The Optimist

The Optimist’s take on two brothers’ quarterlife crises as they share a motel room during a particularly fraught weekend both engages with and pokes fun at its subject matter—the post-college Sturm und Drang of being an American twentysomething— but the play’s self-awareness cannot disguise or excuse the sometimes trite and cliché moments of self-revelation.

Chris Thorn and Matt Burns in The Optimist

Reviewed by Ilena George

In an Econo Lodge room strewn with papers, clothing, mattresses and other detritus, twin brothers Declan and Noel attempt to come to grips with their father’s remarriage to a woman who may have been his mistress while he was still married to their mother. Noel finds violent and creative outlets for his rage against his father, involving his father’s love letters and a home-made boxing ring. On top of all the family issues, Noel’s first girlfriend died suddenly and is being laid to rest on Monday.

The brothers are both inwardly focused, overeducated and loquacious to a fault. “We’re just a couple of chickenshit, dippy-ass little wussies,” declares one of the brothers. Declan (Chris Thorn), is a horny and scatological intellectual who spouts out ten-dollar words in an often droll and disaffected manner (“I’m a soft bipolar, Noel. Please. Allow me some undulations of disposition. You know, humans are quite surprising if you give them the chance.”). But that’s not to say that his one-liners don’t zing; to wit: “The soul, too, has a virginity and must bleed a little before bearing fruit.” Playwright Jason Chimonides’ script abounds with witty remarks, dirty allusions, and random tangents where high art and popular culture collide and explode.

The other brother -- Noel (Matt Burns), the eponymous optimist -- feels everything more acutely than most people. A common reaction of his is to curl up on the floor, overwhelmed by everything from his friend’s ashes, to his ex-girlfriend Nicole’s (Caitlin FitzGerald) boyfriend’s llamas’ names. “It’s not hip to feel so much these days,” says Nicole (who is also in town for the funeral), claiming he belongs in the 19th century among the romantic poets. In contrast to his brother’s relentless monologues, Noel is more physically and aggressively expressive; he decides to challenge his father to a boxing match in the boxing ring he created within the motel room.

The play is its best when at its most idiosyncratic: between Chimonides’ often hilarious script and the sometimes frantic energy of Jace Alexander’s direction, the brothers are unique and compelling. But chipping away at this distinctive lacquer reveals a plot that is more ordinary than anything: Noel is still in love with Nicole and his feelings for her come bubbling up and add to the mess all over the room. The dialogue between Noel and Nicole as they try to navigate toward each other just doesn’t spark the way the rest of the play does. As the straight foil to the brothers’ particular brand of crazy, Nicole appears dull in comparison to the two brothers, who are, at times, literally bouncing off the walls. Too much navel-gazing makes the denouement drag and the play ultimately sacrifices its unique and witty repartee for the heavy and familiar bludgeoning of a relationship drama.

[As an aside to the kindred spirits who will find this news exciting, beginning April 8th the role of Declan will be played by Ryland Blackinton, guitarist for the band Cobra Starship.]

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The Optimist by Jason Chimonides, directed by Jace Alexander
Ground UP productions at The Abingdon Theatre (312 W. 36th Street)
Tickets: $20 (212) 352-3101, www.theatermania.com
March 20th- April 12th, Tuesdays – Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 2pm

Romeo and Juliet

What if your only hate and your only love were the same person? Theatre Breaking Through Barriers toys with Shakespearean convention using just four actors to cover all the parts in “Romeo and Juliet.”

BY ELLEN WERNECKE

By the time Romeo meets Juliet in Theatre Breaking Through Barriers’ production, in seemingly the same way a million Romeos have met a million Juliets, they’ve already met before. Rather, the characters haven’t met before, but because TBTB’s production covers 41 roles in “Romeo and Juliet” using just four actors, they have met as Lady Capulet and Paris, and Romeo’s best lady is also his best friend Mercutio. It’s a novelty and a gimmick, but it bears out long enough to highlight some good performances and many entertaining ones.

The ensemble uses costumes and accents to set their characters apart from each other, populating the streets of Verona with cowboys, hipsters, b-boys and an old lady in a wheelchair with a pistol. (A decent Bill Murray and an eerily good Christopher Walken also turn up.) The Capulets are a genteel Southern family whose lives revolve around their belle (Emily Young), who they have matched to a nerdy suitor (Young as well). But all bets are off when she meets Romeo, played by Gregg Mozgala with an attractive fluidity to his emotional journey. All actors in the troupe -- besides Young and Mozgala, Nicholas Viselli plays Lord Capulet among others and George Ashiotis, the Friar among others -- are to be lauded for their versatility on stage, but Mozgala seems willing to give himself over to madness more so than others who perform the role. He climbs up towards Juliet with a palpable yearning, not content to stand below her balcony.

The consequence of this is that Mozgala’s other roles fade into the texture of the show, as do Young’s when she isn’t Juliet and Viselli’s overall. Ashiotis, on the other hand, balances two roles (the Friar and the Nurse) so deftly that it took the audience several minutes to realize when they held a conversation behind the column why neither of them were making an appearance downstage -- a rare moment of levity in the play’s back half.

In his program note, director Ike Schambelan explains that Shakespeare’s troupe contained as few as four actors in its early years, so it’s possible that the first performances of “Romeo and Juliet” were done under such a cast constraint (although in their fat years they had as many as nine actors for the repertory). It’s a clever constraint, but is it completely worth it other than as historical artifact? For its new insights into the classic work, and the puzzling out of the many roles included, it’s worth a second glance.

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Now through April 6
At the Kirk Theatre, 410 West 42nd Street
For more information visit TBTB.org

What's My Line?

More cool than kitschy, more memorable than simply memorabilia, the live stage version of What's My Line? is both irresistibly honest and hokey at the same time. Men are gentle again, wearing tuxedos and pulling out chairs, and women aren't just women -- they're dames: gowns, gloves and all. It's a throwback to another time, but the comically "risque" questions are just as funny now as when this ran on late-night TV for 25 years, and with new panelists and guests "competing" (for fun) each week, it's simple commercial fun.

Photo/Genevieve Rafter Keddy

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

Way back in 2006, I entered The Atlantic's "Word Fugitives" contest, trying to come up with a word for "nostalgia for a time when I wasn't alive." Though I didn't win (that honor went to chronderlust), I'm glad I have the opportunity to use mine now, because I'm severely precedentimental after seeing What's My Line? Sure, I could always flip on GSN and tape one of the many late-night reruns (it ran from 1950-1975), but, far more satisfyingly, I could also head down to Barrow Street Theatre, and check out the live version playing there. More cool than kitschy (though there's certainly a wide variety of old-school gimmicks and cutesy pandering), the premiere "episode" (the 75th hosted by J. Keith van Straaten, but the first in New York City) suffered only from some technical issues, issues which it more than compensated for with its the host's hokey charm and the hilarious contrast between the panel's tuxedos and gowns and the set's flimsy yet funny charm. (There's even a house band, Shane Rettig & The Occupations, not to mention a hostess, Patti Goetticher, a pleasant dinner-theater Vanna White.)

The format for What's My Line? is simple: four panelists (a new set every week) try to guess the "line" (read: old school for "job") of several ordinary guests with less-than-usual occupations. The catch is that they're only allowed to ask yes or no questions, and if they run into a "no" ten times, the guest "stumps" the panel and "wins" the game. (To be fair, the panelists aren't paid, and the contestants all get complimentary tickets to Barrow Street Theater, win or lose.) To top off the evening, the panelists are blindfolded (more like blind-goggled, in a retro-chic fashion) and must guess who the Mystery Guest is, a task made only slightly easier by the knowledge that this person is a celebrity.

For this special premiere, the panel featured Barry Saltzman, a staple of the live show's CA incarnation (he's been on 17 times), Stephanie D'Abruzzo (the sweetheart and sass of Avenue Q), Betsy Palmer (an original What's My Line? panelist and, more notoriously, the original "Jason" in Friday the 13th), and Michael Riedel (NY Post columnist and co-host of Theater Talk, which helps explain what drew me -- and I'm very happy it did -- to What's My Line?). As for guests, the only trouble What's My Line? will have is in topping Patricia Porterfied (now Pat Finch), who appeared three times on the original show -- as the first panelist (hat check girl), a five-year-veteran (Broadway performer), and the last panelist (the farewell show). You couldn't ask for better symmetry than that: it's the sort of human element reality television "writers" only dream of. Hard to top the other guests too -- Alan Rosen, who brought enough food from his "office" to share with everyone (which is nice considering he runs Junior's Cheesecake), and Liang Wong, the youngest principal cellist in the history of the NY Philharmonic Orchestra (no surprise, either, if the two quick movements he played for us were any indication). And who's not happy to see Norm (George Wendt), the night's Mystery Guest?

The live version of What's My Line? is only supposed to be 75 minutes long, but I hope they reconsider; the night I went, not counting the technical delays in starting, was almost two hours. But these were full hours, not long hours: time well spent admiring how alike we all are, even given our different jobs and personalities. More than that, it's time well spent laughing -- not just at the staging, or the specific sort of questioning necessary to "win" (elimination-heavy questions are key, such as "Would I find this at the drugstore, hardware store, or grocery?" to which led D'Abruzzo to exclaim, "What? That's how people spoke back then!"), but at the good humor of the panelists, who are as serious about winning as they are comical when losing. Ms. Palmer, who's been down this route before, knows the drill better than the rest: "Does this piece of wood have to do with music? Can I put this piece of wood in my mouth? Does this piece of wood have a hole?" It's a shame that J. Keith van Straaten has a time-limit that forces him to moderate just enough to keep them on track (though at least he's funny about it); I could live off of questions like "Are you now a grown-up version of what you were then?"

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What's My Line?
Barrow Street Theater (27 Barrow Street)
Tickets (212-239-6200): $25.00
Performances: Mondays @ 8:00

Affluenza

A New York premiere of a farce by James Sheridan, this Heiress Production is being billed as a benefit for Miracle House. The play itself focuses on being a modern-day Moliere, a comedy of manners that is "a witty story of of the twists and turns of a multi-millionaire and the family members who hope to become his heir." Will money speak, both for the characters of the play and the producers of the show? Or will they find only cold hearts and icy stares?

Photo/Isauro Cairo

Reviewed by John Rice

Affluenza is the “extreme materialism which is the impetus for accumulating wealth and for overconsumption of goods.” James Sherman diagnoses this cancer of The American Dream by satirizing it through farce. And in our contemporary world where seemingly all Americans think that fame and fortune are their birthright, this play should be a little contagious too.

The play takes place in a Chicago penthouse (distractingly painted red), and Sherman matches the text to the luxury by writing in verse. The script is a beautiful symphony of humor, canted by the sort of greedy people Moliere had fun with.

Affluenza is the story of a wealthy old man (William) and the people who want his money: his son, ex-wife, too-young-for-him girlfriend, and everyone else who comes into his Midas touch. The story is framed by Eugene (which sadly fits because Paul Herbig is a wooden actor) who has come to stay with his uncle so he can learn about real life. When he’s not being used as a bulletin board for his eBay addicted cousin Jerome (played by the very articulate Stephen Squibb) he mostly blends in with the furniture. Eugene’s failure as a framing device is a big problem because the audience can’t fully appreciate the comedy if they can’t see this as being morally ridiculous too.

Even with that there’s still an enjoyable silliness to the plot. Bernard the butler (Philipe D. Preston)—who also acts as William’s attorney, a preacher, and a rabbi—is trying to get Jerome and Eugene to be quiet, or get out. In comes the ex-wife, Ruth, who is so desperate for more plastic surgery that she is willing to throw herself into traffic to collect insurance money. Nancy Evans is delightful as the salty older woman but the character disappears for most of the play.

Unable to maintain order, Bernard finally has to wake the master, who is napping before his date with his young female friend, and the audience gets their first taste of William. Michael Saenz, who plays the master, is too young and strong to be playing a man who is expected to keel over and put out like a broken ATM: he sticks out as another sore thumb in the production. William’s girlfriend, Dawn, wins the audience over with her brilliant smile and non-Barbie doll appearance to the fact that she’s not out for money, until an impromptu marriage ceremony allows her to reveal that she is, in fact, a gold digger. (Mary Willis White still gets credit as a very original and capable choice, even though she produced the show as well.) And thus the characters start on a scheme to remove her from the household that has everyone running in and out of rooms and hiding behind curtains.

When you think of what makes a great farce, Affluenza falls short. The play is silly, no doubt about it, but in a form that’s known for being irrationally “all-out” the audience is left wanting more than this tame TV-condensed farce. The characters need more development and some of the jokes about the business world are so last year. This is not a perfect play but it is rhythmic and funny—the fact that I wanted more proves that. It is certainly enjoyable and should be at least as widespread as the malady for which it is named.

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Affluenza
Heiress Productions @ Theatre Row: The Lion Theatre (410 W. 42nd Street)
Tickets (212-279-4200): $20
Performances (through 4/6) Wed. - Sat @ 8pm | Sun @ 3pm.

The Fifth Column

This wishy-washy work by Ernest Hemingway (thankfully, his only) is a series of scenes forced together into a lifeless three-act play. It's got booze, but no passion: it's not even strong enough to be Williams-lite. What may have -- could have -- once been a startling look at the truths of American involvement in foreign war is now a cold, passive revival of a dream that never was.

Photo/Richard Termine

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

In his introduction to The Fifth Column, Ernest Hemingway writes that "while I was writing the play the Hotel Florida, where we lived an worked, was struck by more than thirty high explosive shells. So if it is not a good play perhaps that is what is the matter with it. If it is a good play, perhaps those thirty some shells helped write it." Like the statement, his play is wishy-washy: at some points, an ironic, self-deprecating look at the lifeless insistences of counter-espionage, at others a cheesy romantic comedy styled in the mannerisms of '30s movies (the play was written in 1937), and also a play about slow, hot days -- Tennessee Williams with the booze, but without the passion. Everything about Jonathan Bank's direction of this play is slow, including the scene changes, and perhaps that's meant to help the text itself seem more urgent -- but it's a failure, even in the interrogation sequences. What once may have been a startling look at the dirty truths of war is now a passive play filled with cryptic remarks and unfinished characters. (This is most obvious in Max [Ronald Guttman], who always seems eager to fight for the party, but just as ready to beg out of any actual consequences: "Please, please, please. I go.)

At heart, The Fifth Column tells the story of the doomed love between Dorothy Bridges -- " a bored Vassar bitch" -- and Philip, a notorious drunk and all-around mannerless man (not only does he steal Dorothy from Robert Preston [Joe Hickey], but he takes the guy's room, too). To that end, Heidi Armbruster is magnificent: she plays a bright-eyed optimist, too conceitedly American to know any better, and makes as a great foil for Kelly AuCoin's easy-going sarcasm. But as Philip, Mr. AuCoin is far too groomed and nothing shakes up his character: not the heavy drinking, not the night-time excursions looking for insurgents, not even the flirtations with the local tramp, Anita (Nicole Shalhoub). As a result, there's never any chemistry between the antihero and the dim damsel, and their love is as artificial as the quips that spring from their lips. Even the boozing, which can be a sort of heroic or romantic character trait, is cheery and edgeless -- so much so that if not for Jane Shaw's sharp sound design waking us with the crisp sounds of midnight shelling or the roiling chants of dissenters outside, there'd be no indication of Madrid being a war zone.

Perhaps, in an escapist sense, that's what Hemingway does here, retreating to the safety of writing from within the walls of a hotel that's actively being shelled. Hemingway even creates two personalities for Philip, a stark and dismal day-time self, and a starry-eyed night-time self. (Neither Hemingway's writing nor Mr. AuCoin's performance adequately capture this mood.) The result is a play that seems written day by day, in a mess of jangled nerves, and which was never cohesively edited back into a whole. There's no focus in the scenes either: at one moment, the play is making tacky jokes about Spanish citizens, with Carlos Lopez milking a terrible accent for comic relief in his role as the needy Manager. In another, Hemingway is boldly condemning American ignorance: Dorothy tells the maid, Petra (Teresa Yenque), that the shelling was lovely, as only someone disassociated from violence can. Petra replies: "In Progresso, in my quarter, there were six killed in one floor. This morning they were taking them out and all the glass gone in the street. There won't be any more glass this winter." What sells it, however, is Mrs. Armbruster's casual response: "Here there wasn't any one killed."

One could argue that The Fifth Column works as semi-historical documentation of the author's service as a war reporter, or as an intriguing contrast for Hemingway's novels. I don't agree that this play -- or this production -- works (unless one's battling insomnia), but I would urge them, simply on the occasional strength of pseudo-domestic life on the fringe, and the early signs of American foreign ignorance, to archive this play. I'd urge them to archive it today.

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The Fifth Column (2 hrs. 40 min.)
Mint Theater (311 West 43rd Street)
Tickets (212-315-0231): $45.00 - $55.00
Performances (through 5/18): Tues. - Thurs. @ 7 | Fri. & Sat. @ 8 | Sat. & Sun. @ 2

From Harlem to the Bronx

ProACTive Artists deserves plaudits for staging two short Israel Horovitz plays. They also deserve credit for choosing both an Obie-winner, The Indian Wants the Bronx, and the rarely performed Rats. They deserve appreciation for every piece of their efforts. Unfortunately, we cannot applaud them for giving Horovitz’s dialogue and stage directions much life off the page. This double-bill gives us the chance to enjoy Horovitz but leaves us pondering the depth and power that we didn’t see.

Reviewed by Sarah Krasnow

Massachusetts-born playwright Israel Horovitz holds the curious honor of being a celebrated American playwright whose sensitive, topical, and very American works are most popular in Europe. At home, his name rings familiar to many, but half the time it turns out we were thinking of Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz (Israel’s son). The off-off-Broadway crowd will know Horovitz’s Line, now in its 33rd year at the Thirteenth Street Theater, but only two of his pieces have appeared on Broadway. Producers might do well to increase the visibility of his worthy work – after all, he has published over fifty plays. For this reason, ProACTive Artists deserves plaudits for staging two of Horovitz’s one-acts. They also deserve credit for choosing both an Obie-winner, The Indian Wants the Bronx, and the rarely performed Rats. They deserve appreciation for every piece of their efforts. Unfortunately, we cannot applaud them for giving Horovitz’s dialogue and stage directions much life off the page. ProACTive Artists’ production at Manhattan Theatre Source provides the valuable opportunity to get acquainted with these two pieces, but leaves us pondering the depth and power that we didn’t see.

Both Rats and The Indian Wants the Bronx feature only three characters. Appearing first in the double-bill, the 20-minute Rats includes city rat Jebbie, king of the Harlem sewers; country rat Bobby, a greenhorn from Greenwich; and a human baby. Clad in old sweatpants and dirty furry vests, Jebbie (Roy DeVito) and Bobby (Delanie Shawn Murray) exude so much rattiness, we barely need the play’s title to hint that they’re not human. After an initial scuffle, Bobby explains his journey’s purpose (to get in on rodent-friendly Harlem territory) and Jebbie admits to his own rise from (or in this case, to) the gutter. Their respective tales bring up compelling parallels between the rat and human realms: vermin too want to move up in the world, to a place where they can find comfort and collect property (Bobby brings fine cheeses, his family heirlooms, for bartering purposes). Soon it dawns on us that, for a rat, an affluent human neighborhood constitutes unlivable poverty while human squalor provides a rat with everything he needs. In a disturbing comparison to human residents of tough neighborhoods, we also learn that when you’re a rat, you can expect to die young and often by another’s hand.

Throughout this swapping of personal stories, DeVito and Murray paint a convincing picture of the literal rat race, with droll takes on how a Harlem and a Greenwich rat might speak. But when the attention moves to the baby in Jebbie’s room and we learn that Bobby wants to kill her while Jebbie wants to protect her, we should see a real rotation in the tension and power between these two. Instead, little in the actors’ demeanors shifts. A weak spot has shown up in Jebbie’s hard shell and he should be panicking, but the assured and aggressive roll of DeVito’s rough-and-tumble speech barely alters. Murray, on the other hand, has revealed too much too quickly about his ruthless Bobby, and his viciousness does not deliver the sudden jolt it should. However, a piece as intriguing as Rats cannot help but sharpen our appetite for urban decay. ProACTive Artists has made a good choice in putting it first, and as the lights dim and stagehands place garbage cans onstage for the next play, we’re ready for more New York grunginess.

In The Indian Wants the Bronx, the lone Gupta (Himad Beg) stands at a bus stop at night amidst fallen leaves and newspapers, when Murph (Doug Schneider) and Joey (Josh Farhadi) come jostling in. Guffawing, whooping, yelling, “Pussyface!” at someone in an upstairs window – we’re not surprised when, the moment they spy Gupta, the slurs start to flow. So complete in their ignorance they can’t decide on Gupta’s country of origin, the remarks range from “Turkie” (as in Turkish), to lumping Indian from India with American Indian and asking, “You got any little Indians running around your teepee?” As the two punks, Schneider and Farhadi sport spot-on Bronx accents and have interesting, ethnic, New Yorky faces; in his cap and jeans, Farhadi looks enough like a classic Manhattan kid to offer a Wall Street businessman a shoeshine or a paper. They strut around and heckle Gupta, playing keep-away with his ID card and showing him a photocopy of Murph’s bare behind. Schneider and Farhadi do a fine job portraying street thugs, but they don’t develop beyond the horseplay to the real grit, and soon we see that the same problem that occurred in Rats is occurring here. Merely delinquent at the beginning, Murph should evolve into the “bad” guy in contrast with Joey’s “good” (or “better”) guy; the concept comes through, but the performances don’t. Schneider never builds Murph into the scary sadist he is. For Farhadi, the problem lies not in getting stuck but in finding a sticking point. Less dangerous than Murph but more volatile, Joey lets certain things set him off (he commits the first act of violence against Gupta), but the portrayal doesn’t have enough of a foundation to explain why. As Murph’s cruelty increases, Joey’s own private battle drives him away, physically and mentally, from Murph and Gupta, but we’re not sure where the emotions came from, and during his silent moments, we forget that he’s there.

Awkward staging creates a few other problems. Although Joey and Murph taunt Gupta with increasing aggression, they don’t seem to be blocking his exit in any way. Yet through taunt after taunt, Gupta stands tolerantly by the bus station until the threats have him really, really worried - why didn’t he run at the first, second, or third sign of trouble? Gupta also has ample time to avail himself of the phone booth next at the stop. The booth later comes across as a horror movie prop when Murph lets Gupta talk to his son -- only to cut the cord -- but until then, nothing’s stopping him from popping in a dime. Why should both victim and tormentor ignore such a significant escape route for so long? As Gupta, Himad Beg gives the most convincing performance here, mastering the difficult task of acting as though he understands nothing. However, he cannot understand so little that it wouldn’t occur to him to try to get help.

The late 1960’s New York of Rats and The Indian Wants the Bronx has since experienced Giuliani, gentrification, Gucci – today the city might seem to have little in common with its former self. Yet we still recognize it in these plays, as the rats, the bus stops, the foreign visitors, and the rowdy punks never went away. In From Harlem to the Bronx, we do see New York. But we want to forge beyond the dingy apartments and discarded newspapers to Jebbie’s bristling fur, Bobby’s bared fangs, Joey’s knitting brow, Murph’s eyes sharp with menace. This evening, we have to settle for something more like a photograph.

In The Heights

Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical about a cheery community in Washington Heights has been scrubbed clean of any hard-hitting drama, but it's still a fresh, fun new show in its own right. In The Heights is best when it's playing to the larger-than-life atmosphere, rather than when it focuses on the rather simple problems of its individual residents. The whole confection is completed by Andy Blankenbuehler's merengue-flavored choreography, Howell Binkley's fireworks in the light department, Thomas Kail's constantly moving, urban-flowing direction, and Miranda's fusion of familiar Broadway tropes with the shaken-up spasms of rap or the multicultural beats and grooves of a whole new rhythm.

Photo/Joan Marcus

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

"Why learn the language when they still won't hear you?" asks a character from Lin-Manuel Miranda's cheery musical about community, In The Heights. It's a valid concern, but really of no more consequence to Miranda's show than it is within the show, for this young, charismatic actor/writer/musician has learned the language of Broadway, and his transfer to the Great White Way is a smooth one. He's greatly assisted by Andy Blankenbuehler's merengue-flavored choreography, Howell Binkley's (fire)working light design, and Thomas Kail's constantly moving, urban-flowing direction, but most of all, by his fusion of familiar Broadway tropes with the shaken-up spasms of his rapping, or his multicultural rhythms.

Of course, that line about language is also the one problem In The Heights is still saddled with. The person scowling that line is Benny (Christopher Jackson), and it's the one all-too-brief moment of racial angst in this play -- the only moment, in other words, of real drama. Kevin (Carlos Gomez), is a proud Puerto Rican, and while Benny might be good enough for his car service, he's not good enough for daughter, Nina (Mandy Gonzalez), though you'd have to bring your own cultural knowledge to know why. The rest of the individual plights are dim echoes of those familiar Broadway tropes: Usnavi (Lin-Manuel Miranda) is trying to build the courage to ask out Vanessa (Karen Olivo), the salon girl working next door to his bodega; Sonny (Robin De Jesus), Usnavi's cousin, is trying to make something bigger out of his street smarts; Daniela (Andrea Burns) and her cohort, the ditsy Carla (Janet Dacal) are all about the gossip; Nina's got a secret she's keeping from her parents (she lost her financial aid because she couldn't study at Stanford while also working the two jobs she needed to afford it); hell, even Piragua Guy (Eliseo Roman) has a story to sing about "scraping" by.

There are a few slivers of truth -- the harshness of Olivo's grim posture, the comic timing of De Jesus, and Miranda's energy -- but most of the solo songs are either too slick (as with Jackson's song "Benny's Dispatch") or lack conviction (Gomez's "Inutil," which needs far more sorrow and regret in the words "useless") and power (Priscilla Lopez's "Enough," which was out of her vocal range or not miked properly: either way, not enough). In this respect, I found even Olga Merediz (as Abuela Claudia, the neighborhood's proud and doting mother) to be a bit underwhelming in her big number, "Paciencia y Fe (Patience and Faith)," in which we learn that Abuela has just won $96,000. (Deciding how to split up that much money is good for a song about hopes and dreams -- the aptly titled "96,000" -- but it's far from being a dramatic spine.)

These are problems in miniature, though, and In The Heights does far better when it's larger than life. After all, this isn't so much a dramatic musical as it is a show about community: what defines a neighborhood and, more importantly, what keeps it going. The people are essential, but not as individuals, and this is what Thomas Kail and Andy Blankenbuehler tap into with their direction and choreography. Most of the smaller songs are punctuated by slow, subtle movements in the shadowy backgrounds of Anna Louizo's realistic street-side set, and all of the segues between numbers or scenes are handled deftly with brief dances -- buttons, if you will -- that bottle and tie together the mood of the musical. Furthermore, in order to be a true fusion of styles, Miranda needs a lot of people on stage at once, which is why ensemble songs, like "In the Heights," "96,000," and the finales to both acts are so effective.

You can boil the message of In The Heights down to one famous phrase: "There's no place like home." When Miranda and company are at the top of their game, truer words have never been spoken -- even for those in the audience who don't live in (or have never even been to, or heard of) Washington Heights. They do an excellent job of conjuring up the neighborhood, even if they obviously exaggerate the sights and sounds as they downplay the violence. (It turns out that Graffiti Pete is actually an alright guy, the people who fight in the local clubs -- well, they're first and foremost great dancers -- and although a store gets looted, nobody's hurt.) Besides, while there may be a trend for edgier new musicals, there's something to be said for flavor and style over substance every once and a while. I'd still primarily recommend Passing Strange or Spring Awakening, but the commute to In The Heights -- a fun, fresh new musical -- ain't that bad.

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In The Heights (2 hr 30 min)
Richard Rogers Theatre (226 West 44th St.)
Tickets: $21.50 - 111.50
Performances: Tues. - Sat. @ 8 | Sat. & Sun. @ 2 | Sun. @ 7

Bride

Lone Wolf Tribe's Bride is that weird sort of wonderful that brings butterflies to the stomach and flashes of color to the eyes. Inventive, unique, and a superlative work of theater, Kevin Augustine's hybrid puppet/human epic is an intensely fascinating show.

Photo/Richard Termine

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

Yes, I'd marry this show. Lone Wolf Tribe's Bride is that weird sort of wonderful that brings butterflies to the stomach and flashes of color to the eyes. Inventive, unique, and a superlative work of theater, it is so intensely fascinating that one can imagine settling down with it for the long haul. Not that director Ken Berman, ever lets Kevin Augustine's show settle down: it begins with a floating head pushing itself against a plastic scrim, as if trying to pierce the barrier of some Asian horror flick, and ends in a giant goddess's embrace, pallid and veined, as if the monsters of Akira were drawn by R. Crumb. For the 85 minutes that span those moments, Bride is a macabre dance that fuses miniature puppets (Augustine) right out of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas with a large set (Tom Lee) pockmarked with anachronistic terminals and gramophones straight from Terry Gilliam's brain.

In other words, Bride is a twisted, clever work of theater: the first thing Father (Kevin Augustine) does, after Monkey (Rob Lok) wakes him up, is to shoot himself. (You would too, with a switchboard full of backlogged prayers.) As comedy would have it, Monkey runs over to "The Book" (a sort of "best of" compilation of the Koran, Torah, and Bible) and, scanning it with a pen that reads the words aloud, reminds our definite antihero that he is, unfortunately for him, "everlasting." From there, He attempts to come up with a good idea, shaping bits of crumpled paper into the next messiah, a creation that, step by step, slowly grotesques into a child-sized puppet. (And by any definition, God is the original puppetmaster.)

Bride isn't exactly easy on religion; aside from the fact that Father seems to be senile, he's also a dessicated, yellowed figure walking around in a tattered bathrobe and garters. (Ana Marie Salamat's make-up is horrifyingly good, and Shima Ushiba's costumes are just real enough to help us imagine ourselves in His position.) Nor is it forgiving to mythology: Father is the one and only god because he's killed all the others, and those bits about "salvation" and forging "a covenant of peace" have conveniently been charred out of his Book. It isn't even kind to him as a person: he isn't a kind Father -- he's prone to zapping Monkey with what little energy he has left -- and he cruelly pushes his son (literally twisting him in half when he becomes the puppeteer) to complete a dance that's symbolic of a crucifixion or passion play.

For all this darkness, Bride remains a stark and beautiful work of art. As Father imagines his perfection, James Graber appears, flawlessly dancing what the crusty puppet can only gawk in wonder at. (And yes, these puppets can gawk -- with haunting familiarity.) Later, as the son imagines what his father has in store for him, he plunges deep into the skeleton-strewn depths of hell, walking through smoke and and over white bones as he looks at all the dreams that have not just died, but been chewed to death by red-eyed rats. (Beauty exists even in nightmares.) All that's saying nothing of the puppeteers themselves (Lindsey Briggs, Jamie Moore, Jessica Scott, Alissa Hunnicutt, Frankie Cordero), ninja-clad stealth artists who make more of the play by making less of themselves.

What's most astonishing is that, despite using puppets, there is nothing small about this show. (Hell, there's even a fully discordant band, led by Andrea La Rose and featuring soprano Rachel Carter White.) From the epic plot to the full use of P122's wide upstairs space, Bride features a larger-than-life atmosphere that is filled with beauty, surprise, and heart-thudding creativity. So yes, I do; I wouldn't have my plays any other way.

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Bride (85 min.)
Lone Wolf Tribe @ PS122 (150 First Avenue)
Tickets (212-352-3101): $20.00
Performances (through 3/30): Wed. - Sat. @ 8 | Sun. @ 7

Michael Riedel: LIVE

Admittedly, I'm too young to have seen the game show "What's My Line?" but I'd like to call attention to the live adaptation of the concept, now making its East Coast premiere for one reason: Michael Riedel, the co-host of Theater Talk, will be one of the celebrity guests. This week's debut features host J. Keith van Straaten, along with BETSY PALMER (Longtime regular panelist on TV's "I've Got a Secret" and recurring panelist on original "What's My Line?"), MICHAEL RIEDEL (co-host of "Theater Talk" on PBS) STEPHANIE D'ABRUZZO (Tony-nominated star of Avenue Q), and BARRY SALTZMAN (Los Angeles stage actor and most frequent panelist on Los Angeles production of "What's My Line? - Live On Stage").

The show runs Monday nights through April 28th, and is $25.00 (212-239-6200). Check it out at the Barrow Street Theatre (27 Barrow Street): more information at www.whatsmyline.org. We'll have a full report for you tomorrow:

“What’s My Line? – Live On Stage” follows the format of the classic TV game show that premiered on CBS in 1950: Four celebrity panelists try to guess the occupation of a guest, asking only yes-or-no questions. This stage show, however, is not broadcast; the only audience is the folks who show up in the 199-seat theatre. It’s a real game with real people with real occupations and genuine celebrities --the show is not scripted and runs approximately 75 minutes, with no intermission.

Missives

Epistolary friendships, New York City apartments, and the trouble with intimacy and neighbors collide in Missives. Leah and Ben's correspondence is first a way for two lonely people to make a connection, but when Ben dissappers, will they provide clues as to why?

By Ilana Novick

Those of us living in New York City apartment buildings may go years before knowing anything about the neighbors with whom we share a building but not a life. In an always ruthless real estate market, if a neighbor goes missing some may be more concerned with the size, layout, and cost of the abandoned apartment, than the safety of its last occupants. Missives is the story of a relationship between next door neighbors who forge a connection through letters slipped under each other’s doors. They rarely acknowledge each other’s presence in person, instead choosing to remain epistolary confidants, bonding through ink and paper. When one of the two disappears, the police rely on the other to try to piece together why. The question is whether their letters can help solve the disappearance. Can two people who barely spoke to each other be best friends? Was writing letters an adequate substitute for personal interaction? Or was it better? Did the structure and privacy of writing the letters allow the neighbors to let down their guard and reveal secrets they would not have been able to in person?

Ben, a white gay man of frequently changing but never revealed occupations begins the correspondence on a whim, with a letter to Leah, an African-American legal secretary, after seeing her argue with a date. Her withering gaze, and the attitude with which she tells to her potential love interest in no uncertain terms to get lost, intrigues Ben. He wants to get to know this feisty woman more, but is afraid of breaking the privacy. The direction and blocking of the characters in the set suffer from the same problem at the center of Ben and Leah’s relationship; a lack of direct, in-person interaction. The actors are essentially reciting the contents of their letters. They talk to each other, but not with each other, sitting on separate couches representing their mutual apartments. Visually, their physical separation on stage only makes each of them seem more alone, despite the constant declarations of closeness that they claim the letters provide.

Richard Gallagher plays Ben with the worst and most exaggerated stereotypes of a gay man, all faint lisp and limp wrists, but the tenderness with which he reveals himself to Leah, and the random, yet charming way he decides to write to her in the first place, after seeing her come home from a date, makes him endearing. Shamika Cotton as Leah is much less animated, often frowning, hesitant to start the correspondence in the first place, but ultimately charmed by the novelty.

Leah spends the play in pajamas and a hooded sweatshirt, the outfit of relaxation, but also, fashion-wise, of defeat. Her personality and movement, slow and awkward, don’t transcend her outward appearance. As exaggerated as Ben occasionally is, he seems to be more responsive to Leah’s letters; lying on the floor feet up and eyes wide when telling juicy dating stories, and suddenly shifting to sitting up with perfect posture, legs crossed, eyes alert, when Leah is talking more seriously about her mother. By contrast Leah is much more static in her movement and emotions. Even when she’s supposed to be happy her expression and her clothing just make her look tired.

Ben also has an advantage because he’s also given another person to interact with, this time directly, in the form of a boyfriend named Steven (Ryan Tresser). The relationship adds some momentum to the plot, and gives more of a context to Ben’s life. His chemistry with Steven is palpable in the glances they share as Steven wraps his arms around his waist, as they playfight and smile while watching TV or writing joint letters to Leah. Ben is permanently smiling with him, even as he senses the relationship won’t last. Steven and Ben write to Lisa for a period, which adds a much needed outsider’s perspective on the relationship. The addition of a third member to the group adds some life to the text of the letters. But as soon as the relationship with Steven ends, so does the chemistry between the two remaining characters.

The concept of a relationship restricted to letters raises questions about how truthful friends and neighbors alike can be with each other in person. As much as their letters reveal—everything from Leah’s marriage (to a husband the audience never sees) to her mother’s death, to Stephen and Ben’s meeting to their dramatic breakup to their mutual obsession with the Soap Opera “Through the Hourglass”— whether aside from romances either of them ever have any friends, any interests besides soap operas, even whether Leah has any other clothes.

Neither Leah nor the audience know any more about Ben by the end of the play than they did when they first began writing. Leah had invested her emotions in a relationship, and she walked away with the knowledge of an average neighbor, muttering a quick hello at the elevator before disappearing into each other’s mutual apartments, and lives. For all that Missives is a play about breaking down the anonymity between neighbors, it ends while still being just as anonymous.

Missives runs from March 20 to April 6, Tuesdays through Saturdays at 8:30, Sundays at 3:30 in theater C at 59 E 59 Theaters, 59 East 59^th Street between Madison and Park Avenues. Tickets are $18 and available at the theater box office or at http://www.ticketcentral.com/.

The Conscientious Objector

Brought to life by a practically flawless cast, Michael Murphy's The Conscientious Objector is both affecting and galvanizing.

photo: Theresa Squire

Reviewed by Cameron Kelsall

I was surprised to learn about Martin Luther King's transformation from peaceful civil rights activist to fiery anti-war orator during my freshman year of college, in a course specifically designed to unpack the politics of the movement. Knowledge of the events of his life that occurred between the March on Washington and his premature death seem to be rarely taught in American schools; I assume that most people would be surprised to learn that he was serving as a union agitator in Memphis at the time of his death. Luckily, playwright Michael Murphy has crafted a first-rate drama around King's struggle to break free from his image as a non-threatening black face acceptable to white America. Brought to life by a practically flawless cast, The Conscientious Objector is both affecting and galvanizing.

The play begins with Dr. King's (DB Woodside) indecision regarding a response to the burgeoning Vietnam War. Does his standing as a Nobel Peace laureate require him to become involved in the national peace movement? Will his coming out against the war injure his amiable relationship with President Lyndon Johnson (the extraordinary John Cullum), and, in turn, the bevy of civil rights legislation about to be introduced in congress? The words of his father reverberate in his head--"We [African Americans] serve to show that we are loyal Americans, we're worthy"--but he cannot shake the feeling that if the first generation of black men to have real opportunities are sent to die in Southeast Asia, a great deal of his work will have been for nothing.

Mr. Woodside, an actor primarily known for his television work, makes an assured and commanding New York debut in this challenging role. There isn't a false note to his performance. When King's initial subservience to President Johnson gives way to righteous opposition, Mr. Woodside is able to match Mr. Cullum--at seventy-eight, still a formidable opponent for any actor--blow for blow. The old addage that "behind every great man there's a great woman" is brought to life in the performance of Rachel Leslie, as Coretta Scott King. Ms. Leslie is able to communicate the profound impact that Mrs. King's moral compass had on her husband's decision to become more than just a myopic civil rights leader. From the large cast--of which Jonathan Hogan is another particular standout, in a host of small but pivotal roles--only Jimonn Cole, as the almost militant anti-war activist James Bevel, falls into the trap of fire-and-brimstone caricature.

As with his first play, Sin (A Cardinal Deposed), Mr. Murphy has culled a good deal of his dialogue from the public records of actual situations. It is a testament to his skill as a writer that his scenes never feel like walking and talking history lessons. (A note in the handbill makes the distinction that some moments were invented by the author for dramatic purposes) Carl Forsman, his frequent directorial collaborator, paces the drama with a fluid hand, and the action moves smoothly to a shattering climax. F. Scott Fitzgerald's famously glib statement that "there are no second acts in American lives" has become a cliche often disproved, and I can think of no better example than Martin Luther King. The Conscientious Objector shows that, with the benefit of time, we are able to recognize that some second acts are as equally rewarding as what came before.

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The Conscientious Objector
The Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row (410 West 42nd Street)
Tickets (Ticket Central): $40
Performances (through April 19): Tuesday at 7; Wednesday-Saturday at 8; Sunday at 2
Running time: 2 hours and 40 minutes, with one intermission

Rainbow Kiss

A lot of so-called mature plays out there just talk about how awful life is and lapse into theatrical tricks when it comes down to showing the gritty truth. Simon Farquhar's Rainbow Kiss doesn't pull any tricks, just like it doesn't pull any punches: this is the year's most jolting play. With exceptionally physical direction from a fearless Will Frears and outstanding performances from the cast, most notably the anti-heroic Peter Scanavino, Rainbow Kiss is a must-see play.

Photo/Carol Rosegg

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

Part your lips, stick your tongue out, and take a deep breath, because Rainbow Kiss is, hands down, the most jolting play this year. As unsettlingly angry as any of Martin McDonagh's plays (only without the farce) and as comically tragic as anything from Conor McPherson (without the mysticism), Simon Farquhar's first play is messy only in its Scottish slang and depiction of life: it takes the best of Abby Spalleen's (Pumpgirl) grimy poetics ("I'd piss barbed wire to see her again"), the rhythmic cursing of Mark O'Rowe (Terminus), and the dissonant energy of the Play Company's last playwright, Robert Farquhar (Bad Jazz), and puts them all to shame. Will Frears, with his intensely physical direction, gives legs to this bleak world, and his outstanding casts uses those legs to run down the audience (I still shiver thinking about Scobie's entrance).

The play opens with sloppiness of life: Keith (Peter Scanavino) fumbles with the keys to his flat as he tries to get Shazza (Charlotte Parry) into his apartment and into his pants. His apartment is dark, the wallpaper has cracked, and trash hangs from the doorknob, but for a while, in the reckless flush of whiskey and the carefree flicker of pot, all that fades away, and all that empty clutter is kept at bay. It can't last, and the rest of the play teeters on the verge of that first orgasm, with Keith trying to hold on for one more second, only to find himself losing it, always losing it. Keith, like his neighbor and best friend Murdo (Robert Hogan), is a good loon, but when it comes down to it, he's just a "spare prick at an orgy" who is perpetually told -- not even harshly, but nicely, easily -- to just fuck off. Sitting alone, taking his medication, and looking after his baby, he's just dying, slowly.

It's no surprise, then, that Keith and Murdo often consider suicide. (They've jokily labeled the veranda of their slum a "suicide suite," one that's all set with a "ready-made escape route if the pressures a high-rise living get too much." As Keith says: "That's the thing about living so high up. The only direction you can head for is down.") Their jobs are shite -- Keith works a literally dead-end job in Directory Enquiries ("You just find the number and press a button and the computer reads it out ti them"), and Murdo has just lost his job as a seasonal Santa ("I told a kid ti fuck off") -- and so is their neighborhood: fourteen-year-old drug dealers freeze to death on the streets, seven-year-old prostitutes offer blow jobs for fivers, and the coppers are too frightened of the crime to come around. Shazza is Keith's last hope: he has even mortgaged his present to a loan shark, Scobie (Michael Cates), for a shot at her in his future.

What makes Rainbow Kiss so powerful, though, is that it's not all talk. Keith doesn't just tell Murdo that he canna cope on his own; we can see it in the play. Each scene is another nail in his coffin, each blow worse and more desperate than the last. Will Frears piles on the disasters, unrelenting in his pace (there's even a gloomy presence to the scene changes), but it's Mr. Scanavino, as Keith, who sells the play. It would be all too easy for him to emote his way into melodrama, but instead, he twists and turns, running headlong from lust to love to panic to fear: a man drowning in needs, trying desperately to stay afloat with his futile actions.

I would nae change a thing in Simon Farquhar's play: the repetition of scenes and themes fit Keith's redundant life, and the dialogue is so punishingly good that I'd be more than happy to listen to more. (Not enough people thank the dialect coach, but Stephen Gabis deserves notice.) This is a mature, intelligent, realistic play that puts Farquhar at the top of his game . . . but don't think for a minute that he's playing around.

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Rainbow Kiss (2 hours)
The Play Company @ 59E59, Theater B (59 East 59th St.)
Tickets (212-279-4200): $35.00 [$5 Student Rush]
Performances (through 4/13): Tues. - Sat. @ 8:15 | Sat. @ 2:15 | Sun. @ 3:15

Man of La Mancha

Room5001 Theatre's production of Man of La Mancha relies on only eight men and two guitars to tell the story of Don Quixote. This production relates Man of La Mancha to contemporary events while keeping the characters in the time and place of the Inquisition. The concept is unique, but does not necessarily aid the telling of the story.

Courtesy/Ruiz Photos

Reviewed by Amy Freeman

Man of La Mancha tends to bring to mind grand images: Don Quixote fighting a windmill, expanses of desert, a servant on a hobby horse. However, Room5001 and Duo Theater's production of Man of La Mancha conjures up an entirely different set of images. The curtain rises to reveal six men wearing orange jumpsuits that bring Guantanamo Bay to mind. Cell doors are heard opening and shutting in the distance, loudly resonating through the theater. Cervantes and his servant Sancho are led in, wearing burlap sacks on their heads, escorted by a masked guard who carries a rifle. Cervantes has been arrested by the Inquisition and joins the other prisoners in the holding cell to await trial or whatever may come.

The connections between modern day torture, the tactics of the Inquisition, and Man of La Mancha are easy to make. Torture techniques are designed to make the prisoner forget who they are, to force them to reveal all, even untrue details while in a state of forgotten humanity. Alonso Quijana, aka Don Quixote, has forgotten who he is, with potentially dire consequences. The woman he has renamed Dulcinea clings to her real name, Aldonza, suggesting that in the midst of torture, prisoners struggle to remain their true identity. What does it say then, that in the end, Aldonza goes along with Quixote, insisting that she is Dulcinea? What was originally an inspiring moment becomes a frightening concept when viewed through the lens of torture.

In this production, everything stands in for something else, given the prisoner's limited means in acting out the play. The stand-ins further highlight Quixote's delusion—Aldonza gives him a dirty rag, he believes it a luxurious fabric. The musical numbers are performed using only two guitars, plus the occasional bucket and chain as percussion. The limited instrumentation seems to help the songs rather than hurt them—they sound fresh and energetic. Sancho's song, “I Like Him” is upbeat and cute and drew laughter from the audience. Yet the laughter seemed out of place, considering the circumstances, and made the production suffer from mood swings, going from goofy and rambunctious to solemn and brutal within seconds.

Room5001's production relates Man of La Mancha to contemporary events while keeping the characters in the time and place of the Inquisition. While the connections are intriguing, there are some issues with the production. It is difficult to understand the actors because they are shouting and occasionally they speak too fast. Additionally, the story suffers when stripped down so much. With everyone wearing orange, it becomes difficult to distinguish between characters, save for Quixote, Sancho, and Aldonza. While such difficulty could be interpreted as suggesting that prisoners lose their individuality and uniqueness, it also makes the play hard to follow.

The idea to connect the play to modern-day prisons is unique but the production doesn't quite go far enough in making the connection—the upbeat music prevents it from becoming too dark at any time. Still, the concept is an innovative one that takes some risks in changing the music and using an all-male cast (which makes sense considering that the prisoners are enacting the story). Man of La Mancha is saved by the familiarity of its story, but without that, it would be difficult to understand what exactly is going on.

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Man of La Mancha (1 hr. 45 min.)
Room5001 and The Duo Theater (62 E 4th Street)
Tickets (www.theatermania.com): $20.00
Performances (through 3/30): Thurs-Sat. at 8PM, Sun. at 3PM

TBA

Reviewed by Ilana Novick

James Frey, Margaret Seltzer, and now, Silas Park? It seems that every week brings more news of writers fabricating their personal stories, of books being marketed as memoir when they're really just good old-fashioned fiction. These revelations make a timely backdrop for TBA’s story of Silas (Lloyd Suh), a failing Korean-American playwright who after being ditched by his actress girlfriend Maya (Michi Barrel) for a play in Chicago, holes up in his apartment, refusing all human contact while he writes a new set of short stories, stories he hopes will soar where his plays have landed with a thud. The question is whether these “Semi-True Tales of Heartbreak” are really his tales to tell.

The play begins with the time-honored dividing of possessions that occurs during the first stages of a breakup. Suh’s stumbling movements and sarcastic, whiny attitude are the picture of arrested development. Disheveled and disoriented, he attempts to pull himself together fast enough to convince Maya to stay. He claims never to have liked people in the first place, that Maya was the only one who understood him, who could lighten him up a little. As Maya, Barrel is terrific at conveying, simply in her face, just how hard this must have been. The creases next to Maya’s eyes, the twitching in her lips, the way her brows scrunch instinctively as she gathers her belongings, listening to Silas’s pleas for her to stay, wordlessly suggests just how much pressure this is for her. As Silas talks, despite his attempts to be funny (“Who cares about Steppenwolf anyway?”) the movements in Maya’s face suggests years of bottled-up tension as the result of being both his girlfriend and his surrogate therapist.

With Maya gone, Silas refuses to leave his apartment, and writes stories he claims are based on his own experiences of abuse, and cancer, and jail. The cluttered, dusty set, with its beaten-up furniture, clothing strewn around the floor and dishes festering in the sink, enhances the sense that Silas has entered his own world, one which follows none of the rules of cleanliness and order that applied when he lived with Maya. The only only object treated with respect is his computer, which he uses to write stories involving his supposedly troubled past. The alchemy of the short story turns these horrific events into something, relateable even marketable, and soon a hotshot young agent named Derrick is outside his window, shouting to the shut-in writer about book deals, advances, and previews in the New Yorker. Silas’s past resonates with Derrick, and with everyone Derrick shows the story to. It even resonates with the sushi-chef, Maxie, who poses as a delivery person just so she can meet the man whose stories she thinks so perfectly capture her own troubles with cancer.

Will fame and recognition save Silas’s soul and allow him see that his voice matters? That telling his story will help others, in addition to getting the income that he so desperately needs? At this point the story follows an uplifting but somewhat formulaic path: depressed writer makes good, finds personal happiness through the redemptive power of a book deal. Just when it seems as if the stakes aren’t high enough, in comes a twist in the form of Silas’s long lost brother Finn (J. Julien Christopher) from Los Angeles, who bursts into the apartment, raging over what he claims is an act of libel on Silas’s part. Silas never had cancer, and was never arrested, beaten up, or sexually abused. These stories are based on events of his adoptive brother's and father’s lives: not Silas’s. Christopher walks into Silas's apartment banging on the door, visibly shaking with anger and hurt. His performance is an effective combination of bravado and sadness: he chokes back tears even as he's ready to punch Silas in the face.

Silas is not entirely unaware of the consequences of his actions, but shutting himself off from the world certainly made it easier for him to write without anyone questioning the accuracy of his claims. If he does not speak to anyone, no one can question him. The way he explains it, he didn't consciously set out to steal his families stories simply to gain fame; he just feared that his own stories weren't engaging enough for his friends and potential audience to appreciate them. Silas thought stretching the truth was the only way to gain love, in both his personal and professional lives.

This explanation raises a few questions regarding both Silas's actions, and in a larger sense, those of writers such as James Frey. Is Silas at fault for stealing his adopted family’s life stories for artistic gain, or is the public and our current literary climate to blame for driving Silas to lie in the first place? Instead of working towards resolving these questions, the play tries to give Silas redemption through promoting Maxie’s own stories of her life and cancer, going as far as seeking out Derrick in the middle of Central Park, to give him her poems. It’s an altruistic act, maybe even a redemptive one, but it seems a little too neat and convenient. Sure, it’s great that Silas can leave the comforting cradle of his self-pity to help a friend, but it seems too much like an attempt to create a happy ending for a play that, up to this point, has proudly shied away from them.

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CSV Cultural Center 107 Suffolk Street
Performances (through 4/5): Thursdays at 8(except for 4/3), 3/31 at 8pm, 3/22, 3/29, and 4/5 at 3pm, 4/5 at 8pm, and 4/2 and 4/3 at 8pm.
Tickets available at www.2g.org or by phone at (212) 352-3101. Adults: $18, Students: $11.

The Scariest

The Exchange attempts to reconnect to traditional horror by riffing on classic tales like "The Monkey's Paw," but what's lost in translation is relevance. The Scariest fails to leave any impact on the audience and is, at best, cute.

Photo/Morrigan McCarthy

Reviewed by John Rice

What is horror? What is it to be scared? In our modern world of desensitized gorefest movies, we’ve forgotten that the horror genre claims its roots in thought. Scaring someone is just a continuation of the Greek principals of drama—shocking you into catharsis. Giving you a guiding pathos. In this way, horror is very relevant to how we live our lives. Good horror should make us think about our lives, and our selves. The Scariest, a collection of horror scenes from The Exchange (formerly The Jean Cocteau Repertory Company), attempts to reconnect with this traditional idea of horror by presenting pieces based off some of the classic horror stories of all time (W.W. Jacobs's’ “The Monkey’s Paw” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter” for example) together with contemporary pieces. What’s lost, however, is relevancy. The show fails to leave any impact on the audience and is, at best, cute.

The ensemble cast is technically proficient, but doesn’t move the audience. The exceptions are Angel Desai, who plays a wide variety of characters with feeling, and Andy Grotelueschen, who showed some passion in an adaptation of “Monkey’s Paw”—the second of two adaptations. But precision from your actors without passion is far from The Scariest and the audience is never frightened.

For some reason, none of the playwrights could develop a play without the use of directly addressing the audience—a contemporary theatre cliché which comes off as amateurish. The Scariest consists of plays commissioned just for this show, and to that I say yikes! because made-for plays tend to not have that long-lasting freshness that makes viewers care. I was right. The scenes mostly rehash very familiar material. There are nine plays in total, and four of the playwrights have conspired to include a Rod Serling look alike who tells us “scaaary stories.” Two adaptations of “The Monkey’s Paw” teach us to “be careful what you wish for.” We can’t possibly be moved by things we’re so tired of.

But at times there are small perks of personality to this impossible task. Laura Schellhardt’s play “The Apothecary’s Daughter” (inspired by Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter”) brings a lot of over-the-top humor to a period piece with the array of poisoned lovers who, “not so much perish as pass out," even though a father who talks from behind a screen (like the teacher from Peanuts) can be too much. Even one of the Serling plays, “Lobster Boy,” has potential because of characters dealing with pain reception, boxing on a swimming pool cover, and Powerpoint presentations, but it would have been better received if those characters were actually on stage. The best of the lot, by far, is the most personal—Kristin Newbom’s play based off The Book of Revelations (which only sounds like an artsy cliché, but it’s not). Her play is a zany opera of Johnny Cash music, the playwright “bod-casting” into multiple puppet bodies, the two witnesses (from Revelations), and a Tom Cruise lecture on scientology that makes it relevant for the contemporary audience. I hope that Newbom takes this idea further because “Revelations” is a very compelling in its zaniness.

The real asset of this show is its design. Clint Ramos’s set, a weathered gangplank in the shape of a cross, really makes use of the space, allowing actors to enter from all sides of the audience. Plus, the plastic sheet walls add to the creepy industrial effect and allow Christopher Studley to project silhouettes of actors in his toying with shadows. Lindsay Jones’s sound was like cheesy Japanese anime but other than that, the production vales add to the experience of this show.

The Exchange is “committed to creating theatrical classics of the future.” The Scariest does not, by any stretch, meet that goal. This show will not last beyond this moment in time, so if you would like to chuckle over some classic horror head down to The Green Room.

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The Scariest
The Exchange @ The Green Room (45 Bleecker Street)
Tickets (212-239-6200): $20.00
Performances (through 3/30): Tues. - Sat. @ 8 | Sun. @ 3

Fight Girl Battle World

Looking to have a qwarding good time? Then check out the high energy, action comedy adventure Fight Girl Battle World, a theatrical send-up of science fiction with some innovative fight choreography up its sleeve. Hot chicks, sarcastic robots, and bad-ass aliens: rarely does theater get so blatantly entertaining.

Photo/Jim Baldassare

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

If you open your play with a series of outtakes between an action-figure Boba Fett and his tonton buddy, you've either got huge balls or you know exactly who your audience is. Vampire Cowboys Theater, the undisputed king of the action parody genre, has huge balls and they know their audience, returning to the same ground they covered in last year's Men of Steel, only this time, with a science-fiction spin: Fight Girl Battle World. They've got the vocabulary ("kilofraks," "durk," and "qward," for starters) and the hot guns and hotter girls to prove it. They've got a soundtrack that would make Quentin Tarantino proud: chase scenes set, tongue-in-cheek, to the Bob Dylan's "Handy Dandy," infiltration scenes accompanied by Beastie Boys' "Intergalactic," a hyperspace riff on 2Pac's "California Love," not to mention a climactic fight set to Evanescence's "Bring Me to Life." Beneath it all, Qui Nguyen's even got a passively subversive riff on the creation myth, as the last woman alive, E-V (Melissa Paladino), is sent on a quest by General Dan'h (Temar Underwood) to "bump uglies" with the last man alive, Adon-Ra (Noshir Dalal), a quest that pits them against the villainous President Ya-Wi (Jon Hoche).

Not that you'll have to read into anything in Fight Girl Battle World: the bad guys have sinister laughs (Elena Chang's Mikah Monoch), horrible accents (Andrea Marie Smith's Commander G'Bril), and ridiculous facial hair (Kelley Rae O'Donnell's Zookeeper); meanwhile, the good guys are filled with sarcastic quips (Paco Tolson's LC-4, a k a, the most endearingly arrogant robot since Marvin the Paranoid Android) and roughish charm (Maureen Sebastian's J'an Jah, not just a pilot, but the male of her species). Exposition is straight-up laughed at (after breaking in to kill the president, Adon-Ra explains: "I could go into the long explanation, but it'd be merely expository"), and Robert Ross Parker's direction seamlessly jumps from scene to scene, with actors suddenly dropping out of sight as others pop up into view, like a revolving reel on an old toy viewfinder.

You won't have to think about much, either: the dialog is filled with geeked-out in-jokes for both sci-fi and theater buffs ("Z-Class starfighters" and the diss "Wanna phone home?" go right up there with a play LC-4 wrote called "Death of a Space-Man"), and whether you get them or not, you'll laugh just from the pure energy and charm of the whole cast. Even the slowest bits of the play -- like a reminder from some sort of Smokey the Ursa Minor that "only you can prevent humanity" -- have a purpose, like letting you (and the actors) catch their breath right before another fight scene.

Oh, yes. There are fight scenes. Qui Nguyen doubles as the choreographer, and he take the opportunity to try out a lot of techniques I've never seen before. In an early clip of a "grainy video", the shifting positions of a flashlight behind a scrim cast amplified silhouettes that jitter against the screen, playing with depth perception and height. In another, Nguyen uses body doubles to allow him to play with perspective, a cinematic move that helps him nail the instant replay. And, c'mon: the dude also turns a puppet spacefight into a martial arts showdown: "What in the qward was that?" asks Dan'h, as three actors fly hand-guided ships at one another. "I think they just bit us." Granted, there have been smoother fight scenes on stage before (like in The Jaded Assassin), but they've never been so funny. (And kudos to the actors without professional training: that makes their physical control even more impressive.)

Given the current trend of film adaptations (Spider-Man, Batman, and The Addams Family musicals), it's only a matter of time before Broadway taps someone for Star Wars: The Musical. Hopefully they'll ask Qui Nguyen and Robert Ross Parker for some advice, because they've done a really durking good job.

[For another take, read Sarah Krasnow's review.]

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Fight Girl Battle World (1 hr. 40 min.)
Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company @ Center Stage, NY (48 West 21st St.)
Tickets (212-352-3101): $18.00
Performances (through 3/30): Thurs. - Sun. @ 8:00

Hello Failure

Hello Failure is focused on the rich, excellent, substantive lives of seven submariner's wives who come together to discuss their feelings of isolation and purposelessness. However, Kristen Kosmas presents her material with overlapping text, fragments of thoughts, and gasps of self-confession that abruptly surface (and just as abruptly submerge), and the end result is often hard to grasp. The play is fixated more on the nuances of the conversation than what's actually behind the line ("sub"-text), and this self-inflicted meta-realism seems to be, like the characters, compensating for an absence of purpose.

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

Oh, the horrors of being a submariner's wife. If we take Kristen Kosmas's word for it, every moment becomes excruciatingly poetic. If you're Rebecca (Kosmas), you feel submerged in a too-large home, until one day you can't ("I can't. Not today. Not today I don't think I can. Maybe never again.") bring yourself to get out of the bathtub. Or if you're Karen (Aimee Phelan-Deconinck), you feel trapped in the confines of a meaningless life, which you'd be fine with, if only the people at the soup firm could remember your name. And then there are the other four wives: Kate (Joan Jubett), whose self-obsession keeps her as closed off as submarine steel from the ocean; Gina (Tricia Rodley), who channels her frustrations into rage; Netta (Maria Striar), who tries to manage her own crises by carefully controlling everything around her; and Valeska (Janna Gjesdal), who has to maintain her own hippie-like perspective, lest the optimism chip away far enough for others to see her pain. Not to mention the New Girl, Margerie (Megan Hart), who -- in fear of her own fragility -- makes herself out to be incredibly strong in person. Perhaps you recognize something of yourself in them -- Hello, Failure, you might say -- or simply understand what might drive Karen to try learning Japanese, Kate to have an affair with her hairdresser, Netta to create another person out of her own happier past, or Rebecca to write letters to the long-dead, Civil War submarine innovator, Horace Hunley (Matthew Maher), in whom she feels she can safely confide -- even when he shows up in her bathroom.

All this is rich, excellent, substantive stuff. However, the way in which Kosmas has chosen to present it -- in overlapping scenes, fragments of introductory text, or gasps of self-confession that abruptly surface (and just as quickly submerge) -- is often hard to handle. These seams of isolation fit the characters more than they fit the framework of the play, and this self-inflicted style seems to be, like the characters, compensating for an absence of purpose. Ken Rus Schmoll navigates through those choppy waters with real purpose (and I suspect his work with Clubbed Thumb has well-prepared him for such deliberately damaged narratives), and as a result, there are pockets of scene work that hit like bursts of fresh air.

In one, Margerie leads the group in a meditative exercise: "You will never have a normal life," she says. "And that is OK . . . you will love your abnormal life the way an abnormal tiger mother loves its abnormal tiger baby. You can be at parties with other tigers who are normal tigers and you won't even bat an eye, it won't matter to you one bit because you are abnormal, and that is the way it was meant to be and that is the way it is and that is the way it will always be." What works here, and in the play, is that no excuse is made for the way these people are, and no easy solutions are offered: it's not so much learning to swim rather than to sink, it's learning how to breathe underwater once you've already sunk.

At another point, Karen, who often speaks in an aloof and distracted manner, tries to explain her recent enrollment in Japanese classes: "Because I. Because of my mind. Because I want to learn new ways of using my mind. Because I'm tired of all the old familiar ways that my mind wants to use itself. Because I want to make new pathways. Forge new paths. Like a barbarian almost, chopping away at the wilderness. I want to chop away at the wilderness of my mind. Like someone with a machete. . . ." She is having an affair with language in the same way that Kate is having an affair with Shlomy (Michael Chick), a gay hairdresser -- it's just another point of contact, a different approach.

I suspect that my resistance to the play is that it's too aware of itself, of its own structure: it's meta-realism, in which clever characters (and cleverer actors) speak well of the pain, but substitute the discussion of trauma for the actual experience of it, and leave with only the most artificial catharsis, having really dealt with nothing. These seven absent husbands are parts of the problem, but their stories are untold, and there's no way to make the expression of absence in a play ever feel complete. Kosmas compensates for this by injecting two men into the play: failing with Shlomy, a spineless character who comes across as a physical prop for Karen (and later, an improbable option for Karen), but succeeding with Horace, a quiet but commanding foil for everything Rebecca's struggling against (Mr. Maher, who has a distinct lisp, has the ability to making passivity seem either sweet or sinister, depending on the volume of his voice).

Ultimately, Kosmas has to turn to the present audience, turning her actors into a Greek chorus of tragically flawed (but suddenly -- unfortunately -- homogeneous) people who apologize for their inability to look within. It is, as they and Kosmas say, easier to look out, rather than look in. "Who wouldn't? Because sure / if you can think about all that out there / and there's plenty of it out there to think about / I say if you can think about all that then / why think about all this instead? / If you can think about all that then / you don't have to think about what is." But is that the sort of play -- the sort of ending -- that can actually challenge us to do something more? Hello Failure is most important when it's confronting what is; unfortunately, it's at its best when it's confronting what isn't.

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Hello Failure (1 hr. 40 min.)
Shady Lane Productions @ PS122 (150 1st Avenue)
Tickets (www.theatermania.com): $15.00
Performances (through 3/22): Mon., Thurs. - Sat. @ 8 | Sun. @ 6:30

The Night of the Iguana

In a culture obsessed with removing any sense of ambiguity from art, it's a thrill to experience a Tennessee Williams play, where words communicate what actions could never reveal.

Reviewed by Cameron Kelsall

Tennessee Williams never had to rely on physical representations of the gruesome acts that his words depicted; his command of evocative language was always enough. When Catharine Holly detailed the tearing of flesh from the body in Suddenly Last Summer or Blanche DuBois related the events leading up to her tortured husband’s suicide in A Streetcar Named Desire, the mental picture that was transplanted into the mind’s eye was as vivid and unhinging as actually seeing the violence performed. The Night of the Iguana does not deal directly with this kind of brutality, but rather the psychosexual repression that leads to self-abnegation and, eventually, madness. It is a testament to longevity of Mr. Williams’ words, and to the brilliance of the director Terry Schreiber, that these themes communicate as blazingly today as when it was first produced over fifty years ago.

Set in 1940, the action centers around the Hotel Costa Verde, a charmingly dilapidated resort in the Mexican tropics. The proprietress is Maxine Faulk (Janet Saia), a recently widowed woman of loose morals and even looser limbs, who acts as both savior and, more ambiguously, mother to the Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon (Derek Roche). No longer a practicing clergyman, Shannon leads religiously specified tours through these backwoods, but cannot overcome the lustful shame that caused him to renounce his faith years back. Always a moment away from total breakdown, he constantly returns to Mrs. Faulk’s hedonistic bungalow. His current relapse is complicated by accusations that he has corrupted a young church soprano from the tour (Alecia Medley, perfectly strident) and the unexpected presence of Hannak Jelkes (Denise Fiore), a grifter with a heart of gold and a past to rival Shannon’s own.

In order for the play to work on all levels, it is necessary to assemble three immensely talented and appropriately galvanizing actors for the principal roles. At best, this production has one-and-a-half. Ms. Saia is thoroughly unconvincing as a woman who sustains herself primarily on rum cocktails, far too patrician in carriage and delivery to ably communicate Maxine’s libertine spirit. Shannon describes her as “bigger than life, and twice as unnatural,” but in Ms. Saia’s hands, she is as normal as heat in the tropics. Likewise, it takes Mr. Roche far too long to get started; by the time he reaches as appropriately fevered pitch, at the top of Act Two, the viewer is too distinctly aware of his acting to buy his dissent. Only Ms. Fiore is able to fully flesh out both her character’s inherent good nature and self-destructive streak; her delineation of her sexual repression and desire in the second act is chilling.

Where this production primarily shines is in the supporting roles, and the overall mood that the aesthetic vision creates. Mr. Schreiber skillfully plays up the work’s subtext by having the other guests at the hotel, a German family of four, doing cartwheels and crying for champagne when the news of the blitzkrieg reaches them. Their joy, juxtaposed with Shannon’s rapidly collapsing sanity due to the pain his malicious libido has caused, speaks loud and clear the fact that people are happiest when causing others to suffer. This moment of discovery is chilling. Second chances are also out of the question, as the Reverend is roundly fired by the tour leader, Miss Fellowes (the pitch-perfect Pat Patterson), at the first sign of mental and physical falterings.

Mr. Schreiber, along with set designer George Allison, beautifully captures this unique place in time, and lighting designer Andrea Boccanfuso is adept at projecting inner turmoil and insecurity through both bright washes and black, lingering passages that suggest a mind adrift in permanent night. The fact that the production is housed in an intimate theatre—150 seats, at most—only adds to the dramatic immediacy of Mr. Williams’ text. The Night of the Iguana has not achieved the warhorse status of Streetcar or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (currently on Broadway for the second time in less than five years), but this production certainly makes the case for this dark and unsettling tale of self-immolation in a steamy hot climate to burn its way into the standard repertory.

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The Night of the Iguana
T. Schreiber Studio at the Gloria Maddox Theatre (151 West 26th Street; 7th Floor)
Tickets (212-352-3101): $20.00
Performances (through 3/30): Thursday-Saturday at 8; Sunday at 3
Running time: 3 hours, with one intermission

Actors are F*@#ing Stupid

Ian McWethy goes back to the '90s to pay homage to James Van Der Beek while also making fun of actors and their "craft." Although the production does a good job of recreating the feeling of the '90s with the score and the material, it doesn't compensate for the abrasive dialogue, overuse of expletives, and campy acting. It's not nearly as funny as it sets out to be.

Reviewed by Cindy Pierre

Oh yeah. Look at those bedroom eyes and relaxed posture. Aside from getting nooky and looking cool, you want to know what else is on his mind, right? According to actor and writer Ian McWethy, not a whole lot. Actors are F*@#ing Stupid takes us through the fictitious casting process for Varsity Blues, the 1999 football movie starring James Van Der Beek. And although you may chuckle as it takes you down memory lane, you won't get any knee-slapping humor from this comedy. And furthermore, don't expect the humor you do get to be smart; it's juvenile even though it makes an attempt to be dark.

Maniacal film producer Bill Lawrence (Tom Escovar), devoid of morals and tact, is anxious to get the commercial, pocket-fattening actors he needs to star in his latest movie. Except he's got one problem: a writer who's a stickler for the integrity of the film. Doug (Josh LaCasse) insists on sitting in on the casting process, and having his pick of at least one of the leads. The Assistant (Carrie McCrossen) endures Lawrence's sexist names (Boobsy and Chesticles are memorable) for her and harsh treatment just to get the chance to work with Doug because she believes in him. In return, Doug keeps giving her chances because he believes in her ass-ets as well.

Waiting to audition are Steve (Roger Lirtsman), a normal guy who is more than meets the eye, Jennifer (Heidi Niedermeyer), a flexible dancer with a flair for drama, Amy (Susan Maris), an ambitious young lady who'll do anything to get the part, and Johnny (Wil Petre), a potty-mouthed bonehead who coasts by on his good looks. Everything that you'd expect from actors interacting with each other at a casting call is there: jealousy, deceit, flamboyance, pretention, and fake sincerity. But despite all these ingredients that usually make theater juicy, the show suffers from being over the top in several ways.

First, there's the crass dialogue from both Johnny and Bill Lawrence that would make Andrew Dice Clay's ears burn. As Johnny, the cussing and sexually charged language may be handled marginally better by Petre because of his cavalier attitude, but even Petre can't justify it. Second, as Bill Lawrence (a character who lacks sleep), Escovar is so loud and obnoxious in his delivery that you'll wish he could go to sleep. Immediately. Only Niedermeyer successfully balances her extreme behavior with more recognizably human traits as Jennifer. Maris and Lirtsman (characters Steve and Amy) turn in more subdued performances and provide a nice alternate view to the ins and out of acting.

Actors are F*@#ing Stupid uses songs like I Don't Want to Wait by Paula Cole and Ruff Ryders Anthem by DMX to revive the '90s; although the trip back in time is nice, the medley of songs speak to different audiences. (Paula Cole fits in; DMX doesn't.) And like the score, the show will appeal to some, but alienate others. Since McWethy is an actor, I expected more insight and a few surprises about the process. There were none. If he's going to poke fun at his own job and peers, he should be better and smarter at it. The show has a funny, satirical premise, but the script is missing the boat. Director Michael Kimmel succeeds in making the script come alive, but the production needs to be turned down, not amplified. In more ways than one, this show proves that sometimes a lot less is more.

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Through March 15th. Tickets $18-20. By Phone:212-352-3101, 866-811-4111(toll free)

The Wild Project195 East 3rd Street

New York, NY 10009

The Seagull

One Russian master tackles another, and shows us all how it’s done, in Classic Stage Company’s revival of The Seagull.

Photo/Joan Marcus

Reviewed by Jason Fitzgerald
(Note: Based on an early preview from 3/1.)

Long before there were movies and television shows to fill us with false expectations, there was the theater. As nineteenth-century audiences clamored for their seats at the latest melodrama or romantic vaudeville, they dreamed of exploits so full of passion, pathos, and heroism that their own lives felt dim in comparison. So it is appropriate that, in Classic Stage Company’s new production of The Seagull, a small theater—a simple wooden platform with two poles holding up a tattered brown curtain—becomes a focal point for this latest attempt at Chekhov’s first major drama, a play about the all-too-thin line between reality and possibility.

Everyone in The Seagull dreams of the impossible, including the four major characters—all of whom, not coincidentally, are artists. The radical young playwright Treplev seeks a sense of purpose (he has none), while the celebrity writer Trigorin fantasizes about giving up writing forever (he can’t). The aging diva Arkadina revels in her glory (which is fading), while young actress Nina pursues the same glamour for herself (a fantasia, as any working actor knows). After Treplev’s symbolist drama is greeted with jeers rather than applause, the stage on which it is performed becomes a symbol of an imperfect but sincere attempt at transcendence (specifically, through art). The small stage haunts each character and the production as a whole. Director Viacheslav Dolgachev, a former artistic director of the Moscow Art Theatre and currently head of Moscow’s New Art Theatre, keeps the theater on CSC’s own small stage for the entire performance. He uses transitions to push it around, often not to relocate it (it changes positions only slightly) but to bring it to our attention again and again. The smaller stage into which Treplev pours his own false hopes mirrors the larger stage on which every character seeks his or her own dream, however inaccessible.

Mirrors and magic underscore the entire production. Set designer Santo Loquasto covers the floor with a glassy, reflecting material that evokes the “magic lake” often referred to but never seen. An upstage porch, with lace curtains on either side, is the only stable structure in an otherwise fluid space, allowing Dolgachev to create clean, striking images that track the narrative journey. A large oval mirror upstage center provides another focal point, creating a sense of balance and fragile tranquility not disturbed until the final moment of the play. For this scene, when Treplev confronts Nina for the last time before ending his life, the lace is replaced by thick black curtains obscuring even the mirror. The final gunshot sounds like the breaking of glass, and indeed, when the curtains part, the mirror is cracked and broken, a correlative for the collapsed emotional ecosystem of the household.

In the same moment, Treplev’s mother Arkadina, played by Dianne Wiest, dips into a kind of madness, singing a high-pitched children’s song and creeping towards center stage, taking the rest of the cast with her, as though it is she who has cracked, along with the mirror, thanks to her impressive powers of denial. The moment is Dolgachev’s weakest—in trying to extend the trauma of the suicide to the entire household, he turns a moment of poignant devastation into ugly melodrama—but it culminates a well-calibrated performance by Wiest. The Oscar winner, who deserves credit for bringing both Dolgachev and Loquasto into the production (she was even involved in casting), turns the ethereal presence so quirky in Woody Allen’s films toward a character who walks on a self-made silver lining.

She is strongest, though, in the two giant third-act scenes for which her character is best remembered. In the first, as Arkadina and Treplev’s fragile relationship breaks down, Wiest’s performance is desperate, switching vocal registers and flailing about like a woman who has lost control. In the second scene, when Arkadina must win back her lover Trigorin, Wiest braces herself against a thick mahogany bartable before delivering a self-conscious performance right out of Arkadina’s bourgeois melodramas: “You’re the final page of my life story!” Here, Wiest stands tall and presents an Arkadina who is in control so long as she can find a script to perform. Though both scenes demand histrionics, Wiest skillfully contrasts emotional realism with performative melodrama, bridging the twin poles of the entire production: art and life.

Fortunately, in a play that denies the audience a central character (as opposed to the clear heroes and villains of melodrama), Wiest’s performance stands alongside a first-class ensemble. Alan Cumming’s Trigorin, is shifty, anxious, and uncomfortable in his own skin. He perennially wishes he were somewhere else, except when coyly seducing the young Nina. Ryan O’Nan’s Treplev has the right measure of youthful angst and unearned seriousness. You can take his struggle seriously, but not his pretensions.

Then there is Kelli Garner’s courageous performance of Nina—she makes her a kind of nymph, so breathlessly overcome by her own dreams she floats off the ground, moving on clouds as sincere as Arkadina’s are artificial. But Garner tempers her starstruck whimsy with indefatigable ambition. By the time she returns in the final scene, wearing a tattered seaweed-like blanket, boundless energy has become exhausted persistence. When she remembers the events of the previous acts with the reflection, “we were still children,” her honesty is as easy as her former idealism.

The rest of the cast is no less adept at creating richly detailed characters, from Marjan Neshat’s tragically earnest Masha to Annette O’Toole’s weepy Paulina. David Rasche’s Dorn is a religiously calming presence, but Rasche is careful to reveal the cracks in the doctor’s shell, proving that melodrama isn’t the only form of escapism.

Let’s face it—competent productions of Chekhov’s plays are hard to find in America. Classic Stage is fortunate to have a Seagull as intelligent, sensitive, and in tune with the playwright’s sensibilities as the one currently on its boards. Catch it while you can, before it flies away.

Beebo Brinker Chronicles

Perhaps my expectations were too high, but in sitting in 37 Arts’ large theater, while watching what is clearly a solid, well put together production, I couldn’t help but be underwhelmed.

Review by Amanda Cooper

When Beebo Brinker Chronicles played in a small theater off-off Broadway, the buzz was big. Word-of-mouth, and the reviews, were positive. I was bummed to not have made it to the show, and mentally stuck it into that category of “shows I wish I had seen.” So when the announcement came that Beebo Brinker Chronicles would begin an off-Broadway run, I knew I’d have to go.

Perhaps my expectations were too high, but in sitting in 37 Arts’ large theater, while watching what is clearly a solid, well put together production, I couldn’t help but be underwhelmed. Perhaps the large theater swallowed up much of the show’s charm, which very well may have been connected to the gritty, intimate nature of a small village theater (especially with the show’s setting primarily being the West Village).

Based on lesbian pulp romance novels by Ann Bannon in the 1950s and 60s, Beebo Brinker Chronicles is a dramatized variation on the themes of a few of Bannon’s books. Beebo Brinker herself (played with a knowing smile by Jenn Collela) is the butch woman of female fantasy – she conforms more to male gender roles than female, taking the lead with the women she pursues, and dressing and acting accordingly. The play follows two women who were sorority sisters, and more significantly, each other’s first loves, through a decade of their lives. Beth (nicely played by Autumn Dornfeld) goes the way of housewife in California, but she is miserable, and loses interest in her husband. Laura, on the other hand (played by the immensely talented Marin Ireland, who is just a bit too over-the-top here), moves to the West Village in Manhattan. Though societal pressures keep her from being proud and comfortable with her choices, she soon finds herself living with Beebo, and a part of the gay community.

Kate Moira Ryan and Linda S. Chapman’s script is sharp – contrasting the subversive sexual content with that Golden-Age-like hokey dialogue. And Leigh Silverman’s direction is consistent, keeping the story moving along, while also maintaining dramatic tension. Yet this production just doesn’t pop. It coasts along smartly, but ultimately comes across as a fairly mild, well-made production. Beebo Brinker Chronicles is most strongly a reminder that theater is live – who knows, I may have felt that “pop” in the off-off production.

Beebo Brinker Chronicles

There's a moment where the text of Ann Bannon's 50s lesbian pulp novels is really turned to flesh -- a hot, torrid scene of tangled emotions that feels real, despite the intentionally cheesy writing. But Leigh Silverman's sparse direction ends up focusing too much on the swaggering one-liners, and while Marin Ireland, David Greenspan, and Carolyn Bauemler find ways to balance witticisms like "We can't think straight because we always think gay" with honest lines like "Do you think some pretty twenty-five year old is going to fall for a bald, middle-aged bastard without a bank roll to offer?" the same can't be said for Autumn Dornfeld, who relies too heavily on telegraphed actions, or Jenn Colella, who has to work so hard to make us buy her brutish turn as Beebo that she has little energy left to do anything else.

Photo/Dixie Sheridan

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

"Oh, Laura . . . -- darling -- I just can't do it," cries Beth, turning away from her lover. "I just can't can't. Oh Laura!" Beebo, currently serving as the narrator, looks at the two, Beth and Laura, and calmly continues with the story: "The whistle blew. Laura got up from her bench and walked swiftly toward the exit. Beth ran after her." The two girls share a brief, none too melodramatic look (think of Noel Coward's Still Life if you want the mood set right), and then: "Oh, Laura, Laura, please don't leave like this. Please." I know what you're thinking: it sounds hokey. And you're right, for The Beebo Brinker Chronicles is a stage adaptation by Kate Moira Ryan and Linda S. Chapman that aims to preserve the late 50s flair and fleshy pulp of Ann Bannon's series of lesbian fiction. But that's not a bad thing, for they've taken the clipped rhythm and one-line zingers ("We can't think straight because we always think gay"), and rooted them in a real struggle for happiness. If only the play didn't struggle so much to get its point across.

Beth (Autumn Dornfeld) lies impassively in bed with her husband, Charlie (Bill Dawes), unable to understand why she's no longer into him, and why they fight so much. "Does love have to be immoral or illegal before you can enjoy it?" he asks, and he's right on the money, for Beth has married Charlie out of societal fear, and now lives vicariously in her pulp novels, dreaming of how her life might have gone. And though her scenes are littered with exposition ("It's the 60s, not the 40s" or "We have two happy children" are my favorites), they're also harsh: "I'm not gay because I enjoy it," Beth finally confesses, shortly before traveling to New York to seek out the life she turned her back on nine years earlier.

Meanwhile, Laura (Marin Ireland) finds herself on a double date between her and a new friend, Jack (David Greenspan) and her roommate, Marcie (Carolyn Baeumler), and Marcie's ex, Burr (Dawes) that ends -- for novelty's sake -- at a gay bar in the heart of Greenwich Village. There, under the unabashed glare of Beebo (Jenn Colella), Laura starts to feel the emotions she's been repressing, emotions that Jack -- who turns out to be gay -- wants to help her express: there's no shame, he says, in being animals. (Greenspan is a riot throughout, especially armed with advisory lines like "What, do you think she'll quote a couple of lines of Sappho and she'll be ready to go pearl diving?")

The difference between the two women is striking: whereas Beth comes across as a cold fish who inexplicably hates her life, Laura is a fish out of water who -- although trembly and fragile -- plunges in, swims upstream, and finds herself. The difference between actors is remarkable too: Dornfield, as Beth, hurts her own performance by overplaying the role, and even takes the fish metaphor literally, with a constantly quivering lip that makes her insecurity into a physically repeating joke that needs to be serious, whereas Ireland, refining the high-strung energy that she's brought to roles in Manuscript or Bad Jazz, manages to grow from a comically embarrassed girl into a confident woman.

Such differences in performances wouldn't be such an issue if the show were better about distracting us from them. But this is Leigh Silverman's sparest direction -- the entire set always looks like The Cellar (the gay bar that's the hub of the play) and the lights are static and unappealing -- which means the emphasis is on the actors. (At least Theresa Squire's fantastic costumes -- especially an out-of-place riding coat for obstinate Beebo -- always make them look good.) Most of the time, Beebo Brinker Chronicles is sharp enough to thrill the audience, but that deeper surface rarely comes to light, as it does, for instance, when Beth's pulp-inspired fantasy is pitted against Laura's reality, with Beth excitedly reading a torrid scene aloud as Laura and Beebo turn the text to flesh.

That idea -- text as flesh -- is what's so sorely missing from the show. The swagger is there, the feel of the period is there, but the actual substance often gets caught up in the style. Nowhere is it more apparent than with the miscasting of Jenn Colella as Beebo: Colella does a great job acting, but she's always struggling with the fact that she in no way, shape, or form resembles a husky butch and her overcompensation takes away from the depth of Beebo's character. She grows violent, drunk, and possessive, but only the words take on menace: the flesh is dull. On the other hand, she's often paired up with Mrs. Ireland, who is able to amplify her own frailty so plausibly that Beebo seems tough (by comparison).

When the play is on, it's spot on -- something the comic timing of Carolyn "I'll be in the kitchen getting some chips!" Baeumler and the dry wit of David Greenspan nail down. And for all the struggling, Beebo Brinker Chronicles comes out largely ahead: funny, yes, but with well-crafted moments of sadness beneath that perpetual smirk or unflagging quiver. As an ode to pulp novels, the play succeeds; but as a narrative of sexual awakening, it's a little sleepy.

Fight Girl Battle World

Leave it to off off Broadway to remind us of theater’s diversity. If you don’t think a play in the tradition of a comic book, video game, action flick, and sci-fi series can come to life on the stage, Vampire Cowboys Theater Company’s Fight Girl Battle World is here to prove otherwise. Fight Girl Battle World (which I’ll abbreviate as FGBW, to be streamlined and cool), with its complete set of stock characters, ingenious low-budget effects, and title that, in its perfect generic and cryptic sci-fi-ness tells us nothing and everything about this show, may be the most thorough and astute parody currently running in New York.

Photo/Jim Baldassare

Reviewed by Sarah Krasnow

Most of the 50 seats at Center Stage were occupied the night I attended Fight Girl Battle World. However, not a single audience member looked older than 30, and after a goofy video starring two action figures told us to turn off our cell-phones, 90% of the audience was already rolling in the aisles. Once the show actually began, explosions of laughter followed almost without pause – obviously, most people here were in on the joke. As for the non-geeks (like me)? Would they get it? Thankfully, it’s safe to say that if you've ever ever watched a TV show set in outer-space or seen a brawny rather than brainy movie, then yes, FGBW will make you laugh. The satire is that spot-on, the sets, props, and costumes are that clever, and the actors maintain that high a level of silly energy throughout.

It hardly matters, but FGBW tells of E-V, the universe's last female human, who works as a kind of lowbrow prizefighter in a competition called Battle World. Kept as a pet by a two-headed alien, E-V lives a violent, repetitive, and pretty bleak life, until a certain General Dan’h, responsible for wiping out most of E-V’s species but now reformed and looking to set things right, approaches her with the idea of mating with the last male human in the universe (phew). E-V rejects the plan at first, but after her alien owner banishes her to a zoo, she braves intergalactic travel and battle with an evil space dictatorship to find her fellow human and replenish their species. And so it goes, complete with aliens and robots, combat, tight spots, sticky situations, weapons, bad guys, friendship, and a happy ending.

FGBW doesn’t use plot for forward propulsion, just jokes and action scenes that let the creators, Qui Nguyen and Robert Ross Parker, bust out their tricks. The soundtrack that bubbles and beeps in proper future-computer fashion and the cardboardy set that divides up the small space with remarkable efficiency both impress. The cast keep up the goofiness without faltering: as E-V, Melissa Paladino plays the heroine with the right mix of snarkiness, sincerity, and tongue-in-cheek awareness. Tough and gutsy, she spouts some futuristic profanity too: “qwarding,” “blark,” and “durk.” Other main characters have the talk and mannerisms down just as well, in particular Paco Tolson as LC-4, the robot who knows he’s an amazing feat of science, and Temar Underwood as General Dan’h, sporting the pseudo-English accent so prevalent among evil guys in movies set somewhere made-up. Elena Chang, as villain Mikah Monoch, deserves mention for a moment in which an alien language, sounding part-Korean, part-Vietnamese, and part-IBM, spills forth from her mouth in as fluent and convincing a manner as her English. But the remaining cast who play multiple small roles - the characters who tend to die in fireballs – show wondrous versatility. They play everything from a Slim Pickins-like southern-accented fighter pilot to an evil government commander that talks like a Russian-Australian hybrid. These three (Kelley Rae O’Donnell, Andrea Marie Smith, and Noshir Dalal) might be having the most fun of all.

But the coolest, and I mean coolest, component of FGBW comes in the form of simple effects that produce the archetypal action movie image every time, a testament to Qui Nguyen’s choreography skills and what must have amounted to hours of TV watching and XBox playing. Vampire Cowboys has received awards for its puppetry, and here it controls what the audience sees with use of a puppet theater-esque frame, the action happening within a window and the tricks taking place out of sight by the actors’ feet. Invisible below the knees, the robot TC-4 appears to drift in space while an unseen hand guides his weapon to float beside him. E-V and J’an Jah ride a fuzzy box with handlebars that bounces, shudders, and snorts just like a living thing and when they climb off, they drop down behind the frame so the animal appears six feet tall. Some tiny, adorable puppets sit on the edge of the window and squeak and jump, and the actors jolt and fall as if catching the wind from rushing spacecraft. In the big finish of a fight scene, two windows come out and four different actors play E-V in a multi-point-of-view showdown. Nguyen and Parker can even mimic camera tricks without cameras.

All this praise notwithstanding, let us not forget that FGBW does target a certain audience. The humor will go over the heads of most senior citizens or patrons of serious drama only. Trekkies will laugh more than non-trekkies. At times, FGBW succumbs to some of the pitfalls of spoofing: successfully imitating generic space-talk, in places the dialogue drags because, well, generic space-talk doesn’t say much. The plot that takes a back seat to the stage fighting, etc. makes for some slow moments, and though I understand the creators’ desire to get as many of those priceless parody montages in as possible, the show could be cut by about 20 minutes. Many of the scenes are kept short to imitate movie cuts, but where the other film-inspired reincarnations work, on a stage this effect comes off as choppy and we sometimes lose the thread of the action.

The attention to detail in FGBW warrants more discussion than possible here, and I don’t want to give away all the surprises. So after you crack open a beer (as a note in the program encourages!) and absorb the antics, keep the observations going over after-theater drinks – the talk won’t be deep, but it will sure be qwarding funny.

Note to Self

Reviewed by Ilana Novick

Note to Self examines the trials of two thirty somethings dating their way towards happiness and stability. A seemingly solid, earnest high school guidance counselor named Mark (Gerry Ferris ) collides, through the wonder of online dating, with Michelle (Christina Romanello), a bipolar whirlwind of a woman with a drugstore in her purse and a chip on her shoulder.

Mark’s opening monologue is a promising beginning, spoken as if read straight from an online profile. It strikes a chord with a anyone who has struggled to market themselves within the confines of the likes/dislikes/turn-ons/turnoffs/hopes/dreams/small screens and 200 character limits of many of the dating sites. Mark states (more bluntly than most of these virtual personal ads) that he doesn’t want a good friend, isn’t comfortable with a friend with benefits, and wants all or nothing when it comes to dating. Manifesto stated, he strolls into a coffee shop and comes face to face with Michelle.

Michelle is a thirtyish sometime painter/writer, but mostly personal shopper, whose use of sarcasm as a come-on, and constant evasion of questions about her past, stands in stark contrast to Mark's desire for a straightforward woman. She announces a hatred for her family, but refuses to say why, won't disclose her last name, and claims that she doesn't need to be using online dating when she's so attractive she can have "all the bachelors-and the bachelorettes" as she puts it. Michelle’s constant figeting, playing with and twisting the sweater around her shoulders, sorting through her bag, picking up and putting down the latte cup without drinking it, head moving in five different directions does more to define her as a conflicted, neurotic, sexy but unstable woman far more than what is at times too-glib dialogue. She doesn’t have to announce how complicated yet attractive she is, or how she believes that Mark should be enthralled by her wit as well as her body.

The quality of Romanello's acting however, is not enough to distract the audience from the lack of action in the plot. Sure, there's screaming; revelations of physical abuse and drug abuse; a shadowy figure in Michelle’s past named Max, responsible for most of that abuse; and Mark’s last girlfriend Emily, who was as devoted to Mark’s ailing mother as Mark wasn’t to Emily’s own emotional needs. And all that as Michelle moves in with Mark and begins to try to change herself. But it still seems as if not enough is at stake, other than the outcome of a play-length argument: can opposites attract? It’s like being on a crowded plane or train, squished next to a couple who have decided to use this cramped space as the staging ground for the airing of their romantic grievances. The result is meaningful, even life-defining for the people involved but grating and uncomfortable for those trapped next to them.

Take Me Along

How to make Eugene O’Neill’s only comedy even more ludicrous? Stage it as a musical! An ironic wit seeps through the sweet nostalgia of the Irish Rep’s production.

By Ellen Wernecke

It’s the Fourth of July in Centerville, Connecticut, and the members of the Miller household are all preparing to celebrate in their own ways. Patriarch Nat (William Parry) and his sweet wife Essie (Donna Bullock) eagerly await the arrival of Essie’s brother Sid (Don Stephenson) back for the festivities. Sid, the familial black sheep, packed off to Waterbury to reform, arrives at the station clutching his carpetbag, flat broke and assuring his friends, “I’ve changed… from bourbon to rye.” He intends to once again woo his old sweetheart, Nat’s sister Lily (Beth Glover), to whom he had once been engaged before she broke it off. Meanwhile, Nat and Essie’s son Richard (Teddy Eck) is tortured by his separation from his young girlfriend when her father (Gordon Stanley) discovers him reading “questionable” poetry and plays to her. (Of one such work, the marauding father declares, “You know how evil a play has to be to offend New York.”)

It’s not betraying the source material to say the O’Neill play “Ah, Wilderness!” on which “Take Me Along” was based is the only work of the playwright’s in which problems are resolved, worries are put to rest and no one ends up going to bed angry. The folksy-Americana songs which fill out the musical (think “The Music Man” with more solos and fewer unison parts) serve to advance the plot in that way, from the barbershop quartet-style “Sid Ol’ Kid” to Richard’s melodramatic “I Would Die” and the bouncy titular theme. (Standards fans might also recognize Sid and Lily’s second-act ballad “But Yours,” recently covered by none other than “Family Guy”’s Seth MacFarlane at a Writers’ Guild benefit at Carnegie Hall.) Parry’s Nat is a George Baileyesque patriarch who laments that “everyone around me’s getting old,” but the interplay between Stephenson and Glover, a couple agreed to separate as counterpoint to the young lovers separated by society,

Glover in particular (currently doing double duty as a wealthy, unfaithful Jazz Age socialite in “Glimpses of the Moon”) turns in a nuanced performance of her conventional character; her lament “Promise Me A Rose” acts as a fermata, encapsulating the musical’s drowsy nostalgia as sweetly as the watercolor-township backdrop.

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Through April 13 at the Irish Repertory Theatre
132 W. 22nd Street
Tickets $55-$60, (212) 727-2737
For more information visit IrishRep.org

The Night of the Iguana

Fever when it's late at night: A lesser known Tennessee Williams play swelters on center stage at the T. Schreiber Studio.

By Ellen Wernecke

It's too darn hot at the Costa Verde Hotel, where Maxine Faulk (Janet Saia) presides over the full drink cart and the empty rooms, mourning her dead husband only between frolics with her Mexican employees. One muggy night, hotel regular T. Lawrence Shannon (Derek Roché), a disgraced priest from Texas who now leads bus tours in Mexico, stumbles in with a busload of Baptist schoolteachers in tow. Shannon claims it's his last tour, not only because of his own fatigue but because of the young teacher (Alecia Medley) he claims seduced him and who now won't leave him alone. At the same time, a pair of unlikely drifters, a painter (Denise Fiore) and her senile grandfather (Peter Judd), reach the hotel and insist on taking a room even though they have no way to pay for it. “Whatcha got wrong with you?” Maxine asks Shannon, who replies, with the unspeakable burden of all of Williams’s men, “Fever. Fever.”

Drenched in rum-cocos and the expectation of a storm, “The Night of the Iguana” is a clear (if inferior) relation to Williams’s tense masterpiece “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” and director Terry Schreiber’s treatment unfolds for the most part as languorously as a hot afternoon. Shannon’s relationships with Hannah, the painter, and Maxine, the amoral widow, each contain their own poles of attraction and repulsion, and Saia and Fiore turn in great performances, although Roché stands out as the priest alternately tortured by and repudiating the dark deeds of his past. In the second act, the pace of the play slows down to almost a crawl as Shannon and Hannah are forced to grapple with the choices they have made and the doors they’ve closed in their travels. The intimate staging (the stage represented as a tropical atrium with the audience on three sides) keeps their conversation riveting, not only because it’s the only thing going on onstage but because the set invites a prurient leaning in. (This backfires somewhat when Medley and her hysterical chaperone, played by Pat Patterson, take the stage, and similarly in the irregular appearances of a band of loud German tourists; these performances are delivered so broadly that they threaten to undo this understanding between performers and audience.) The long, subtropical evening over which “The Night of the Iguana” takes place is one in which theatregoers can easily get lost in a languid dream.


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Through March 30 at the T. Schreiber Studio
151 W. 26th St.
Tickets $10-$20, Theatermania
For more information visit tschreiber.org

FRIGID '08: Clinical Depression (the funny kind)

A comedian tries to find the humor in his own brain in this surprisingly heartwarming one-man show.

Reviewed by Ellen Wernecke

To perform comedy is to put one's foibles and quirks front and center, but Drew Wininger takes it one step further by making his struggle with depression the center of his one-man show (presented as part of the Frigid Festival). Wininger traces his path through illness from a teen suicide attempt through several therapists and multiple drugs using slideshows, music and props like the Snoopy doll he still sleeps with. Wininger manages to make his personal history funny without trivializing the depth of his problems, or resorting to the usual cliches of the genre. But the show in general rests on the likability of Wininger, whose aw-shucks demeanor shows as genuine even when his revelations aren't particularly unique.

Our Country's Good

The Folding Chair Classical Theatre's latest "bare bones" production in which British officers cast convicts in a play (to reform, educate and civilize them) forsakes extravagant sets, social and political relevance, and theme for the plot and characters of the story. And although this may sound like an incomplete vision, nothing could be further from the truth in this superbly directed and acted performance. If you want to see a cast that will wow you with their investment in the material instead of wowing you with a big budget, you can't go wrong with this one.


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Reviewed by Cindy Pierre

In 1788, rather than have the degenerates foul the land, England shipped their convicts far away to Australia for safe-keeping, out of sight. But instead of just putting them to work, Naval Captain Arthur Phillip (Ian Gould) had a radical plan: he wanted to redeem their self-worth by casting them in George Farquhar's restoration comedy, The Recruiting Officer. But not everyone was gung-ho about the idea, convicts and officers alike. Our Country's Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker is a recap of the opposition, casting, and rehearsal process for the production. And from start to finish, Folding Chair Classical Theatre's take on the story never ceases to grip, entertain, and delight.

Based on "The Playmaker" by Thomas Keneally, Our Country's Good takes us back to the basics of storytelling with few distractions. The action is ushered in with the sound of the didgeridoo, the Australian wind instrument considered to be the world's oldest. It is an eerie sound, but also a primal one that well-establishes several firsts of this play: first penal colony and first theater performance in Australia. Director Marcus Geduld makes the first of many clever decisions with the opening scene. As an officer whips a convict, the officer stands to one side, whipping air with a severity that would have been diminished were he actually striking the back of the convict; the convict cowers on the other side, making us believe that he feels each crack. This scene denotes the disparity in their shared experience: they're both participants, but the actions are individual.

Phillip's ideas about teaching the inmates culture and civility are met with disdain by Major Robbie Ross (Brad Makarowski), a staunch Marine. He can't see the good in using the "labor" to put on a play that, in essence, makes fun of officers, so he watches the process carefully for failure. Although the process never fails, it does have its setbacks. For one, there's the matter of the arbitrary hangings that were going on for reasons like stealing food; even Jean Valjean didn't get the death penalty in Les Miserables. Liz Morden (Lisa Blankenship), a thief by terrible circumstance, faces death when she is suspected of that crime. This throws a wrench in the rehearsal process because she's in the cast. Also, some of the convicts escape because of the lax security during the rehearsals. These are only two of the arguments that the military make against Phillip's agenda. But the military is not the only institution that Phillip has to contend with. Some of the convicts either don't like the material, are illiterate, or are too afraid to sign up. But between Phillip's dedication and Second Lieutenant Ralph Clark's (Paul Edward Hope) eagerness to direct, the cast and crew push forward.

Our Country's Good is full of wonderful characters brought to life by a well-disciplined, hard-working and skillful ensemble. Despite a few stumbles in dialogue and an overly theatrical and underdeveloped (because of the script) Aboriginal Australian (Jordan Barbour), the performances are strong and thanks to vocal coach Susan Stillman, the British, Irish and Malagasy (from Madagascar) dialects are superb. To keep things simple, Folding Chair uses costumes only to distinguish between military and prisoners (actors play multiple parts), not for vanity's sake. So when Dabby Bryant (Karen Ogle) declares that playing multiple characters will be "confusing" for the audience, you can't help but chuckle at the irony. Lucky for us, Folding Chair has it all worked out so that everything is clear, even in the complexity of the script and the staging.

Our Country's Good is not only engaging, but full of food for thought. From Midshipman Harry Brewer's (Gowan Campbell) regrets about former hangings to his admission of having committed the same crimes that these people were hanged for, his character demonstrates that sometimes there really is a fine line between those with a right to freedom and those who have been stripped of it. But like Clark, with his "I'm not a convict, I don't sin" sentiment and Ross' outright rejection of the notion of redemption, many of us are guilty of thinking that there is an abyss separating the free from the imprisoned. Wertenbaker bridges the gap between the two with romantic relationships that are voluntary, not forced, and a better understanding of each other's stations by the end of the drama. Hopefully, in addition to a great time, you'll have gained a new perspective on your freedom as well.
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Through March 23rd. Tickets: $19. 212-868-4444
78th Street Theatre Lab 236 W. 78th Street(between Broadway & Amsterdam) New York, NY 10024

Ghosts

Reviewed by Sarah Krasnow

As the Pearl Theatre Company’s literary supplement explains, in the original Norwegian, the title Ghosts means something closer to “things that return.” In English, we might also translate it as skeletons, as in those stuffed in our closets, which no locked door can keep secret for long. In this play of drawing room conversations, the skeletons do topple out of the closet, each more rattling than the previous, until we see we see why so many countries banned this play after its publication. With its focus on religious ideology’s undue influence over real-world life, sometimes to disastrous effect, Ghosts presents itself as ripe for revival these days. A Norwegian author who published work in the mid- to late-1800’s can still speak to Americans in 2008, when modernity has stalled in part because of religious fundamentalism (although with an election on the horizon, this time might be approaching an end). Though understated and at times inauthentic, this satisfying production of Ghosts illuminates Ibsen’s progressive message -- with special attention to the language of duplicity -- to a glistening clarity.

Most of the ghosts in this play haunt Mrs. Alving, a wealthy widow and benefactress of a new orphanage. As Mrs. Alving and the town clergyman, Pastor Manders, finalize the establishment’s financial details, the Pastor expresses concern over her wish to insure the place – she does not wish to imply distrust in the Lord’s protection over a children’s haven, does she? Mrs. Alving’s unease shows, but no, she does not, and the orphanage goes without. Here, we wince at the risk imposed in the name of religion, but before long, we see how much farther the name of religion has pushed Mrs. Alving. As revealed through subsequent polite and delicate but progressively heated chats with Pastor Manders, Mrs. Alving’s late husband was not the pillar of the community most townsfolk believed him; in truth, he was a hedonist, lecher, carrier of venereal disease, adulterer, and rapist (Regina, the servant girl living in Mrs. Alving’s house is, in fact, her late husband’s illegitimate child).

We learn about a time when, in a desperate hour, Mrs. Alving fled the home of her husband to what she hoped would be the welcoming arms of Manders, then a friend and almost lover. But, having entered seminary, Manders proclaimed a liaison between them and Mrs. Alving’s abandonment of her husband as a defiance of God, and insisted that she return home. She obeyed, and powerless to do much else, sent her only son, Osvald, away to school and out of his father’s poison reach. Now a man, Osvald returns, fraught with exhaustion, to his remaining parent. With his arrival and curiosity about his father, Mrs. Alving’s ghosts begin to hover and old cover-ups, all wrought in the name of propriety, creep one by one into the open.

Stiff in the bodices and waistcoats of the time, the inhabitants of this world allow histrionics to play no part here, and this production keeps the confessional conversations understated. The solid performers Joanne Camp as Mrs. Alving, Tom Galantich as Pastor Manders, and John Behlmann as Osvald exude steadiness while onstage, but swimming in a super-saturated atmosphere of restraint, they cling to a reserved style that can’t make us fully forget they are actors and not Norwegian gentlefolk. Joanne Camp proves best able to work this groundedness to her advantage: her Mrs. Alving embodies an endearing earthiness. Though some interpret her past choices as selfish or myopic, this portrayal of a reasonable matriarch keeps the audience firmly on her side. Unfortunately though, before we are treated to Camp’s performance, we have to make it through the opening scene and the production’s weakest moment. Keiana Richàrd does not fully incarnate the dynamic Regina, and her unnatural manner leaves T.J. Edwards, in an otherwise skillful performance as her lowlife adoptive father, struggling to connect with her.

Tom Galantich shapes his Pastor Manders not as hateful hypocrite but as a basically good man caught in the gray area of what is expected of him as a pastor and what is needed of him as a human. His sincere portrayal never falters, but in the end Galantich comes off as too friendly faced and downright likeable. If Ibsen’s indignation against the figure of the two-faced clergy moved him to write a play rife with misery in the name of religious mores, we should want to dislike Pastor Manders. Galantich’s warm-hearted interpretation makes it difficult.

The last and most potent scene, one between mother and son, lifts this production from mere competence to something reaching a higher caliber. After Mrs. Alving’s and Osvald’s futile attempts to navigate the breakers of the young man’s psychological storm, Osvald forces himself to reveal the secret of his inherited syphilis (another ghost come back) and his wish to have his mother feed him a lethal dose of morphine pills. Here, Camp and Behlmann finally drop the restraint and let the characters soar in trying to grasp this final horror. They struggle and scream, knowing that of all Mrs. Alving has endured, she is about to encounter the worst. In a delicate touch of directing, as Osvald trembles in his chair, muttering dementedly, lights start to fade and the agitation pulls away like a fallen leaf carried on the wind. We are left with a strange softness, echoing with the return of one more ghost and Mrs. Alving’s last chance at a decision she won’t regret.

As emphasized in this production, Ghosts resonates thanks to its ability to explain so much while revealing so little. In this play of dangerous talk, we are hyper-aware of cautious words. They serve as this community’s own language, one as comprehensible to it as plain Norwegian. Likewise, in these days of “Mission Accomplished” and “Islamo-fascism,” the weird power of impotent words resonates with a modern audience; we too are fluent in empty terminology. And like Mrs. Alving’s ghosts, enough comes back to haunt us to ensure the enduring relevancy of Ibsen’s work.

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Pearl Theatre Company (80 St. Marks Place)
Tickets (212-598-9802): $40.00 - 50.00
Performances (through 3/30): Tues. @ 7 | Wed. @ 3 | Thurs. - Sat. @ 8 | Sat. & Sun. @ 2

American Cake

Reviewed by Amanda Cooper

There is no question; sweets (as in desserts) are a large part of our American culture. And we certainly love to celebrate special occasions – from birthdays to holidays – with cake. So cake is a natural connector for writer/performer Jonathan Pereira’s performance piece, American Cake, which centers around American culture. It's an entertaining show, and Pereira’s onstage affect, in its dorky earnestness, is fun and even appealing. In fact, there are many laughs to be had throughout this short show. But ultimately, this performance lacks a clear identity. American Cake is part play, part stand-up routine. Pereira doesn’t so much flow from plot-point to plot point, but from life/cake story, to other life/cake commentary. As a result, the serious moments in the show come across as disjointed, and a specific point of view is unclear. Sure, the onstage cake, which slowly becomes more and more mutilated throughout the event, is a hoot (and a good way to be put off eating cake for some time), and perhaps even a commentary on our country’s warped obsession with celebrations. But what sticks in my memory a few days later? Not much. Oh, except cake.
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American Cake
Shows Sat, Mar 8 @ 8:30pm, Sun Mar 9 @ 7:00pm
The Kraine Theater
$12

Passing Strange

If you can believe his fictional autobiography, Stew had a religious experience listening to rock 'n' roll in a local church service; it's a pleasant surprise to see his Broadway show trying to pass that rock 'n roll back to its audiences as if it were a religious experience. Nonconformist more than non-traditional, it's good that Passing Strange has managed to pass as a Broadway musical, because it's the sort of powerful show -- philosophy with a beat -- that everyone who has ever struggled with art or had an identity crisis should see.

Photo/Carol Rosegg

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

There's a lot of talk about "passing" in the excellent new Broadway musical, Passing Strange: our hero, a Youth, passes himself off as a choir boy, punk rocker, European rebel, troubled urban youth, and German artiste, as he struggles to find his identity, his song. But most fortunate of all is that Passing Strange has managed to pass itself off as a Broadway musical, when it's more of a rock-and-roller-coaster ride -- philosophy set to a beat -- that defies every standard it can get a hold of. And that's a good thing.

Stew, the narrator/writer (and Youth, all grown up), opens the show without a mic, then calmly announces: "We're gonna play some music." Later on, he'll cut from the action to announce the intermission, or to relay a story about a particularly deep pretzel vendor. There's no set, just a shimmering curtain, and behind it, a light wall (a cross between the minimalist neon of Spring Awakening and the pointillistic chromolume of Sunday in the Park with George). There's dancing, but it hardly seems choreographed so much as agitated: a physical necessity brought about by the intensity of the song. And even when the show falls into classical stage tropes, as in "The Black One," it's tongue-in-cheek on the level of, say, Urinetown. And the songs, they pass, too, as anything they want, be it a punk-rock send up on "Sole Brother," a psychedelic soft-rock hit for "Must've Been High," jagged avant-garde screeching on "Surface," not to mention drips of industrial, funk, soul, gospel, or simply songs that can do it all at once, as with the theater-shaking power of "Keys." While our hero can't hear the difference between the sacred and the profane, we can: and these songs are all the former, colored with splashes of the latter.

In the six months or so that this play has spent transferring from an Off-Broadway run at The Public (where it was plagued by poor acoustics and a three-fourths-in-the-round staging), Passing Strange has grown into an ever better show. Portions of the first act have been rearranged and the jokes seem punchier; more so, Daniel Breaker, who plays the Youth, seems to have a lot more to do. Those who remember him from Well know that he's good at physical comedy, and although the stage at the Belasco is bigger than at the Public, Annie Dorsen has made Breaker's presence more visible, while still allowing him to grow, scene by scene. And Eisa Davis, who returns as his mother, is even better at switching between a cheerful Today-like dialect and what Stew calls "the Negro dialect." As for the rest of the original cast -- Colman Domingo, de'Adre Aziza, Rebecca Naomi Jones, and Chad Goodridge -- they're still excellent in their tripartite roles, splitting between disaffected youths in Los Angeles, friendly pot-smokers in Amsterdam, and revolutionaries in Berlin. Domingo's still the scene-stealer, spry and serious as the Reverend's repressed son, Franklin (he wishes he were a slave, for they had options, whereas he, as a coward, has only consequences), and cagey and crazed as Mr. Venus, a cross between Riff-Raff and the Emcee.

Unfortunately, there are still problems with Passing Strange. While the first act is much slicker, and bounces strongly from the comic to the serious, the second act, for some reason, seems to have lost the emotional resonance it had off-Broadway. It's not an intimacy issue -- if anything, Dorsen's direction has tightened the focus of the actors who interact around and with Stew, not to mention their easy and often entertaining rapport with the musicians (Heidi Rodewald, who co-created the show; Jon Spurney, Christian Cassan, and Christian Gibbs). And it's not like Mr. Breaker lacks credibility -- his Youth's arrogance has softened and cooled through regret, shame, and sorrow by the time he delivers the climax's eulogy. But something seems rushed through, almost as if the play ends after the emotional duet between Narrator and Youth on "Work the Wound" (though it continues for another two songs).

But don't let that indefinite quibble stop you from seeing Passing Strange. More accessible than ever, yet still just as provocative, it passes with flying colors (literally, if you count the light wall). And ultimately, as Stew promises, the music overpowers everything else, a roar of sound that bills itself as a religious experience, that really Real that can, ultimately, only be found in Art.

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Passing Strange (2 hrs. 10 min.)
The Belasco Theatre (111 West 44th Street)
Tickets (212-239-6200): $26.50 - 111.50
Performances: Tues. @ 7 | Wed. - Sat. @ 8 | Wed. & Sat. @ 2 | Sun. @ 3

Man-Made

Creation Production Company's Man-Made is a play full of ideas that never quite make the leap from being interesting to being thought-provoking. You could certainly find a worse collection of characters -- fictional and real -- with whom to discuss evolution and man's hand in the process: Charles Darwin, his wife, his fellow scientist and rival Alfred Russel Wallace, Wallace's assistant, Mary Shelley, her creature (aka Frankenstein's monster), and the first completely bio-engineered woman: Eugenie Doe. But sagging under the weight of a slow beginning, even well-acted characters may not be able to do more than talk at one another.

Richard Prioleau and Michael Kevin Ryan
Photo/Jim Baldassare

Reviewed by Ilena George

Man-Made opens with the competition between Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace—a lesser-known naturalist whose independently derived theory of evolution pushed Darwin to speed up the publication of his magnum opus: On the Origin of the Species. But from the moment Mary Shelley enters the picture (about halfway in)—greeted by Darwin with the paradoxical, “But you can’t be Mrs. Shelley. Mrs. Shelley died seven years ago”—the story shifts into an absurdist exploration of evolution. The characters navigate evolution’s intersection (often more of a head-on collision) with religion and ethics. History, fiction, and the future also forcibly collide in a dream landscape, but the conflict is oddly bloodless: there’s little tension built up to propel the story, but a lot of stagnant arguing between the characters.

Despite the somewhat muddled script, the characters come to vivid life. Notably, perky Mary Shelley (Kate Hall) and her extremely tall and imposing Creature (Bryant Bradshaw) shake up the bickering scientists when they enter and demand that Darwin and Wallace finish Frankenstein’s work by creating a mate for the Creature. Perhaps one of the more intriguing characters is Darwin’s wife, Emma (Eva Patton), giving voice to a figure who would otherwise be only a historical footnote.

Against the set of giant flowers and a projection screen shaped like half a globe (or perhaps the prow of a ship), the play doesn't hit its stride until its final scenes. That’s when the overly mannered stage directions stopped jarring and starting gelling with the action on stage, when situational humor started being on target. The production is playful, but such playfulness misses the opportunity for profundity. Darwin’s struggles against the Church could be rich dramatic fodder, but they felt tedious, as did the issue of a completely bio-engineered human who reproduces by cloning. (In 2007, researchers found it was possible to use bone marrow stem cells to create an immature sperm cell. The tests were conducted on male tissue, suggesting it’s possible to create sperm cells from females: that sometime in the future, women may be able to reproduce and preserve genetic variety without any genetic input from males; a possibility that perhaps should be even more threatening to males than the concept of endless female clones seems to be to Man-Made’s Darwin.)

I promise I am not spoiling or detracting from the story by saying the play ends with Mary Shelley returning to her writing desk to pen The Last Man, a later work of hers which features the few survivors of a post-apocalyptic world. The piece’s bleak theme is generally attributed to Shelley’s loss of most of her intimate circle of friends and family: it seems quite odd to suggest instead that it stemmed from Shelley’s response to evolution. But that is one minor point in a play full of ideas that do not quite make the leap from interesting to thought-provoking.

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Man-Made written and directed by Susan Mosakowski
The Ohio Theater (66 Wooster Street, between Spring and Broome)
February 29- March 22, Wednesdays-Saturdays 8pm, Sundays 7pm
Tickets: 212-868-4444 or www.smarttix.com, $18, $15 student tickets (at the door)

Brains and Puppets

It’s admirable when a performance aims big –- takes on a hefty subject in an original fashion. Brains and Puppets is just that –- two one-acts exploring brain disorders through puppetry. Unfortunately, these short shows fall… short.



Review by Amanda Cooper

First up, The Boy Who Wanted To Be a Robot, focuses on a young boy with Asperger’s syndrome living in the nonspecific future, in a nonspecific place. This young boy lives with robots, and he identifies in every way (except for the makeup of his actual body) with robots. When he finally meets another human being, a young girl, he doesn’t seem to connect, or understand this other humankind. This pseudo-fairy tale has lovely puppets (designed by Barry Weil and Tanya Khordoc), and an interesting interpretation of a possible future for our species. But the storyline provides no insight into Asperger’s syndrome – commonly thought of as a mild form of autism. Additionally, though the performer, Barry Weil, knows his way around puppets, as a stage performer he is rigid, and oddly loud.

The more successful short is The Taste of Blue, an exploration of the mind of a young girl who has synesthesia, a brain disorder which causes someone to perceive certain sensations as other sensations – that sounds have colors, that tastes have sounds, etc. Performer Tanya Khordoc is also not the most skilled actor – there is an air of uneasiness to her onstage demeanor – but this time, the design concept paired with this portrait of a young girl is effective. As she explains her world to us through colors, and how those colors “taste” to her, these hues are shown onstage via shadowboxes, overhead projectors, and other unique design elements. This time, I understood – or felt like I understood – a bit of what it might be like to have synesthesia. Both pieces are written by Edward Einhorn, but he’s succeeded with The Taste of Blue because his focus is less on telling a story and more on showing a person.

It’s heartening to see artists pushing themselves – having tall aspirations for their work. But it’s also important to know one’s limits as artists in order to ultimately create the best work possible.

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Brains and Puppets
Presented by Untitled Theater Company #61
March 1- 15, Saturdays at 6pm, Sundays at 3pm
Walkerspace Theater, 46 Walker St
$10, http://www.theatermania.com

FRIGID '08: Modern Medieval

Part Harry Anderson, part watered-down George Carlin, David Tyson is a good entertainer, but he needs to pick a demographic. Modern Medieval either needs antics that are mature enough to match the content, or content that's more kid-friendly. A push in either direction could give this morality tale the punch that it needs.

Reviewed by Cindy Pierre

It's often said that you have to understand where you've been in order to know where you're going. That philosophy not only applies to individuals, but to societies as well. And what better way to get philosophy and social commentary than to express it through jesters, old and new? In Modern Medieval, David Tyson plays Everyman, a contemporary jester with a gentle bite who travels back in time to consult with jesters from the dark ages. His show incorporates some light magic and hijinks that, were it not for the occassional bit of mature content and politics, would appeal to children of all ages. And that in itself is both good and bad.

Modern Medieval's format is such that Tyson introduces every character that Everyman encounters with an explanation of what he's getting ready to do and actively doing. Although charming the first time, this quickly loses its lustre when repeated. It's as if he's prepping each time for a magic trick at a kid's birthday party, only the adults don't need all of the exposition. The interactive portion of the show, in which he asks the audience to become participants on stage as well as in their seats, is fun, but will appeal mostly to a younger crowd. And not the cynical kids that are rising up in society today; only the ones that are okay with being young.

To morph into his many characters, Tyson dons beautiful bronze masks that each represent a different emotion as well as a different relationship in his life. The characters are family members and friends that he brings life to, but rarely does his excitement rise above the level of his soft-spoken voice. The characters are also imbued with politics and commentary that affect the way Everyman looks at his present life, ranging from the homeless to the current presidential platform. There are moments when the perspectives are hidden so well that they slide right by you without being preachy; they are the true expression of the power of suggestion. Despite the magic tricks, these moments are the greatest feat of the show. Part Harry Anderson, part watered-down George Carlin, David Tyson is a good entertainer, but this show doesn't cater well to both demographics. Something's got to give. Either the antics need to be more mature to match the content, or the content needs to be more accessible to kids. A push in either direction could give this morality tale the punch that it needs.

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Under St. Mark's Theater: 94 St. Mark's Place. Tickets: $15.00
Schedule: 2/27/08 @ 10:30 pm, 2/29/08 @ 9 pm, 3/3/08 @ 9 pm, 3/8/08 @ 2:30 pm, 3/9/08 @ 1 pm

FRIGID '08: Whence Came Ye Scarlett O'Hara O'Hanrahan?

Reviewed by Cindy Pierre

American culture is rife with people trying to find themselves. If they're not singing about their identity crises, they're talking about them on talk shows. Sometimes, these crises are a result of not knowing their birth parents. Just recently, a story was featured on the Maury Povich show about a young woman who had connected with a man (who was potentially her father) through Myspace. Too bad Scarlett, the main character of Melle Powers's new one-woman show Whence Came Ye Scarlett O'Hara O'Hanrahan? didn't know about Myspace until she landed in America. She could have logged on to ie.myspace.com (Myspace Ireland) and saved herself the trouble of looking for her birth mother on foot. Of course, then we would have missed out on the wide-eyed innocence and charm of this Wizard of Oz-like adventure; we wouldn't have seen Powers' incredible energy and ability to transform herself into several entertaining characters. Lucky for us, she was naive about America and intrepid.

Adopted into an Irish family, Scarlett didn't want for anything except a connection to her brown roots. She speaks of being the only brown person in her town, and how she is constantly under scrutiny for her rounder posterior, multi-ethnic hair texture, and her rhythm in dance. These are common gripes for brown people that don't dig very deep underneath the surface in the script, but they do create a feeling of familiarity. Tired of the solace that only her brown doll Lula provides, as soon as she turns 18, Scarlett jumps on a plane to New York to find her mom. We watch as she suffers through the grueling "pick a number" system at the Bronx records office, and laugh as she cites the experience as an unparalleled one. While in New York, she discovers brown people in all different shades, as well as other ethnicities and different types of people within the same ethnicity. She reels from her encounters with flavorful characters such as the Kangol-wearing Lionel, a hustler peddling wholesale goods on the street, a blogger named Pria, a down to earth celebrity named Lockhart Still (who she chats with dubiously on the street), and Kiki, a politically incorrect but apologetic VJ.

Although the characters in this piece are skillfully and comically played by Powers, some of them are stereotypical, as are the token assumptions about brown people that she struggles with. Her expectation of Americans being like Rachel and Ross from Friends is amusing, but also dated, given that the script also mixes more current pop culture references. It would have been great to see characters that have a more serious perspective on America, such as a homeless person or an MTA worker. It's ironic and funny that Scarlett runs to America to flee the judgment of the Irish when the characters she meets are almost all predictably materialistic and judgmental, but a ruder awakening for her in exploring what happens when New York is still would have been more poignant. Also, because the show is the exploration of a character coming across other characters, Powers' own identity is excluded. The show isn't biographical -- it comes across as the sort of woven-together skits you might have found on Chappelle's Show (on which Powers was a regular) -- and as a result, is missing the personal touch expected of a one-person show. Still, Powers appears to be having fun in everything she does, from her Irish version of step-dancing to the "hoochie" dance video, and in turn, makes us have fun, too.

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Under St. Mark's Place: 94 St. Mark's Place. Tickets: $15
Wed 2/27 @ 6:00pm, Fri 2/29 @ 7:30pm, Sun 3/2 @ 8:30pm
Mon 3/3 @ 6pm, Fri 3/7 @ 10:30pm

FRIGID '08: Subway Series

New Format Improvisation's Subway Series is about as fun as spending the day on the L train.

Subway Series, the Frigid Festival show by comedy group New Format Improvisation, is proof positive that "new" isn't always "improved." Their hourlong improv set was disorganized, maddeningly incoherent and, worst, lacking in humor. Opening with a frenetic, unexplained burst of silent improv, the members of New Format Improvisation devoted the majority of their set to setting up for a few brief improvised sketches, which apparently required the members to fan out into the audience to intrusively converse with girls while shouting out random lines. The show started to cohere towards the end, but the lack of communication with the audience led to long segments of inaccessible games and verbal jousts taking place on stage, with the spectators sitting confused and numb. The appearance of a mouse on stage during the show forced cast members into spontaneity as they caught and removed it: this only served to highlight what was missing from the program surrounding it.

NOW PLAYING AT THE FRIGID FESTIVAL
March 4 and 7 at 9PM, March 5 at 10:30PM
Running time: 1 hour
Under St. Mark's (94 St. Mark's Place)
For more information about the Frigid Fest, visit frigidnewyork.info

FRIGID '08: Diary of a Mad Fashionista

Reviewed by Cameron Kelsall

We seem to have reached a new plateau in the history of American entertainment: the blog-to-stage adaptation. Elisa DeCarlo, a worshipper at the temple of haute couture, has turned her online style confessional Diary of a Mad Fashionista into a brief but engaging theatrical piece, currently being presented by the Frigid Festival. Over the course of an hour, we are given a picture of the eponymous guru as a kind of dictator in Dior, firing a young assistant (the amiable Shannon Sutherland) for wearing a polyester dress from the seventies and dreaming of her impending reality show, affectionately titled You Have No Taste. But we are also able to come away with a portrait of the person behind the persona: zaftig, bitter, and frequently insecure, she uses her reverence for clothing to dress up some of the real problems in her life. Ms. DeCarlo is able to negotiate the delicate balance between her larger-than-life character and its creator, searching for answers to life's more important questions through the philosophy of frippery, and Ms. Sutherland shines in a host of small roles. She also benefits from having the best bio line currently in New York, announcing to the audience that she "was born in Kansas but decided to leave when her fellow classmates made fun of her fabulous Betsey Johnson dress."

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Diary of a Mad Fashionista
The Red Room (85 E. 4th Street)
Tickets: $12
Remaining performances: 3/4 at 9; 3/7 at 10:30; 3/8 at 10
Running time: 1 hour, no intermission

FRIGID '08: Great Hymn of Thanksgiving/Conversation Storm

The must-see show of the 2008 FRIGID Festival, this double-bill of political one-acts features an avant-garde musical dinner party unlike anything you've seen before, paired up with an escalating, yet non-linear, conversation about the "ticking time bomb" scenario that questions the ethics of torture in one of the most hysterically frightening works of theater this year.


Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

Water, pouring into a glass. The oh so delicate vibrations caused by a finger circling the glass's rim. A chair, shifting. Drumstick forks, banging on pans or scratching across the table. The sound of mastication. A harpsichord in distress, its strings cringing beneath a violin's bow. If that's not avant-garde enough, add in the garbled recitations of found text from the Army Prayer Manual, world news reports, and Rae Armantrout's poetry. If Chuck Mee and Philip Glass collided, they'd be lucky to come up with something half as good as Rick Burkhardt's Great Hymn of Thanksgiving, a self-titled "piece for three speaking percussionists." Beyond the creative effect of the work (and god only knows what the notation looks like), the play conjures up a hollow Thanksgiving, stripping away all the festivity of life, leaving behind only the artifice of objects clinking and clashing against one another. It also mocks our ability to celebrate such sham holidays, content in our safe little houses even as -- half a world away -- the radio broadcasts, in graphic details, the blackened and cooked corpses of innocent children.

That's not all; Mr. Burkhardt and his colleagues from The Nonsense Company (Ryan Higgins and Andy Gricevich) have a second act, Conversation Storm, which skewers our laughingly hypothetical conversations about torture. What starts out as (Scene 1) a play about Hugh's insomnia soon becomes actively rewritten (Scene 12) into a comedy (think David Greenspan's She Stoops To Comedy) and then (Scene 20?) a bitter extrapolation of "the ticking time-bomb scenario," which pits Hugh and Alec against one another in a game of moral onedownsmanship. None of this, incidentally, is really done in chronological order, so the nightmarish nuclear holocaust (Scene 41?) is there, as is its juxtaposition with a quickly pattered recitation of some very swanky menu options (Scene 17?), some literal torture (Scene ?), and more.

It's amazing how human all three actors are, given the machine-like precision of their shifts between scenes, not to mention the seamless break between the first and second play. This is, no disrespect to any of the other shows in the FRIGID Festival, the play to see.

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Great Hymn of Thanksgiving/Conversation Storm (60 min.)
The Nonsense Company @ The Kraine Theater (85 East 4th Street)
Tickets: $10.00
Performances: 3/3 @ 10:30 | 3/4 @ 9:00 | 3/8 @ 4:00 | 3/9 @ 5:30

FRIGID '08: Diversey Harbor

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

There's not much theatrically going on in Annie Coburn's direction of Diversey Harbor, but she's really nailed down the acting, which in turn has cemented playwright Marisa Wegrzyn's very young, very talented voice. Her monologued play feels like a cross between Brooke Berman and Connor McPherson; I only wish that the ghost story she introduces late in the game tied more into the other loosely connected narratives, or better still, remained grounded in the sort of grim reality that can call craigslist "a dark alley littered with crack pipes," sum up a character with "I'm off to watch Jerry Springer with my thumb in my vagina," and honestly depict the cavalier attitude of some Lotharios: "It's entirely possible that I'm about to fuck up someone's life. And I can't wait." From the laid-back, drinking dog-walker James (Avery Pearson) to the selfish and angry Dennis (Dorien Makhloghi), to the high-strung Grace (Dana Berger) to the carefully poised and meticulous Stephanie (Amanda Sayle), Wegrzyn presents four very human chapters in life and loss, and, up until Stephanie's encounter with some muddy footprints, has a very funny and fresh look at kids today.

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Diversey Harbor (60 min.)
The Kraine Theater (85 East 4th Street)
Tickets: $15.00
Performances: 3/5 @ 10:30 | 3/8 @ 7:00

FRIGID '08: XY(T)

Reviewed by Eric Miles Glover

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines "masculinity" as the "quality or condition of being masculine" and "something traditionally considered to be characteristic of a male." On the other hand, the solo performance XY(T) supplements the conservative definition with a review of the masculinities that become available to a range of men--including transgendered Kestryl Lowery, the writer and performer of XY(T)--through administrations of testosterone.

Through use of humor and pathos, Lowery demonstrates the ease with which masculinity is performed through corporeal, linguistic, visual, and vocal forms of presentation of self. For example, Lowery mimics the performances of masculinity he consumes on a regular basis (performances by members of a fraternity, loved ones, a medical professional, strangers) to explore the pluralism of gender. At the same time, Lowery calls for the definition of masculinity to include bodies other than the ones the dominant culture privileges.

XY(T) calls attention to the spectacle of masculinity and demonstrates the instability of categories of gender. Kestryl Lowery gives a provocative performance that forces the theatergoer to consider the effects of a gender construct on an entire nation of people.

Presented by FRIGID New York Festival. Now through March 9, at UNDER St. Mark's, 94 St. Mark's Place. Tuesday, March 4, at 7:30 PM; Saturday, March 8, at 7:00 PM; Sunday, March 9, at 2:30 PM. $10, smarttix.com.

The Night of the Iguana

This well-directed but occasionally overacted revival of Tennessee Williams's The Night of the Iguana matches well with Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon's idea of "operating on the realistic level." The intimate space has been turned into an airy veranda, with audiences on three sides and gauzy, inviting hotel windows in the background, and director Terry Schreiber doesn't hesitate to play up the lush physicality.


Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

There's no confusion about what sort of Tennessee Williams play The Night of the Iguana is under Terry Schreiber's steady direction; from the first moments of thrusts and grunts, thinly veiled by the gauzy curtain of a rundown hotel room to the subsequent moments of quiet, mirthful dancing, it's clear that Mr. Schreiber is going to let Williams's physicality rule the day, and let the words follow. And follow they do: Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon sweats his way onto the stage, pursued by the girl he's screwed (Alecia Medley), her rigid protector (Pat Patterson), a wishy-washy bus driver (Ian Campbell Dunn), and the Creep, a miasmal presence that is leading him to his latest crackup, his next self-inflicted crucifixion (for which he has, you might say, a crucifixation). Water gushes out of a hand-pump, the Mexican pool boys (Armando Merlo and Guito Wingfield) jostle furniture around the veranda, and a group of German tourists noisily intrude whenever there's a moment's peace. (The play is set in 1940, though if the German presence is supposed to be political, it doesn't come across that way.) As the first act builds to a stormy climax, there's even strobe lightning and a downpour -- impressive (and again, very physical) staging for T. Schrieber Studio. If nothing else, The Night of the Iguana is at least operating on the realistic level, as Shannon might put it.

Madness thus established, Williams and Schrieber focus more closely on Shannon in the second act, particularly in his relation to Hannah Jelkes (Denise Flore), who is not just a fellow traveler or huckster, but a kindred soul, too. Maxine, recently widowed, would have Shannon by force, and she ties him to his restful hammock when he threatens to swim to China, but it's Hannah who sits beside him through the night, brewing poppy seed tea and speaking the plain truth, as calmly as possible, to Shannon about how one goes about coping with loneliness.

Both acts have their highs and lows -- Williams requires the same sort of endurance from the audience as he does of his characters -- but The Night of the Iguana is done great justice by its intimate, specific direction. As Maxine, Janet Sala hits the notes of both a dissatisfied nymph and of a desperate mother, and as Hannah, Denise Flore finds dignified grace and quiet sorrow. As for Shannon, it isn't until Derek Roche's tied to the hammock that he becomes more than the gesticulations of a wild man. For the last forty-five minutes, he's utterly captivating, moving from rage to sorrow to lethargy and then into a fugue-like depression.

Hannah advises Shannon to "accept whatever situation you cannot improve." But Terry Schreiber does her one better, and improves every situation that others might simply accept. The play is as genuinely funny as it is frustrating in the first act as Shannon squares off against all the demons, real and imagined, that besiege his innocent scamming. And in the quiet lulls of the second act, The Night of the Iguana finds a certain wide-eyed wondrousness in the eyes of characters stretched open by tears.

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Night of the Iguana (2 hr. 50 min.)
T. Schreiber Studio @ Gloria Maddox Theater (151 West 26th; 7th Floor)
Tickets (212-352-3101): $20.00
Performances (through 3/30): Thurs. - Sat. @ 8 | Sun. @ 3

RUS(H)

RUS(H) spends a lot of time slowly drifting through the memories that trap its three characters in the throes of lost passion, but James Scrugg's text -- and video -- finds legs in Kristin Marting's physical direction, Anabella Lenzu's passionate Latin choreography, and Qui Nguyen's dark homoerotic fight choreography.


Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

Never before have I seen a play that manages so well to walk the jagged line between passion and violence. Why then must RUS(H) spend so much time drifting, not walking, sluggishly floating complex philosophical thoughts about sexuality and the soul's unclenched needs? At times, James Scruggs achieves a beauteous balance between his text and image, as when Rus (Luis Vega) recalls, in a flash of video screens puppeted around him, how he hit Sonny (Lathrop Walker) with a car. At others, disconnected images of jail corridors, shadowy figures, and oversized tape machines lend a pretentious air of gravitas to words that, on their own, would be more than enough. As the characters often ask, "I'm not bad. Aren't I enough?" I'm sure the script would ask the same of its creator if it weren't so often overwhelmed by the video.

Luckily, Scruggs and director Kristin Marting have given some legs to all the heady thoughts floating around out there: the play pulses to a Latin beat and the silent tangos reveal more about the dissolving relationship between Rus and his wife, Sireene (chandra thomas), than their lies do. And on the other side of Anabella Lenzu's choreography is Qui Nguyen, doing his darkest, most grown-up fight choreography. He brings a modern gladiator aesthetic to the simmering homo-erotic tension between Sonny -- whose overexposure to Tina (crystal meth) has dimmed his ability to feel pleasure (the dramaturg calls him an anhedonist) -- and Rus, who is so haunted by what seems to him as routine that he longs for uncharted territories. Additionally, many of the images take on lives of their own: four LCD screens are manipulated by 'video puppeteers' (Marc Bovino, Dax Valdes) who fragment, overlap, and meld their screens around or to the actor's bodies.

Even still, the play seems strangled by its own conventions: the strongest moments either relegate the images to a simple screen-saver background of over-magnified leaves, or abandon the shtick altogether, as when Mr. Walker -- by far the creepiest and most compelling part of RUS(H), with his empty eyes and menacing glare -- pleads with the audience to share some Tina, drawing uncomfortably (or too comfortably) near. (It's a poor -- and awkward -- choice when Mrs. thomas directly addresses us later.) These are moments of pure chemistry; some of the others, as Rus forlornly reflects, are chemical: pure artifice.

RUS(H) is perhaps too daring, then, for its own good: it overdoses on technology. But the side-effects are dark and captivating, and though the show isn't quite a rush, it's one hell of a bender.

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RUS(H) (85 min.)
HERE @ 3LD Arts & Technology Center (80 Greenwich Street)
Tickets (212-352-3101): $18.00
Performances (through 3/22): Wed. - Sat. @ 8:00

Lower Ninth

A father and son are trapped on a rooftop in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. There are comical and touching moments and good chemistry between the leads, but few signs of distress from the actors. And there are too many relaxed moments and jokes for there to be any sense of peril for the audience. A long discourse into gang life and a predictable plot takes precedence over any political, economic, or emotional stance that this production could have taken: the show isn't rooted in Katrina. As a result, Lower Ninth could have taken place almost anywhere, and that's a real disaster.

Gbenga Akinnagbe (body of Lowboy), Gaius Charles (E-Z),
and James McDaniel (Malcolm) photo credit: Joan Marcus

Reviewed by Cindy Pierre

The spirits of the characters are strong in Beau Willimon's Lower Ninth. There's the rebellious spirit of E-Z (Friday Night Lights's Gaius Charles), who shakes his fist at God, and the supplicant spirit of his estranged father, Malcolm (James McDaniel), who stretches out his palm to God. Malcolm delivers a funeral service while E-Z responds with wisecracks and annoyance as they gaze upon the body of Lowboy (The Wire's Gbenga Akinnagbe, playing a role similar to the one on the show), a feared gangster in the neighborhood who has recently drowned during Hurricane Katrina. But despite the circumstances, the atmosphere is not one of doom or even of discomfort. There's simply too much harmless bickering and joking to go around. And it goes on like this for quite a while before there's even a mention of the flood below. For a production geared towards illustrating a desperate situation, this is not a good start.

During several rounds of "Guess who?" games and ribbing, we discover the circumstances by which Malcolm and E-Z came to be on this rooftop. The sturdy-looking "brick" set by Donyale Werle provides a logical escape from the flood. However, after we discover that Lowboy was already dead (dead or dying, since an unsuccessful attempt was made by E-Z to save him) before he was brought up to the rooftop, it does not provide a logical reason why a young man and his aging father would drag dead weight up a roof. In fact, it looks impossible since there are no visible ladders or anything except for shingles to grab onto. The human need to not let a body wash away is understandable, but here, the practical need is missing. Hunger, fatigue, and thirst are all conditions that would arise out of this situation, but very little of it is communicated by the cast. What we get instead is humor and banter. One good moment features an alternative to the Noah's Ark story that is imaginative, cultural, and boldly told in complete darkness, a choice that works to remind them and us of their situation. It's a necessary moment, since there are so few mentions of the hurricane.

Rather than focus on Hurricane Katrina, the script uses a formula that we have seen many times before. The script talks about the gangbanging, rather than the economic, ethnic, and socio-political factors at the root of this gangbanging. Granted, two people stuck on a roof for a few days are going to have trivial conversations some of the time, but Lower Ninth spends most of the play just pleasantly passing the time. During the time of this tragedy, there were newspaper headlines that encompassed the problems better than this play, and they needed to be succinct. Here, there are roughly 80 minutes to do that, but the premise barely touches on those subjects. There are expletives here and there that point towards President Bush and complaints of not having any money, but it's not nearly enough.

Also lacking are production elements that could assist in communicating the peril. Sound effects by BC DuBoff during scene changes are pensive and bluesy, but the mood of the cast does not match that because of the constant joking and petty disagreements. Because the flood could not be created onstage, sound effects such as raging waters, the crash of debris, or even a dog yelping in the water could help lock in their situation, but there is silence instead: Silence as a backdrop to conversations that are nothing but filler. The direction by Daniel Goldstein makes the cast sometimes appear as though they are having an adventure like the one E-Z describes from his past. He acts like an untouchable hero, climbing from one side of the roof to the other, with no danger of losing his footing on a dislodged shingle. When the scenes get violent between E-Z and Malcom, E-Z doesn't even look scared as his head hangs above the flood below. We know that E-Z can swim, but even a strong swimmer would have reservations about falling backwards in dangerous waters.

A couple of themes that E-Z does have reservations about are knowing for sure who has it worst and who is, in fact, in hell. These themes are exasperated by Lowboy's predictable rise from the dead during one of E-Z's sleep and thirst-deprived hallucinations. Here, the two converse about Lowboy's past and E-Z's future, and some wisdom is shared by Lowboy on both parts. Lowboy presents an afterlife that is peaceful, and seems to make E-Z's situation sound worse. However, Lowboy and Malcolm don't experience any hellish moments until the play nears the end. And by then, it's too late for the experience to be edifying or emotional.

Lower Ninth has a strong premise that it does not deliver on. If Willimon wants to enhance our understanding of the devastation in New Orleans that began in August 2005, then he needs to show us more. Spike Lee was able to express these horrors in his HBO documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts with still images of the scene and interviews that only talk about what happened. A stage drama should be able to at least approximate the same impact with an actual re-enactment of the ordeal. At this point, this one doesn't.

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LOWER NINTH runs February 14 - April 5, Tuesday - Friday at 7pm & Saturday at 3pm & 7pm. The Flea Theater, is located at 41 White Street (between Broadway & Church Streets -- accessible from the A,C,E,N,R,Q,W,6,J,M,Z to Canal or 1 to Franklin Street). Tickets are $40 (Tuesdays - Thursdays and Saturday matinees) and $45 (Friday and Saturday evenings.) For tickets, visit www.theflea.org or call 212-352-3101.

Lower Ninth

Beau Willimon's uneven new play, Lower Ninth, suffers from a refusal to confront its circumstance -- an estranged father and son, trapped on a rooftop after Hurricane Katrina. The design, direction, and acting reduce the high stakes to jokes and melodrama; the play itself is a good look at two characters struggling to stay afloat in a sea of anger.

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

Right from the start, you can tell Gaius Charles is a TV actor. As Malcolm (a fierce but too often overcooked James McDaniel) cries out evangelically over a trash-bag wrapped corpse, Mr. Charles (who plays Malcolm's malcontent son, E-Z, aka Ezekiel) chews up the stage with big rolling eyes, a tilted head of disapproval, and a clenched lip -- not at all to the benefit of the man he's standing atop a dilapidated roof with, but so that we, the audience can see that he's not happy to be there. As if things weren't obvious enough in Beau Willimon's uneven new play, Lower Ninth.

Ignoring the problems with the set (the roof is set at floor level, the lights are smooth, and the room is quietly air-conditioned, none of which allow us to imagine the wake of Hurricane Katrina), and the issues with Mr. Charles's physicality, the first half of Lower Ninth is a pretty good play. Malcolm, who is attempting to atone for his reckless abandonment of E-Z, has come back at just the right time, and with the two of them stuck on a roof with nothing but a corpse, they've got plenty of time to catch up. The script flows easily through biblical interpretations (Noah's ark offers an explanation for where white people came from), anecdotes about hardness (E-Z becoming the accidental king of an island), and character-revealing games of 20 questions, and both Mr. McDaniel and Mr. Charles have a fine way of bristling at one another, the former holding on to a newfound sainthood, the latter holding on to his survival-instinct anger.

But then, after a quiet moment in the darkness, the lights come on to reveal the corpse, Lowboy (Gbenga Akinnagbe), playing with a lighter. He admits that he's "worm food," and it's obvious that the scene is half-hallucination and half-E-Z's guilt, but the entire scene must've been cooked up by a Beau Willimon spending too much time out in the sun: everything that passes between them is either reductive of the present circumstances -- as when Lowboy predicts E-Z's future death -- or redundant, as when Lowboy reminds E-Z of the difference in their street cred, and how all that means absolutely nothing if you can't swim. There's some funny lines ("My granma could've held that corner in her walker"), but it's not real, and Lower Ninth, dealing with such tragedy, needs to be real.

And speaking of real, that's where Daniel Goldstein faces some critique as a director. It's not just Donyale Werle's set that looks fake and -- worse still -- safe; it's the staging, too. In one scene, actors are complaining of the worst effects of dehydration, in the next, they're bouncing around, climbing up onto the chimney, or stripping of their shirts in the baking heat, preparing to dive into poisonous water. If as much time is passing as the shifting sun of Ben Stanton's lighting would have us believe, then these characters should be getting less energetic and more serious as the play continues, and instead, the opposite happens. Hell, what should be the peak of drama -- a father hydrating his son by force-feeding him blood -- comes across as the stuff of soaps, only with fewer repercussions, seeing as the play has only eighty minutes to wrap itself up.

It's hard to make sense of why it took so long for disaster relief to reach New Orleans, and I admire that, for the most part, Lower Ninth focuses on faith and family rather than on blame. But the only feeling of circumstance comes from the script, not its characters or its design, which makes going to see Lower Ninth akin to heading off to New Orleans only to keep one's head buried in a book the whole time. I saw this play, but it sure doesn't feel like I was really there.

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Lower Ninth (80 min.)
The Flea (41 White Street)
Tickets (212-352-3101): $40.00
Performances (through 4/5): Tues. - Fri. @ 7 | Sat. @ 3 & 7