Cruel, Tuneful Jerk in Love - Boneau/Bryan

A Return for 'Cotton Club Parade' - NYTimes.com
JULY 16, 2012, 3:17 PM
A Return for ‘Cotton Club Parade’
By ERIK PIEPENBURG
Last year's Encores! production of "Cotton Club Parade," a musical revue about the celebrated Harlem
nightclub during the Duke Ellington years, will return for a limited run from Nov. 14-18 at City Center,
the show's producers announced on Monday. Most of the cast will return for the production, which
again will be directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle ("Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway") and
will have music direction by Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center's artistic director. Music will be
provided by the Jazz at Lincoln Center All Stars, directed by Daryl Waters.
Conceived by Jack Viertel, the song-and-dance show features jazz, blues and swing standards of the
1920s and '30s written by several composers, including Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields ("I Can't
Give You Anything But Love"), Harold Arlen ("Stormy Weather," "I've Got the World on a String"), and
Duke Ellington ("Rockin' in Rhythm," "Cotton Club Stomp"). The show received mostly positive reviews
when it ran for six performances last November. Stephen Holden, in his review for The Times, called it a
"thrilling 90-minute celebration" that "made period jazz come to life with a focused intensity and
rhythmic savvy."
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/a-return-for-cotton-club-parade/?pagewanted=print[7/17/2012 9:56:47 AM]
Michelle Obama and Daughters Visit Broadway - NYTimes.com
JULY 16, 2012, 5:45 PM
Michelle Obama and Daughters Visit Broadway
By PATRICK HEALY
The first lady, Michelle Obama, and her daughters, Malia and Sasha, returned to Broadway last weekend
and showed their preferences once again for fan-favorite musicals as well as those featuring black
characters. The family split up on Saturday night, with Mrs. Obama and a friend slipping into "The
Gershwins' Porgy and Bess," then congratulating the cast onstage after the curtain went down. A
producer, Jeffrey Richards, said Mrs. Obama thanked Audra McDonald, Norm Lewis and the other
actors for "blessing my soul" and added that seeing a production of "Porgy and Bess" had been on her
"bucket list." Her daughters attended the more family-friendly musical "Sister Act" that night, then went
backstage to meet the show's 26-year-old star, Raven-Symoné, according to a production spokesman.
On Sunday afternoon, Mrs. Obama and her daughters saw "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark." A bomb
scare, believed to be unrelated to the Obamas' visit, led to the questioning of a theatergoer and a search
of his bags by the police and Secret Service agents, a spokesman for the production said; nothing
suspicious was found. Mrs. Obama had the prime aisle seat often accorded to celebrities because SpiderMan lands a few feet away during the show; on Sunday Spider-Man (played by Christopher Tierney)
dropped down and saluted Mrs. Obama, who laughed and waved, the production spokesman said. Of the
three Obama picks, "Spider-Man" scored highest at the box office last week, grossing $1.74 million;
"Sister Act" took in $738,916 and "Porgy and Bess" grossed $550,485. Overall, Broadway shows grossed
$23.4 million, compared to $22.4 million the previous week and $21.3 million for the comparable week
last summer.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/...as-visit-broadway/?scp=1&sq=obamas%20visit%20broadway&st=cse&pagewanted=print[7/17/2012 9:57:30 AM]
Cruel, Tuneful Jerk in Love - The New York Times
July 16, 2012
THEATER REVIEW
Cruel, Tuneful Jerk in Love
By BEN BRANTLEY
For a show with a snarling title, “Dogfight” is surprisingly docile. This intimate, carefully tended new musical,
which opened on Monday night at Second Stage Theater, takes on some of the nastier aspects of rowdy young
servicemen stewing in testosterone, including a woman-humiliating ritual that gives the work its name.
Yet even when its boys behave badly — really badly — “Dogfight” proceeds in a melancholy, tuneful and
slightly hesitant trickle that seems to be apologizing for any unpleasantness. Written by Benj Pasek (music),
Justin Paul (lyrics) and Peter Duchan (book), all in their 20s, and directed by the longtime Broadway
craftsman Joe Mantello (“Wicked,” “Other Desert Cities”), “Dogfight” finds feet that match its heart only when
it settles into a sweet, old-fashioned love story in the second act.
“Dogfight” is based on Bob Comfort’s screenplay for the 1991 movie by Nancy Savoca. That film is regarded
with proprietary affection by some viewers partly because it starred River Phoenix, a rising young actor with a
James Dean-ish mien who would die two years later, and the indie sweetheart Lili Taylor (in roles appealingly
portrayed in this musical by Derek Klena and Lindsay Mendez). But some critics complained that the movie,
too, had an uncomfortably divided nature.
It features one of the nastiest boy-meets-girl setups in the history of cinematic romance, and the musical stays
true to the screenplay. In 1963 a group of Marines decide to celebrate their last evening stateside, in San
Francisco, by holding a dogfight — a long-standing tradition in which men compete to recruit the ugliest date
for a party. That these Marines will be leaving the next day for “this little country near India called Vietnam”
gives their revels a thick retrospective layer of historic significance.
Add a coat of prickly irony, too, as the boys fantasize about the military glory that awaits them, and an
awareness that their attitudes toward making war and making love are not dissimilar. “Semper fi, do or die,”
say the three chums played by Mr. Klena, Nick Blaemire and Josh Segarra, as they head off on their mission to
find unattractive women. Another motto: “It’s not over till the fat lady barks.”
Such toxic machismo creates a pretty heavy load for a gentle chamber musical. And while they use a lot of
four-letter words, the military buddies singing in close Four Seasons-style harmony reminded me of nothing so
much as the innocent, date-seeking youths in “Saturday Night,” a 1950s musical featuring songs by an untried
talent named Stephen Sondheim.
More than most theatrical forms, musicals rely on sheer charm, on ingratiating themselves through crowdcourting performance. The creators of “Dogfight” clearly don’t want to be perceived as endorsing the activities
of their randy young men, but they don’t want to alienate their audiences either.
This may account for why the all-male ensemble numbers never really soar, despite gymnastic choreographic
flourishes by Christopher Gattelli, who won a Tony for “Newsies the Musical.” And the climactic number in the
http://theater.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/theater/reviews/dogfight-at-second-stage-theater.html?pagewanted=print[7/17/2012 9:52:08 AM]
Cruel, Tuneful Jerk in Love - The New York Times
first act, in which the men’s unfortunate dates are paraded for inspection in a louche nightclub (David Zinn is
the designer), has only muffled impact. While the talented Annaleigh Ashford injects biting comic flair as an
angry prostitute, the scene is largely toothless when it needs to be savagely painful.
The only glimmer of real sadness comes from the presence of Ms. Mendez as Rose Fenny, who is escorted to
the party by Eddie Birdlace (Mr. Klena). Though certainly no supermodel, the plump, feisty Rose, a waitress in
her mother’s coffee shop, is hardly a dog, either. This is especially true in the world of musicals, where people
are judged by their larynx and ability to sparkle.
Ms. Mendez, who sang backup to Sherie Rene Scott in “Everyday Rapture” and appeared in “Godspell” on
Broadway, has more-than-adequate pipes and dispenses sparkle judiciously, never piling it on. More
essentially, for this show’s purposes, she creates an emotionally credible and knowable character in the guitarplaying, socially conscious Rose.
A fan of Woody Guthrie and Joan Baez, Rose is a harbinger of the hippie mecca that San Francisco will
become in the 1960s. Ms. Mendez grounds her character’s social symbolism in a genuine, instinctive
compassion that explains Rose’s attraction to and for an anxious young Marine about to depart for an alien
land.
There’s a lovely self-conscious chemistry between Ms. Mendez and Mr. Klena. They generate a soft-pedaled,
beguilingly clumsy charm in the second act, in which an abashed Eddie returns to Rose to apologize and winds
up falling in love. Here, Mr. Pasek and Mr. Paul have written a winning low-key date song for the couple,
finding melodic grace in romantic awkwardness.
That scene possesses some of the quirky sentimental appeal that has helped make the musical “Once” an
unexpected, Tony-winning success on Broadway. And “Dogfight” is obviously happiest when it can focus on
lovers instead of fighters.
Dogfight
Music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul; book by Peter Duchan, based on the Warner Brothers film and
screenplay by Bob Comfort; directed by Joe Mantello; choreography by Christopher Gattelli; sets and costumes
by David Zinn; lighting by Paul Gallo; sound by Fitz Patton; hair design by Joshua Marquette; music director,
Bryan Perri; orchestrations by Michael Starobin; vocal arrangements by Mr. Paul; music coordinator, Michael
Keller; production stage manager, Diane DiVita; stage manager, Jenna Woods; associate artistic director,
Christopher Burney; production manager, Peter J. Davis; general manager, Dean A. Carpenter. Presented by
Second Stage Theater, Carole Rothman, artistic director; Casey Reitz, executive director. At Second Stage
Theater, 305 West 43rd Street, Clinton, (212) 246-4422, 2st.com. Through Aug. 19. Running time: 2 hours.
WITH: Annaleigh Ashford (Marcy), Becca Ayers (Mama), Nick Blaemire (Bernstein), Steven Booth (Gibbs),
Dierdre Friel (Chippy), Adam Halpin (Stevens), F. Michael Haynie (Fector), Derek Klena (Eddie Birdlace),
Lindsay Mendez (Rose Fenny), James Moye (Lounge Singer) and Josh Segarra (Boland).
http://theater.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/theater/reviews/dogfight-at-second-stage-theater.html?pagewanted=print[7/17/2012 9:52:08 AM]