Alicia Keys discovers New York; Andy Warhol escapes Iran

Not all regional theater has to be tried-and-true hits from years past. Two new productions in Cleveland include a relatively current hit on Broadway and another that's barely been exposed on regional stages these past few years and has yet to reach even Off-Broadway. 'Hell's Kitchen' Formulaic "Jukebox" musicals, which invariably involve a recording star's greatest hits shoehorned into a simplistic bio of his or her rise to fame, have been growing rather tedious -- until "Hell's Kitchen," debuting its first national tour on Playhouse Square, reignited the genre on Broadway in April2024. Based on the early life of Alicia Keys and set in the lower-middle-class area of Manhattan in the pre-Giuliani days of the 1990s, "Hell's Kitchen" jettisoned a lot of the tropes and plot mechanizations that befall all too many entries into the jukebox genre. Rather than chronicle a recording star's standard trials and tribulations on the concert circuit, finagling with agents and record-label bureaucracy (think Carole King's "Beautiful" and Neil Diamond's "A Beautiful Noise"), Kristoffer Diaz's compelling book/script for "Hell's Kitchen" extracts a genuinely engaging storyline about a teen girl discovering her musical milieu and musical heritage as she navigates an exciting world just outside the lobby of her subsidized New York City apartment tower. She fights with her watchful mother, flirts with a punk street percussionist (who's not so punk after all), falls into the charm and power of a piano mentor in her apartment building and manages a few tender reconnections and melancholy disconnections with her estranged pianist father. Not exactly earthshaking stuff, but with an earthshaking production that features a brilliant set design by Robert Brill, lights by Natasha Katz, interwoven projections by Peter Nigrini, timeless '90s costumes by Dede Ayite, transcending hip-hop choreography b Camille A. Brown and involving and evolving direction by Michael Greif, "Hell's Kitchen" becomes a hot musical commodity. But the real flame comes from the subject of the musical, Alicia Keys. Her fiery songbook achieves what great musical scores strive for -- numbers that can stand on their own while propelling and defining the story and characters. Keys wrote one brand new song -- "Seventeen" -- added two songs that have never been released from her catalog -- "Kaleidoscope" and "River" -- and tweaked her virtual hit parade to give extra life and vitality to her characters. Of course this includes "Girl on Fire," "If I Ain't Got You," "No One" and "Empire State of Mind" for the finale. Every member of the cast astounds the audience with dancing and singing abilities -- powerfully, yet charmingly, headed by Maya Drake as Ali (teenage Keys). Roz White regally takes on the role of Ali's mentor Miss Liza Jane, a character invented just for the musical to reflect the great tradition of black female blues and jazz pianists and songwriters in the vein of Etta James. Even in the rather thankless role of Ali's slightly domineering mother, Kennedy Caughell stops the show in the heart-wrenching ballad "Pawn it All." With a talent deck that's as stacked as the new touring production of "Hell's Kitchen," it's of no surprise that this jukebox musical quickly transcends from seen-it-done-it to let's see it again. 'Andy Warhol in Iran' With but a handful of previous regional productions, the drama "Andy Warhol in Iran" aptly poses the ultimate intimate clash between a newly bourgeois artist and an anti-bourgeois insurrectionist. It's also a clash between a top-notch production at Beck Center and a play that's engrossing but just one or two notches short of a resounding triumph. Author Brent Askari presents ultra-trendy Warhol having traveled to the unlikely location of Tehran, Iran, to meet the wife of the soon-to-be-deposed Shah to do her portrait in Warhol's inimitable pop-art style. Expecting a room-service delivery of Iran's famously affordable caviar, Warhol is instead horrified to find out the fancily uniformed attendant of his fancy hotel is a disguised renegade attempting to kidnap Warhol for ransom to finance a political coup -- ostensibly relating to the eventual 1979 Islamist takeover of the Iranian monarchy. Rather than a clash of western and Islamist values, Askari's work focuses in on a meeting of humanity. Warhol and Farhad, the would-be terrorist, share mutual personal tragedy, even matching physical and emotional scars from horrific tragedies. (Warhol in fact survived a brutal murder attempt in real life.) Despite the Beck Center's brilliantly conceived hotel set by Cameron Michalak -- crowned on top with with a series of illuminating illuminations of Warhol's art and Iran's history conceived by Mike Tutaj -- playwright Askari's work becomes a bit stylistically vague with odd comedic intervals to lighten up a mood that never gets all that dark in the first place. Likewise, the characters could be written with a bit more nuance so as to give the threat of Warhol's potential kidnapping more immediacy and sense of danger. Instead, the would-be terrorist -- although exceptionally honed by Kareem Chaourab -- becomes something of a gruff teddy bear, while Warhol -- inventively and endearingly rendered by Scott Exposito -- at times becomes a sniveling fop whose wild blond wig (which Warhol never denied wearing), makes him less stoic and stone-faced artist and more Carol Channing. This is not to say the play, under the skillful, studied and detailed direction of Sarah May, is anything less than engaging -- and particularly timely, considering the current goings-on in the Middle East. There may be no time-stopping dramatic crescendos in this play, but timeliness and a great time will do quite nicely. Contact Howard Gollop at howieeg@gmail.com.