Between her as yet unsuccessful attempts to get a foothold in the movies or on television, Kristin Chenoweth keeps returning to Broadway, and the theater is richer for it.
This season, she has jumped headlong into a role she was born to play, movie star Lily Garland in a snazzy revival of 1978’s On the Twentieth Century, a screwball showbiz comedy adapted into an over-the-top operetta by book writers-lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green and composer Cy Coleman.
Chenoweth is the reason to see this show, a less-than-top-drawer musical which nevertheless affords her an ideal showcase for her rangy coloratura lungs and cunning comic instincts. She co-stars with, but vastly overshadows, Peter Gallagher as shyster impresario Oscar Jaffee, a precursor to The Producers’ Max Bialystock. Like that show, Twentieth Century begins with a major flop, and Jaffee on the run to avoid his angry investors and cast.
So he hops the luxury Twentieth Century Limited train from Chicago to New York, which gives him 16 hours to come up with an idea for a new show, bankroll it with the money of rich, but wacko Letitia Peabody Primrose (Mary Louise Wilson) and convince Garland — his former lover — to star in it. Fortunately, she happens to be in the next sleeping car, though shacked up with her none-too-bright boy toy, Bruce Granit (Andy Karl).
Director Scott Ellis knows the importance of moving the show at the pace of, well, a runaway train, but he also understands the value of letting Chenoweth stop the show for a killer musical number. She has us in the palms of her hands from her first entrance, transformed from mousy rehearsal pianist Mildred Plotka into bombastic Lily Garland in a Jacques Brel send-up, “Veronique.” Diminutive Chenoweth knows how to play big and broad, but she also knows the value of a human-scale love song, as she demonstrates with Gallagher on “Our Private World.”
The show suffers when Chenoweth is offstage, but choreographer Warren Carlyle has fun putting a quartet of porters through their tap paces. David Rockwell provides lots of eye-popping Art Deco sets and William Ivey Long costumes the cast with attractive period garb. True, the physical production is not as lavish as the Hal Prince-directed original, but with Chenoweth onboard, few theatergoers should complain. (Grade: B+)
ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St. Through July 19. Tickets: $67-$147. Call: 212-719-1300.
***
It has been a while since The Lion King and Avenue Q categorically proved that puppet shows are not necessarily kids’ stuff. Still, it is lesson worth repeating, as a profane, violent and even a little thought-provoking dark comedy, Hand to God, demonstrates.
This subversive little play by Broadway newcomer Robert Askins takes place in a suburban Texas church basement. There a grief-stricken widow named Margery (unexpectedly sensuous Geneva Carr) leads a puppet ministry for teens, including her terribly shy son Jason (wickedly schizophrenic Steven Boyer). What Jason is unable or unwilling to verbalize, the sock puppet on his left hand, dubbed Tyrone, is perfectly eager to say aloud.
Maybe that is Jason’s way of expressing his socially unacceptable thoughts or maybe, just maybe, Tyrone is possessed by the devil. If that is a leap you are willing to take, Hand to God is a surprisingly entertaining, often laugh-out-loud journey.
Margery is trying to prepare her woefully underattended class to perform a Christian puppet drama. In addition to Jason, there is meek puppet enthusiast Jessica (Sarah Stiles) and bad boy Timothy (Michael Oberholtzer), whose erotic thoughts get in the way of his puppetry. Before long, Tyrone starts speaking up, alluding to Jason’s attraction to Jessica. Jason is mortified, but this is only the beginning of the sock puppet’s candid, increasingly foul-mouthed statements. What gives Tyrone such animation is the way Boyer’s manipulation of the puppet seems to come from an outside force, with crude pronouncements that embarrass Jason mercilessly.
Completing the cast is Marc Kudisch as Pastor Greg, who has his own wanton designs on Margery. Eventually, of course, such thoughts boil over in carnal urges, both puppet and human.
Askins seems to be asking if we have warring emotions within each of us, a good puppet voice that can turn evil in an instant. The veneer of religion helps to increase the level of hypocrisy and guilt. Director Moritz von Stuelpnagel has been involved with Hand to God in its several developmental productions, bringing Tyrone and the other puppets to chilling life. Eugene O’Neill it is not, but in a Broadway season dominated by several high-toned British imports, Hand to God stands out as the best, and most improbable, new American play around. (Grade: B)
HAND TO GOD, Booth Theatre, 222 W. 45th St. Tickets: $67-$137. Call: 800-432-7250.