Metroland

Backstage with the Jersey Boys

BEING FRANKIE VALLI is a full-time job. Ask actor Brad Weinstock. “It’s unlike anything that I’ve ever done theatrically,” he says. “It’s definitely the most challenging.” Weinstock is one of the core quartet in “Jersey Boys,” now playing at Proctors in Schenectady. Once every performance day he progresses from warbling “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love,” to powerhouse renditions of “Sherry” and “Walk Like a Man” and the many other Four Seasons hits, in a dead-on version of Valli’s signature style.

In order to maintain it, he explains, “I’ve become a very regimented person. I drink a gallon of water a day, I sleep with a humidifier, I steam with a personal inhaler, I have lots of electrolytes. And I sleep probably ten hours a night, because if you lose sleep or are dehydrated, the falsetto is the first thing to go.”

Weinstock and his fellow cast-members were fêted yesterday at the annual spring get-together of the Proctors Guild. Actors who spend time on the road will tell you that a touring company becomes a family; here the dynamic was obvious.

There’s also a physical quality about an actor that goes beyond the merely structural. Actors are comfortable as attention-centers, and stand or sit with an unselfconscious ease that nevertheless says, “I know you’re looking at me.” Even when off script, they tend to express themselves well. It’s very easy to believe, within a few minutes of falling into conversation with an actor, that you’ve become this person’s best friend – and you walk away from the encounter unaware that you did little of the talking.

A few thoughts about the West Side Story revival at Proctors . . .

The touring company production of West Side Story that’s currently at Proctors is wonderful entertainment, and I recommend it with few reservations: the performers are dynamic, the choreography is legendary, the music is beautifully played and it’s great theater. Go see it: It’s playing tonight (Friday) at 8 PM, Saturday (Aug. 20) at 2 and 8 PM, and Sunday at 2 PM. I just wanted to put in my 2 cents about the show’s semi-controversial changes, namely, having most of the Puerto Rican characters speak some lines in Spanish, and giving one of the show’s major songs to a minor character.

The jaded critic in me thinks, “well, they can’t change a note of Bernstein’s music or a step in Robbins’ choreography, so they have to change something else to make it new.” But the intent of he changes is sound.

Given the fact that America was an overwhlemingly caucasion, English-speaking place for a long, long time, it’s not surprising that sensitivities to the portrayals of everyone not caucasion have evolved, and the necessity for changes recognized. But aging white dudes like myself, no matter how enlightened we may think we are, tend to forget how whitedudecentric things have been. Example: I was flabbergasted to learn, watching a “making of” documentary about one of my favorite films, Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch, that the casting of the extras was color-coded. Shot on location in Mexico, all the extras for the scenes set in South Texas were (of course) Mexican, but the lighter-skinned Mexicans were cast as Texans and their darker-skinned neighbors were cast as Mexicans.

Peckinpah was no racist—a misogynist, sure, but not a racist—and the villains and heroes of The Wild Bunch are distributed impartially across nationalities and ethnicities. But Peckinpah and his casting director knew American audiences, and segregating the cast by color was a form of visual shorthand.

So it should be considered progress that, in the opening ensemble dances in the production of West Side Story at Proctors, there were moments when I couldn’t tell the Jets from the Sharks. The casting of the film version of West Side Story was obviously color coded, as the the movie’s Jets are recognizably “white” and those Sharks recognizably “brown.” The revival’s producers’ intent clearly is to achieve a greater realism, and that’s a fine intention. Though the fact that, from my balcony perch, I had trouble distinguishing the two gangs is a problem in itself. Maybe the clothes could be color-coded.

I think the revival’s attempt to add realism by having the Sharks speak Spanish is a mistake, however, for two reasons. . .

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Oakley Hall III remembered

Oakley Hall III (1950-2011)

Nippertown has a very good obituary here.

John Rodat wrote a preview in 2005 for the week-long run at the Spectrum 8 Theatres of a documentary about Hall, The Loss of Nameless Things. It's a pretty good thumbnail of the story. . . .

Potential is a fearsome thing, and great promise contains the seed of great loss. Throughout the arts and literature one can find cautionary tales hinged on sudden reversals of fortune, of the eminent man brought low. But what of the man not yet fully risen?

In Bill Rose’s lauded film The Loss of Nameless Things—which will begin its weeklong run at the Spectrum 8 Theatres tomorrow (Friday)—the documentarian tells the story of Oakley Hall III, a talented actor-playwright who in the late ’70s founded an ambitious and experimental theater troupe in the Catskills, the Lexington Conservatory Theater (members of which later went on to start Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany). Hall is recalled by friends, family members and fellow actors as an overwhelmingly charismatic and prodigiously gifted young man. He is spoken of, in still-awestruck tones, as a Dionysian figure, an almost archetypal enfant terrible, brimful of drive—dramatic, creative, libidinal, hedonistic. The reverential recollections of his intimates are backed up by evidence that theater figures such as Joseph Papp, William Hurt and Mandy Patinkin all saw signs of nascent—if rough—genius in Hall. Great things were expected of him and, in 1978, hopes were pinned specifically upon the 28-year-old’s recently completed play about the final years of the explorer Meriwether Lewis, Grinder’s Stand.

Before the play could be mounted, however, Hall’s future prospects were suddenly dimmed. In the company of a “dark stranger,” Hall fell—or jumped, or was pushed—from a bridge, shattering his face and inflicting significant and permanent brain damage, which greatly affected his ability with language. The mystery surrounding the event still persists, as Hall himself has no recollection of the fall (and he possesses a very limited memory of his life before that night in 1978).

 

Here's Ann Morrow's review of a Firlefanz Puppets production of Ubu Rex, adapted and directed by Hall a year ago (Jan. 2010) at Steamer No. 10 Theatre.

Tonight at Northern Lights: TIM AND ERIC

Tim and Eric

As Wharf from Star Trek would tell you, Chrimbus is a lunch holiday. Every Dec. 5, Winter Man comes to your cafeteria to inspect your small, decorative Chrimbus bush. If you’ve kept it trimmed and wet, Winter Man will leave you a present. If you have any questions, Wharf and Captain P’Kard will be glad to answer them in person.

                But they’re not the only special guests on tour with Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, stars and creators of the Adult Swim show Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! It’s going to be a Chrimbus season spectacular featuring comedian Neil Hamburger and rock band Pusswhip Banggang, performing their hits “Petite Feet” and “Sports.” And there will be plenty of sketch comedy and clips from the duo’s upcoming holiday movie, which Tim’s dad calls “a very funny goof and a spoof.”

                The Tim and Eric Awesome Tour, Great Job! comes to Northern Lights (1208 Route 146, Clifton Park) tonight (Tuesday, Nov. 30) at 8 PM. Tickets are $22. For more info, call 371-0012, or Wharf.

[extra extra . . . clicky click for the NSFW pic]

Night & Day: Kathy Griffin at the Palace

Kathy Griffin

Pop quiz: Whose photo album boasts snapshots of their grinning mug smooshed against Regis Philbin, Carmen Electra, “Bachelor Bob,” Andy Dick, Diana Ross, half the Backstreet Boys—and a shot of them running topless down an airplane aisle with a “Blur Your Gender” T-shirt flapping behind?

Well, Queen of the D-List Kathy Griffin’s, of course. (We officially challenge you to find another photo page on the great wide interweb that fits that bill). 

The Emmy Award-winning, reality-show-fiending, brash redhead has made appearances in more than 35 movies and 50 TV shows—many of them forgettable. But she’s cashed in on her Hollywood outsider status with her comedy, and taken the world by storm.

Her recent HBO specials include snappy titles like Kathy Griffin: She’ll Cut a Bitch and Kathy Griffin: Whores on Crutches. Earlier this year she showed of her “vajazzling” at a televised pool-side pap smear. So we hesitate to guess what could happen when she hits the stage live in Albany this weekend.

Kathy Griffin will bring her bold and brassy laughs to the Palace Theatre (19 Clinton Ave., Albany) tonight (Sunday, Nov. 7) at 7 PM. Tickets are $28-$98. For more info call 465-4663; to purchase tickets call (800) 745-3000.

Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia @ The Egg

Art Alive

By Kathryn Geurin

Swimmy, Frederick and Inch by Inch

Stories by Leo Lionni, directed by Jim Morrow

Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia, the Egg, Oct. 16

Frederick is a poetic mouse who seems to daydream the summer away while his family works hard gathering stores for the winter. His imagination proves surprisingly valuable in combating the cold and dark. Swimmy is a little fish who adventures through the vast ocean after his family is gobbled up. His enthusiasm and ingenuity convince his nervous new friends to overcome their fears. Inchy is an inchworm who measures everything he encounters. His quick and clever thinking inches him right out of big trouble. Leo Lionni is a Dutch-born artist and graphic designer, whose celebrated commercial career includes decades as art director for Time-Life, Fortune and Print magazines. His most enduring and vibrant legacy can be found in the more than 30 children’s books he wrote and illustrated after his “retirement.”

And Mermaid Theatre is the puppet troupe who have brought Lionni’s exquisite and endearing fables to life for children around the world.

John Oliver at the Colonial Theatre

Comedy’s Kill Screen

By Kathryn Geurin

John Oliver

Colonial TheatRe, Pittsfield, Mass., Aug. 14  

Chances are you know John Oliver as the Daily Show’s Senior British Correspondent. Perhaps you’ve heard that “adorable accent” on his TimesOnline podcast, The Bugle, which recently celebrated its 100th episode. Maybe you’ve seen his comedy special Terrifying Times, or his six-episode John Oliver's New York Stand Up Show, or any number of his other assorted appearances on stage and screen. The guy’s only been in the U.S. for four years, his green card is still sparkling—and already he’s rocketing up the ladder to comedy stardom at surprising speeds for such a gangly chap.

So the question really isn’t “Was John Oliver funny?” Because, yes. Yes, of course, he was funny. Brilliantly, preposterously funny. The kind of funny that leaves you stretching the ache from your jaw the next morning. The kind of funny that, between reminiscing laughs on the ride home, smacks you with the fleeting fear: “What if I just experienced the funniest hour and a half of my life? What if all humor is downhill from here?”

Yes. He was that kind of funny.

Oliver tumbled onto the stage already laughing, beaming under his dark tousle of hair, an impishness brewing behind his wire-rimmed glasses. His “fake news” correspondent’s suit was retired for the evening in favor of sneakers, slim khakis and a plaid button-down.

“The Colonial Theater,” he snickered, surveying the golden balconies of Pittsfield’s historic opera house, “the Colonial Theater. You have to understand what it does to a British person walking into Massachusetts . . . such a defeat. I should be standing on this stage in a delightful red jacket shooting a musket and shouting instructions. Instead, you’ve called me here to dance for you like a jester.”

And so began the brief love affair between John Oliver and the Colonial Theater audience—a dazzling tryst of the type most performers only dream. Oliver deftly rolled between his intended material and comfortably hilarious, meandering riffs born of his rare chemistry with an audience that he facetiously asked to “laugh a bit less,” cursing their collective travel experience and swooning over the hearty response he got to a Galileo joke. “Even your heckles are good,” he smirked.

When he dropped to his knees, gasping, “What kind of Narnia have I stumbled into?” the cynic in me flinched: You probably say that to all the gigs.

And  maybe he does, though I thoroughly doubt it. But it’s really irrelevant. Because either way, he made us laugh, and think, and love our madcap country anew. He convinced some hundreds of folks in Pittsfield that each wingnut story he spun, each intimate laugh and quirky observation was crafted in that moment, for that moment.

Oliver offers cultural commentary from an outsider, not in the broad, tired strokes of partisan stereotype, but through the specifics, the eccentric details “under the hood” of our nation, be it a 70-year-old tour guide with a hockey-stick crutch and a self-set leg in upper Michigan, a Guiness World Record set for most rattlesnakes held in one’s mouth (10), or the fact that the Colonial Theater was for decades, ludicrously, a paint store. What Oliver does best is hold a mirror to America, and the reflection he creates echoes with surprisingly resonant mix of savvy criticism, insightful amusement and genuine affection.

“Oh, Pittsfield,” he sighed, having run unexpectedly overtime, “I will remember this gig much longer than you will.”

Doubtful, John Oliver. Doubtful.