Branford Marsalis, Broadway composer

When I read that Branford Marsalis was composing music for the Broadway revival of August Wilson's play Fences my initial reaction was: Why?

I saw a production of Fences last fall at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston and it was terrific. But it's not a play in which music plays a big role.

Plus, isn't Marsalis, a Grammy-winning saxophone player, primarily known as a jazz musician? Is jazz even the right music for this play?

Hartford Courant theatre critic Frank Rizzo thinks more highly of the idea than I do. He wrote in his blog Behind the Curtain: "Any way to bring in talents from outside the immediate theater community is to be applauded. It's a great way to stimulate the art and attract new artists and audiences."

Okay, Rizzo makes a good point. I'm all for attracting new artists to the theatre - if their participation makes sense. In this case, I'm not sure it does. While one of the characters in Fences is a musician, he's only in a few scenes and tangential to the plot.

As for attracting an audience, the 1950s-set Fences cast already has ample star power in Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. Washington will play Troy Maxson, a Pittsburgh garbage collector and former Negro League baseball player, and Davis will portray his long-suffering wife, Rose.

I just can't see fans of Branford Marsalis suddenly thinking they need to check it out when they wouldn't have been interested otherwise. It's not a concert or a musical.

For his part, Marsalis said "I look forward to the challenge of creating music that not only complements their performances, but enhances the experience for those sitting in the theater."

See, that's the thing. When I saw Fences, I didn't feel that my experience needed any enhancing. To me, Wilson's characters and storytelling in this Pulitzer Prize-winning play were compelling enough.

I wish Marsalis well and hope this works. But I wish director Kenny Leon, who also helmed Huntington's Fences, had let the powerful words of the late August Wilson stand on their own.

Fences begins previews April 14 at the Cort Theatre in a strictly limited 13-week engagement.

Andre Holland would make my list

This week, BroadwaySpace released its list of "30 under 30: Broadway's hottest young stars." There are some great names, talented actors whose performances I've really enjoyed.

Then there are others who may be perfectly fine but I'm not sure they belong on a list of "Broadway's most remarkable and noteworthy performers under the age of 30." Hey, I realize these things are subjective.

More importantly, as a couple of my fellow bloggers have pointed out, the list is sorely lacking in African-American faces. Broadway & Me rightly questioned the omission of the very talented Daniel Breaker (Passing Strange, Shrek) and Jon Michael Hill (Superior Donuts.)

Those names would definitely be on my list, but I'd like to add one of my own: Andre Holland. I saw him on Broadway last spring in Joe Turner's Come and Gone. He was wonderful as Jeremy Furlow, a young roominghouse boarder newly arrived in Pittsburgh from the South.

I'm not sure how old Holland is, but he's definitely an actor to watch. While he may not be as noteworthy as some of the people on the BroadwaySpace list, his performance definitely sent me to my Playbill at intermission to find out his name.

And Holland is currently getting some great reviews off-Broadway, at the Public Theater, in The Brother/Sister Plays. Here's what Variety critic David Rooney says about his performance:

"The cast is dazzling, the majority of them creating indelible characterizations in multiple roles. Holland's metamorphoses are especially remarkable, from a plucky kid to a slippery adult and then an awkward teen, just beginning to understand how to use his sexual mojo."

Here's a good Q&A with Holland by Patrick Lee, from Just Shows to Go You. Holland, who grew up in a small town in Alabama and studied at Florida State and NYU, talks about how he got started as an actor.

"August Wilson is what attracted to me to the theatre in the first place. I read Fences in high school and I couldn’t put it down – it was the first time I had read characters in a play who sounded like people I knew."

I hope he's back on Broadway soon - maybe in next spring's Fences revival with Denzel Washington. Wouldn't that be great!

But more importantly, I hope there are opportunities for Holland other talented young African-American actors to do good work in all kinds of roles - and be recognized for it.

Fences

Gratuitous Violins rating: ***1/2 out of ****

It's 1957 in Fences, the Pulitzer Prize-winning sixth chapter of August Wilson's 10-play cycle chronicling 20th century African-American life. This was the year nine black students integrated Little Rock's Central High School and Hank Aaron's home run clinched the pennant for the Milwaukee Braves.

Change is coming but in this compelling production at Boston's Huntington Theatre Company, directed by Kenny Leon, Wilson shows us how difficult it can be to break with the past.

As Troy Maxson, the play's main character, John Beasley is a commanding presence. He's a burly 53-year-old Pittsburgh garbage collector whose life experiences have made him hard and bitter. He can be funny and loving and cruel and thoughtless. He drinks too much and fools around but he has a deep sense of obligation toward his family.

And the supporting cast is equally terrific, including Crystal Fox, powerful in an understated way as Maxson's long-suffering wife, Rose, who tries to keep her family together; Warner Miller as his teenage son Cory, yearning for his father's approval; a very sweet Bill Nunn as his brother Gabriel, who suffered a head wound in World War II and believes he's the angel Gabriel; Brandon J. Dirden as his freewheeling older son Lyons; and Eugene Lee as Maxson's easygoing buddy Jim Bono, who often tries to talk some sense into his friend.

This is my second August Wilson play. I saw Joe Turner's Come and Gone, set in 1911, on Broadway in June. While I enjoyed that one a little more - it seemed to move a bit faster - Troy Maxson is one of the most complex and interesting of Wilson's characters that I've seen so far.

Maxson once played baseball in the Negro League but missed out on the game's integration, a fact that's central to this story. He angrily denies Cory a chance to meet with a college football recruiter because "the white man ain't gonna let you get nowhere with that football noway."

At first, I couldn't understand why the son of a sharecropper wouldn't be thrilled at the prospect of his son winning a scholarship. But this was a time when a college degree was no guarantee of success for a black man in America, when black men were only allowed to work on the backs of garbage trucks in Pittsburgh, not drive them. (And even when they finally do get to drive them, it can be lonely up front.)

Even the set design, by Marjorie Bradley Kellogg, a two-story brick house set in the back of an alley, with a small dirt yard, gives the impression that this is a closed-off, separate world.

Behind Maxson's anger, his harshness, is a desire to protect his son in the only way he knows how, the only way he can imagine. He wants Cory to learn a trade - building houses or fixing cars, "that way you have something can't nobody take away from you."

In some ways, this is a story about a generational shift. To men of Maxson's generation who came through the Great Depression, the purpose of work was to provide for your family. Whether or not you liked your job didn't enter into the equation.

Near the end of the play, Rose tells Cory: "Your daddy wanted you to be everything he wasn't ... and at the same time he tried to make you into everything he was. I don't know if he was right or wrong ... but I do know he meant to do more good than he meant to do harm."

Wilson is an absorbing storyteller who explores African-American history without seeming forced or preachy. Maxson isn't a one-dimensional tyrant or a stereotypical "angry black man." As the play went on, layers were added and I understood more of what made him so unique, so flawed, so human.

The Huntington had a long relationship with Wilson, who died of liver cancer in 2005. In the theatre's Limelight magazine, there's a list of the plays in the century cycle and the season each was staged - except one, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, set in 1920s Chicago, which is "upcoming."

You know I'll be there.

Meanwhile, you've got one week left to see Fences, which closes Oct. 11.

Today, Fences at the Huntington

My 2009-2010 theatergoing season kicks off today with a trip to Boston for August Wilson's Fences, at the Huntington Theatre Company.

I saw my first August Wilson play, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, on Broadway in May and I loved it. There's just something about the characters, the storytelling, that I found so compelling. It really drew me in.

Like most of the plays in Wilson's Century Cycle chronicling African-American life, Fences takes place in Pittsburgh. But the story is set in 1957, some 46 years after after Joe Turner's Come and Gone.

Written in 1983 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, it tells the story of a former Negro leagues baseball player named Troy Maxson and his family.

The director is Kenny Leon, who worked with Wilson on many of his plays. I didn't realize that the Huntington, too, had a lengthy partnership with the playwright, up until his death in 2005. Here's an interview with Leon from The Boston Globe.

And here's a behind-the-scenes look at the production:



Unusual for me, I've actually tried to exercise some restraint and stay away from the reviews. But from what little I've read, this production is getting some terrific buzz and I'm really excited about seeing it.

My must-see fall shows, regional edition

Fall preview season is just the greatest time of year. Every tv series is a possible hit, every book a potential bestseller and there's no shortage of promising performances on stage and screen. I get kind of giddy anticipating it all.

When it comes to theatre, I want to see everything but sadly, unlike books, movies and tv shows, that's not practical. So here are the plays and musicals in my area that I don't want to miss and have a realistic chance of being able to see. This might not be everyone's list, but it's mine.

I already have my ticket for The Huntington Theatre Company's production of August Wilson's Fences. After loving Joe Turner's Come and Gone, I'm excited about seeing another chapter in Wilson's cycle chronicling African-American life in the 20th century, this one set in the 1950s. (Also, the Huntington has set up a great Web site for the play, with links to podcasts, articles, interviews and sketches for the set design. Every theatre company should do it this way.)

I'm also interested in Shooting Star at Trinity Repertory Company. The two-hander is by Steven Dietz, a new playwright for me. Plus, it's a "smart romantic comedy," one of my favorite genres. And it features Kurt Rhoads and Nance Williamson, husband and wife actors who've won praise for their work with the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. It'll be nice to see some new faces at Trinity Rep.

I never had a chance to see Avenue Q on Broadway and it closes Sunday. But I've certainly heard a lot about this rather raunchy, supposedly hilarious puppet show over the years. I'm looking forward to catching up with the tour at the Providence Performing Arts Center, just to see what snatched the 2004 Best Musical Tony from my beloved Wicked.

On the other hand, Rent isn't new to me. I saw it at PPAC in 2008. But the tour is returning to Providence this fall with Broadway's original Mark and Roger - Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal. Rent was a groundbreaking musical in so many ways and to be able to see it with two of its original actors is a unique opportunity.

Speaking of Wicked, the musical returns to PPAC for a month in December. I saw the show on tour in 2007 and just fell in love with it. So you know I'll be there - and I hope you will, too.

Cast announced for Huntington's Fences

Boston's Huntington Theatre Company opens its 2009-2010 season next month with a production of August Wilson's Fences and I'm really looking forward to it.

I saw my first play by the late Tony and Pulitzer winner in May, the Broadway revival of Joe Turner's Come and Gone, and I loved it. I love how Wilson combines African-American history with a compelling story and characters in a way that never seems forced or preachy.

This week, the Huntington announced the cast for Fences, which begins previews on Sept. 11 and runs through Oct. 11. The play will be directed by Kenny Leon, who's helmed two of Wilson's works on Broadway as well as the recent revival of A Raisin in the Sun.

I'm only familiar with one of the actors - Bill Nunn, whom I've seen in movies. But that's okay, except for Ernie Hudson I didn't know any of the actors in Joe Turner either.

Luckily, I have the Internets to help provide a little background.

The play, which takes place in 1957 in Pittsburgh, tells the story of Troy Maxson, a former Negro League baseball player whose dreams were thwarted by racism. Maxson's frustration with the way his life has turned out impacts his family, especially his son Cory, a budding football star.

Included in the cast are John Beasley as Troy, Crystal Fox as his wife, Rose, Warner Miller as Cory, Bill Nunn as Troy's brother, Gabriel, and Brandon J. Dirden as Lyons, Troy's son by a previous marriage.

Beasley played Troy Maxson in March 2008 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., which held staged readings of all 10 plays in Wilson's Century Cycle chronicling African-American life in the 20th century.

Here's a review from Elyse Gardner in USA Today. Maxson, she writes, "is one of the greatest tragic heroes written for the stage, and John Beasley is marvelous in the part, by turns hilarious, infuriating and heartbreaking."

Update: More background on the cast, from the Huntington's blog.

It's curtains for four shows

Today marks the final performance for two Broadway plays I loved, Joe Turner's Come and Gone and reasons to be pretty; along with a third I enjoyed very much, Exit the King.

I took a pass on the fourth show that's closing, Guys and Dolls. I really want to see this musical on stage someday but with lackluster reviews and a cast that didn't excite me well, I guess I'll have to wait for the next revival. According to Playbill, the producers are planning a national tour for 2010-2011, so maybe I'll catch up with it then.

Of course, like most Broadway plays these days, Joe Turner, produced by Lincoln Center Theater, and Exit the King were limited runs. Reasons to be pretty, a transfer from off-Broadway's MCC Theater with some cast changes, was open-ended.

Lincoln Center's Bernard Gersten told The New York Times that a presidential visit and a Tony for cast member Roger Robinson for Best Featured Actor in a Play weren't enough to justify an extension. “We ran the risk of extending and playing to half-empty houses."

It's too bad Exit the King couldn't have extended on the heels of Geoffrey Rush winning a Tony for Best Actor in a Play. As a dying monarch who isn't ready to leave life's stage he gives an amazing performance that's part comedy, part tragedy. Maybe Rush simply had other commitments that precluded it.

But I feel especially bad that August Wilson's Joe Turner and Neil LaBute's reasons to be pretty failed to find bigger audiences. Even though they're very different they were two of the most enjoyable experiences I've had on Broadway this season and I thought both casts were wonderful.

Joe Turner is a compelling story about the lives of African-Americans at the beginning of the 2oth century that had me enthralled for close to three hours. Reasons to be pretty's story of four working-class twentysomethings had me laughing hysterically and cheering for its hero.

I'm not sure what, if anything, could have been done to draw more people to these plays.

I was looking at ibdb.com, and it seem as if the only August Wilson play to run for more than a year on Broadway was Fences, from 1987 to 1988. Most closed far short of a year. And while LaBute has a long list of off-Broadway credits, this was the first of his plays to make it to Broadway.

I know all the arguments - Broadway depends on tourists, who want to see musicals or stars they recognize from movies or tv. But that doesn't mean it's not sad all the same.

Joe Turner's Come and Gone

Gratuitous Violins rating: **** out of ****

I planned to take in the Broadway revival of Joe Turner's Come and Gone even before the president and first lady decided to drop by the Belasco Theatre for a date night. (Sadly, they beat me there by a week!)

I'd never seen a play by August Wilson and I figured that was a serious gap in my theatergoing experience. So I was excited when this production was announced.

And according to his widow, Constanza Romero, Joe Turner, the second in Wilson's Century Cycle chronicling the African-American experience, was the playwright's favorite of all his works. It was first produced on Broadway in 1988, with a cast that included L. Scott Caldwell (Rose, from Lost), Angela Bassett (in her first and only Broadway appearance. Come back!) and Delroy Lindo.

Still, by the time last Saturday night rolled around, I was feeling a bit of trepidation. I knew Joe Turner was nearly three hours long and it was my second show of the day - my fourth since Thursday. A little bit of theatre fatigue was setting in.

Well, I needn't have worried. I was totally swept up by this production from beginning to end. There is nothing like great storytelling and compelling characters to give a slightly weary theatergoer her second wind.

Joe Turner takes place in 1911 in a Pittsburgh boardinghouse operated by Seth and Bertha Holly, played with immense warmth by Ernie Hudson and LaTanya Richardson Jackson. They're a long-married couple who know each other's habits all too well.

Scenic designer Michael Yeargan has created a sparse but homey kitchen with a massive oak table in the center and a small, plant-filled garden lining the edge of the stage. The smokestacks of Pittsburgh's steel mills form a backdrop.

The Hollys' boardinghouse is a stopping point in the Great Migration of black people from the South to the North in the decades after the Civil War. They were seeking a better life, trying to find their place in a new world that was not very welcoming, in which prejudice and discrimination persisted.

Seth Holly, who grew up in the North, the son of a free black man, is one of the characters we get to know the best and Hudson, who I knew from the 1984 movie Ghost Busters, gives one of my favorite performances. Another character describes him as a "windbag" and he can be a bit disdainful of the attitudes of some of those new arrivals. But he's a good man and it's so sad to see how racism stands in the way of his ambitions.

Andre Holland made me smile with his sweet portrayal of Jeremy Furlow, one of those young ex-Southerners, an aspiring musician who fancies himself a ladies man. Roger Robinson gives a memorable, Tony-winning performance as Bynum Walker, an elderly rootworker who helps give the play a supernatural element.

And Chad L. Coleman is powerful as the mysterious and taciturn Herald Loomis, who has spent four years searching for his wife. His arrival at the boardinghouse one day with his shy young daughter, Zonia, played by Amari Rose Leigh, sets tumultuous events in motion.

One of the things I found so enthralling about Joe Turner's Come and Gone is the way Wilson packs so much of the African-American experience into the play. But he does it in a way that seems organic and natural, never forced. Bit by bit we learn more about his characters and their varied stories - where they come from, what their dreams are, the obstacles in their way.

There are also moments of great laughter and joy - like the West African juba dance in the first act and the way a neighbor boy, Reuben Scott, played by a very cute Michael Cummings, skips offstage after kissing Zonia.

Bartlett Sher, who helmed this Lincoln Center Theater production, has gotten quite a bit of attention, some of it negative, for being the first white director of an August Wilson play on Broadway.

I don't have the cultural background or theatre expertise to judge whether Sher's race made a difference. All I can say is, I was moved by the performances in Joe Turner's Come and Gone and I thought the story was riveting.

As I usually do, I went to the stage door afterward to get my Playbill signed. And I made sure to tell every cast member that this was my first time seeing an August Wilson play and I thought it was wonderful.

I was especially hoping to get Roger Robinson's signature because I knew he was favored to win the Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Play. The show ended at about 11 and he didn't emerge until nearly midnight. I'd almost given up hope but I was told he'd had visitors backstage and he was often the last one out.

Finally, he came and I told him how much I enjoyed myself, that this was my first August Wilson play. He said, "Well, I hope it won't be your last."

No, Mr. Robinson, it certainly won't be my last.

Obamas do dinner and a Broadway show

Now isn't this sweet:

“I am taking my wife to New York City,” the president said in the statement, “because I promised her during the campaign that I would take her to a Broadway show after it was all finished.”

President and Mrs. Obama are in New York City tonight, where they dined at a restaurant called Blue Hill in Greenwich Village, then traveled to Times Square to take in the 8 p.m. performance of Joe Turner's Come and Gone at Broadway's Belasco Theatre.

How cool is it that of all things, Michelle Obama wanted her husband to promise to take her to a Broadway show after the campaign?! Pretty darn cool, if you ask me.

Of course, there are some naysayers:

"While the Obamas’ visit to New York was considered private, there was some very public criticism of the trip. The Republican National Committee suggested that that the outing was inappropriate and that Mr. Obama was out of touch, especially given the looming bankruptcy of General Motors.

The committee issued a press release on Saturday afternoon that read, “Putting on a show: Obamas wing it into the city for an evening out, while another iconic American company prepares for bankruptcy.”

Oh puh-leeze!

I think the president and first lady are doing more for the economy by traveling to New York City for dinner and a show than they would hunkering down in the White House. They're supporting tourism and the arts, both of which employ a lot of people. And they're drawing attention to the work of August Wilson - a great American playwright.

Besides, what is he supposed to do tonight to prevent General Motors from declaring bankruptcy - require that every American go to their nearest GM dealer Monday morning and buy a new car?

I know we're in a recession but I don't expect the president to walk around in a hair shirt. Isn't his example better than Vice President Joe Biden telling us all to be very afraid?

I'm just sorry that I have lousy timing. I'll be at Joe Turner next Saturday night - missing the first couple by exactly one week. Still, it'll be my first August Wilson play and I'm pretty excited about it - even without the president in the house.

Bartlett Sher and August Wilson

An article this week by Patrick Healy in The New York Times discusses the controversy over the selection of a director for August Wilson's play Joe Turner's Come and Gone. This is the first time a play of Wilson's has been produced on Broadway with a white director, Tony-winner Bartlett Sher.

Wilson, who died in 2005, always insisted that African-Americans direct major productions of his works. He felt black directors could best interpret his plays, which deal with African-American life in the 20th century. And he wanted to provide them with opportunities that were sorely lacking on Broadway. His widow, Constanza Romero, gave the go-ahead for Sher to direct this Lincoln Center revival.

I haven't seen the play, so I can't comment on whether or not Sher was a good choice. (Broadway & Me weighs in with, as usual, a terrific and perceptive review.) But I can see both sides of the issue.

It seems to me that you're going to be pretty limiting if you start assigning shows to directors based on race, religion, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation.

A good director should be able to direct a play that might be the furthest thing from his or her own personal experience. That should include African-Americans directing plays with white casts. And Asian-American and Latino directors, too. Who knows, perhaps their interpretation will bring something new and vital to the table.

Look at a few recent examples: Annie Dorsen directed Passing Strange on Broadway, the story of a young African-American man; and Kate Whoriskey is directing Ruined off-Broadway, about the lives of women in the African nation of Congo. Both are white. Thomas Kail, who as far as I know isn't Latino, directed In the Heights, about a Latino neighborhood in New York City.

Still, I understand what Wilson was trying to achieve - a body of work that would be performed and presented by African-Americans, both onstage and backstage.

In the examples I just mentioned it would have been nice to include some of the African-American directors who have helmed shows on Broadway with largely white casts but I don't know if there are any, at least not recently.

That, it seems to me, is the heart of the matter - the lack of black directors - not only on Broadway, which is, after all, a pretty small place, but off-Broadway and in regional theatres all across the country. (And while we're at it, what about stagehands and choreographers and costume and set and lighting and sound designers?)

It would be great if Lincoln Center, now that it's broken the color barrier with Joe Turner's Come and Gone, would do its part. Andre Bishop, the artistic director, seems to understand. In the Times article, he says, “This experience has started a conversation about opportunities for black directors, and I’m taking it very seriously.”

I hope he does take it seriously because honestly, I think as theatergoers, we'd all benefit from a diversity of voices and experiences - both onstage and behind the scenes.

Some of the comments on the Times' site have been critical of Wilson's widow for allowing Sher to direct the play. But Romero is his sole executor and I have to believe that she and Wilson discussed what would happen after his death. Romero alludes to this in a 2007 Seattle Times article:

"I lived long enough with August to feel I knew what he wanted done with his work. ... Before he died we touched base on a few things. He understood I had to make decisions that would benefit his body of work, his legacy."

Huntington Theatre Company's new season

I haven't written anything yet about the Huntington Theatre Company's 2009-10 season. Unfortunately, I can't get to Boston as often as I'd like, but the Huntington is a great place to see a show.

As an added attraction, it's right down the street from my former stomping grounds, aka where I went to college. So a visit to the old neighborhood is always fun.

There are still a couple holes in the schedule but here's what artistic director Peter DuBois has announced so far:

Fences, by August Wilson, Boston University Theatre, Sept. 11 - Oct. 11
A Long and Winding Road, a musical journey with pop icon Maureen McGovern, Wimberly Theatre, Oct. 9 - Nov. 15
A Civil War Christmas: An American Musical Celebration, by Paula Vogel, Boston University Theatre, Nov. 13 - Dec. 13,
Becky Shaw, by Gina Gionfriddo, Boston University Theatre, Jan. 8 - Feb. 7, 2010
Stick Fly, by Lydia Diamond, Wimberly Theatre, March 26 - May 1, 2010

I'm most excited about Fences, directed by Kenny Leon. I haven't seen any of August Wilson's plays on stage yet. This one, the sixth in Wilson's 10-play cycle chronicling African-American life in the 20th century, received the Tony and the Pulitzer Prize and I think it's considered among his best works.

There are still two more plays to be announced and DuBois told The Boston Globe that he's planning a multiyer focus on American comedy, so maybe that's a hint about what's coming.

"One thing I discovered over the past couple of years directing comedy is that the human experience is often illuminated in comedy in the most surprising ways," DuBois says.

"I don't know of any other major theater in the country that's stepping back and saying let's create a festival environment around American comedy, and let's really ask the questions of what's the difference between American and European comedy styles, what characterizes it, and go all the way back to the '20s and '30s."