Another busy week: "Exits and Entrances," "All the Wrong Reasons," and "LoveMusik"

This has been one long week.

On Tuesday, I went to the Met (museum) with Ryan, who was an excellent tour guide. We saw the new exhibition, Barcelona and Modernity: Gaudi to Dali. It was quite cool. I hadn't known much about Joan Miro, and the exhibit introduced me to him.

That night, since I was already on the Upper East Side, I decided to go to 59E59 Theaters to see the new play by Athol Fugard, Exits and Entrances. I hadn't been familiar with Fugard, besides for knowing that he wrote the play "MASTER HAROLD"...and the boys. Having read the favorable reviews of this latest offering, I bought a copy of the play and read it and enjoyed it. Seeing it live was even better.

The play stars William Dennis Hurley as the Playwright, a character modeled after Fugard in his early years. The Playwright, a South African with dreams of an integrated South African theatre, befriends aging actor Andre Huguenot, played with great skill by Morlan Higgins, whose career is coming to an end just as his is skyrocketing. The play's subject matter -- the older mentor and his youthful charge -- is familiar, but the treatment is sensitive and well-written, at times quite poetic. It's definitely worth checking out, especially for those considering a career in theatre.

On Wednesday, I went to see John Fugelsang's one-man show All the Wrong Reasons at NYTW. I had no idea what to expect going into it. At first, his personality struck me as grating, but I got used to him over the course of the show and ultimately found much of what he said quite funny. The show's narrative also took quite a few unexpected turns that made the evening more interesting. He talked mostly about religion, politics, and his family, creating a pretty compelling portrait of his parents and their decision to turn away from their vows of celibacy to have him. It's not something I'd run out to see if I had to pay for it, but I enjoyed it considering I got a comp ticket.

Thursday was my most interesting evening of theatregoing this week. When a new Hal Prince show comes to Broadway, it's an event. The man, who has produced and directed more than a dozen landmark shows (a good number of original productions of Sondheim musicals, Evita, The Phantom of the Opera, Cabaret, and more), is a legend, having won a record-breaking 21 Tony Awards for directing and producing and in special categories (the Lifetime Achievement Award last year, for example). LoveMusik at Manhattan Theatre Club is his latest project as director.

The team assembled for the project is extraordinary: Hal Prince, book writer Alfred Uhry (Driving Miss Daisy, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Parade), and stars Michael Cerveris and Donna Murphy.

The show focuses on the life of composer Kurt Weill (Cerveris) -- most famous for composing "Mack the Knife" and The Threepenny Opera -- and his wife, actress Lotte Lenya (Murphy), detailing their life together and their complicated relationship, as well as the highs and lows of their careers. It's technically a "jukebox musical," using Weill's songs to tell the story despite the fact that jukeboxes weren't really around (I don't think) when Weill's music was written.

The scenery (by Beowulf Boritt) is particularly imaginative and works well with the sylistic staging of Prince, who ventures to tell the tale of Weill, a frequent collaborator of Bertolt Brecht's, in a style similar to how Brecht's works are often presented, using a proscenium within a proscenium to alienate the audience from the proceedings and utilizing a variety of methods of visual storytelling to change things up a bit. As the piece moves along and the couple move to America, the piece becomes more and more "mainstream," turning away from the odd style of Brecht's works toward a more classic Broadway style.

The cast does an excellent job. Cerveris is wonderful as Weill, though Donna Murphy absolutely steals the show as Lenya. It's a role unlike any other she's played, and she may just give Christine Ebersole a run for her money in the race for Best Actress this year.

As for what needed to be fixed, the biggest thing is that the show needs some tightening. Last night was only the first preview, so the show started late and the intermission ran long. That's not out of the ordinary for a first preview, but other than that there were a few too many songs, some of which didn't really move the plot forward and probably could have been excised. The book was, for the most part, very smart and effective. The sound quality also varied through the evening.

It was an evening of ups and downs. Overall, though, for a first preview, I think LoveMusik is going to be an absolute artistic success. It remains to be seen whether audience will really catch on (I doubt it), but it definitely deserves to be seen, probably even more so in a few weeks, when the show is a little bit tighter. I'm thinking of revisiting it before I go home for the summer to see how the show will change between now and when it's frozen.

Anyway, as I said, it's been a busy week. I'm looking forward to relaxing some this weekend.