In the often lightweight genre of musicals, composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim has tended towards the grim, in shows about a homicidal barber, presidential assassins and America’s opening and despoiling of Japan. Then there is his Grimm musical, Into the Woods, written with his Sunday in the Park with George collaborator James Lapine. Its first act, which interweaves several … [Read more...]
On Broadway, Part 3: Plays and Off-Broadway
All productions of Stephen Sondheim’s masterwork, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, since the original 1979 version set inside a vast industrial warehouse have been downscaled compromises. Still, there are advantages to intimacy and proximity, particularly when the audience is nose-to-nose with that iconic vengeful serial killer born of the old British penny … [Read more...]
Fierce reading of Rose drives strong ‘Gypsy’ at Maltz
As imported ringers go, Vicki Lewis continues to be a welcome visitor to the Maltz Jupiter Theatre. The 5-foot-1 “bundle of dynamite” – to borrow a phrase from her current triumph in Gypsy – has won over audiences here in such unlikely roles as the pushy title matchmaker in Hello, Dolly! and comic villainess Miss Hannigan in Annie. But neither performance quite prepared us … [Read more...]