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Jesa (c) Joan Marcus
Theater: Jesa
At the Public Theater
The most impressive element of Jeena Yi’s Jesa, a Public Theater and Ma-Yi Theater Company co-production, is that it takes a well-worn theatrical staple (the family drama) and makes it believably modern. Like the recent plays The Hills of California and The Blood Quilt, Jesa deals with a family of sisters, after the death of their parents, but they’re Korean American (as opposed to Irish or African American as they are in the other plays, respectively). We are at the Southern Californian house of Grace (Shannon Tyo), the second oldest, where she took care of her mother while raising her daughter with her husband. Grace and her sisters are performing a Jesa, a ceremony of remembrance and honor, in which food is placed at the altar dedicated to their parents, as their mother (referred to as Umma) recently passed. Two sisters live nearby: Elizabeth (Laura Sohn), the youngest who is a no-nonsense businesswoman, and Tina (Tina Chilip), the eldest who is a chef. Flying in from New York is third-in-line Brenda (Christine Heesun Hwang), a struggling theater director. Because the ceremony is usually performed by the male members of the family, it’s sort of a hodgepodge evening, with the sisters arguing about the order of events and how things are supposed to be laid out, but refusing to call their male cousins for help.
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Jesa (c) Joan Marcus
With a valuable assist by director Mei Ann Teo, Yi’s play feels less schematic than it could have been presented. The four perfectly cast actresses feel lived in with their relationships, with old and new secrets used as weapons against each other that could have felt formulaic is surprisingly fresh. Still, as the play takes place within an evening, everything that spills out from each sister feels very rushed as does an unhealthy dose of sibling violence. Yi does add a very risky element towards the end of the play, an Umma ex machina if you will, that would not have worked without Tyo’s keen tone and commitment to the situation. Here, she continues her streak of noteworthy stage performances (The Chinese Lady, Regretfully, So the Birds Are), especially when certain things are revealed. The always reliable Chilip (Knight of the Burning Pestile) has the showiest role as the annoying eldest sibling who makes fun of everyone else’s choices but is still haunted by one of her own. And yet it’s Hwang (Suffs) and newcomer Sohn who get most of the sympathy as the two youngest siblings, who both feel lost in their own ways. Themes of generational respect, the sacrifice of immigrants, the loss of family language and adults being orphans are all touched upon, but it is the titled ceremony that is the memorable centerpiece of this play. I had never heard of the formal name Jesa before the play, but the ritual takes similar forms in many cultures like Día de los Muertos or in my Chinese household, it was called paying respect (with mostly incense and oranges). Although the actual ceremony may seem foreign, the universality of tradition and family will be very familiar.
Monte Cristo (c) Shawn Salley
Theater: Monte Cristo
At the York Theatre
When the new musical Monte Cristo starts, our hero, the handsomely tailored Edmond Dantès (Adam Jacobs), sings about how justice will finally be achieved before the action flashes back eighteen years when a less aristocratic, but hard-working sailor Edmond, beaming with love for his beloved Mercedes (Sierra Boggess), is framed for a crime and sent to prison. And yet, as a character in A Chorus Line sings, I felt nothing. I think it has to do with the ambitions of writers Peter Kellogg and Stephen Weiner, who seem to be chasing the hits of a yesteryear when classic French novels were turned into big musicals like The Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables and The Scarlet Pimpernel. Could this show, however well written and performed, be too old-fashioned in a world of Hamilton and Rent? But then something remarkable happens: the drama that was inherent in Alexandre Dumas’s 1846 novel The Count of Monte Cristo cast me under its spell. Certainly, there were financial constraints to this production by Peter Flynn that could have helped with the illusion on the small stage in the basement of The Theatre at Saint Jean, but a good story is still a good story, and good actors are good actors, i.e. the dozens of memorable supporting characters played by a rotating cast of eleven talented performers including Norm Lewis (The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess) and Karen Ziemba (Steel Pier).
Monte Cristo (c) Shawn Salley
Each of these actors have one significant role, but the hard-working character actor Danny Rutigliano has two: as the drunk bar owner who was Edmond’s unreliable alibi and as Abbe Faria, Edmond’s religious cellmate for eighteen years, who taught him literature, chess and fencing, all necessary for his transformation into the Count after his prison escape. His new identity is part of his revenge on the banker Danglars (James Judy), the conflicted lawman Villefort (Lewis) and Fernand (Daniel Yearwood), a lieutenant who also loves Mercedes, even though she is carrying Edmond’s child. All of this is performed in good fun, and while the songs may not be catchy (at least at first listen), they do get the emotions right and let the actors show off some nice singing chops (especially Lewis in his second act highlight, “A Great and Noble Man”). Jacobs (the original Broadway Aladdin) and Boggess (The School of Rock) make a striking pair of lovers, although their love songs together are certainly the most conventional of this genre of musical. Even with a cast filled with Tony nominees and winners, it’s rising star Stephanie Jae Park (The King and I), in her couple of scenes as a disgraced princess, who steals the show with her stirring solo song. Even with some questionable changes and edits from the source material, this modest musical version of The Count of Monte Cristo (and there have been many other incarnations) turns out to have many charms and emotional highs. Next stop: The Three Musketeers?
The Wild Party (c) Joan Marcus
Theater: The Wild Party
At New York City Center (closing on March 29)
Have you heard the story of the dueling wild parties? No, I’m not talking about two equally FOMO soirees happening on the same night. I’m talking about the year 2000 when two up-and-coming composers had musicals produced based on the same Joseph Moncure March’s 1928 poem, The Wild Party. This fact, as well as the stellar casts, was lost on the two people I sat next to in the balcony (no press invite here), who came to the show to, as the manifesto of Encores! states, discover the songs and joys of an unknown musical. And yet I remember the brouhaha these competing productions stirred up (“in my day…”). Here’s a truncated version. Michael John LaChiusa (“Hello Again”) and George C. Wolfe’s Broadway production (the one now being presented at Encores!) was a star-studded affair (Eartha Kitt was making her Broadway return), overshadowed by an alleged difference of acting choices between Broadway newcomer Toni Collette as the vaudeville singer Queenie and method-acting leaning Mandy Patinkin as Burrs, a clown in Queenie’s act and her abusive boyfriend. Andrew Lippa’s version opened at Manhattan Theatre Club off-Broadway with up-and-coming actors Julia Murney and Brian D’arcy James in the leads, slightly overshadowed by a pair of “Rent” alums and real-life partners in the supporting roles of Queenie’s friend Kate (Idina Menzel) and her date, the elusively debonair Black (Taye Diggs). Turns out, neither show turned out to be a big hit (Lippa’s Party was even presented in 2015 in the short-lived Encores! Off-Center! series with Sutton Foster as Queenie), and as my seatmates in the balcony can attest, the shows were lost to history.
The Wild Party (c) Joan Marcus
For the Encores! production of the Broadway version, director Lili-Anne Brown has upped the salacious quotient to make this the horniest production in the series’ history. With less clothes, some suggestive lewdness and a lot of drugs and alcohol, this version highlights the wild over the party. Jasmine Amy Rogers, who was so great in BOOP! The Musical certainly has the moves and vocal chops as Queenie, but her role seems to have diminished a bit after putting the party in motion to be part of an ensemble. Jordan Donica (Camelot) does play the dangerous toxic male well but can’t seem to shake the Patinkiness of this black-faced Al Jolson version of Burrs’ act (although Wolfe was in his right to make this choice, Patinkin’s Burrs seems rather regrettable in hindsight). Tonya Pinkins (who was Kate in the 2000 production) is a powerhouse as the aging actress Delores Montoya and must have had fun putting her own spin on a role she saw Eartha Kitt do for a hundred performances. Tony-winner Adrienne Warren (TINA – The Tina Turner Musical) is divine as Kate, especially in her big number “Black Is a Moocher,” and while Jelani Alladin (Frozen) smolders as Black, he sort of gets lost in this production. The other partygoers are populated with a wonderful ensemble, including Lesli Margherita (Matilda, the Musical) and Claybourne Elder (Company, The Gilded Age). This gin-soaked production, which runs for one more week, will probably not, as some Encores! shows have done, make the leap back to Broadway, so this may be your last chance in a while to catch a version of The Wild Party in all its naughty, partying wildness.
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