Hamlet

A condensed Shakespearean tragedy...in Japanese.

Reviewed by Caitlin Fahey

Shakespeare's versatile plotlines have long transcended cultural boundaries; his works have been translated and adapted all over the world. The Japanese are no exception; they have brought Kabuki and Noh to the Bard. However, director/choreographer Kenji Kararasaki's attempt to make the grief and agony of Hamlet visible ends up being lost in translation.

Part of that has to do with compression: the five-act play is drastically shortened here, running only 75 minutes without intermission. It also has to do with language: in Japanese, the beautiful meter and imagery of Hamlet's monologues disappears, and what's left is a group of actors yelling and jerking across the stage as if having seizures. Even avid Shakespeare fans who know Hamlet back and forth (like this reviewer) will find Karasaki's version difficult to follow.

Yoshiaki Takano's video design may boldly display the names of the lead characters as they enter, but the "designs" themselves are no better than a juvenile PowerPoint presentation.

Hamlet finally gets it right by turning the chilling climax into a nightmarish dance for Claudius (Sho Tohno); however, by this time, the choreography has been so overdone that there is nothing new left to strike a nerve among the audience. Yoko Tomabechi's light, playful dancing makes her an ideal Ophelia, but these movements are far and few between. What's left too closely resembles a parody of Japanese culture.

The space at La MaMa sets the tone of the melancholy tragedy, and every inch of the theater is used well. The music, combined with lighting design by Jin Nakayama, helps to enhance the prince's brooding feelings. Sadly, by the end of the performance, even the brevity of the play feels like eternity.

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Hamlet (75 Minutes, no intermission)
Theatre of the World (74A E Fourth Street)
Tickets $25; Students $20
Thursday-Saturday, 7:30 p.m., Sunday 2:30 p.m. through February 8.

The Lodger

Despite some terrific character acting, H. Bart Goldberg's adaptation of the classic thriller The Lodger never manages to convey any real suspense. As a result, it is like lodging in a nondescript hotel: it gets the job done, but it won't leave any memories behind.

Photo/Ken Howard

Reviewed by Caitlin Fahey

The Workshop Theatre has done a great job of promoting its latest production, H. Bart Goldberg's adaptation of Maire Martello's The Lodger. Jack the Ripper meets Hitchcock on the stage? Now that's enticing. Unfortunately, once the curtain rises on this lukewarm affair, the thrills associated with a notorious serial killer and a silver screen legend quickly evaporate.

Despite a first-rate cast, there's never much suspense on stage. Kristen Lowman and George Innes play the desperate owners of a struggling lodging house well, but they never seem to be in any real danger from their mysterious lodger. Sure, Lowman struggles—as Mrs. Bunting—between the economic need to take on a lodger and the moral need to protect herself from a man who may be the notorious "Avenger" (John Martello). It's just difficult to care about her decision in the absence of tension. Mrs. Bunting grows exceedingly anxious when her daughter, Daisy (Amanda Jones), enters the questionable lodger's room, but why all the hand-wringing? As for Michael Guagno, he's endearingly naïve as Joe, a young detective looking for a murderer who may be right under his nose, but this innocence edges more on comedy than suspense.

It's a shame that the show fails to strike a nerve. Craig Napoliello's beautifully realistic set is wasted—there is no mood to fill the space. Likewise, while there are actors to wear Isabelle Fields's authentic period costumes, there are no characters to fill them out. Mike Riggs's lighting design may seamlessly transition from the foyer to the bedroom, but nothing there really shines.

The Lodger, a show with incredible potential, should leave very little to criticize. Unfortunately, after the cast has finished walking through the action and the dialogue, the curtain will inevitably fall, and the piece will be easily forgotten.

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The Lodger (90 minutes, 1 intermission)
The Workshop Theatre (312 West 36th Street)
Tickets: $18
Thursday-Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 3 p.m. through February 1.

Twelfth Night

Shakespeare's tale of cross-dressing and mistaken identity, set to indie rock.

Brandon Uranowitz, Matthew roi Berger, and Daliya Karofski in Twelfth Night.

Reviewed by Caitlin Fahey

There are countless ways to reinvent Shakespeare, but if your goal is to make it good, then those methods grow far more finite. It's easy enough for The New York Neo-Classical Ensemble to set Twelfth Night to a soundtrack they call "a fresh indie-rock score that sounds like it was downloaded from iTunes this morning." But this ”revival” of feels out of place right from Feste's (Brandon Uranowitz) first tune, in which Feste, Sir Toby (Matthew roi Berger) and Andrew Aguecheek (Cale Krise) romp about the stage in chaotic mock-rock choreography.

Twelfth Night is as much about music as it is about love--Orsino (Robbie Collier Sublett) opens the play with the line, “If music be the food of love, play on”--so it's easy to see director Stephen Stout's inspiration. In fact, the songs (by Berger), are catchy enough to fare well on their own. But this music doesn't fit effortlessly into an early modern comedy. The idea has promise, but Twelfth Night's iambic pentameter isn't built for song, so the performance feels forced.

And that's the rub, for Stout's direction works best when it isn't forced. For instance, his cast speaks with a hip, modern edge that helps Shakespearean novices to follow the plot, and that's great. But there are also moments where the meanings of the text are so thrust into the audience's lap that they lose their original comic appeal. Malvolio (Bill Griffin) notes, while reading a letter, "These are her very C's U's aNd T's... and thus, she makes her great P's." Andrew nails in the inside joke by reverberating, "Her 'cant'? Her 'cu-uh-uh-nt'?"

Thankfully, the aesthetics are far less intrusive. Eli Kaplan-Wildmann's set design is a simple curtained entrance/exit space, and the sparse props are well-used to illustrate larger events (for instance, a flickering candelabra conjures up Viola and Sebatian's Scene I shipwreck). The one exception is that Jessica Pabst's costume designs are rather hit and miss: Feste's ragamuffin-emo-hipster apparel works, but Sir Andrew is so over the top that he's hard to watch, and Maria (Daliya Karnofsky) looks like a cross between a secretary and a prostitute.

For all the inconsistencies, this production is true to the ritual of "Twelfth Night," the eccentric, fun-loving mindset for which this play is named. The cast is on the ball, too: in addition to Griffin's excellent Malvolio, Sublett's well-played Orsino, Uranowitz's near-perfect Feste, and Berger and Krise's notable Toby and Andrew, Corinne Donly, Grace McLean, Richard Douglass, and Hubert Point-Dujour Jr. all do wonderful work. By the second act, the audience can truly lose themselves in the absurdity and fun that makes Twelfth Night one of Shakespeare's finest.

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Twelfth Night (2hr 25min with one intermission)
Theater Row: Kirk Theater (410 West 42nd Street)
Tickets: $18
Performances (through 1/24): Wed. - Sat. @ 8:00

The Uncanny Appearance of Sherlock Holmes

Dr. John Watson and Detective Sherlock Holmes take on one final mystery, aided by Holmes's female counterpart, Jacqueline Derrida. Their search for clues is accompanied by rock music, acrobatics, and a few psychological twists and turns.

Reviewed by Caitlin Fahey

The Uncanny Appearance of Sherlock Holmes presents a dreamlike murder mystery with a rock-and-roll soundtrack. Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John Watson, and Holmes's female counterpart, Jacqueline Derrida, attempt to uncover the truth behind the supposedly accidental death of behavioral scientist Nietzsche. However, this musical, penned by Brad Krumholz, is far from a classic thriller: the impressive ensemble not only acts out the story, plays all of the instruments, and sings all of the songs in the musical, but the limber team also performs acrobatic stunts with seemingly effortless precision.

Literary theorists will recognize the reference to Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstructive criticism, but to those unfamiliar with his practices of deconstruction, A Dictionary of Critical Theory describes it as “a theory of reading which aims to undermine the logic of opposition within texts." Indeed, the female Derrida serves as the deus ex machina of the play, threatening to unravel the relationship between Holmes and his arch-nemesis, Dr. Moriarty.

It's not surprising, then, that Krumholz takes a Derridean direction: his director's note invites the audience to "entertain the idea that appearances can be deceiving and even, at times, quite uncanny." Krumholz's mission is well-executed, as the actors use their bodies as props and set pieces, picture frames serve as doors and suggest cramped crawlspaces, and audience members participate in a "mysterious" mind game. Most deceiving of all is Dr. John Watson, played by Tannis Kowalchuk, who occasionally removes her character's facial hair and dons a gown. The staging implies some romance between Watson and Holmes, but the detective never acknowledges his assistant’s gender and gazes right through her. When Ms. Derrida suggests a twist on the well-known rivalry of Holmes and Moriarty, she asks the audience to question their own reality. Perhaps then, Watson's gender transformation is best left untouched, leaving the audience to make their own conclusions regarding the character's role.

Brett Keyser gives the titular character a sense of eccentricity and Liz Eckert and Sarah Dey Hirshan's many roles are an impressive undertaking. As a whole, The Uncanny Appearance of Sherlock Holmes achieves its goal of a surrealistic take on a classic literary figure. But it is not without imperfections: "Cerebellum" and "Threshold" make for memorable songs, but most of these interludes felt unnatural (and unnecessary), failing to enhance the story, especially when the words were inaudible. Still, while it may make more sense to focus on the gymnastics rather than the music, The Uncanny Appearance of Sherlock Holmes is a creative, alternative look at one of the great figures in literary history.

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THE UNCANNY APPEARANCE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1 hour 40 minutes, with a ten-minute intermission)
HERE ARTS CENTER (145 Sixth Avenue, New York, NY 10013)
TICKETS $20; $15 for students, seniors, and artists
PERFORMANCES Wednesday-Saturday 7:00 p.m. and Sunday at 3:00 p.m. through December 21.

The Footage

Two groups of friends find themselves caught up in the world of viral videos and must ask themselves how far they can let themselves go before losing touch with reality. Can they give up their vices before it's too late?

Photo/Joan Marcus

Reviewed by Caitlin Fahey

Have you heard of LonelyGirl15? Have you seen Law and Order SVU or Fear.com? If so, The Footage won’t be particularly eye-opening. For all the impressively quick-witted dialogue, the play seems all too familiar, and we already know from reality TV that America has become a nation of voyeurs who don’t need talent to make it big as a celebrity.

The Footage’s dialogue is natural, provocative, and contemporary, which should appeal to today’s generation of YouTube-watching, virtual-reality-loving gamers. The cast does well to draw the audience into a world that may or may not be real. The only problem is that, in today’s oversaturated world, the plot may be played out.

The Footage chronicles the lifestyles of two groups of twenty-somethings. Roommates Lauren, Alexa, and Delilah shelter bootcamp-runaway JC and upload viral videos to the web every night to chronicle the kidnapping and torture of Delilah. Alexa studies literature and flirts with JC while Delilah performs self-mutilation with paper-clips and wracks her brain for new gimmicks to bring more hits to her posts. Lauren is perhaps the most distraught over Delilah’s behavior, and seeks solace in the virtual world of MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games).

Across the country, buddies Dodge, Ethan, and Chance, along with Chance’s girlfriend Maya, are drawn into the world of “Lilah1617.” Chance and Ethan quickly become obsessed with the posts and scour the videos for hours, looking for a clue that will deem Lilah’s encounters either real or fake. Disgusted by their behavior, Maya finds her inspiration to write again after a lengthy bout of writer’s block, and begins a blog. Ironically, Maya’s blogging ultimately makes her just as much an addict as Ethan and Chance. Dodge remains the least affected by Delilah’s postings which allows him to get to closer to Maya as Chance drifts deeper into a virtual world comprised of mysterious footage.

Erin Elizabeth Murphy’s costumes are wholly believable, right down to the ironic stoner T-shirts, and Adrian W. Jones has designed an intimate space that fits the themes of the show. As the characters watch the footage, the audience closely observes the characters, which raises the question: when do we move from voyeurs to prisoners? Is it worse to watch, or to watch those who are watching? If U.S. citizens will watch terrorist beheadings for fun, at what point does live murder become unacceptable?

Along with Room404’s video design, these effects craft a real world that nicely balances the fantasies that the play calls into question. Director Claudia Zelevansky does a fine job of combining these creative elements to blur the line between the candid and the scripted, the “real world” and the realm of fantasy; however, it’s so real that it’s been done before.

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THE FOOTAGE (90 minutes, no intermission)
FLEA THEATER (41 White Street)
TICKETS: $20
Performances (through 11/30): Friday and Saturday 7:00; Sunday 3:00