Reviews – Theater – Behind the Proscenium

May 4, 2024May 4, 2024

Stereophonic [REVIEW]

Stereophonic – Reviewed by Kyrle Lendhoffer, B ehind The Proscenium: Broadway Beat

In the bustling heart of Broadway, where the lights never dim and the melodies dance through the air like spirits of pure joy, there emerges a theatrical gem that demands not just applause, but reverence.

“Stereophonic,” crafted by the masterful David Adjmi with melodies that soar to celestial heights by the virtuosic Will Butler, and helmed with precision by the visionary Daniel Aukin, is a symphony of storytelling that transcends the mere boundaries of stage and time.

In a whirlwind of pulsating beats and poignant narratives, Adjmi’s pen waltzes through the intricacies of human connection with a finesse that is both enchanting and profound. Each character, a melody in their own right, sings with a resonance that echoes in the soul of every audience member, weaving a tapestry of emotions that ranges from the jubilant crescendos of triumph to the haunting whispers of vulnerability.

‘Stereophonic’ – Golden Theatre – New York, NY

But it is not merely the script that captivates; it is the marriage of words and music that elevates “Stereophonic” to celestial heights. Will Butler’s compositions are nothing short of celestial marvels, each note a brushstroke on the canvas of the heart. From the foot-stomping anthems that ignite the stage with fiery passion to the tender ballads that tug at the strings of the soul, Butler’s melodies are a testament to the enduring power of harmony.

Under the masterful direction of Daniel Aukin, the world of “Stereophonic” comes alive with a vibrancy that is palpable. Aukin’s keen eye for detail and unwavering commitment to authenticity infuses every scene with a sense of urgency and vitality, drawing the audience into a realm where dreams collide with reality and the boundaries between the two blur into oblivion.

The cast (Will Brill, Andrew R. Butler, Juliana Canfield, Eli Gelb, Tom Pecinka, Sarah Pidgeon and Chris Stack) is perfection. All I want to hear on Tony Award night is ‘The winner for Best Actor in a Play is THE CAST OF STEREOPHONIC’ and ‘The winner for Best Actress in a Play is THE CAST OF STEREOPHONIC. Full stop. You can’t choose one of the the other in this equisite ensemble.

Indeed, to experience “Stereophonic” is to embark on a journey of the senses, where the heart sings in harmony with the soul, and the spirit soars to unimaginable heights.

It is a testament to the transformative power of theater, where words become music, and music becomes magic. So, let the curtains rise, and let the melodies wash over you like a gentle breeze on a warm summer’s night. For in the world of “Stereophonic,” the stage is set, and the symphony of life awaits its eager audience.

Kyrle Lendhoffer, Behind The Proscenium: Broadway Beat

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October 15, 2011January 5, 2012

My God Is Better Than Your God

I normally attack theater from the review flank. I use my insight to take you, the possible audience member, into the “reality” of what a theatrical event may be like – without you having to actually be part of the reality. I try to express the theatricity of a theatrical event through the written word. It is my job – to bring the entire experience of sitting in a theater, marveling at what is taking place on stage, the smells of the greasepaint and the dinner that is stuck to the lapel of the patron next to you – without your ever having to enter a theater. Although entering a theater to see a play is always best!

And here is why… I’ve just returned from a performance of My God Is Better Than Your God by theater great Gina Grass. Once again, it is a one woman show.Normally, I would just review the show, but there was a moment when everything came together for me, as it will for you. As it will for anyone who ever lived to see theater. For anyone who has ever lived!

Here is a snippet from My God Is Better Than Your God, now playing at the Manka Open Mike in Tribeca.

Gina: You can’t possibly imagine my God. Your mind is too small. Imagine a goat trying to drive the Batmobile. Trying to drive the Batmobile with cooking mitts. That is you – stupidly in front of my God. Only more stupid. My God would laugh at you but h/she/it is above laughter. My God is always in a state of laughter because my God is always in a state of ALL. Eons ago, my God would have bathed in the lamentations of your women and children. That was before my God evolved to a point that evolution now means nothing to he/she/it. No, back then, my God would have taken a hoof (for my God only needed ONE HOOF!) and smashed that hoof on your pathetic being. And the bodies of the weak – like the previously mentioned women and children. And to make you feel even smaller than you already would be feeling – my God would rip the viscera from the chest cavities of those you loved in front of your pathetic face. And my God would use their intestines like a gore-drenched and dread sippy straw… and my God would suck and suck and suck the life out of everything you held dear. And then, for spite, my God would spit that life right back into your face. You turn pale. I haven’t really started. Then my God would smash YOU with the HOOF! And you would be dispersed into fragments no bigger than an atom. And even your smartest atom would kneel before my God in much the same way that a lichen kneels before you – if a lichen could kneel – BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I’M F-ING TALKING ABOUT! I see you. You are trying to comprehend my God. But you are like the contents of a Petrie dish trying to comprehend the scientist. The only difference is that the contents of the Petrie dish do not know to be afraid. And you should be SO afraid. Because my God no longer needs a hoof…

I have never heard the like on a stage before in my life. I could only imagine saying these beautiful words to someone who has cut me off in traffic, or to my landlord when he implies that my sub-lease may be invalid. In what situation would you use these words? And what would you do with your HOOF?!?

Kyrle Lendhoffer – Behind The Proscenium

June 14, 2011June 15, 2011

Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark Is An Absolute Triumph! [REVIEW]

Spider-man: Turn Off The Dark

Reviewed by Kyrle Lendhoffer

Superlatives. A word that means (to some – to ME) “of the highest order of quality or degree surpassing or superior to all.”

And then there are words to describe the superlatives. Or “Super”-latives, since I’m writing about a super hero masterpiece. There are not enough of them (the superlatives) for me to adequately describe what I just saw.

What did I see, dear reader?

I saw theatrical heaven on earth.

I saw an apparition of God.

I saw Spider-man: Turn Off The Dark!

Oh, where do I begin? Perhaps with the beginning – or the beginning of the construct in my mind – that is now my impression of Spider-Man – for now that it exists in my mind, so it is mine.

So, first, the performers.

Powerful. Delicious. Bouncy.

None died, or appeared to be in danger of dying (some in the audience were disappointed with this – NASCAR barbarians!).

There were no obvious hard feelings amongst the artistic staff – Julie Taymor didn’t pull out an Uzi in the lobby. It was a celebration as well as a show. And after 181 (or 183 if you believe Brian Williams and NBC News) previews, the long celebration was overdue.

Taymor’s original vision was genius (in my humble opinion). The NEW vision (brought to us by new writer, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, and creative consultant Philip William McKinley are even more geniuser (I will stick to this word – if you touch it, dear editor, you will die in your sleep).

Arachne almost disappears in the second act – no more bizarre psychobabble now. We are returned to the basic Spider-man story – will Peter get Mary Jane (of course!), will Peter learn to balance his life as mere mortal and super hero (duh!) and will Spider-man be able to turn off the dark (I still haven’t figured that part out).

The performances are, across the board, magnificent. Reeve Carney IS Peter Parker. From supple human to then powerful super-hero, Carney runs the gamut of our collective experience. And how can he not run said gamut when paired with the winsome Jennifer Damiano – beautiful, graceful – a song bird.

Tony Awards loom in future of Carney and Damiano. Bet on it. I will!

Patrick Page is also beyond wonder as Norman Osborne/The Green Goblin. A villain, yes. But a villain who is having the villainous time of his life.

Shall I give Page a Tony, too? Yes, I will.

I would call out every actor in this spectacular achievement but this review would go on too long. Suffice it to say that everyone involved in the magnificent production are soon to be Broadway legends. Just go here (http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=488485) and read all of the names. You will be glad you did.

You will also be glad to know the Bono and The Edge (they are named like characters in their own musical!) have written some of the most startlingly superb music to be heard on the Great White Way in many years.

I can’t imagine that any theater patron with a beating heart and working ears could be able to leave Foxwoods Theater without humming the very catchy songs. I say this with great resolve – Bono and Mr. Edge, please give up that silly U2 and take up musical theater full time! You won’t regret it.

In conclusion, do what you must to see Spider-man: Turn Off The Dark.

Sell your blood, or a lung or even your mother. Blood regenerates, you only need one lung and Mom won’t last forever. And neither will Spider-Man.

When it becomes the winner of the most Tony Awards in history, you will be glad you did. I’m betting on it!

What a great start to the new season! And with Rampage Of The Stegosaur set to flatten Broadway (in a good way!) this fall, it will, indeed, be a season to remember!

Kyrle Lendhoffer – Behind The Proscenium

February 21, 2011April 25, 2011

Romeo and Juliet @ Circle In The O

Oh, dear reader! What my eyes have seen! That is, what my eyes have seen RECENTLY!

I have just returned home from a theatrical experience that has left me speechless – but thank the gods that it has not left me type-less.

I ask (rhetorically, of course) how often has it been that you have seen what you think that you would never see? Once? Twice? More like never. And yet we think that moment will definitely occur – like watching a full moon rise, or seeing a double rainbow (like that delightful man who cried on my computer – what bravery he had letting himself be set up for humiliation on the world wide web) or getting a decent table a Le Bernardin (try the oestra-sprinkled Spanish mackerel tartare, IF YOU DARE) on short notice. Impossible. But no.

Shakespeare has been performed in many ways in the thousands of years since the Bard of Avon took pen to paper and spilled his genius on the page. Each of his miraculous plays has been performed hundreds, nay thousands, nay hundreds of thousands of times.

I have seen “Midsummer’s” set at a high school in America during the 1950s; “Shrew” set in the Old West and; “Richard III” set in Hitler’s Germany (or Franco’s Spain, or Mussolini’s Italy – I get it, Dick was a fascist). I’ve seen “Hamlet” in a black box theater with the cast in t-shirts and black jeans… “Much Ado About Nothing” in 18th century Spain… “The Tempest” in a hippie commune… “Richard II” in a bath house (with real steam!).

I thought I had seen it all. Until last night. Glorious, wonderful last night.

What made last night so glorious (and wonderful)? The unexpected! And what made THAT so brilliant is that I had no idea that it was coming. The marquee read “Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare”. I was sitting in the “Circle in the O – Presented by Manka Broadway”. What would I see? Our young, tragic lovers updated to New York, “West Side Story” style? Or would they be of two different races on an alien planet? Romeo from a Confederate and Juliet’s supporting the Union? I quivered with anticipation.

And then it happened.

The curtain came up and I choked – LITERALLY CHOCKED in amazement – a beautiful set appeared – showing Verona as it was sometime in the 1590s! And then the actors came on stage… dressed in the same period!

I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Stop lying to me, eyes!” I shouted at my eyeballs (in my mind). What could the director be thinking? Setting a Shakespearean play in the Elizabethan period – in the country the play was set in as seen through the eyes of a person from Elizabethan England?

I was stunned, my reality had been shattered. Could this be? After two hours traffic of the stage (well, three hours – Shakespeare must not have thought about how long it can take an American actor to get through his words – after all, America wasn’t invested until much, much later) I realized that this COULD be. That this SHOULD be.

So, my extended theater family, are you ready to see what has never been done before? Are you ready to have your mind stretched like so much taffy (which is dreadful and pulls out your dental work)? Then make yourself ready to see Shakespeare set in a totally alien environment. Where it was intended?

Tennessee Williams’ Haunted Alligators [REVIEW]

Theater has existed as long as we have existed. From the first night when Caveperson “A” told a story to his/her fellow Cavepeople to keep their minds off of the saber tooth tigers roaming in the night – to last night’s performance of Haunted Alligators by Tennessee Williams at the Manka Palace Theater [EDITOR’S NOTE: The classic film version of Haunted Alligators can be seen this month on Manka Classic Movies].

I can now say that I have been to the top of the mountain.

I have seen the face of God.

I wonder how I continue in a career of theatrical criticism when everything that is to come will pale in comparison to perfection. PERFECT perfection.

Redundant? No. I simply try to hammer home how amazing this show is to your collective mortal minds.

Better yet, make your way to the theater to see this show in person. There are some who may say that I’m going overboard (and that I’ve been going overboard recently) and to that I say “NAY!”

Dear Reader, it is that we are living in one of the greatest eras of theater to exist since the Dawn of Man. How do I know how theater was at the Dawn of Man? I don’t. I just know that I don’t see too many revivals of Caveperson theater, and that is all that I need to know.

The show opened innocently enough. We find Chest (Zachary Tisdale who I had the pleasure to interview last week) and Livy (Nikki Abercrombie) sneaking toward the swamp shack, their sanctuary on the bayou. They are very much in the throes of love. And they are a comely couple. The fire between the two was apparent before they even began to speak.

Sitting in the fifth row, I started to sweat. The sweat of torment and lust. There was much declaiming of mutual attraction which was sadly derailed when Livy brought up her upcoming nuptials to the local plantation bigwig and patriarch of the Fatang clan, Large Willie.

The next scene opened up on the sumptuous Fatang mansion, known as Kudzu Manor.

Beautiful Charlotte (a radiant Gretchen Van Winkle) childhood friend of Livy, flits about the stage preparing for a grand wedding – all while taking care of her dimwit brother, Clayton (Michael Egan – almost unrecognizable from his last role as the union rabble rouser Frank Little in the Tony Award winning drama Butte: The Story Of A Hole).

Here the play takes an interesting turn; instead of plowing straight into the wedding, Tennessee Williams chose to introduce us to Large Wanda, who is the mother of Large Willie. She takes the dimwit Clayton aside and in a hauntingly beautiful scene (a once in a lifetime performance by Carolly Russ who was almost as stupendous in Mother Was A Ho And Custer Is Still Dead) tells Clayton of the horrors of marriage in the South. Clayton, oblivious, drools as if lost in a dream. A dimwit dream. Mesmerizing.

Then it is time for the wedding “celebration” and we are introduced to Large Willie (played with emotional intensity that almost knocked me to the floor by the multi-talented Leonard Menzies.

Ladies and gentlemen, we now know that he’s not just a comic juggler and fire dancer!). It is quite obvious who the life force is that steers life at Kudzu Manor. Large Willie takes over the stage and lays claim to his reluctant bride, Livy, as Charlotte and Clayton watch – both in tears, but not tears of joy. No, the tears of watching a friend being sold into indentured servitude.

In a horrible and soul crushing moment we see Chest looking in through the window – he howls, and then RIPS OFF HIS SHIRT revealing the pectoral muscles that I spoke of so eloquently last week. They are still delectable. His pecs, I mean. Yum.

Three years pass and Large Willie and Livy are found living in a domestic nightmare. Large Willie has large that he is dying from a lifetime of dipsomania and he takes out his anger on Livy as well as the servants of the house. He also knows that Livy has, and will always, love Chest.

Large Willie, on a downward spiral of self-pity and jealousy, prepares to leave for a weekend of whoring and debauchery in New Orleans. He is interrupted by Clayton, who droolingly mumbles something about seeing someone “creepin’ around the women down by the swamp shack.” Resigned to his fate and drinking heavily, Large Willie grabs his gun and makes his way toward destiny.

Dear Readers, I will not tell you anymore. Just know that you will see one of the greatest plays of American Theater unfold before your eyes.

Just know that Tennessee Williams is spinning in his grave – with joy! Joy! JOY!!!

I must catch my breath.

Kyrle Lendhoffer – Behind The Proscenium