ICON Magazine Theater January 2017
Found. This PTC
millennial song fest celebrates the story of Davy ( F. Michael Haynie) and his
magazine of the same name that publishes random notes found in the city. With
his roommates Mikey D (Juwan Crawley) and Denise (Alysha Desloreieux), Davy’s gimmicky,
substance-starved magazine soon lands him an interview on NPR. Success is
assured when a beautiful Hollywood female producer,
Becka (Erika Henningsen) offers to transform Found into a TV show. Davy flies to LA, leaving Mikey D. and
wannabe girlfriend Denise in the dust although his dreams of major celebrity
crash when the Hollywood project fails and the affair
with Becka ends. Davy then resurrects the magazine after a profound apology to
Denise, whereupon everyone begins dancing and breaking out the Pabst. Found is based on the real life
experiences of Davy Rothbart and his magazine of the same name and theme with music
and lyrics by Eli Bolin. The music is charming although a few of the numbers don’t
connect to the story at all. Part After
School Special, main stage Walnut Street Theater, and SNL skit, the
enthusiasm of the cast is contagious and Crawley ’s
falsetto is arresting, even if many in the cast look like they could use six
months at Planet Fitness.
Black Nativity. New Freedom Theatre kicked off its 50th
anniversary with this colorful, drum enhanced production. The traditional epic of
Mary (Leedea Harrison) and Joseph (Jordan Dobson) and the manger in Bethlehem
included classic Christmas songs mixed with African drumming and dancing. The
dazzling effect and brilliant costumes electrified an old story. Under the
direction of Freedom’s new artistic director, Rajendra Ramon Maharaj, Black Nativity also blended the story
of another Mary (Lauren Morgan) and Joseph (James Pitts, Jr.) from Africa’s war
torn (and atrocity ridden) Darfur area. While Mary and Joseph #1 escape Herod’s
hunt for Jewish first born sons, Darfur ’s (pregnant) Mary
contemplates suicide after presuming Joseph has been killed. “There is no God
in Darfur !” she laments, as soldiers rape and murder local
villagers. The parallel stories merge gracefully
when Darfur Mary looks into the eyes of the Bethlehem
babe, after which Joseph returns and Mary gives birth to a son. While the
melding of the two stories has some clumsy moments, by the end of the musical
the juxtaposition is at perfect pitch.
Last of the Red Hot Lovers. The Walnut Street Theater takes us back to
1969 with Neil Simon’s seminal hit about a 47 year old married Manhattan fish
restaurateur who wants his share of the Sixties sexual revolution despite the
fact that he has to use his mother’s studio apartment for his assignations. Can
this Mamma’s boy get any satisfaction? (January
10-February 5).
Constellations. It’s boy meets girl again at The Wilma as
Director Tea Alagic brings us the convoluted love story of physicist Marianne
and beekeeper Roland whose relationship falls into the vagaries of quantum
physics or a universe filled with more questions than answers and too many
‘maybes.’ This 3 hour, 15 minute drama has two 10 minute intermissions, so
buckle down. Jake Gyllenhaal of Brokeback Mountain
John. The season of the long plays continues with the
Arden Theatre Company’s 3 and a half hour story of Brooklynites, Elias and
Jenny, a feuding married couple (Jenny once had an affair) who visit a
Gettysburg B&B and get talking with a blind woman who has other worldly perceptions. Slate
describes John as an
“examination of the murkiness of human relationships.” When the play first ran at New
York ’s Barrow Street Theatre, large numbers of
subscribers walked out because of the protracted silences onstage. John has since been reconfigured.
