You know, you really can't

Extended through February 22nd

Rose Byrne as Alice Sycamore and James Earl Jones asMartin Vanderhof in George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's
"You Can't Take It With You" at the Longacre. Photo by  Joan Marcus.

In the zany Sycamore clan, Alice (Rose Byrne) seems to have fallen farthest from the tree. She's a level-headed girl who holds a conventional job as a secretary in a Wall Street firm. In a pleasing turn of events, she and the boss's son, Anthony Kirby, Jr. (Fran Kranz) have fallen madly in love.

 James Earl Jones, Kristine Nielsen, Fran Kranz, Reg Rogers,
Annaleigh Ashford,Patrick Kerr and Mark Linn-Baker.
Photo by Joan Marcus

Will the antics of her charmingly eccentric family spoil her engagement?

Kaufman and Hart's Pulitzer Prize-winning "You Can't Take It With You," at the Longacre Theatre, is a very American comedy. It's about freedom and the pursuit of happiness.

Alice's father, Paul (Mark Linn-Baker) constructs elaborate fireworks in the basement with the aid of Mr. DePinna (Patrick Kerr), who has taken up residence in grandpa's home with them. Grandfather Martin Vanderhof (James Earl Jones) walked away from his office one day years ago, and spends his days at Columbia commencements and his evenings with the neighborhood cop on the corner.

Alice's mother, Penny (Kristine Nielsen) is a serial artist currently writing steamy plays.
Essie, Alice's sister, (Annaleigh Ashford) breaks into dance while her husband Ed Carmichael (Will Brill) plays Beethoven --with a little more he's composed-- on the xylophone. Her tutor, the boisterous Boris Kolenkhov (Reg Rogers, who seems to have been born for this role), indulges her despite her deficiences as a dancer. Rheba (Crystal Dickinson), the family's maid who lives in with her beau Donald (Marc Damon Johnson) takes a keen interest in the household's businesses, which include Essie's candy-making enterprise.

"You Can't Take It With You" is both profoundly subversive and sweetly innocent. Charming, well-acted, beautifully constructed, and fabulously staged with Scott Ellis at the helm and David Rockwell (sets) and Jane Greenwood (costumes) designing. "You Can't Take It With You" is as irrestible as Olga's (Elizabeth Ashley) blintzes, but that comes later.

Elizabeth Ashley as Olga. Photo by
Joan Marcus.

Rounding out the cast are Byron Jennings as Tony's father, Anthony Sr., and Johanna Day as his wife and Tony's mother, Miriam. Also stopping by the Vanderhof-Sycamore home are Henderson, an IRS agent (Karl Kenzler) and some Justice Department fellows (Nick Corley, Austin Durant and Joe Tapper.) Gay Wellington (Julie Halston) spends her time there mostly in a madcap drunk.

"You Can't Take It With You" is a romantic comedy. Expect to see the triumph of good sense.

Every performance, in minutest detail, is perfect in "You Can't Take It With You." In fact the cast are all entirely impressive. James Earl Jones subdues that big voice to play an amicable, wise and peaceable Martin Vanderhof . Rose Byrne is delightful. Elizabeth Ashley makes the most of her Olga, as Reg Rogers does with his Kalenkhov. Kristine Nielsen, Annaleigh Ashford, Patrick Kerr, Marc Damon Johnson and Mark Linn-Baker are understatedly screwball.

To learn more about "You Can't Take It With You," please visit http://youcanttakeitwithyoubroadway.com/. Hurry, tickets should be hard to get.
For additional commentary,  http://lnkd.in/d7rJpzy

Dreamers and thinkers: Ideas that Threaten

Dreamers and thinkers are a threat to tyranny.

Nathan Englander's "The Twenty-Seventh Man," at The Public Theater extended through December 16th,  examines Stalin's extreme reaction to that threat.

Stalin had encouraged Yiddishists in every arena, supporting the Moscow State Jewish Theater, Yiddish newspapers and schools. In 1952, his paranoia seems to have gotten the better of him. He began rounding up Jewish intellectuals for execution.

In  "The Twenty-Seventh Man," Pinchas Pelovits (Noah Robbins), the titular final prisoner, is mystified at being brought in to share a cell with literary luminaries. His cellmates are all prominent writers. Pinchas is unsung and never published.

Vasily Korinsky (Chip Zien), Guard (Happy Anderson), Pinchas Pelovits (Noah Robbins), Moishe Bretzky (Daniel Oreskes) and Yevgeny Zunser (Ron Rifkin). Photo by Joan Marcus 

Yet, upon being dropped in the cell, the only thing Pinchas asks for is pen and paper. Vasily Korinsky (Chip Zien), one of the famous authors with whom he is incarcerated, suggests it would be more sensible to ask for his freedom. Pinchas points out that if your jailer were to free you, he would no longer be your jailer. As played by Robbins, Pinchas is an innocent savant.

Yevgeny Zunser (Ron Rifkin) and Pinchas Pelovits (Noah Robbins). Photo by Joan Marcus 

The mild-mannered  Yevgeny Zunser (Ron Rifkin) is amused by Pinchas's youth and Talmudic reasoning. Unlike Korinsky, who is convinced that his arrest is a mistake, Zunser is resigned to his plight.

The dream cast in "The Twenty-Seventh Man" includes the amazing Byron Jennings, as the Agent in Charge. When Korinsky tells him he is innocent, the Agent asks if that means the others are not, and asks him to confirm it in writing. "Sign it," he urges, "so I will believe it."

The Agent in Charge (Byron Jennings) with Vasily Korinsky (Chip Zien). Photo by Joan Marcus 

There is an intensity that is wrought by the carefully-placed language and the precision in the tone of "The Twenty-Seventh Man." As befits a drama about writers and thinkers, "The Twenty-Seventh Man,"
weaves a spell of words. The stylized text evokes a feeling that can only be described as Russian.

For more information about "The Twenty-Seventh Man," please visit www.publictheater.org.