“Does anyone still wear a hat?” asked Elaine Stritch derisively in her legendary performance in 1970’s Company. I can now categorically answer “Yes,” having spent some time on Fifth Avenue on Easter Sunday, when the swells and swell-wannabes strolled the street, open only to pedestrians for much of the day.
But my chapeau-spying was brief, for my wife and I — both certified heathens — were on our way to mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. So was most of New York City, it seemed, as the venerable Catholic church was standing room only. It was also not much to look at since the interior was a warren of scaffolding, which dampened the effect.
We did not stay long, but instead walked over to Rockefeller Center to gawk at an outdoor display of giant Easter eggs decorated by major and minor artists as well as school groups, and sponsored by corporations and celebrities from Julia Roberts to David Letterman. Very cool.
Easter or not, Sundays are matinee days on Broadway, so we next caught one of the final previews of Casa Valentina, a new play by Harvey Fierstein about life at a Catskills bungalow colony in 1962, where straight men come to indulge their cross-dressing urges.
Reviews are embargoed until Tuesday evening, but it is fair to say that Fierstein again explores the range of what it means to be a man, just as he has from Torch Song Trilogy to La Cage aux Folles to Kinky Boots. Early on, the play brims with his crackling, snappy humor, but never doubt that he will lower the dramatic boom.
Sunday night is usually dark on Broadway, but off-Broadway is busy, so we took in Heathers, the Musical, an entertaining stage version of the 1988 satire of high school, a precursor of Mean Girls, but substantially darker in tone. The pop rock score by Laurence O’Keefe (Legally Blonde) and Kevin Murphy (Reefer Madness), doesn’t add much to the story, though the obese Martha Dunnstock (played with lumpen style by Katie Ladner) gets a worthy second-act solo, “Kindergarten Boyfriend,” that hints at the deeper show that might have been.
Instead, Heathers is content to follow the film quite closely, which seemed to please the largely young audience I saw it with. (Seeing a lot of theater in South Florida, I am used to bringing down the median age of the audience, but I was one of the older attendees at Heathers. And from the way the crowd greeted most of the punch lines lifted straight from the movie, it was clearly very familiar with the cult classic.)
A young performer with the unlikely name of Barrett Wilbert Weed anchored the production with charisma to spare as Veronica Sawyer, the high-minded high schooler who comes under the overbearing influence of a clique of three teen goddesses, each named Heather. Weed would seem to have a substantial stage career ahead of her, if things go right for her.
It was probably a savvy move to produce this show off-Broadway rather than on, though its ultimate venue is surely high school productions, as long as drama teachers can slip it past their principals.