moonlit graveyard, where the ghosts of Moritz and Wendla join Melchior to sing “Those You’ve Known” (borrowing the melody of “All That’s Known” from earlier in the show). At their emotional apex, the song’s poetic lyrics remind me of the countless brilliant people who died during the AIDS epidemic, as well as those who've survived them:

“Now they’ll walk on my arm through the distant night,

And I won’t let them stray from my heart.

Through the wind, through the dark, through the winter light,

I will read all their dreams to the stars.

I’ll walk now with them, I’ll call on their names.

I’ll see their thoughts are known.

Not gone — not gone.”

The show's contemplative yet rousing finale, “The Song of Purple Summer,” reunites the ensemble at the front of the stage, in a line-up that’s reminiscent of “Seasons of Love,” the heartfelt hit from Rent, that other popular mainstay of the contemporary American musical-theater idiom, which Spring Awakening resembles on several levels. But Spring Awakening also holds the distinction of being thoroughly authentic and unique.

Eileen Myles, Inferno: A Poet's Novel (O/R Books, 2010) and Snowflake / different streets (Wave Books, 2012)

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Especiallyif you’re a poet, Eileen Myles’ Inferno:A Poet’s Novel is an addicting read, almost like a drug, or at least it wasfor me.  I kept reading and readingto see whose name would be mentioned next.  Eileen has forged her path and made her own name on the NewYork art scene from the mid-1970s up to the present day, so the roster of peoplewho appear in the pages of this literary tell-all is deep and vast.  At a cursory glance and just forstarters (let’s try this out alphabetically rather than chronologically): John Ashbery, Amiri Baraka, TedBerrigan, Jim Carroll, Gregory Corso, Hart Crane, Tim Dlugos, Allen Ginsberg, June Jordan,Bill Knott, Michael Lally, Joan Larkin, Robert Lowell, Carson McCullers, AliceNotley, Frank O’Hara, Ron Padgett, Marge Piercy, Rene Ricard, Adrienne Rich,Aram Saroyan, James Schuyler, Patti Smith, Anne Waldman.
Backin November of 2001, I invited Eileen to give a talk in conjunction with acourse on queer identity that I teach at Emerson College in Boston.  I recall that she brilliantly describedhow exactly the New York art scene operates:  it's a grid of intersecting friendships that overlays the griddedmap of the city’s intersecting streets and avenues.  The above list of writers whom Myles encountered in her everyday life makes it clear just how precise her metaphor is.  And most of the poets on this list areones whom Eileen met when they were in the early stages of their careers.  As she wisely remarks, “There’s nomystery why poetry is so elaborately practiced by the young.  The material of the poems is energyitself, not even language.  Wordscome later.”
Myles’ Inferno is “a poet’s novel” inseveral senses:  it’s written forpoets, largely about poets, and most importantly, it explores the life andartistic evolution of the author herself, focusing mainly on her developmentas a poet.  It’s Eileen’s infernobecause (in addition to spending some time beside an erupting Hawaiian volcano) she’s our Virgil throughout the book, which is just like Eileen’s generosity — asher readers, we get to be Dante, even though she’s the one who’s writing.  Also just like Eileen:  her poet's autobiography is a long and twistedroad through the descending circles of hell that ends in a subtitled sectioncalled “Heaven.”
Commentingon the narrative mode of the book late in the novel, Myles says, “It’s easy towrite an autobiography if the absence in the story is me.  I remember applying to art school in1967, staying up late, and I saw my reflection in the black glass of thenight.  When a window becomes amirror.  Who do I think I amsitting here now, deeper in that life.” There’s a wonderfully prescient echo of that passage very early in thebook, too, when Eileen remembers her late nights of studying at her desk as astudent at UMass Boston: “Sometimes in utter hopelessness I put my cheek on the table like it wassomeone.  I wanted to wake my brainup and be loved.”

Thefirst section of the novel interweaves several narrative strands:  Eileen’s youth and education in Boston,her early years as a poet after her move to New York, and a more specificstory about a night that she and another woman spent as hired escorts for apair of visiting Italian businessmen. (Just read the book yourself to see how that one turns out.)  The self-consciously postmodern move ofthe book’s second section:  toincorporate the actual manuscript of a grant proposal that will fund thewriting of the novel itself, complete with lots of underlined, presumablytypewritten words instead of italicized ones.  It feels like a smart move, as opposed to feeling like aploy.  After all, Eileen’s Inferno is about how a writer makes herway in the world, and part of that is about money, grant applications beingperhaps the best source of it.
Infact, Eileen’s many commentaries on class and survival provide the book withits most distinctive and valuable insights, highlighting the link betweenstarving artists and their unofficial patrons.  Like few other writers can, Eileen manages to pack an entirelifetime of experience into a single paragraph, along with some really sageadvice:
“Often,the person in the loft and the little apartment or room know each other.  This is the traditional definition ofcool.  Because rich people needpoor friends (but not too poor!) to maintain their connection to the strugglethat spawned them even if they never struggled.  Poor people tend to know what’s going on plus they are oftengood-looking, at least when they are young and even later they are coolinteresting people the rich person once slept with, so the poor person alwaysfeathers the nests of the rich.  Ifsomething bad happens to the poor person, the rich person would help.  Everyone knows that.  An artist’s responsibility for a verylong time is to get collected, socially.”
Forinstance, Myles was fortunate to live for two years, on and off, at thecountry estate of a wealthy New York couple, somewhere way out in the woods ofPennsylvania.  She describes hertime there, and the solitary, dedicated work of writing her poems, as a kind ofspiritual journey, one that liberated her from all of the trappings of societyand its litany of invasive constructs: “I took my shirt off and I simply became no one, no name, no sex, justmoving alive across the land with a dog. Art brought me this.”  She evenbegins to say a quiet little prayer each morning, appropriately, before shestarts to write.  And who else butEileen could get totally, convincingly philosophical about watching her dogRosie take a shit?
I’vealways loved how Eileen Myles’ thoughts and language swim on the page, dartingaround here and there, impulsive and spontaneous, but also patient andfluid.  That kind of movement is gorgeouslyexamined in the title poem of her 1997 book Schoolof Fish.  At one point in Inferno, she even devotes a wholechapter to wondering what the fish inside an aquarium might be thinking and sayingto each other behind the glass.

Eileen’slatest collection of poetry, released just this year, is actually two collections, a tête-bêche bookcalled Snowflake / different streets.  During a reading at Boston’s BrooklineBooksmith earlier this month, Myles commented that the idea was for the twobooks to be shoved together “like they’re fucking.”  She also mentioned that the poems are the product of livingin two dramatically different locations; half of the poems (Snowflake) were written during her fiveyears of teaching at UC San Diego, while the other half (different streets) were written after her return to living in NewYork.  When I asked her after thereading how the places affected her poems, she responded that the effect wasquite literal, in the same way that singers from different countries in ancienttimes cultivated different styles of singing because their voices rolled andechoed differently as they yodeled and shouted across the shapes of theirrespective landscapes.
Thepoems in Snowflake actually seem tobe influenced a little more by light than by shape.  In the poem titled “Day,” Eileen re-shades her surroundingsas a child’s watercolor:
“Sheperceiveslightasa paint bynumberleapingintoadark twoapuddletothe humpofher breathing”
Thesepoems are populated equally by clusters of separately shining cars in LosAngeles and raccoons spotted on the tails of airplanes.  Myles even conducts a cute conversationwith her cat in the poem “Eileen” (“Why can / you have a / giant plate / of pasta/ and I can / no longer have / my crunchy / treats  Why / am I served / up a cold / fish plate. / you’re not /so thin / Eileen”).  Snowflake is about both attention itselfand attention to change, particularly, as in the opening poem, “Transitions”:
“what’snot technologywhat’snot seeinganarm to sayIhold theline   I holdthedayIwatch the snowflakemelting”

Asequence of poems transcribed from digital recordings in Snowflake is balanced out by a sequence of poems written with astolen, oversized pencil in differentstreets.  In “#6 in and out,”Eileen’s a “cute 50 something top” who submits a playful personal ad that alsoriffs on the aging process for queers: “Anyone / can be beautiful / at 19 or 30.  This / is life. Take a deep / breath.”  Thehilarious poem “the nervous entertainment” finds her living in the home ofcelebrated artist Catherine Opie, while other pieces trace the history andstreets of Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod; “all the places are connected /thus the endless / beauty.”  A poemabout the name of Eileen’s girlfriend contains a mighty vortex of an aestheticnotion:
“towriteisa formofaccounting&approximatepromiseinthe sunnymouthoftime.”

EileenMyles is still crafting one of the most indelible bodies of literature in our owntime.  Through gently navigatedwaves of tension, restraint, and release, the vital part of Eileen’s writing isalways — even more than its rambunctious voice — its heart.  Not a paper cut-out heart, but the real heart, bloody andraw and throbbing.  And it knowswhat its job is:  to keep the bodyof the poem alive.

Theatre: 1st Irish so far

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Pat Kinevane in Silent (@Ger Blanch)

How It's New York: The 1st Irish Festival is a New York event, conceived in New York, for a  New York audience.
How It's Irish: It's the 1st IRISH Festival, with plays by Irish and Irish-American writers.

Here's my wrap-up of what I've seen so far in the Festival: these plays close this weekend, except for one that has already closed, but will be in the upcoming Solos Festival in October. New plays in the Festival have started: For Love, Jimmy Titanic, Brendan and House Strictly Private. The Festival ends this weekend, with the closing ceremony on October 1!

A version of this article was first published in Irish Examiner USA, Tuesday, Sept. 25.




The 1st Irish Festival, now in its fifth year, is halfway through.
Some of the shows have closed, others will be closing next week, and others will begin this week.
For details and to buy tickets visit www.1stirish.org.
Here's our take on what we've seen so far:

Silent

Running at Irish Arts Center, extended through September 30. Presented by Fishamble: The New Play Company in association with the Irish Arts Center

Written and directed by Pat Kinevane and directed by Fishamble's Artistic Director Jim Culleton, the play is a one man show about a homeless man, Corkonian Tino McGoldrig, who was named for Rudolph Valentino.He reflects on his closeted homosexual brother, who killed himself after some aborted (and hilarious) attempts on his own life, his failed marriage, and kindness.

Kinevane, as he did with The Forgotten in 2010, engagingly talks to the audience to pull them into the show, and uses his physicality engagingly.At times it felt a little gimmicky, however. I didn't really buy the device of a bag of exotic dance clothes as an excuse for Tino to dress up, for example, and the ending was a little disappointing.
But Kinevane's humor never lets you down: a comparison between the French and Cork accent is worth the price of admission alone.

Fly Me to the Moon

Martin Lynch for Green Shoot Productions, Running at 59E59 through September 30.
 
Marie Jones, the author of November and Stones in His Pockets, wrote and directed this two-hander about careworkers in Belfast who panic when they find their elderly charge has died.

What begins as a slight panic soon turns into larceny and even arson, with the best intentions in the world.

Katie Tumelty,Tara Lynne O'Neill (Vinnie Loughran)

Frances, sharply portrayed by Katie Tumelty, is proud of her teenage son, who's been expelled from school but has entrepreneurial skills in selling bootlegged DVDs, and she's the mastermind of the two women. Fake whiplash? "That's how I got my new kitchen," she says without batting an eyelash.

Loretta, a sweet-faced, blonde and cuddly Tara Lynne O'Neill, has a stronger sense of ethics but with an unemployed husband and a Euro Disney-bound child, she's in sore need of funds.
The play is at its most effective when the reality of that situation comes through in O'Neill's sad voice.
The dead man was a Sinatra fan, hence the title.
There are a lot of laughs, but not a lot of plot development - the situation goes on a bit long to make its point.
But the women are so over the top ridiculous and fun to watch that you'll probably not mind very much.

Hard Times: An American Musical

Presented by and at The Cell Theatre through September 30, with an additional performance added on September 29.
 
Black 47's Larry Kirwan collaborated with Stephen Foster, the 19th-century composer, for this musical set against the draft Riots in Five Points, New York, in 1863.
There's energy to spare in Kirwan's play, which resets some of Foster's 19th-century ballads in a rock and roll vein, and also includes some Kirwan originals.


At times the characters' perspectives on minstrelsy, race relations and homosexuality (which was not conceived of as an identity until the 1890s) seem a little modern, but then again, we are singing Foster to a rock and roll beat, so it all makes sense.

Jed Peterson, Stephane Duret, Almeria Campbell

Almeria Campbell winningly plays Nelly Blyrh, the black owner of a bar much like McSorley's (there's even McSorley's ale for sale), which seems a kind of show bar where she'll occasionally let people drink if they sing. John Charles McLaughlin plays Owen Duignan, a hotheaded young Irishman who starts the play off vibrantly by singing in blackface about how much he hates singing in blackface.
Nelly is courted by Michael Jenkins, played by Philip Callen, a white man with conflicted feelings.
Other characters include Thomas Jefferson, played by Stephane Duret, Stephen Foster, played by Jed Peterson, and Jane, Foster's wife, played by Erin West.

There's a live band onstage and it's particularly clever the way Kirwan has woven in some reels throughout.
At times, lovely as the music was, and beautiful as the cast's voices were, the songs seemed an interruption to the scenes.

The songs are lovely, though, and include all those Foster songs that are suddenly all the rage again: "Beautiful Dreamer," "I Dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair," "Oh, Susanna," and of course, "Hard Times."

Auditions, Zoe's Auditions, Part 2

Presented by the Be You, All Others Are Taken company, in association with the Drilling company. Closed September 23, but will have additional performances in United Solo Festival on October 15 and 23.
 
Suzanna Geraghty wrote and appeared in this one-hander about a sweet production assistant on a troubled production of A Christmas Carol who wants to be an actress.
Geraghty's piece is dear, funny and smarter than it seems - much like her character of Zoe Browne.
Andy Crook offered help with direction and movement.

With a Mary Poppins voice and a dizzy dame appeal, Zoe goes through a series of hilariously bad auditions, with a voice shouting "next!"

Suzanna Geraghty (@Ros Kavanagh)

The Riverdance audition ends with a bagpipe on Zoe's head, and her sincere wish that nobody was injured.
A voiceover at the top warns the audience that they will be expected to take part or risk ruining "the reality of the show and everybody's fun."

So people do take part, answering that no, we haven't heard her name called yet, or nominating the person sitting next to them to be "Olga," the director of The Three Sisters.

Geraghty has crafted a smart drama, not just a series of sketches: she shows Zoe interacting with her elderly, crotchety agent, with her dysfunctional cast, and, eventually, with a clever riff on "A Christmas Carol."

Geraghty has hedged her bets a little by showing us that Zoe doesn't just have a dream, she actually has talent, and some training - which doesn't work perfectly with someone who thinks The Three Sisters are people she should know.

But when the ghost of Christmas future answers her "to be or not to be" with "that isn't the question," the play goes somewhere surprisingly powerful.

Music: Nuala Kennedy's new album

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(@Louis Decarlo)

How It's New York: Nuala Kennedy lived in New York much of 2011-2012, has played with many NYC musicians and took pictures for the art in NYC.
How It's Irish: Nuala is from Ireland, and played in a Ceili band from the age of 13.

A version of this review was first published in Irish Music Magazine, Oct. 2012.

To celebrate the launch of her CD Noble Stranger, Nuala is playing an informal session at the Living Room NYC from 6-8 tonight,. Saturday, Sept. 29. She says she will likely be playing tunes at O'Neill's later. Check here for her full list of tour dates. She'll be playing at the Celtic Colours International Festival in Cape Breton Island in October-- I'm going as a press delegate and will report back!

I did an interview with Nuala for Irish Music Magazine in September; watch this space for that!

 Nuala's singing and funky flute playing make me wonder: "Could this be the future of trad?" 


NUALA KENNEDY Noble Stranger Compass Records COM745792 12 Tracks, 58 Minutes www.compassrecords.com
Noble Stranger, Irish flautist Nuala Kennedy’s third album, officially released to retail on August 28th has a funky, indie vibe to it that reflects her time in art school in Scotland, and her recent year in NYC. Its youthful energy and spirit just make you smile. Could this be the future of trad? At least, some trad, this is pushing the boundary in a great way, it’s not the hoary old folk rock of the 70’s, but an honest, natural way of pairing a modern sensibility with trad notes. You could play it in a non–trad office, and convert your boss.

She’s supported by her trio of Mike Bryan on guitar, Ian Macleod on mandolin and Donald Hays on percussion. She counts Cathal McConnell and John O’Connor among her teachers and influences.
She herself plays flute, and a vintage casio keyboard with a futuristic ping, and sings in a sweet, distinctive voice that sounds a bit like Karan Casey. She sings a lot on this CD, seven of the 12 tracks.
In fact the first two tracks on the CD show off her vocals, the imagistic, funky Gabriel Sings and the traditional My Bonny Labouring Boy, which is backed by that casio with a spare kind of dancey beat to it, and it’s striking, combined with her very traditional way of singing it.
Lord Duneagle has a similar counterpoint, with a driving beat from Hays giving the ballad a groove. Lonely City, inspired by NYC, has a kind of Country–Western swing to it, but then there’s a kind of new–wave production feel to it, too, a little Cocteau Twins sound in the strings. 

(@Louis Decarlo)

The album takes its title from Napoleon’s Dream, with the lyrics recorded by Richard Thompson, paired with the tune John Stephen of Chance Inn. It’s a sweet, pensive song, and her flute takes the melody in the latter and soars with it. Her version of Matt Hyland is a knockout too.
But make no bones about it, Nuala is a virtuoso flutist. Love at the Swimming Pool, inspired by 80–something lovebirds she encountered in Scotland (she gives us some lines of dialogue in the booklet), displays her way around a melody and her skills, which also shine on Asturias Part One and Asturias Part Two.
Overall, the CD is fresh, eclectic and magical.

Music: My Conversation with Judy Collins

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How It's New York: Judy Collins is being honored by the Irish American Writers and Artists on Oct. 15 as their winner of the Eugene O'Neill Lifetime Achievement Award!
How It's Irish: Apart from the organization honoring her, turns out Judy herself has an Irish background, and talks about how her heritage has affected her art, below.


Charles R. Hale recently had the opportunity to sit down for an hour with music legend Judy Collins in preparation for a short film he's producing for the Irish American Writers & Artists’ Eugene O’Neill Lifetime Achievement Award Benefit. Judy is this year’s recipient of the award. She told him:

"Ireland and the Irish have always had in their music a yearning…something that calls to them over the ages…that comes out in Irish singing.."


Charles: You’ve said that Jo Stafford’s recording of “Barbara Allen” changed your life. How was that?

Judy: I had been playing the piano, performing Mozart, Debussy and singing Rodgers and Hart songs at clubs all over Denver…but I was desperate for new material. My father was a great fan of Jo Stafford so I’d heard her all my life. I was fourteen the morning I heard this extraordinary recording, a gorgeous recording. It was my introduction to folk music, which absolutely did change my life.

Charles: Your father was blind but he didn’t seem to let it get in his way.

Judy: He had problems with his sight from the time he was born. My father was completely blind by the time he was four, but he had some very effective, powerful tools, such as music, and poetry. And he was always reading to us—in Braille—from some huge books that were stacked up against the walls. He was very involved in the literature of Dylan Thomas, Melville, and Dostoyevsky.

Charles: There’s a great story of how your mother felt that your father drove a wedge between your mother and you. And then, you and your mother got together and had a rip-roaring drunken lunch and there was a healing. Talk about that.

Judy: My father was more communicative with me than he was with my mother. My mother, who was an amazing, intelligent woman, wrote me a letter when I was nineteen saying my father had been trying to separate us emotionally. So my mother initiated that drunken luncheon where we poured our hearts out. From that point, we talked all the time. We were always as close as could be. We were never separated.

Charles: You seem quite conscious of the idea that memories connect and heal. Your music has an essence of that. Are you conscious of healing when you’re singing and writing?

Judy: Music is a function of the need to remember. It’s a tonic for remembering, it helps us remember, it stimulates memory and the emotions. When you can tell a story in a new song it’s a new way of looking at something, it expresses something in a way that’d never come out before, so, yes, it is very healing. Music is a part of my mental and emotional health.

Charles: Has your Irish heritage influenced your stories and music?

Judy: Ireland and the Irish have always had in their music a yearning…something that calls to them over the ages…that comes out in Irish singing. I think of Yeats and “The Song of Wandering Aengus.” It’s a kind of deeply wounded place that needs to be healed by music. The Irish do that all the time for themselves.

Charles: You mentioned that your father read from Melville’s Moby Dick when you were a child. In the opening of the book Melville wrote “I’d get to the sea as soon as I could. It’s my substitute for pistol and ball.” What’s yours?

Judy: It’s music. It’s writing. It’s art. It’s doing something. My concerts are very healing and serene and yet I’m totally connected. It’s a very important place for me to be.

Charles: Talk about your involvement in the Vietnam anti-war movement.

Judy: So much rage and anger. It made no sense, there was no logic to it….We knew we were being lied to….Hadn’t we learned our lesson…everyone had their go at the Vietnamese. None of this made sense to me. Why were we listening to these people who were lying to us?

And there was much more. Join Judy and Charles, and many of the IAW&A’s wonderful writers and artists, at the Eugene O’Neill Lifetime Achievement Award event on October 15. For more information on the event, please to go to the Irish American Writers & Artists website.

Theatre: Mike Fitzpatrick interviewes "For Love's" John Duddy

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How It's New York: John Duddy lives in New York, and is in the 1st Irish Theatre Festival, a theatre festival created for New Yorkers.
How It's Irish: John is from Derry, and the play For Love is set in Ireland.

John Duddy, boxer and actor from Derry, currently appears in Laoisa Sexton's For Love, part of the 1st Irish Festival's "Next Generation" series. Michael Fitzpatrick caught up with him

A version of this interview first appeared in Irish Examiner USA, on Tuesday, Sept. 25 as part of Mike's popular "At the Mike Stand." Discover what period John would have liked to live in, who he's been told he looks like, and what book he likes to reread (hint: it's actually Jirish, at least in its author).

 
Derry man John Duddy has had it tough.

Having spent several decades enjoying the rapturous support of his thousands of fans during his career as a talented middleweight boxer, he now must spend his evenings sharing a stage with three gorgeous Irish women, as they bring Dublin girl Laoisa Sexton's play, For Love to life.

Since permanently swapping the ring for the stage, John's made a name for himself in New York's drama circles, starring in Kid Shamrock and Spud Munchers, before going on to take his current role as the male lead in For Love.

The play will have its world premier at The Drilling Company Theater in New York City this week (details below), before hopefully finding a home elsewhere in the city at a later date.
Co-starring Georgina McKevitt, Jo Kinsella and Laoisa Sexton (1st Irish Best Actress Award Winner) herself, For Love could well be described as a dark blue comedy about a bunch of thirty (or is that dirty?) somethings, navigating their way through Dublin's torturous dating scene.
For Love will play for four performances (September 25, 27 and 30 at 7pm and September 29 at 4pm) at The Drilling Company Theater (236 West 78th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam), and tickets are available by contacting smarttix.com.

So head along and find out if there is indeed more than a one night stand in Val's future, whether Tina can find the right dress if she's got the wrong man, or even if Bee should jump into bed with a married man, or just visit the zoo. Mr Duddy, welcome to the 'Mike Stand'.

When's the last time you laughed out loud?
The last time I laughed out loud was during rehearsals with Laoisa, Georgina and Jo for the play, For Love.
What act would you like to have seen perform live?
Elvis Presley performing at Madison Square Garden.
What period in history would you most like to have visited?
I'd loved to have been in Rome when the Gladiators where still fighting at the Coliseum.
What song would you most like to have written?
'Fairytale of New York', by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl.
Who or what, would make you leave a room?
I have left a subway car when somebody has left a terrible smell behind them.
What decade rules (and why)?
The '60s. The movies, the plays, the sports and music, when all the greats were still performing.
What movie role would you like to have played/play?
Mel Gibson's William Wallace in Braveheart. Or Jake LaMotta, played by Robert DeNiro,  in Raging Bull.

Have you ever been told you looked like somebody?
Holt McCallany from Lights Out on FX. I had dinner with him on Thursday night and somebody at another table asked me for a photo and then said they enjoyed the TV show. Holt had a good laugh.
What's the first album you remember buying?
'LA Woman' by The Doors.
Who's your favorite Beatle?
George Harrison.
What's your favorite Christmas song?
Dean Martin's 'Let It Snow'.
What artist/song/genre do you secretly enjoy listening to?
Joe Dolan.
Who would you most like to meet/have met?
Marlon Brando or Jim Morrison.
What book can you read again and again?
Trinity by Leon Uris.
What's the greatest album ever recorded?
Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.
What artists would you most like to have played with in the band of your dreams (supergroup)?
Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings.
What sitcom character can you most identify with?
Tony Danza's character (Tony Banta) from Taxi.
What movie can you watch over and over again?
Cool Hand Luke with Paul Newman.
Who's your favorite cartoon character?
Johnny Bravo.
What's the greatest place you've visited?
The Atlantis Hotel in the Bahamas.
What's mankind's most wonderful invention?
Skype.
What's mankind's most irritating invention?
Mobile phones.
Who's the funniest person who ever lived?
Richard Pryor.