OUT IN THE ARTS

by D. L. Groover

NOT TO BE MISSED

The Alley Theatre celebrates dramatist Edward Albee’s 75th birthday with a mini-festival this month, and their program choices are superb. One is a hallmark in American drama—correction, a hallmark for all drama—his black comedy masterpiece, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (January 10–February 8). The second is his newest work, the Tony Award-winning The Goat or Who is Sylvia? (January 17–February 16). Woolf stars one of our favorites, Judith Ivey, as dysfunctional Martha and James Black as co-dependent George, with Ty Mayberry and Elizabeth Bunch as the innocents lured into the couple’s alcohol-sodden love/hate world of “get the guest.” Goat, with Todd Waite and Elizabeth Hefflin, concerns a successful married couple whose entire world is shattered when the perfectly rational husband reveals to all his marital affair with Sylvia, the goat next door. Sounds just like Albee. Go see both and be rewarded by the theatrical thought-provoking gymnastics of America’s greatest living playwright.

SOUR NOTES

The crumbling exterior walls of the Houston Symphony’s home at Jones Hall are but an ironic visible manifestation of the organization’s continuing financial quagmire. The musicians want more money, a 52-week contract, and 9 paid weeks of vacation. The Symphony Society—i.e., their board of directors—wants the musicians to remain at their astronomic weekly salary, but cut their workload to 46 weeks, give up 3 weeks of paid vacation, and perhaps pay more for their health-care benefits. The musicians gave the society’s proposal a rousing Bronx cheer, while the board might as well stand outside and wait to be conked on the head by falling travertine marble. That would be less painful. Saddled with a $6 million debt and a projected season deficit of $2.3 million, this is a serious case of backstage mismanagement and rampant egos. Bailed out once before in 1998 by unprecedented gifts of $3.65 million each from the Wortham Foundation and Houston Endowment to wipe out mangled finances due to the musicians’ union-inflated paychecks, the orchestra hasn’t seemed to learn any lessons. The musicians say, Just raise more money. The board, cutting administration staff to the bone, says, Help us with pay cuts. A strike or a lockout looms inevitably on the horizon like the wind-tossed galleon out of the Flying Dutchman. Stay tuned for further musical misadventures.

YOU CAN RIDE MY TAIL

I wish I had made up that line, but it’s the rousing final song to the silly and highly entertaining Top Gun! The Musical, which received its U.S. premiere at Theater LaB. Written by Denis McGrath and Scott White, this homoerotic parody of the 1986 Tom Cruise/Tony Scott paean to macho navy pilots (a vapid gay-friendly recruiting poster of a movie and already its own parody) is the backstage story of a hapless cast, a pressurized director, and the top-brass producer butting heads to create a musical. All the problems that can plague such a futile venture are lovingly skewered in cheesy production numbers and wink-wink nod-nod double entendres. Jonathan McVay (with the best guns of any Actors Equity member in Houston), Greg Gorden (who can play a gay queen better than anyone), and Jimmy Phillips (who blusters better than Phineas T.) brought sterling timing, great pipes, and a grown-up professionalism to the staging, compensating for the distaff vocals. How can you miss with a tap number called “Asses in Seats” or “Play Well With Others”?

ENCORE

Don’t forget the repeat one-time only performance of Bayou City Concert Musicals’ A Little Night Music in Zilkha Hall at the Hobby Center on January 27. Stephen Sondheim’s bittersweet turn-of-the-century valentine to love gained, lost, and regained is given a sterling rendition, thanks in large part to the exemplary cast under the champagne direction of Paul Hope and David Thome. The performance is a benefit for the Center for AIDS.

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