THE MORNING LINE DATE: Monday, July 13, 2015 FROM: Michelle Farabaugh, Jennie Mamary Zoe Edelman, Sarah Hodgson, Raychel Shipley PAGES: 26, including this page.

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Review: ‘Skippyjon Jones Snow What’ Continues Tale of a Conflicted Cat

By Laurel Graeber Skippyjon Jones is a Siamese cat who believes he’s a Chihuahua. You might think he’d require a veterinary psychologist or at least a visit fromJackson Galaxy, Animal Planet’s punked-out cat whisperer. ButTheatreworks USA has a better idea: Just put the conflicted kitty onstage and let him act out his fantasies.

The result is “Skippyjon Jones Snow What,” this company’s latest family musical in its program of free summer performances at the Lucille Lortel Theater. As young readers know, Skippyjon began life in the imagination of Judy Schachner, author of picture books about his south-of-the-border dreams. Three years ago, Kevin Del Aguila and Eli Bolin did the first Theatreworks Skippyjon adaptation, and they’ve reprised their collaboration for “Snow What.” And, amigos, I’m happy to report that this effort is just as clever, comical and boisterous.

Skippyjon’s hourlong adventure begins after he spurns his little sisters’ choice of a bedtime story, “Snow White.” Instead, Skippyjon, played with great brio by Junior Mendez, leaps into his closet — his portal to life as his canine alter ego, Skippito Friskito — and finds himself in a grim (and Grimm) wood. His old pals there, the Seven Chimichangos, who are Chihuahuas, not dwarfs — only four appear onstage, played by L. R. Davidson, Alexander Ferguson, Christian Perry and Lexi Rhoades — make him vow to take on the role of prince and rescue Nieve Qué, or Snow What. This princess is a dog (the barking kind), but that’s not what upsets Skippito. Princes wear tights and bestow kisses and, well, no way, José.

But a promise is a promise, and when Skippito frees Nieve Qué, she bursts into passionate song. (Mr. Bolin, a wonderfully versatile composer, infuses much of the score with mariachi rhythms, but this ode to love is hilariously operatic.) Portrayed with Latin heat by Ms. Rhoades, Nieve Qué is so outraged by Skippito’s aversion to matrimony that she wants to find the bruja, or witch (a brilliant Mr. Perry), and eat another poisoned apple so she can land a better prince.

Parents can be forgiven for wondering if this isn’t too big a dose of gender, not to mention ethnic, stereotypes. But the wryly satirical “Snow What” never offends. And Mr. Del Aguila, who wrote the book and lyrics and directed, doesn’t stick with tired traditions. Over the course of several plot twists, Nieve Qué takes up sword-fighting and feminist attitudes. As for that macho Skippyjon, who knew that being a prince — in the sense of a considerate guy — could be just as fulfilling as being a Chihuahua?

“Skippyjon Jones Snow What” runs through Aug. 7 at the Lucille Lortel Theater, Manhattan; twusa.org.

July 12, 2015

Roger Rees, Actor Who Won Tony as Nicholas Nickleby, Dies at 71

By Ashley Southall Roger Rees, the handsome Welsh-born actor and director who rose to fame as the title character in “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby,” for which he won a Tony Award, died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 71.

His death followed a bout with cancer, which he had for about a year, his publicist, Rick Miramontez, said.

In the final role of a career that spanned six decades across stage, film and television, Mr. Rees played the doomed lover of Chita Rivera’s character in the musical “The Visit” on Broadway until May, when he was forced to bow out for health reasons.

Ms. Rivera and Mr. Rees met last year while rehearsing for the musical and became fast friends as they performed it at the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts, before the show moved to New York. It closed in June.

“I feel I’ve been cheated a little bit,” Ms. Rivera, who played a vengeful millionaire in “The Visit,” said in a telephone interview on Saturday. “I haven’t had enough time with Roger Rees.”

“The world’s lost a great actor, a great soul, a great gentleman,” she added. “I’ve lost a new friend that I was really looking forward to spending the rest of my life with, getting to know him.”

Mr. Rees often played eccentric characters. He was best known to American television audiences as the self-assured millionaire Robin Colcord on the sitcom “Cheers,” and as the British ambassador Lord John Marbury on “The West Wing.”

He was a mainstay on Broadway, where he earned two other Tony nominations, one for best actor in “Indiscretions,” in 1995, and another, in 2012, for his work as a director of “Peter and the Starcatcher.” He also had a memorable turn as Gomez in “The Addams Family.”

But he was best known, both in England and on Broadway, as Nicholas Nickleby. The play, based on Dickens’s 1839 novel about a young man who struggles to support his mother and sister after the death of his father, was an unlikely hit when it debuted in London in 1980.

It quickly gained critical and popular success, and, after moving to Broadway in the fall of 1981, won the Tony for best play and earned Mr. Rees the Tony for best actor in a play. He also won an Olivier Award, the British equivalent of the Tony, and was nominated for an Emmy when the play was adapted for television.

Mr. Rees’s own life bore much in common with that of the Nickleby character. He was forced to drop out of school to earn a living after his father died.

Roger Rees was born on May 5, 1944, in Aberystwyth, Wales, and grew up in South London. His father, William, was a police officer; his mother, Doris, was a shop clerk.

“I was at a pretty rough school, and the only thing I was good at was art,” Mr. Rees told Playbill in 2013. “I got out of this school and went to Camberwell College of Arts, a terribly prestigious thing to do. I was there to be a painter. And I sketched so well that a year later I was sent to Slade School of Fine Art, one of the great art schools.”

After his father died, Mr. Rees found work painting scenery at the Wimbledon Theater in south London. He became an actor there in 1965, appearing in “Hindle Wakes” as a mill owner’s son who impregnates a mill girl resistant to efforts to make an honest woman out of her.

Mr. Rees moved to the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967, appearing in “The Comedy of Errors,” “Three Sisters,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “Othello,” “Twelfth Night” and “Cymbeline.”

He spent over two decades with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and was the artistic director of the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts from 2004 to 2007. He was also an associate artistic director of the Bristol Old Vic in England for two years starting in 1985.

In film, he played the Sheriff of Rottingham in Mel Brooks’s “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” in 1993. He also appeared in “The Scorpion King” in 2002, and “The Pink Panther” in 2006.

Mr. Rees, who became a United States citizen in 1989, is survived by his husband, Rick Elice, the playwright whose credits include “Jersey Boys.” The pair collaborated on “Peter and the Starcatcher,” a Peter Pan prequel, and wrote a play, “Double Double,” a thriller in which Mr. Rees played opposite Jane Lapotaire.

In an interview with “The Graham Show” on YouTube in 2013, Mr. Rees likened acting to being a blacksmith.

“It’s hot and cold, it’s fierce and pleasant,” he said. “Sometimes the most excruciating experiences in rehearsals and performances yield the most beautiful work.”

July 12, 2015

Review: Penn & Teller show plenty up their sleeves By Mark Kennedy

At a time when most theater performers are paranoid about getting everyone to turn off their cellphones — hello, Patti LuPone — Penn & Teller want them on. And the ringer on loud.

"Take out your cellphones, turn them on, hold them up!" Penn Jillette, the larger, speaking half of the magic duo says as he kicks off their new show on Broadway.

What happens next seems to betray physics. It involves a volunteer divorced from his phone, a bucket, a sealed box found in the audience and a dead fish, out

from which the phone miraculously reappears.

The fish — like the trick — is as fresh as ever.

Celebrating 40 years of performing together, Penn & Teller's new show that opened Sunday at the Marquis Theatre celebrates new and old tricks, and, as typical, mixes in plenty of comedy that bursts the traditional pretensions of stage magic.

There's a subversive whiff to their show, whether it's exploding myths about the metal detectors used by the Transportation Security Administration or vilifying so-called clairvoyants who prey on vulnerable people.

"The people who claim these powers are liars, cheaters, swindlers and rip-off artists. The tricks themselves are evil, immoral — and I know how to do them all," Penn says.

The show's tent poles have the pair pulling a rabbit out of a hat, sawing a woman in half and making what they call an African Spotted Pygmy Elephant vanish.

But there's something here for everyone, including a nail-gun bit that will make you wince, some clever close-up magic and a trick that has Teller swallowing needles and the audience gagging. Volunteers are often needed onstage and treated with respect.

These are a pair of self-acknowledged skeptics and libertarians who believe in tricks — not real risk — and don't believe in using plants in the audience — "We believe it is just too expensive," Penn jokes. They tease the crowd like trained strippers, revealing just enough, but not all.

How Teller managed to get a red ball to do his bidding like a dog is divulged. But how Penn correctly predicted the punch line from a single random joke from dozens of books is not. We learn some tantalizing clues about sawing people, but how a large animal managed to disappear into thin air is on us.

There's even a break-down of the common stunts, with Teller performing and Penn playing double bass. You learn about palming, loading, misdirection and ditching — but soon learn that the joke is on you: Those reveals are low-hanging fruit. How did that elephant disappear?

Teller, the single-monickered silent partner, gets to shine in a few solo tricks that smell of classic magic, including one with goldfish and a shadow bit. He's like a silent movie star, a nice juxtaposition from his bombastic partner.

Directed by John Rando, Penn & Teller's tricks here celebrate the sideshow of yore, the slight-of-hand gags of practiced pros, not the empty-calorie flash of the likes of Criss Angel. Penn says he wants the audience to wonder not how they do their tricks, but why.

The show takes a thoughtful turn at the end with a long monologue by Penn about his childhood glee at seeing the circus freaks and some extended fire-eating.

"You're in our tent and the side show ain't dead," Penn says.

Then the duo are done, a little wiped out, both smoking cigarettes, as if post-coitally. But where that darn elephant went is still a mystery.

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Online: http://pennandtelleronbroadway.com

July 13, 2015

July 12, 2015

Broadway Review: ‘Penn & Teller on Broadway’

By Marilyn Stasio

Over the past 14 years, you could catch Penn & Teller live in Vegas, all over television, including on their Showtime series “Penn & Teller: Bulls—!,” and even on a Katy Perry music video. But in all those years their only New York appearance was a measly week at the Beacon in 2000. No wonder the deprived fans of these thrillingly subversive comic magicians are lining up at the Marquis Theater for the six-week engagement of “Penn & Teller on Broadway.” Among other marvels in this new show, the longtime (40 years, if you’re counting) partners pull a rabbit out of a hat, make an elephant disappear, and saw a lady in half. As Penn Jillette, the tall, talky one, puts it: “What more do you want out of a magic show?” A lot more, actually, and we get it, too, in jokes serious and silly, political digs with sharp points, diatribes against fraudulent psychics, little lectures on ethics, and non-stop foolery that can be divided into pranks, stunts, tricks, illusions, deceptions, and baffling feats of — for want of a better word — magic. (Penn prefers “God-given miracles.”)

Working in close partnership, Penn and Teller are uncommonly civil to their audiences, inviting people onstage before the show to learn some of the tricks of their offbeat trade and spending considerable time in the lobby after the show, talking and posing for selfies. Maybe they’re tougher on the Vegas gambling crowd, but audience participation is warmly encouraged for this legit gig. They even buck the current trend of shaming theater audiences for the rude use of cell phones with their opening number, “Turn on Your Cell Phones,” which actively engages people in an elaborate routine that involves one person’s cell phone and — wait for it — a fresh fish.

Individually, the two performers work in different but compatible styles. Teller, the strange little guy with the unnerving habit of communicating only in mime-speak, is the classical magician in this partnership. He’s the one who gets to do the emblematic but rarely seen magic trick of pulling a rabbit (in this case, a little white bunny) out of a gentleman’s top hat.

Teller’s specialty is the apparently simple, low-tech, no frills trick — like crushing an egg in his hand and somehow restoring it to its untouched original form — that proves utterly baffling. The poetry of this classical style is on display in “Shadows,” his silent spectacle of making the petals on a rose fall off by clipping the shadow of the flower projected on a white screen. And his signature trick (“East Indian Needle Mystery”) of swallowing loose needles that re-emerge from his throat fully threaded is surely as chilling now as it ever was when Houdini first performed it.

Penn is the most fun when he’s fuming about something that offends his skeptical, cynical, irreligious, libertarian and quite contrary sensibility. He’s in his full glory in “Psychic Comedian,” castigating “evil” and “immoral” charlatans who dupe credulous people by claiming to have supernatural abilities. “They’re all tricks!” he thunders about the mind-reading acts that he then proceeds to duplicate with an uncanny act of his own — the trick of which he never reveals.

Pranks are quite different from tricks. Offended by government poking and prodding into the privacy of its citizenry, Penn pulls off a politically charged prank by confounding an airport metal detector with a clever gadget that you, dear audience, can purchase at the gift counter in the lobby.

The best illusion in the show is “The Vanishing Elephant,” a comic number performed in full view of a stageful of watchers recruited from the audience. It’s quite silly, sure to leave you laughing, and also totally baffled.

At the end of the show, Penn slows down his rapid-fire patter to reminisce about the carnival sideshows he loved as a kid. After informing us that the fire-eating display that fascinated him in his youth is neither a trick nor a prank, nor even an illusion, but a stunt, at times a painful, even dangerous stunt. And after explaining exactly how it’s done, he then proceeds to … do … it.

What they are really doing is messing with your head. By assuring us that all live animals used in the show are treated with “compassion, dignity and respect,” they elicit twinges of guilt in us for not having given a thought to the wellbeing of the bunny or the cow or any other animal paraded on stage. And when Penn rages about “immoral” magicians who perform dangerous tricks for dramatic effect, he’s slyly laughing at us for watching his scary “Nail Gun” act and secretly wondering if this might be the night when this particular dangerous trick would turn deadly.

But let’s be honest, here. Is anyone in this audience really disturbed when the magicians saw a woman into halves in the most graphic and gory manner — and then don’t even bother to clean up the blood and gore and put her back together again?

Broadway Review: 'Penn & Teller on Broadway' Marquis Theater; 1611 seats; $147 top. Opened July 12, 2015. Reviewed July 9. Running time: ONE HOUR, 35 min.

Production A Marc Routh, Richard Frankel, Tom Viertel, Steven Baruch, Jason Van Eman, and Ben McConley presentation, in association with Glenn S. Alai, of a magic show in one act written and performed by Penn and Teller.

Creative Directed by John Rando. Set, Daniel Conway; lighting, Jeff Croiter; sound, Peter Fitzgerald; production stage manager, Kathleen Burton Boyette.

Cast Penn Jillette, Teller, Mike Jones, Georgie Bernasek.

July 12, 2015

'Penn & Teller On Broadway': Theater Review The veteran illusionist duo returns to Broadway for their first NYC stage

appearance in fifteen years.

By Frank Scheck

Admit it: for years you've heard the common stereotype about magicians pulling a rabbit out of a hat, but you've never actually seen one do it. Leave it to Penn & Teller to finally make that old chestnut a reality as one of the highlights of their new show, Penn & Teller On Broadway. Marking their first NYC engagement in 15 years, the duo, who have become Las Vegas fixtures in their eponymously named theater, deliver an entertaining, fast-paced show featuring a combination of classic and new illusions. Having performed together for four decades, they have evolved from iconoclastic magicians into an institution, with scads of film and TV appearances and bestselling books among their credits.

For the uninitiated, Penn is the tall, garrulous one, regaling the audience with running commentary both serious and amusing, while the silent, diminutive Teller impishly performs dazzling sleight of hand.

They are debunkers and deconstructionists of magic, frequently reminding us that their seemingly miraculous feats are achieved through mere trickery. In a confounding mind-reading routine in which Penn guesses the jokes randomly chosen by audience members from books handed out, he angrily decries the "hucksters" and "frauds" who claim that that their feats are achieved through genuine psychic powers. He also takes pains to assure us that, unlike other magicians, they don't use audience plants, mainly because they're "just too expensive."

Social commentary is pointedly injected into the proceedings, most notably in a bit involving a genuine airport metal detector that provides an opportunity for Penn to rail against the loss of civil liberties in the wake of 9/11. To that end they have created a small metal card emblazoned with the Bill of Rights, which he happily points out is on sale in the theater's gift shop.

Penn and Teller are also proud magic traditionalists, performing classic routines originally made famous by Houdini more than a century ago. In one of them, Teller appears to swallow dozens of needles and thread, only to produce them from his mouth fully threaded seconds later. And while Houdini famously made an elephant disappear — he once performed the illusion at the long torn-down Hippodrome, located just a few blocks away — Penn and Teller vanish an "African spotted pygmy elephant" (actually a costumed cow) as it's surrounded by recruited audience members.

Fans will be familiar with some of their routines, including Teller hauntingly making petals fall off a flower by slashing its shadow, and Penn's show-closing fire-eating, accompanied by a confessional monologue in which he explains how the feat is achieved.

There's also plenty of audience participation, including a bit in which a theatergoer's cell phone is seemingly smashed to bits only to reappear — well, no spoilers here — and a hilarious segment in which they, and we, have a lot of fun with a hapless volunteer enlisted to videotape some close-up magic involving tiny cow figurines.

They also do the vintage mainstay of sawing a woman in half — in this case, their scantily clad, comely assistant Georgie Bernasek — although the Penn and Teller version shockingly features plenty of blood and guts.

While the evening is expertly staged by Broadway veteran John Rando (On the Town, Urinetown), one suspects the real behind-the-scenes star is Nathan Santucci, credited as "Director of Covert Activities." The show is receiving a strictly limited engagement through Aug. 16, after which the duo heads back to Vegas. Catch them before they disappear.

Cast: Penn & Teller, Mike Jones, Georgie Bernasek Director: John Rando Set designer: Daniel Conway Lighting designer: Jeff Croiter Sound designer: Peter Fitzgerald Presented by Marc Routh, Richard Frankel, Tom Viertel, Steven Baruch, Jason Van Eman and Ben McConley, in association with Glenn S. Alai

July 12, 2015

Penn & Teller on Broadway

By David Cote

Master illusionists Penn and Teller (whose act turns 40 this week!) do better than pull a rabbit out of a hat: They reach deep into our collective need to believe and extract skepticism. It’s not an easy trick. Humans seem to be hardwired for credulity, gladly surrendering our freedom to hucksters and peddlers of spiritual claptrap. (Penn, not coincidentally, is an outspoken atheist.) We want to believe in

miracles, unseen forces that operate on that earthly plane. Penn and Teller insist that there’s no such thing as magic—right before they blow our minds with some brilliant coup.

The tension between knowing you’re being fooled and not knowing exactly how is the secret to their success. Penn and Teller go the extra mile that David Blaine and Criss Angel (the latter gently mocked in the show) never do: They ask what it all means. “When you leave here tonight and you’re thinking about our show,” Penn rasps at us in his signature bass, “we don’t want you to be thinking about how we did it. We want you to be thinking about why.” The glib retort would be that they want to turn us into fellow libertarians while banking some cash. But it also has to do with making us more inquisitive citizens.

The set list for their latest gig is a mix of classic bits and new stuff. We see Teller’s enchanting routine with a fishbowl, wondrously appearing coins and an explosion of goldfish. Penn demonstrates his awesome memory skills with a nail gun he alternately fires at a board and his own hand. Teller coaxes a red ball to jump through hoops. They hand out books of jokes to the audience, and Penn accurately guesses what joke a volunteer has chosen. In one silly yet impressive sequence, they cause an African Spotted Pygmy Elephant (which looks suspiciously like a modified cow) to disappear.

As performers, they may be a touch grizzled and crusty—although the mutely bemused Teller, with his Harpo Marx–on-Xanax persona, seems ageless. However, as we enjoy Penn’s carnival-barker bluster and Teller’s delicate, exquisitely expressive clowning, spectators of a certain age will relish the chance to spend 90 minutes with two consummate neo-vaudevillians who, let’s face it, have been entertaining us most of our adult lives. I go to magic shows for cheap thrills, not to dwell on the mechanics of belief or free will, but Penn and Teller—philosophers as much as con men—deftly make that switcheroo.—David Cote

Marquis Theatre (Broadway). By Penn Jillette and Teller. Directed by John Rando. With Penn and Teller. Running time: 1hr 35mins. No intermission.

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