November 20-26, 2003

artpicks

Embarrassments

theater

One of the best-received musicals ever at the Wilma was Bed and Sofa, by the team of Laurence Klavan and Polly Pen. Now the Wilma is giving the latest work by the two, Embarrassments, its world premiere. The new piece by these American writers, commissioned by the theater, is, once again about an incident long ago and far away. It is January 5, 1895. The place: the St. James Theater in London's West End. The brilliant novelist Henry James hopes to change his career with the opening of his new play. Meanwhile, we see the 51-year-old author struggling with conflicted loyalties to art and love. The novelist made his reputation writing about people's interior lives and here he was attempting an extroverted and presentational art form. Critics H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw were in the audience. It was a debacle. The musical is a show about putting on a show -- an intricate look at what goes on behind the scenes. Klavan says: "Don't think this is going to be a fusty PBS documentary about a 19th-century author. It's a very modern show, and funny."

Embarrassments, Nov. 26-Jan. 4, $9-$50, The Wilma Theater, 265 S. Broad St., 215-546-7824.

—Steve Cohen

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