Yes, your intrepid Admin braved blizzards and bed bugs last weekend to see the Sunday matinee of Close Up Space. I’m very glad I did.

Before I go on I want to warn of minor SPOILERS in case any of you plan to see the play before it closes on Sunday, January 29. Otherwise read on…

Theatre is by nature a communal experience.

We were a bunch of back row renegades. Next to me on my left, two seats away, was an amply proportioned elderly guy who’d apparently booked an extra seat for his friend, an almost equally ample Bag of Food – much of it crunchy.

Before the play began the man attacked his companion with alarmingly noisy gusto. Thankfully the munching stopped, more or less, once the play began and the only sound I was aware of on my left was the man’s frequent laughter – and intermittent feedback from his listening aid.

Beside me Bag of Food remained inscrutably silent throughout.

It was during a key scene between David Hyde Pierce and Rosie Perez that I became aware of Snoring Lady two seats to my right. In a moment of panic I wondered if she was in fact experiencing breathing difficulties. Would this be the moment when I’d have to stand up, interrupt the players on stage and project from the back of the room the legendary words,
“Is there a doctor in the house”? A lady on her far side shook her gently awake.

Ah, the quirky charm of the matinee audience!

I have to say that New York City Center Stage 1 is a pleasant compact space with good sightlines from all seats, including mine at the very back.

Now for the play

David plays obsessive literary editor Paul Barrow. The opening scene is David at his sublime best. Using an old-fashioned transparency projector Paul, with savage red pen, pares down a letter from the principal of his daughter’s expensive boarding school to one succinct line.

“Your daugher Harper has been expelled.”

David is needless to say pitch perfect as the slightly intimidating, fussy, buttoned-up, professorial type who’s determined to ‘emaciate prose and make it obey’. He has a John Cleese-like exasperation that life refuses to submit in similar fashion. His frustration is punctuated by earthy language that made the ancient maiden aunt to my right flinch. David’s comic timing is a thing of joy to watch. He was hilarious!

Many of us will feel some sympathy for Paul’s despair at the modern world’s sloppy grammar and punctuation. We quickly discover that his wife died four years ago and that since her death Paul has been incapable of communicating with his troubled teenage daughter, Harper.

Paul also has to deal with his star author, Vanessa Finn Adams (no hyphen!), a feisty feminist with the hots for Paul, played with zest by Rosie Perez. She has some great one-liners. “Gotta get em on the no fly list, Paul”, when talking about teenage children is one that springs to mind. She’s upset with Paul, for editing a huge chunk from her latest manuscript – he dismisses it as bloated chick lit – and for not making any moves on her.

Add to the mix the hapless, monosyllabic intern Bailey, played by Jessica DiGiovanni. She is basically terrified of Paul who treats her with disdain in the odd times that he notices her at all. At one point someone asks why she’s wearing a scarf indoors. She mutters, “Urban Outfitters…” by way of explanation, which for some reason made me laugh.

Then we have Steve, the office manager. I had reservations about office Steve when I read about the play in advance. ‘Wacky’ can often mean simply annoying. I was very wrong. Michael Chernus’s Steve is a wonderfully warm, scene-stealing, off-the-wall goofball. Paul discovers Steve camping in the office. You see, he’s been having relationship problems with his pit bull terrier, Xena (the Brooklyn Warrior Princess). Xena has taken a shine to his roommate and Steve is distraught.

Steve is the kind of person who befriends everyone, including Harper. He reminded me of a big friendly mutt. He is the antithesis of the reserved, buttoned-up Paul, whose bemusement at Steve’s antics is played brilliantly by David. Steve shows Paul how he uses his tent, a 2010 Black Diamond, as a safe and secure place to open up about his deepest feelings, as Steve says, “to purge”.

When Harper, played with energetic relish by the delightful Colby Minifie, enters speaking Russian and throwing snow balls from a cooler at her father, Paul’s meticulously ordered world starts to spin spectacularly out of control. Harper later completely empties and destroys his office in an extreme attempt to get his attention, and we realise this crazy, fast-paced, absurdist play has a very dark core.

Paul’s wife, a talented author, committed suicide. It’s clear when Harper finally talks to her father (in English) that her mother was suffering from bipolar disorder. Harper is distressed that Paul made no attempt to help her mother and seemed to refuse to acknowledge the seriousness of his wife’s condition. When Harper’s mother splashed the walls of a room with yellow paint Paul had painted the whole room over in beige again by morning. Paul, in an attempt to edit life to it’s simplist elements, insists to Harper that her mother died because she didn’t take her medication.

The tragedy in the midst of this comedy is that Paul, in locking up his emotions has locked out his daughter. Harper’s actions are so extreme that we wonder if she’s inherited her mother’s condition. We also see that she’s intelligent and sensitive and understandably damaged by the tragic loss of her mother and rejection from her father. She explains to Paul that she has self-exiled herself to ‘Russia’. She quotes her favourite poet, Anna Akhmatova, who was persecuted under Lenin and Stalin and calls her father a ‘tyrant’.

Goofy, loveable Steve is the unlikely hero of the hour. When he finds Paul shivering in a corner of his freezing, empty office he is at once the light relief and Paul’s saviour. Paul has hit rock bottom. His star author has walked out and his daughter has left for St Petersburg in actual Russia. Paul ends up rolling on the floor in despair, which is funny despite everything. David throws himself about quite a bit in this play. But Steve has Harper’s address and after some resistance Paul agrees to dictate to Steve what he’d like to say to Harper – from the safety of the 2010 Black Diamond tent. As there’s no paper in the empty office Steve writes on his arm.

Paul finally opens up to Harper.

I was transfixed as I watched David on stage. An unforgettable experience. It’s a deeply poignant scene as Paul, his vulnerabilty exposed at last, explains as he wipes away tears that he just didn’t know how to deal with his wife’s illness, and how much it hurt him that Harper was old enough to realise that he was a failure. Steve resorts to writing on his bare leg as Paul’s true feelings come tumbling out at last. I was laughing at Steve and crying with Paul all at the same time. Perhaps some light relief was necessary, but maybe the message is that, in life, tragedy, comedy and even farce cannot be compartmentalised – or edited.

I know you were wondering, so yes, Steve and Xena worked everything out. Steve’s going to find his own place, but until he does the newly purged and mellowed Paul agrees to take him – and Xena – in. Paul makes up with Vanessa and is able to tell her that she is a good writer and he might even like to kiss her.

The Final Scene

Picture St Petersburg at night. The only light from street lamps. Snowflakes are falling gently. Paul and Harper pass each other in the street – then look back and give each other identical exquisite little half-smiles that express hope, connection, love. Close up space? Gorgeous!

The play moved at a brisk pace and had a good rhythm. I loved it and I hadn’t been sure that I would. The play worked for me particularly because of the appealing and highly talented cast who found truth in the characters, which meant that no matter how extreme things got you believed in these people’s stories. I would like to thank the whole company of Close Up Space.

Finally, I’d like to say it was a privilege and a pleasure to sit in the theatre and watch the incomparable David Hyde Pierce act.

Variety on Close Up Space -
“There’s something so sympathetic about David Hyde Pierce’s wry portrayal that he comes to resemble Bob Newhart in his finest hour—an intelligent and sensitive man forced to suffer fools and idiots with patience and grace.”

For more reviews and some cool photos and videos check out the official Close Up Space website.

Close up Space will run until Sunday January 29.

Click links for the full reviews.

“Fresh and funny” is Patch.com‘s verdict.

Curtain Up speaks of David’s “breezy and accomplished direction”.

Peter Filichia for The Star-Ledger praises David’s slick direction and notes that “he has yet another talent”. (How can he find room for them all in just one person? )

Variety.com‘s review veers towards “ouch”, so carries a health warning for those of a sensitive disposition, but does praise all 13 actors and notes that David “has a knack for farcical staging”.

Richard Seff at DCtheatrescene.com had a good time. He calls David’s directing “solid” and is sure he’ll be back in charge of other works in the future.

Saving the best for last, let’s just quote Charles Paolino in MyJersey.com,
“A musical play like this comes along once in a blue moon. The smart writing and fresh humor and the nimbly constructed songs make “It Shoulda Been You” irresistible.” Wow!

An update – just had to add this stunning review from Centraljersey.com

Stand out performance form Lisa Howard

It Shoulda Been You got a great review in the
Northern New Jersey Theater Examiner. Rick Busciglio describes the show as a “bright, fun-filled musical” and “a remarkable production”.

As well as a mention for that “impressive first-time director” David, he has high praise for all the cast, the supporting players as well as the stars.

Your admin particularly likes the line by the father of the bride, “Your Mother and I had words….I just didn’t get to use any of mine.”

Let’s hope this show has a life after George Street Playhouse. Sounds as though it deserves it. More reviews as and when we get them.

The show runs until November 6th. Tickets from George Street Playhouse

photos by T.CharlesErickson

The show won’t be finally set until its official opening on Friday (October 14th) but DHP.org found this rave review of the almost finished article on Gil’s Broadway Blog.

“The Broadway Beat” It Shoulda Been You, George Street Playhouse, October 9

I can’t recall the last time that the three major New Jersey Theatre companies have all started their seasons with new musical productions that all could ultimately end up on Broadway or at least Off Broadway. McCarter Theatre opened their season with Ten Cents a Dance, which has been speculated as a possible Roundabout Theatre production this season which was followed by Newsies at Papermill which has a clear shot at opening on Broadway next Spring.

Now comes It Shoulda Been You at the George Street Playhouse. With an A list comical cast, a plot with some original and unseen twists and turns, a very funny script and a nice score, I can honestly see this doing good business at one of the smaller Broadway houses.

Led by the comic duo of Tyne Daly and Harriet Harris and directed by four time Emmy Winner David Hyde Pierce, It Shoulda Been You tells the story of one day in two family’s lives. It is the wedding day of their children, the bride is Jewish, the groom isn’t, the two mothers clearly don’t get along and then there is the bride’s former boyfriend who just found out about the wedding and shows up to possibly derail the whole event.

Now while that plot seems like something you might have seen many times before, let me just say that It Shoulda Been You throws in plenty of twists, a couple of which you clearly don’t see coming and there is plenty of warmth and love behind the comedy. Those elements elevate it to make it more than just your typical wedding day comedy.

Lisa Howard is the older, heavier and less pretty of Daly’s two daughters. Of course it isn’t her wedding day but her younger and prettier sister’s. Howard is the star of this production and gets the most to do and she is more than capable of handling the duties. She has a great voice and gets some nice songs to sing. It is nice to see Howard, who had a decent size part in the original Broadway cast of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, taking center stage here and showing she is more than capable of starring in a musical.

Daly and Harris are the two mothers and they are simply perfect. Daly rings every possible bit of angst and guilt out of the Jewish mother character and she delivers the comical lines spot on. She also gets a couple of nice songs and her voice is warm and clear, even better than when we saw her in Cabaret last Spring. She also looks fantastic. Harris is pure comical genius. Her face, voice, body language and a bottle of gin combine to deliver a whirling dervish of a character. Like Daly, she also gets some nice songs to sing and delivers them perfectly.

David Josefsberg is the ex boyfriend of the bride. Like Howard, it is nice to see Josefsberg get a big part to play after seeing him in the original ensemble casts of Altar Boyz Off Broadway, in a small part in The Wedding Singer on Broadway and in the ensemble of The Toxic Avenger at George Street a few seasons back. He has a nice stage presence, a good singing voice and perfectly plays the comic and drama parts of the script required of him.

Edward Hibbert is the wedding planner, and as can be expected he delivers every moment in the high end comic fashion he is known for. The rest of the ensemble cast include Richard Kline as Daly’s husband and Howard McGillin as Harris’. While they are reduced more to secondary characters, Kline has some great lines to deliver. It is too bad that McGillin isn’t given much to do, as he has the biggest Broadway pedigree of this cast, having starred in the Broadway productions of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Anything Goes, The Secret Garden, She Loves Me, Kiss of the Spider Woman and holding the title of having played the most performances as the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera. So, the fact that he is only given a few lines in one song to sing solo is one drawback of the evening. However, if he was given a solo song to sing it might have slowed down the high paced antics of the show.

The groom is Matthew Hydzik, with Curtis Holbrook as the best man and Carla Duren as the maid of honor. They all hold their own against the rest of the more seasoned pros in the cast and even though their characters aren’t as well defined as the rest, they all have some moments to shine, especially in the second act.

The show has a book and lyrics by Brian Hargrove and a score by Barbara Anselmi, with a few songs having lyrics by a couple of other individuals. They’ve created a score with plenty of character songs, songs that move the action forward as well as some beautfiul and introspective inner monologue pieces. There is a simple yet elegant set direction by Anna Louizos that creates various rooms and locations in a 5 star New York hotel and costumes by Willian Ivey Long that include beautiful wedding attire including killer dresses for Daly and Harris.

Hyde Pierce has clearly gotten a lot of his friends together for his musical theatre directing debut, with Harris and Hibbert having starred on Frasier with him, and Hibbert and choreographer Noah Racey having been in Curtains on Broadway with him. He moves the evening along at a fast pace, even at some moments approaching farce and is more than capable of directing the cast in both the high end comic scenes as well as the more dramatic ones. Hyde Pierce introduced the show last night and was in the audience taking notes, so I’m sure there might be some changes made before it officially opens on Friday. However, with the thunderous audience reaction both during the show, after several of the songs and at the curtain call, I don’t think there is much that needs to be tweaked.

While It Shoulda Have Been You might at first appear to have a basic story that has been done many times before, it really is a very modern story with up to date issues. It also has many laugh out loud lines and scenes and has an extremely gifted cast led by the powerhouse duo of Tyne Daly and Harriet Harris and a truly star making turn for Lisa Howard. With an effective score that gives everyone plenty to do and beautiful sets and costumes I can’t imagine that this show won’t have a life after the George Street. And even with all of those great things going for it what really stands out in this musical is the heart at its center and that is what makes this into a show that I have to believe could end up in New York City this season.

Here’s a wonderful review of David’s appearance at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis on Sunday night, where he discussed his stint at the theatre in the early eighties (original article at MinnPost).

Sunday night, the Guthrie Theater brought David Hyde Pierce to the theater for a discussion with artistic director Joe Dowling. You know the actor. He spent 11 years on the television show Frasier as the title character’s nervous, arch, lovestruck, rivalrous brother, Niles Crane; the abundance of adjectives in the preceding sentence gives some indication of the depth of characterization the show provided Pierce.

For those of you with longer memories, you’ll also remember Pierce from a three-year tour of duty he did with the Guthrie from 1983-86, back when the theater recruited actors for entire seasons, rather than individual shows. The Guthrie was then under the artistic directorship of the brilliant Romanian director Liviu Ciulei, who returned to Romania after the revolution of 1989, where he has become one of that country’s defining filmmakers, a fact that is scarcely known in the Twin Cities, which suggests to me that a retrospective of his films may be overdue.

In a convivial hourlong chat, Dowling gently nudged Pierce to look back on his career; Pierce is a wry conversationalist with a taste for wry anecdotes. He recalled auditioning for the Guthrie as a young actor — he was one of three called back for Peer Gynt. Another was a young man named Brian Hargrove. “I don’t know if you know Peer Gynt,” Pierce told the Guthrie audience. “It’s inverse and it’s Norwegian and it’s trolls.” At the callback for the audition, Pierce turned to Hargrove and said, “Can you believe we were both called back for the worst play ever written?” Hargrove has since gone on to be a television writer and producer of no small accomplishment; Hargrove and Pierce have also been longtime partners, and it was Hargrove’s move to Los Angeles to pursue television writing that caused Pierce to look for work as a television actor.

Neither were cast for Peer Gynt, but both were remembered and cast in later shows — just barely, in Pierce’s case. He recalled being cast in the Guthrie’s production of The Seagull, directed by another Romanian, Lucian Pintilie, who also has become quite an accomplished filmmaker in his home country. After the first day of rehearsal, Ciulei came up to Pierce and told him, “You are doing very well. You should not feel bad that you were not the first choice for the role.”

“Until that moment, I hadn’t known that I wasn’t,” Pierce said.

This production of The Seagull was experimental in a way that could charitably be considered daring and uncharitably be called reckless — for instance, it started well into its final act, which was then played out to its end, and then the play started over in entirety.

“It was quite an education,” Pierce told the audience. “I didn’t know you could take a classic play and just ruin it.” Here, Pierce held for laughter, his clockwork comic timing still precise. He then added: “Provided you have a good reason.”

An audience member later asked Pierce about that role. She had gone back and read Mike Steele’s review from the Star Tribune (the mention of Steele’s name caused Pierce to visible shudder). According to the woman from the audience, Steele hadn’t liked the production very much — he found it to be overly broad — but he had singled out praise for David Hyde Pierce, who then was calling himself David Pierce. “You had more hair then and less name,” she said, causing Pierce to pitch his head backwards with delight.

“First of all,” he told her, “I love you.” He then went on to say that Pintilie recognized that Pierce’s role, as the doomed playwright Konstantin Gavrilovich Treplyov, was the core of the play, and had not directed him to exaggerate his acting. Also, before he began the role, he was given a book by actor Austin Pendleton that discussed the possibility that there are suicidal personalities — that some people may be careening toward their own terminus regardless of what else is going on. “That kept me grounded,” Pierce told the audience.

It was, from all accounts, an ungrounded play — a radical reconceptualization of Chekhov, with monochrome costumes and a set made of steel and mirrors, so that the whole of it played as though the play were flashing through Treplyov’s dying memories. Pierce described getting lost, thanks to the set’s mirror maze quality — in one scene, he was supposed to march off the set through one of the mirrors at the back of the stage, but he couldn’t locate the one that opened, leaving him wandering the back of the stage in confusion. Additionally, the show made use of some sort of petroleum-based smoke effect, which left the stage slick enough that, during one entrance, Pierce and his leading lady found themselves spinning circles toward the front of the stage like figure skaters. “Somehow, Lucian blamed us for that,” Pierce said.

Let me close with two comments Pierce made on the subject of acting. He had considered being a concert pianist, but decided to pursue acting instead. He was, as he explained, not a very good concert pianist.

“If there’s something else you can do badly, that’s a good reason to become an actor,” he said. When asked if he has any advice for aspiring actors, he gave a one-sentence response: “Do it because, and as long as, you love it.”

 

David Hyde Pierce as master of ceremonies (as well as co-writer of the show with Lonny Price) keeps things moving briskly while adding a deadpan wit to the evening’s musical proceedings. One running joke is Pierce’s suggestion that since the partially-Spanish-language revival of West Side Story has been so successful, the evening should feature Sondheim’s lyrics translated into other languages including “a Polish Pacific Overture” and “Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Switzerland”. Pierce finally gets his wish by mixing several languages into his rendition of “Beautiful Girls” from Follies. Humorously, the orchestra repeatedly begins playing music from Sweeney Todd only to be directed to switch to something else (one time admonished by Pierce that “This is a birthday party. We’re going to eat cake, not people.”).

Intrigued? Remember you can order the DVD and Blu-Ray of the concert from our store!

La Bête had its Broadway opening night on Thursday. Here are the initial reviews! (Pic from Playbill.com.)

• New York magazine says David “deploys his full range of patrician disgust and j’accuse gazes with such brilliance …”
• David performs like  a “seasoned Shakespearean” according to NY1 (there’s video too!).
• Mark Rylance gives a “tour de farce” according to Ben Brantley’s mostly positive review in the New York Times.
• David plays Elomire “brilliantly,” says the New York Post.
• Capital New York says David scores laughs with “facial expressions alone.”
• David is “swaggeringly masculine” (!) according to TheaterMania.
• The Hollywood Reporter says David displays “comic mastery.”
• USA Today describes David as “both anchor and graceful second banana” to Mark Rylance.
• David is at his “subtle, arch best” according to AP .
• David holds his own with Mark Rylance, says the Village Voice.
• The New Yorker says David is “terrific to watch.”
• … and finally, NY Daily News says David offers “delicious seething disdain.”

Pretty positive all round!

When life is getting a bit much – when you are surrounded by electricians gouging holes in your walls and filling your house with plaster and rubble in the name of rewiring, three weeks after they said they would be nothing more than a dusty, biscuit-munching memory, for not completely random example; when your cat is ill, your neighbour has been burgled and your husband’s idea of helping is to tear recipes out of magazines and suggest that you cook him something called crab linguine – there is always one place you can turn to soothe the troubled soul. And that place is 1901 Elliott Bay Towers. It’s where Frasier (Comedy Central, daily) lives.

You know, of course, the setup. The shrink from Cheers returns to his hometown of Seattle to start a new life and job as a radio therapist after his divorce. His ex-cop father Martin moves in with him, along with Martin’s physiotherapist Daphne. His brother Niles is a frequent visitor, especially after he falls in secret, unrequited love with Daphne. Roz, Frasier’s abrasive producer, completes the mix. But what a mix.

Kelsey Grammer as Frasier is a master of the art of taking his character as far out as possible – whether he’s being unbearably pompous, pretentious, insecure or heartbreaking – and bringing him home to land safely. David Hyde Pierce’s Niles is a piece of precision engineering – physical and verbal comedy played to equal perfection and hitting their marks every time. And between them, John Mahoney plays the wise-and-wiseacre dad, who has to do nothing but be “normal”, the hardest comedy job of all.

It doesn’t matter how many times you have seen any episode. The grace of the plotting, the shining rigour of the script and the immaculate playing of it all by a cast that – if you discount Daphne’s “Manchester” accent – doesn’t have a weak link in it (even the unseen Maris is more fully and subtly drawn than most “real” characters in any other sitcom), mean it remains a thing of beauty and a joy forever. Thank you, Seattle, we love you.

Playwright David Hirson and director Matthew Warchus are brave to revive La Bête, only a modest success when first seen here in 1992. You can understand why an audience might find it difficult. First, it’s written in rhyming couplets. Second, it’s set in the 17th century, in a French chateau. Third, it’s about the friction between a classically formal playwright (Elomire, an unsubtle anagram for Moliere) and Valere, an exponent of dumbed-down comedy, and their rivalry for the patronage of a very rich French Princess – not much to get excited about there, apparently.

But that’s before you know that the Princess is acted by Joanna Lumley (Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous), that Elomire is played by David Hyde Pierce (Niles in Frasier) and Valere by one of the greatest living actors, Mark Rylance. Mr Hirson has daringly given Valere an uninterrupted monologue in the first act, lasting at least 30 minutes. The subject of this incredible feat of comic memory is Valere himself. His teeth protruding and plastic mouth going in every direction, Mr Rylance gnaws on a slice of melon. And sprays bits of it over the simmering, but not yet boiling-over Mr Pierce, as he lauds himself and his works, interrupting his flow of self-praise only to belch or break wind.

It is a tour de force for which the audience’s prolonged applause and cheers seemed inadequate, as did Mr Pierce’s no longer bottled-up outrage. This plot is simple: will the purist Elomire yield to his patron, the Princess, who insists that he add Valere to her resident theatrical troupe. One of Valere’s plays is staged as his audition piece, but it is nowhere near bad enough to alienate our sympathy from the egomaniac, or make us side with poor Elomire.

Like Ms Lumley, Mr Pierce doesn’t have enough to do – or say – in this weird beast of a play. But his eyes are so eloquent that he has little need of speech to carry his burdensome half of the plot. Who is the fool of the French title – Elomire, Valere or the Princess? No idea; but I’d not have missed it for the world.