| CARMEN JONES Tonight | |
| Last Edit: sergius 12:09 am EDT 06/24/18 | |
| Posted by: sergius 12:08 am EDT 06/24/18 | |
|
|
|
| Maybe the best singing to be heard on a NY stage at this moment. There hasn't been a major revival of CARMEN JONES in NY since it premiered on Broadway 75 years ago, but it's hard to imagine how it could be better performed than it is here. Based on Bizet's CARMEN, Hammerstein gave the melodrama an African-American setting during World War II which must have been an especially unusual, daring even, choice at the time. The show resides surprisingly comfortably in the infrequently visited middle ground between opera and traditional musical theatre, and the storytelling is crisp and fleet. I don't know how much of this is original and how much is Doyle's transcription, but the show is altogether so good you wonder why it's taken this long to have another look at it. You could quibble with a few things--the sound, clearly a challenge in CSC's space, isn't perfect and the momentum occasionally ebbs--but, by and large, the production is stunning and this has mostly to do with the performers who are all just top tier superb. There isn't much choreography but Bill T. Jones has contributed a wonderful sequence that is subtle yet deeply soulful. I don't know what might be ahead for this production, but it deserves a wider audience if it's possible. Doyle's "essentialist" staging works very well here though a proscenium staging with this cast would likely be equally, though differently, effective. If you live in NY and you love the theatre, this is the kind of evening that makes you feel really lucky. | |
| reply | |
|
|
|
| Previous: | Choreographer Gillian Lynne has West End theatre named after her - MockingbirdGirl 08:31 am EDT 06/24/18 |
| Next: | re: CARMEN JONES Tonight - seating advice - gothamplaygoer 04:50 pm EDT 06/24/18 |
| Thread: |
|
Time to render: 0.043850 seconds.