Mahabharata (Summer for the City) (2025)

Why Not Theatre's ambitious experimental production of the Mahabharata is performed in two parts. I went on two consecutive nights, but this weekend it's playing back to back in a single day, which is a bit much. But I kind of loved the idea of coming back the second night, after having the opportunity to read up on the synopsis in between. The plot is super convoluted, with many characters, all major. Not only that but the actors play multiple parts and play in drag so it's hard to follow. We are warned early on by the storyteller to not be daunted by the plot. It's about the morality lessons derived from the story. It is about how to live or not live a dharma life that is righteous. And there's something profound about that. 

The first part is backed by a band, that starts well before the official curtain time. They sing traditional Indian music and continue to back the narrator. It's a beautiful combination of storytelling and music. The music is my favorite part. There are also dance interludes that showcase different means of telling a story without words. The band doesn't come back for part two, but instead the backdrop is a screen on which we see live projections Jamie Lloyd-style. There is a 15-minute Sanskrit opera retelling the Bhagavad Gita. The scale of the production is honestly impressive and it permits the troupe to do more experimental things for scenes at a time. 

PS. I spotted Philip Glass coming out of the bathroom on the first night. Didn't see him the second night but the opera is reminiscent of his own Satyagraha, with a libretto also drawn from the Sanskrit Bhagavad Gita. 

Floyd Collins (Broadway) (2025)

Floyd Collins is a bizarre show. It's not about a particularly exciting subject. Collins was a real life cave explorer in 1920s Kentucky who got pinned under a rock in a narrow section of the cave. His predicament became a news bonanza, attracting people from all over the country with ideas on how to get Collins out. It was a media circus that became a real  above ground carnival. Spoiler alert, he eventually dies there. Very oddly, in this production Collins remains on stage basically the whole way through, sitting on a chaise lounge, not especially stuck-looking. It's an odd-choice, and there isn't a whole lot to make you feel like you're in a cave. The stage design leaves much to be desired. 

The bluegrass music is kind of nice. The yodeling and echoes looping/harmonizing with itself are interesting. I think the best part actually is the score.  The piano and harmonica parts are playful, quite complex. Adam Guettel is the composer, and for being one of his earliest works I'm impressed by the complexity. Also, I just learned that Guettel is Richard Rodgers's grandson. 

Intimate Apparel (2022) (Off-Broadway)

I've never been to the theater downstairs at Lincoln Center Theater. It's very small, 75% in the round; with a turntable for a stage, every seat in full view and we were in the second row. This co-production with the Metropolitan Opera of Intimate Apparel is an operatic adaptation of Lynn Nottage's play. The score is sparse, just two pianos, elevated on both sides of the stage. The music is not particularly memorable. It was a bit too contemporary for me, lacking in melody and harmony. George maybe gets a bit of melody but not much. The music meanders, going nowhere, as opera often does. The plot recalls Cyrano de Bergerac, in which love letters are ghostwritten by someone else. The plot sort of skips over how George comes to know Esther. In 1905, you don't exactly have catfishing through the psot, but that's kind of the idea. It's a sumptuous production nonetheless for such a small theater. The period costumes are really great.

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.

Madama Butterfly (2006) (Metropolitan Opera)

The Met has been performing this beautiful production of Puccini's popular Madama Butterfly since 2006. And thirteen years later, it is still incredible. The production by Anthony Minghella is more theatrical than it is operatic, in my opinion. By that I mean the staging is not grandiose like you expect opera to be. The set is rather bare, consisting mostly some screens, some chairs and a large mirror. There are a couple of dozen people that play actual pieces of the scenery, like a kindergarten play in which the trees are played by children. Here, they are dressed and veiled in black like the bunraku puppeteers and they carry lanterns, flowers and birds. It is beautiful and sufficient, don't get me wrong but it is not operatic. The scenery at the end of the first act is especially beautiful with the falling butterflies and stars and lit lanterns. The enormous mirror that makes up a slanted ceiling is a mystery for much of the show. The opening scene makes dramatic use of it, but the mirror is really there for 3 hours and 15 minutes to create the final striking image of the fallen Butterfly, red sash cutting diagonally across the floor and mirror to great effect. The colored lighting creates beautiful silhouettes, and the figures against the white screens, still as a portrait, are highly artistic.  The silhouettes at the final bows are gorgeous. I'm not sure if the puppets add much more than what a real kid might have brought, but it does make the production a little more Japanese (read: authentic?).

I love Puccini, but this is not my favorite score of his. It is not nearly as melodic as Tosca or Turandot. He still creates wonderful harmonies but the music meanders and infrequently resolves--is that the difference between showtunes and opera? It quotes the Star Spangled Banner and uses East Asian instruments to evoke Japanese music. None of the arias are particularly memorable. I remember Un Bel Di because it is a pivotal aria for Cio Cio San in her emotional development but I might not recognize it.

The story is a tragedy. It features an American in Japan singing in Italian. The naval lieutenant Pinkerton is sleeping his way around the world, as one does in the military. At the turn of the twentieth century, America has forced open Japan by gunboat at the port of Nagasaki. He rents a house, has a fetish, finds a wife and commits statutory rape (albeit in a beautiful scene)--young Butterfly is only 15 though apparently she looks as young as ten (because westerners can't tell age in Asians?). He intends for the marriage to be temporary but it's very real and permanent to Butterfly/Cio Cio San. And so naturally he returns to America and gets married to a white woman, leaving his wife and (unbeknownst to him) child, and leaving his problem to be solved by the State Department, like the consul wants to be bothered by immoral and callous military men. And then even the consul demurs to the poor housekeeper to break the news to Butterfly. In short, there are some questionable race and gender politics in this story that probably didn't even occur to playwright Belasco but in 2019 we are more enlightened. Consequently, some of the dialogue is funny and some of it a little cringey.  We can overlook it because Butterfly's love is genuine, though at 15-18 years old, what does she really know of love? If you can get past that, the tragedy is heart achingly beautiful.

The King and I (Broadway) (2015)

This is a phenomenal revival of Rodger and Hammerstein's beloved play. Let me start with the costumes. They are gorgeous--both the colorful Siamese garb and Anna's enormous dresses. The costumes along with the set transport the audience to another world. The stage goes very deep back and the center portion of the stage moves out above the pit for full view of the audience. The large green curtain is very regal in between murals of the Siamese statues. The play opens with Anna arriving to Siam via a large ship. It is gigantic and the angles are diagonal to give the ship perspective as it moves out of profile into the audience. It is an epic start to a play of epic proportions. This includes a grand Buddha statue, large shear curtains, and tall moving columns. And of course, the immense cast.

The company does not have too many singing roles, just two numbers. But they present a choreographic challenge in giving everyone something to do on stage. Much of their time is spent kowtowing to the king to simplify this. The size of the company provides lots of roles for Asian actors, which is very welcome in musical theater. This is an important show for providing visibility to Asian actors--I noticed a lot of Filipino, Japanese and Korean names in the Playbill.  However, that is not to overlook the low-key racism present in the play's depiction of the Siamese. The accents are quite exaggerated (Ken Watanabe is a little difficult to understand, but I chalked it off to character and he is always very excitable but he's a stressed out king). And the depiction of their worship of Buddha may or may not be accurate for 1800s Siam, but it seemed a little extreme. But the cast breathes new life into this somewhat outdated play.

The young children are adorable and hilarious. The company puts on a dazzling play within a play, a mesmerizing balletic version of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." And Ruthie Ann Miles as Lady Thiang has a lovely pure voice. The individual performers were really allowed to shine as most of the songs are relatively simple solos, and a couple of duets. Only two numbers involved the whole company. This especially let Kelli O'Hara bask in the spotlight. She is incredible. She has the most brilliant voice and in the non-singing scenes she is also a first-rate actress. I adore her renditions of "Hello, Young Lovers" and "Shall We Dance".