Why you should Follow Me to Nellie's

I admit it. You may have seen me entering a house of ill repute last night. This house is run by a very respectable lady. The girls are beautiful, a little troubled, but beautiful, and so is the setting which transports its guests across time and space. It’s a fine old house for an age-old profession. But there is something decidedly new afoot, which accounts for all the drama.

By the way, I went with my wife and two of our closest friends.

Follow Me to Nellie’s is the first full production of the new theatrical year at Premiere Stages in Kean University. For me, it furthered the theme introduced just last month by the staged reading of Egyptian Song. In both plays, song expresses the yearning of the spirit for something more.

Na Rose, the blues singer in Follow Me to Nellie’s, says it this way: “In my stomach. In my heart. Like it’s gonna burst with some kinda longin’…I just feel… full. Overflowin with want. Like I’m dreamin somethin that may never come…”

The year is 1955; the place is Natchez, Mississippi – the deep south – all of the historical factors we know so well are at play. A new arrival in the city, with plans for change, triggers events. His arrival occasions a view for us of a world in which the madam's understanding of the social fabric is as intricate as the patterns we see in the oriental rugs on her floor, as detailed as the carpentry work the set designer has so carefully achieved.

But everything's about to change, or is it?

Written by Dominique Morriseau and directed by John Wooten, the play stars a cast of eight.

Lynda Gravatt reins as the indomitable madam, Nellie.

Kelly McReary brings her impressive charm and her voice to the part of Na Rose.

Warner Miller returns after his Premiere Stages starring role in Lost Boy Found in Whole Foods with another commanding performance.

Harold Surratt, just off a run in Cormac McCarthy's Sunset Limited, shows wisdom and measure as Rollo.

Adam Couperthwaite gives us enough vulnerability to make his character dimensional and convincing.

The three ladies of the night -- Michelle Wilson, Ley Smith and Nyahale Allie -- present like the Three Graces of Greek Mythology, effectively displaying their differences, like a personality study.

Sometimes a script throws down a role where the complexity offers singular potential; Ms. Allie picks up this baton and runs with it.

There are 8 more performances of Follow Me to Nellie's through July 31: 8:00PM Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and 3:00PM Sundays.
Box office: 908-737-7469 www.kean.edu/premierestages

Horrible Bosses

Since I’m a boss myself, I went to Horrible Bosses expecting from it a how-to manual. But, no… it’s some kind of comedy. People in the audience were laughing -- not taking it seriously at all -- and some of them I happen to know are bosses themselves.

There is a bit of dead space before things get going, but once they do, they take off.

This is also one of those films that make you feel that everyone is in it. Donald Sutherland, Kevin Spacey, Collin Farrell, Jimmy Foxx, Jennifer Aniston plus some other surprises, not to mention the three leads – Charlie Day and the two Jasons – Sudeikas and Bateman.

My only fear is that my male employees, when comparing me to Jennifer Aniston and all she has to offer, will conclude that I am a horrible boss indeed!

Midnight in Paris

I don't think I can be objective about Midnight in Paris. In my early twenties I made Paris my home for two years because like the Owen Wilson character in this film I felt sure that this is what aspiring writers did. Every street he wanders down is familiar to me as it fills the screen, and like him, it will come as no surprise to those of you who know me, I got repeatedly lost and repeatedly made discoveries I'll never forget.

I went to this movie with my wife and two daughters, and the action on the screen in some crazy way made me feel as if I was sharing a part of my life that took place before I knew them. This, of course, totally synchs with the temporal transports at the heart of the film.

It also made me file away for future thinking the observation that who accompanies you, like where you see it, can be a factor in the experience of "seeing a movie."

On the way home, I resolved to dust off my copy of Janet Flanner's "Paris Was Yesterday," a book of her dispatches written for The New Yorker in the 1920's. I also reflected on Mme. Tussaud's wax museum, which I felt had just seen animated by the movie, and where, by the way, the figure of Woody Allen is one of the most life-like.

With this film, Woody Allen finds his own animation in Owen Wilson. Allen films divide neatly into those in which he acts and those in which he doesn't. At moments in Midnight in Paris, Wilson delivers his own brand of the well-known frenetic combination of enthusiasm and exasperation that characterizes Allen as actor.

We glimpse a possible relationship between director and actor like the one between Truffaut and Jean-Pierre Leaud, his favorite actor, except here it manifests in outbursts instead of in the subtle build of a French film, which makes perfect sense for an Allen impersonation.

Not as ground-breaking as Annie Hall, not as profound as Crimes and Misdemeanors, not as layered as Hannah and Her Sisters or Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but nevertheless, Midnight in Paris takes its place as a new Woody Allen classic with a message about living in the past and living in the present which we all experience.

Egyptian Song at Kean University

With the Arab Spring in the air and everywhere on the news, the timing could not be better for Egyptian Song, the spare, eloquent play that opened this year’s season at Premiere Stages. Never mind that the setting is the 1920’s, the debate remains the same today.

James Christy’s script has two actors who play all the parts, including the central characters, a brother and sister – twins – in a small village in Egypt. The transitions are handled beautifully by Miriam Habib and Govind Kumar, all through secondary expressions – changes in intonation, accent, posture, a limp – you never wonder who’s speaking – mother, daughter, uncle, father, shop-worker, friend, friend’s mother. Because the story is told with so few elements, the entire production takes on a poetic cast.

And then there’s the song – or rather, the gift of song -- which the sister possesses.

There is virtually no singing in this production, but song is central to the action.

The sister’s gift is something exceptional, something stirring, with the power to move the spirit beyond the usual confines. It is the voice of yearning – appealing, magnetic, inspiring – with the power to lead to unexpected outcomes.

Premiere Stages follows this staged reading with the opening of its full-fledged production of Follow Me to Nellie’s July 14 – 31 at Kean University in Union, New Jersey.