Urinetown (c) Joan Marcus
The Interested Bystander
"New York is my Personal Property and I'm gonna split it with you." I review mostly movies and New York theater shows. I am also an awards prognosticator. And a playwright.
Thursday, February 6, 2025
Friday, January 31, 2025
The Interested Bystander’s Oscar Predictions: January 2025
The Substance (c) MUBI
We’ve been living with the latest Oscar nominations for a week now, and it seems like enough time has passed to now dash the hopes of 80% of them with my predictions of who, at this moment, would win in each category. Next month will give us a better indication, with a lot of industry awards being given out, including the SAG Awards, BAFTA, the Producers Guild and many others. I have ranked the nominees of most likely to least likely to win.
Enjoy!
Monday, January 27, 2025
Theater Reviews: “Kowalski” Cleverly Inserts Itself Into the Making of “A Streetcar of Desire”; The All-Asian, All-Female “Cymbeline” Is a Fascinating Take on Lesser-Known Shakespeare; Adam Lambert and Auli’i Cravalho Inject Crazy Adrenaline Into “Cabaret at The Kit Kat Club”
Kowalski (c) Russ Rowland
Theater: Kowalski
The Duke on 42nd Street
If I told you that the new play by Gregg Ostrin was about two men named Bud and Tom, who meet for the first time in 1947 at a summer cottage for an acting audition on Broadway, it would be a fine premise. But what if it’s based on a true incident when Tom, or maybe you may know him as the playwright Tennessee Williams, meets a then mostly unknown actor Marlon Brando (Bud to his friends) to see if he’s right for the role of Stanley Kowalski in the Broadway premiere production of A Streetcar Named Desire. That gives the play a bit more spice as one would have loved to have been in the room where it happened when the homosexual Williams (played with the iciest of Southern warmth by Robin Lord Taylor) first meets the heteroflexible Brando (the charismatic but too-cool-for-school Brandon Flynn), who will shoot to super stardom in the role of Stanley. The problem is that Williams envisioned Kowalski as a 30-year-old man (John Garfield would be his choice) and Brando is in his early-20s, but as a favor to the play’s director Elia Kazan, he agrees to audition Brando. Although Ostrin falls into the historical fiction trap of dropping references that will eventually make it into Streetcar (Stanley’s eating habits that disgust Blanche as well as the famous, guttural “Stella” scream), he does give us an evenly matched meeting between these two towering figures of American Theater, as Williams is already high on his own resume (his Broadway debut play, The Glass Menagerie, was a big hit) and Brando seems already bored with stardom, even though he’s only played bit parts.
Thursday, January 23, 2025
Film: Oscar Nominations 2024 - 2025
I'm Still Here (c) Sony Pictures Classics
The 97th Academy Awards | 2025 Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood Sunday, March 2, 2025
Surprises (to me) in Red
Best Picture
Anora
The Brutalist
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Pérez
I'm Still Here
Nickel Boys
The Substance
Wicked
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Theater Review: “Gypsy” Triumphs Again on Broadway With Audra McDonald in an Unforgettable Performance; “Cult of Love” Is a Funny Tale About a Family in Turmoil; and “The Pirates of Penzance” at NYGASP Was a Necessary Primer for the Upcoming Broadway Revisal
Gypsy (c) Julieta Cervantes
Broadway: Gypsy
At the Majestic Theatre
It’s a no-brainer. One of the most acclaimed musical theater actresses of our generation tackling the King Lear of musical characters, and it doesn’t matter what I or anyone else says, you have to see the latest Gypsy. Audra McDonald is playing Madame Rose (never Momma Rose) and even before she yells out “Sing out, Louise” from the house, the audience is already clapping and cheering loudly in anticipation of every classic Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim song she will tackle in the next two-plus hours. And they (and you) will not be disappointed. Not to jump to conclusions (as it were) but her big finale number, “Rose’s Turn,” is explosive, emotional, exhausting and everything you expect from a consummate actress and expressive singer like McDonald. The role has only been tackled on Broadway with the biggest names (Ethel Merman, Angela Lansbury, Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone and, yes, even Tyne Daly), and it was inevitable that McDonald would get her chance to unlock the ultimate stage mother/monster that is Rose. McDonald doesn’t sugarcoat Rose’s ambitions for herself and her daughters June (Jordan Tyson) and Louise (Joy Woods), no matter how many people she takes advantage of, which includes her father and her boyfriend, the ulcer-ridden Herbie (Danny Burstein). McDonald is assisted by director George C. Wolfe’s concept that this depression era musical rarely rises above its depression. You can feel Rose’s determination in McDonald, as if she were playing Mother Courage with all the sets and cow costumes strapped to her back. When there are setbacks, especially the one that ends act one, her number, “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” is more a song about horror (“Momma is gonna see to it…”) to Herbie and Louise than optimism.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)