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.

Notable, quotable American plays

I've been looking over the results of a poll by the Denver Post that came up with the 10 most important American plays. They are:

1.) Death of a Salesman
2.) Angels in America
3.) A Streetcar Named Desire
4.) Long Day's Journey Into Night
5.) Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
6.) Our Town
7.) The Glass Menagerie
8.) A Raisin in the Sun
9.) The Crucible
10.) Fences

The only one I haven't seen is The Glass Menagerie. I've seen four on stage - Our Town, A Raisin in the Sun, Fences and The Crucible - and movie versions of the others. (My high school put on The Crucible, so it's been a long time!)

The newspaper surveyed people connected with the theatre world and the list is filled with high school and college English class fare. They're older works, which I guess is how you become a classic.

Two things surprised me about the list.

First, they're all exceedingly serious. Hasn't anyone written a great American comedy? Second, the article includes a quote from each play and I was surprised by how few I recognized.

These are important plays for the way they illuminate American life. But if I didn't already know the names of the top 10, I would only have been able to match the dialogue to the play for three - Death of A Salesman, A Streetcar Named Desire and A Raisin in the Sun.

I'm not sure that's important. A great play is more than a collection of snappy one-liners, right? Maybe it's just a reflection of my lousy memory. I can't quibble with the list or say that I would have done any better.

Anyway, here's a clip from a 1985 TV production of Death of A Salesman, adapted from the 1984 Broadway revival. It featured Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman, John Malkovich as Biff, Stephen Lang as Happy and Kate Reid as Linda.

For Willy's sake, please pay attention!

The Huntington's less than perfect pitch

Last night I received a call from a very pleasant young woman representing Boston's Huntington Theatre Company. She noted that I'd attended a performance of Fences and asked what I thought. I told her I really enjoyed it.

She said that was great and then proceeded to inform me that the production was going to Broadway, with only one cast change as far as she knew - the addition of Denzel Washington. She encouraged me to try and see the play again in New York.

Then she started to make a pitch for a donation. (Not to finance the "Broadway transfer," which would have been cool, but for the Huntington's very worthy education program.)

I once spent a couple of months selling subscriptions to The Boston Globe over the phone. (Not very successfully, I might add.) I know how hard it is, so I don't blame this person. Maybe she works on commission and isn't a theatre fan and doesn't even live in Massachusetts.

But I haven't seen the Huntington mentioned in association with the Broadway revival that begins previews April 14 at the Cort Theatre. As far as I know, this isn't a transfer but an entirely separate production with different producers and cast, headed by Washington and Viola Davis.

Maybe there's some connection I don't know about but as far as I can tell, the only thing the Boston and New York Fences have in common is that it's the same play and the same director, Kenny Leon.

What bothers me is that the same thing happened the last time I got a call from the Huntington, just a few months ago. The young woman on the phone tried to tell me that Becky Shaw, which the theatre is presenting in the spring, was a Broadway play. I know it's an off-Broadway play.

Now, I love the Huntington. I've seen several shows there and I've enjoyed each one of them and I'll definitely go again.

I know nonprofits are hurting and it's difficult to raise money. Broadway sounds better than off Broadway and Denzel Washington sounds more impressive than John Beasley (who actually was very impressive at the Huntington in the role Washington will be playing.)

But this is getting annoying.

So here's a some advice for any theatre company that might call me in the future: if you want me to consider donating money or becoming a season subscriber, please be honest when you make your pitch. Because I was not born yesterday.

The sad thing is, the Huntington does great work. It doesn't need to embellish its record.

My year of living theatrically - 2009

My year of living theatrically, 2009 edition, has come to a close. I saw 39 shows this year - 24 plays and 15 musicals - most of them on Broadway. (I realize that I missed out on a lot of great theatre off-Broadway and a lot closer to home, so I'll have to work on that in the future.)

I'll get to my picks for the year's best in another post but first, here's a rundown of some noteworthy events:

Crossed more Broadway theatres off my list.

That means out of 40, there are only 9 that I have yet to visit: the Ambassador, American Airlines, August Wilson, Cort, Golden, Henry Miller's, Longacre, Lunt-Fontanne and the Majestic. Not bad considering I only started in April 2007! First-time visits this year included Circle in the Square: So round! The Gershwin: Such sightlines! The Helen Hayes: So tiny!

Bought my first two tickets from TKTS.

Usually I buy my tickets in advance but this year there were two occasions when I didn't, so I ended up at TKTS in Times Square. The play-only line isn't bad but I don't know if I'd want to stand in the much longer plays and musicals line. In many cases, you can get discounts online that are just as good and you'll have your tickets before you leave home.

(Plus, it's kind of sad to listen to people standing in line who have no idea what they want to see or what anything is about, save for the shows that they won't find at TKTS anyway.)

In my case, I took a chance on Neil LaBute's play reasons to be pretty and ended up really enjoying it, especially the performances from Steven Pasquale and Thomas Sadoski as two blue-collar friends. And I finally saw The 39 Steps on Broadway. It's still as funny and clever as it was in Boston in 2007.

Saw my first two August Wilson plays.

I took in Lincoln Center Theater's production of Joe Turner's Come and Gone on Broadway (missed the Obamas by a week!) and Fences at Boston's Huntington Theatre Company. They were a great introduction to Wilson's absorbing characters and compelling storytelling. Now, I want to see the other eight plays in the late Tony and Pulitzer winner's cycle chronicling African-American life in the 20th century.

Played a small role in making theatre history.

In October, I attended a staged reading of The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later by students in the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA program. The play was presented on the same night in 150 venues across the country and around the world on the 10th anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard, a college student who was murdered in an antigay hate crime. The performances were memorable and the experience made the words "theatre community" seem so real.

My claim to theatergoing fame.

In February, I saw Fiddler on the Roof at the Providence Performing Arts Center with Chaim Topol as Tevye. I also saw Topol as Tevye in Tel Aviv in 1998, in a Hebrew production, which was my first time seeing Fiddler on the Roof in any form. (At that point, I'd never even seen the movie.) So now I can say that I've seen an actor play the same role on stage in two different languages in two different countries, on different continents and in different centuries!

Got a little more Wicked.

Ever since I saw the musical in January 2007 in Providence, I've wanted to see it on Broadway. I finally accomplished that goal for one reason - Tony-winner Rondi Reed was playing Madame Morrible and I loved her in August: Osage County. Well, she was terrific. Seeing Reed play a completely different character - with a completely different accent - only increased my admiration for her.

Right back where I started from.

Since the Sunday night performance of Fela! that I was going to see got canceled, (another first) that meant Wicked turned out to be my final show of 2009. How fitting that my third year of theatergoing ended the same way my first year began.

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.