New York theater offerings were slow to start at the outset at the outset of the fall, but the pace of new shows picked up in October, yielding three outstanding new Broadway productions that should not be missed.
The first of this trio is Martyna Majok's "COST OF LIVING" at Manhattan Theatre Club's Broadway stage which has been extended but ends its limited run on November 6. I first saw this play in previews in 2017 at MTC's off-Broadway theater at NY City Center, and in 2017 I had a considerably different reaction to the play as compared with the current Broadway mounting. Even though the director and two of the four actors were the same in 2017, to me the cast had not yet connected in the 2017 preview I saw, and that connection is essential to make the play's almost lyrical writing sing. In the Broadway production each of the play's four actors beautifully mesh both with the playwright's words and each other, palpably conveying on stage the play's thematic exploration of our need for human connections. At the conclusion of the Broadway production I was simply stunned into silence by the beauty of what I had witnessed on stage.
This fall has seen a number of high profile Broadway revivals of past Pulitzer Prize winners, and none has been mounted as successfully as the second of my winning trio- Suzan-Lori Park's 2001 play "TOPDOG UNDERDOG." The acting of this Kenny Leon directed two hander by Corey Hawkins and Yahya Abdul-Mateen is like a master class in precision depiction of sibling interactions and brings out aspects of Ms. Park's deeper than first appears work that I had not contemplated in prior "Topdog" productions I have seen. I always considered "Topdog" to be a very good play, but after seeing the current production, I now see it as a great one. Going in, I was concerned that the play might feel dated in 2022, but this play is more like a fine wine that has been enhanced by the passage of time such that it now feels paradoxically both very current and timeless.
I cannot say I had the same positive reaction to two other Pulitzer winners revived on Broadway this fall. I felt the current revival of Arthur Miller's "DEATH OF A SALESMAN" portraying the Loman family as African-American fell victim to some odd stylistic and anachronistic directorial and acting choices. The ending still lands, but not nearly as powerfully as in the seminal Robert Falls directed 1999 revival starring the late Brian Dennehy. And as much as I loved the performances of Samuel Jackson and Michael Potts in the current revival of August Wilson's "THE PIANO LESSON", I am sorry to say the mis-calibrated performance of John David Washington as Boy Willie, and odd directorial choices particularly in Act 2 prevented this production from landing the play's powerful ending and made me yearn for the transcendence of the Ruben Santiago-Hudson directed 2012 Signature Theater revival.
The third show of the winning fall trio of NY shows is the Broadway transfer of "KIMBERLY AKIMBO" which I missed last fall in its off-Broadway Atlantic Theater premiere. This is a musical adaptation of a funny, quirky 2003 David Lindsay-Abaire play that has added cast members and a solid Jeanine Tesori score in its musicalized form. Much like the work from which this musical is derived, this is a funny, quirky show that uses the story of the teenage girl with a rare disease that causes her to rapidly age to convey the beauty, wonder and fragility of life. Once again, the cast is stellar and in particular the performances of Victoria Clark as Kimberly and Justin Cooley (making an astonishing Broadway debut) as her teenage friend Seth are a wonder to behold. If the measure of a great musical is that I come out of the theater wanting to see it again, this new musical passes that test and then some, although truth be told I left "Kimberly Akimbo" with both a tear in my eye and a smile on my face.
I found much less to like in Tom Stoppard's new Holocaust themed play "LEOPOLDSTADT," finding the Stoppard dialogue unduly declamatory and the acting & direction largely static, unfocused and not particularly dramatic. Similar themes were much more effectively explored in last year's Josh Harmon play "Prayers For The French Republic." On the musical front, I was largely bored by the mediocrely scored stage musical adaptation of Cameron Crowe's film "ALMOST FAMOUS," notwithstanding a few fine central performances.
I was thrilled by another visit to the current Broadway revival of "INTO THE WOODS," which featured some cast changes that were by and large at least as good as the initial cast I saw in the summer. And despite a miscast lead performance from Jim Parsons, I enjoyed revisiting the Ahrens-Flaherty-McNally musical "A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE," even if this show now feels a bit dated. Finally, I appreciated the audacious attempt to revive the musical "1776" in a contemporary and non-traditionally cast way, even if it does not always click on stage (which I believe is a deficiency in the musical as originally written).
All in all, there is a good deal of fine theater to see in New York this fall, most of it on Broadway. Not surprisingly, the non-profit spaces of off-Broadway have not rebounded in terms of quantity and quality (if not quite in terms of box office receipts) as fast as Broadway, but I am hoping the balance of the fall and rest of the 2022-23 season make strides to address that current imbalance.
