Critics are celebrating Matthew Rhys for his WTF fuck. It’s a great face—but all Rhys faces are great faces. Rhys in horror, yes, but also Rhys in discomfort, Rhys in frenzy, Rhys in anger. The Rhys of “Widow’s Bay” is sweaty, desperate, and needy—he is relatable. There must be a cost to exposing so much inner weakness. What a gift Rhys has. In “Widow’s Bay,” Rhys has lied to his adolescent son: “Your mother died in childbirth.” In fact, the mother lived for years, and her schizophrenic letters are waiting to be discovered. Rhys learns that he can lift a curse on “his” island—to promote tourism, he just needs to murder a certain tainted citizen. (There is an elaborate story about a poisoned bloodline.) The problem is that the citizen in question is Rhys’s octogenarian receptionist—can he really bring himself to smother her with a pillow? People have written about “Widow’s Bay” and its relationship to history. In America, we try to build industries on nostalgia—but, ...
Sondheim writes big iconic introductions--some of the most famous intros in Broadway history. "The Jet Song," "Comedy Tonight," "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd." These songs establish a mood; they tell us what we're going to get. When you're a Jet-- You're the top cat in town. You're the gold-medal kid With the heavyweight crown! When you're a Jet-- You're the swingin'est thing. Little boy, you're a man. Little man, you're a king! By contrast, the opening of "Sunday in the Park" initially feels small. It's a rare case in which we do *not* start with a choral number. We get two people--one singing, one making bitchy comments. Dot does not want to model so early in the morning. She also has doubts about George's romantic commitment. This doesn't interest George--who is comically over-invested in making a perfect sketch. Given that this is Sondheim, Dot drowns in ambivalence. She finds George's pric...