My Broadway celebrity wish list

I have to give credit to James Spader, who's making his Broadway debut in David Mamet's play Race, for something he wrote in his Playbill biography:

"After working in film and television for more than 30 years, it is one of the greatest honors and pleasures of Mr. Spader's career to be back in the theatre performing this play, with these players, on this stage, for you tonight."

Even though I was disappointed with the play I love Spader from Boston Legal and it was great to see him on stage.

Since celebrities are all the rage on Broadway these days, I'm hoping some other actors who've been concentrating on movies and TV will follow his example.

For instance, after the Golden Globes on Sunday night, Meryl Streep told the press that she's ready to return to Broadway.

"I don't have a plan for that, but I would like to. I always said when my children grew up and went to college, I could think about that. And, that happened this year, so I'm looking."

Of course America's greatest living actress is high on my list of people I'd love to see treading the boards. Streep last appeared on Broadway in 1977, in the short-lived Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht musical Happy End.

(Although she did return to New York to great acclaim in Mother Courage and Her Children in Central Park in 2006. I definitely would have waited in line for a chance to see that!)

If Meryl's looking to return, I'm guessing some producer somewhere is thinking up a project for her at this moment. (It would be icing on the cake if she could bring former costars Anne Hathaway and Amy Adams with her.)

It's always cool to know that someone who's moved on to movies or TV got their start on Broadway.

Sometimes they come back, like Emmy winner Kristin Chenoweth who's starring in Promises, Promises, and sometimes, sadly, they don't, like comedian Ben Stiller, who made his first and thus far only Broadway appearance in 1986.

There's another performer who's definitely overdue for a return.

With the final season of the ABC series Lost beginning next month, I'm hoping Michael Emerson will make his way back to Broadway.

In the right role I think Emerson, who plays the creepy Benjamin Linus on Lost, would be a big draw.

He was last on Broadway in a revival of Hedda Gabler in 2002. And before that, he starred with Kevin Spacey and Paul Giamatti in a revival of The Iceman Cometh.

Perhaps there's a play they could all do together?

I have thoughts, too!

It's been over a year now since I started writing Gratuitous Violins and I'm still waiting, patiently, for a publisher to stumble upon it and offer me a book deal. Sigh.

Until then, I'll live vicariously through Julie Powell, who wrote a blog about working her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It became a bestselling book and now, a movie, Julie & Julia, starring Amy Adams and Meryl Streep in the title roles.

Here's the trailer. It opens Aug. 7, and I can't wait! Meryl Streep is pretty amazing.

Doubt

Be forewarned: There are spoilers in this review!

When we first see Meryl Streep as Sister Aloysius in Doubt, she's patrolling the aisles of St. Nicholas Church in the Bronx on a Sunday morning in 1964, making sure all of the children are paying attention to Father Flynn's sermon. Dressed in black, her skin pale and her face pinched, she quiets the talkative ones and gives the sleepy a whack on the back of the head.

Streep is a fierce and fearsome presence throughout the entire movie, railing against ballpoint pens and poor penmanship and believes in Catholic tradition to the point where she opposes secular songs in the school's Christmas pageant.

At the same time, Philip Seymour Hoffman is a pink-faced, genial, gregarious and smiling Father Brendan Flynn, the parish priest who wants the church to be a more welcoming, friendlier place for its working class Italian and Irish flock.

The contrast between the two is stark. And it sets up a fascinating question over whom to believe when Sister Aloysius, the school principal, accuses Father Flynn of molesting a 12-year-old student. Is the priest guilty or is he a victim of a witch hunt by a nun who opposes his efforts at a more modern, approachable church?

I think part of the power of this movie version of John Patrick Shanley's Tony and Pulitzer-winning play is that you can have an endless discussion over it. There are good arguments on both sides. While other viewers may come to a different conclusion in the end, I really had no doubt. Although Doubt takes place in 1964, I couldn't help but see it through a 21st-century prism.

Incidents of sexual abuse against children by Roman Catholic priests have been well documented over the past decade. Some have gone to prison and dioceses all over the United States have paid out millions of dollars to hundreds of alleged victims of thousands of priests. From what we learn about Father Flynn over the course of the movie, he certainly seems to fit the pattern of abusive priests. I have no doubt that he was guilty.

What struck me as truly fascinating about Doubt was the cat-and-mouse game between Sister Aloysius and Father Flynn. She has to tread very carefully because as the priest, he has all the power in their relationship. She knows that he'll be protected by the higher-ups in the church. I suspect that when priests were abusing children, the nuns had their well-founded suspicions, especially nuns like Sister Aloysius, who seems to have eyes in the back of her head.

I never saw the play, but apparently on stage there are only four characters in Doubt: Father Flynn; Sister Aloysius; Sister James, a young nun; and the mother of Donald Miller, the school's first and only black student, whom Sister Aloysius suspects Father Flynn of abusing. The theatre audience never sees Donald, or any children.

In filming his play Shanley, who wrote the screenplay and directs, shows us the children, in school and in church. I don't want to give too much away but for me, there were a few things that I think stacked the deck against the priest. One of those was, simply, seeing the children. Joseph Foster II plays Donald as just about the quietest, most meek and well-behaved child in the school. As the only black student, he's also the most isolated and vulnerable.

In the end, Sister Aloysius is pretty much out there on a limb with her suspicions. Viola Davis gives a powerful, compelling performance as Donald's mother. She's fearful for her son's future and mostly seems happy to have the priest looking out for him. And Amy Adams plays the young Sister James as sweet and trusting, who definitely feels aligned with Father Flynn's more modern, tolerant views.

At the beginning of Doubt, Streep's Sister Aloysius isn't a very sympathetic character but by the end, I really did respect her. She's stern and tough but she cares about those kids. No matter what she thought of Father Flynn's theology, I don't think there's any way she'd defy him over it. After all, he's a priest and nuns are taught to defer to priests.

But if she thought for an instant that a priest was hurting one of the children in her care, you better believe she'd move heaven and earth to get him out of her school.

Mamma Mia!

Okay, I've got to say this up front: I really enjoyed Mamma Mia! It's not a great work of art, but hey, that's not the point for me. I went to be entertained and stay cool on a hot day. And Mamma Mia!, with those very catchy Abba songs, in a movie theatre with the air conditioning cranked way up, definitely fit the bill - on both counts.

Plus, Meryl Streep is my dancing queen. She does a split, slides down a railing and leads a Greek chorus (of real Greeks!) singing and dancing along a path to the sea, to the tune of the title song. The woman turned 59 last month and she's amazing.

I saw Mamma Mia! on Broadway last summer and I thought it was great fun, with lots of humor and moments of real poignancy. The Abba craze must have passed me by, because I wasn't all that familiar with the songs. But they're very addictive. My foot was tapping pretty much the entire time.

It's true, there's not a lot of dramatic tension, and the show's paper-thin plot becomes even thinner on the big screen. But somehow, by actually showing us the picturesque Greek island where the story takes place, Mamma Mia! the movie takes on more of a dreamy, fantasy-like quality than the stage version. So what if it doesn't make complete sense?

Streep plays former pop singer Donna Sheridan, a hotel owner who's raised her daughter Sophie by herself and pretty much given up on love. Sophie (a very sweet Amanda Seyfried), is about to get married to Sky (Dominic Cooper, whose main job when he's on screen is to be awfully cute). She invites three of her mother's former lovers, the suave architect Sam (Pierce Brosnan), button-down banker Harry (Colin Firth) and rugged adventurer Bill (Stellan Skarsgard) to the wedding, in hopes of figuring out which one is her father. Christine Baranski and Julie Walters add great comic touches as Streep's ex-bandmates. Lots of hilarity, singing and dancing ensues.

As much as I liked the movie, I did miss the energy level that you only get from being in a packed house and watching the performers live on stage. You simply don't feel as connected in a movie theatre, where the performers are on a giant screen, larger than life. It's more difficult to totally lose yourself in the action. Still, it was great to hear the songs performed in a vibrant surround sound, and my foot was tapping again.

I loved the way the big musical numbers, like "Mamma Mia," "Money, Money, Money" and "Does Your Mother Know," were staged. Yeah, they were kind of silly, but they got my adrenaline rushing. Just like I did when I saw the show on Broadway, I got a little teary at Seyfried's "I Have A Dream." On the other hand, Brosnan doesn't really have a great voice, which must be why director Phyllida Lloyd had the background music turned up really loud when he was singing.

And I thought some of the shots were gorgeous, like the lighted, winding path up to a church perched on a cliff for the wedding scene, and the way Streep is framed with the sea in the background during "The Winner Takes It All." She's achingly beautiful at that moment and I think she does a great job with the song.

In a summer of animated movies and superhero movies and action movies, it's nice to have a movie for those of us who move to the beat of a different cinematic drummer. My audience was a mix of ages, with lots of young girls. People were laughing and clapping and enjoying themselves. I was pretty much smiling the whole time.

I'm sure I'll be getting my very own copy of Mamma Mia! when it comes out on dvd. On a snowy winter evening or another hot summer day, I'll pop it in the dvd player, fast forward to my favorite parts, and smile again. Maybe, in the privacy of my own home, I'll even sing along. Sadly, I will not be doing a split.

Mamma mia - it's here!

Some cinematic observations:

I don't think I'll be going to see the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight. Maybe I'll catch up with it in a few months, when it comes out on DVD. Maybe. It just looks too intense and violent for me. Plus, I'm not really a comic book fan. And when I see Heath Ledger's scary, twisted face as The Joker it just makes me cringe. I know his final performance is getting tons of praise. But it seems unbearably sad to watch someone so young on the big screen who's recently passed away, and in such tragic circumstances - from an accidental drug overdose.

It's finally here! Mamma Mia! opens nationwide today! I will be going to see the summer 2008 entry in the revitalization of the movie musical. It's only going to be about 95 degrees this weekend. Is there a better way to spend a couple of hours than sitting an air-conditioned movie theatre and being transported to a Greek island - with fun ABBA tunes? Plus, I'm sure there'll be another terrific performance from a singing and dancing Meryl Streep, arguably America's greatest living actress.

In addition to musicals, I'm a huge documentary fan, and I just read about a new blog devoted to the genre called Docsider. It's written by Mark Rabinowitz, one of the founders of Indiewire, which provides news and networking on the subject of independent films. So far, Docsider has only a few posts, but as someone who likes to keep track of what's going on in the documentary world, including upcoming releases, it could be a great resource.

And finally, Marc Shaiman is pretty high up on my list of personal musical theatre gods. There's just something about the catchy pop tunes that he and Scott Wittman wrote for Hairspray, the way they captured America in the early 1960s, that I find irresistible. A few weeks ago I saw South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. It really was hilarious, a great satire, and I loved Marc's songs. So I'm happy to hear that he's writing the score for a new movie, Bob: The Musical, about a thirtysomething self-proclaimed musical theatre hater who wakes up one morning to find out that his whole life has become a musical. Sounds like fun!

Getting out my dancing shoes

It's a Broadway musical. No, it's a movie musical. Wait, it's a Broadway musical and a movie musical - at the same time! Last summer, it was Hairspray, and now Mamma Mia! gets a chance to make the transition to the big screen, while still playing on Broadway and just about everywhere else.

The movie Mamma Mia! doesn't open until July 18, but the soundtrack goes on sale today. If you want to join me in giddy anticipation, you can check out the Web site, watch clips, read interviews and put on your dancing shoes. Oh, and don't forget your bathing suit, a floppy hat and some sunscreen.

The film magazine Empire has a report from last week's British premiere. The movie's stars, including Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Julie Walters, Stellan Skarsgard, Dominic Cooper and Amanda Seyfried, were there. Christine Baranski was otherwise engaged on Broadway, in Boeing-Boeing. (Speaking of Broadway, I would absolutely love to see Meryl Streep on stage.)

For the uninitiated, Streep plays former pop singer Donna Sheridan, who owns a hotel on a Greek island. Her daughter Sophie (Seyfried), is about to get married to Sky (Cooper). Sophie invites three of her mother's former lovers (Brosnan, Firth and Skarsgard) to the wedding, in hopes of figuring out which one is her father. Baranski and Walters play Streep's ex-bandmates. The whole thing is set to songs by the 1970s Swedish pop group Abba. Got that?

Here's the lineup for next week's talk shows:

July 14 Pierce Brosnan, The Late Show with David Letterman
July 15, Colin Firth, Live with Regis and Kelly
July 15, Meryl Streep, The Late Show with David Letterman
July 16, Meryl Streep, Live with Regis and Kelly
July 16, Meryl Streep Late Night with Conan O'Brien
July 18, Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, The View
July 18, Pierce Brosnan, Live with Regis and Kelly

In this interview with The Guardian, Streep talks about singing, dancing and doing splits for her role. "I just did the splits on instinct. That's what always happens with my acting. As an actor, you're not allowed to think."

Streep's introduction to Mamma Mia! occurred when she took one of her daughters and some friends to see the Broadway musical a month after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"They walked in and they sat there with their heads in their hands,'' Streep said. "Dimmed is the word - they were sad all the time, you know? The first part was really wordy, and then Dancing Queen started up. And for the rest of the show they were dancing on their chairs and they were so, so happy. We all went out of the theatre floating on the air. I thought, 'What a gift to New York right now'."

The show, which opened in London in 1999, had its first Broadway preview at the Winter Garden Theatre on Oct. 5, 2001. Last week, it played to a capacity audience in New York of 101.5 percent, with an average ticket price of $74.77. I tried to find out how many productions are playing worldwide, and it's a lot. Too many for me to count on both hands.

Judy Craymer, the producer who brought Mamma Mia! to the stage, talks to the Times of London about the show's origins. She was 23 and working for Tim Rice on Chess when she met half of ABBA, and had a hunch that their songs would work in a musical. “It won over the cynics, and people who don’t see themselves as Abba fans. They enjoy the story and being taken on a fun journey to the Greek islands.”

A New York Times article notes that "with the worldwide success of the original show, the appealing and high-profile cast, and the international, multigenerational Abba fan base, Mamma Mia! would seem to have huge box-office potential." But despite the recent mini-surge of movie musicals, there have been hits (Chicago) and misses (The Producers).

As popular as the musical has been, I think the movie could improve on it by opening up the dance numbers and adding some breathtaking scenery to the mix. Hey, when it's 90 degrees outside, I could spend a couple of hours in an air-conditioned gigantiplex listening to some ABBA tunes and being whisked away to a sun-dappled Greek island.

Speaking of ABBA, the group's official Web site has a story about bringing Mamma Mia! to the big screen, and the reservations early on that a movie would cut into the show's audience.

“It used to be that one wouldn’t make a film until ‘the stage musical has had its run’,” said band member Bjorn Ulvaeus, “but that rule has been abandoned these days. There doesn’t seem to be a particular timing that is exactly right, but there is plenty of evidence that the stage version benefits from a film version, no matter what kind of business the latter does."

The four members of ABBA - Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Faltskog - attended the movie's premiere in Sweden. (By the way, Ulvaeus and Andersson have cameos).

Sadly, there's no chance of a reunion tour. "We will never appear on stage again," Ulvaeus told the Telegraph newsapaper. "There is simply no motivation to re-group. Money is not a factor and we would like people to remember us as we were, young, exuberant, full of energy and ambition."

Can't stop the musicals

This has been an especially great couple of years at the movies for fans of musical theater, starting with last winter's "Dreamgirls," then "Hairspray!" over the summer, and now, "Sweeney Todd."

While the cinematic version of "Sweeney Todd" is too intense for my tender sensibilities, there's no question that I'll be heading to my local multiplex on July 18 to see the next stage-to-screen production, "Mamma Mia!"

I've seen the trailer, (thanks to Chris for the link) and it's gotten me pretty excited. One of the things I liked about the movie version of "Hairspray" was the way director Adam Shankman opened up some of the numbers, like showing Nikki Blonsky's Tracy Turnblad making her way to school in "Good Morning Baltimore." He really brought the song to life. I'm hoping the same will happen with "Mamma Mia!"

I'm really looking forward to watching Meryl Streep, America's greatest living actress, singing and dancing on a sun-drenched Greek island - a perfect combination! Not to mention costars Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Julie Walters.

In the Telegraph, Charles Spencer has an interview with three of the creative forces behind "Mamma Mia!" Judy Craymer, the producer who had the idea of turning Abba's hits into a stage show, Catherine Johnson, the writer, and Phyllida Lloyd, the director.

Craymer talks about getting Meryl Streep for the movie: "She saw the show on Broadway and wrote us a fan letter saying what a great time she'd had. And it all happened rather fast. We spoke to her agent, her agent spoke to her, and apparently she said: "Mamma Mia!?? I AM Mamma Mia!?" and the next thing we knew, we were on a plane to see her, like over-excited teenagers."

Lloyd says that Streep threw herself into the project. "She told us she thought the role would really stretch her - it gave her a chance to be a singer, a rocker, a mother, and to use her looney-tunes farce skills."

And Johnson adds that she's pleased she got to keep the sole writing credit on the movie. She tells Spencer, "I kept expecting to be replaced at any moment by David Mamet or somebody."

I saw the stage version of "Mamma Mia!" at Broadway's Winter Garden Theatre in July and I had a great time. It was the first show in my sumertime musicals marathon - seven tuners in five days.

You know how sometimes a little snippet of music just pops into your head? Well, although I was never a huge ABBA fan, the songs have definitely stayed with me - every once in awhile I'll find myself humming a verse from "I Have A Dream," "Dancing Queen" or "Honey Honey."

"Mamma Mia!" is sweet and charming and funny with very likable characters. At the core of the story is the relationship between mom Donna Sheridan, a singer turned tavern owner played on Broadway by Carolee Carmello, and daughter Sophie, played by Carey Anderson. Sophie invites three of her mother's ex-flames to her wedding, in hopes of discovering which one is her father. Carmello and Anderson bring lots of energy heart to their roles.

(I have to say, though, that no one in the show looks like the dark-haired bride pictured on the original cast recording and posters).

And the show has had incredible staying power, spawning productions around the world. "Mamma Mia!" has played more than 2,500 performances since opening on Broadway on Oct. 18, 2001, and manages to fill nearly 90 percent of its seats every week - without resorting to stunt casting. It's one of those shows that appeals to theatergoers of all ages, and from what I could tell, all nationalities.

Although I do wonder how parents explain the plot to young children - a woman who invites three men, one of whom is likely her father, to her wedding. What happens when they ask, "Why doesn't she know which one is her daddy?"