Sharpenicity

Les Misérables   Les Misérables — despite its title which means  “the wretched” —  is wondrous!  This new production of the phenomenon known as Les Miz brings a much needed spark of hope of the possibilities of love to hearts that have been broken or whose hopes have been dashed by the exigencies of life.    Les Miz ’s music is haunting as befits the life journey of selfless sacrifice leading to salvation for one man and the tragic ending of the obsession of another.   It calls for a complex web of characters employing wide   vocal choices   to follow the stories of these two men who are engaged in a life long bitter tug of war.   The dramatic tenor role of Jean Valjean is most poignantly sung by Nick Cartell.   Valjean has suffered a great injustice in   being imprisoned for   19 years for the crime of stealing a loaf of bread.   He escapes for a   life of hiding from his relentless pursuer, the c...

HANSEL AND GRETEL—THE OPERA Hansel and Gretel is so many things.   A folk tale adapted by the Grimm brothers,  Englebert Humperdinck’s beloved opera, and even a 20th century novel of  the nightmare of the Nazi era.    The Met Live In HD rebroadcast of its 2008 production puts this tale of these two hungry kids with sweet tooths lost in the dark woods into a different light.  Food is the theme for the three scenes set in three different kitchens. The opener is the home of Hansel and Gretel, (Alice Coote and Christine Schäfer) and most appropriates for  the folksy qualities of poor family (the father is a seller of brooms and brushes not a woodcutter).   The “real” kitchen  has been compared to the kitchen in the The Honeymooners , with the father Peter (Alan Held) most resembling  a somewhat drunken Jackie Gleason, and the mother Gertrude (Rosalind Plowrights) like his  bewildered wife Alice? The dream in the f...

Curve of Departure  —Studio Theater In Studio Theatre’s brilliant offering of the season— Curve of Departure —Rachel Bonds  has like a clever spider weaving a perfect web created a play that is complex, fragile and beautiful for its finely threaded connections of human emotions. There are five characters. The one character that the play revolves about is never seen.  Cyrus.  He is the one for whom there is this family gathering for his funeral, in a motel in   Sante Fe, New Mexico (some know it as “The Land of Enchantment”).   His father Rudy (Peter Van Wagner) is now in and out of dementia, and on the constant verge of attacks of incontinence.  This grand patriarch wanders between confusion and distraction, bitterness and wisdom.  He  enjoys the silly in life like soap operas while focusing on his end of life decision.    Linda (Ora Jones) is the ex-wife. The good woman—she cares for her ex-father-in-law eno...