August: Osage County

The Weinstein Co. to Hit Broadway With Stage Versions of ‘Finding Neverland,’ Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’

HollywoodChicago.com — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 13:18:54 -0700

CHICAGO – Brothers Harvey Weinstein and Bob Weinstein of The Weinstein Company are becoming just as big on Broadway as they have been in the movies.

Harvey Weinstein (left) and Bob Weinstein (right) of The Weinstein Company.
Photo credits: Harvey Weinstein image (source) and Bob Weinstein image (source)

The Weinstein Co., which is a minority producer in the Tony Award-winning revival “Boeing Boeing” and the Steppenwolf Theatre’s Tony Award-winning “August: Osage County,” recently announced the production of numerous stage projects. They’ll begin with a stage version of the film “Finding Neverland” followed by a work based off Pink Floyd’s seminal album “The Wall”.

Further down the line are musicals based off the Miramax pictures “Shakespeare in Love,” “Chocolat,” “Cinema Paradiso” and “Shall We Dance”.

The Weinsteins first got their taste for live theatre when they helped produce Tom Stoppard’s 2000 revival of “The Real Thing” and the following year on Mel Brooks’ “The Producers”. Up until now, the brothers have played low-key rolls in the creative process, but the newly announced productions will feature The Weinstein Co. at the helm of each.

The Weinstein Co. has also announced a major rehaul on its Miramax TV division, which aside from “Project Greenlight” and “Project Runway” hasn’t been as successful as its film and stage ventures.

New shows include “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” for HBO, “Models of the Runway” (a “Project Runway” spinoff for Lifetime) and a sitcom based on the 2007 movie “The Nanny Diaries”. Also in the works include the eco-friendly series “Lovecraft” and a new take on the 1980s franchise “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”.

By DUSTIN LEVELL
Senior Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
dustin@hollywoodchicago.com

Chicago’s ‘Relatively Close’ is Concrete Proof That Death is Easy, Comedy is Hard

HollywoodChicago.com — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:30:51 -0700

CHICAGO – Forget the Year of the Rat. This is the year of the dysfunctional family reunion.

With Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “August: Osage County,” the Broadway remounting of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and the Tony-sweeping revival of “Gypsy,” 2008 has been saturated with some of the finest performances of relational drama that theatre has seen in years.

Rating: 2.0/5.0

Now comes “Relatively Close,” which is a new work by Chicago playwright James Sherman that has just as great of aspirations as the previous three yet is too convoluted to achieve any of them.

The show, which is a Victory Gardens co-world premiere with Illinois State University, tells the story of the Levy sisters from Chicago. They are three women who set out (with bitter spouses in tow) to the Michigan lake house of their recently deceased parents to settle the affairs of the estate.

From left: Dexter Zollicoffer plays Arthur, Usman Ally is Yousef, Laura T. Fisher plays Beth and Penny Slusher is Jan in Chicago playwright James Sherman’s newest family comedy “Relatively Close”.
Photo credit: Liz Lauren

We are told (but never shown) that the sisters are radically different from each another despite having supposedly been close in their youth. This proves to be the first pitfall in Sherman’s script.

The eldest sister, Jan, represents your typical money-hungry, pompous and greedy Republican. She’s running for alderman of the 46th Ward. This is a character development that clearly proved to Sherman that his script should be replete with cliché “Chicago-is-a-dirty-politics-city” jokes.

Jan’s husband, Yousef, is unfortunately about as identical to Jan as Mary-Kate Olsen is to Ashley Olsen. Next we have the middle sister, Beth, who’s a promiscuous librarian who has had more husbands than Elizabeth Taylor. The youngest sister, Marlene, is by far the most enjoyably nuanced character to watch.

From left: Wendi Weber is Marlene, Penny Slusher plays Jan and Laura T. Fisher plays Beth in “Relatively Close”.
Photo credit: Liz Lauren

Renting her body as host to almost every psychotic drug on the market, Marlene is a lovable albeit socially inept and precocious young woman. She even goes so far as to use a puppet – Lucy the Slut (wait, I mean Lilly) – as a means to become acquainted with new faces.

The plot’s central conflict revolves around the sisters’ inability to decide on a fate for their not-always-beloved lake house. Focused on the monetary value, Jan wants to sell it and horde the commission.

Beth yearns to turn it into an artist colony (though we are never told why) and Marlene – overwhelmed by its sentimental value – wants it to stay in the family.

After this somewhat ambiguous and underdeveloped central plot point gets established, the next two hours of the show run amok with stereotypical sisterly grudges, paper-thin jokes and inter-family affairs. Even the setup of the family is formulaic: a Jewish family who spends more time in therapy than it does at Shabbat dinner. Woody Allen made that work with wit.

Unfortunately, Sherman chooses to spend more of his time on hackneyed jokes than on plot and character development. That’s a shame, too, because the issue of siblings dealing with a parent’s death and leftover affairs has the potential to lead to great storytelling.

From left: Wendi Weber plays Marlene, Laura T. Fisher is Beth, Daniel Cantor plays Ron, Dexter Zollicoffer is Arthur, Penny Slusher plays Jan and Usman Ally porrays Yousef in “Relatively Close”.
Photo credit: Liz Lauren

The biggest issue with the script – aside from Sherman’s seemingly never-ending supply of stock characters – is its jokes. That’s a problem because it’s supposed to be a comedy. With typical “white-guy-trying-to-be-black” lines, jeers at “Brokeback Mountain” and jabs at Yiddish grandmothers, all of the jokes almost seem to be taken from a recent “Saturday Night Live” episode.

Beth’s husband (an African-American scholar) at one point tells Marlene’s adulterous spouse: “I’m black enough to kick your ass!” Lines like these were not only flat but they were uncomfortable.

In addition to Marlene’s husband (Ron), Beth’s teenage son (Dylan) is another character of a “white guy trying to be black”. When not frequently bustin’ out with the latest Kanye West lyrics, he is whining his emo way through the lack of Internet access and iPod accommodations at the cabin.

These are the type of punch lines and characters that would ring true to a community theatre audience rather than a Chicago theatre audience.

However, despite Sherman’s struggling book, the actors give more-than-admirable performances. Wendi Weber valiantly stands out as Marlene: the cute and awkward ventriloquist sister. Though having much more to work with than her co-stars, Weber portrays Marlene with the proper and endearing idiosyncrasies her character necessitates.

She is a breath of fresh air to the piece, and even when dealing with sometimes mechanical scenes, she knocks every line out of the ballpark. Dennis Zacek’s directing and John Stark’s set design are also commendable. They both work in tight harmony to evoke a natural feel and setting that serve as a perfect vessel through which the Levy family dismantles.

Ultimately, however, the “Relatively Close” strong points can’t overcome its floundering writing. As much as I would like to, this is one family vacation on which I would rather not embark.

“Relatively Close” runs every day of the week except for Mondays at various times through July 13, 2008 at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theatre at 2433 N Lincoln Ave. in Chicago. For tickets or more information, visit here or call 773-871-3000.

For a complete listing of all shows and reviews in Chicago, visit our partner TheatreInChicago.com. For half-price Chicago theater tickets, visit our partner Goldstar.

By ALISSA NORBY
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
alissa@hollywoodchicago.com

Chicago’s ‘August: Osage County’ Shines at Tony Awards; ‘Cowboys & Aliens’ Gets Green Light

HollywoodChicago.com — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 10:56:01 -0700

CHICAGO – The 62nd-annual Tony Awards, which were held on Sunday night, reflect a diverse but weak year for original theatre. Revivals bested originals nine to two.

Taking home the most awards that night with seven was Bartlett Sher’s revival of the Oscar Hammerstein classic “South Pacific”. The original musical “In the Heights” and the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “August: Osage County” got three and four awards respectively.

“August: Osage County” got its start at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. Company member Rondi Reed took home the Tony for best actress in a play.

Though the Tony Awards were one night celebrating American theatre, sources point to the stagehand strike and a lack of runaway hits like “Spring Awakening” or “Jersey Boys” this year as the foundation for Broadway failing to set new box-office records as it has done the past three years. The full list of the 2008 Tony Awards follows.

Book (musical): “Passing Strange” (Stew)
Original score (music and/or lyrics): “In the Heights” (music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda)
Revival (play): “Boeing-Boeing”
Revival (musical): “South Pacific”
Actor (play): Mark Rylance, “Boeing-Boeing”
Actress (play): Deanna Dunagan, “August: Osage County”
Actor (musical): Paulo Szot, “South Pacific”
Actress (musical): Patti LuPone, “Gypsy”
Featured actor (play): Jim Norton, “The Seafarer”
Featured actress (play): Rondi Reed, “August: Osage County”
Featured actor (musical): Boyd Gaines, “Gypsy”
Featured actress (musical): Laura Benanti, “Gypsy”
Direction (play): Anna D. Shapiro, “August: Osage County”
Direction (musical): Bartlett Sher, “South Pacific”
Choreography: Andy Blankenbuehler, “In the Heights”
Orchestrations: Alex Lacamoire and Bill Sherman, “In the Heights”
Scenic design (play): Todd Rosenthal, “August: Osage County”
Scenic design (musical): Michael Yeargen, “South Pacific”
Costume design (play): Katrina Lindsay, “Les Liaisons Dangereuses”
Costume design (musical): Catherine Zuber, “South Pacific”
Lighting design (play): Kevin Adams, “The 39 Steps”
Lighting design (musical): Donald Holder, “South Pacific”
Sound design (play): Mic Pool, “The 39 Steps”
Sound design (musical): Scott Lehrer, “South Pacific”

Previously Announced:
Regional Theater Tony Award: Chicago Shakespeare Theater
Special Tony Award: Robert Russell Bennett
Lifetime Achievement Award: Stephen Sondheim

In other news, the graphic novel “Cowboys & Aliens” is coming to the big screen. Robert Downey Jr. is currently in talks for the starring role as a former Union Army gunslinger named Zeke Jackson. Even though the comic book has only been out a few years, the film has been in development for the last decade.

The comic cover for “Cowboys & Aliens”.
Image credit: Platinum Studios Comics

The latest draft of the screenplay was written by Hawk Ostby and Mark Fergus (“Iron Man,” “Children of Men”). DreamWorks and Universal are currently seeking a 2010 release for the film. The story conceived by Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley follows the adventures of Old West settlers, Native Americans and – of course – aliens from space.

Finally, the big green brought the green into the movie theaters this weekend. “The Incredible Hulk” took the No. 1 spot at the box office with Jack Black’s “Kung Fu Panda” coming in second. M. Night Shamalyan’s “The Happening” performed better than expected.

Weekend Box-Office Estimates:
1) “The Incredible Hulk”: $54.5 million (gross), $54.5 million (cume)
2) “Kung Fu Panda”: $34.3 million (gross), $118.0 million (cume)
3) “The Happening”: $30.5 million (cume), $30.5 million (cume)
4) “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan”: $16.4 million (gross), $68.8 million (cume)
5) “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”: $13.5 million (gross), $275.3 million (cume)

By DUSTIN LEVELL
Senior Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
dustin@hollywoodchicago.com