Theatre Review: A Chorus Line

Review Of “A Chorus Line” At Eight O'Clock Theatre
Grapevine Green Room
By Lary Crews

The Tony Award-winning musical A Chorus Line at Eight O'Clock Theatre was truly One Singular Sensation; a brilliantly complex fusion of dance, song and compellingly authentic drama.

  It is a Herculean task to bring Michael Bennett's creation to full artistic life. You have to find a cast that can dance, sing, and act all at a top-notch level, not an easy task. Director Rocco Morabito and co-director/choreographer Ronnie DeMarco assembled an amazing cast of young triple-threat entertainers and taught them to deliver the energy, pathos and excitement of the grueling audition process in nearly perfect performances, individually and collectively.  Music/choral director Jeremy D. Silverman achieved beautiful harmonies from the cast and exceptional musical support from a 12-member pit orchestra.

On one level, A Chorus Line is about a chorus audition for a Broadway musical, but it is also a powerful metaphor for all human aspiration.  It tells of the achingly poignant ambitions of the chorus dancers, those valiant, over-dedicated, underpaid, highly trained performers who back up the star or stars and often make them look even more talented than they are. A Chorus Line is also about competition, the common denominator that grabs the audience and holds it by the collective heartstring until the final, ultimate choices are made. For everyone, at one time or another, puts their life on the line. We all compete, no matter what business we're in, for promotion, for attention, for approval and for love.

This is a rare musical that swims in realism. The monologues come from real dancers who lived these lives. For this musical's message to work, there must be a peeling of inner layers to bring forth subtext, organic truth, naturalism, and the believability of these troubled, lonely, battered dancers.

A Chorus Line takes the audience through the final grueling audition run by the director, Zach (Scott Hamilton), for a new Broadway musical. At the beginning of the show, Zach, a driven, compulsive worker, has assembled some two dozen semi-finalists and is putting them through a vigorous series of dance combinations, including ballet and jazz. Soon he thins this group down to the final sixteen, eight boys and eight girls. They and the audience know that eventually this number will be cut in half and Zach will choose only four boys and four girls to be in his new musical.

Instead of having them read a short audition scene, Zach wants to elicit a personal history from each one: how they got into "show business," why they became dancers, what their hopes, fantasies and aspirations are. As he calls upon them individually, they react in every possible way, from bravado to reticence. From childhood on, their memories emerge, blending into a seamless series of musical numbers and monologues,

Some are humorous (Dance: Ten; Looks: Three by Brittany McDonald).  Some are poignant and lovely (At the Ballet by Kristine Weinstein, Sandi Williams and Ashley Massicotte). Some are group reminiscences when they all share their adolescent experiences (Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love) and some are intimate (The Music and the Mirror by Suzanne Dani’L)

As their individual stories pour out in songs interspersed with dance, the audience, as well as Zach, gets to know each one of these ambitious entertainers individually, so that by the show's end, they can identify and root for their favorites as well as empathize with all of them because they all need the job, they all want to work at their craft.

Chrissy Dobrowski was an extraordinary surprise as Diana Morales. Dobrowski seemed to truly comprehend the emotional core and subtext that makes up her character. Both of her solos were performed with honesty, clarity, and organic truth.  And, as an actress, she expertly expressed the painful memories of a cruel acting teacher. Her rendition of What I Did For Love created the right amount of painful pathos and hope.

Another impressive performance was entirely dramatic. Midway through the audition, the dancers are ordered off stage. During this break, Zach, the mysterious and inquisitive director (Scott Hamilton), is confronted by Cassie (Suzanne Dani’L). It becomes obvious that the two share a turbulent romantic history and now, after a failed stint in Hollywood, Cassie is back on Broadway to audition for her ex. The scene which ensues between them is moving and memorable not just because of the writing or the staging, but because of the real chemistry which seemed to flow on stage between Hamilton and Dani’L. Their relationship came across as incredibly real and stood out on its own as a fine piece of drama.

Brittany McDonald was terrific as Val, the less-than-endowed chorus girl who decides to surgically improve her chances, of making it in showbiz. McDonald performed the memorable tune Dance: Ten, Looks: Three in front of a huge audience with the confidence and talent of a Broadway professional.

Corey Horton gave a terrific performance as Mike with his number, I Can Do That. Horton’s facial expressions and comic delivery were right on the money.

Candice Queen presented the right amount of sass and ditsy as Judy, the girl from El Paso who keeps forgetting her audition number. She hit the mark with her comedic monologue about learning how to kiss.

Danny Harrigan as Mark gave an engaging, delightful performance that achieved laughs during his monologue about visiting the priest concerning his medical problem.

Anita Travaglino was hilarious as Kristine, the dancer who can't sing worth a lick.  

Fadi Akhtar (Paul) had a big, dramatic monologue toward the end of the evening which was absolutely mesmerizing, bringing many in the audience to tears. Paul is a quiet, intensely private man who does not want anyone to know his life.  Akhtar expertly achieved the honest, organic, truthful emotional breakdown that the scene requires.

Kristine Weinstein also shone as Sheila, the tough-talking, wry veteran who fears her time may be running out.

James Grennelle (Bobby), Hayden Milanes (Ritchie), and Ashley Massicotte (Maggie) were other standouts among the ensemble, and they were matched nearly step-for-step by Tisha Ballowe, Sarah Dixie, Catherine Fowles, Gina Germano, Jared Koceja, Jani West-Roberts, Seth Tavaglino, Kare Upton, Sandi Williams and Marcus Yi.

The Eight O'Clock Theatre production was topnotch, certainly on the level of the best professional productions anywhere in the country.  A Chorus Line brought tears to the eyes and cheers in the aisles during a bunch of sold-out performances in early November and more than one audience member was heard to call it, “The best musical I've seen this year.”

Book Review: Madison County and Cedar Bend

A SLOW BRIDGES WALTZ IN MADISON COUNTY AND CEDAR BEND
Comparing two of Robert Waller's books
By Lary Crews

Knowing I'm the author of three popular novels and a teacher of fiction, a student of mine recently asked me to compare and contrast Robert Waller's best-selling books The Bridges of Madison County and Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend.

Bending to popular demand, I will do so:

•    The story of Bridges: A passionate middle-aged woman, stuck in a lifeless marriage, is reborn because of a lusty yet sensitive middle-aged man.
•    The story of Slow Waltz: A passionate middle-aged woman, stuck in a lifeless marriage, is reborn because of a lusty yet sensitive middle-aged man.
•    The hero of Bridges is: Robert Kincaid, photographer.  Wears sandals from India, faded blue jeans, khakis.  Smokes and uses a Zippo lighter.
•    The hero of Slow Waltz is: Michael Tilman, professor.  Wears sandals from India, faded blue jeans, khakis.  Smokes and uses a Zippo lighter.
•    The heroine of Bridges is Francesca Johnson, farm wife.  Black hair, face showing first lines.  Wears silver hoop earrings and tight-fitting jeans.
•    The heroine of Slow Waltz is Jellie Braden, graduate student.  Black hair, face showing first lines.  Wears silver hoop earrings and tight-fitting jeans.
•    The heroine's husband compared with the hero:
•    In Bridges, "She knew Richard was no match intellectually or physically for Robert Kincaid."
•    In Slow Waltz, "He's reminded of his limitations just by being around people like you, Michael."

    Waller's novels read as if they had been churned out by a word processor programmed with scenes culled from soap operas, B movies and easy-listening songs and written in language lifted from Hemingway parody contests and Playboy picture captions.
The most old-fashioned, hard-core sort of sexism is combined in his books with the fuzziest, most up-to-date talk of self-esteem, while completely banal sentiments are continually recycled in self-consciously saccharine language.

   From Robert Waller's Border Music:
   Throughout the novel, Linda Lobo is described only in terms of her body. We're told that she fills out her jeans "like she'd been born in them." and that she smells "of all the highways that ever ran through spring and summer toward sad-eyed endings."
   Jack Carmine is described as a "descendant of scalp hunters, back shooters and ladies of the night."
   Jack says things like: "survival first, procreation after that" and "stroking a woman's hair while looking out at a rainy day is 92% of as good as it gets."

   In one fairly typical passage, Waller writes: Women liked Texas Jack Carmine in the same way people enjoy sunshine and soft rain on their faces. He seemed to skate on the wind instead of letting it blow him around, and women sensed it.  More than that, he genuinely liked women, not only in bed, but overall.  Liked to watch them, talk with them, dance with them, and women picked up on it.  They liked him because he liked them for all the things women are."
   "There are those who dream and those who go out there," Waller continues, "those who only watch as a woman dances through firelight while rivers flow and turtles sleep and a very few who rise to dance with the woman before she has gone to where rivers go until they cycle back to run again."
   Jack fantasizes about making love to a black woman who "would taste and smell of Africa and chains and long marches to misery ships that sailed for de land of cotton when old times past were still in progress.
   Such spectacularly awful - not to mention offensive - writing permeates Border Music.
   Linda tells Jack that "all women know how to shake it hard if they want to" and she adds "nature gave us that ability as a way of attracting you wonderful things called men."

   "Tonight, I'm runnin' for the fireside, hangin' on to the latchkey, gettin' off the great, sad arrow for a while and intendin' to grin just a bit if it's at all possible."
   Says reviewer Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times: "Border Music must surely rank as one of the most dreadful novels to come along in a long time."
   I agree.

Video Review: Infested Really Is

Infested Really Is
Review by Lary Crews

The straight-to-DVD film ““Infested”” is bad in ways that should make it required viewing in film schools where other beginners could learn from it. The mistakes propagated by the first-time writer/director are fixable given experience and study and fledgling filmmakers would do well to avoid these errors.

It is perhaps a credit to cinematographer M. David Mullen, a veteran of more than two dozen films, that the film frequently looks quite good. Sadly, however, that often serves to focus more attention on the shabby special effects and inane script.

Directors who steal directly from good films often claim that their film is a homage. Occasionally, this is true. More often, it is just plagiarism.

Writers who fail to convince an audience to suspend disbelief often claim that their script is merely taking a satiric swipe at the conventions of the genre. More often, it is just that the writer is handling the genre conventions badly.

“Infested” begins at the funeral of a 30-something and moves quickly to the only other location in the film, a house out in the middle of nowhere somewhere on Long Island. For an interminable 20 minutes or so the cast banters back and forth in an awkward montage set to 80s music which could be seen as a homage to The Big Chill except that Big Chill had really interesting conversation against a backdrop of really great music.

“Infested” has such recycled babble as “Carl and I are very feng shui conscious.” And “Oh, my gosh. The house just looks great doesn’t it?” and “Yeah, but I’m having trouble going from chataranga into downward dog.” This series of intercut exchanges serve mostly to slide in some heavy-handed foreshadowing about the CIA and plots to smuggle drugs into America.

If you are going to attempt a homage to The Big Chill, you need to strive for memorable dialogue. Instead, we get such patently obvious and sub-par exchanges as this:
Mindy: “Look at that ass. Hmmm. I hate to see you leave but I still love to watch you go.”
Carl: “Geez. Mindy. Subtle, much?”
Warren: Hey, Mindy, how you doin’?”
Mindy: “Good. Do you know you are even hotter than you were back then.”
Warren: “Thank you.”
Carl: “So what am I? Chopped liver?”
Warren: “You look surprisingly good for a married man, Carl.”
Carl: “You’re a shameless hussy. You know that, right?”
Mindy: “Uh-huh. What are you going to do about it?”

Among the reasons this dialogue is so inane is that it’s not the way a woman talks; it is the way a film school geek hanging around with his friends at Starbucks wishes a woman would talk.
As one woman says: “Guess it can be pretty dull if you don’t speak the language, huh?”

Once the host decides to play some music (actually using a 45-RPM vinyl recording) the girls begin to dance just the way all horny screenwriters imagine girls would dance if the writers’ dreams had come true.

Bob, played by Jack Mulcahy who got his start in the two classic films, Porky’s and Porky’s II: The Next Day, lucks out. He gets to drive off the picture for about an hour, a deal no doubt set up by his agent. His motivation? He doesn’t like the other people in the house.

Finally, a good half-hour into the film, something actually happens.
Mindy (played by Nahanni Johnstone who was a successful model in Europe before moving to New York to study acting.) comes out of the water wearing shorts but naked from the waist up. She proves that not all actresses have surgically-enhanced breasts, Any reason for this nudity? Nope. Just that the horny screenwriter always wanted to see a women come out of the water with naked breasts. Nothing to do with the plot. She puts her skimpy top back on. (The skimpy top she could have worn into the water since she got her shorts wet anyhow.)

Suddenly, fake violins on the derivative soundtrack begin to shudder and the camera moves at a low angle so we know that “Something Is About To Happen.”

After the evil bugs we have yet to see move her bag about six feet away (leaving nothing on the sand but the shoe prints of the crew member who actually did the moving) things really start to happen.

In rather rapid succession, we get a neck slashed open, a severed head, a crow bar impaling, nasty razor blade surgery on a leg, a body cut in half, a self-inflicted neck crack, and a burned face! Sadly, the special effects (which often resemble Raisinettes flying at the audience) ARE a homage; back to the day when such effects were done badly.

The director's shortcomings were most apparent from the frequent “out of sight, out of mind” errors. That is, after a scene with several zombies on the front lawn, we join the characters inside the house for a long series of scenes without any return reference to the zombies on the outside. What are they doing? Hanging out at craft services? Why have they not tried to get into the house?

Another “lonely screenwriter” addition to the script is the fact that one woman decides (in the middle of the most horrible zombie attack in recent memory) to go upstairs and take a shower. Take a shower! Why? So the director can attempt a cross-reference to both Hitchcock’s The Birds and Psycho with none of the style of either of those films. Oh yeah, and so he can get another woman to be naked.

The illogical screenplay also permitted the rapidly-dwindling cast to come to the conclusion that the zombies are scared of light even though they are standing in bright sunlight and then that they are killed by a particular song from the 80s.

“Infested” is a lousy film for a lot of reasons but it’s difficult to blame the cast who work gamely to try to make the dialogue sound real.

Camilla Overbye  Roos (Robin) played Helga Dahl in one of the most successful films of all time, “Titanic.” 

No doubt, being in “Infested” gave her the same sinking feeling of impending doom.