Helen Schneider, Lucca Züchner (Photo: Maria Baranova)

Last Call

By Julia Polinsky

In 2025, it's challenging to remember that the 1930s and 40s shaped the rest of the 20^th century culturally as well as economically and politically.  In Last Call, the world premiere play by Peter Danish now at New World Stages, remind us of the lessons of history.

Leonard Bernstein and Herbert von Karajan, two towering cultural figures whose careers began back then and affected much of the 20^th century, meet at the bar of the Hotel Sacher in Vienna. Based on fact, Last Call offers superb performances, gorgeous design, and much to think about in terms of how actions have consequences.

Director Gil Mehmert makes a charming, helpful speech before show about casting women to play these two men. Mehmert insists that it's not just a precious European affectation; it removes the whole resemblance issue from the performance. By casting women, he eliminates emphasis on the physical. In this play about the spiritual qualities of music, the inner soul that breathes life into the score matters more than, for instance, endless fuss about the prosthetic nose on the star in the recent Bernstein biopic.

Helen Schneider (Photo: Maria Baranova)

Was it odd to watch women play these men? Not at all; it took about 4 seconds to forget that these actors were female. Body language, gesture, facial expression: all were as evocative of these great conductors as could be, and nothing said "female" at all.

However, whether you know or care about classical music may make a difference in how much you enjoy Last Call. For those who know something of Beethoven and Brahms, for instance, it will likely have a richer effect than for those who did not grow up watching Bernstein's Young People's Concerts on TV. How much do you really need to know? Not that much. The characters are the story.

The lights come up on Herbert von Karajan (Lucca Züchner) seated at a table in the bar (scenic design from Chris Barreca), with a musical score in front of him. As he reads the score, he hears in his head the Brahms symphony he is to conduct the next day (sound design from Lindsay Jones) and talking out his efforts to find something new in a symphony he has conducted over 160 times. His body language and intensity tell you everything you need to know about the conductor and his love for music. Projections (Austin Switser) translate his German, whether he's thinking out loud or talking to the bartender, Michael (Victor Petersen).

Helen Schneider, Victor Petersen, Lucca Züchner (Photo: Maria Baranova)

In walks Leonard Bernstein, here called Lenny (Helen Schneider). He notices von Karajan, engrossed in the score, and the fireworks between these two lifelong rivals ignite. The bartender keeps Herbert in tea and Lenny in Scotch for the rest of the play, with a magnificent digression as he helps them remember the one thing they agree on: Maria Callas.

The script reveals that Bernstein, the quintessential New York Jew, and von Karajan, the Austrian conductor who twice joined the Nazi party, had been more than just musical rivals. They were political opposites, with axes to grind. Bernstein says, at one point, that he never really believed that von Karajan was a Nazi, but so many other musicians chose to leave Nazi Germany and von Karajan did not. Bernstein judged him for that: "A man's actions can be forgiven, but they can never be erased." This is true, of course, of Lenny himself; his own craven behavior at von Karajan's concert at Carnegie Hall shortly after the war, when he stood on the sidelines and watched protesters humiliate von Karajan -- and did nothing to stop it.

Last Call is a zinger-filled rehash of these frenemies' lives - a very well written one. Two of the greatest, most important figures of classical music in the 20^th century: how could they be real friends? They conducted all the great orchestras. They had their own characteristic sounds. They discuss making music, directing it, conducting it. They remember their long histories, in which each behaved badly. And they acknowledge their mistakes and forgive each other and themselves.

A year after this meeting, Von Karajan passed away; Bernstein outlived him by roughly a year. They brought great music to the world, and it's easy to think that we shall not see their like again. When all is said and done, when Lenny and Herbert have spoken of guilt, responsibility, and shame, Last Call comes down to the musicians and their music.

Last Call

At New World Stages

340 W. 50^th St

Through May 4

Tickets:https://www.telecharge.com/go.aspx?PID=14528&MD=1001&MC=HOLIDAY89