Theater Thoughts

  Amherst flubbed a big chance to give MusicalFare a new place to touch down after this first-class all-singing, all-dancing company had to abandon its home last spring at Daemen University.          Now they've made an emergency landing in downtown Buffalo in Shea's 710 Theatre and, just like for the passengers on the American Airlines flight in their debut production, "Come From Away," the new accommodations seem to be working out.          MusicalFare would have needed to stage at least half a dozen performances at Daemen to shoehorn in an audience the size of the one at Saturday night's show. The former Studio Arena is nearly full and it can hold 625.          It seems even more remarkable considering that "Come From Away" is probably not at the top of the list of must-sees for fans of Broadway musicals. It starts with an unpromising premise – the hopes and fears of disgruntled air travelers stranded i...

  Is there anything left to add to the visions of Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye dancing through our heads in the 1954 film, "White Christmas?"          MusicalFare answered that question by giving us the Broadway musical version and its big bagful of Irving Berlin favorites in Shea's 710 Theatre. Last chance to see it was Sunday afternoon, Dec. 21.          The plot, as we remember from the movie, is a comforter. Two World War II Army buddies become song-and-dance stars, get allured by an aspiring singing sister act and inadvertently wind up in Vermont ski country at a woebegone winter resort hotel that just happens to be owned by their blustering former commanding officer. Out of love and loyalty, they decide to give him a lift financially by doing what they do best, staging a full-scale Broadway production in his barn.          There was plenty of delight in rediscovering familiar songs like "Blue Skies," "...

What did I do for a week while Monica was hanging out with her girlfriends in Florida? I went to the movies and ate a lot of Raisinets.          Guilty pleasure for liking it so much was "Song Sung Blue." Who knew Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman could sing that good? "Best Hallmark movie ever," I said to myself as the credits rolled.          As for the other highly-regarded flicks of the moment, I got weary of watching Timothee Chalamet get beat up in "Marty Supreme." I expected to laugh and didn't at "Is This Thing On," the one about the guy who conquers his middle-aged crisis by becoming a stand-up comedian.          And there's way too much wailing and agony in "Hamnet." Give me "Upstart Crow" instead. Plus that series got the Bard's hairline right.

Nothing fancy for Jerry Seinfeld Saturday evening in Shea's Buffalo. Spotlight, microphone, stool. Not even a brick wall. He wasted no time walking out and taking that mic from his old friend Mark Schiff, who opened the show with a brisk round of marriage and family jokes.          Looking younger than his 71 years in coat and tie, Jerry started out in classic form, prowling through observations about cellphone obsessions, TV streaming and the necessities of drinking that first cup of coffee and keeping hydrated.         Then it seemed like his 70-minute set took a sour existential turn after a riff which led him to declare everything is a mess and we should stay far away from it. (Or something like that. Hey, I wasn't taking notes.) For anyone looking for more of a statement on the affairs of the world, that was as far as he went.          From there on, I thought he began showing signs of wear and tear. He stra...

What joy to see Buffalo's theater season springing to life again. It's as happy a development as having daylight after 5:30 p.m. once more. Despite the weather, there were fewer empty seats than expected at the opening of the Jewish Repertory Theatre's "Sheltered" Thursday night in Getzville. Same on Friday night for "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill," a MusicalFare production in Shea's Smith Theatre in otherwise deserted downtown. (Things will get livelier on Feb. 13 when the Irish Classical Theatre Company debuts "A Skull in Connemara." Only a few seats remain for that one on opening weekend.) At the Jewish Rep, shelter is a complicated concept with contemporary concerns in the darkening days of 1939. In the first act, in a startlingly mid-century modern living room in Providence, R.I., two Jewish couples are at odds over whether Americans, sheltered and secure on this side of the Atlantic, should be complac...

A wistful love song crackles out of a radio at the start of "A Skull in Connemara," the latest offering from the Irish Classical Theatre Company, but the play itself is more like a rough-and-tumble rumble by a band of Gaelic punk-rockers. The sell-out crowd gave this dark comedy a standing ovation on opening night Friday, a further endorsement of the ICTC's fondness lately for uncommon staging and challenging physicality. This time there's actual grave-digging, with the two principals tossing shovelfuls of dirt from pits onto the stage, and so much smashing with mallets that the actors ought to put in for hazardous duty pay. It doesn't start out that way. In fact, as the audience takes its seats, Camilla Maxwell is wafting wordlessly about the stage, picking up odd objects. She's the ghost of Oona Dowd, who died under mysterious circumstances seven years earlier. She haunts the tortured mind of her widower, Mick, the overseer of a fully...