AWAITING REVIEW

Feb 2 West Side Story
At the Palace Theatre, a musical revival directed by Arthur Laurents (who wrote the original book). Reportedly, the Puerto Rican characters speak Spanish.

Feb 26 Blithe Spirit at the Shubert Theatre
A new Broadway revival of Noel Coward's comedy. A man’s second marriage is threatened by the arrival of his first wife’s ghost, called back at a bungled seance. Angela Lansbury plays the medium, Christine Ebersole plays the first wife, and Rupert Everett (in his Broadway debut) plays the husband.

TOP PICK: Billy Elliott

Playing at the Imperial Theatre on W. 45th Street. The dance musical won an enthusiastic review from Ben Brantley of the New York Times:

"Your inner dancer is calling. Its voice, sweet but tough and insistent, pulses in every molecule of the new Broadway musical Billy Elliot, demanding that you wake up sleeping fantasies of slipping on tap or ballet shoes and soaring across a stage. Few people may have the gift of this show’s title character, a coal miner’s son in northern England who discovers he was born to pirouette. But the seductive, smashingly realized premise of Billy Elliot... is that everybody has the urge. And in exploring that urge among the population of a down-at-heels coal town suffering through the Britishminers’ strike of the mid-1980s, this show both artfully anatomizes and brazenly exploits the most fundamental and enduring appeal of musicals themselves.
It’s been more than three years since Billy Elliot, directed by Stephen Daldry and featuring a score by Elton John, first sent critics and audiences into a mass swoon in London, where it continues to play. The delay in bringing the show to Broadway hinted at fears that it might not sit comfortably on American soil.Adapted by Lee Hall from his screenplay for the affectionately remembered 2000 movie of the same title (also directed by Mr. Daldry), Billy Elliot is told in thick working-class accents and an argot that, even in London, necessitated putting a glossary in the program. What’s more, the show traffics in a particularly British brand of bitter treacle, wallowing in the glory of the bravely defeated and the pathos of small, trapped lives."

This report came from our good friend Steve Fetter:

"I have seen the musical three times in London and have tickets for Thanksgiving week in NYC -- and this from someone who very rarely sees a show a second time. It counterbalances the gritty life of miners in Northern England with a miner's son who has ballet talent but a hard road having it recognized within his blue-collar existence. Music and lyrics are superb, energizing, moving and touching -- count on tears at least a couple of times -- with British politics thrown in. And as one would expect, the dancing is a treat. My hope is that the language (must have been a couple of hundred four-letter words, because I understand that's how miners speak to each other) and the accents stay true in the Atlantic crossing -- I've read in the NYTimes that that is the intent."

TOP PICK - South Pacific

Left: Lincoln Center Theater cast ensemble.
Lincoln Center Theater's new revival of South Pacific, directed by Bart Sher wowed audiences and garnered seven Tony awards with its loving recreation of the great Rogers and Hammerstein classic.
Harriet sent us her review:

"Well, the revival is terrific, a first-class job in every respect. Comparisons are inevitable--Mary Martin, Enzio Pinza, Juanita Hall, Bill Talbot--but this young, gorgeous, extremely talented cast won my heart right from the start in this musical classic, not seen since 1954. The audience, whether they'd seen the original or not, was charmed and enthralled by the performance. The music is gorgeous. The staging is creative. The themes of apple pie and racism are carefully and artfully developed. You'll be cheering in your seat long before the curtain calls and humming all the way home."

I heard several people say as they left the theater: "I didn't realize what a dark play this is." Perhaps that is because the technicolor movie version sugar-coated the dark themes, but also because Bart Sher has brought forward the aspects that earlier stage and screen productions didn't accentuate. Lieutenant Cable (played by Matthew Morrison) is more of a coward and less like a hero in this version, and Nellie Forbush (the wonderful Kelli O'Hara, who previously starred in The Light in the Piazza and The Pajama Game) does not belt the songs as Mary Martin did in the same role. The stage setting is not lush and tropical, but rather it is a claustrophobic naval base on a tiny island, the temporary resting place for people who would have been brought into improbable proximity by the coincidence of a global war.
NOTE: There have been numerous changes of cast; most notably, Paulo Szot left the cast of South Pacific to fulfill opera engagements from December 2, 2008 - Janaury 25, 2009, and will also be away from March 10 - April 12, 2009. During his absences, David Pittsinger plays the role of Emile de Becque. Matthew Morrison has also been replaced. -- Ellen