Christmas 2007, day 2

Matinee: Make Me a Song, the delightful new William Finn revue imported (with one cast change) from Hartford. (Alas, this closed on New Year's Eve, but apparently the CD, recorded live in early December, is coming out soon.) Anyway, the four gifted performers were all well-suited to the material: nice voices, clear words (despite frustrating sound design in the tiny theater), engaged presence. I liked Sally Wilfert most (she was especially moving in "Any Time," in which she invested so deeply that she could barely get out the last few quiet lines), but all were solid. I was also glad to collect three Finn songs I'd never heard before: "You're Even Better Than You Think You Are," "I Went Fishing with My Dad" and "Song of Innocence and Experience." I hope they all make the CD! (The show ran close to 90 minutes, so I assume there will be a few casualties.)

Evening: The Glorious Ones at the Mitzi Newhouse. I love this little space (I treasure memories of a superb revival of The Time of the Cuckoo, with Debra Monk at her best, and the original production of Elegies: A Song Cycle) there. So I'm sorry to report that this was a disappointment. The premise -- watch a commedia dell'arte troupe onstage and off-, and witness the Birth Of Comedy -- is interesting but ultimately unwieldy, especially since the actual "performances" we see the troupe do are pretty boring. (John Kassir pulls off some virtuoso business on his own, but otherwise, snoozeville.) The score is typical Flaherty & Ahrens -- some absolutely lovely pieces, with pretty music and skillful lyrics ("Absalom" and "Opposite You" in particular), alongside a good amount of blandly professional writing. I'll buy the CD, and I liked Marc Kudisch and Erin Davie, but this didn't gel, alas. (Maybe it's time for F&A to get a sharper director than Graciela Daniele?)