ScheckOnTheater

Imagine Frankie Valli stepping in on vocals for Jersey Boys. Or Ringo Starr manning the drum kit for the Beatles tribute Rain. Such is the electrifying effect of the presence of Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong as the drug dealing St. Jimmy in American Idiot, the Broadway musical inspired by the best-selling pop-punk band’s Grammy winning 2004 concept album.

Armstrong has been involved with the show from the start, developing it and co-writing the book with director Michael Mayer. He also stepped into the show for a brief one-week run last September, which inevitably resulted in a massive hike in ticket sales.

Now, in an effort to boost box-office during the traditionally slow winter months, he’s in the midst of a sporadic 50 performance run. He played the role through January 30 and will return for a two-week engagement, running February 10-27.

His guest turn brings even more energy to a show that already suffers from no shortage of it. Despite his rock stardom and hugely charismatic stage presence, he melds seamlessly into an ensemble whose performances have only gotten stronger since the show opened last April.

The 95-minute musical incorporates all of the music from the titular album, as well as selections from the band’s 21st Century Breakdown and several other songs. The storyline concerns three disaffected suburban youth and the disparate paths on which they embark.

Johnny (John Gallagher, Jr.) heads to the big city, where he falls in love with Whatsername (Rebecca Naomi Jones) even while falling prey to drug addition at the hands of St. Jimmy. Tunny (Stark Sands) enlists in the army and is sent to Iraq, where he is gravely wounded. And Will (Michael Esper) finds himself stuck in suburbia, struggling to support his wife (Jeanna de Waal) and baby.

While the thinly drawn story and characters never become truly involving, Mayer’s propulsive staging smashingly overcomes the material’s flaws. Tom Kitt’s arrangements effectively theatricalize the hard-rocking and frequently melodic songs while diluting none of their original power. And Stephen Hoggett’s relentlessly energetic choreography is superbly performed by the youthful ensemble.

Far from being an example of stunt casting, Armstrong delivers a knockout turn, providing a devilishly antic spin to the character that is consistently mesmerizing. And, needless to say, he’s in utter command of the music. When he performs the hit song “Time of Your Life” at the encore, it’s sheer nirvana for the blissed-out Green Day fans.

Rock fans take note: Melissa Etheridge will be stepping into the role from Feb. 1-6. Is this the start of a series of guest stars ala the revival of Chicago?

St. James Theatre, 246 W. 44th St. 212-239-6200. www.telecharge.com.  

Theatrical experiences rarely come in more intimate forms than Green Eyes. This production of a long-lost Tennessee Williams play—how many of them are there, exactly?—is being performed in a room at midtown’s Hudson Hotel, with its fourteen audience members being within touching distance of the two barely clad performers.

Indeed, it’s not every show in which a comely actress asks a viewer’s help in removing her dress.

The immediacy adds greatly to the impact of Williams’ 1970 one-act, which depicts the emotionally and physically charged encounter between a pair of honeymooners in their hotel room in New Orleans’ French Quarter. Claude (Adam Couperthwaite) is a clearly traumatized soldier on temporary leave from serving in Vietnam. His sexually rapacious young wife (Erin Markey) is a sort of younger amalgam of various female characters from other Williams plays, alternately flirtatious and mocking.

Fueling the couple’s conflict is Claude’s discovery of a condom in the toilet, leading to his accusation of infidelity after she returned to the room alone the night before.

The two performers, clad mainly in their underwear (and Markey frequently in less) deliver no-holds barred turns, with their close proximity adding greatly to the evening’s intensity. Markey is particularly hypnotic, using a heavily Southern-accented drawl to accentuate her florid dialogue.

It’s a minor work, to be sure, gussied up here by Duncan Cutler’s ominous sound design which simultaneously evokes the passionate and occasionally violent nature of the characters’ interactions as well as Claude’s recent military experiences. Another reminder of the latter is the appearance of a breakfast toting bellhop wearing army fatigues, his face painted camouflage style.

While one wouldn’t particularly want to be staying in one of the hotel’s adjacent rooms—one can imagine that there are more than a few complaining calls to the front desk, considering the volume of the shouted dialogue—this environmental staging adds greatly to the theatrical impact of this brief but fascinating footnote to the playwright’s career.

Hudson Hotel, 356 W. 58th St. 212-352-3101. www.ovationstix.com.

Sharp dialogue delivered by a quintet of superb actors enlivens Other Desert Cities, Jon Robin Baitz’s entertaining if ultimately overly familiar dysfunctional family drama. Director Joe Mantello’s superb staging of this work about a California clan squabbling over the revelation of family secrets makes the play feel weightier than it actually is, but there’s no denying the sheer proficiency of this world premiere Lincoln Center Theater production that is already being buzzed about for a Broadway transfer.

The play is largely set during Christmastime in 2004 in the lush Palm Springs home (beautifully rendered in John Lee Beatty’s creamy set design) of solid Republicans Lyman (Stacy Keach) and Polly Wyeth (Stockard Channing). Lyman, a former well-known actor, eventually parlayed his fame into an ambassadorship during the Reagan administration, but is now happily retired.

Joining them for the holidays are Polly’s sharp-tongued, alcoholic sister Silda (Linda Lavin), fresh out of rehab; apolitical son Trip (Thomas Sadowski), who created a hot new television reality show; and liberal daughter Brooke (Elizabeth Marvel), a New York City-based writer—dressed all in black, natch—with a successful novel to her credit.

What starts out as a jolly reunion quickly turns heated when Brooke reveals the details of her latest book, which is shortly to appear in serialized form in the New Yorker. It tells the story of her brother, who apparently committed suicide decades earlier after being involved in a domestic terrorism bombing which claimed the life of an innocent victim.

Needless to say, her parents, who have become established figures on the Republican scene, are horrified to learn of her plans to bring this sordid incident from their past back to public consciousness. The arguments are soon flowing in fast and furious fashion, leavened by generous doses of sharp humor and ultimately resulting in a dramatic revelation that upends Brooke’s assumptions about what transpired.

Playwright Baitz (The Substance of Fire, A Fair Country)  who in recent years created and shepherded the not dissimilar television series Brothers & Sisters, concentrates more on the domestic than the political aspects of the conflict, with mainly predictable results. And the eventual shift from comedy to melodrama is handled in less than artful fashion.

But he’s also created sympathetic, complex characters who largely defy our expectations, with the result that the play is consistently engrossing nonetheless. The five performers play their roles to perfection, providing superb texture not only to their delivery of the crackling dialogue but also using perfectly modulated body language to excellent effect.

Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, 150 W. 65th St. 212-239-6200. www.lct.org.

Don’t expect a respite from the frosty temperatures at the superb production of John Gabriel Borkman being presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. From the mounds of snow dotting the bleak set to its chilly emotional climate, Ibsen’s 19th century classic doesn’t exactly provide much in the way of warmth.

What it does possess, thanks to the Bernie Madoff scandal, is a newfound immediacy. The title character, played with haughty grandeur by Alan Rickman, is a financier who went to prison for five years for embezzling his investors’ money. Now he lives in disgrace and rarely ventures from the upper floor of his house, with his relationships with his resentful wife Gunhild (Fiona Shaw) and grown son Erhart (Marty Rea) in tatters.

The arrival of his wife’s twin sister Ella (Lindsay Duncan, Rickman’s co-star in both Les Liaisons Dangereuse and Private Lives) creates even more tension in the troubled household. It seems that Ella, who was John’s lover before he married her sister, wants her nephew to come live with her. Gunhild, convinced that only he is only capable of restoring honor to the family name, bitterly resents the request.

The resulting collision among these figures forms the heart of the drama, which memorably ends in a climactic scene taking place in the midst of a fierce blizzard that is evocatively evoked in this masterful staging by James Macdonald that was imported from Dublin’s Abbey Theatre.

While the play itself has its definite longeurs, it is rendered here with shattering results thanks to the brilliant performances by the three leads. Rickman, using his sonorous voice to great effect, subtly conveys the stubborn pride of a man who refuses to admit he did anything wrong. His performance contrasts beautifully with those Shaw, constantly teetering on the edge of hysteria as the wronged wife, and Duncan, deeply moving as the self-assured Ella who is harboring a dark secret.

Once again, the invaluable Brooklyn Academy of Music is to be commended for bringing to these shores yet another superb foreign production that would otherwise require an overseas flight to experience. One can hardly wait for the upcoming King Lear starring Derek Jacobi that is being imported from London’s Donmar Warehouse.

Brooklyn Academy of Music, 651 Fulton Street, Brooklyn. 718-636-4100. www.BAM.org.

It’s safe to say that there hasn’t been a Lady Bracknell quite as haughtily imperious as Brian Bedford’s in the pitch-perfect new production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Playing the grand dame who looks at her daughter Gwendolyn’s prospective suitor in frighteningly disapproving manner, this estimable classical actor demonstrates that the correct gender is absolutely not required to play this formidable dowager.

Bedford, who previously essayed the role in an acclaimed Stratford Shakespeare Festival production two years, not only steals the show, but has also expertly staged this pitch-perfect Broadway production of Oscar Wilde’s 1895 classic being presented by the Roundabout Theatre Company.

He’s aided by a sterling supporting cast, including the amusing Santino Fontana and David Furr as Algernon and John, the two young men who learn the titular lesson in their romantic pursuits; the charming Sara Topham and Charlotte Parry as Gwendolen and Cecily, their respective beloveds; and seasoned veterans Dana Ivey and Paxton Whitehead as Cecily’s prim governess Miss Prism and the starchy Rev. Chasuble.

Performing on Desmond Heeley’s sumptuous sets (and clad in his elegant costumes as well), the ensemble deliver Wilde’s subversively witty comedy of manners in grand style, thankfully avoiding the excessive campiness that permeates so many mediocre productions.

For regular theatergoers, Wilde’s play is by now all too familiar. But although one can nearly recite its dialogue by heart, it’s always a pleasure to hear his classic bon mots delivered with impeccable drollness and comic timing.

One priceless example: “To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune,” Bedford’s Lady Bracknell pronounces. “To lose both looks like carelessness.”  

But clearly the raison d’etre of this production is to showcase Bedford’s star turn, and he doesn’t disappoint. The actor underplays beautifully, never bothering to appear particularly feminine and delivering every witticism in the driest manner possible. He can score more laughs with a simple raised eyebrow or disapproving glance than most actors manage with reams of dialogue. Making a far too rare appearance on Broadway—he has spent the last 27 years regularly performing up in Canada—his performance alone makes attendance mandatory.

American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St. 212-719-1300. www.roundabouttheatre.org.