The latest Broadway season has officially staggered to a close with the rare occurrence of two big-name shows opening on the same day. Those shows, Waiting for Godot and 9 to 5, could easily serve as avatars for the rest of this schizophrenic season, given their wildly disparate productions that felt exactly like everything else Broadway had to offer over the last year.
The Roundabout’s Godot (now pronounced GOD-oh, the new stress on the first syllable a hammer to drive home the show’s not-very-subtle religious connotations) is a prime example of everything that has afflicted the major revivals of the 2008-2009 season. Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin, both accomplished Tony-winning clowns, feel like the most obvious and inescapable casting choices for Estragon and Vladimir. But big names and pitch-perfect casting aren’t enough for a show to succeed when the director snatches the opportunity to uncover a supposedly lost dimension to a classic; just look at The Roundabout’s Hedda Gabler, Pal Joey and The Philanthropist. All of those shows starred luxury marquee names (Mary-Louise Parker, Stockard Channing, Matthew Broderick); none of them emerged unscathed from the experience.
And so it is for the two-and-a-quarter hours of Anthony Page’s relentlessly comedic take on Samuel Beckett’s play about boredom. Until the play’s final moments, Vladimir and Estragon’s rudderless conversations reek of Abbott and Costello more than of an existentialist’s funk. They swap hats at lightning speed! They indulge in complicated wordplay with a campy John Goodman and a slobbering John Glover! They bicker, they banter, they comfort and they do slow burns so slow they turn lukewarm! Nothing in Page’s production is anything that you haven’t already imagined upon first hearing that Lane and Irwin were cast; no surprises exist to enliven the feeling of déją vu, enhanced by the bland set that combines the boulder-strewn stage of Desire Under the Elms with the love of beige that turned The Story of My Life into a quick-closing eyesore.
9 to 5 counts on that feeling of déją vu, which screaming audiences familiar with the film via endless replays on HBO are happy to supply, drowning out the classic lines with the ecstatic shrieks of people who have paid large sums of money to see three sassy secretaries kidnap their sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot of a boss in 1980.
At least they get their money’s worth, despite the book’s mediocrity (courtesy of Patricia Resnick, the film’s screenwriter) and the overwhelming blandness of Dolly Parton’s score. To be fair, Parton has never written a bland song—what has ever sounded like “9 to 5” or “Jolene” or “Here You Come Again”?—but orchestrator Bruce Coughlin has overlaid her songs with a thick veneer of schmaltz, pumping up the bombast and decimating Parton’s trademark wistfulness, even at moments when a little wistfulness would not be amiss.
But Joe Mantello, choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, and set designer Scott Pask (whose hydraulic design is a retread of Billy Elliott’s) have apparently come to an agreement to include as much needlessly frenetic activity as possible, no matter what they characters are saying. So as Violet (a superb Allison Janney) explains to new hire Judy (Stephanie J. Block) that they all work very, very hard and don’t have any time to slack off, Blankenbuehler has choreographed an entire army of chorus members to glide, sway, twirl, and shimmy around the office, manila folders clutched to their heaving chests with the effort. Blankenbuehler’s sole directive to his dancers seems to have been, “It’s 1980, and you’re busy. Go!”
The show’s best moments come when the proceedings screech to a halt, particularly in Violet’s second-act production number, when she dreams the impossible dream: becoming a CEO. Suddenly Janney, who has until then served as a reminder of a time when non-singing stars were valuable musical comedy commodities (sorry Stockard Channing), breaks out a surprisingly effective voice and owns the stage. She’s clearly having a ball without working hard to give that impression, which comes as a relief after everyone else’s exhausting efforts.
And that includes Megan Hilty as Doralee, who has taken the film as gospel and serves up a deep-fried Dolly Parton impression instead of making the top-heavy secretary her own. She gets some of Parton’s best numbers, but one would never know it under the off-stage heavenly choir and stale orchestrations that make her sound as if she were starring in the Southern version of Wicked, Mantello’s sole musical hit. Updated to be a girl power musical similar to that Oz reboot, 9 to 5 has taken the film’s characters and given them unwelcome and unfunny consciences. Apparently, girls can’t have a little fun with their sexist boss without feeling remorse these days. Only the audience gets away scot-free, though one suspects that they might have a hangover from all the sugar that’s been pumped into the original, tart confection.
> Waiting for Godot
Through July 12, Studio 54, 254 W. 54th St. (at 8th Ave.), 212-719-1300; times vary, $36.50–$116.50.
> 9 to 5
Open run, Marquis Theatre, 1535 Broadway (at W. 45th St.), 212-307-4100; times vary, $66.50–$126.50.
The Roundabout’s Godot (now pronounced GOD-oh, the new stress on the first syllable a hammer to drive home the show’s not-very-subtle religious connotations) is a prime example of everything that has afflicted the major revivals of the 2008-2009 season. Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin, both accomplished Tony-winning clowns, feel like the most obvious and inescapable casting choices for Estragon and Vladimir. But big names and pitch-perfect casting aren’t enough for a show to succeed when the director snatches the opportunity to uncover a supposedly lost dimension to a classic; just look at The Roundabout’s Hedda Gabler, Pal Joey and The Philanthropist. All of those shows starred luxury marquee names (Mary-Louise Parker, Stockard Channing, Matthew Broderick); none of them emerged unscathed from the experience.
And so it is for the two-and-a-quarter hours of Anthony Page’s relentlessly comedic take on Samuel Beckett’s play about boredom. Until the play’s final moments, Vladimir and Estragon’s rudderless conversations reek of Abbott and Costello more than of an existentialist’s funk. They swap hats at lightning speed! They indulge in complicated wordplay with a campy John Goodman and a slobbering John Glover! They bicker, they banter, they comfort and they do slow burns so slow they turn lukewarm! Nothing in Page’s production is anything that you haven’t already imagined upon first hearing that Lane and Irwin were cast; no surprises exist to enliven the feeling of déją vu, enhanced by the bland set that combines the boulder-strewn stage of Desire Under the Elms with the love of beige that turned The Story of My Life into a quick-closing eyesore.
9 to 5 counts on that feeling of déją vu, which screaming audiences familiar with the film via endless replays on HBO are happy to supply, drowning out the classic lines with the ecstatic shrieks of people who have paid large sums of money to see three sassy secretaries kidnap their sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot of a boss in 1980.
At least they get their money’s worth, despite the book’s mediocrity (courtesy of Patricia Resnick, the film’s screenwriter) and the overwhelming blandness of Dolly Parton’s score. To be fair, Parton has never written a bland song—what has ever sounded like “9 to 5” or “Jolene” or “Here You Come Again”?—but orchestrator Bruce Coughlin has overlaid her songs with a thick veneer of schmaltz, pumping up the bombast and decimating Parton’s trademark wistfulness, even at moments when a little wistfulness would not be amiss.
But Joe Mantello, choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, and set designer Scott Pask (whose hydraulic design is a retread of Billy Elliott’s) have apparently come to an agreement to include as much needlessly frenetic activity as possible, no matter what they characters are saying. So as Violet (a superb Allison Janney) explains to new hire Judy (Stephanie J. Block) that they all work very, very hard and don’t have any time to slack off, Blankenbuehler has choreographed an entire army of chorus members to glide, sway, twirl, and shimmy around the office, manila folders clutched to their heaving chests with the effort. Blankenbuehler’s sole directive to his dancers seems to have been, “It’s 1980, and you’re busy. Go!”
The show’s best moments come when the proceedings screech to a halt, particularly in Violet’s second-act production number, when she dreams the impossible dream: becoming a CEO. Suddenly Janney, who has until then served as a reminder of a time when non-singing stars were valuable musical comedy commodities (sorry Stockard Channing), breaks out a surprisingly effective voice and owns the stage. She’s clearly having a ball without working hard to give that impression, which comes as a relief after everyone else’s exhausting efforts.
And that includes Megan Hilty as Doralee, who has taken the film as gospel and serves up a deep-fried Dolly Parton impression instead of making the top-heavy secretary her own. She gets some of Parton’s best numbers, but one would never know it under the off-stage heavenly choir and stale orchestrations that make her sound as if she were starring in the Southern version of Wicked, Mantello’s sole musical hit. Updated to be a girl power musical similar to that Oz reboot, 9 to 5 has taken the film’s characters and given them unwelcome and unfunny consciences. Apparently, girls can’t have a little fun with their sexist boss without feeling remorse these days. Only the audience gets away scot-free, though one suspects that they might have a hangover from all the sugar that’s been pumped into the original, tart confection.
> Waiting for Godot
Through July 12, Studio 54, 254 W. 54th St. (at 8th Ave.), 212-719-1300; times vary, $36.50–$116.50.
> 9 to 5
Open run, Marquis Theatre, 1535 Broadway (at W. 45th St.), 212-307-4100; times vary, $66.50–$126.50.
