When Bernadette Peters first appears, it’s jarring. She’s visibly trembling. Her voice is uncertain. You worry. It’s a long show. Are we about to spend two and a half hours bracing for heartbreak? But then the Into the Woods medley arrives. You start wondering at the juxtaposition of her playing Little Red Riding Hood, and…
theater
Review: The Great Gatsby looks big and bold, but fails the Coco Chanel test
Coco Chanel famously advised that before leaving the house, one should look in the mirror and take off one thing. The Broadway adaptation of The Great Gatsby could use two or three. It’s still bright and beautiful, offering a fun evening. Fitzgerald’s novel skewered the excesses of the 1920s with lyrical brutality. But onstage…
Review: Tony Winner: Maybe Happy Ending
Never has an intellectual exercise had such heart. The allegory is clear: two adults, deep into the routine of their second act, fighting to remain independent, resisting nostalgia, and yet slowly, inevitably, slipping into the patterns we all recognize. That’s where the play begins. It is the story of two robots trying desperately not to…
Review: Death Becomes Her Is Gorgeously Performed, Wryly Camp, and Strangely Trapped in the Mirror
I had the great good fortune to see Death Becomes Her from the best seat in the house: front row, dead center. It’s my favorite perch because that’s where you get to see the work. The microbeats. The breath work. The sweat, spit, and precision that make up the muscle of live performance. Yes, I…
Review: Tony-Winning Sunset Boulevard on Broadway Is Electrifying, Unnerving, and Might Be Lloyd Webber’s Best Work
I didn’t expect to come out of Sunset Boulevard thinking it might be my favorite Lloyd Webber score. But here we are. In Jamie Lloyd’s stark new Broadway revival, the music is the emotional architecture. With the sets stripped down to almost nothing,just black walls, projections, and a few brutalist gestures the score becomes the…
Editor-at-Large, Culture, Cuisine & Curtain Calls: Adam Josephs
I first met Adam Josephs in San Francisco during the summer of 2013, and I said then—and stand by it now—that he was the most cosmopolitan man I’d ever known. In my book Delusions of Grandeur, I wrote that Adam had visited more countries than most people can find on a map, and managed to…
All-Star Cast (and Some Filler) to Roast Grey Fox Pub (and One Another) on March 29
Grey Fox Pub. Photo by Justin Lehman Some 25 years ago, Tumara Mahorning and fellow Grey Fox show director Michelle McCausland performed a really long number. I mean crazy long. All to distract everyone from noticing that tons of wigs, gowns and jewelry were being schlepped down the back stairs to waiting vehicles (thieves did…
The Performance Low Down: Joan Lipkin’s Pride Summer Theater Guide
The St. Louis theater season is exploding with juicy nuggets this summer.