Weekend in NYC--Part Two!

Although the rest of our weekend in NYC pales next to the excitement surrounding Spring Awakening, in true CB fashion, we managed to see four plays over the two days we were in town. On Saturday afternoon, we went right from the bus at Port Authority to Playwrights Horizon, a cool small theatre just slightly outside of Times Square. After a liquid lunch of Cosmos (hey, we have to celebrate being in the city!), we saw a new musical, Saved. It was pretty good, and definitely has potential. The cast is strong, the choreography is fun, and a couple of the musical numbers were great. We found the lyrics to be pretty pedestrian and predictable, as was the plot (based on the 2004 movie), but we still enjoyed ourselves. One of the things the CBs love to do is to chat up the people around us wherever we are. On this afternoon, we were lucky enough to sit next to a handsome young man who had graduated from a drama program in Michigan in the fall and is trying to make it as an actor. He has been cast as an understudy for a new Broadway revival of Godspell. We will be following what we hope is a long career for him!

Saturday night we took the subway out to Brooklyn to see Samuel Beckett's Endgame at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). It was quite the happening place, as the show has received rave reviews and it closed this weekend. We soon saw why the reviews were so great--from the minute he set foot on stage in the role of Clov, the young actor Max Casella owned the stage. It's a complicated, repetitive role, and Casella never once missed a beat--he embodied Clov with an incredible, consistent physicality that was truly mesmerizing. The rest of the cast was equally as good, and it was a wonderful night of theatre.

Sunday afternoon, we had tickets to the new revival of Caryl Churchill's 1982 play, Top Girls. It has an amazing cast of powerful female actors, and we were really looking forward to this one. We were, however, disappointed. We found it dated, rather obvious, and a little dull (and long--clocking in at three+ hours). This is one we would not recommend. All in all, though, another outstanding weekend of theatre in NYC--we look forward to our longer trip in June!