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For those of us who hit elementary school in the early 90′s, our first brush with musical theater came from animated films like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. These titles traded in traditional musical forms, but were staged by brilliant visual artists, not Broadway heavy-hitters.
As little kids, we didn’t know about Stephen Schwartz, Alan Menken, or Elton John, we just loved their characters and adored their music. Disney animation was the ultimate status symbol, too — pity the first grader who hadn’t seen Lion King on the big screen and on home video. Several of those classic titles have been turned into Broadway musicals, but it’s the films that will always stay closest to the heart of those who grew up on them.
Vera Farmiga in "Higher Ground (L), Lily Rabe & Josh Hamliton in "A Doll's House," (R)
“The Walkout:” It’s an ideal 11 o’clock moment, that instant your hero shouts, “Enough!” then marches out the door, leaving the familiar behind for the unknown.
A film and a play recently made Grade A hay out of this conceit. The first, Vera Farmiga’s “Higher Ground,” examines one woman’s life journey in and out of faith; the second, “A Doll’s House” (which I saw in revival at Williamstown) presents a wife no longer at home with that title. Each woman makes a dramatic exit, and each gives a wrenching, final-hour address in why she’s leaving and what she clings to as – click click – her heels take her into uncertainty and solitude.
The premise behind “The Adjustment Bureau” is simple and delicious: At each human’s birth, a supreme, omniscient “chairman” creates a script for his or her life. As people grow, the chairman helps turn these prescribed narratives into reality with little nudges, or “adjustments:” inconspicuous, seemingly random blips—lost keys, forgotten appointments—that ultimately put people on the “right” path. Matt Damon and Emily Blunt oh-so-stylishly lead the way through this delightfully glossy, children’s book fantasy kind of grown-up blockbuster.
Exiting the AMC Empire on West 42nd Street, where “Bureau” is playing, I couldn’t help but wish for a few “adjustments” in that theater’s exceptional history. Once a beautiful, legitimate playhouse, it followed Times Square into general decay and porno squalor. Under the jurisdiction of The New 42nd Street Street, Inc., the Empire missed the world-class renovations sported by several of its Deuce brethren, and now serves as the entrance to AMC’s monster movie complex. (This remarkable civic tale gets the royal treatment in Anthony Bianco’s pitch-perfect book, “Ghosts of 42nd Street.”)
