April 27, 2006
Now playing on Broadway
The Three Tomatoes would hardly call ourselves theater
critics, nor would anyone else for that matter. But we are theater lovers and in all our years (and we have a lot of those),
there's only one Broadway show we ever walked out of... some horrible show with Kathleen Turner which we saw in
previews. (It opened and closed in a week.) So feel free to take this with a grain a salt, but we had the
chance to see a new show in previews this week - The Wedding
Singer-- that officially opens tonight at the Al Hirschfeld Theater (more about the theater in a minute.) We predict
it will be a big hit no matter what The New York Times has to say about it tomorrow morning (assuming you can even get through their often
pompous and even more often unreadable reviews.)
This is a show with huge energy that's just plain fun, with a cast of
standouts. Based on Adam Sandler's movie, the show is set in New Jersey in the
mid-eighties. Now to The Three Tomatoes this is a decade that seems like yesterday and one that
we didn't particularly pay a lot of attention to because we were basically in our "it's all about us striver" mode. But then the
show does a hilarious job of reminding us just how long ago the ‘80's actually were, with cell phones the size of toaster ovens that were
wired into your car and the introduction of CD players. The music, which is all original, totally captures the spirit of the
‘80's and groups like Guns and Roses , Cyndi Lauper, and the first rappers. We were listening to groups
like Abba and The Fifth Dimension back then, but we still loved the show and predict that the generation that did come of age in
the 80's will make this show a big hit. So tomatoes, you read it here first. Buy tickets
now.
We also recently saw Lestat in previews, the show based on Ann Rice's vampire novels with a score by Elton John.
We were thoroughly entertained. The staging and lighting are great and the actresses who play Claudia the child
vampire, and Lestat's mother steal the show. If you like Ann Rice and Elton we think you'll like it too.
The critics were determined to hate this show, kind of like they were determined to bash Julia's debut, to which we
say, "who cares what you think", which is probably what those of you are reading our little review are saying to yourselves right about
now. To which we say, poor yourself a martini and lighten up on us.
Another reason we love Broadway are the old theaters, which brings us back to
the Al Hirschfeld Theater. (See, we can keep a train of thought going.) Formerly called the Martin Beck
Theater, it originally opened in 1924 and has operated continuously as a theater. It's been the home of shows including Bye Bye Birdie,
Sweet Bird of Youth and Man of LaMancha. The seating is cramped, but you can feel the echoes of the past
when you're in these grand old theaters. An added bonus is the gallery of original Hirschfeld caricatures on the mezzanine
level, which also goes back to 1924 when his art first appeared in the long defunct New York Herald and before he became famous with his
portraits of Broadway theater stars in The New York Times. And here's a little piece of trivia...after his daughter Nina
was born, he incorporated her name into all his portraits, so it's a fun game to find the hidden "Nina's" in his
drawings.
So tomatoes we hope you'll indulge this little love poem to Broadway.
‘til next week,
The Three Tomatoes
©Copyright 2006. The Three Tomatoes. All rights reserved.
