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Writer, editor, professor, etc. For more information, see jaygabler.com.
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For my portfolio site, I’ve compiled links to some of the more memorable theater reviews I’ve written for the Twin Cities Daily Planet.
A Martyriffic Holiday Spectacular at the Children’s Theatre (11/26/08)
“Parents taking the family out for a night at the theater may have some idea that they are ushering their children into a magical land of wonder and imagination, distant from the hyperkinetic squawking of the television set. Some such parents may be surprised to discover that The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe—the musical production now being presented by the Children’s Theatre Company—rockets by with a frenetic glibness that makes an episode of Animaniacs look like My Dinner With Andre.”
Ballet Minnesota cracks a classic Nut (12/21/08)
“Some aspects of the production are seriously problematic. The Nutcracker is not really about narrative, but there is a story there, and in this production it’s a little confusing. Why does the Nutcracker’s dummy head come and go repeatedly? Why does the Rat King show up for a rematch, and why does it end with him simply sauntering offstage? Especially in the complicated party and battle scenes, musical cues often come and go without much correspondence in the choreography. (Never mind that dramatic minor-key interlude, kids! It’s bound to pass.) And while in theory it’s nice to have live music rather than a recording, it must be said: at the performance I saw, the Mississippi Valley Orchestra was riding the struggle bus. Obviously you don’t go to a regional ballet performance expecting the LSO, but when the strings start drifting from Tchaikovsky into Schoenberg, it’s an issue.”
Spring Awakening: Teenagers are horny. And? (1/27/09)
“Spring Awakening, the Broadway sensation now paying a visit to the Orpheum Theatre, is an eye-opening, truly shocking theatrical experience. Unless, that is, you already know that teenagers like to have sex. In that case, it’s just a fairly run-of-the-mill rock musical.”
Chan Poling’s Venus: She’s not it…no, baby, she’s not it (5/7/09)
“The strangest aspect of the production is the fact that the lead characters, who apparently are meant to be nearing middle age (reference is made to the fact that Bananarama’s 1986 remake of Shocking Blue’s ‘Venus’ was a hit when Maggie was in college), are costumed like mature adults trying to look like teenagers—Liestman’s hair is grey and apparently Brylcreemed, but he skips out in designer jeans and laceless Chuck Taylors—and act like they’re in a very special episode of Saved By the Bell. […] Briskey is worst off, putting all the gusto she can muster into the character of a 40-something woman who’s never been kissed, who wears a jean jacket covered in tiny flair buttons (I hope at least one of them says Duran Duran), and who seems to be in such a state of inner desperation that she sits around nursing empty bottles of Blue Moon that she stores in a Schell’s six-pack box.”
Phantom of the Opera at the Orpheum: Play that funky music of the night, white boy (5/16/09)
“Midas-like composer Andrew Lloyd Webber (excuse me, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber) composed the score, which—like a Tom Petty album—hits you with the best numbers right off the top. The opener ‘Think of Me’ is genuinely pretty, and a couple of numbers later the show peaks with the double-whammy of the title song segueing into ‘The Music of the Night.’ By the time Christine was descending into the steamy depths with the Phantom, riding the sketchiest bed-boat outside of the Burnsville FantaSuites, I was sold. The music has thankfully not been re-scored since Phantom‘s 1986 debut, which means that the uptempo numbers sound like the Alan Parsons Project really on top of its game.”
A Chorus Line at the Orpheum: Oy vey, everyone’s got issues (6/17/09)
“There’s a distinct soap-opera flavor to the characters’ stories. There’s the rehashing of a failed romance between Zach and Cassie (‘Why did you leave me?’ ‘Oh, so we are going to get into that’), Paul’s coming-out tale (‘My father turned to the producer and said, “Take care of my son.” That was the first time he ever called me that!’), a triumphant paean to plastic surgery (‘Tits and ass won’t get you jobs…unless they’re yours’), and so forth. From my stint working for a ballet company I can confirm that the portrayal of working dancers’ lives as overstuffed with drama, dedication, anxiety, mordant humor, and alternating bouts of utter selflessness and utter self-absorption rings true—but there’s a reason they had to pay me to deal with all of that.”
Cirque du Soleil’s Kooza: A big flippin’ deal (6/4/09)
“Near the beginning of Cirque du Soleil’s Kooza, a large number of grinning men and women in festive, ambiguously ethnic dress come hopping out with their arms spread wide, performing flips and pirouettes as a multitiered bandshell rolls forward. Brass blares, drums thump, and lights flash wildly as a shapely singer winds her hips and sings ecstatic praises in nonsense syllables. It’s a convincing dramatization of the reception President Bush expected American troops to receive when they arrived in Baghdad.”
The 101 Dalmatians Musical at the Orpheum: Give or take 88 Dalmatians (10/13/09)
“If I were the producers, I’d have opted to give a one-man show to the cast member, maybe 11 or 12 years old, who bellied up to the bar next to my sister and me at the afterparty. He shrugged off the Shirley Temple left by one of his costars: ‘I just want a soda, or maybe an orange juice,’ he explained. ‘I’m not so much into the party aspect of the business.’ Patiently waiting for service, he sighed. ‘The sad thing,’ he confided to us, ‘is that I forgot my fake ID.’”
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Jungle: Fearsome indeed, but ultimately redemptive (4/28/10)
“While an Albee play usually belongs to the actors, the Jungle Theater’s current production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is overwhelmingly defined by director Bain Boehlke’s cold dark set, all flat black angles and thick bricks of furniture, with a heavy cross visible over the wet bar. The aesthetic is combination bachelor pad, funeral chapel, and tomb. But to paraphrase Bette Davis as she cradles her drink in All About Eve, you can’t start the funeral until you’ve finished with the embalming.”
CTC’s Robin Hood robs from the someone and gives to the whoever (10/6/10)
“As Robin Hood, Holt cuts an extremely peculiar figure that starts with Mary Anna Culligan’s hobopunk costuming—in sneakers, loose-fitting pants, a vest, a neckerchief, and a floppy haircut with thin ponytail, Holt looks like he’s about to teach a yoga class at Burning Man. Veins pop from Holt’s muscular bare arms and he leaps lithely about the stage, but in his late 30s he looks significantly older than Sundberg, and their characters’ attraction seems based largely on the fact that they both know that any other lover either one might find would actually want to stand still from time to time.”
Tim & Eric Awesome Tour Great Job! Chrimbus Spectacular 2010 changed my life (11/17/10)
“But enough about me. You’re reading this because you want to know about the Tim & Eric Awesome Tour, Great Job! Chrimbus Spectacular, which stopped at the State Theatre on Wednesday night. You want me to tell you about it. But honestly, how could I? Could I describe the sight of dewdrops on a butterfly’s wings? Could I describe the sound of a car door closing in your driveway when your toilet’s backed up and you’ve been waiting six hours for the Roto-Rooter while the stench of sewage slowly permeates your home? Could I tell you how it feels to be fatally gored by a unicorn when you’ve been pinned under a rock for ten days and praying for death to come?”
At the Guthrie Theater, Heaven is a place where entirely too much happens (3/29/11)
“The challenges of recounting real-world horrors in the form of musical theater was precisely the subject of the constructively challenging Scottsboro Boys, and Heaven falls into some of the traps to which that show pointed. In a direct parallel with Scottsboro Boys, in fact, Heaven has corpses come to life to sing about the circumstances of their death. In Heaven, the scene is played straight; in Scottsboro Boys, the electric chair victims do a little softshoe to remind us just how thin the line is between Schindler’s List and ‘Springtime for Hitler.’ You may or may not find the rape-themed dance scene in Heaven to be done well, but we can probably agree that if you’re going to have a rape-themed dance scene, you had certainly better do it well.”
Jesus Christ Superstar at Chanhassen Dinner Theatres: Crucifixion blues (2/24/11)
“In his program note, Brindisi avers that the production team has ‘approached this material with reverence, love and hope.’ That certainly seems to be true: the production is about as reverent as you can get when you’re selling Jesus Christ Superstar souvenir water bottles for tabletop sipping and when lyricist Tim Rice writes lines like ‘God, thy will is hard/ But you hold every card.’ (At one point, I think I heard Judas stomp off muttering, ‘Oh, Christ!’) The Chanhassen wall calendar included in my press kit came pre-marked with a reminder that on March 20, I should ‘Talk to Pastor about booking church group for JC Superstar on Palm Sunday!’”
Cavalia: Equus ultra (9/22/11)
“I’ve seen the last few Cirque du Soleil shows to come through the Twin Cities, and when Cavalia began with a costumed cellist soloing over the new age thunder of a backing band obscured by a scrim displaying projections of wheezy quotations about man’s profound kinship with the horse, I thought, yep, seems pretty par for the course. (The Cavalia music is so generic that if you close your eyes, you won’t know whether you’re sitting at a $100 horse show or waiting between programs on PBS.) Then they unleashed the horses.”
The Edge of Our Bodies at the Guthrie Theater: An existential popcorn play (10/27/11)
“After seeing the opening night performance of The Edge of Our Bodies at the Guthrie Theater, I tweeted a ‘one-hashtag review’: #whitegirlproblems. That’s a little simplistic, of course: the themes of The Edge of Our Bodies are universal to the human experience. That said, the concerns and experiences of white 16-year-old New England prep school girls are not entirely foreign to the American stage, and even less so to the American page. Is Bernadette, the play’s narrator and central character, upset with her parents and their troubled marriage? Is she confused about her budding sex life, both excited and troubled by the attention she now receives from boys and men? Is her curiosity piqued by the dangerous, thrilling streets of New York City? Why, yes! Yes, yes, and yes.”
“Some people create collaboratively devised theater pieces and talk about it by saying, ‘On Sundays we go to Sam’s. We’re making something.’ Some, on the other hand, say, ‘The play’s simple dialogue and repetitive physical language work to wield a crisp analysis of the emptied rhetorical and social structures pervading contemporary capitalism.’”
More links and excerpts here
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