Hardly broken and certainly not in need of fixing, the hugely successful epic musical of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables turned 25 a couple of years ago, so producer Cameron Mackintosh celebrated the milestone of the international hit by lavishing a new, redesigned and restaged production on it.
The work of directing team of Laurence Connor and James Powell is more conventional than the original show’s turntable concept, but the tour on view at the Kravis Center through Saturday is very well sung and performed by a sizeable cast which reminds us why Les Miz became the third longest-running show in Broadway history.
A mere fraction of Hugo’s 1,200-page serpentine novel of 19th-century French political unrest fits into a three-hour musical, so adapters Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg put their emphasis on convict-turned-nobleman Jean Valjean (Peter Lockyer), his relentless pursuit by police inspector Javert (Andrew Varela), the doomed student rebellion of the 1830s and — this is a musical, after all — the romance between Valjean’s ward Cosette (Lauren Wiley) and student revolution leader Marius (Max Quinlan).
Schönberg’s through-sung, opera-style score is full of lush melodies and rousing anthems, handled ably by Lockyer and company. Scenically, designer Matt Kelly co-opts Hugo’s own moody artwork for backdrops, occasionally animating them, as in Valjean’s escape through the sewers of Paris. True, this production is not as distinctive as the one that has thrilled millions of theatergoers for a quarter century, but because of the enduring power of the material, it will do nicely.
LES MISÉRABLES, Kravis Center Dreyfoos Hall, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach. Through Saturday, May 26. Tickets: $27 and up. Call: (561) 832-7469.
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Reaching out to a family audience, Take Heed Theater Company puts the emphasis on comedy for its first venture into free outdoor Shakespeare, collaborating for the first time with Delray Beach’s Old School Square on a madcap Much Ado About Nothing.
Always one of the Bard’s wittiest romances, with lively verbal sparring between reluctant lovers Benedick and Beatrice, Take Heed and director Rae Randall add a layer of silliness with broad physical humor. The troupe arrives, seemingly by happenstance, at the Delray amphitheater and by process of elimination decide on presenting Much Ado.
The only problem — or at least the main one — is that they number six and even the edited text they perform has 16 characters. But perform it they do, doubling and tripling in their assignments, in an exaggerated comic style that includes some cross-gender casting. Some of the playing could use reining in, yet the play and even its poetry manage to peek through.
Artistic director David A. Hyland handles the two best male roles, confirmed bachelor Benedick and language-mangling police constable Dogberry. As the former, he spars well with Niki Fridh in their “merry war” of words. She shows her versatility, with quick-change transitions into the villainous Don John, intent on scuttling the happiness of the secondary romantic couple, Beatrice’s cousin Hero (Jill Biegler) and the too easily duped Claudio (Patrick A. Wilkinson).
Take Heed’s Much Ado About Nothing reveals enough talent in the company that it would be interesting to see them try their hands at another classic with a less jokey attack. Still, even with the over-reliance on shtick, the group’s gift of free theater in south county is something worth making ado about.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, Take Heed Theater Co., at Old School Square Outdoor Entertainment Pavilion, 51 N. Swinton Ave., Delray Beach. Through Sun., May 27. Tickets: Free, donations accepted. Call: (561) 722-3703.
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Sarah and James, long-time lovers and war-zone journalism colleagues, are at a pivotal moment in their lives in Donald Margulies’ thought-provoking Time Stands Still, now at GableStage in a well-played, insightful production. They have spent years putting themselves in harm’s way, covering combat and genocide — he as a reporter, she a photographer — and it has taken its toll on them, physically, emotionally and psychically.
Although Sarah (Deborah Sherman) has just returned from Iraq, scarred and broken from a roadside car bomb, she is eager to mend and get back to covering the world’s horrors. James (Steve Garland), on the other hand, still recovering from shell shock, is ready to settle down, marry Sarah and attempt a more conventional existence stateside. If Margulies were writing this as a film, we would undoubtedly be shown the Third-World squalor and warfare. Instead, Time Stands Still is confined to a Brooklyn loft, where we watch the metaphorical shrapnel fly as a relationship falls apart.
That unraveling is riddled with pain, yet Margulies manages to inject his play with humor, particularly early on, much of it coming at the expense of the other two characters, Sarah’s caustic, corporate magazine editor and her former lover (Gregg Weiner) and his much younger current girlfriend, Mandy (Betsy Graver). A sunny meeting planner, she cannot fathom why Sarah takes these unpleasant assignments, nor why she keeps clicking away instead of trying to aid the subjects she photographs.
Director Joe Adler pulls four compelling performances from his cast, particularly from GableStage newcomer Garland, who makes James’ effort to escape the combat treadmill such a source of audience empathy. And Sherman, whose understated performance lets us into her inner turmoil, conflicted over her career, yet addicted to it. Weiner is solid in a role he handles comfortably, but it is Graver who surprises, as she reveals unexpected depth in seemingly lightweight Mandy.
Time Stands Still is similarly deceptive. In what appears to be a play about relationships and values, Margulies leads us into a mine field of moral issues and ambiguities, a trip well worth taking.
TIME STANDS STILL, GableStage, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables. . Through Sun., June 3. Tickets: $37.50 – $50. Call: (305) 445-1119.
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More often than not, when mid-life crises are depicted in movies of plays, it is men who are seeking a little personal adventure before their time is up. But in Steven Dietz’s tongue-in-cheek tale of yearning and misunderstanding, Becky’s New Car, it is a middle-age woman who takes a borrowed identity out for a test drive.
For as Becky Foster, long-married, hard-working office manager at an upscale car dealership, tells us, when a woman says she wants a new car, what she really wants is a new life.
Becky (the reliable Laura Turnbull) frequently confides in the audience, narrating her life and singling out theatergoers for assistance, like asking one to collate some paperwork for her. It is an endearing fourth wall-shattering device, though it ultimately gets in the way when Dietz — and Actors’ Playhouse director David Arisco — wants the fun to stop, as Becky gets in over her head with her tiny, but mushrooming, deception.
You see, one night while she is working late at the dealership, a charming, but befuddled widower enters to buy a fleet of cars as gifts for his employees. When he jumps to the conclusion that she too has recently lost a spouse, and Becky does not correct him, the door creaks open for her to start a relationship with the wealthy Walter (Allan Baker), and for her to begin a double life.
The lies to Becky’s trusting helpmate hubby, Joe (Ken Clement), soon escalate, as she gains the thrill of new attention from Walter, but at a potentially dear cost. Dietz has something serious on his mind, but seems more interested in being diverting than getting beneath the surface and drawing blood.
Still, Becky is a nicely dimensional character and Turnbull lends her natural likeability to the production, so we identity with her plight, rather than judging her harshly. Clement and Baker are both appealing schlemiels, which makes her dilemma all the harder. Ryan Didato and Anne Chamberlain are the offspring of the two families, who happen to meet and fall in love, one coincidence too many for the play’s own good.
On balance, Becky’s New Car is an enjoyable well-performed ride, but fairly minor from the usually more trenchant Dietz.
BECKY’S NEW CAR, Actors’ Playhouse, 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables. Through Sun., June 3. Tickets: $40-$48. Call: (305) 441-4181.