Death of a Salesman (Broadway) (2022)

I made it through high school without having read Arthur Miller's classic American Dream tragedy. I've never known another Willy Loman. And much like Marianne Elliott's revival of Company, she (along with Miranda Cromwell) reimagined the play in a new light so inspired and convincing it's hard to believe it wasn't the original. This Loman family is black and it works so well I can't even imagine Philip Seymour Hoffman and Andrew Garfield. The American dream exists for white people; it's much more difficult for African Americans. It also sort of raises the question of what the American Dream is. Is it home ownership? I always thought it was owning your own business. Maybe it's just raising kids who do better than the previous generation. I suppose it's up for interpretation.

The set is very Marianne Elliott. The furniture descends from the ceiling on wires. The rooms move back and forth, without walls. For some reason, the set is crooked, not aligned to the edge of the stage but on a bit of an angle. It makes the theater feel a little off. I love the music, folksy depressing music, strummed on a guitar (kind of like Girl From the North Country?). It's obviously not a musical, but how could you not give Andre DeShields and Sharon Clarke a song, right? They're excellent. Clarke is a shoo in for the Tonys, but I did say the same about Caroline, or Change. 

I did doze off a little bit in the first act during one of Willy's hallucinations/memories. It's a very long show, over 3 hours. It's very powerful, very emotional, devastating really. It's certainly not for the Lion King crowd, but tourists that recognize the title will find an exquisite production. The theater wasn't full unfortunately or unfortunately, we had no one in front of us.

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.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Broadway) (2014)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is the most innovative play since War Horse. Based on the book by the same name that was long-listed for the prestigious Booker Prize, this play takes us inside the mind of a fifteen-year-old autistic savant named Christopher.  The book is told in the first person perspective in a diary of sorts, putting the reader in Christopher's shoes. The play cleverly gets around this, by casting his teacher as a narrator, reading directly from the source material as a play within a play.  Notably, the book chapters are numbered by prime numbers, and so this is integrated in the audience; prime numbered seats have a surprise envelope that got us a free pin.  

Another feature of the book is several diagrams and drawings, which appear on stage.  The stage has a back panel, two side panels, and a floor panel, each of which contain many LED lights and projections.  They are also blackboards, and Christopher draws on them in chalk, and these drawings magically replicate on the other walls so everyone can see no matter where you're sitting.  In a stirring scene, Christopher is overwhelmed by all the stimuli at the train station, and the audience is equally overwhelmed seeing all the lights and signs that Christopher sees, including the ones that he envisions.  This multimedia experience is incredible to behold.  The play very rightfully was awarded Tonys for lighting and scenic design.  The lights partition off houses and rooms in different colors aligned on the grid of LEDs.  And bright compartments appear in the walls housing a train set that Christopher assembles in parts in Act I building up to a climax.     

Alex Sharp plays the young Christopher, and he too is very young at 26.  Fresh out of Julliard, this is notably his first professional role, and he kills it.  He beat Bradley Cooper in Elephant Man for the Tony. He is so deserving and I am glad they took a chance on a rookie.  He has so many lines, and Christopher talks very fast and yells and screams when he feels uncomfortable. Christopher is awkward in social situations, and that comes through in every scene.  The play, thanks largely to Sharp and a great script, evokes tears and laughs equally from the audience. Sharp also maneuvers some intricate choreography bouncing off the walls and spinning through crowds which competed against traditional dancing in musicals at the Tonys.