Venom and You

“The Power of Poison” at the American Museum of Natural History

The skull of an Eastern rattlesnake is one of the items on display at "The Power of Poison."

            Don’t go outside.  Don’t venture off the beaten path.  Or, at the very least, don’t go to Colombia.

            These are the life lessons with which one leaves the American Museum of Natural History’s new exhibit, “The Power of Poison,” which runs through August of 2014.  In this highly informative and multifaceted exhibit, the uses and applications of nature’s many poisons are pinpointed, but it’s difficult to escape the images of the creepy-crawlies in the natural world (especially those in the Chocó region of Colombia, a focus of the exhibition) whose very bite or sting could cause unimaginable pain or even kill.

            But from an intimidating, three-times life-size reproduction of a colony of bullet ants—whose stings cause such all-consuming pain that they have been compared to being shot; thus the name—the exhibition winds onward, through thousands of years of study and the perception of poison by humans.  Macbeth’s three witches are invoked, as well as Medea and Hercules in Greek myth.  Throughout, what becomes clear is the human race’s fascination with venom, and how often it has become interchangeable with the idea of magic in the public eye.  As a result, it’s only natural we’ve come to associate spiders and snakes with the same kind of ethereal fear we reserved for warlocks and sorcerers in earlier centuries.  Both had the theoretical, generalized power to kill.  The museum seeks to ensure we are more educated about our demons than our ancestors were about theirs.

            And if one chooses to understand their fear of poisoning, if not to overcome it, one couldn’t choose a better outing than a day at “The Power of Poison.”  In the dark, winding halls of the museum’s special exhibition space are displayed not only reproductions of poisonous animals but also, behind glass, some of the animals themselves.  (Some blindingly yellow poison dart frogs are particularly interesting.)  All is well-organized if more sparse in nature than some of the museum’s past exhibitions in the same space.

            Certainly it is organized uniquely, which was clearly the goal of the curator, Dr. Mark Siddall, from the museum’s department of Invertebrate Zoology.  His intent, obviously, was to create an exhibition less in the vein of, say, a “Beyond Planet Earth” or a “World’s Largest Dinosaurs” and more of a parallel to AMNH’s 2008 “Mythic Creatures,” that is to say, more engaging on an artistic or a speculative level as opposed to a scientific one.  That worked fairly well with “Mythic Creatures,” but one couldn’t escape the feeling, at that exhibition, that the subject matter was well beyond the scope of what is traditionally defined as “natural history.”  Here, the topic is right—something we all intrinsically fear that ought to be better explained—but its issues are the same issues “Creatures” suffered from.  When you leave the recreation of the Chocó jungle and come upon life-size, off-putting Macbeth witch dummies stirring a pot of nuclear sludge, you’ll inevitably feel that the exhibition ought to have been limited to the first room.

            This is because perception from the perspective of storytelling, while interesting, really can’t come close to the purer natural history in the animal section.  Later, when the exhibit touches on famous historical poisonings, it picks up some steam, but there must have been more poison in nature to discuss than what I saw.

            Still, a Natural History Museum exhibit is what it is—pure, well-researched information—and it makes no apologies.  If the goal of coming to a museum like this one is to learn (and I should hope it is), then an afternoon at “Power of Poison” will not be one wasted.  It also couldn’t possibly hurt to be able to identify a few of the critters the exhibit has to offer, in case you should one day happen to find yourself visiting Chocó—although, given what I have learned from the museum, I wouldn’t recommend it.

A Christmas Show's Many Shades

Oliver! at the Paper Mill Playhouse

Fagin (David Garrison), his boy thieves, and Oliver Twist (Tyler Moran), in Paper Mill Playhouse's Oliver!

            There is always a delicate balance, in any production of Lionel Bart’s Oliver!, between the trite and the zealous, the overenthusiastic and the subtly shaded.  So it is a pleasant surprise when the curtain rises on the Paper Mill Playhouse’s production of the 1960 musical to a well-acted, well-formed, and generally enjoyable experience.

            That’s not to say it’s out of place.  The Paper Mill has an impressive history of working well with children—they launched the career of Anne Hathaway in the mid-‘90s and have produced many excellent child-centric musicals (last year’s The Sound of Music being a key example) without any of the sickeningly sweet posturing that kills many Broadway productions.  But it is quite nice to begin this production (running through December 29th) with such a marvelously staged version of “Food, Glorious Food” that conveys so masterfully the chaos of the London workhouse in which our story begins, and to be gifted, as a sweetener, with the appearance of the very talented Paper Mill perennial John Treacy Egan as Mr. Bumble.  Mr. Egan has a clear, powerful voice and an imposing rotundity that places him at least on equal standing with Sir Harry Secombe in the 1968 film.

            The appearance of Tyler Moran as Oliver Twist may be worrying, as his piercingly high speaking voice and limited acting ability place him a rung or two below some of the other orphans in the workhouse on a likability scale, but these fears are assuaged when we first hear Mr. Moran sing.  It is very difficult to sing “Where is Love?” well, but, in this day and age, it is even more difficult to sing it originally.  Mr. Moran achieves both, and then some.

            In fact, his singing ability matters more, since Mr. Bart’s book often seems to be overshadowed by his superb score.  One can’t help but think Oliver! might have made a better operetta, given how much time is spent on the wonderful songs anyway.

            But of course, as in any stage production and as with the film, this Oliver! becomes infinitely more entertaining upon the appearance of the Artful Dodger, played with a diverting felicity of motion by Ethan Haberfield.  The Dodger takes Oliver Twist off the streets and into a welcoming confederacy of London’s poor, where “there isn’t a lot to spare” but all is shared equally.  It is something of an ideal, and lighter (obviously) than Dickens’ original, rather sour novel, but it’s always a relief to be welcomed to the world of the boy pickpockets, just because it’s so delightfully interesting.

            This version proves no exception.  The young thieves are marvelous dancers, but their master, the morally misguided Fagin, (played by David Garrison, of “Married… With Children” fame), is by a long shot the highlight of the show.  He is certainly the best Fagin I have ever seen.  He has become the character, in his thick makeup and gray beard, and he moves and speaks and dances and even sings as Fagin would.  He embodies the underclass of 1800s British society, the untouchable who does what he can to survive, and yet is hugely fun to watch.

            And this dichotomy itself is the very center of Oliver! as a show.  The dark existence of the poor as written by Charles Dickens is very much its heart, but it is masked in warmth and glow and excellently written songs such that it seems too colorful for complaint.  When matured thief Nancy (Betsy Morgan, fantastic) sings “It’s a Fine Life,” there is a moment when the dancing slows and the cheer drains from the room as she realizes she has denied herself happiness by choosing to involve herself romantically with the abusive crime lord Bill Sikes (Jose Llana, impressively terrifying).  But then it’s back to the dance.

            From there, however, we can sense the characters’ self-denial of everything that’s true about the situation of the poor at this time in London’s East End.  These people have nothing, but they must mask their fear in cheeriness and strive on.  How much must they lie to themselves before it becomes clear that there’s no way out?  (Fagin’s manic number, “Reviewing the Situation,” in the middle of the second act, is a clear representation of this, and, as with everything, Mr. Garrison carries it out without fault.)  It’s this contradiction—the happiness of a faux community vs. the reality of poverty—that is at the heart of every song and every moment in this classic musical, and realizing this (however inadvertent it may have been on the Paper Mill’s part) changes the way one looks at it.  The show’s ambiguous ending seems to neatly tie up all the loose ends, but it’s just a new beginning, one that might end well but might leave our heroes in the lurch again. 

It’s to the credit of this production’s able director, Mark S. Hoebee, that a show of such potential darkness can be made light, but it’s to Lionel Bart’s credit that Oliver! is so, so good, and that’s something we can all be thankful for this year.

What Happens in Vegas Doesn’t Always Stay There

“Honeymoon in Vegas” at the Paper Mill Playhouse

            If you needed any further proof that Jason Robert Brown is the greatest active composer of American musical theater, you’ll find it at Millburn, New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse, where his magnum opus, “Honeymoon in Vegas” is playing through October 27^th.  This brilliant masterpiece combines Mr. Brown’s incisive sensibility and magnificent sense for music with the air and confidence of a great old-fashioned musical from the ‘30s or ‘40s.  This is the kind of show that comes along once or twice in a lifetime, the kind you tell your kids you saw.

            To clarify—“Honeymoon in Vegas” is good; terrifyingly good; almost too good.  Everything about it—its beautiful, lyrically divine score, its self-aware, ridiculous humor, and especially its unmatched cast—is flawless.  Based on the 1992 film starring Nicholas Cage and James Caan, the musical follows Jack Singer (the exceedingly talented Rob McClure), a New Yorker with a fear of commitment and a penchant for poker who’s convinced his mother (Nancy Opel) laid a curse on him on her deathbed.  She demanded that he never get married, insisting that no girl could love him like his mama does.  Mr. McClure takes this premise and runs with it, dialing up his deeply ingrained talent for hand-wringing and combining it with a manic energy and a devotion to his role that made me wish I hadn’t missed his recent Tony-nominated turn in “Chaplin.”

Meanwhile, Jack’s girlfriend of five years, Betsy (Brynn O’Malley, endearingly capable) has tired of waiting for him to man up and give her a ring (forgive the misogyny, it was the ‘90s, after all) and turns up the pressure, forcing Jack to take her to Vegas to get married before he can think too hard about it.  Unfortunately, staying at the Milano Hotel alongside the happy couple is smooth, slimy (implied) gangster Tommy Korman, who, it’s immediately clear, will be both one of the most villainous and one of the most thoroughly enjoyable stage characters anyone has seen in a long time.

And played by none other than Mr. Tony Danza, who proves, with this absolutely perfect vehicle, that he is the closest thing this generation will ever come to Frank Sinatra.  His stage presence is slinky and cool, his dancing ability, as demonstrated in the entertaining, lounge-style victory number “A Little Luck,” is surprisingly exemplary, and his singing voice is breathtakingly gorgeous and unique.  If “Honeymoon in Vegas” needed saving, Tony Danza would be the man to do it.  Since the musical functions pretty well on its own, though, Mr. Danza functions as, say, three or four feet of icing on an eight-foot-tall cake.  His character is just as delicious.  Unluckily for Betsy, she bears an uncanny resemblance to Tommy’s deceased wife, whose passion for tanning led to her untimely demise.  (The tragic story is rendered sweetly comic by one of Mr. Brown’s stronger numbers, “Out of the Sun.”)  Tommy hatches a plan that ends with Jack owing him $58,000, and suggests Jack pay him back by letting him have one weekend alone with Betsy.  Jack has no choice, but spends the rest of the musical chasing down Tommy to try to get Betsy back.

Sinatra is actually a relevant comparison here, because many of the numbers seem inspired by Rat-Pack era Vegas.  The score—uniquely for a tryout musical—has not one dud or misplaced number.  It’s packed with nothing but the kind of lyrically masterful, catches-in-your-head kind of numbers that Sammy Cahn and Paul Anka wrote for Frank in the sixties. 

The quality is similar, too—Mr. Brown has a way with the interaction of lyrics and music that makes every one of his new songs sound like old standards.  I truly wish I could list them all and specify their perfection line by line (some more Danza-fronted numbers come to mind, plus an ingenious one involving airport attendants and an uplifting one featuring flying Elvises), but I fear I haven’t the space.  Perhaps the most central to the score, though, and also probably the best, was the funny, fun, and altogether outstanding “When You Say Vegas,” sung by the extraordinarily talented David Josefsberg as a classic sleazy lounge singer named Tony Rocky.  (Mr. Josefsberg also later plays the main Elvis, an instant mentor to Jack—and boy, does he do it well.)  “When You Say Vegas” is so catchy that it’s easy to find it stuck in your head days after the performance, and its near-explosive, joyous energy is really the reason “Honeymoon” succeeds.  With actors like McClure, Josefsberg, and Danza, and songs like these, it’s pretty clear that Paper Mill is just the beginning of this show’s journey.  The final line of “When You Say Vegas” may be “Lead the way to Las Vegas, the land where dreams come true,” but Tony Rocky may do better to ask the way to Broadway.  You don’t need a Vegas fortune-teller to see a third kind of Tony in “Honeymoon in Vegas’s” future.

Two Star-Crossed Lovers, Fire, and Motorcycles—What Could Go Wrong?

"Romeo and Juliet" at the Richard Rodgers Theatre

            The two modern interpretations of William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet—” that is, versions that set the timeless love story in modern times—that spring most easily to mind when prompted are “West Side Story,” the 1951 Laurents/Bernstein/Sondheim musical, and, for a less cultured audience, Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film, “Romeo + Juliet.”  The first was itself a classic, perhaps impacting modern society to a similar degree as the original play did to Shakespeare’s, and will live on in memory as among the five or six greatest musicals of all time.  The second was a relative misfire, the text remaining generally intact but plot details carelessly rummaged with and religious imagery seemingly force-fed to the audience for little or no reason.  It goes without saying that any producer would be lucky to replicate the success of “West Side Story,” which is why so many Shakespeare plays have landed on Broadway transplanted from their native settings, but the risk is there that, rather than being a reinvigorating reinvention, the result might just seem silly.

            The latest to challenge these odds is a new Broadway revival of “Romeo and Juliet” (the last since 1977), directed by David Leveaux (2003’s revival of “Nine”).  At first glance, this version seems to verge on ridiculous, plagued by the same excesses that trouble any transformation of a Shakespeare play into a modern epic—that is, the fact that that man’s words and our times simply don’t match, leaving only the option to heap on the modern until the classic chokes under its weight.  The stark, nearly empty stage is peremptorily infringed upon by set pieces which seem to have no reason to exist—an oxidized bell that hangs over the stage throughout but is only rung once, and then only for a few seconds; long, thin burners that release seemingly inopportune jets of fire at insignificant moments in the play; sand spilling onstage from the wings (why?).  Romeo’s entrance only reinforces this impression.  When the handsome Montague, played by Orlando Bloom in his stage debut, rockets onstage (oh, how the audience swooned!), it’s on a fully loaded motorcycle that squeals, roars, and puffs carbon monoxide up into the Richard Rodgers Theatre.  (While others watched the dreamy Bloom shake his hair from his helmet, I wondered if this was entirely legal.)  And that’s not all—Montagues and Capulets fight by whipping chains at each other; the Capulet ball is now a strange cross between a rave and an African drum circle; Friar Lawrence is a barefoot hippie in a sweatshirt—just listing these things is exhausting.

            But, surprisingly—and this is the key word, for I am, indeed, hugely surprised by what I am about to tell you—I enjoyed this production immensely.  Who can say why this guilty pleasure was so much more pleasurable than guilty?  It could be that Condola Rashad, fresh off a Tony nomination for her role in “A Trip to Bountiful,” plays Juliet with a kind of excited wonder to which more recent, dour actresses haven’t come close.  It could be Corey Hawkins as a poetic Tybalt, Conrad Kemp as a lively Benvolio that, strangely brings to mind Mark Cohen from “Rent,” the indefatigable Chuck Cooper as a Lord Capulet who goes from jolly to terrifying in seconds flat, or it could even—sigh—be Orlando Bloom, who, save for a few line flubs, wasn’t really so bad after all.  (His chemistry with Ms. Rashad left a little to be desired, though—their kisses were so long they felt almost like parodies of themselves.)     But maybe it would be easier to attribute the success of the new “Romeo and Juliet,” more generally, to its brilliant, biracial cast.

            For, as in “West Side Story,” the Montagues and Capulets are divided by race—the Montagues Caucasian, the Capulets African-American—but one of the great things about this cast is that they don’t let the director’s conceits overwhelm what’s of true importance—the story.  Sure, the “race war” aspect implies some underlying issues in our culture, and “Romeo and Juliet” in modern times has proven successful before.  But the fact is, William Shakespeare wrote the best version of this play ever produced more than 515 years ago.  The closer a performance gets to that version, the better it is.  Simple as that.