Peter Pan for Adults
Tina Landau, a winner of the Princess Grace Foundation's highest honor in 1999, is currently directing the suspenseful play "Mary Rose," now at the Obie Award-winning Vineyard Theater. Ms. Landau has helped to assemble a remarkable ensemble cast of established and emerging talent. The superb design team is one of the most elegant to be seen off-Broadway. They succeed in flawlessly using lighting, sets, costumes, wigs and makeup to transport the audience on a journey that spans over a half-century.
Landau's "Mary Rose" is the first major American revival of J.M. Barrie's astonishing romantic drama. The work is a lyrical, funny, and stirring story of a girl who disappears only to return mysteriously with no memory of time passed, setting off a heartbreaking and thrilling story of love, loss, and ghosts—all spun by the same man who created Peter Pan nearly 100 years ago. First performed in 1920, this delicate and haunting play became a major obsession and inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock, and has not been seen in New York for more than 50 years. In her director's notes in the program, Ms. Landau writes: "'Mary Rose' was written relatively late in J.M. Barrie's life, and many critics consider it an 'autumnal' version of his beloved classic, 'Peter Pan.' Certainly the two works share much in common: fantasy, whimsy, the theme of childhood innocence, the imagery of a magical island.
"But 'Mary Rose' reflects a full lifetime's worth of its author's personal experiences—and losses. More than just a ghost story or a drawing room comedy (both of which it also is), 'Mary Rose' is a reflection on our inability to grasp or hold time and therefore, sometimes, each other. It is Barrie's mature meditation on the challenges of aging, the vagaries of memory, and the passage of time. And for all the ways in which it is wry and sardonic, it is also tinged with melancholy and an awareness of the metaphysical."
Still Fighting ALS
CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric arrived at the New York Design Fair gala at the 7th Regiment Armory in Manhattan last week and said hello to friends, but told them, "I came here to support my friend Jenifer Estess. But I'm doing too much talking and not enough shopping!"
Profits for the evening went to Project ALS, created by Estess. Broadway producer who founded the Naked Angels Theater Company, Estess was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease (also known as ALS) in 1997 at age 35. Shocked that there was no treatment and given two to five years left to live, Estess, with her sisters Valerie and Meredith, devoted their time and energy to creating Project ALS.
Drawing on celebrity friends like Ben Stiller, Sarah Jessica Parker, Billy Baldwin, Marisa Tomei, and Julianna Margulies, they raised money through charity events and corporate sponsors and promoted awareness of the disease, which affects more than 30,000 people at any one time. The Estess sisters not only channeled more than $17 million to scientific research, but also put together a think-tank of the most prominent neurological scientists.
Jenifer became the face of ALS, working publicly through the last stages of the disease until her death in 2003. Copies of her memoir, "Tales from the Bed," were given to all those attending the New York Design Fair gala.
Durang's Newest Concoction
At the center of Christopher Durang's newest concoction—a musical parody of such post World War II film noir classics as "Macao"—is an Asian named Tempura, played by Orville Mendoza, and a tall blonde nightclub singer named Lureena, played by Rachel de Benedet. The play opened Feb. 13 at the 59 East 59 St. Theaters.
Mendoza, who was born in the Philippines and grew up in California, performs one number as an Irishman and another as a chorus girl, complete with bustier. "It takes me two numbers to get into the tights, but I've had more comments on my legs than anything else," he laughs. He began his career touring with "Miss Saigon" and last year, appeared in "Pacific Overtures."
Ms. Benedet reflected on Durang's direction: "Christopher said he thinks of the women in the film noir genre either as femme fatales or innocent girls, but Lureena is neither. She's a good egg, which Jane Russell plays really well in the film 'Macao,' which this is based on. That film also opens with her alone on a dock at night. But, you never worry that she won't survive!"