Boston Globe review of Skip's show HERRINGBONE at Williamstown is up. Hope it's OK to reprint it here in its entirety.
STAGE REVIEW
Wong's magnetism gives 'Herringbone' its power, humanity
By Louise Kennedy, Globe Staff | June 21, 2007
WILLIAMSTOWN -- Even if he weren't doing it with 30 stitches in his right thigh, the performance B.D. Wong gives in "Herringbone" would be a tour de force. Given the circumstances -- Wong injured himself in last Friday's opening-night performance at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, stopped the show to get stitched up, then went back onstage the next day -- it's little short of miraculous.
Wong says he has been obsessed with "Herringbone" since, at 19, he saw the original New York production. On paper, the obsession is a little hard to understand: This is a one-man show about an 8-year-old vaudeville star who's possessed by the soul of a murderous, tap-dancing midget.
In performance, however, Wong richly justifies his fascination -- and passes it on to us. For this is not, as you might fear, a gimmicky show about weirdos. It is very weird indeed, but it is also a funny, heartbreaking, and multilayered consideration of familial bonds, the construction of identity, greed, lust, power, and the dangers and rewards of theatrical performance itself. Oh, and tap-dancing, too.
Those who know him only from "Law & Order: SVU" will be astonished to learn that Wong is a marvelous dancer, singer, and stage actor. Those familiar with his Broadway triumph in "M. Butterfly" will be less surprised -- but may still be astonished by just how good, how nonchalantly expert, engaging, and magnetic, he is here.
"Herringbone" requires its star to create 11 distinct characters. There's the child star, George; the midget, Lou (known in his own vaudeville career as the Frog); the Frog's former dance partner, Nathan "Chicken" Mosely; George's parents and grandmother; the salesclerk who sells him his herringbone suit; a lawyer; a manservant; a hotel receptionist named Dot; and the narrator, Herringbone.
But there's also, we gradually realize, another character onstage: the actor who is creating these characters. The first time Wong stops and says, "Sorry, I forgot to tell you," you think he's just fluffed a line -- and who could blame him? But at some point you recognize that such "mistakes" are part of the show.
It's a testament to Wong's artistry that I can't tell you how I knew this, even before he said as much in a post-performance talkback; I just did. And it's the key to the whole thing. By pretending to drop the mask, only to clue us in that the face beneath is a mask, too, Wong fulfills the play's intent: to make us reflect on how all of us build our sense of ourselves, are possessed by the characters in our lives, and somehow, if we're lucky, manage to live a real life anyway.
Let me emphasize, before commanding you to go, that this is a genuinely odd show, and one that will not delight every taste. Skip Kennon's music is complex, spookily lovely, and indelibly evocative of the varied characters, but it's not easy listening, and both Tom Cone's book and Ellen Fitzhugh's lyrics present similarly intense challenges. The show also has moments of deep creepiness, as when Lou's spirit tries to use the child's body to have sex with an aroused but confused Dot.
But "Herringbone" knows it's creepy, and we're left revolted not by what happens onstage but by the true heartbreaks that this production, directed with sensitivity and intelligence by Roger Rees, forces us to contemplate. Children aren't generally possessed by midgets. But too many are dominated, wounded, and even destroyed by the adults in their lives. To see Wong transform his adult features into the desolate, lonely face of a scared little boy is to share that terror.
Wong and his characters, by the way, are not quite alone on Neil Patel's simple set, which cleverly lays bricks in a herringbone pattern that blurs the border between stage and audience. Music director Dan Lipton delivers an equally virtuosic performance at the piano, changing musical styles and moods as quickly as Wong does voices and accents. For all their art, though -- Lipton's easy mastery of both showstoppers and tender ballads, Wong's delicacy in evoking a whole person by miming the adjustment of an earring -- what most amazes us in "Herringbone" is not the dazzling trickery of its surface, but the poignant tenderness and full humanity of its unexpected depths.
