Off-Broadway Musical Review—Amy Heckerling’s “Clueless”

Clueless 
Book by Amy Heckerling; choreography by Kelly Devine; directed by Kristin Hanggi
Performances through January 12, 2019
The New Group, Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 West 42nd Street, New York, NY
thenewgroup.org

Dove Cameron (left) as Cher in Clueless (photo: Monique Carboni)

Amy Heckerling wrote and directed the movie Clueless in 1995, a hip update of Jane Austen’s Emma—about a young woman who fixes up everyone around her but only belatedly discovers the perfect man for herself—which made a star out of Alicia Silverstone as high school senior Cher, she of the valley-girlisms (“as if”).

Now, in 2018, Heckerling has transformed Clueless into an amusing musical that—at least in this spry incarnation savvily directed by Kristin Hanggi and wittily choreographed by Kelly Devine—follows the movie closely enough for those who are content to see the movie played out onstage. Heckerling’s biggest musical conceit is to take a bunch of songs from that era (by the likes of the Spin Doctors, TLC, Des’ree and Crash Test Dummies) and give her characters new lyrics to sing. 

So when Cher finds out that Christian, the boy whom she has a crush on, only wants to be friends, NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye” is sung as her friends taunt her with “Is he bi, bi, bi?” Obviously your mileage may vary on how annoying all this is—I hit the wall after about the third repurposed tune—but even those who get into it will admit that the repetitiveness is apparent long before Kim Wilde’s euphoric “Kids in America” wraps things up.

Befitting Devine’s exuberant choreographic moves, the ebullient cast is energetic throughout on Beowulf Boritt’s stylishly tongue-in-cheek sets. And superbly filling Silverstone’s shoes is Dove Cameron, a Disney Channel veteran who sings, dances and acts with a flair that makes the part of Cher all her own and makes Clueless anything but.

December '18 Digital Week III

Blu-rays of the Week 

Panique 

(Criterion)

Belgian author Georges Simenon’s novels have been adapted for the cinema for decades, and Jacques Duvivier’s 1947 drama based on Simenon’s short novel Monsieur Hire's Engagement (later the basis for Patrice Leconte’s 1989 Monsieur Hire) was one of the first—and remains among the best. Not only is it a cracklingly good drama with superior performances by Michel Simon and Viviane Romance, but it’s also a damning indictment of French WWII collaboration as townspeople are tricked into believing the innocent Hire is a murderer. Criterion’s Blu-ray looks exceptional in hi-def; extras are an interview with Simenon’s son Pierre, a look at subtitling and a discussion of the film’s merits by two French critics.

Dark of the Sun 

(Warner Archive)

When Jack Cardiff’s action-packed Congo adventure was released in 1968, it was excoriated for excessive violence, but 50 years later, its brutality will raise barely an eyebrow—but this story of corruption, mercenaries and vengeance is still hair-raising. Rod Taylor and Jim Brown lead a capable cast in this exciting, ultimately disturbing drama, with Edward Scaife’s photography—the film was shot in Jamaica, of all places, for its jungle landscapes and extensive railroad tracks—looking appropriately gritty on Blu-ray.

Horror of Dracula 

(Warner Archive)

In this colorful 1957 showdown between two Hammer Studio adversaries—meeting for the first time—Christopher Lee (the dastardly Count) and Peter Cushing (his nemesis van Helsing), a spooky mansion in Transylvania is the setting for much fang-baring and stake-driving. Director Terence Fischer’s programmer will do quite well for those with a Dracula fixation that needs sating; Lee and Cushing are always fun to watch going through their motions. There’s a solid hi-def transfer.

Jack Irish—Complete 2nd Season 

(Acorn)

Guy Pearce is properly frazzled as Jack Irish, a former detective turned private eye still affected by his wife’s murder and whose personal and professional lives are in shambles—so he takes on the case of a dead messenger that draws him to the dangerous streets of Mumbai. Despite implausibilities in the plotting—and that’s being generous—there’s sufficient local Melbourne color, vivid characterizations and a healthy dose of wry humor to assist Pearce in this entertaining six-part adaptation of Peter Temple’s books. The Blu-ray looks excellent; extras are interviews with cast and crew and on-set featurettes.

Lizzie 

(Lionsgate)

Craig William MacNeill’s straightforward revisiting of the legendary murders of Lizzie Borden’s father and stepmother in mid 19th century New England offers a lesbian relationship between spinster Lizzie and the Borden family’s new maid Bridget. Strong performances by Chloe Sevigny (Lizzie) and Kristen Stewart (Bridget)—both performing the murder sequences in the altogether, a rarity for American actresses—make this diverting if ultimately not very memorable. The film looks quite good on Blu-ray; lone extra is a making-of featurette.

Die Schöpfung/The Creation 

(Naxos)

For this singular 2017 staging of Joseph Haydn’s classic oratorio, the production teams of La Fura dels Baus and Carlus Padrissa joined forces in Ile Seguin, France, for a strangely intriguing perspective on a work usually not dramatized. The garish costumes and lighting sometimes obscure Haydn’s music and the singers, but conductor Laurence Equilbey makes sure we never get sidetracked from the life-affirming work at the center. Both hi-def video and audio are fine; lone extra is a making-of featurette.

The Predator 

(Fox)

Another reboot, but this time, Hollywood gets it (mostly) right: co-writer Shane Black directs a rip-roaring action flick that has dark humor, great pacing, good actors, dazzling effects and bloody gore galore. Some of the jarring tonal shifts don’t work completely successfully, but on the whole this updated Predator for a new generation is about as entertaining as can be hoped. The film looks great on Blu-ray; extras include deleted scenes and featurettes.

The Sea Hawk 

(Warner Archive)

This rousing 1940 adventure may be the best of the dozen films director Michael Curtiz made with swashbuckling Errol Flynn, who doesn’t disappoint as Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe, 16th century privateer who does all he can for Queen Elizabeth I as England attempts to wrest control of the seas from the Spanish armada. Flynn’s derring-do is only one part of this immensely entertaining historical spectacle: Curtiz directs with panache (even getting an amusing performance from a trained monkey) and Erich Korngold’s score is one of his best. The hi-def transfer is also spectacular, especially when it changes from B&W to sepia for a sequence set in the new world; extras include a vintage featurette and other Warner shorts. 

Viking Destiny 

(Lionsgate)

Director-writer David L.G. Hughes’ Norse adventure works surprisingly effectively because it’s kept to a sensible 91 minutes and its cast includes the one and only Terence Stamp as the god Odin and the wonderful Anna Demetriou as the young princess who battles her way to her rightful destiny after being framed for the murder of her father, the king. The astonishing beauty of the Northern Ireland landscapes, superbly photographed by Sara Deane, helps smooth over the choppy storyline. There’s a splendid hi-def transfer; extras include featurettes.

Wozzeck 

(Naxos)

This staging of Alban Berg’s masterpiece of 12-tone, 20th century opera has a frighteningly primal performance by Christopher Maltman as the anti-hero and a brilliant turn by Eva-Maria Westbroek as his prostitute girlfriend Marie. Even if Krzysztof Warlikowski’s directorial choices are sometimes suspect, Wozzeck flirts with surrealism anyway, so there are no fatal mistakes. Marc Albrecht conducts the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and Chrous of the Dutch National Opera with an ear attuned to Berg’s uniquely dramatic musical language. Both audio and video are first-rate in hi-def.

Off-Broadway Review—Tom Stoppard’s “The Hard Problem”

The Hard Problem
Written by Tom Stoppard; directed by Jack O’Brien
Performances through January 6, 2019
Lincoln Center Theater, 150 West 65th Street, New York, NY
lct.org

Adelaide Clemens (right) in Tom Stoppard's The Hard Problem (photo: Paul Kolnik)

The problem for many with Tom Stoppard is that he’s too brainy, too witty, too clever—but he’s always been more than that. The obvious example is The Real Thing, but for every pyrotechnic intellectual exercise like Jumpers or Travesties, there are also plays like Arcadia, Indian Ink, Rock’n’Roll and The Coast of Utopia, each a miraculous balance of heady brain candy and emotional resonance. Hearteningly, his latest, The Hard Problem, can be added to that list.

Stoppard’s heroine, psychology student Hilary, begins working at the Krohl Institute for Brain Science to deal with the ostensible “hard problem” of the title: human consciousness. As always with Stoppard, there’s more that meets the eye, ear, brain and—of course—heart. Hilary’s life and work are colored by her having given up a baby for adoption when she was a teenager. Its consequences are shown in a parallel plotline about the head of Krohl, an ugly American who yells into his cell phone and at his cowering underlings; even if one guesses where these parallel plots will arrive ahead of time, it doesn’t detract from Stoppard’s ability to insightfully explore how Hilary’s complicated feelings over that incident have made her the inquiring, passionate young woman she is today.

Stoppard also allows Hilary to be, unapologetically, a believer. After sex, she kneels to pray at the side of the bed, and if these occasions are amusing (she’s “caught” by her lover despite wanting to stay unseen), they engender typically Stoppardian conversations about the flexibility of belief and the inflexibility of those who don’t believe, even when it comes to science. While the play doesn’t quite make compelling cases either way, thought-provoking ideas are put forth without condescension, as Stoppard effortlessly juggles several paradoxes as dilemmas for Hilary to experience if not fully resolve.

At 100 minutes, The Hard Problem—captivatingly staged by Jack O’Brien on David Rockwell’s sly, endlessly mobile sets—is the shortest Stoppard play I’ve seen since Hapgood, the extraordinarily convoluted spy drama starring Stockard Channing staged by Lincoln Center Theater nearly a quarter century ago. I would have preferred if Stoppard had fleshed out his secondary characters more, but that would have also taken the focus away from Hilary, who is played by Adelaide Clemens—the young Australian actress who was so persuasive and likably authentic in Kenneth Lonergan’s play Hold on to Me Darling at the Atlantic a few seasons back—with authority and a charming ordinariness. Her complex and varied performance is the heart of The Hard Problem.

December '18 Digital Week II

Blu-rays of the Week 

Brewster McCloud 

(Warner Archive)

Made immediately after his 1970 breakthrough, M*A*S*H, Robert Altman’s character study of a young man who wants to fly—literally—while living in the bowels of the Houston Astrodome is one of the director’s most willfully bizarre efforts. The enjoyably oddball cast—Bud Cort, Sally Kellerman, Margaret Hamilton, Michael Murphy, and Shelley Duvall in her debut—can only provide so much color to Altman’s aggressively experimental failure, which weakly nods towards better films like 8-1/2 and The Wizard of Oz. The film has a good and grainy look on Blu-ray.

A Dry White Season 

(Criterion)

Euzhan Palcy’s 1989 drama is a blunt but insightful anti-apartheid tract, as a white South African family sheltered from the realities of the government’s racist system discovers what’s happening after its beloved gardener is put on trial. Donald Sutherland and Susan Sarandon are decent, Janet Suzman and Zakes Mokae are terrific, while Marlon Brando gives one of the most energetic performances of his late career (and an Oscar nomination) as a boisterous lawyer. There’s a sparkling hi-def transfer; extras include a new Palcy interview; a vintage Palcy/Nelson Mandela conversation; and a 1989 Sutherland “Today Show” interview.

God Bless the Broken Road 

(Lionsgate)

In this draggy expansion of a popular country tune, a young widow (her soldier husband was killed in Afghanistan) finds her faith sorely tested until the arrival of a handsome stranger who befriends her daughter helps her back on the right path. Lindsay Pulsipher as the mom and Makenzie Moss as her daughter are quite good, while the supporting cast led by Kim Delaney, Jordin Sparks and Robin Givens is OK. But the whole thing feels like one long melodramatic sermon, mitigating the goodwill of its premise. The hi-def transfer is first-rate; extras include interviews and featurettes.

Mame 

(Warner Archive)

This turgid musical stars an over-the-hill but game Lucille Ball as the partying aunt of a young boy who becomes his guardian and manages to steer him well despite her reputation, with songs by Jerry Herman that run the gamut from the now-holiday classic “We Need a Little Christmas” to standards “Loving You” and “It’s Today.” Robert Preston matches Lucy as her love interest, but the rest of the cast isn’t up to snuff; Gene Saks’ fuzzy direction makes its 130 minutes seem like 130 hours. The film looks fine in hi-def; lone extra is a vintage making-of featurette.

Picnic at Hanging Rock 

(Acorn)

Joan Lindsay’s classic novel about the mysterious disappearance of four young women was made into a stylish if muddled 1975 Peter Weir film; this new five-hour mini-series has all the stylishness but replaces the confusion with a haunting quality that gives the story its powerful impact. Natalie Dormer is perfect as the school headmistress who must deal with the emotional fallout and disastrous aftermath of the (mainly) unsolved disappearance. There’s an especially good hi-def transfer; extras comprise cast and crew interviews and on-set footage

Smallfoot 

(Warner Bros)

Yetis are abominable snowmen for those who don’t remember (and a cousin of Bigfoot, hence the title), and this humorous animated feature’s clever conceit—that a human is spotted by one of the yetis, who thought it was just a legend—helps paper over some interchangeable songs by Common and Zendaya. The top-notch voice cast, including James Corden, Gina Rodriguez and Channing Tatum—also does its part to keep the movie’s good nature quotient high. There’s an excellent hi-def transfer; extras include interviews, featurettes, a mini-movie and music videos.

Support the Girls 

(Magnolia)

Andrew Bujalski’s usually annoying mumblecore aesthetic is kept to a minimum in this entertaining glimpse at the manager of a local T&A bar (a would-be Hooters) on her last day, dealing with personal and professional problems like acting as a surrogate mother for the young women employed as scantily-clad waitresses. In the lead, Regina Hall gives a tremendously affecting performance that forms the film’s emotional core, and she has a great rapport with the rest of the cast, especially Haley Lu Richardson and Shayna McHayle as her closest employees. There’s a superior hi-def transfer.

Broadway Musical Review—“The Cher Show”

The Cher Show
Book by Rick Elice; directed by Jason Moore
Opened December 3, 2018
Neil Simon Theater, 250 West 52nd Street, New York, NY
thechershowbroadway.com

The Cher Show (photo: Joan Marcus)

There are two paths for a jukebox musical. The first is to attach a threadbare plot to an artist’s songs, like Mamma Mia (Abba), We Will Rock You (Queen), Escape to Margaritaville (Jimmy Buffett) or Head Over Heels (Go-Gos); the second is to make a sort of autobiography, like Beautiful (Carole King) or On Your Feet (Gloria Estefan). The Cher Show takes the second tack, with a trio of Chers (a conceit also used by Summer, another autobiographical musical) interacting, either amusingly or enervatingly, as the superstar’s bio is dramatized from her California childhood to her hitting it big with Sonny and the ‘70s and ‘70s to her musical comeback in the late 80s and 90s. 

Cher’s up-and-down career—which comprised hit songs and TV shows, flop recordings and bad movies and, finally, an Oscar (for Moonstruck)—has enough soap opera, melodrama, tragedy and triumph in it to overcome the story’s familiar showbiz clichés as awkward, shy Cherilyn Sarkisian becomes a global megastar (and “goddess warrior,” her own description), overcoming problematic relationships with Svengali/first husband, Sonny Bono, and second husband/drug addict Gregg Allman. Rick Elice’s book tiptoes around personal missteps by allowing Cher a bit of self-awareness as her alter egos—young Babe, mid-career Lady and icon Star—discuss them as they happen. 

The most obvious thing to note about The Cher Show is Bob Mackie’s splendid costumes. If anyone doesn’t remember them from Cher’s many TV appearances at awards shows and her own variety series with and without Sonny, they were truly spectacular: big and billowy or small and slinky, often with sequins, headdresses or other frills, Mackie’s costumes were as readily identifiable as the performer herself.

Costumes aside, The Cher Show is saved by its Star, the sensationally good Stephanie J. Block, who not only exactly copies Cher’s vocal mannerisms when speaking and singing but even looks like her, at least more than the other two—newcomer Micaela Diamond as Babe and Teal Wicks as Lady—who can both belt out the songs and act but can’t channel Cher as impressively.

Jarrod Spector (Sonny) and Matthew Hydzik (Gregg) are fine, while Michael Berresse exudes joy as Bob Mackie and tartness as director Robert Altman. Christopher Gattelli’s choreography smartly combines slavish reenactment and bright originality, while there’s a welcome tongue-in-cheek cleverness to Kevin Adams’ lighting, Christine Jones’ and Brett J. Banackis’ sets and Darrel Maloney’s projections. Director Jason Moore rounds up all this disparate visual and aural splendor into something approaching entertainment.

And the songs? Happily, there’s only a sprinkling of the awful, overdramatic sub-Meatloaf comeback tunes like the eardrum-hurting (and auto-tune starter) “Believe” and “If I Could Turn Back Time,” while there are lots of Sonny & Cher hits (“I Got You Babe” and “The Beat Goes On”) and early solo smashes (“Half Breed,” “Dark Lady”—weirdly resurrected as a sing-off between Sonny and Gregg—and “Gypsies Tramps and Thieves”). 

Not surprisingly, like its leading lady The Cher Show careens all over the place, but its target audience won’t care in the slightest. 

December '18 Digital Week I

Blu-rays of the Week 

Attraction

(Dark Sky)

This big-budget Russian armageddon flick by Fyodor Bondarchuk—son of renowned director Sergei Bondarchuk (who made the classic 7-hour War and Peace in 1966—is a supremely silly adventure, but it has a pretty good subject (are the arriving aliens malevolent or benevolent?) and a terrific young actress, Irina Starshenbaum, as a credible everywoman who falls in love with one of them. Lots of CGI effects battle for supremacy with less interesting sequences involving blocs of survivors and their competing allegiances, but Bondarchuk keeps things moving briskly for 135 minutes. The hi-def image is spectacular; extras are several featurettes.

Boston Red Sox—2018 World Series Collector’s Edition

(Shout Factory)

After the Boston Red Sox won 108 games in the regular season, then ran like a buzz saw through the Yankees and Astros—the latter looking to repeat as champs—in the AL playoffs, lots of skeptics thought they’d be beaten by the Dodgers in the World Series. But aside from that instant-classic 18-inning game which the Dodgers pulled out, the Sox had no problem winning it all for the fourth time since 2004. This comprehensive eight-disc set contains all five WS games, the Division Series-winning game vs. New York and the ALCS-winning game against Houston. Hi-def video looks superb, and audio includes options for TV announcers, home and away radio and Spanish-language. The one-disc Blu-ray includes the official 2018 World Series film, and extras comprising regular and post-season highlights and footage from the Boston victory parade.

Nelly 

(Cinema Libre)

Nelly Arcan was an elegant Quebec escort who wrote four revealing books, including one published after she committed suicide in 2009. In Anne Émond’s film that dramatizes with some grittiness and eroticism Nelly’s perpetually high-flying life in and out of many beds, Mylene MacKay gives a phenomenally authentic and ultimately touching performance of a self-destructive woman whose demise is unsurprising but harrowing nonetheless. The film has a top-notch hi-def transfer.

The Nun

(Warner Bros)

In this latest addition to The Conjuring franchise, an evil spirit scares the bejesus out of a novitiate and a priest who are investigating the surprising suicide of another young nun in a rural church in Romania. The laziness involved—standard-issue bumps in the night and feeble, well-worn scare tactics—is too bad considering there’s a decent cast (Demian Bichir, Taissa Farmiga) and a wonderfully photogenic setting for the conceit to work. But director Corin Hardy just shrugs and does the minimum amount possible. There’s a fine hi-def transfer; extras include deleted scenes, featurettes and interviews.

Westworld—Complete 2nd Season 

(Warner Bros)

(Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this blog post. The opinions I share are my own.)

Skillfully directed and acted, what Westworld lacks is a reason for going on and on as long as it does. What began as a diverting 1973 sci-fi flick (and an equally entertaining 1976 sequel) has been transmogrified into a convoluted and ultimately confused attempt at Significance. While it’s always great seeing the likes of Thandie Newton and Evan Rachel Wood in the prime of their careers—with a bonus nod to Sela Ward, who steals episode 9—the combination of self-satisfied writing, a portentous and overdone musical score and the feeling that the creators don’t really know where they’re heading combine for a self-defeating, enervating experience. The series looks tremendous in hi-def; extras are featurettes and interviews.

CDs of the Week

Leonard Bernstein—Fancy Free, Anniversaries for Orchestra; CBS Music, A Bernstein Birthday Bouquet (Naxos)

These two new discs were released on the tail end of the centenary of Bernstein’s birth, as the musical polymath has been feted around the world. Both CDs are conducted by Marin Alsop, a protégée of the conductor-composer-teacher-writer-raconteur, and feature world premiere recordings of some of his more obscure works. The first disc, along with the frothy overtures to Candide and Wonderful Town, includes the brilliant ballet Fancy Free and the first recording of the orchestrated versions of his pungent piano pieces, Anniversaries. The second disc, alongside bits from West Side Story and On the Town, features a suite from his failed Broadway musical about the presidency, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the rarely-heard CBS Music and the delightful Bernstein Birthday Bouquet, where eight composers wrote tongue-in-cheek tributes for Lenny’s 70th birthday in 1988.

Off-Broadway Review—Brecht’s “The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui” with Raúl Esparza

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui 
Written by Bertolt Brecht; translated by George Tabori; directed by John Doyle
Performances through December 22, 2018
Classic Stage Company, 136 East 13th Street, New York, NY
classicstage.org

Raúl Esparza in The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (photo: Joan Marcus)

Bertolt Brecht wrote his mordant anti-Nazi satire, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, in 1941 while living in Finland, waiting for his visa so he could enter the United States. Perhaps looking forward to leaving, Brecht set his play in Chicago, and its lead gangster (who’s from New York) takes over the lucrative “cauliflower trust” and rises to the top of the windy city’s underworld.

For his own tRump-era take, director John Doyle uses George Tabori’s serviceable translation and adds unnecessary parallels to both Hitler and tRump: a spoken timeline of what was happening in Germany on the road to dictatorship has been inserted, and we periodically hear “Sieg heils” intoned, just in case the dimmest member of the audience doesn’t get the connection. Doyle’s most effective touch is turning those creepy shouts into a final, tRumpian “lock her up.”

Doyle also doesn’t have his Arturo Ui—played by the vibrant and charismatic Raúl Esparza—look like tRump in any way, except for a nice bit during Ui’s climactic rise-to-ultimate-power speech when he wears a red tie. The dazzling Esparza turns on the charm and the exaggerated Brooklyn accent as he badgers, cajoles and convinces his followers and enemies how much his “protection” will improve their lives. 

Doyle has staged Ui as an ensemble piece, letting all cast members share in narrating the Hitler timeline, although his double- and triple-casting a few of the roles might confuse those in the audience unfamiliar with Brecht’s play. But Esparza guides us thrillingly through a blackly funny tale made all the darker by, in Brecht’s final warning, the fact that it could be happening again. And no amount of gallows humor will save us.