Theater week

Two reviews, and two or three observations this time. From the pixels of Live Design, Howard Katz at the Roundabout's Laura Pels. And Journey's End at the Belasco.

[Not to digress, but in the real world a disgraced London agent like Howard Katz would write a scandalous tell-all book about his talentless talent list and from there would become an E! Channel correspondent. But this is London and Off Broadway theater and not the real world.]

The powerfully affecting Journey's End was part of a three-show "theater tour" we arranged for my in-laws. Their last stop on their journey was Chicago, which now features the former Velma, Bebe Neuwirth, kicking up a fuss as Roxie. I didn't see her, though; I still get the hives thinking of a Newsweek.com interview I conducted with the performer, who lived down to her reputation as difficult. I wince when her mug turns up on episodes of Cheers, and, anyway, I'd seen Chicago three times before, once in Las Vegas, with the ageless and graceful Chita Rivera as Velma. But Neuwirth did not disappoint audiences as she once did this interviewer.

Our first port of call was the Majestic, where Howard McGillin, who I saw in several musicals in the 1980s, has taken up permanent residence as The Phantom of the Opera. McGillin has long since surpassed Michael Crawford for total number of performances in the role and no one, least of all the tourists who inexplicably queue to take their already assigned seats, was disappointed by his room-shaking rendition of the score's standards. Musical theater buffs tend to grit their teeth at mere mention of Phantom and the British invasion of musicals in the 80's and 90's, but there's a reason the longest-running-ever-show-on-Broadway emerged as the top-grossing entertainment property of the entire 20th century, with $3 billion and counting in the till: It's good, an unabashedly heart-on-its-sleeve show from the big hair decade. Bursting with grand emotions, with an opulent but never off-putting design to match, the two-and-a-half hours fly by and you surrender to the Grand Guignol frippery, much as Christine succumbs to the music of the night. I have to say I prefer the maligned 2004 movie, which has a weak Phantom but irons out some of the bumps in the woozy plotline and moves the chandelier fall to the climax, where it works better. But Phantom phans would have it no other way, and probably missed some of the sillier bits wisely dropped from the movie, like the Phantom's flame-spitting walking stick. I'm sure the phaithful at least will turn out for Andrew Lloyd Webber's just-announced and dubious-sounding sequel, The Phantom of Manhattan, for which a custom-built theater could be built around the monumental McGillin.

"Monumental" is the word for Tom Stoppard's Russian triptych The Coast of Utopia. My journey ended with the third part, Salvage, last Wednesday night. Alas, the trip was fitful, and very much a case of diminishing returns--the first part, Voyage, was excellent, with an unexpected, career-best performance from Ethan Hawke as the most spendthrift of its turbulent true-life intellectuals, and a gallery of fine performances from the likes of Billy Crudup, Amy Irving, and Martha Plimpton. The second part, Shipwreck, took on water, with the greater prominence given to Brian F. O'Byrne, as the world-weary soul of the piece, Alexander Herzen. Normally an interesting actor, O'Byrne gave a detached and less-than-gripping performance, whether by inclination, or misdirection from Stoppard and director Jack O'Brien, I can't say.

Salvage is all Herzen all the time, and seriously dull. The Gollum-like appearance of Henry Kissinger, who creeped by me at intermission, was all that spiced the evening for me. It may not have helped that I saw the first two parts on a single weekend back in January, and that I had somewhat lost the thread since then, but nothing seemed to work: save for the saving graces of Plimpton and Hawke the other actors I had come to enjoy were underused, the sound was muffled, and the design unappealing. And the ending, anticipating the horrors of the 20th century, could not have been more trite--a character announces "A storm is coming!," as the light focuses on a backdrop of roiling waves. Stop the presses, Mr. Stoppard. If you hear reports of audiences rising up in rebellion and taking to the streets near Lincoln Center after marathon viewings of all three parts of The Coast of Utopia, you'll know where the fault lies.