THE MORNING LINE

DATE: Tuesday, January 17, 2017

FROM: Melissa Cohen Angela Yamarone

PAGES: 14, including this page

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January 17, 2017 Lisa Kron Awarded Kleban Prize for Musical Theater By Andrew R. Chow

Lisa Kron and Daniel Zaitchik have been awarded the 2017 Kleban Prizes for writing in musical theater.

Ms. Kron, 55, who already has an impressive body of work, won for most promising musical theater librettist. She won two Tony Awards in 2015 for writing the book and lyrics of “Fun Home,” a Broadway hit about a lesbian cartoonist dealing with her father’s suicide. Previously, she wrote and performed in memoir-driven plays including “Well” and “2.5 Minute Ride.” (She was eligible for the award because her work has been on Broadway for less than two years; “Fun Home” ran for a year and a half.)

Mr. Zaitchik, 36, won for most promising musical theater lyricist. He is a composer-playwright whose projects, including “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” have been developed at Lincoln Center Theater and Ars Nova. He is also a recording singer-songwriter and has acted Off Broadway.

The judges this year were the songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez; the actress Mary Testa; and the producer Ira Weitzman. The prize comes with $100,000; previous winners include Jason Robert Brown (“Parade”); Jeff Marx and Mr. Lopez (“Avenue Q”); and Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak (“A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder”).

The Kleban Foundation was established in 1988 in the will of Edward Kleban, a composer and lyricist who won a Tony and a Pulitzer for “A Chorus Line.”

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January 17, 2017 Review: ‘Made in China,’ With Romance, Polemics and Puppets By Charles Isherwood

Puppets are hardly a novelty on New York stages, but I’ll bet you’ve never seen one representing a talking, singing toilet plunger, have you?

Strange to say, that’s not the oddest moment in “Made in China,” an all-puppet musical that blends an unlikely romance between two lonely souls stranded in middle age with pointed commentary on the ties between America’s voracious consumerism and human rights abuses in China.

Presented by the brash Wakka Wakka company (“Saga,” “Baby Universe: A Puppet Odyssey”) at the 59E59 Theaters, and written and directed by Gwendolyn Warnock and Kirjan Waage (with input from the ensemble), this unclassifiable show flits freely between political commentary and surrealistic comedy — and sometimes mashes them together. It unfolds the fantastic story of Mary (voiced by Peter Russo) and Eddie (Ariel Estrada), neighbors in an anonymous suburb whose dogs initially get along better than they do. (One-upping “Avenue Q,” this show includes both doggy and human sex, as well as full-frontal puppet nudity.)

Mary has let her body go to seed, filling her empty heart by gorging on unwholesome food. Divorced, and rarely able to see her children or grandchildren, she also fills the void in her life with unbridled shopping sprees.

In a boisterous early sequence, she rampages through a store snapping up everything in sight. But when she opens a newly bought package of Christmas tree ornaments, she also finds a note stuffed inside from a worker in a Chinese factory. It urges Mary to bring the plight of abused laborers in China to the attention of human rights organizations.

Rebuffed by the Chinese-born Eddie when she seeks advice, she returns home only to find herself serenaded by a chorus of household products made in China, led by that perky plunger (Charles Pang), and a handgun. “I was made by children in Hunan!” the gun merrily sings. “Fifteen hours each day, they’re having fun! Safely tucked away from awful sun, make for you the cheapest all-American gun!”

Things only get stranger from here. I don’t want to spoil all the show’s often-charming oddities, but eventually Mary and Eddie are plummeting down through the earth (via, ahem, Mary’s toilet) to land — where else? — in China, where they soon find themselves imprisoned, and then toiling in a grim factory.

The nicely turned songs, with music and lyrics by Yan Li, are mostly in the style of traditional American musical comedy, with infusions of Chinese flavorings. They are performed by four members of the Norwegian chamber music group MiNensemblet, along with Mr. Yan and Max Mamon. Several are reflective laments by Eddie and Mary on their loneliness, their growing affection for each other or the bizarre predicament(s) they find themselves in.

But the most memorable moments are lighter. Among the standout comic songs is a vaudevillian duet with Uncle Sam (Stephen J. Mark) and Mao (Mr. Pang) that jabs, with sharp humor, at the symbiotic relationship between the great maw of the American marketplace and the strictly controlled — and often abused — Chinese labor force: “Deck the halls with profit margins,” they sing. “Undercut the brand designers, hire migrants, convicts, minors!”

As in the best puppet theater, the performers who give voice to their characters and manipulate the puppets do so with such seamless grace that we absorb the story with minimal distraction. The style here is in the tradition of the Japanese bunraku: the puppeteer-actors are shrouded in black clothing, with dark veils over their faces, and almost invisible against the dark background. You are hardly aware of their presence, which makes it easier to accept the more bizarre episodes and unlikely transitions.

I didn’t follow how Mary and Eddie escaped their labor camp by way of a dancing forest of bamboo, or for that matter how being swallowed by a dragon they encounter while leaping from bamboo stalk to bamboo stalk somehow lands them back in America. Clearly narrative logic is not a high priority for Wakka Wakka.

But the puppets, designed by Mr. Waage, have such distinctive personalities that the plot’s absurdities rarely intrude on our enjoyment. The prickly personality of Mary, with her bulging, needy blue eyes and pendulous breasts, is brought to life by Mr. Russo with funny-sad precision. So, too, does Mr. Estrada bring fine emotional shadings to Eddie, whose chilly frustration with the woman whose life he becomes entangled in melts into something warmer.

But even Mary and Eddie’s dogs, and the many inanimate objects that populate the show — the dancing letter that sets the plot in motion, and of course that peppy plunger — are brought to life with a magical vividness that enchants. The romantic comedy and sociopolitical polemic aspects of “Made in China” may not always be smoothly integrated, but the show’s visual allure never ceases.

Made in ChinaTickets Through Feb. 28. 59E59 Theaters, ; 212-279-4200, 59E59.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes.

Credits Written and directed by Gwendolyn Warnock and Kirjan Waage; music and lyrics by Yan Li; puppets by Mr. Waage; underscore by Lars Petter Hagen; sets by Yu Ting Lin, Ms. Warnock and Mr. Waage; lighting/technical direction by Alex Goldberg; costumes by Ms. Warnock and Mr. Waage; sound by Tyler Kieffer; video animation by Tiger Cai; Mackenzie Blade, production stage manager; Gabrielle Brechner, executive producer.

Cast Lei Lei Bavoil, Ariel Estrada, Dorothy James, Wei-Yi Lin, Andrew Manjuck, Stephen J. Mark, Charles Pang, Peter Russo and Hansel Tan (Puppeteers).

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January 17, 2017 Review: ‘[Porto]’ Features a Bar Regular Looking for Love By Laura Collins-Hughes

The Edison lights are a tipoff, glowing amber above the L-shaped, dark-wood bar. Also the foie gras sausage on the menu, and the snacks for nibbling: fried chickpeas, jerky popcorn. And no, that is not jerky as in beef.

“Venison,” the waiter says. “Duh.”

This neighborhood spot, in gentrifying Brooklyn, is “a boushy bar,” the unseen narrator tells us in Kate Benson’s stealthily ferocious, comfortingly hopeful, very funny new play, “[Porto],” at the Bushwick Starr. The term “boushy” is a portmanteau, related to “bougie.”

Its ridiculous pretensions notwithstanding, the place is a kind of refuge for Porto (Julia Sirna-Frest), who would really like to be leading a healthier life in a slimmer body: less indulgence, more moderation.

But the warmly lit bar promises company and conversation. And the main voice in Porto’s head — a.k.a. the narrator (Ms. Benson), who wields a godlike influence — makes a compelling argument involving the actress Lillie Langtry, who, in the early 1900s, sued Keens Steakhouse to force it to admit women. “So really,” the narrator says. “You sitting alone at the bar: A feminist act. Do it.” Porto does.

The play, too, is a feminist act, placing a Hermione type — a bookish, whip-smart woman — at its center and forcing her to do something about her own loneliness. Fearful, guarded, dogged by self-doubt, Porto is intensely weary of being alone but certain she is doomed by her appearance never to get the hot guy.

In her head, a Chorus of Dumb Bunnies — human size, in furry rabbit suits — berates her about the things she needs to change if she wants to catch a man. The insistent voices of feminist intellectuals are in there, too, urging her not to be such a soft touch.

This production, part of the Exponential Festival, reunites Ms. Benson and the director Lee Sunday Evans, who won a joint Obie in 2015 for “A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes,” at New Georges. “[Porto]” is a quieter play, less attention-grabbing and not as seamlessly staged. A delicate mechanism, it hasn’t fully found its rhythm off the page, despite a largely excellent cast led by the wonderful Ms. Sirna-Frest.

Here, in this unnamed bar, the customers are known by their tipples, the staff by their jobs. The new guy, a bearded beer drinker with an awkward sexiness about him, is Hennepin (Jorge Cordova), who lets Doug the Bartender (Noel Joseph Allain) bully him out of ordering anything lame. When Porto’s pretty, not-so-bright friend Dry Sac (Leah Karpel) comes in, already drunk, Hennepin is semi-smitten.

But then there is Raphael the Waiter (Ugo Chukwu), a soulful sort with a weakness for the Hermiones of the world and a wistful fantasy of opening a bar that sells books. Remember the monologue from “Bull Durham,” the romantic one that Kevin Costner uses to melt Susan Sarandon’s every last defense? Ms. Benson gives

Raphael a speech like that — an ode to what he calls “the serious ones,” the women “who carry two books to work in case they finish one on the train” — and it is a glorious thing.

There is plenty of longing to go around in “[Porto],” which begins with instructions for (this is Brooklyn, after all) making your own sausage. The path to pleasure in sausage, as in life, can be brutal, messy and seriously disgusting. A little precious, too.

Yet the play is ultimately an exhortation to get out of your head and live, in thoughtful pursuit of joy.

[Porto] Tickets Through Feb. 4 at the Bushwick Starr, Brooklyn; thebushwickstarr.org Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes.

Credits By Kate Benson; directed by Lee Sunday Evans; lighting by Amith Chandrashaker; costumes by Ásta Bennie Hostetter; sound by Kate Marvin; sets by Kristen Robinson; stage manager, Ed Herman; production manager, Ann Marie Dorr; technical director, Jen Medina-Gray; assistant director, Nick O’Leary; produced by Ms. Benson, Ms. Evans, John Del Gaudio and Rachel Karpf Reidy. Presented by the Bushwick Starr, Noel Allain, artistic director; Sue Kessler, executive director.

Cast Noel Joseph Allain (Doug the Bartender), Kate Benson (the narrator), Ugo Chukwu (Raphael the Waiter), Jorge Cordova (Hennepin), Leah Karpel (Dry Sac), Esau Mora (Chorus of Dumb Bunnies), Julia Sirna-Frest (Porto) and Addison Williams (Chorus of Dumb Bunnies).

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January 17, 2017 Dick Gautier, Who Played a Rock Star in ‘,’ Is Dead By Peter Keepnews

Dick Gautier, a comic actor best known for his Tony-nominated performance as a vain rock ’n’ roll star in the Broadway musical “Bye Bye Birdie” and his recurring role as a robot with a heart on the television show “,” died on Friday in Arcadia, Calif. He was 85.

A spokesman, Harlan Boll, said the cause was pneumonia.

Mr. Gautier had the square-jawed good looks of a leading man. But he also had a wild sense of humor — he began his career as a stand-up comedian — and for more than 50 years he was primarily a scene-stealing supporting player on .

His television credits included the occasional drama like “Marcus Welby, M.D.” and “Murder, She Wrote,” but comedy was his specialty. He was seen on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “,” “,” “Gidget,” “The Love Boat” and countless other comedy shows. He was also a frequent guest on game shows, sometimes with his second wife, the actress Barbara Stuart.

His only leading role of note was as a decidedly unheroic Hood on the “,” created by , in 1975. Critics liked the show’s anarchic humor, but ratings were low and it was canceled after 13 episodes. (When Mr. Brooks revisited the Robin Hood legend in 1993 in the feature film “Robin Hood: Men in Tights,” the part was played by Cary Elwes.)

Mr. Gautier was a successful nightclub comedian in New York in 1960 when he was cast in “Bye Bye Birdie,” which starred as the orchestrator of an elaborate publicity stunt involving a singer modeled on Elvis Presley. Gower Champion, the show’s director, and Charles Strouse, who wrote the music, saw Mr. Gautier’s act, which included singing as well as comedy, at the Blue Angel in Manhattan and asked him to audition for the role of the singer, Conrad Birdie.

He was not interested at first, he told the show-business historian Kliph Nesteroff in 2014, because he did not like rock ’n’ roll: “I said to Charlie: ‘It’s not for me. I feel very inhibited and very intimidated by this whole Elvis thing because it’s not me.’ He said, ‘It’s a satire.’ Then I went, ‘Ohhhhh.’ When he said that, then I got it.”

“Bye Bye Birdie” was a hit, running for a year and a half and winning four Tonys, including best musical. Mr. Gautier’s performance, praised by Brooks Atkinson of as “a good, unsubtle cartoon of hideous reality,” earned him a Tony nomination.

Mr. Gautier’s next high-profile role came in 1966, when he was cast as Hymie, a robot who is programmed to do evil but switches sides and befriends the bumbling spy Maxwell Smart (Don Adams), on “Get Smart,” the hit

sitcom created by Mr. Brooks and . The character appeared in only six episodes but is fondly remembered by fans.

Richard Gautier was born on Oct. 30, 1931, in Culver City, Calif., to parents who worked in the movie industry — his father as a grip, his mother as a seamstress. He attended military school, began his show business career as a teenage singer and served in the Navy before trying stand-up comedy at the hungry i in San Francisco in the mid-1950s.

In his later years Mr. Gautier specialized in voice-over work on cartoon shows. He was heard but not seen on “The Transformers,” “The Smurfs,” “G.I. Joe” and many other series.

Although best known for his television work, Mr. Gautier also appeared onstage in touring productions of “The Music Man” and other shows, and in movies including “Divorce American Style” (1967) and “Fun With Dick and Jane” (1977).

He was also an accomplished caricaturist and the author or co-author of “The Art of Caricature,” “Actors as Artists” and other books.

Mr. Gautier was married and divorced three times. He is survived by three children, Chrissie, Randy and Denise, from his first marriage, to Beverly Hedman; four grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. He and his third wife, Tess Hightower, a psychologist, had recently divorced.

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