Good theater day for me and the Missus in the Big Town.
* “The Best Man” at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre.
For once, an all-star cast (Angela Lansbury, James Earl Jones, Candice Bergen, John Larroquette, Eric McCormack) lives up to its billing. This pitch-perfect production of Gore Vidal’s 1960 script actually delivers on its promise, with John Larroquette submitting a terrific performance and James Earl Jones absolutely riveting in a turn that’s sure to win him a Tony.
The staging was excellent and the cast (we love you, Angela Lansbury) even more so.
“The Best Man” is likely the best Broadway show of the season.
* “Tribes” at the Barrow Street Theatre.
At the other end of the theatrical spectrum, Nina Raines’s new play “Tribes” is an intimate, theater-in-the-round production that packs an incredible punch. As the Barrow Street Theatre notes describe it:
“Billy was born deaf into a hearing family, and raised inside the fiercely idiosyncratic and unrepentantly politically incorrect cocoon of his parents’ house. He has adapted brilliantly to his family’s unconventional ways, but they’ve never bothered to return the favor. It’s not until he meets Sylvia, a young woman on the brink of deafness, that he finally understands what it means to be understood.”
Yes, but it’s oh so much more compelling than that.
A brilliant production that should not be missed.
