ScheckOnTheater

Playwright David Ives has clearly had a ball adapting Moliere for his screwball verse comedy The School for Lies, and his enjoyment is infectious. Retaining the basic characters, situations and 17th century setting of The Misanthrope, this comedy being presented by the Classic Stage Company is a textbook example of how to pay homage to the classics while applying a freewheeling, modern sensibility.

In this rendition, Alceste, the titular character of the original, has been cleverly renamed Frank (Hamish Linklater), but otherwise his essential surly temperament and rude propensity for unvarnished truth telling remain the same. Ives has upped the amorous quotient of Moliere’s play, concentrating on the troubled attraction that develops between Frank and Celimene (Mamie Gummer) after each has been misled by their mutual friend Philante (Hoon Lee).

Celimene, facing a vicious lawsuit by the nasty dowager Arsinoe (Alison Fraser), mistakenly believes that Frank will help defend her, while he thinks that the sharp-witted gossiper has fallen madly in love with him.

Competing with Frank for Celimene’s affections are a trio of dimwitted suitors (Rick Holmes, Matthew Maher, Frank Harts), while he is himself pursued by Celimene’s coquettish cousin Eliante (Jenn Gambatese), for whom Philante desperately pines.

The resulting dizzying complications, rendered in rhyming couplets ala Richard Wilbur’s classic translations, are consistently hilarious. Clearly armed with a copious rhyming dictionary, Ives has provided deliciously witty and frequently vulgar dialogue that includes numerous anachronistic touches that are jarringly funny.

“Till then we’ll lick love’s slippery mango,” Frank promises during his passionate wooing. “While locked in our own private, zipless tango!”

Under the expertly fast-paced direction of Walter Bobbie, the ensemble shines. Linklater superbly conveys Frank’s quick-wittedness, making him somehow endearing despite his nastiness; Gummer is enchanting and also hysterically funny in such moments as when Celimene delivers impressions of a Valley Girl and a Jersey goombah; Gambatese and Fraser tear into their broader roles with gusto; and Steven Boyer nearly steals the show with his slow-burn reactions as a servant whose efforts to dispense a tray of canapés are consistently derailed.

Adding to the buoyant fun are the pastel-colored period costumes by William Ivey Long, which somehow manage to be at once gorgeously sumptuous and wildly over-the-top.

Classic Stage Company, 136 E. 13th St. 212-352-3101. www.classicstage.org.  

Attention, theatergoers. Sitting in a seat and watching a show is so yesterday.

The truth of that statement is well demonstrated by Sleep No More, the wonderfully immersive theatrical experience—presented, fittingly, by the EMURSIVE production company. This combination of theater piece and art installation inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth is uniquely transporting and unforgettable.

Produced by the Punchdrunk theater company, the piece, directed by Felix Barrett and Maxine Doyle, is presented in a former Chelsea warehouse that has been transformed into the “McKittrick Hotel,” with the name being an homage to Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

Viewers are escorted into the building, first entering a vintage, ‘30s era bar. Then everyone is given a Venetian style mask, ala Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, and escorted in the “hotel” proper, which features some 100-plus rooms spread out over several floors through which you wander freely.

The rooms have been designed with stunning imagination, stuffed with antique furniture and bric-a-brac that you are allowed to handle. Some of them are incredibly detailed and realistic: a doctor’s office filled with medical paraphernalia; a hotel lobby, complete with pay phones and antique room keys hanging on hooks; a child’s bedroom, complete with a tattered teddy bear, and so on.

Others are more surreal and nightmarish, such as a cemetery filled with tiny crosses and a forest with a maze of trees.

During your wanderings, you periodically come across performers engaging in elaborate, mostly silent routines riffing on scenes from Shakespeare’s play. You can either ignore the actors or follow them, although if you opt for the latter you’re more likely to get the thread of a storyline.  

There are times when the experience proves frustrating, as the ad hoc nature of the proceedings means you may miss out on certain highlights. By sheer luck I happened onto one of the show’s most visceral episodes, in which Lady Macbeth bathes her nude, blood spattered husband before launching into a series of frenzied dance movements inspired by the “Out, damn spot” scene.

Fortunately, viewers are essentially herded into a large space to witness the famous banquet scene, which ends with a truly shocking coup de theatre.

The many performers go through their paces with impressive intensity and athleticism, often having to gently push away theatergoers who threaten to interfere with the action.

On a sheer technical level, the production is simply astounding, with its awesomely detailed production designs, the moodily atmospheric lighting, and the eerie soundscape (which includes music from Hitchcock’s thrillers, among other elements) adding to a visceral experience that will haunt you long after you’ve left the premises.

McKittrick Hotel, 530 W. 27th St. 866-811-4111. www.sleepnomorenyc.com.

The most surprising thing about the New York Philharmonic’s star-studded concert production of Stephen Sondheim’s Company is how unmusical it is. Sure, the orchestra sounds great under the assured conducting of the venerable Paul Gemignani. And it’s a pleasure to hear the lush orchestrations, especially after the recent, pared-down Broadway revival.

But too many of the score’s great songs receive insubstantial treatment, with the ironic result that the evening is most effective in its book scenes, even in the cavernous Avery Fisher Hall.

Still, this Company has its pleasures. The ever youthful Neil Patrick Harris is terrific as Bobby, the 35-year-old bachelor ruminating over commitment issues while observing the relationships of his married friends and juggling several girlfriends. While his voice is not a particularly powerful instrument, he brings a touching emotional sincerity to his numbers, especially the show closer “Being Alive.”

The large ensemble, combining theater veterans (Craig Bierko, Katie Finneran, Aaron Lazar, Patti LuPone and Jim Walton, among others), with a few TV star ringers (Jon Cryer, Christina Hendricks of Mad Men and Stephen Colbert), is a mixed bag.

Not surprisingly, LuPone hits it out of the park with the landmark “Ladies Who Lunch.” And Finneran delivers a delightfully manic “Getting Married Today,” even if she did flub a little on opening night.

On the other hand, Anika Noni Rose fails to convey the requisite intensity of “Another Hundred People”; Hendricks, although endearing as the ditzy flight attendant April, lacks the vocal chops for “Barcelona”; and such group numbers as “You Could Drive a Person Crazy” fail to have the desired impact.

Under the direction of Lonny Price, the disparate ensemble melds together in surprisingly seamless fashion. Although there are times when one is all too aware of the obvious lack of rehearsal time, the evening is a respectable rendition of Sondheim’s classic, even if it lacks the grand musical sweep of such previous New York Philharmonic presentations as Sweeney Todd and My Fair Lady. But that won’t prevent this limited run from being a must-see event for the legions of Sondheim fans.

Avery Fisher Hall, 132 W. 65th St. 212-875-5656. www.nyphil.org.

At the rate the Transport Group is going, there won’t be any loft spaces left in Manhattan. The enterprising theater company, who staged a well-received revival of The Boys in the Band last season in a Chelsea loft apartment, repeats the gimmick with their current revival of Michael John LaChiusa’s musical Hello Again, first presented in 1994 at Lincoln Center.

The gimmick is less successful this time. While Matt Crowley’s gay-themed comedy benefited from the verisimilitude and intimacy of the surroundings, this show based on Arthur Schnitzler’s 1900 play La Ronde seems merely lost in this cavernous Soho space.

Those familiar with the original work, not to mention its infinite adaptations, will recall that it depicts a daisy chain of erotic encounters among a series of sketchily drawn figures. La Chiusa’s time-hopping version is set in different decades of the twentieth century, featuring couplings—both of the homo and hetero variety--between such characters as a Senator (Alan Campbell), a Young Thing (Blake Daniel), a Writer (Jonathan Hammond), an Actress (Rachel Bay Jones), a Whore (Nikka Graff Lanzarone), a College Boy (Robert Lenzi), a Young Wife (Alexandra Silber), a Nurse (Elizabeth Stanley), a Husband (Bob Stillman) and a Soldier (Max von Essen).

That these sexual encounters are largely joyless and fraught with tension comes as no surprise. What is surprising is that the same lingering negative aftereffects are experienced by the audience members of this voyeuristic production directed by Jack Cummings III, which brings the action uncomfortably close to the spectators who are seated at supper club-style tables surrounding a large bed.

The performers perform their sexually charged duets at various locales throughout the large space, sometimes climbing on top of tables and writhing their often partially clad, inevitably toned bodies right in our faces. The results are mainly discomfiting, although if you’re looking for a close-up view of nude male buttocks pumping away—the men are more frequently unclothed than the women—then this is the show for you.

The talented ensemble--while not exactly comparable to the original ensemble which included such rising stars as Donna Murphy, John Cameron Mitchell, Michele Pawk, Carolee Carmelo and Malcom Gets, among others—do fine by the material. And LaChiusa’s varied score, ably performed by a six-piece band tucked away in one corner of the room, still has its pleasures, although it offers no truly memorable songs.

But the show, much like the frenetic but joyless sexual liaisons it depicts, feels ultimately hollow. With Schnitzler’s ingenious concept having been made overly familiar by repetition, it may be time for theater artists to resist any further impulses to update this work.

Transport Group, 52 Mercer St. 212-564-0333. www.transportgroup.org.

If the backstory of The Wizard of Oz can be turned into the theatrical juggernaut that is Wicked, then why not apply the same treatment to Peter Pan?

That at, at least, must have been the thinking behind Peter and the Starcatcher, based on Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson’s best-selling 2004 children’s book. It’s clearly attracted a host of big names, starting with Disney Theatrical Productions, which commissioned it, and continuing with writer Rick Elice (Jersey Boys, The Addams Family) and co-directors Roger Rees and Alex Timbers, the latter fresh from Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and The Pee-Wee Herman Show.

The results on display at the New York Theatre Workshop are something of a mixed bag. Staged with imagination and ingenuity and wonderfully acted by the ensemble, the piece seems rather too sophisticated for children and too juvenile for adults.

Staged in a style reminiscent of English pantomime and story theater (co-director Rees is no stranger to the latter, having starred in Nicholas Nickleby), it tells the story of the young Peter (Adam Chanler-Berat) and his fellow band of London orphans who are enslaved on a remote island.

 Among the figures Peter encounters on his adventures are bizarre mermaids; an English lord (Karl Kenzler) and his plucky teenage daughter (Celia Keenan-Bolger), the guardians, or “starcatchers,” of a magical substance that can be used for both good and evil; and the villainous Black Stache (Christian Borle), who would later be better known as Captain Hook.

Elice’s overly jokey script is filled with meta-theatrical touches, comic asides to the audience, and such anachronistic one-liners as “he’s more elusive than a melody in a Philip Glass opera.”

The results are as much wearisome as fun, although the sheer vigor of the staging provides some compensation. Adding greatly to the show’s effect are the terrific performances, especially Borle’s wonderfully tongue-in-cheek turn as the moustache twirling villain, and the consistent inventiveness of Donyale Werle’s malleable sets.

Although there is fairly constant musical accompaniment provided by an onstage pianist and percussionist, there is only a smattering of actual songs. They are the most entertaining moments in the show, suggesting that a full-blown musical treatment might have been a better way to go.

New York Theatre Workshop, 79 E. 4th St. 212-279-4200. www.ticketcentral.com.