SCHOOL OF ROCK, the musical, and Tender

School of Rock jettisoned Jack Black’s film career in 2003. Can anyone top his performance as Dewey Finn? I hear that Alex Brightman slays it, throwing himself into the highly physical part and losing one or two pounds per show. We saw his understudy, Jonathan Wagner, who comes very close to Jack Black and even looks like him. NYC students will especially appreciate the saga of parents pressuring kids to get good grades and kids wanting to explore private artistic passions. In a kids-to-parents song “If Only You Would Listen” substitute teacher Dewey asks, “What makes you more angry than anything else in the world?” Katie (Evie Dolan, age 11) answers, “Being over scheduled.” The dialogue could be way wittier, but perhaps Andrew Lloyd Webber and Julian Fellowes are the perfect team for serviceable children’s musicals. “Stick It to the Man” and “You’re In the Band” were a lot alike, but Arden, our young critic, rocked out to both. Spencer Moses is delightful as Dewey’s best bud, Ned. A shout out to young back-up singer Carly Gendell, with her groovy dance moves—it’s no surprise that she’s played Annie. Parents be warned: the music is loud all the way through. Children in the cast bop, stomp, and punch energetically—and yes, they really do play their own instruments.

Steak and sushi are on the lunch and dinner menus at Tender Bar and Grill in the Sanctuary Hotel near the theatre district in midtown. The tangy, wild ginger-edamame appetizer was a winner, but the flatbread pizza was unremarkable. Atlantic salmon burger was our favorite on the 3-course, $29 pre-matinee prix fixe. Tender is a sports bar with giant screens, exposed brick walls and teal blue leather banquettes, with pop music (but the volume is kept low) and kid-friendly. Arden raved about the steak.

China Doll with Al Pacino and The Four Seasons

Al Pacino at the stage door, photo by Denise Korey

 Al Pacino plays Mickey Ross, a well-preserved big shot now in love with a much younger woman, referred to as Miss Pierson (who never appears). “She could have any man she wished, but she chose me.” Old Man, young wife, new life: “the ultimate fantasy of wealth,” Mickey instructs Carson, his assistant, played by tall and clean cut Charles Denham. Other times Mickey has no illusion that Miss Pierson loves him for any reason other than his money.

Mickey and Carson spend the day working mainly on the telephone (bluetooth devices) in Mickey’s luxurious skyscraper apartment with a view of only the sky (fab set by showboat Derek McLane). On prominent display is a model of the private jet Mickey bought for Miss Pierson, who is in Canada to pick it up, finding that the plane was impounded as a lien against taxes and crashing Mickey's plans.

David Mamet wrote China Doll specifically for Al Pacino, who is now seventy-five. Pacino is no longer the jangly kid in his cinematic debut, the 1971 Panic in Needle Park, but don’t tell him that. Pacino acts all over the place with great verve and generosity. It's impossible to watch him for long without smiling. Even if the two-hour China Doll were a total piece of shit (and some critics have suggested that) you still want to see this play.

Directed by Pam MacKinnon, specialist in the most difficult characters, the ending is so shocking that the audience gasps.

Plans are afoot to move the Four Seasons downtown in 2016. It may never compete with where it has been since 1959, the Seagram Building on Park Avenue and 52^nd, the epitome of postmodernity. The interior is designed by the building’s architects, Philip Johnson (of the Glass House) and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The vast, sweeping Pool Room has stellar acoustics and is flatteringly lit, which renders it cozy in spite of itself.

The Grill Room was all men in suits. The Pool Room was more romantic, with couples side by side on sleek Mies van der Rohe sofas, holding hands. Menu and the flowers around the gurgling pool change seasonally. A good value $59 three-course prix fixe drew out the pre-matinee lunch to allow for basking in the iconic architecture, in the auspiciousness. My charming waiter said President Barack Obama announced his candidacy at the upstairs private Four Seasons dining room.

You can imagine Mickey Ross and Carson, or Don Draper and Peggy Olson, in the Grill or Pool Room, ordering the celebrated rare bison filet at $72. On the relatively thrifty prix fixe, pappardelle with oxtail-mushroom ragout was rich and memorable, following a tender “ewe blue” and quartered Bibb lettuce salad.

It was a hard choice in primi, secondi and dolce—every dish sounds amazing. Chocolate-pecan cake with a near-cookie texture and wave of Ganache ended the meal in a salted caramel flourish (photo above). And this is as surreal as it sounds—and you have to see it to believe it—the towering clouds of pink cotton candy studded with crystallized violets that pour out of the kitchen to the tables. Cotton candy is the Four Seasons’ signature dessert all year long.

Fun Home and B.B. King's Lucille's

Alison Bechdel’s graphic coming-of-age Fun Home creates an idyllic childhood world. Each member of the family works happily on art projects in their own rooms, in a sprawling, antique-filled Gothic revival house. Circle in the Square theatre-in-the-round oddly fits the bill in creating the foundation. A girl and two boys. A mother who acts in regional theatre and an attractive father who is an English teacher and a family funeral home director (where we get “Fun Home”).

Three actresses play Alison Bechdel at various ages. Beth Malone is the present day Alison who narrates from her drawing desk. In a key scene (no pun intended), the child Alison (Gabriella Pizzolo) notes an attraction to a capable-looking girl with a ring of keys hanging from her belt—“Ring of Keys” is one of several heart-stopping ballads that will have you reaching for your handkerchief. At college, Alison has her first romance with a girl, Joan (the lovely Roberta Colindrez) and sings “I’m Changing My Major (to Joan).” It’s a sexy scene for the theatre, and over and over you admire this team for their honesty and commitment!

A sensational Emily Skeggs plays college-age Alison as the girl you wish you knew when you were in college. In coming out to her parents (by post) Alison is disappointed by their slow reaction. Then she learns why—her mother (Judy Kuhn) reveals that Daddy (lovable Michael Cerveris) has always been attracted to men, including the family’s heretofore beloved gardener. The gardener and all the young boyfriends are played by a sympathetic Joel Perez, who looks straight out of a Tom of Finland drawing.

How rare to be at a musical that shares ideas that you were never offered before. The memoir Fun Home is sad. You leave the Circle in the Square with a lump in your throat, but feeling better and more hopeful about the future. It’s very funny at times and consistently a triumph of everyone involved. Music by Jeanine Tesori, book and lyrics Lisa Kron, directed by Sam Gold, based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel.

The James Brown Soul Revue was warming up at Lucille’s when we walked in. The sound was amazingly authentic, and when James Brown impersonator Lloyd Diamond, in a red jumpsuit, came out dancing, the illusion was complete. Fred Thomas, who leads the six-member band, was James Brown’s principal bassist from 1971 and drummer Tommy Greene also played with Brown’s original group. We were swept away by this incredible entertainment for a small cover charge over a pre-show meal. But we know that Lucille's regularly features the most impressive entertainment. What a nice way to reward yourself for starting the week on the good foot: Bluesman Jon Paris plays on Mondays with bassist Amy Madden and drummer Steve Holley.

Sunday's popular, powerful Harlem Gospel Choir brunch includes bottomless mimosas and a limitless buffet of Creole and Southern classics. At nighttime chef Wenford Simpson does a steaks-and-BBQ menu, but with flourishes, like the grilled lemon slices served with salmon, green beans, and rice. Most were ordering the hamburger plate, so that had to be very good too. 

Something Rotten! and Hourglass Tavern

Set in Tudor England, William Shakespeare is a preening and conceited rock star. Christian Borle, with flowing locks, is “the Will with the skill / To thrill you with the quill.” Rival playwrights, the Bottom brothers, (Brian d’Arcy James and John Cariani), grease the palm of a soothsayer (Brad Oscar) to look into the future and give them an edge on the next big thing. “A Musical” celebrates every Broadway musical you ever saw or heard of. The Bottom brothers approach their rich patron proposing to write the first great musical and the first ever musical: about the Black Death. Ah, the patron doesn’t much like the subject.

Anticipating Shakespeare’s next masterpiece, the Bottoms conceive of the musical “Omelette.” Director-choreographer Casey Nicholaw (The Book of Mormon) features tap-dancing actors with tremendous codpieces (Gregg Barnes did costumes). Brothers Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick wrote the score. Karey wrote the book with John O’Farrell, who is British, making Something Rotten! an American-British collaboration. It’s a huge success, yet its style may be more Broadway than West End. So far Something Rotten! has delighted audiences only on this side of the pond. 

Shakespeare used the hourglass to depict the transience of life. At Hourglass Tavern, the opposite is true. Hourglass has remained pretty much the same since the nineteenth century, has changed hands rarely, and even the staff is long term. Our wonderful waitress, Maria, has been there for twenty-five years and remembers when hourglasses were on each table for guests to use, to make sure they made their curtain.

Rather than a speakeasy, Hourglass was a narrow, 3-floor rooming house. The tiled bath on the second floor is the original, now the lady’s powder room. Check out the mirror and see a younger version of yourself. (References in Shakespeare to “glass” are taken to mean “hourglass” when more likely Will meant “mirror”).

Hourglass's weekend pre-matinee brunch features eggs with short rib hash. Roasted short ribs are great on the dinner menu, crispy on the outside, served with perfectly steamed broccoli and “homemade double butter mashed potatoes.” The basic salad has a vegetable-rich dressing, and you can add blackened shrimp to the salad.

The menu is the most versatile restaurant menu we have ever seen! There’s a $22.95 pre-theatre prix fixe. At any time at all you can create a 3-course prix fixe by adding $10 to your entrée. A picky eater child menu allows the child to design their own fussy meal for only $11. Arden, however, ordered the “Big Ass 12 oz. Angus beef burger,” served on the homemade bread and layered with vegetables. She took a few dainty bites and had the rest wrapped. We all had the rest wrapped, happily enough. Eat, drink, and be merry, as the Bard said.

Sylvia by A.R. Gurney and Haven Rooftop

 

Written before the rescue dog renaissance, yet anticipating it totally, Sylvia is A.R. Gurney’s most beloved play. This beautiful revival should satisfy the 1.1 million dog owners in New York City. The stray poodle mix that Greg (Matthew Broderick) picks up is rejected for every reason by his wife Kate (Julie White). West Siders who live along Central Park, the play has that romantic backdrop—a lower skyline from 1993, and moves on through Bill Clinton’s re-election, with references to Kitty Carlisle Hart and Bella Abzug.

Many couples can relate to the jealousy that erupts when a dog is brought into the equation. Kate wishes that it were an affair instead: “Any wife worth her salt can manage that.” Really? And was the play’s transgender shrink (Robert Sella, who plays three characters, including a female and a male), added to keep up with the times? But that gives Sylvia some meat.

Even Broderick’s heartthrob boyhood roles contained a layer of irony that is denied him in the part of Greg—he might do better switching parts with Julie White, what with White's real-life love of dogs and Kate's Shakespearean histrionics. Also straining at the leash, Annaleigh Ashford plays the poodle Sylvia with genius comic timing and maximum lovable-ness. (It’s a tough part that was also well played by Broderick’s partner, Sarah Jessica Parker.) Wish we saw Ashford’s Tony turn in You Can’t Take It With You; her transcendent working-class girlfriend redeemed Kinky Boots for us. We loved those Welsh Corgis in last season’s The Audience. The addition of a real dog or two in the park scenes would make us like this Sylvia even more.

Around the corner from the  Cort Theatre, Haven Rooftop is a year-round outdoor rooftop restaurant open late, and a young person’s hangout with both loud music and great food—a combination you don’t often find.  Havenly Chicken is a well-seasoned, fanned-out chicken breast in beurre blanc, with tender mesclun salad and a heap of fries. (It was enough to share, only $21.) Arugula Parmesan, “Holy” truffle fries and the stacked crab and avocado appetizer were delicious, and the shrimp and shaved Brussels sprouts another inspired combination. With a spiky midtown view of skyscrapers and Gothic church, and a transparent ceiling, we’ll return one day when it’s snowing and sample the winter menu.

The Flick and the Little Owl

The Flick is set in a small cinema in Worcester, Massachusetts, with three complex characters in low-paying jobs: two male ushers and a woman with green hair who runs the reel-to-reel projection booth. The new usher Avery (Kyle Beltran) is black, sensitive, a student and cinephile living with a father who teaches at Clark University. Rose (Nicole Rodenburg), the projectionist, shares an apartment, is in default on college debt, and rarely makes eye contact. Maybe it’s the script or the director’s fault, but Rose remains an island even when she comes on to one of her co-workers.

The usher Sam, age thirty-five, lives at home and is the unselfconscious type who stands with his mouth open while he thinks. Sam, too, is a cinephile, who believes Avatar was a great movie. Danny Wolohan is courageously real and stunning in the role, even as he wrings out the mop in a bucket and scrubs the floor. What a sensational actor.

The well-lit set is perfect, with worn pink seats, ugly gold and brown walls, and stained, white pebbled ceiling panels. It is ambitious in this era of speed to do a long-format play, and Annie Baker’s creative risk lead to a deserved Pulitzer Prize. At three hours with intermission, The Flick is longer than a movie. Baker tortures her audience a bit with the frequent sweeping up of popcorn off the floor, and the scaly rash on one of her characters’ neck and back, and the many real-time pauses. Darkness contrasts with light-hearted music from François Truffaut’s Jules and Jim. 

The meatball slider at the Little Owl

The Little Owl, with blue awnings, is on an idyllic corner of the West Village. The food is justly celebrated, prices are fairly moderate, and portions are righteous. The petite hamburger (or slider, if you insist) is kind of exquisite, with fennel notes. Seasonal basil gnocchi was in a meat accented fresh tomato sauce. Truffle risotto is heady, with an organic egg yolk on top. The fresh tasting crabcake is served on crunchy greens in champagne vinaigrette. Signature dishes are the pork chop and lamb chops grilled in honey barbeque. One of the desserts is light beignets served with nutella and raspberry sauces. Our only complaint was that the rhubarb crisp wasn't crispy enough. Otherwise the Little Owl treated us wisely. Book in advance.

The Audience and Chat Noir

Photo by Johan Persson

Helen Mirren reprises her role as Queen Elizabeth II on Broadway. We saw the London production of The Audience, and the film The Queen (no relation, but yet another chance to see the great Mirren). Our favorite was the Broadway production.

The Playbill comes with a helpful reference card to the twelve prime ministers the Queen has had Tuesday audiences with over the course of her life since the coronation at age twenty-five. As others have noted before us, the high notes are higher than they were on the West End (which we reviewed here). But we say, What's wrong with that? Her Majesty seems to prefer her Labour Party PMs over the Conservatives, however the interesting Scottish PM Gordon Brown is again miscast. Fireball Texan Judith Ivey is cast against type for “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher, yet she delivers on toughness. Another American actor familiar from stage and screen, Dylan Baker, disappears into the role of John Major and even gets the accent down. Richard McCabe reprises his historically inaccurate though super charming Harold Wilson.

The staging is brilliant, especially the quick costume-wig-and-handbag changes, and Buckingham Palace appears less chilly than it did in the London production. Balmoral Castle is cozy, with the corgis dashing by and her personal favorite prime minister, Labour's Harold Wilson, and Mirren gets to swing her hips to the skirl of the bagpipes.

The Broadway production goes further in humanizing the Queen, assuring us that life in the palace was not a total drag—even though she was taught from childhood to never let her feelings show. Elizabeth Teeter and Sadie Sink play the future queen with aplomb. Tracy Sallows is lovely as Nanny Bobo, and she can sing like a bird. Sallows understudies Mirren in surely the hardest role to live up to on earth.

Since the production is closing, it’s not a spoiler to say that after all the curtain calls, the curtain closes and parts again for a generous last glimpse of Dame Helen Mirren as HRH Elizabeth.  

Not far from Broadway, off Fifth Avenue, Bistro Chat Noir is a sweet tablecloth restaurant filled with ladies who lunch. A welcoming bank of fragrant flowers greet you as you walk in, striped wallpaper and a femmy decor. You know you’re safe to reveal to your girlfriend the size of your wife bonus or lack thereof. You may cry here, you're among friends, and the charming waiter is likely to kiss your hand to make you feel better again.

Bistro Chat Noir smells so good, it tastes so good, and the wine list contains moderately priced wines. We ordered a la carte the frisée salad with poached egg and lardons (perfect), a delicious puréed chickpea soup (classic), grilled branzino sea bass and salmon steak crisp on the outside and tender inside - gorgeous grilled fish with truffle French fries. Lunch and brunch include a famous BLT and the truffle fries. When it’s nice you can sit outdoors with your borzoi on a leash and the second husband in training.