Year of the Rooster, Alix Korey and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical

Jessie Mueller, Anika Larson, Jarrod Spector and Jake Epstein in Beautiful

Year of the Rooster: 3.5/5 Stars
Alix Korey: 4.5/5 Stars
Beautiful: The Carole King Musical: 2/5 Stars

If you missed Eric Dufault’s Year of the Rooster last fall when it premiered at The Ensemble Studio Theater to critical and commercial success, you’ve got a second chance now that it’s returned for another run. Appropriately, second chances are what Dufault dangles in front of his sad, pathetic characters like metaphorical carrots in this “white-trash tragedy” of small yet stinging proportions. Sharply directed by John Giampietro with what may be the most committed cast working in New York today, Year of the Rooster is a story about losers searching for validation in a world whose cruelty doesn’t allow for intangible dreams like hope or success or going to Disney World. The fact that world is the world of cockfighting and that the primary loser in it works at McDonalds only makes Dufault’s tale ring true with all-American authenticity. But even though Dufault’s script is too often clumsy and clunky, Year of the Rooster succeeds primarily due to its top-notch cast who inhabit their roles with a ferocity that’s frightening and impressive.

Thomas Lyons stars as Gil Pepper, a downtrodden one-eyed fast-food worker who lives with his crazy mother, Lou (the frightening Delphi Harrington); argues with his manager, Phillipa (the hilarious Megan Tusing), whom he secretly likes; and seeks revenge on his nemesis, Dickie Thimble (a terrific Denny Dale Bess), who runs and controls the cockfighting game in town. Thomas’s secret weapon in his quest to reestablish his life and acquire some dignity is his prize-fighting cock, Odysseus Rex, portrayed by the extremely handsome Bobby Moreno, whose commitment to inhabiting the role of a rooster is worth making the long schlep across 52nd Street. Moreno is sensational: funny, insane, metaphysical and ultimately heartbreaking as he brings “Odie” to life as a rooster with desires and needs and feelings just like the rest of us.

Broadway powerhouse Alix Korey has been working out of Palm Springs and Los Angeles for the past several years, but every now and then she drops in for a show here in New York, and it’s always worth the wait. A veteran of shows like Hello, Dolly!, Ain’t Broadway Grand, and All Shook Up, Korey is known for her sharp comedic timing and big, brassy soprano that can shake foundations and warm hearts in equal measure. On January 10 at 54 Below, Alix Korey Celebrates Ethel Merman hit the stage with longtime accompanist and musical director Christopher Marlowe and director Scott Barnes. A musical match made in heaven, Korey and Marlowe essayed most of The Merm’s hits with style, wit and flair. Let’s hope Broadway can tempt Korey back again soon—in anything!

The subtitle for the new musical Beautiful is “The Carole King Musical,” but it should really be “The Carole King, Gerry Goffin, Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann Musical.” At least then there would be slightly more truth in advertising. So how’s the show? The cast is amazing and the song catalogue is fantastic, but as bio-musicals go it’s pretty disappointing. The dreadful book by Douglas McGrath connects the dots between the early hits written by King and Goffin and Mann and Weil when they were songwriting teams working at The Brill Building. The big, dramatic crisis they hang on Beautiful is that King and Goffin end up getting divorced (gasp!) and King has to start all over again—this time as a solo artist whose album Tapestry ends up becoming an undeniable classic. Of course, what they leave out of King’s life would fill a book (King’s book actually; she wrote one) or another musical. Did you know Carole King had a solo album before Tapestry that flopped? It was Writer, released in 1971. Or that she had two more husbands and two more children? No, probably not, and you won’t learn any of those things from “The Carole King Musical” either.

Year of the Rooster plays through February 1 at The Ensemble Studio Theater (549 W 52nd St, ensemblestudiotheatre.org). Beautiful: The Carole King Musical plays at the Stephen Sondheim (124 W 43rd St, BeautifulOnBroadway.com).