A Christmas tree in the living room of a Jewish family in 1939 Atlanta, Georgia forces different reactions from characters in The Jewish Repertory Theatre of Western New York's production of Alfred Uhry's THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOO.
One family member defends the custom as quaint and decorative like hearts on Valentine's Day. Another character is appalled that a Jewish family would suggest the celebration of a Christian holiday. An upstart teen enters the living room and declares with warmth and familiarity, "Ah! A Hanukkah bush!".
Meanwhile the threat of World War II looms from the nightly news on the family radio, and Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh are in town for the world premier of "Gone With The Wind". But never mind that. A seasonal teen party, Ballyhoo, is commencing and Lala Levy doesn't have a date.
THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOO is a period domestic comedy as cozy as a holiday eggnog and as spirited as a shot of whiskey in the cup. It offers a modest life lesson to be true to one's self, and drapes a cheery wreath around a family at holiday time. What Eugene O'Neill's "Ah, Wilderness!" does for the Fourth of July, BALLYHOO does for a Jewish Christmas.
Occasionally, genuinely upsetting drama finds its way into this light-hearted affair with Lala, (Jennifer Leibowitz) threatening her own glass menagerie daydream of movie star magazines and pulp fiction romance. Her petty teen angst (boy trouble mostly) are suggested as evolving from deeper psychological roots. Fortunately for the warm comedy lovers among us, any recognizable pathos concerning flirting rather than engaging life become weightless, wat with the Ballyhoo dance and everything else going on.
While the Christmas tree is a funny prop and remains on stage throughout, it doesn't look characterized as representative of its caretakers. As it is, it looks like it was purchased at Dollar General with lights intact, and immediately ignored.
Why is playwright Alfred Uhry's domestic arrangement so severe? Initially what we see suggests a common family situation, like Beaver Cleaver could burst through the door at any moment. We soon learn that the adult Levy family consists of a man, his sister, and his sister-in-law, and this production offers little reason for the awkward familial design. Indeed the adults of this play are of little psychological value.
Lisa Ludwig as apparent matriarch Boo Levy boosts BALLYHOO with a wildly gruff voice and manner, keeping Christmas as one might drink a green beer in a silly hat on St. Patrick's Day. She makes comedic mincemeat of any suggestion she is a tragic Tennessee Williams heroine.
There is a beautiful scene with Sunny Freitag, (Bonnie Jean Taylor) on a train home from college, gazing at the familiar sights of home, that is as richly detailed as cinema.
THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOO, winner of the 1997 Tony for Best Play and penned by the author of "Driving Miss Daisy", will find you confronting your own magnificent voids, as one character put it describing her religion. Take my Catholicism, please. The play is sweet and touching, especially its final scene, and offers a heartfelt expression of the holidays.
It plays through November 7 at The Alleyway Theatre in Buffalo, New York.
This article was first published by the author at blogcritics.org
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
The Paper Chase
The next time someone hands me a rehearsal schedule, I am going to tear it up into tiny bits and casually fling it over my shoulder.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
MORE PICS FROM THE DEVO SHOW IN CLIFTON SPRINGS
Dan shows a tongue full of offerings from the ziti table.
DEVO at Northern Lights in Clifton Park, New York
Devo still looks like Devo but they're much older now. Their planetary crash test dummy appearance - robotic, geeky and punk - has matured into a nostalgic grandfatherly warmth, as familiar and fascinating as your favorite sci-fi flick from childhood.The Northern Lights rock and roll club in Clifton Park, New York, wedged in a suburban shopping plaza between a Family Dollar store and a new-fangled alternative church, served ziti, hot dogs and sausages from a small steam table in the same room Devo took the stage. Somehow, steamed ziti and Devo just don't mix well.
Still it seemed a fitting environment for the return of a band who look like they emerged from the bowels of a chemistry lab. For the record, the server was hot, the hot dog was not.
A curved wall-to-wall video backdrop, typical of Devo shows of the past, projected psychedelic spud boy drama as they opened with the fiery anti-gun plea, "Don't Shoot, I'm A Man", off the recently released SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY. Mark Mothersbaugh's electrifying synth keypad delivered a spine-tingling ride up and down the musical scale.
Devo marched through their recording career with, notably, several songs off their acclaimed debut from 1978, Q: ARE WE NOT MEN? A: WE ARE DEVO!. "Jocko Homo" spirited the crowd into a marketing dream come true vocal chant, ("We are Devo!"), and the punkish "Mongoloid" gave the hopping audience a dizzying dancing beat. "Uncontrollable Urge", a primitive lust for sex, was raw and beautiful.
"Peek-A-Boo!" from OH NO! IT'S DEVO was as comically evil if a bit more thunderous than ever, with a bass line so heavy and deep I thought my knee caps were going to pop out.
"Gates Of Steel" and "The Girl U Want" along with the title track from FREEDOM OF CHOICE, were perfectly rendered and welcome reminders of a cassette tape I literally wore out back in the day. Their ten minutes of mainstream fame, "Whip It", a chart-topping ode to masturbation, was performed, unlike the rest of the show, without distinction. It was handed to the crowd like a salesman's calling card.
Cover songs, The Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and Johnny Rivers' "Secret Agent Man" seemed reborn again with the former sounding positively calypso and "Secret Agent Man" losing a paranoid edge to a wizened resigned maturity - "They've given me a number, and they've taken away my name". "So what, who cares", the song seemed to say.
Musically the band was tight and disciplined and the vocals were as freakishly nasal as ever. They can still hop in unison and play guitar at the same time, and Bob Mothersbuugh's (Mark's brother) lead guitar was fast and fluid. Special mention must be made of younger by comparison drummer Jeff Friedl who led the beat so ferociously you'd think he wrote the music himself.
Booji Boy, a decadent and delightful Devo persona in mask, resembling a walking, talking deformed Kewpie doll, made his obligatory appearance at show's end, interrupting finale "Beautiful World" with a "personal" story about an encounter with the late Michael Jackson. Apparently, Jackson too thought it was a beautiful world. Booji Boy nearly shook a tear from our eye.
They tossed plastic energy dome caps into the audience, ($30 a pop at the Devo marketing table), shook pom-poms like grotesque cheerleaders, ripped the anti-contaminant uniforms off each other, and threw the shredded clothing into the crowd. Gimme, gimme eBay souvenir! They then continued playing in their underwear which was decidedly Devo fashioned.
They saluted, marched, hopped, and pranced all over the stage. There is little doubt these guys are eating their Wheaties. But mostly they rocked, as only a good mongoloid from planet Earth can.
This review was first published by the author at blogcritics.org
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