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Wednesday, October 17, 2007
‘The Wedding Singer’ @ the Fox
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: C
“The Wedding Singer” is an extended ’80s riff — mullet hairdos and leather pants, Boy George and Madonna, Ronald and Nancy.
As the Broadway non-hit at the Fox Theatre rocks on, we see that some of these cultural totems have become indispensible while others have been rendered obsolete. A few years from now, the frothy musical based on the Adam Sandler film vehicle is likely to taste as fresh and relevant as one of the bad ideas it so gleefully parodies. Remember New Coke?“The Wedding Singer,” which failed to earn a single 2006 Tony Award, is a Jersey-style celebration of bad taste in fashion— and love.
Robbie Hart (Merritt David Janes) lives in his grandmother’s basement with his Cure posters — eeking out a kind of living singing at weddings, anniversaries and bar mitzvahs. Julia Sullivan (Erin Elizabeth Coors) is the sweet, pretty banquet server who catches his eye. The problem is that both are engaged to the wrong person.
“The Wedding Singer” spends its every breath trying to bring the two together, and it takes forever. But if the couple’s various amorous diversions often make their romance nearly grind to a halt, the show is blessed by a few good performances and a 24-member ensemble that disco-dances the brains out of original choreographer Rob Ashford’s relentless steps.
Janes and Coors are perfect in this ode to the time-honored mantra of being yourself. Success and money be damned.
But after the warm and fuzzies subside, the performances that stick in the mind are those of John Jacob Lee as Robbie’s bandmate George, Penny Larsen as his grandmother, Rose, and Andrea Andert as his vampy first love, Linda, who breaks his heart when she sings: “I realized you cramped my style as I crimped my hair.” (Lyrics, incidentally, are by Chad Beguelin, music by Matthew Sklar, book by Beguelin and Tim Herlihy.)
Lee brings a lot of high-strung energy and screams to a part that was plainly modeled on Boy George. “George’s Prayer” is partly sung in Yiddish and ends with a bow worthy of Joan Crawford. As a cute little grandma with an adventurous past, Larsen is a hoot, while Andert exults in being a very nasty girl.
As excessive as the decade it parodies, “The Wedding Singer” is as saccharin and sentimental as wedding cake. Tastes good. Probably won’t hurt you. Gone in a minute.
‘Richard III’ @ Georgia Shakes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: Grade B
Richard III has a ghoulish, painted-on face and fiendish demeanor that brings to mind Jack Nicholson’s take on Batman’s Joker.
Queen Margaret — a royal dowager who loses everything in Shakespeare’s blood orgy about the famously deformed and murderous Richard III — is a raging, Miss Havisham-style avenger in tattered clothes and platinum frightwig.
Seems that the order of the day for Georgia Shakespeare’s season finale is to turn the wildly melodramatic English history play “Richard III” into a Halloween horror house worthy of gasps and giggles. With brilliant timing and wicked style, director Richard Garner delivers a quick and dirty rendering of the weirdly decadent play in which human suffering takes on the sheen of grisly entertainment.
Richard III is a virulent strain of a power-hungry man, and in Shakespeare’s view, he’s also a dazzling theatrical showman — a tricky Dick who speaks directly to the audience and revels in his heinous deception. Joe Knezevich, aided by a black-and-white hairdo that accentuates Richard’s schizophrenic streak, exhults in the gleefully infant behavior of the title character. It’s a bold, hooky performance that frequently gets good comedic payoff but occasionally plays like a gimmick.
A lean staging that unfolds on a tall stack of all-black bleachers topped with vertical blinds of light-catching silver, “Richard III” becomes a revolving door for nimble actors who must make numerous split-second changes. James Donadio, Brik Berkes and several other troupers play more roles than you can keep count of — all admirably.
But after Knezevich, the performers to watch here are the women: Tess Malis Kincaid as the demented Margaret — a shrill harbinger of death who appears with a battered umbrella every time another head is about to role. Courtney Patterson as Elizabeth, who communicates her suspicions of Richard with astutely expressive eyes and body language. Park Krausen as Anne, who spits in the evil king’s face, then succumbs to his wooing.
As full of surprises as a bucket of Halloween candy, this smartly designed production also features ill-fated royal youngsters with adorable electronic toys, a stunning coronation scene that shows off Richard’s hobbled anger (and his stupendously long red cape) and an original score by Haddon Givens Kime.
Sydney Roberts makes costumes that are alternately hip and snug (for the men) and silky and ostentatious (for the women), while Kat Conley’s tiered set hints at the shaky structural underpinnings of the crown.
It takes a delicate directoral touch to balance the tone of this uneven but perpetually popular drama. This “Richard III” succeeds in leavening expectations of terror and tragedy with unexpected snatches of comedy and satire. We may not understand the king’s quest for power, but we can’t stop watching it either.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. 2 p.m. Sundays. Through Nov. 4. $15-$40. Georgia Shakespeare, Conant Performing Arts Center, Oglethorp University, 4484 Peachtree Road N.E. 404-264-0020. gashakespeare.org
THE VERDICT: Wicked good.
