Monday, August 12, 2019

Road Show



It was clever of Encores! to revive Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s musical “Road Show,” a musical with some gorgeous music both for individuals and choral. The orchestra under James Moore performed, as is the custom at Encores! admirably, and the chaste scenic design by Donyale Werle like the sober costumes by Clint Ramos were all to the good. So too were Will Davis’s direction and choreography, proving that indeed less can be more.

This is a road show in the sense the that its main characters, the fabled Mizner brothers, Wilson and Addison, moved all over the place along what seems like very divergent roads to what ends up as a shared one. Here is how Sondheim puts it in his book “Look, I Made a Hat,” concerning a show that exists in three different versions:  “Wise Guys,” a1998 reading,  “Bounce” of 2003, my favorite, and “Road Show.” (2008), the final one,

The storied brothers started out in the small California town of Benicia, and headed from the 1880s for the world and their end in the 1930s. Here is how Sondheim puts it; “Wilson was a conman, entrepreneur and. wit, Addison was chiefly an architect. Their personalities were polar opposites, but their relationship was intense and complicated. The show charts their lives from Benicia California through their adventures in the Klondike gold fields of the 1890s to the extremes of New York City society in the early 1900s and into the Florida real estate boom and bust of the 1920s, for which they were largely responsible,”

The difference was that Wilson was a “brilliant and shifty fellow who through a colorful life was at times a goldminer, a saloon keeper, a prize fighter, a cardsharp, a conman , manager of a hotel for criminals as well as the manager of the world’s welterweight champion, a celebrated Broadway playwright, the husband of one of the richest women in America,, a raconteur known for his wit, an entrepreneur majorly [sic] responsible for the Florida real estate boom and bust of the 1920s, a drunk, a cocaine addict, a notorious womanizer, and finally a Hollywood hack and a successful one..” Conversely, the younger brother, Addison, was a closeted homosexual, a gifted If somewhat bizarre architect, think Boca Raton. Of all this you would need more than a clever musical, perhaps a television series.

Even so, Sondheim and Weidman have come up with quite a musical of some 19 winning numbers, among which my favorite is ‘The Best Thing That Ever Has Happened,” as fine a number as anything in the Sondheim catalog. It is sung in “Bounce” to a woman, but here to a man.

The show needs two splendid actors in the principal roles, and here it gets them in Raul Esparza (Wilson) and Brandon Uranowitz (Addison), both terrific in their different ways, both excellent singers. Esparza is one of America’s best actors tragically undervalued  and underemployed. His Wilson moves idiosyncratically and nervously yet also gracefully with the agility of a dancer, along with crystal - clear delivery of dialogue, and  his disputes with his younger brother are part of a uniquely blended natural and theatrical charm. Uranowitz, in turn, puts to good use his talent for comedy plus a childlike innocence combining jovially with adult smartness.

What both Mizners are in this version is ever so fond of their mother, beautifully played by Mary Beth Peil. Whenever either son is in trouble, he comes back home to her to be affectionately chided and straightened out. The admonitory father, earlier deceased, is nicely handled by Chuck Cooper of the commanding baritone.

The final scene is a moving effusion of brotherly love and a reminder of the show’s leitmotif, and its contrasting traversals. Wilson points ahead: “Addie,, you know what that is? It’s the road to opportunity!” To which Addison: “It’s the road to eternity. ” And Wilson sum up, “The greatest opportunity of all. Sooner or later we’re bound to get it right.”

As Will Davis directs, they’re close together, moving upstage, away from the audience as the final darkness falls. Too bad that this excellent production for Encores! as always plays only a few performances.
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2 comments:

  1. I love the theater. I even enjoy the local stuff around where I live now. My son is in his high school plays.

    Here is a true story about an experience I had at the theater. It was 25 years ago, so the details are fuzzy, but I remember the essential parts. A group of us went to see "Death and the Maiden" in the early 90s. At one of the intermissions, I went outside to smoke a cigarette. Most of the hackers went to a specific area to light up. I don't like crowds (never have), so I walked a ways away around the end of the building and went down an alley. I lit my fag. I've always wanted to use the word "fag" to describe a cigarette, so now I have. I quit twelve years ago, but back then I smoked Marlboro Lights.

    I was standing alone next to a door that was an access into the theater. About halfway through my cig, the door opened, and one of the actors came out onto the steps. She was in costume/makeup and asked me if it was okay to smoke there with me. I said, sure.

    She asked me for a light, and we started talking about the city, and about how much we both loved it. I was high as a kite (weed and beer) and didn't even realize for a while that I was talking to Glenn Close. She was super friendly, and we talked for about five minutes. I told her about my band, and she said she might try to make it to a show. I might have imagined it, but I think she was even flirting with me. Somebody opened the door and said her name. She smiled and waved goodbye to me. I was on my second cigarette, and I asked her if she might want one more. She said she'd better not. I told her she was doing a terrific job in the play (she was) and she said thank you.

    I went back in, and the play started up again. Glenn Close was no longer herself. She was utterly the character. There was no trace of the woman to whom I'd just been talking.

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