Hawkeye (2021)

Jeremy Renner finally gets his due. Is a 300 minute miniseries more prestigious than a feature film nowadays? Maybe. I think he probably got a longer end of the stick than Scarjo did with Black Widow. In the grand scheme of the Marvel Universe, this is probably not that important, but I think that's what's so refreshing about it compared to the complex Loki. They can go small. What they created is a Christmas movie, or an extended Christmas episode. It's designed just to make you smile and it does the trick. Christmas in New York is magical, isn't it? Hailee Steinfeld is fabulous as Kate Bishop, the rare Hawkeye fan who was inspired to pick up archery and becomes something of a hero in her own right. There is a deaf played by Alaqua Cox. Following the success of The Sound of Metal and CODA, it was a pleasant surprise to see a deaf character thriving in the hearing world, and multiple hearing characters signing to her, entering her world, handicapping themselves for her benefit. There is also a pretty good gag (prediction?) about a Marvel musical. Maybe they forgot about the Spiderman musical. The song and choreography are painfully accurate; I can see it transitioning to Broadway for real and succeeding.

Little Shop of Horrors (Off-Broadway) (2022)

Aglaia and Rachel both won lottery tickets to the same performance of Little Shop of Horrors at the Westside Theater Upstairs. Did not realize until we got there that both Seymour and Audrey were being played by understudies in their Off-Broadway debuts. I guess that's why they both won. Josh Daniel stepped in for Conrad Ricamora and did admirably. Chelsea Turbin was a little weaker for Tammy Blanchard. She usually plays the puppet, which is not a singing role, so this is a pretty major step up. Her accent for Audrey is very thick, which Aglaia said was typical for Audrey. Christian Borle plays multiple roles (Orin and others), and he is very funny and versatile. He's probably the biggest name in the cast, even when Ricamora is there, so I was surprised it wasn't the lead. 

The puppet is scary as hell. In the medium Audrey II puppet, you can see the legs in the vines, but only one pair. In the program, there are three names for the puppet, including Turbin. At the bows, only two people came out of the large puppet. So maybe the third person is optional? Or maybe the two of them need to operate with more limbs. The plot is way out there. I didn't really know what to expect, but man-eating plant is wild. And the ending is very bleak. 

Maybe we were sitting too close to the stage, or too close to the wall (second row, far right) or underneath the speaker but I had a hard time understanding most of the actors, with the notable exception of Christian Borle who enunciates clearly. Was it the way they were mic-ed?  So I felt like I was missing jokes. Even though the rest of the audience was laughing really hard. I like the Motown sound Alan Menken was going for. Skid Row is pretty great, but the rest of the music is just ok.

Flying Over Sunset (Broadway) (2022)

We had tickets to see Flying Over Sunset last year but it was canceled for Covid. They did reopen this year, though maybe they shouldn't have; sadly they are ending their limited run two weeks early. I don't know how this concept even got greenlit; it's way out there. It's an LSD trip taken by Aldous Huxley, Carey Grant and Clare Booth Luce. Though they are all on the record as having taken LSD, there is no historical evidence that they did so together, let alone even knew each other. So it's entirely made up, and what an odd thing to make up. Who in this day and age are interested in these three random historical figures? With a concept like LSD, they could've gone way further with either absurdist comedy. In that way, the problem is that it's not funny enough. They almost get there with the reference to Blue Origin (actually predating Blue Origin). But on the whole, they should've swung wilder.

Tony Yazbeck plays Carey Grant. He actually kind of resembles him a bit. He sings and tap dances atop a desk. Harry Hadden-Paton for me is always going to be Henry Higgins from My Fair Lady. He has the accent and the quintessential British-ness. He plays Aldous Huxley similarly. Carmen Cusack plays Clare Booth Luce, who was at one time Ambassador to Italy, and also a playwright and magazine editor. The actors are all actually fine but the material is not that interesting. The first act, with the three separate trips is kind of boring. The second act is a little better when the trip together. But it's not really coherent and there isn't really a point to it. And the music is mostly unmemorable.

By far the best part of the show is the set design by Beowulf Boritt. The set is lush and wondrous. The back wall curves and shows projections (including clips from Houseboat during a hallucinatory dance with Sophia Loren)  and moves back and forth and swivels real fast. The drug store in act I transports us straight to the 50s. The choreography is also kind of interesting. Aside from the explicit tap dancing, there is a lot of syncopated walking. That can't be easy getting the rhythm right.

The Deuce (2017-19)

Not as groundbreaking as the Wire, but every bit as astute, insightful and well made. David Simon remains our greatest chronicler of the American city, this time New York in the 70s and 80s around 42nd Street. The epilogue shows what it has transformed into now, a tourist trap, a far cry from the Taxi Driver-era. Simon is interested in the how; what are the socioeconomic and political drivers that cause a city to change? Ed Koch looms over the show though he is never shown on screen. The third season's coverage of the AIDS epidemic is especially poignant. In parallel, it's also about the pornography industry, in that window it enjoyed mainstream success. For that the story expands out to California. I'd say the third theme is the mafia, showing the audience how organized crime makes money in as much detail as The Sopranos. Simon treats his characters equally and with dignity, whether they are government officials, policemen, reporters, mobsters, pimps, prostitutes or pornographers.  They all have rich, thoughtful characterization with satisfying arcs. The stars are James Franco, who plays twins, and Maggie Gyllenhaal, who plays a prostitute turned porn-director turned art house filmmaker. The rest of the cast is full of David Simon regulars who appear in his other works. He continues to cast them because they're good. Simple as that.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013-21)

Brooklyn Nine-Nine almost ended three years ago before it was revived by NBC. At the time, there was a grassroots campaign to bring it back on the air; and with good reason, it was a funny show with a high laughs per minute ratio. It's a lot of Andy Samberg though and he's not everybody's cup of tea. At the same time, shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine presented cops (the NYPD specifically) in a benign, playful light. It's a cast of goofy, rather memorable, characters. They're going to catch the baddie and just have fun doing it. The show recognized that this is problematic in our culture, quite troubling really that these are the quirky buffoons that are supposed to be protecting us. In its final season, the only one following the killing of George Floyd, it directly addressed police reform, the police union and police brutality, rather deftly for a network sitcom.  Anyways, while I enjoyed the show, it's probably for the best.

Company (Broadway) (2021)

I'll start by saying I love Company. I'm a little biased. I played violin in the pit of my college production of Company so I'm very familiar with it; it's one show-stopper after another. In retrospect, we were all a little young for Company. The protagonist is turning 35, anxious about aging and still being unmarried. The brilliance of the new production is that male Bobby becomes female Bobbie. Marianne Elliott astutely realized that in 2021 there is nothing so special about a 35-year old bachelor but there are interesting things to say about a 35-year old bachelorette. Tick-Tock takes on a new meaning with Bobbie's biological clock. It mostly works. Some of the characters' names have gone through gender changes. Some of the lyrics were changed a bit ("life" doesn't rhyme with "fella"). I think there are two big gender hurdles. The first is when Bobbie proposes to her gay friend Jamie, which is less convincing and comes off more like a joke than male Bobby seriously proposing to Amy. The bigger one is when you get to Bobbie's 11 o'clock number, Being Alive. In the original, the older, jaded, twice-divorced Joanne propositions Bobby. She says she'll take care of him and he responds, "But who will I take care of?" In the new version, Joanne instead offers her husband Larry. It doesn't quite work the same. She tells Bobbie to take care of Larry, and she responds "But who will take care of me?" Don't change the line! It's 2021. We've just spent two hours questioning marriage and gender roles. Bobbie is a liberated woman. If she desired to get married, it's certainly not to be taken care of like some damsel. The scene with Jenny and David demonstrates that wives do not need to be taken care of and indeed can be the ones who take care. Elliott swapped them, with now David the uptight spouse. It is Jenny that takes care of David, pushing him to not partake further in the marijuana he dislikes. 

Necessarily there are brand new arrangements of the songs for gender-swapped voices. Songs previously sung by men are now sung by women and vice versa. I am not really a fan of the barbershop trio-style You Could Drive a Person Crazy. But I love the male Another Hundred People and Getting Married Today. It's now a gay marriage and in perhaps the best, most raucous scene. There are lots of surprises in the kitchen set piece with the priest popping out of all sorts of unexpected places. There isn't much dance, per se, but the blocking is highly choreographed. There are a lot of swiping and selfie motions; it kind of gets a smirk the first time in Bobbie's cramped apartment. But I like the musical chairs/tables bit in Side by Side, which is very precise. I also thought that Company and Side by Side were a little slow, maybe because of the simultaneous choreography.

The set design is stellar. It's like Alice in Wonderland with the big rooms and small rooms and rabbit holes. I love the interchanging rooms and hallways that attach to each other. There are hidden 35s everywhere.  I'll say again the kitchen secrets are hilarious. I love that the band sits above the sets and are in full view. I did have an issue with the neon lighting, which was kind of distracting. It also casts bad shadows in the jiu-jitsu scene. The big neon "COMPANY" letters in Another Hundred People was unexpected but I think works, and appropriately recognizes the song as New York's solo.

Katrina Lenk is on stage nearly the whole show. Even when she's not singing, she is there reacting non-stop.  She is actually kind of old to be playing 35-year old Bobbie, as she is approaching 50 (and fittingly supposedly unmarried), not that you could tell from the mezzanine. She is beautiful dressed in a solid red jumpsuit, contrasted with the blues of the set. Her red bra and panties also contrasts Andy's blue briefs. She is a great actor and a capable singer but I found her solos to be a bit breathy. Matt Doyle as Jamie stood out for me. And Patti Lupone is the diva that steals the show whenever she's on stage, even just swinging her legs from atop a high barstool. Her Ladies Who Lunch is very different from Elaine Stritch's but her style works. She enunciates all the consonants at the end of every lyric.

Overall it's very entertaining. It's way funnier from the audience than from the pit. The vignettes are all great. And the songs are some of Sondheim's most hummable. Very happy we got to see this on a Thursday, after they canceled two performances on Sunday due to non-COVID illness, supposedly Patti Lupone had rotavirus. Broadway generally seems to have lowered the non-COVID sickness threshold for cancellation. So much for the show must go on. But glad ours did.