Category Archives: Play

Jaja’s African Hair Braiding

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  • Jaja’s African Hair Braiding (live streaming)

11/18/23 (Sat)

This highly praised show was being live streamed in the final week of its Broadway run. The League of Live Stream Theater, which was providing the broadcast, made everything super easy. When I discovered that I had accidentally bought tickets for the wrong performance, they instantly cleared it up for me, and when a friend who I had gifted a ticket couldn’t get online 30 seconds before the show, they immediately sent him a new e-mail that allowed him to catch the show from the beginning. Three cheers for them. The show has drawn crowds in New York but at a notably low average ticket price, suggesting that they’re attracting different audiences than usual; my friend felt from the laughter that many viewers must have been black since they recognized small points that others wouldn’t understand (as he proved to me). If so, that’s a very good thing for Broadway. Let’s hope that’s emulated in other shows.

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Good (National Theatre Live)

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  • Good (National Theatre Live)

10/22/23 (Sun)

I was jet lagged when I saw this superb production of C.P. Taylor’s 1981 classic in London almost precisely one year earlier, so I wasn’t going to miss the chance to catch the NT Live recording. As Holocaust dramas are not necessarily a big thing in Japan, I figured tickets would be easy to come by and booked that morning, only to discover that the theater was nearly sold out; I was lucky to get two adjoining seats. I presume that’s due to the presence of David Tennant  in the lead role, though I’m not sure how they know him here.

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Purlie Victorious (Gone Are the Days!)

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  • Purlie Victorious (Gone Are the Days!)

9/29/23 (Fri)

This 1963 film, which I never knew existed, popped up when I was checking out articles about the present Broadway revival. It’s a film of the Broadway original from two years earlier with many of the members of the original cast, including writer Ossie Davis and his wife Ruby Dee. It’s nominally about a black preacher in Georgia who recruits a random woman from Dothan to impersonate his late cousin in order to win an inheritance, figuring the white guy in control of the funds won’t be able to tell the women apart. Naturally events soon spin out of control. But as with any good satire, it’s about a lot more than its story.

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The Crucible (National Theatre)

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  • The Crucible

11/1/22 (Tues), London National Theatre

A splendid production. The play itself feels overly long with way too many characters and some leaden dialogue, but there’s no denying its powerful narrative drive. The theme is always relevant but felt particularly so after the shocking treatment (at least from a non-American perspective) of those with alternative views during the past several years.

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My Neighbor Totoro (stage version)

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  • My Neighbor Totoro

10/27/22 (Thurs), Barbican

You have to be brave to take on a piece as beloved as this 1988 film, one of the most famous of all Japanese anime. I wonder if the Japanese creators preferred a foreign production so as to avoid dealing with overheated domestic expectations. The Tokyo production of Spirited Away was spectacular but simply put the movie on stage (think Beauty and the Beast), and the question here is whether Totoro would take a more theatrical approach (think The Lion King).

The results were magical. Continue reading →

Marvellous

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  • Marvellous

10/25/22 (Tues), West End

A friend selected this play, apparently thinking from the photos that it was some kind of circus. As it happens, the play is a celebration of the life of Neil Baldwin, a physically disabled man with a speech impediment who became known as a professional clown and mascot for a local sports team (at times in a chicken suit). His unflagging can-do attitude was evidently an inspiration to the public, especially in those less-evolved times, and he has been recognized by the Queen and portrayed in a film biography.

That’s good for those who know about him, but rather trying for those of us who don’t. Continue reading →

Life of Pi (stage version)

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  • Life of Pi

10/22/22 (Sat), London

A 2019 dramatization by Lolita Chakrabarti of Yann Martel’s best-seller about a boy who survives a shipwreck in the Pacific Ocean that kills his family, the entire crew and its cargo of zoo animals only to find himself on a rickety lifeboat with four zoo-mates, including, most frighteningly, a hungry Bengal tiger. A stage version seemed an audacious move given the sweep of the novel (from a small Indian village to a large ship to months on the open waters) as well as the presence of animals, inevitably meaning puppets of some kind. But I was ready for anything.

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Inn of Evil (いのちぼうにふろう) (stage version)

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  • いのちぼうにふろう (Inn of Evil) 

10/3/22 (Mon)

This 1997 stage adaptation was written specifically for this theater, an outdoor venue in a small town on Noto Peninsula that was built for screen legend Nakadai Tatsuya and his Mumeijuku theater group. The group has been performing there for years, concentrating primarily on Western classics. Miyazaki Kyoko, Nakadai’s late wife, seems to have based the play less on the original novel than on her screenplays for the film and subsequent television version. The stage show proved to be her final work. The film, a small masterpiece, largely takes place in or around a tavern, so a stage version made sense on paper. I was eager to see what they had done with it, especially with Nakadai revisiting his old film in a new role.

Nakadai, who will be 90 next month, is ageless. His voice carries to the back of the theater with no strain or mannerisms, and his acting remains powerful. He has shifted from his film role of the heartless smuggler Sadashichi to the equally important role of the tavern keeper, who seems somewhat more prominent here. Much older than everyone else on stage, he brings gravitas to the role in a natural performance. Though celebrating his 70th anniversary in show business, he remains in full command of his powers. It is an impressive performance regardless of his age.

Which is a good thing, because no one else on stage is remotely in that category. Continue reading →

Prima Facie (NT Live)

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  • Prima Facie (NT Live), 8/25/22 (Thurs)

This one-woman show by Suzie Miller, originally presented in her native Australia, had received extremely strong reviews in its London debut, and the NT Live film itself set new records (though the play itself wasn’t an NT production – not sure how that works). Jodie Comer, apparently a young television star, won raves for her work. I’m usually wary of one-woman pieces since they tend these days to be self-centered rantings about female empowerment aimed at female audiences. Still, Fleabag worked out pretty well, so I decided to chance it.

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A Look Back: The Hangmen

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23 April 2022 (Sat)

Martin McDonagh’s mordant The Hangmen has finally reached Broadway after a pandemic delay to near universal acclaim. The NY Times reviewer suggests that the reaction to the play today might not be the same as prior to the pandemic since, in his opinion, people have become more indifferent to death, suffering and unfairness. His memory seems rather faulty; I suspect he would have written the same thing back then. In any event, I loved it on its initial West End run some years back and rerun below my thoughts at that time.

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