Downstage Center hits 300

Today marks another milestone for my favorite podcast, the American Theatre Wing's Downstage Center. This week's interview, with composer John Kander, is number 300.

Congratulations!

At the time of my first trip to Broadway, in 2007, I was pretty much a blank slate when it came to theatre. Four-time Tony winner Audra McDonald? I would have shrugged. But somehow I found my way to Downstage Center, then a co-production of the Wing and XM Satellite Radio.

The interviews with actors, directors, playwrights and designers were my ticket to the world of theatre on Broadway and beyond. I'd download the podcast from iTunes and listen at the gym or in the car.

The hosts, XM Satellite's John von Soosten and the Wing's executive director, Howard Sherman, were great at making the shows relaxed and conversational. Their questions were insightful and the guests weren't rushed - they were given plenty of time to talk about their lives and careers.

For example, I now know that at age 16, McDonald played Eva Peron in a Fresno, Calif., dinner-theatre production of Evita. One of Nathan Lane's first professional acting jobs was in a musical about the history of New Jersey, called Jerz. And Jan Maxwell got her Equity card after being cast as the understudy for the role of Lily St. Regis in a bus-and-truck tour of Annie.

It's been great to find an interview with someone whose work I've just seen onstage. I can't pick a favorite - every program has an anecdote or a quote that sticks with me, and I've shared a few of them on my blog. But the one with Marian Seldes is a gem. I even had a chance to tell her how much I enjoyed it.

Since August 2009 Downstage Center has been solely a Wing production, with Sherman handling the interviewing. (On the Wing's blog, he writes about the program's history.) I hope it'll continue, with his participation, after he steps down as executive director next year.

The Addams Family

The Addams Family, at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on Broadway.
Gratuitous Violins rating: **1/2 out of ****

Even though there's nothing remotely pink about it, I've settled on cotton candy as the perfect food metaphor for The Addams Family: tasty but not very filling.

Charles Addams' macabre cartoons first appeared in the New Yorker in 1938. Since then, they've been turned into a TV series and movies, video games and a musical variety show, to name a few incarnations.

Now, his characters known for looking on the dark side of life are in a splashy musical comedy, playing to some of the biggest crowds and with some of the highest ticket prices on Broadway. If you're visiting New York, it seems like a show that the whole family would enjoy.

And it's definitely a crowd-pleaser. The Addams Family has a large cast with actors who know how to deliver a joke, imaginative special effects, an impressive-looking set and a big Broadway sound.

While I enjoyed those things (as well as Thing), for me they weren't quite enough.

The musical starts strong, with the orchestra striking up the familiar TV-show theme by Vic Mizzy. A scene in a graveyard introduces the family and a ghostly chorus of ancestors with a lively ensemble number, "When You're an Addams."

I loved the Addams house - an old, creepy New York City mansion designed by Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch. Together with puppetry by Basil Twist and special effects from Gregory Meeh, they created an appropriately ooky, spooky atmosphere.

If only the rest of the musical had been that stylish and clever.

Composer Andrew Lippa's songs weren't very memorable. I felt like I'd heard similar ones in other musicals and there wasn't much variety to the delivery either. Although I have to admit, it was glorious to hear a full-sized orchestra fill a Broadway theatre.

The book, from Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, had too few examples of true wit. It relied on easy topical humor, with references to texting and swing states, and tiresome stereotypes - narrow-minded middle America. Those lines got laughs but I groaned.

The plot, instead of being inventive, was borrowed from La Cage aux Folles: Wednesday (Krysta Rodriguez) is bringing her boyfriend, Lucas, (Wesley Taylor) and his parents (from shudder, Ohio) home for dinner. She wants her "nontraditional" family to act "normal" for an evening.

Nathan Lane was a standout as Gomez - urbane, with a vaguely European accent. The man can wring a laugh out of me with even the most pedestrian lines. And the "Happy/Sad" ballad he sang to Wednesday, about his conflicting emotions as his daughter grows up, truly was touching.

With her tight, slinky gown and long, jet-black hair, Bebe Neuwirth looked stunning and as Morticia. I just wish she'd been given more to do besides her solo number, "Death is Just Around the Corner." (Corner - coroner, get it?)

Jackie Hoffman was a hoot as the salty, crotchety Grandma, even if the material felt mundane - telling Pugsley (Adam Riegler) to stop texting and open a book - and vulgar. (I mean, a pee joke?) And Kevin Chamberlin was sweet as the lovestruck Uncle Fester.

Lucas' parents, Alice and Mal Beineke, played by Carolee Carmello and Merwin Foard (subbing for Terrence Mann), were funny but their characters weren't the most interesting foils. Did anyone think they'd be able to keep Wednesday and Lucas apart? Did anyone care?

After a pre-Broadway run in Chicago, veteran director Jerry Zaks was brought in as a "creative consultant" to work with directors McDermott and Crouch. He tightened things up, put the focus more squarely on the Addams characters.

Maybe he did help but the problem was, after a dinner scene that ended Act I The Addams Family kind of fell apart in Act II. Everyone seemed to go their separate ways and the story drifted. I felt less and less engaged.

Still, despite the flaws I enjoyed myself. (Hey I was on vacation. What's not to like?) The Addams Family was fun - just not as inspired as I'd hoped it would be.

Snapping up a ticket to The Addams Family

The Broadway musical The Addams Family received a particularly negative review from New York Times critic Ben Brantley, yet it's doing great at the box office, taking in nearly $1.4 million and playing to 97.4 percent capacity last week.

And from my purely unscientific survey, I don't think that attendance is going to drop off anytime soon.

There's a new feature at Ticketmaster that allows you to select your seat. I've been looking at tickets for late July and great swaths of the orchestra have already been sold. (The regular-priced orchestra, that is. There are still plenty of premium seats.)

Surprising? Not at all.

It's got name recognition from the TV series and movies and the two stars, Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwith, help, too. It's a known quantity, which is comforting when you're shelling out $136.50 apiece for tickets.

But I think there's something even more important.

Every once in awhile I read the travel forums at Fodors.com. Lots of people who are coming to New York on vacation, and bringing their kids, want advice about a Broadway show. It has to appeal to mom and dad, teens and preteens, boys and girls.

Well, The Addams Family fits the bill, especially if they've already seen some of the other long-running musicals. Prominently displayed on its Facebook page is: "This show is family friendly and appropriate for children ages 10 and up."

So when it comes to musicals, family friendly can trump Ben Brantley.

Waiting for Godot

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

When I made plans for the Broadway shows I saw earlier this month, I figured Exit the King would be an absurdist appetizer before the main course - Waiting for Godot. (Pronounced God-oh here, but which I'd always pronounced Guh-doh, on the rare occasion when I needed to pronounce it at all.)

Written in French by Irish playwright Samuel Beckett in the late 1940s, Waiting for Godot is considered the masterpiece of theatre of the absurd. And according to at least one survey, conducted in 1998 by Britain's National Theater, it's the most significant English-language play of the 20th century.

Whoa, pretty heady stuff, no?

So I was looking forward to the Roundabout Theatre production, featuring Bill Irwin and Nathan Lane as the two forlorn tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, who are waiting for the mysterious Godot. (I just realized that Estragon is kind of an anagram for strange or stage. Hmmm.)

But knowing that theatre of the absurd often has very little plot and kind of nonsensical dialog, I was worried it might not make much sense. Sadly, my instincts were mostly correct. Maybe I'm not smart enough or patient enough but I have to admit that I just didn't get it.

Irwin and Lane are kind of funny being sad and hapless. I thought John Glover was terrific as the nearly mute slave, Lucky. And it was fun to see John Goodman, as Pozzo, his master.

In the end, though, neither Irwin nor Lane one made a very lasting impression on me. I didn't laugh very much and I didn't take away any deep meaning. It's not that I expected a physical comedy with lots of slapstick. But I didn't care about these two characters as much as I should have. Honestly, I was a little bored.

Like many absurdist plays, Waiting for Godot was written in the aftermath of the death and destruction of World War II and the advent of the Cold War. Santo Loquasto's set design - a stage filled with boulders and one scraggly tree, certainly conjures up some post-apocalyptic world.

I guess you could say that Vladimir and Estragon represent two sides of human nature - Vladimir is more philosophical, Estragon more concerned with the necessities of everyday life. And the fact that one day in their lives seems pretty much like the next could be taken as some kind of metaphor about the futility of human existence, like Camus' Myth of Sisyphus.

Or maybe it's about God, even though Beckett always denied that. I don't know. You can read a ton of theories here.

My favorite theory is that Beckett is teasing the audience, that there really is no profound, deeper meaning in Waiting for Godot, even though we continually look for one. Personally, I think the answer to what this play is about can be found in the very first word.

I was so interested in philosophy and theatre of the absurd when was younger but I never had a chance to see any of the plays. Now, I've seen two and I think that may be enough for quite some time. I'm still game for a challenging play but I like a plot, too.

So, after all these years, was Godot worth the wait? I'm kind of torn. Even though this production didn't engage me all that much, the play is considered a landmark. Now I've seen it - and I can move on. I'm done waiting for Godot.

Jerz(ey) Boy

I'm a big fan of the American Theatre Wing's Downstage Center podcasts. I've probably listened to half of the nearly 200 interviews with actors, playwrights, directors and others connected with the theater. As someone who doesn't have years of Broadway theatergoing behind her, it's great to hear actors talk about how they got started in the business, some of their earlier shows. There are always at least a couple of stories or quotes that stick in my mind.

Last week, I listened to an interview with Nathan Lane, currently starring as President Charles Smith in David Mamet's Oval Office satire November, which Lane describes it as an "absurdist political cartoon in the form of a play."

He reminisced about one of his first professional acting jobs, for a small theater in East Orange, N.J., called the Halfpenny Playhouse. It was around the time of the bicentennial, and they were putting together a musical revue about the history of New Jersey, called Jerz, which was performed at school and colleges around the state. Lane's big number was called "The Statue of Liberty Lives in Jersey City."

And file this story under "They'd never do it today." Lane said that in 1972, when he was in high school, he saw the revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, with Phil Silvers in his Tony-winning role. The show wasn't doing good business so as a publicity stunt, the producers had a free Fourth of July matinee. "I stood on line in the blazing sun and I was the last person let into the theater," Lane recalled, "and then they closed the doors."

Apparently, giving away tickets didn't help. It closed on Aug. 12, after 156 performances. (The second revival, for which Lane won a Tony award, did much better, running from 1996 to 1998, with more than 700 performances.)

Still maybe that experience is why Lane has a soft spot for matinees:

"Those are the best shows, the matinees. I love the matinees. The matinee people, they want to be there. They haven't been dragged by a spouse or they're not there on a business trip of some kind. They're there to see the play or the people in the play and they want to have a good time. Very often in the evening, they're a little more judgmental, or you know, go ahead and show me, prove to me how hilarious you are. But the matinees are always great."