Off-Broadway Musical Review—Alicia Keys’ “Hell’s Kitchen” at the Public Theater

Hell’s Kitchen

Book by Kristoffer Diaz; music and lyrics by Alicia Keys

Directed by Michael Greif; choreographed by Camille A. Brown

Performances through January 14, 2024

Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, NYC

publictheater.org

Maleah Joi Moon (center) and cast in Hell's Kitchen (photo: Joan Marcus)

Alicia Keys joins the long line of pop stars looking to make their mark on the world of stage musicals. Hell’s Kitchen, which comprises songs Keys had already written, recorded and turned into hits as well as new songs created specifically for the show, is a quasi-autobiographical show about a rebellious teenager, Ali, who lives with her harried single mom in a high-rise apartment building in the heart of Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood and pines for romance with a street drummer named Knuck (the appealing Chris Lee) and a burgeoning musical career as a way out of what she considers a dead-end existence. 

The musical is your garden-variety generation-gap comedy-drama, as Ali’s mom—unsubtly named Jersey—tries to shield her daughter from the temptations she fell prey to herself at the same age, getting pregnant while still very young and immature. Ali’s dad, a musician named Davis (the excellent Brandon Victor Dixon), is charismatic but unreliable. Ali, of course, will have none of what her mom dishes out, fighting back at what she thinks are unfair restrictions. One day, she wanders into her building’s music room and comes until the spell of the wise old Miss Liza Jane (the scene-stealing Kecia Lewis), who becomes a sort of surrogate mother, teaching her the piano and other necessary life lessons. 

Despite the material’s shopworn quality, Hell’s Kitchen is often exuberant and always energetic. Keys’ songs are rhythmically propulsive, and she has already written showstoppers of a sort: “Girl on Fire” is smartly placed near the end of act one, and it’s no surprise that “Empire State of Mind” is the show’s big finale, even if it’s somewhat anticlimactic. Michael Grief directs with a fine sense of proportion of the visual and the dramatic, making great use of Robert Brill’s multi-tier, fire-escape sets, Peter Nigrini’s clever projections and Natasha Katz’s inventive lighting design. And Camille A. Brown’s choreography is as dazzling as Keys’ songs are catchy.

But what makes the show unmissable are the performances of the leads. As Jersey, Shoshana Bean finally has a role worthy of her talent, and she not only acts the hell out of the loving but difficult mom but also lends her powerhouse voice to several songs. Even better—and making an amazing professional debut—is Maleah Joi Moon, who as Ali has a winning stage presence, acting chops, a terrific voice and enough moves to keep up with the ever-dancing ensemble, all the way from Hell's Kitchen to the Public Theater and—in the spring—to Broadway.

December '23 Digital Week III

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

The Crime Is Mine 

(Music Box)

French director Francois Ozon, who turns out films fast like a Gallic Woody Allen, is back with a tongue-in-cheek drama about Madeleine, a struggling actress who uses her trial for killing an elderly letcher (she’s acquitted, thanks to Pauline, her close friend, roommate and lawyer) as a springboard toward fame and fortune onstage and onscreen. Ozon’s direction wavers between excessively campy and wittily on-target, and the large cast has a blast: Nadia Tereszkiewicz as Madeleine, Rebecca Marder as Pauline, Isabelle Huppert as a possible rival killer, Fabrice Luchini as an investigator and Andre Dussolier as Madeleine’s fiancee’s rich and unhappy father.

A Disturbance in the Force 

(September Club)

1978’s Star Wars Holiday Special was a singular event in television history—singularly awful but destined to remain legendary since it’s never been seen again (at least not officially) thanks to George Lucas infamously hating it and keeping it under wraps. Steve Kozak and Jeremy Coon’s engaging and informative documentary not only shows clips from the special (I vaguely remember seeing it as a teenager back in the day) but speaks with several people—those who worked on the show, like writer Bruce Vilanch, and those who are fans, like Kevin Smith, Patton Oswalt and Weird Al—giving their often amusing takes on why it turned out like it did and its legacy as part of Star Wars history.

Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars 

Godard Cinema 

(Kino Lorber)

Before he died in 2002 at age 91, master French director Jean-Luc Godard finished what he titled a trailer for a film he would never get to make; Phony Wars is the usual dense Godardian collage, perfected in his films of the ’80s as well as his masterly series Histoire(s) du Cinema: at 20 minutes, it’s provocative and humorous enough to hint at what might have been if he made a full-length feature. 

Kino Lorber has paired the director’s final work with Godard Cinema, an acerbic and illuminating valentine by director Cyril Leuthy to Godard’s singular career as the enfant terrible of French cinema—Leuthy interviews colleagues and performers who worked with Godard (including Marina Vlady, Julie Delpy and the great Nathalie Baye), painting an impressionistic portrait of a cantankerous but important artist. 

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

The Exorcist—Believer 

(Universal)

Director David Gordon Green desperately wants to link the latest Exorcist sequel to William Friedkin’s classic original, so he begins with a shot of two dogs fighting, like the original; Mike Oldfield’s haunting “Tubular Bells” is heard in variations throughout, and the end titles are in the original’s same font. Otherwise, there’s little that’s similar in this crude horror flick that has the temerity to bring back Ellen Burstyn and, briefly, Linda Blair as the original’s Chris and Regan McNeil—only to dispatch Burstyn in a sequence so crass it’s headshakingly awful to contemplate. There’s an excellent 4K transfer; extras include on-set featurettes and interviews.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio 

(Criterion)

Do we need a stop-motion animation Pinocchio set during the Fascist era? Apparently, Guillermo del Toro thinks so, codirecting with Mark Gustafson a crudely melodramatic if visually impeccable adaptation that runs a full two hours—when at least 20 to 30 minutes could have been trimmed to make a tighter, more cohesive tale. Still, there’s much of interest on display, and it’s easy to see why it took several years to make, but as with many Del Toro films, he piles on the schmaltz, to the detriment of his own drama. The UHD transfer looks immaculate; extras include interviews with the directors and other creatives as well as a making-of documentary, Handcarved Cinema.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

The Ghost Station—Dead on Arrival 

(Well Go USA)

This eerie thriller is set in a Seoul subway station, where the dark tracks and cervices are the perfect spot for unearthly shenanigans, as a young reporter desperately looking for a good story burrows into a series of supposed suicides in that strange station. Director Jeong Yong-ki keeps the action and the twists moving swiftly, along with a couple of exciting underground sequences that compensate for an overreliance on jump scares and the “ick” factor of closeups of spirits in hideous makeup. There’s a fine hi-def transfer.

Menotti—Amahl and the Night Visitors 

(Naxos)

Italian composer Gian Carlo Menotti (1911-2007) created the first opera written exclusively for television in 1951, a touching one-acter about a crippled young boy who is visited by the magi on their way to a more famous nativity scene. Less than an hour in length, it was perfect for the then burgeoning TV medium; nearly 70 years later, Stefan Herheim’s 2022 Vienna production, updated to an antiseptic modern hospital where Amahl has terminal cancer, retains the lovely music (chorus and orchestra are led by Magnus Loddgard) but loses much of the sentiment with its forced hard edge. It has first-rate hi-def video and audio.

OSS 117—Cairo, Nest of Spies/Lost in Rio 

(Music Box)

Before he swept the Oscars for his cute but overrated 2011 parody The Artist, French director Michel Hazarincarius made a pair of goofy spy thrillers modeled on James Bond: OSS 117 is the code name for the handsome if accidentally successful French secret agent (the always debonair Jean Dujardin). 2006’s Cairo, Nest of Spies and 2009’s Lost in Rio provide the director and his hero the chance to parade around decent spy jokes and jokey action sequences in far-flung locations; Cairo is more watchable since it costars the director’s wife, the elegant and winning Berenice Bejo, who didn’t return for the inferior sequel. There are very good hi-def transfers; extras include commentaries, deleted scenes and featurettes.

The Wandering Earth II 

(Well Go USA)

For this big-budget Chinese sci-fi epic—and a prequel to The Wandering Earth—the visual effects are so eye-poppingly impressive that whenever the plot gets bogged down in minutiae or the less than scintillating interaction between many characters takes center stage it doesn’t really matter. Director Frant Gwo’s dramatic buildup over nearly three hours is often thrilling, even though this is basically a Twilight Zone episode stretched to monumental length. The film, which includes subtitled and English dubbed versions, looks absolutely breathtaking in hi-def.

CD Releases of the Week 

György Ligeti—Complete String Quartets 

(Dynamic)

Hungarian composer György Ligeti (1923-2006) might be known for his otherworldly music, so brilliantly used by Stanley Kubrick in three of Kubrick’s most unsettling films—2001, The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut—but the genius of Ligeti is his unclassifiable oeuvre comprising a singular musical vision that looked forward while nodding to the past. The works on this disc (superbly played by the Verona Quartet) bare this out. The first string quartet, Métamorphoses nocturnes (1953-54), has a sound world similar to Ligeti’s compatriot Béla Bartók, with variations of invention and vitality. The second string quartet (1968) goes even further, again hinting at the earlier composer while moving forward, full speed ahead, into modernity. Rounding out this exceptional disc is an early work, 1950’s Andante and Allegretto, pleasant yet nowhere near as revolutionary as what was to come.

Felix Mendelssohn—Symphony No. 4, “Italian” 

(Alia Vox)

When Felix Mendelssohn died at age 38 in 1847, several of his works had not been published, including probably his greatest—or at least most famous—symphony, the “Italian.” He had written it in 1833 and made revisions the next year, although the original version, opening with that instantly memorable and joyful melody, is still the preferred one. This CD includes both versions, played by the ensemble Le Concert des Nations under the firm guidance of Jordi Savall. To the uninitiated, they sound remarkably similar; in fact, there are a few differences in the final three movements, but the excellence of Mendelssohn’s orchestral writing and his gift for wondrous melodies make this a pleasure to hear in either version.

Off-Broadway Play Review— Sandra Tsing Loh’s “Madwomen of the West”

Madwomen of the West

Written by Sandra Tsing Loh; directed by Tom Caruso

Performances through December 31, 2023

Actors’ Temple Theater, 339 West 47th Street, New York, NY

actorstempletheatre.com

Caroline Aaron, Marilu Henner, Melanie Mayron and Brooke Adams in 
Madwomen of the West (photo: Carol Rosegg)

When is a play not really a play? When it’s chatty dialogue written for four actresses while they sit around enacting a birthday brunch. That’s not to say that Sandra Tsing Loh’s Madwomen of the West isn’t enjoyable to sit through: it is, but it’s almost entirely due to the performers onstage, pros all, who know how to interact and toss off Loh’s one-liners—some good, some not so good—with aplomb.

Marilyn throws a brunch at Jules’ L.A. (actually, Brentwood) home for Claudia’s birthday, who’s down in the dumps recently. Another of the women’s college friends, Zoey, who has earned fame and fortune onscreen and as an international wellness guru, was invited by Jules, and they are shocked when she shows up. The bulk of the show features verbal sparring as well as attempts to cheer up and empower each other through the difficult paths their lives have taken, both personally and professionally.

Loh’s script provides some good-natured and acidic jibes, though a few moments (like a tired Hillary Clinton argument between Marilyn and Jules, for example) could have been dropped. But it’s an entertaining 90 minutes thanks to the formidable cast, which director Thomas Caruso is canny enough to leave to their own devices. Caroline Aaron is her usual feisty self as the feisty Marilyn, while Brooke Adams is an elegant and refined Jules and Melanie Mayron’s matter-of-fact delivery works well for Claudia. Then there’s ageless wonder Marilu Henner enlivening the show with her flair and ceaseless energy as the zesty Zoey, who has a prodigious memory, just like the real Marilu.

Are these actresses simply playing thinly disguised versions of themselves? Henner and her memory are one thing, but I hope for their sake that Aaron never shot her husband, Adams never fell for the streaming Peleton trainer and Mayron never had a dysfunctional relationship with her transitioning teenage child. Either way, it’s a real hoot watching this quartet having fun onstage.

Art Review—“Beyond Monet” on Long Island

Beyond Monet

Through January 2, 2024

Samanea New York, 1500 Old Country Road, Westbury, NY

beyondmonet.com

I didn’t expect the first immersive artist show following Beyond Van Gogh on Long Island to spotlight the greatest of the French Impressionists—and forerunner to the abstract expressionism that exploded in the mid-20th century—Claude Monet. But here we are—although, since Beyond Monet alternates in the same space with the ongoing Van Gogh show, it’s likely not nearly as popular.

Similarly to Beyond Van Gogh (and, I would guess, other immersive artist shows), the multimedia Beyond Monet gives viewers a new way of looking at an artist and his—it’s always his—preoccupations, usually by lining up, on the walls of the space, reproductions of paintings that are visually similar, then morphing into other works. Then there’s replicating the “look” of the settings of Monet’s best-known works, like the gardens and water lilies near his home in Giverny, the cathedral in Rouen or London’s Parliament buildings. 

The visual motifs, as in the Van Gogh show, provide a sumptuous array of colors, transforming into other subjects that might or might not look familiar, based on one’s knowledge of Monet’s oeuvre. Ambient music—at times sounding like early ‘70s Pink Floyd—accompanies the show; unlike Van Gogh, there are no voices intoning Monet’s commentaries on art but rather simply the words thrown onto the walls, in the original French and in English translations. As I said in my review of Beyond Van Gogh, there’s a kind of Cliff Notes effect to this visualization of an immortal artist’s life and art, with little immersive sense, so to speak, of Monet’s artistic and historic importance. 

Of course, standing in front of the artist’s actual artworks is always more satisfying, and that also goes for Monet, whose masterly and massive Water Lilies canvases, which take up two galleries of the breathtaking Musée de l’Orangerie  in Paris, along with a large gallery in the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, might be considered some of the first truly immersive paintings.

Unlike the Van Gogh show, Beyond Monet does not include a virtual-reality experience, which makes it somewhat less immersive than it should be. Still, if this sort of thing is up your alley, it's is a pleasant way to spend an hour.

Off-Broadway Play Review—Jen Silverman’s “Spain”

Spain

Written by Jen Silverman; directed by Tyne Rafaeli

Performances through December 17, 2023

Second Stage Theater, 305 West 43rd Street, New York, NY

2st.com

Marin Ireland and Andrew Burnap in Jen Silverman's Spain

In her play Spain, Jen Silverman tells a story about disinformation and the value of art through an historic lens. In 1930s Manhattan, two Communist sympathizers are charged by their Russian handlers with making a film, a piece of propaganda, about the Spanish civil war. Neither having been there—and after brainstorming the most obvious clichés—they enlist a couple of famous writers to help flesh out the script. The film eventually gets made, and the Russians move on to other forms of brainwashing.

Of the characters in Spain, at least three are flesh and blood; the filmmakers are the fictional Helen and Joris Ivens, a Dutch filmmaker who did make a propaganda film for the Russians, The Spanish Earth. Karl, their Russian handler, is fictional; but novelists John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway, who are recruited by Helen and Joris, are not only but also contributed in some way to Ivens’ film. Silverman has fun with her bit of alternative history but, since Ivens comes off as naïve, Dos Passos as staid and Hemingway loud, the caricatures too neatly fit the play’s cantankerous tone, not quite serious but not quite frivolous.   

That said, Spain is somewhat underwhelming; with such imposing real-life characters and an exciting true story, it should have far more crackling dramatic sweep than it does. Yet, it’s a diverting 90 minutes, largely thanks to Tyne Rafaeli’s appropriately cinematic direction; she is greatly assisted by Jen Schriever’s inventive lighting, Dane Leffrey’s maneuverable sets, Daniel Kluger’s witty sound design and Alejo Vietti’s on-target costumes, all of which contribute to the fast but not exhausting pace. The cast, comprising Andrew Burnap (Ivens), Marin Ireland (Helen), Danny Wolohan (Hemingway), Eric Lochtefeld (Dos Passos), and Zachary James (Karl), does its best to put some flesh on these caricatures, with James providing extra zest with his booming singing voice giving the occasional operatic flourish.

Despite Spain’s glittery surface, Silverman is after something more. Late in the play, it’s said that “…films are powerful and so are the people who make them.” That leads to an ending that’s set in a somewhat hazy present with the same characters, who are now tasked with using their wares on the internet since, as Karl (still their handler) notes, “Movies aren’t a thing anymore.” But this scene feels tacked on as a way to crudely link past and present. Its themes of disinformation and purity in art remain relevant, but Spain sometimes becomes what it warns against.

December '23 Digital Week II

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

Five Nights at Freddy’s 

(Universal)

The latest video-game-turned-movie, this tongue-in-cheek horror flick has moments of amusing depravity as animatronic characters from a deserted family restaurant a la Chuck E. Cheese come to life and—coincidentally enough—kill several bad guys. Director Emma Tammi keeps a steady hand between silly and scary, and there’s enough of a heart—the hero is a flawed single dad who redeems himself to his young daughter and the cute local cop—to make this watchable for those not inclined towards all the mayhem. The film looks great in UHD; extras include on-set featurettes.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles—Mutant Mayhem 

(Paramount)

The green quartet returns for a reboot, this time voiced by actual teenagers, which is some kind of forward progress; also, the animation has a hand-drawn look that’s been out of recent fashion and so has the value of not having the usual antiseptic digital look. The breezy if clunky result, directed by Jeff Rowe, has an array of voices—including Ice Cube, Jackie Chan, Paul Rudd and Rose Byrne—providing comic heft when the plot and visuals bog down in the mire. There’s a fine 4K transfer; extras are several making-of featurettes and interviews.

Young Guns 

(Lionsgate)

This 1988 revisionist western, which brought together then up-and-comers Emilio Estevez, Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Dermot Mulroney, Casey Siemaszko and Lou Diamond Philipps, is agreeable entertainment, with the unruly young guns balanced by grizzled veterans Jack Palance and Terence Stamp. Director Christopher Cain guides the proceedings well enough, and if there’s not enough here for a sequel, one would follow anyway two years later. There’s a terrific UHD transfer; extras include a commentary with several of the young guns (but no Sutherland, Estevez or Sheen) and on-set featurettes.

In-Theater Releases of the Week

Lord of Misrule 

(Magnolia/Magnet)

This second-rate The Wicker Man knockoff follows the travails of Rebecca, a young priest who lives with her husband Henry and young daughter Grace in a remote village; one evening at an outdoor festival, Grace disappears and Rebecca finds herself increasingly at odds with a pagan leadership that doesn’t want to be unmasked. Director William Brent Bell hits all the narrative beats but there’s little here that’s resonant, despite the intense performance by Tuppence Middleton; and, there’s a climax that not only begs belief but is pretty risible as well. 

Radioactive 

(First Run Features)

The 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear-plant disaster in central Pennsylvania continues to reverberate, and director Heidi Hutner returns to the scene to talk with the mothers and whistleblowers—who lived through it and tried to pry the truth from authorities who tried to whitewash the dangers. It’s not enough that they were vindicated (even though the courts allowed the company to reopen the plant years later), but they were able to push back against Big Energy despite the odds against them. 

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Cinderella 

(Opus Arte)

Sergei Prokofiev’s delightful ballet based on the classic fairy tale, has some of the Russian composer’s most beguiling music, and the choreography by the great Frederick Ashton is consistently inventive and amusing. London’s Royal Opera House 2023 staging also features striking visuals (Tom Pye’s sets, Alexandra Byrne’s costumes and David Finn’s lighting) and wondrous music (conducted by Koen Kessels) as well as a star-making performance by Marianela Núñez in the title role. There’s topnotch hi-def video and audio.

Fremont 

(Music Box)

In Babak Jalali’s low-key character study, Donya, an Afghan who was an army interpreter, now works at a fortune cookie company in a small town and feels out of sorts, thinking she will never fit in, be recognized for her writing talent, or find love. Lo and behold, all three may be just around the corner. It’s a little amateurish and fuzzily sentimental, but Anaita Wali Zada’s charm as Donya sells it, and there’s a wonderful bit by Jeremy Allen White, who shows up late to propel Fremont toward a bittersweet if not fully earned conclusion. The B&W photography looks excellent on Blu.

Mercy Road 

(Well Go USA)

The single-character, single-set movie returns in this entry by director John Curran; set in a car—as many of these gimmicky flicks are—it follows a father desperately looking for his kidnaped young daughter, with cops on his trail, his ex-wife berating him and an anonymous caller telling him what to do to keep his daughter alive. It’s done in a swift 90 minutes, and if the ending is a bit of a bait and switch, Luke Bracey gives a believably frantic portrayal of the harried dad and Toby Jones’ voice is perfectly creepy. There’s a quite good hi-def transfer.

The Terror/The Little Shop of Horrors 

(Film Masters)

A pair of Roger Corman-directed cheapies make up this fun release, starting with The Terror (1963), which stars Boris Karloff and a very young Jack Nicholson in a bizarre fantasy that’s more goofy than eerie; Karloff’s scenes were reportedly shot in a few days, and it shows in this endearingly amateurish romp. The same could be said for 1960’s Little Shop of Horrors, the basis of the hit musical about the talking, man-eating plant—but Nicholson steals the movie as a dental patient who’s really into pain. Corman’s direction is insubstantial but these curios are still worth a watch. The movies are good on Blu; extras include a commentary for each film, visual essay on Corman and part 2 of the Hollywood Intruders documentary.

Blu-ray/CD Release of the Week

Simple Minds—Acoustic in Concert 

(Mercury)

This 2017 concert at London’s Hackney Empire finds the Scottish band—led by founding members Jim Kerr on vocals and Charlie Burchill on guitar—delivering solid renditions of some of their best songs, from early gems like “New Gold Dream” and “Promised You a Miracle” to breakout international hits “Don’t You Forget About Me” and “Alive and Kicking.” The songs gain urgency from the new arrangements, especially covers of Bowie’s “Andy Warhol” and Richard Hawley’s “Long Black Train.” (Hawley even shows up for the final encore of Steve Harley’s “Make Me Smile.”)  The full concert is on the Blu-ray and the CD, the former with first-rate hi-def video and audio.

Broadway Musical Review—Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman’s “Harmony”

Harmony

Music by Barry Manilow; book and lyrics by Bruce Sussman

Directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle

Opened November 13, 2023

Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 West 47th Street, New York, NY

harmonyanewmusical.com

The cast of Harmony (photo: Julieta Cervantes)

Making a musical about the Comedian Harmonists, who were huge stars in Europe in the early 1930s until Hitler’s rise to power eventually shut them down, has been a labor of love for composer Barry Manilow and librettist-lyricist Bruce Sussman for years. Now making it to Broadway, Harmony is an engaging, tuneful, at times poignant stage equivalent of the biopic.

The six men making up the singing group that took Germany by storm in the turbulent late 1920s included three who were Jewish or of Jewish descent: their beautiful blend of voices stands as an apt if unsubtle metaphor for harmony in music, politics, culture—in other words, life. To their credit, Manilow and Sussman don’t push it too hard, but instead move the audience-friendly proceedings along, as the young men meet cute then start becoming successful around Europe until simmering political unrest comes to a head and the Nazis take over, obliterating left-wingers in business, government—and in the arts. 

Harmony is framed by the last member still living decades after the events, one of the Jewish men nicknamed Rabbi, who narrates the Harmonists’ story, providing perspective and commentary about what happened and—something that always needs to be said—how it might, possibly, happen again. Chip Zein, still effortlessly charming, plays the older Rabbi with a gracious professionalism, even adding other impersonations when the story calls for it, donning wigs and moustaches to play composer Richard Strauss and, in the show’s most pointed sequence, Albert Einstein, who warns the group members while on their first trip to America to decide whether to leave their beloved homeland or return and possibly never get another chance to leave. Of course, they return, to their lasting regret and horror.

Ace director and choreographer Warren Carlyle, who keeps to a brisk but not too quick pace and a nice sense of mixing the songful with the prosaic, nonetheless lays it on a bit thick when it comes to jackbooted thugs. Still, the personal, political, and musical get a decent amount of exploration for a Broadway show, while Manilow’s mostly interchangeable songs do have those hummable melodies that first caught the ears of fans in the 1970s. Notably, the duets sound best, especially when sung by the formidable female leads, the velvety-voiced Sierra Boggess and harder-sounding Julie Benko, both of whom steal every scene they’re in, histrionically as well as musically.

The sextet—occasionally a septet when Zein sings with the younger group—is very good as an ensemble but the men don’t register as well as individuals. The mingling of their voices, though, is irresistible, and each character earns the audience’s tears when the older Rabbi describes their fates. Though it’s packaged in a familiar manner, Harmony remains a riveting true story that needs telling. 

December '23 Digital Week I

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Napoleon 

(Apple Films)

Ridley Scott’s latest historical epic marches through Napoleon Bonaparte’s life—well, the last quarter-century or so, from the French Revolution until his banishment to St. Helena after the battle of Waterloo in 1815—in 2 hours and 38 minutes, which gives this handsomely mounted, superbly shot and briskly paced biopic a “greatest hits” vibe. Much of his battlefield genius along with his relationship with wife Josephine are recounted at length but without, almost inevitably, much depth. Still, it’s solid filmmaking from an accomplished veteran, although it’s too bad that Stanley Kubrick never was able to make his own Napoleon back in the 1970s. Joaquin Phoenix gives a strangely inert portrayal of Napoleon, looking out of sorts and even out of period. Conversely, Vanessa Kirby is a superlative Josephine, catching all the nuances of character that Phoenix apparently decided to ignore. 

Eileen 

(Neon)

Based on the novel by Ottessa Moshfegh (who also cowrote the script), William Oldroyd’s drama follows the eponymous character, working rather anonymously in a local prison while taking care of her alcoholic, violent widowed father—until she finds herself drawn to Rebecca, the new prison counselor, who soon brings her into a nefarious plot she wasn’t expecting. Rather than being a psychologically complex thriller, Eileen is a “meh” melodrama distinguished by fine acting by Tomasin McKenzie (Eileen), Anne Hathaway (Rebecca), Shea Whigham (Eileen’s dad) and, in a shattering scene, Marin Ireland as the trigger of Rebecca’s ruse.

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

The Color Purple 

(Warner Bros)

Steven Spielberg’s 1985 adaptation of Alice Walker’s tough but sentimental novel also alternates between saccharine and vinegar: sequences as powerful as anything Spielberg ever directed butt heads with some of his most sugary scenes (usually accompanied by Quincy Jones’ syrupy score). Allen Daviau’s sublime color photography, however, has no such drawbacks, and on this 4K edition, the film’s remarkable visual achievements are brilliantly reinforced. The acting from then-unknowns as Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, Margaret Avery is excellent, making this an overwhelming emotional experience despite Spielberg’s and Jones’ melodramatic tendencies. Extras, ported over from the Blu-ray and DVD releases, include interviews with Spielberg, Walker, cast and crew.

The Expendables 1-4 

(Lionsgate Steelbook—Walmart Exclusive)

All four films in this agreeably slight adventure series about a group of mercenaries who go out on all sorts of dangerous missions are included in this steelbook edition—totaling 8 discs, comprising both 4K and Blu-ray versions—and it’s easy to sort out which are worth watching: the first pair are entertaining, while 3 and 4 bring up the rear. Sylvester Stallone (who also directed the first entry), Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, 50 Cent and Megan Fox are the fairly interchangeable stars who appear in one or more films. All four pictures are explosive-looking in UHD; extras include interviews and on-set featurettes.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Buster Keaton Collection Volume 5—Three Ages and Our Hospitality 

(Cohen Film Collection)

Two classic silent comedies by Buster Keaton (both from 1923, the first two features Keaton directed) get a hi-def upgrade from Cohen, which helps underline Keaton’s incredible comic flair throughout these often breathtakingly original films. Three Ages, set during the Stone Age, ancient Rome and the Jazz Age, and Our Hospitality, about a Hatfields-McCoys kind of feud, show off Keaton's timeless comic genius again and again. These restorations are for the most part first-rate—with a few glitches from subpar materials—but the lack of any extras is a definite minus.

Eye for an Eye—The Blind Swordsman 

(Well Go USA)

At a fleet 78 minutes, director Bingjia Yang’s action-packed martial-arts flick takes its fizzy plot device—the title character, a bounty hunter, decides to avenge the massacre of an entire family—and runs with it, setting everything up quickly and adroitly. The second half is left to the devices of our sightless hero, exceedingly well acted by Xie Miao, and a series of ever more outlandish but enjoyable fight sequences that make scant sense but are viscerally satisfying. It all looks great on Blu-ray.

South Park—Complete 26th Season 

(Paramount)

Only six episodes make up the latest season of one of the most subversive comedies to ever grace American television—and now streaming—networks but, as usual, Trey Parker and Matt Stone still come up aces…at least part of the time. Three episodes are definite keepers—the dangers of A.I., the wonders of Japanese toilets, and the desperate attempts of a certain royal couple that wants to be left alone—and if the others lack comic propulsion, there are enough assorted laughs (both cheap and well-earned) that make the latest journey worth it. The episodes look great in hi-def.

Wagner—Der Meistersinger von Nurnberg 

(Naxos)

German composer Richard Wagner wasn’t known for his light touch, and his lone operatic comedy, premiered in 1868, is not a gleefully funny romp but rather a four-hour exploration of the magical power of music that aligns some of his most beautiful melodies alongside a tone-deaf, clunky “Germany uber alles” subtext that can’t be ignored however wondrous the opera sounds. It took three directors (Jossi Wieler,  Sergio Morabito and Anna Viebrock, the latter also one of the set and costumer designers) to conspire to set it in a contemporary classroom, where there don’t seem to be any high stakes, despite lovely vocal performances by Johan Reuter (as hero Hans Sachs), Klaus Florian Vogt (his protégé Walther) and Heidi Stober (as his paramour Eva). John Fiore ably conducts the Berlin Opera orchestra and chorus. There’s first-rate video and audio.

CD Release of the Week 

Grażyna Bacewicz—Orchestral Works, Volume 1 

(Chandos)

Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-69) was the first 20th-century Polish female composer to earn recognition for her startlingly original scores, and this disc—the first volume in the Chandos label’s new series of her works—is the perfect place to start to learn about her music. Her Symphonies No. 3 and 4 are highly expressive, original works that put the inventive interplay among the orchestra’s members front and center; also included is her lively Overture. Performing brilliantly on the disc is the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the guiding hand of conductor Sakari Omaro. Here’s to several more volumes of this grievously underrated—and underheard—composer’s music. 

Off-Broadway Play Review—David Adjmi’s “Stereophonic”

Stereophonic

Written by David Adjmi

Directed by Daniel Aukin

Through December 17, 2023

Playwrights Horizons

416 West 42nd Street, New York, NY

Playwrightshorizons.org

The cast of Stereophonic (photo: Cherice Parry)

Dramatizing the creation of a new album by a rock quintet in 1976 that bears a distinct resemblance to a mega-popular ensemble from that era, David Adjmi’s play Stereophonic spends three-plus hours immersing the audience in the group’s recording sessions: the playing, the arguing, the drinking and drug-taking, the banal chatter, the boringly idle time in between working on the music. At times incisive, but quite often excruciatingly dull, Stereophonic plays like a less entertaining version of the Beatles’ Get Back, where at least we get to experience real musical genius on display in between the dull bits.

Adjmi has rather baldly made his fictional band a dead ringer for Fleetwood Mac: drummer Simon, bassist Reg and keyboard player/vocalist Holly are all English, with the latter two in a rocky marriage. There are also two Americans: Diana, the pretty female singer and Peter, her beau, also a singer and the lead guitarist, who is grabbing the reins of the album’s production whether the others like it or not. The group is recording its followup to its current hit LP, which is peaking—along with its hit single, composed and sung by Diana—just as the quintet starts on the new opus, which begins as a one-month session but drags on for more than a year, at an astronomical cost and at two studios.

Adjmi has fused the making of Fleetwood Mac’s mega-smash Rumours with its commercially disappointing—but more musically expansive—followup, Tusk, for the purposes of squeezing more drops of drama out of what is not very dramatic. David Zinn’s remarkably detailed set consists of the control room’s large 32-track recording console at center stage, where recording engineer Grover and his seemingly anonymous assistant Charlie (there are unfunny jokes made at poor Charlie’s expense) sit, surrounded by chairs, couches and rugs that the band members use; beyond, behind a large window, is the sound room. The entire play consists of conversations and confrontations on either side of the glass, with the group playing their new songs, sometimes in mere snatches and at other times in their entirety. 

That the play clocks in at 3 hours and 10 minutes might be thought an act of mercy; after a fuzzy and unfocused, nearly two-hour first act, the second act is much tighter, flying by in a little more than an hour. It’s also where the drama of sorts comes to a head, as Holly and Reg break up nastily, Diana and Peter break up even more nastily, Peter knocks down Grover and briefly fires him for the sin of following Peter’s own directive regarding a new guitar section, and Diana informs Holly that she has been offered a solo album deal by their record label. The dichotomy between the banality of the dialogue and the naked intimacy among these characters yields occasional insights amid the dross.

Then there are Will Butler’s songs, which sound more like outtakes from the 1975 “debut” album by the real Fleetwood Mac lineup than the more incisively personal tunes that captivated the rock world on Rumours (not to mention the more experimental tunes on Tusk). And although the cast of five actors playing the musicians perform with appreciable gusto—particularly Sarah Pidgeon, who plays the Stevie Nicks-like Diana captivatingly and with a powerfully impressive singing voice—the songs themselves don’t deserve the time the play gives to them.

Along with Pidgeon, Tom Pecinka (Peter), Will Brill (Reg), Chris Stack (Simon), Juliana Canfield (Holly), Eli Gelb (Grover) and Andrew R. Butler (Charlie) are excellent individually and as an ensemble. Daniel Aukin directs with a fine eye for the details Adjmi has written into the script, like the opening’s tantalizing layering of different conversations a la Robert Altman’s films. If only Aukin had trimmed more of the musical performances (as the group itself ponders doing in a climactic scene about the extra tracks they’ve recorded), Stereophonic would have been a more entertaining (and less literal) recreation of the bloatedness that began being baked into 1970s rock.