Similes in Elizabeth Swados's Runaways

 Elizabeth Swados's  1971 musical Runaway has been pretty much forgotten over the years-- but the Encores! Off Center  revival is buoyed  by  a terrific  young   ensemble   and  despite  its now rather dated   era and  references,   many of  the lyrics  are still pungent   and  include some   excellent  similes.  For example, the poignant  "Song of a Child Prostitute"   likens a pimp-prostitute arrangement to a "mutual enterprise" and   says  that  "sex  is a business like kitchenware." 


"O the Dead of Family Wars"  has  oys and girls seeing   their mothers and fathers  as "scraping the strength off selves like bark off trees" or their lives " spread out like caged bird wings" and  "close up  chance  close like fat cardboard books."    

  Here's  the link to  my eview of  the  all too brief  run at City Center   www.curtainup.com/runawaysencores.html



 

Shuffle Along's Wild About Harry"" is "sweet just like cotton candy

 he's sweet just like chocolate candy
Or like the honey from a bee

 This lyric is  from  the  best  remembered   song, " I'm Just Wild About Harry " given  fresh life in   George C. Wolfe's  exhilarating   homage to the  creaters of  the 1921  musical hit  Shuffle Along.    Here's a link to my review of the recently opened  show:www.curtainup.com/shufflealong16.html

A Delicate Ship is enriched by lyrical similes

 Anna Ziegler's  sad, lovely little play A Delicate Ship  is  essentially a love  triangle.  It  begins as a quite evening between  Sarah  and her still new boyfriend Sam and turns into a  contest for her affections  with the arrival  of  childhood best friend Nate.  The play is s enriched by  smart and often lyrical  dialogue,  especially by  the play's catalyst character,  Nate --   as in this  plea for  her to  live with him from which the play takes its title:

 Not if you let yourself. . .not if we were . . .You would never let me down. You couldn't  We'd get through it all together;  we'd traverse the endless series of days like explorers in a ship made of time itself, its delicate sails moving easily through the churning water.

The volatile  Nate    describes his   constant  unhappiness and discontent  with another lyrical simile:

I  cant accept that my life disappears behind me like a retreating wave, never to be seen again.

To  read   my review see: www.curtainup.com/delicateship15.html

Jim Parson's similistic view of prayer in a An Acto of God

 The new Broadway season s  launched  by Jim Parson as God's stand-in  in David Javerbaum's  adaptation of  his  riff  on  a memoir written by the almighty.  The spiffily staged but slight comedy  is  loaded with  zingers,  some funnier than others.   I, of course why amused by  the way y   Parson's  viewed  prayer:

From my point of view, prayer is
like an emergency services switchboard manned by
one operator who gets 12 million calls a minute.

 Here's a  link to the full  review at  curtainup.com
www.curtainup.com/actofgodbway15.html

Metaphorically speaking a#Outer Critics Awards i

 This is the season for  a tsunami  of awards  ceremonies.  The most relaxed and most fun one is  the Outer Cirtics Circle awards dinner at  the legendary Sardi's  restaurant.   With  only winners invited and each table a mix  of  OCC Members,   honorees  and their guests,  the event is small and intimate and  mercifully short. 

  The speeches too are brief  but  always fun.   As an  incorrigible   tropes spotter,  my  favorite this year was  the  descripton  of   the roles  in the award winning revival of  You Can't Take It With You:

"Eccentric characters practically crawl out of the woodwork at the family home in #You Can’t Take It With You, and a couple of them crawled into award contention for the first time–in this category. One was a tipsy actress who determinedly climbs the staircase as if it were Everest. The other—our honoree, #Annaleigh Ashford --  was a wannabe ballerina who kept the play in a constant state of bad poetry-in-motion, never walking across the room when she can bound across it like a demented ostrich.

This Encores! revival made mefeel "light as a bumblebee"

 The wonderful Encores!   concert series   did  a wonderful   production  of   a Lerner and Loewe  musical   with  a  wonderful score but    troublesome book that probably accounts for it's neglect since 1951.  While the lyrics aren't   on a par with Oscar Hammerstein or Stephen Sondheim   we did catch a  few  very apt  similes.

  The one below  by   the top name  beneath the title, Keith Carradine,  served  as  a nice  lead-in quote:
 I sure wish your mother was here. She'd know what to do. She was a real lady. She could read and she could write, just like you will someday. And she talked softer than a leaf hittin' water.


Here are a few other catchy ones. . .
 You’re as useless as a milk-can in a bullpen --
I’m feeling higher than a lark can sing
Oh what a day!/ I'm feeling flighty as a bumblebee!

 Here's a link  to my review of the show  curtainup/encorespaintyourwagon.html
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Life is like a train!
A roaring rushing train!
You get on at the beginning,
You get off at the end.
  
The train inspiring  this similistic ditty is, of course,  the once   fabulous  20th Century    with its  redcaps, plush compartments and other amenities.  In  the new  revival of  the musical  screwball comedy , On the Twentieth Century,    the four tap-dancing  porters  (no wheelies needed back in  1932)  who  introduce the 2nd act with that ditty stop the  exuberant show.

For  more about the show, here's a link to  my revie
wwww.curtainup.com/onthe20thcentury15.html

Similes from A Month of the Country now at Classic Stage

New York's  Classic Stage Company, an off-Broadway Company that  attracts   actors with bog office magnetizing names  is currently  presenting a  fine revival of Ivan Turgenev's    A Month in the  Country.

 Typical  of these long-ago  Russian plays,   there are plenty of  interesting  secondary characters with their  own subplots-- in this case romantic interests.   The most amusing of these is between the play's  country doctor  and  a  spinster,   which   lacks the sizzling passion of  the Country Estate's  beautiful  doyenne.   To wit  a hilarious   no-nonsense proposal which  nevertheless insures that the Good  Doctor  has a   fully  functioning libido  as indicated  by his assurance  that    her "somewhat old-maidish" ways will be no problems  since  "in the hands of a good husband, a woman is like soft wax." <br><br>



I  also liked this  this extend   simile in which the    beautiful, Natalya  tells  her  best  brainy friend  bored  chatelaine of a Russian estate who falls madly in love with her child's tutor.  She also has a flirtatious friendship with a  friend Ratikin   whose way with words   she  enjoys  but that don't move  her:

 "You’re clever, but... your words are like lace – intricate and beautifully constructed. But you know how they make it? Lace? In airless rooms without windows, hunched over their work fourteen hours a day. Lace is lovely, but give me a drink of fresh water on a hot day any time."

Here's a link  to my review of the production www.curtainup.com/monthinthecountrycsc15.html

Colorful speech comes natural to the Irish--

 New York's invaluable Irish Rep Theater  is currently  reviving Hugh Leaonard's  D a--   the title character being the father   from whom his son Charlie  would like to distance himself.  But this being an Irish play,  the  old guy refuses to stay put   even after he's  dead --  or as   Charlie puts it
"he keeps coming back  like  a  yo-yo."

This being a memory play  we also  see Charlie being interviewed for his first job  by the dour Mr.  Drumm  who    knows  the boy is too smart for it  and  advises him not to  take it with this pungent simile    "jobs are like lobster pots, harder to get out of than into. . ."  And sure enough,  it takes thirteen years for Charlie to  get out of that figurative lobster pot.

Once he  is in London and a successful playwright  he wants his aging Da  to   come live with him and greets the old man's refusal with  "you'd rather stay here  instead like a maggot in a cabbage and die of neglect."

Here's a link to Curtainup's   review  of  the production
www.curtainup.com/dairishrep15.html

My culture is dying--like salt--a simile fromSarah Ruhl's new play

#Sarah Ruhl  is  a playwright with an  original and  often poetic voice.   Her latest play, The Oldest Boy is  about  a woman married to a Tibetan  Buddhist faced with the   shocking news that her child might be a  reincarnated Lama.   Her husband at first resisted marrying  her as it would mean being untrue to the  demands of his  cultural heritage,  the   romance does  move forward  despite  his metaphorical  reasoning  below:

I have to marry someone of my culture. My culture is dying. It's like salt I have to marry someone of my culture. My culture is dying. It's like salt dissolving into water, my people dissolving. If you put a small amount of salt into a very large pool of water, and take a sip, the water is no longer salty. It disappears.

Here's the link to my full review:    www.curtainup.com/oldestboy14.html

A #simile from #Suzan-Lori Parks masterful new play

 S#uzan-Lori Park has written her best and most ambitious play yet.  If  the  other triptyches  planned to take her  Civil War  odyssey,  #When Father Comes Home From the War (Parts 1, 2, 3)  to the present,  are as good, she's sure to win another Pulitzer.
Her theme is ambitious,  her writing both lyrical  and earthy.   Here's  her central character, the anti-heroic Her's   similistic sum-up of   the choice faced when his master offers him freedom if he accompanies him to  the battlefield.

He dangled it in front of me. My Freedom.  Like a beautiful carrot. Like a diamond. And those scraps of uniform and the diamond Freedom glittered . . .but while I so wanted to I was still thinking on the bald fact that in his service  I will be helping out on the wrong side.

 Here's a link to my  full review:   www.curtainup.com/fathercomeshome14.html

F for metaphors- A+ for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

The  thrillingly staged  New York production of  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is about a 15-year-old autistic savant.  One of his quirks is an absolute  belief in truth-telling which to his thinking turns even a metaphor into a lie. And so he  explains why  he feels  his teacher's example of metaphors into untruths:

 He was the apple of her eye. (Christopher:  imagining an apple in someone’s eye doesn’t have
anything to do with liking someone a lot and it makes you forget
what the person was talking about.a pig is not like a day)
They had a skeleton in the cupboard. (Christopher: People do not have skeletons in their cupboards)
 He was the apple of her eye. (Christopher:  imagining an apple in someone’s eye doesn’t have
anything to do with liking someone a lot and it makes you forget hat the person was talking about.

But  though comparison  phrases  don't  get  a  good  review from Christopher,  our review of  Adam Sharp's  performance and this  unusual    play  is  an A-plis.

To read all about it www.curtainup.com/curiousincidentbway14.html

Icebound's dying matriarch is tight-mouthed ad a bear trap

 A family of selfish, greedy, mean-spirited rural New Englanders are the core of Icebound.  This  play by Owen Gould Davis, Jr. that received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1923 is being given a  fine revival at the tiny Metropolitan Playhouse.  As  the play opens  the family is gathered at the deathbed  of  its  wealthy matriarch, eager to  claim their share of her estate, but without a clue as to 
 A family of selfish, greedy, mean-spirited rural New Englanders are the core of Icebound.  This  play by Owen Gould Davis, Jr. that received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1923 is being given a  fine revival at the tiny Metropolitan Playhouse.  As  the play opens  the family is gathered at the deathbed  of  its  wealthy matriarch, eager to  claim their share of her estate, but without a clue as to  what to expect. 

As  her eldest son explains   she's as tight-mouthed as a bear trap.

Here's a link to the full review   www.curtainup.com/icebound14.html

a simile trom #ivo Van Hove's latest at #New York Theatre Workshop

Ivo van Hove's   ingenious  stage concept  for Ingmar Bergman's   classic film about  the difficulties of  marriage,  stays true to the original  plot,  which includes  a  touching scene in  the female half of the troubled couple's  law office  where  a long married woman  insists  on a divorce even  though  it's probably too late for her to find love.    She sums up her reasoning with the following simile:

I think I’m capable of love, but it’s all sealed off from me, like it’s in a locked room.

To  read my review of  this  unusual production    here's  a  
link: www.curtainup.com/scenesfromamarriageny14.html

A simile from A.R. Gurney's notes for #The Waysside Motor Inn

In its own way reading a play can be as interesting   as seeing it,  especially if  the playwright hasn't abandoned   notes as so many modern  ones have.   This was not the case  with  A. R. Gurney's  1977  play  The Wayside Motor Inn, the first of the three  presented as part of his  2014  Residency One  at the  Signature Theater Center.    The playwright undertook   a complicated   concept  in that  he  assembled   five  vignettes  and  five  pairs of   characters for  a  ight in a motel outside of Boston.  Since  the rooms all look exactly alike,   all ten actors  commingle their  stories on one set.  


Mr. Gurney's   script notes    detail  exactly  how he wants to have the audience see the first character on stage,  a traveling salesman,  settle into his room:  "From his inside pocket, he takes his address book and ballpoint pen and places them by his briefcase. Then he opens his suitcase, takes out a partially used bottle of bourbon, and places it by the ice. Then he puts his suitcase on the rack over the closet.    He then  sums  "these instruction   up with  this simile: 

He is like a hunter staking down his campsite at the end of the day.

 For more about the play,  read  my review
www.curtainup.com/waysidemotorinn14.html

A simile from #Renee Fleming's stage debut at WTF

Tony winning playwright Joe Di Pietro has adapted  Garson Kanin's  last play (a flop) to serve  as  opera star Renee Fleming's  stage debut.   She does just fine,  and Di Pietro and director  Katherine Marshall have   permeated  this new version  with  lots  of  musical  snippets for Fleming,  as well  as  Douglas Sills her director husband. Not having seen  the original,  I don't know  if this simile  in which  the  middle aged diva  retorts to her  philandering husband's  complaint about spending too much money on clothes as follows:

Your public stares at the back of your head.
        Mine drinks all this in, like a fine burgundy

To read my detailed overview with  images from the premiere production at Williamstown Theatre Festival, click this link:  www.curtainup.com/livingonlovewtf14.html

She wore her intelligence like an apron

MayaAngelou  wore her intelligence like an apron, and her creativity like a pair of work shoes.
--Harvey Fierstein  on hearing about the  poet/playwright/performer's  death

Linda Lavin's latest monster mom arrives like some terrible hurricane

The  world premiere  of Nicky Silver's  play Too Much Sun  was written especially for Linda Lavin.    Like   Rita Lyons  of   Silver's last play for  Lavin,   Audrey Langham of Too Much Sun is a flamboyant, razor-tongued survivor  who is  as needy as she is   funny.
Audrey,  unlike  the once married Rita,  is  a much married, successful actress.  However, she is no more  content and, in fact, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, having lost her passion for acting as well as  all her money She therefore walks out  on the play she's to star in and  arrives  unannounced at her estranged  daughter's  house.

The  daughter's  reacts to  her mother's    sudden  visit and  shocking revelation about  her  financial status with this simile for  the mother's  unexpected  arrival:       

And then you show up, without warning, like some terrible
hurricane, and drop this bomb on me.

 Here's a link to my review of the play: 
www.curtainup.com/toomuchsun14.html

Life is a cabaret. . .

Cabaret  is  as close to perfection as  musical theater can get  and currently  Alan Cumming is back at  Studio 54-cum-Kit Kat Klub in his career-making  role  as the  androgynous, serpentine Emcee.

One of  the  non-stop hit songs is, of course, a metaphor:   Life  is a cabaret.

The  title of  the  non-musical  adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's  wonderful  Berlin Stories,  was inspired by this metaphoric line: "I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking."
Here's a link to my review of the current revival:
www.curtainup.com/cabaret14.html

some similes gone missing from Act One the play

Moss Hart's  Act One  is one of  the best and most successful   memoirs by a theatrical   legend  ever written.   It  worked as  an inspirational guide for  future  theater professional,  but Hart's personal  rags-to-riches  story   was not limited  to theater aficionados.   Hart  wrote  touchingly and with enormous  psychological insight.   While James Lapine is   also  a noted  man of  the theater,  his  stage adaptation of  the  book is  an  enjoyable but flawed  entertainment.   It  retains much of  Hart's text  but some  of   the  most pungent   imagery (especially similes)   have  gotten lost in  translation.  To cite just a few of  these misplaced gems:

Aunt Kate sailed down the aisle like a great ship  coming into port. . .

The enormity of what I had done settled over me like a suit of mail.

optimism was again flowing through the theatre like May  wine. . .

I've  seen them   (plays  in previews)  go all kinds of  ways, but this was like spraying ether.

He waved me away as though I were an insect buzzing about his head. . .

With each new play the playwright is a Columbus sailing uncharted seas

Here too is a link to my review of the play:
 www.curtainup.com/actone14.html