‘AMERICAN SON’: (left to right) Kerry Washington, Steven Pasquale & Jeremy Jordan. Photo: Peter Cunningham

AMERICAN SON
Written by Christopher Demos-Brown
Directed by Kenny Leon
Through January 27, 2019
Booth Theatre
222 West 45th Street
(212-239-6200), www.americansonplay.com

By David NouNou

Topical and timely, American Son shows the disparity, anguish and complexity of an unexplained incident involving a teenager and the intense impact on his parents as they await answers.

Set in present-day Miami, Florida at 4:00 AM on a stormy night in a police station waiting room, Kendra Connor (Kerry Washington) is anxiously waiting to get any form of news on her missing son Jamal. Kendra is being placated by Officer Paul Larkin (Jeremy Jordan) by being evasive, tolerant but ingratiating. She is desperate and often belligerent due to the lack of any real forthcoming information.

In walks Scott Connor (Steven Pasquale), an FBI agent and Kendra’s estranged husband. In no time at all Officer Larkin—thinking agent Connor is heading the case of the missing teen—divulges all the information that Kendra has been desperately asking for. Larkin berates Kendra to Connor, only to find out that Kendra is his wife and Jamal is Connor’s son as well. The triangle here is Kendra is an African-American woman with a white husband and in the middle is white Officer Larkin.

From the onset we learn that Jamal is a well-educated, polite young man who, upon his father’s insistence, will be attending West Point Academy in the fall. From this point the play tackles myriads of issues: a biracial marriage, a black boy in an all-white high school, the boy’s confusion of which world he belongs in, and the revolt of the status quo of his family life. There is also the issue of how a desperate black woman can’t get any information on her missing son, while her white husband is handed the information without even asking for it. In turn, this makes everything in Kendra and Scott’s marriage topsy-turvy, with each seeing things from their own standpoint.

Finally, Lieutenant John Stokes (Eugene Lee) comes to sort things out, only to have Scott arrested for assault and refusing to cooperate with the law for wanting information on his son. Scott is taken away and Stokes sits Kendra down and gives her the facts of the situation. Stokes is an African American himself and knows how the system works.

The exceptional performances of the four people involved raise the bar here. Kerry Washington displays a wide range of emotions, from rage and aggression to anger and submission. Her tears are genuine because what she feels is raw and real. Steven Pasquale has never been better. He plays a conflicted father—who only knows right from wrong and good and bad—but is now caught in the crossfire of a rebelling son. His outrage at the system and how it treats people is a highlight in his career. The chemistry between Ms. Washington and Mr. Pasquale is palpable because it is so real.

Jeremy Jordan is very good as the affable Officer Larkin, with nothing more to do than be ingratiating. The real scene-stealer here is Eugene Lee, as the lieutenant who indicts Connor and then tries to explain things to Kendra. Mr. Lee is top notch; there is so much strength and dignity to his performance that it solidifies the proceedings.

The proceedings may not feel all that new, but the story certainly reflects today’s grim news, and the evening of sterling performances grounds the show to sustain one’s interest. It might make some people uncomfortable, but if you are a theater lover, you should put this down as a must-see show.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published November 8, 2018
Reviewed at November 7, 2018 press performance.

‘AMERICAN SON’: Kerry Washington & Steven Pasquale. Photo: Peter Cunningham

‘AMERICAN SON’: (left to right) Kerry Washington, Steven Pasquale & Eugene Lee. Photo: Peter Cunningham.

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‘JUNK’: Matthew Rauch & Steven Pasquale. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

JUNK
By Ayad Akhtar
Directed by Doug Hughes
Lincoln Center Theater at the Vivian Beaumont
50 Lincoln Center Plaza
212-362-7200, www.lct.org

By Scott Harrah

The maxim “truth is stranger than fiction” certainly applies to fact-based dramas chronicling the greed, glory and guile of the financial world like The Big Short and The Wolf of Wall Street and the British stage bio-drama Enron. Junk, playwright Ayad Akhtar’s often riveting, unusual follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize-winning Disgraced, is a fictionalized composite of such real-life Wall Street devils as Michael Millken and Ivan Boesky. It has all the elements of a bona fide blockbuster about the go-go 1980s, complete with high-tech sets by John Lee Beatty.

Steven Pasquale plays Robert Merkin (loosely based on Michael Millken), the mastermind behind a Los Angeles-based investment firm that specializes in hostile takeovers circa 1985. Mr. Merkin gets a lot of media attention for claiming that debt payments can be somehow transformed into big bucks. Much of the story centers on Merkin’s company working on a Pennsylvania company, Everson Steel, a family business run by CEO Thomas Everson, Jr. (Rick Holmes).

A cast of unsavory characters add intrigue to the fast-paced but all-too-familiar action, from corporate shark Israel Peterman (Matthew Rauch) to investors Leo Tesler (Michael Siberry) and Murry Lefkowitz (Ethan Phillips), Jacqueline Blount (Ito Aghayere) as a mole planted at Everson Steel, ruthless young journalist Judy Chen (Teresa Avia Lim), and Joey Slotnick as Boris Pronsky, an arbitrageur who profits from manipulating price inefficiencies in financial markets. As confusing as corporate finance can be to the layperson, Mr. Akhtar makes everything unfold seamlessly as if it were a fun escapist Hollywood movie.

John Lee Beatty’s clever sets (featuring flashing numbers and lit-up compartments on stage that may remind some of TV’s “Hollywood Squares”) move the story around brilliantly from Los Angeles to New York to Allegheny, Pennsylvania.

Most of the cast of 23 each give solid performances, but Junk is a far cry from Disgraced,  Mr. Akhtar’s play about Islamophobia and a dinner party gone horribly wrong. That show was the winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for drama, with an acclaimed Broadway run in 2014. Director Doug Hughes deserves credit for keeping Junk moving at a wonderfully fluid pace, but with so many characters and subplots, the story might have been more focused and powerful with minor trimming of the narrative fat.

As Robert Merkin, Steven Pasquale lacks the sense of Machiavellian menace necessary to truly make the character effective, and this is unfortunate since the whole play is basically his story. Junk is, without question, an entertaining epic about the excesses of the 1980s but it curiously has nothing new or insightful to say about an era when junk bonds and insider trading wreaked havoc in America.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published November 6, 2017
Reviewed at November 5, 2017 press performance.

‘JUNK’: Teresa Avia Lim & Michael Siberry. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

‘JUNK’: Steven Pasquale. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

‘JUNK’: Ito Aghayere & Matthew Saldivar. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

‘JUNK’: Henry Stram (standing) & Rick Holmes (seated). Photo: T. Charles Erickson

‘JUNK’: The company. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

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INTIMATE MOMENT: Kelli O’Hara & Steven Pasquale. Photo: Joan Marcus

THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY
Book by Marsha Norman
Music & lyrics by Jason Robert Brown
Based on the novel by Robert James Walker
Directed by Bartlett Sher
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre
236 West 45th Street
(212-239-6200), www.BridgesOfMadisonCountyMusical.com

By David NouNou

The score by Jason Robert Brown is lush; Kelli O’Hara is perfection and gives her best performance to date; and Steven Pasquale is a handsome leading man with an exquisite voice. The Bridges of Madison County, whether as a novel, a gloriously filmed movie, or now in its current incarnation as a musical, is essentially a delicate, two-character piece with some background people who happen to be Francesca’s (Ms. O’Hara’s) family, friends and neighbors. However, in Marsha Norman’s tedious and lackluster book, these extemporaneous people now seem more as annoying fillers and pad the show up to two hours and 45 minutes. Way too long for such an intimate musical.

Basically the plot is Francesca, an Italian war bride, came to America and settled down on an Iowa farm and has raised two teenage children. Married for over 18 years, she fulfills her obligations as a dutiful wife. On a particular weekend in 1965 when her family is off to the Indiana state fair, and Francesca stays behind, Robert Kincaid, (Mr. Pasquale) on an assignment to take pictures of the famed Madison County Bridges for National Geographic, gets lost and ends up in Francesca’s driveway for directions. What starts as an innocent flirtation ends in a life-altering love affair. It is Francesca’s dilemma to either follow her heart to live and love the man who brings her back to life, or stay behind to fulfill her obligations as a mother and wife.

Ms. O’Hara’s Francesca is incandescent and by far the best performance of her productive career. She makes Francesca a three-dimensional character with a heart, a soul, charisma, and a voice that is heavenly. Mr. Pasquale matches Ms. O’Hara’s splendid tonal quality, is certainly charming and plausible as to why Francesca would fall for him. He is a bit young for the part, and comes across more as a hunky gas-pump jockey, rather than as a grizzled photographer for National Geographic.

Now comes Ms. Norman’s book, a throwback to 50s and 60s musicals but without the fun, structure or characters. In the old days musicals were almost three hours long. With today’s short attention span, you don’t prolong a show with scenes full of fillers; certainly a good half hour could have easily been cut off this one. She derived a scene from Evita; just as Francesca and Robert are finding each other, she inserts Robert’s wife Miriam across the stage from them with the song “Another Life,” reminiscent of Che’s mistress singing “Another Suitcase in Another Hall.” The beginning of Act II and the finale are even more blatant. Act II starts with a hoedown “State Road 21/The Real World” as did Oklahoma in the song “The Farmer and The Cowman” but not as exhilarating; and the finale, “Always Better,”  is ripped out off Carousel’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

What is most perplexing here is the direction of Bartlett Sher. He is a great director; just to mention the revivals in this case (South Pacific, Golden Boy, Awake and Sing) and is a very keen editor. Had Madison County been a 50s or 60s revival, I can see where he would have kept it intact, but this is an original musical that lacked any originality and his editing skills were desperately needed. Mr. Sher is a clean director and always manages to trim the fat to make the show run as smoothly as possible. Wow, was this show full of gristle.

Scene changes as well are supposed to be as seamless and unobtrusive as possible. However, everything from the kitchen sink, to the dining table, and the bed are all rolled on and off stage by actors in the show and not at the most appropriate of times. Worst of all, every time you see the bridges, they are wheeled out as fences by the actors and positioned to represent these majestic bridges that thousands of visitors come to see annually. I don’t know who is to be blamed more: the scenic designer, Michael Yeargan, for not coming up with some exquisite idea and images of the bridges or Mr. Sher for okaying these cheesy sets that cheapen the show in the worst possible manner.

The show is far from perfect, but does have three important elements to be savored: the never-been-better Kelli O’Hara, an equally admirable Steven Pasquale, and a rhapsodic score by Jason Robert Brown.
The Bridges of Madison County – 4 Tony Nominations, including Best Musical Actress – Kelli O’Hara, BEST SCORE- ROBERT JASON BROWN, Best Lighting Design, BEST ORCHESTRATION – ROBERT JASON BROWN.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published February 28, 2014
Reviewed at press performance on February 27, 2014

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