Musical-theater fans salivated back in 2010 when they saw the starry stage cast attached to Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, a Broadway musical adaptation of the 1988 film by out Spanish director Pedro AlmodÃ"var ( Talk to Her, All About My Mother ).
Tony Award winners Patti LuPone, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Laura Benanti and more were featured in this reunion project for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels collaborators Jeffrey Lane and composer-lyricist David Yazbek ( also famed for The Full Monty ). But the show opened cold on Broadway without an out-of-town tryout to largely mixed and negative reviews. After a run of only 69 performances, Women on the Verge of Nervous Breakdown closed.
However, you can't keep these Women down. David Yazbek was nominated for a Tony Award for his score later that season. And now a thoroughly revised production of Women on the Verge… is set to begin a limited run in London this December.
But before that happens, Women on the Verge… will have its Chicago-area debut this month at Theatre at the Center in Munster, Indiana. The production's multi-Jeff Award-winning ensemble includes Cory Goodrich as the jilted girlfriend Pepa, Hollis Resnik as the mentally unstable ex-wife Lucia, Summer Smart as Pepa's friend Candela and Bernie Yvon as the genial narrating Taxi Driver.
"It's about love and passion and the choices we make," said Goodrich, adding that the show is funny because so much of it is like farce. "David Yazbek has a gift of putting place in his music. He so beautifully describes Madrid in the 1980s with his music."
Like Goodrich, Smart was unfamiliar with the show, but now she's grateful that director William Pullinsi asked her to play the flighty Candela ( who might be mistakenly dating a terrorist ).
"She's the kind of woman who has a huge heart and a lot of emotion. She's very dramatic and is the kind of woman who 'falls in love' quite easily," Smart said. "The stakes are very high in this show for each one of these characters which adds a lot of dynamics. And I'm sure people will be able to relate to it because who hasn't felt like they've been on the verge of a nervous breakdown?"
Women on the Verge of Nervous Breakdown plays from Sept. 11 through Oct. 12 at Theatre at the Center, 1040 Ridge Road, Munster, Indiana. Previews run through Sept. 13 with an official press opening at 7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 14. Regular-run performances are 2 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays with select Thursday evening and Saturday matinees scheduled throughout the run. Tickets are $40-$44; call 219-836-3255 or visit www.theatreatthecenter.com .
Soggy days in London town
Rain should always be factored into any trip to the United Kingdom, and it alternately played both an unwanted and a welcome part in a recent theatergoing trip I took there—in particular with a 20th-anniversary staging of an important drama touching upon AIDS.
The rain thankfully stayed away for my regional visits to see Mozart's early opera La Finta Giardiniera ( The False Garden Girl ) at the Glyndebourne Festival in East Sussex and a West End-ready staging of Guys and Dolls at the Chichester Festival Theatre in West Sussex. However, the rain was out in force for two London productions I caught.
I've been to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre twice before, but I had previously experienced the amazing historically recreated Elizabethan theater only from the pricier gallery seats under the building's thatched roof. So I opted to save some money for my third visit by standing through an entire performance of Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra with a "groundling" ticket for a Thursday matinee.
Alas, it turned out to be an extremely soggy encounter since the rain came pouring down through the theater's exposed center during all of Act I before lessening to a drizzle for Act II. My last-minute decision to pay two pounds for a plastic rain poncho turned out to be a very wise investment.
But the rain probably played a factor in my ability to get a prime seat to a sold-out performance of the Donmar Warehouse's critically acclaimed revival of Kevin Elyot's Olivier Award-winning 1994 drama My Night with Reg starring Julian Ovenden of Downton Abbey fame. A friend and I queued up early in the morning for standing-room balcony tickets ( sold only on the day of performance ) to see this drama about a group of gay friends coping with love and betrayal in the age of AIDS.
But as the seconds ticked down to curtain time, the ushers moved most of the standing-room audience into empty available seats from no-show ticket holders. It was probably the awful August Bank Holiday rain that probably deterred a few people from showing up.
Although now a period piece harkening back to the height of the AIDS crisis when infected friends and lovers within the gay community were dying with alarming regularity, My Night with Reg still feels very current with the depiction of its characters' relationship struggles. The Donmar production also took on an added poignancy with the recent death of the playwright Kevin Elyot at the age of 62 this past June in the run up to the current revival.
My Night with Reg continues at the Donmar Warehouse in London through Sept. 27. Visit www.donmarwarehouse.com for more information.
