Dream of a Common Language

The natural text is just a bit too intellectual to provoke much of a rave, but the pleasant thoughtfulness of the gender ideas raised by this play make for some relaxing theatergoing. The technical aspects need to be tighter so as to keep the focus on the center of the picture, rather than the frame, but those few patches that catch the light just so are a marvel to watch.

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

One of the advantages a play has over a short story is that it has more room to develop slowly. So long as it hooks you before intermission, theater gets the benefit of the doubt. Dream of A Common Language has some serious flaws under Karen Sommers' direction, and the cast is a little shaky. Fortunately, a very attractive garden set (impressionist watercolors of a forest, surrounded by more realistic rock walls and ivy), a few strong roles (Suzanne Barbetta, for one), and the flowing dialog of playwright Heather McDonald manage to keep us around for the firmer second act.

But how well does Dream of a Common Language address the theme of 3Graces' new season, "second class citizens." The women of this show did not have the equality they desire in the artistic community, but they seem to live heartily even if it is sometimes heavy heartily. For those having trouble sympathizing with a rich but artistically repressed woman in 1873, read the following epigraph: "Acceptance on someone else's terms is worse than rejection." Dreams is more a thematic play than a dramatic play, and it's interesting to weigh the mission statement of the company with the natural interplay of history and intrigue throughout the show.

Dolores, a traveling gypsy who has flitted from any man who would ask her to stay to any man who would ask to her to leave, certainly seems content playing the housekeeper and eating her Hundreds and Thousands candies. Pola, a migratory artist, travels by bicycle, seeing the sites and experiencing the adventures of the world, and while she regrets the opportunities she was barred from, she lives a better life--makes a better living, in fact--than the miserable leads. And misery is certainly a relative thing: Victor and Clovis may have grown into a loveless marriage, fostered by a feminine son, the husband's unconscious chauvinism, and the wife's teetering sanity, but they're both trying. Clovis, in a pique from the lack of acceptance in a male dominated world, has burnt her paintings and given up on her beloved craft: but at the same time, her rejected painting was anonymously submitted; it wasn't reviewed poorly out of spite.

These characters serve well to make the various points of the play; the show even comes full circle to address the marital and sexual issues presented early on (and lost during the liberating Soprano's dinner party that serves as a lengthy catharsis and return to innocence). Where Dream of a Common Language disappoints are the various imbalances in direction. The choice to interrupt the realism (or underscored it) with a cellist and keyboardist playing through floating windows is a major problem, as are the obviously recorded offstage voices of other painters. Awareness of illusion distances us from the craft: focusing on the limits results in a loss of the piece's central beauty.

Despite the aesthetic distractions and some uneven accent work (along with some uneven acting), I found Dream of a Common Language to be an original and unforced display of art in the nineteenth century, and it certainly made me consider some of my fundamental beliefs of what constitutes equality. There's not enough action to make me rave, but the still beauty of nature leaves a lot for me to think about.

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Hudson Guild Theater (441 West 26th Street)
Tickets (212-279-4100): $20.00
Performances: Monday, Thursday-Saturday @ 8; Sunday @ 3

Desire in the Suburbs

Timothy Scott Harris, Baz Snider and Dee Dee Friedman in "Desire in the Suburbs." Source: BroadwayWorld

Review by Ellen Wernecke

The cover of my program for WorkShop Theatre Company's latest play, "Desire in the Suburbs," features a cartoon of a small boy and a woman with very long legs. Someone has added a speech bubble with the hand-printed words, "Hey Mom, you're hot."

It's crude, but completely relevant to the tone and plot of the play, which at once updates and sends up the Eugene O'Neill classic "Desire Under the Elms." Mike O'Neal (Baz Snider) is a pot-smoking professor whose first wife has disappeared (or was murdered) and is now happily remarried to a salon entrepreneur named Jenny (Dee Dee Friedman). Jenny's about the same age as Mike's son Ed (Timothy Scott Harris), who moved back home three months ago after he lost his job as a lawyer and gave up his Turtle Bay Cigar Bar lifestyle. It's like "Failure to Launch," but this balding 39-year-old is more David Sedaris than Matthew McConaughey, trying to cope with his situation by needling his father and trying to curry favor with his new stepmom. In the play's opening scene, he calls her Mom just to bait Dad, while proclaiming that 90 percent of all murders take place in the home.

Ed tries to warn Jenny about the man she married -- a guy who keeps multiple lovers unapologetically and may or may not have a dark past -- while she teeters on heels with a transparent pink netting apron edged with plaid. That apron, if nothing else, indicates we are in "American Beauty" territory; if she didn't laugh at the way Ed begins to hit on her in the first act, then we wouldn't be able to either. When Dad jokes, "This is why I'm afraid to leave you two alone" as he heads to a law conference (or tryst), you know a game of "Hump the Stepmom" is up ahead.

I think I detected in the play's opening the beginning of the soundtrack to Disney's "Beauty and the Beast," which is one way to look at the combination of Friedman and Harris onstage. Their chemistry simultaneously attracts and repels us, not only because of the Oedipal-by-marriage tint, but also because of the motives that naturally float to the surface. Uncovering them is a delicious undertaking, and unlike other tales of familial desire ("The Royal Tenenbaums"' adopted sibling pair, or "Arrested Development"'s desperate cousins) theirs is no pure love above the situation. At the same time, the way they play off each other makes Friedman and Snider's characters look comparatively stiff and formal, as if they had married before they even met. Mike never entirely figures out what's going on (even when Ed volunteers the information), but he, too, can sense the air crackling around them. Mom, you're dangerous.

stirring

If, in 100 years, an anthropologist unearthed Shalimar Production’s stirring, which (for those of us in the present) includes speed dating after select performances, it would provide a snapshot of what life is like for trendy 20-something New Yorkers living in Williamsburg and the East Village, looking for love. In addition to insights into the perks and perils of internet dating, he or she would get a good sense of what bands were hot on the indie scene and what kinds of clothes and hairstyles you needed to be considered cool. Watching stirring feels like opening a time capsule too soon: It’s full of witty, sharp and observant references about being young and in New York, but lacks in substance.


Rachel Plotkin, Kim Gainer and Brandon Bales in stirring


Reviewed by Ilena George

Stirring follows seven characters searching for love online, focusing on the lives of James (Matt Bridges) and Sasha (Kim Gainer), an already established couple who are drifting apart and attempting to find solace with others. Inspired by actual online personals, stirring feels like a loosely connected series of worst case scenarios, chronicling all the things that can go wrong when you pursue someone over the internet.

During bouts of unnecessarily frenetic staging in an awkward space forcibly coerced into serving as a theater, Trip (Jack P. Dempsey) and Laura (Rachel Plotkin) explore their kinkier sides, Ryan (Brandon Bales) comes to terms with his sexuality after meeting Daniel (Joey Williamson) and Joy (Jen Taher) draws the short straw in the online dating lottery time and time again.

Discussed at length is how to present yourself online: how to structure a blog entry or a personal ad, what level of deception is acceptable or necessary. The wittiness of the writing and the cast’s energy generally compensates for the play’s thinness in plot and character development. The characters are hollow, without pasts or depth, embodying types just as easily identified by their costumes (designed by Ariella Beth Bowden) as what they say or do: the hipster in a monochromatic sweater, rectangular black glasses and Converse sneakers; the tech-savvy girl in boots and a dress with buttons down the front and a big thick belt; the sleazy guy with a shirt open one button too far. Yet the ensemble’s strong performances still invoke sympathy when dating turns disastrous.

To add an extra shot of self-awareness, after several of the performances, singles who attend the play are given the opportunity to meet through speed dating. One of the issues the play addresses is how difficult it is to make a connection and giving audience members a forum to attempt this is clever. But the appeal of internet dating partly lies in its anonymity, which speed dating cannot preserve. The night I attended there were so few males signed up that cast members were roped into it as well. However, it was much like the play itself: fun as long as you don’t think too hard or look too closely.
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stirring by Shoshona Currier and Charles Forbes
Directed by Shoshona Currier
March 16th-25th, speed dating after 3/17, 3/24 (straight), 3/23 (gay, men only)
InterArt Annex, 500 W. 52nd Street
Tickets: $10, $20 for speed dating, www.theatermania.com

Men of Steel

If you don't like comic books, you'll want to stay away from Men of Steel, as all the jokes and over-the-top acting is geared toward the chicanery of superheroes. But if you've been tuning into Heroes each week and want to see a live, comic version of it, this production will surprise you with some impressive fight choreography, clever writing, and some positively campy acting.

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

"You'll never get rid of us, we're like a bad smell that won't go away. And that smell, Menace, that smell is America!" Ah, cheesy lines like that remind me of what made me fall in love with comics in the first place. Over the years, the stories have gotten darker, and the narratives more interesting, but it all comes down to betrayal and courage, iced over with a healthy gloss of bad puns and even worse quips. Qui Nguyen knows what makes the comic-book world tick: his new play, Men of Steel, is both homage and parody at the same time, and it's a wonderful romp. Atop the surprisingly effective writing, his production company (Vampire Cowboy Theatre) is good with fight choreography, so there's over-the-top action to go with the over-the-top acting.

All in all, it's a fun night of theater: the first act introduces the fall from grace of three different heroes, split up into chapters and paced like the television show Heroes, and the second act unites them all in one final battle for redemption. There's betrayal, there's excitement -- there's even a bit of noir in "Chapter One: Maelstrom," a tragedy amid all the laughs in "Chapter Three: The Tragic Story of Bryant," and a stop-motion-animated showdown using Lego characters and some of the most hysterical voice-overs outside of Adult Swim.

Robert Ross Parker does an excellent job with the direction of this show, using video montages to cover up the set changes, and stagecraft to cut from moment to moment within each piece. Chapter One has Maelstrom literally pivoting from one encounter into his role as narrator, (a fast-paced way to introduce a saga), and Chapter Three reduces the action to a small neon-lit box. Some scenes overlap on stage, others remind us of the lingering evil off in the corner: it raises the stakes beyond the singular panel and onto the entire page. Chapter Two is the slow point of Men of Steel, but that has to do as much with the writing and acting as anything else: it is monotonous and loud, and hurls past with little to do but laugh at the Lucha Libre costumes of two wannabes. It's okay: there are enough jokes to keep the pace up, and because of the triple-casting of most characters, Paco Tolson is able to shine as The Mole, and Noshir Dalal as Daddy, rather than getting locked into their mediocre performances there as Damon and Lukas.

Give in to your superhero complex and check out Men of Steel; it has a few weaknesses (like any true hero) here and there, but on the whole, it's a mighty fine new play. Is Maelstrom (in Batman mode) a hero, or just a crazed vigilante? Is Captain Justice a murdering supervillain or a man with superpowers? Find out right now in this week's performances of Men of Steel!

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Center Stage (48 West 21st Street; Fourth Floor)
Tickets (212-352-3101): $18.00
Performances: Thursday - Sunday @ 8:00

Magpie

There's a dead mother, two medicated children, and a thuggish employer in Magpie, but none of that troubles this way up-tempo show. Latin percussion gives it a multicultural edge, but the two leads, Jessica Fields and Ronny Mercedes give it a soul, and even though it's missing a unifying (or memorable) theme, the cheeriness is pretty contagious.


Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

Magpie wants to be a cross between West Side Story and The Fantasticks, but it's too small to be epic and too realistic to be dreamy. Funny though: Magpie's greatest success is in the Act II opening: an epic parody of an opera that takes place in Maggie's dreams. This breezy musical won't be revolutionizing the musical theater, but its multicultural beats are a nice change of pace. It's as cute as it is distracting, and as light as it is unfinished. I dig the digs (a corrugated black metal cityscape that folds in and out like a storybook), but I dislike the mikes on all the cast members.

Magpie is on the right path: now it just needs enough focus to find a place for that work which the jaded male lead, Tino (a layman for the young theatergoing public) so casually dismisses as irrelevant to his life. Hip as the gritty bike messengers pretend to be, or hip-hop as they get while singing "Another Day" or step-dancing up in someone's face, they're still useless to the plot. It needs more songs like "Crazy Girl, Loquita" and "Give Her Back Her Music," and less songs like "No One Had a Clue in Santiago" and "Trust Your Heart." There's nothing better than lovesick duets or strained ballads; there's nothing worse than solos for side-characters that add nothing to the book. It could also use a few technical touch-ups with light cues and the audible static from an over-miked cast.

Magpie's strength shows every time the focus sticks to the star-crossed lovers (they--Jessica Fields and Ronny Mercedes--are also the best singers); wander around too much and it becomes clear that despite being a modern Romeo and Juliet (if Romeo took Ritalin and Juliet was medicated for seizures and mental instability), Steven M. Jacobson's script is far from Shakespeare. If the Amas Musical Theatre company must meander, let them dabble more in producing a more diverse, layered soundtrack: Act I is a rich blend of modern and classic, but Act II goes over to the old time sound of simple rhymes and simpler beats.

Ah, let them eat cake. Or in this case, let them eat pie. I came out of Magpie without a song in my head, but with a big smile on my face because of how cheery the entire show is. If Amas is willing to keep workshopping this show, it has the potential to be an urban Light in the Piazza.

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The Players Theatre (116 MacDougal Street)
Tickets (212-352-3101): $20.00
Performances: Wednesday - Saturday @ 8; Saturday & Sunday @ 3

The Director

The Director is a creepy new play that merges great ensemble acting with the still, quiet direction of Jessica Davis-Irons, and the strong symbolic writing of Barbara Cassidy. The missteps and flaws are all relegated to the first ten minutes of this piece: after that, the work is pretty much an excellent exploration of empathy, friendship, and the horrors that too much of either sometimes brings.



Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

The dark and subterranean space of Downstairs @ The Flea does wonders for Barbara Cassidy's new show, The Director. It's a perfect match for the multimedia work that lights up the black recesses of the cavernous hall, and the length of the room gives depth to the many different characters (well represented by The Flea's resident performers, The Bats) who echo through the chamber. This show isn't disturbing because of the lecherous (and pedophiliac) director it is named for (who we never meet); rather, it is effective because of the innocent reactions many of the actors have when discussing him. At times, the cast manages to put a gentle face on this man (a challenging task), and thankfully The Director's director, Jessica Davis-Irons clashes with their words by using contradictory video that shows the sinister and the cynical for what they are.

It's a good thing that The Director is an hour-long one-act, though. The first ten minutes make some sloppy mistakes that leave us impatient. A man sits in a corner and watches TV as the audience files in--oh, how blandly futurist--then the show plays a five-minute long taped monologue set in the flickering darkness--how abstractly avant-garde--before finally getting to the meat of the work. Luckily, after these initial set pieces, the show develops as an actual drama, introducing us to characters like Sadie (the excellent Lauren Shannon), and Milton (a wonderfully human Catherine Gowl). If anything, once we establish the strained friendship between these two, we almost hate to see the show end so soon.

But the director and writer have a mission, and they don't waste time about it. It isn't long before we meet Sadie's abusive ex-boyfriend, Snake (Donal Brophy, a Clive Owens double), and not long after that we skip through dream sequences filled with creepy androgynous modeling puppets. The show takes on symbolism so fluidly with the grounding scene-work and the bolstering monologues that the sudden stop to this ride catches you by surprise. The Director is full of surprises, the biggest one of which is its capacity to actually turn a tired story into a brilliant, new theatrical work.

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Downstairs @ The Flea (41 White Street)
Tickets (212-352-3101): $20.00
Performances: Through March 31st (Varied)

H.M.S. Pinafore

A revitalizing restaging of the singing sailor classic, the Vortex’s production of H.M.S. Pinafore makes 19th century satire funny again through cross-dressing, baby-farming, and a good dose of Gilbert and Sullivan silliness.



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Reviewed by Cait Weiss

Thank goodness somebody finally got it right – a restaging that proves all our History of Theater professors weren't just joshing with us: Gilbert and Sullivan really were hilarious.

Vortex Theater Company’s current production of H.M.S. Pinafore (to battle the masters of musical puns with their own weapon) hits all the right notes. Gilbert and Sullivan’s work is often treated with the same stale reverence as Shakespeare’s comedies – the contrived accents, the elitist acknowledgement that we should think this is all incredibly clever, the growing struggle to hide our own boredom as the hours drag by.

The Vortex’s H.M.S. is an entirely different type of show – and enjoyable one, shockingly enough. And whether it’s incredibly witty operetta or not, what matter? At the end of the aria, it’s damn good fun.

There are many reasons to be taken with this production, not the least of which is that Vortex seems to be run by raving lunatics. What could possibly be a worse fit for a tiny theater and a seven-person cast than a lavish maritime musical extravaganza? It’s like remaking Cameron's Titanic in a bathtub with Rubber Ducky in lieu of Leo D. – yet this down-sized H.M.S. is truer to its source and more vital to the audience than any of the Oprah-endorsed or American Airlines-aided shows I’ve seen on Broadway. The money may be small here, but the pay-off is big – precisely because the risks Joshua Randall, Vortex’s artistic director, took are huge.

One such risk was double-casting (and, in one fantastic feat of entertainment, triple-casting) the show. David Macaluso, who plays Sir Joseph, Buttercup and an unnamed Sailor, makes the most of his multiple personalities, playing each one with such personalized care, it takes a few scenes to realize it’s all the same actor. Once Macaluso lets you in on the joke, though, amazement quickly flips to admiration and infectious amusement – you watch the glimmer in Macaluso's eye as he shuttles back and forth between roles, changing costumes onstage behind his cast-mates, all the while reveling in the ridiculous self-conscious witticisms of Gilbert and Sullivan’s writing.

The quintessential element of a Gilbert and Sullivan show (an element that Macaluso and his fellow cast members all aptly convey to the audience) is the wink-wink-nod-nod of cleverness. These two smarty-pants scribes aren’t simply clever, they are clever about the act of seeming clever; in other words, they satirize satire as much as they satirize anything else. Often, though, actors take this as an opportunity to put themselves above the story.

Macaluso, Nick Kauffman (an excellently satisfied Captain Corcoran played with the same sort of distorted contentment Ricky Gervais exudes in The Office), Billy Ernst (a slimy yet sympathetic Dick Deadeye), Paul Sigrist (a semi-dandy of a sailor), Jendi Tate (a fabulously fraught Josephine) and Max Miller (a dashing Ralph Rackstraw full of entirely on-the-spot, over-the-top male-lead swoons) all flesh out the action of the show by both acknowledging the satirical message while fully committing to the intricate quirks of their characters’ objectives. This cast is not above the story, but they may very well be beside it – their performances are high camp, not meta-criticism, thank God, and when they laugh, they laugh with the characters as well, and not solely with the librettists.

Dave Dalton, the show’s director, chose to shape this production on Gilbert and Sullivan’s follow-up publication The Pinafore Picture Book: The Story of H.M.S. Pinafore, instead of on the original show itself. While this choice would be fabulous if only for paring the production down to a svelte 90 minutes, the alternative source material also allowed Dalton, along with musical director Edward Barnes and choreographer Carrie Cimma, to reshape the entire show. High camp is no stranger to musical theater, but legitimate justification for high camp certainly is. By framing the production around a little girl’s favorite book, we enter into a world of boundless imagination, mirthful contrivance, and completely outlandish characters – in other words, the world of H.M.S. Pinafore – and we enter it alongside a child (played by a jubilant Sarah Hartley), willingly and without reservation.

It’s not often that a 130-year old production lives up to the hype it garnered more than a century ago. Plus they throw in seamen jokes, a falsetto-singing man in a bright red tutu and choreography that turns into a make-out session with dolls. Gilbert and Sullivan would be so proud.


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Sanford Meisner Theater (164 11th Avenue, between 22nd & 23rd St)
Tickets (www.theatermania.com, 212.352.3101): $18.00
Performances: March 5th through March 31st, Thursdays through Saturdays at 8pm, Sunday matinees at 5pm.

Be

Talented: yes. Creative: most of the time. Creative enough to succeed on the competitive New York stage? It's hard to have an open-run of a dance-instrument-rhythm spectacle, especially when some of your content is aimed at an older audience. It may be drowned out by its more established peers, but until then, Be is pretty cool.



Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

OK, so maybe New Yorkers are a little jaded. But to open up a new dance/music/performance piece less than a mile from both Stomp and Blue Man Group, you really need to have a spectacle on your hands if you expect to stay. No-one's going to dispute the talent of Mayumana company (especially that of Boaz Berman and Aka Jean Claude Thiemele), but their latest work, Be, may be in trouble trying to find the right audience.

There are clever scenes involving flippers and guitars, and there's a marvelous piece involving glow-in-the-dark balls that soar in fast succession from invisible hands to invisible hands, like meteors being juggled to percussive music in the sky (a little night music indeed). There are some great feats involving the blisteringly swift percussive ability of co-creator Berman's patty cake maneuvers. And one moment, involving some glistening water and the sound created by a glass dunking and surfacing in rapid success, is a testament to the creativity, persistence, and passion of artists out there who refuse to let the world be mundane. There's even a beatboxing/drum number that relies on audience on participation to supply a few beats (it's harder than it looks). All of these things will appeal to the mindset of younger audiences, and it will excite their imagination, too.

There are a bunch of filler scenes too, ambling numbers that have slight punchlines, like one involving an tennis match with an invisible ball that the actors provide the sound effect for. And cool as the snaky and sinuous movements of expert drummers may be, when there is a lack of variation between the numbers -- that is, the only difference being the object used as the drum -- it ceases to fascinate, and simply bewilders. There's also a perhaps too great an emphasis on borrowed staging: Be needs to exist as a wholly original work, but a neon didgeridoo calls up Blue Man, some dumpster drumming revives Stomp, and one scene with a clunky, long-necked walk of some costumed aliens reminds us of the late Slava's Snowshow.

I suspect the real problem for Be will be in the rest of its content: stimulating as the aforementioned may be to younger crowds, the play also has a wide variety of erotic dancing, including a scene straight out of the party monster scene (white fur coat and underwear, nothing else), and one of the mundane objects called upon for sound is a giant bong. What's worse is that the scenes, while interesting to watch, have no cohesion with the rest of the show. Each segment lives independent of the others, and fascinating as it may be to leap from tribal song to primal dances to modern percussion to futuristic movement, the show is really just a hodgepodge of Mayumana's ideas.

The talent isn't a question: just watch the synchronized opening scene, which involves lots of minute movements to the ticking of a clock. The content, unfortunately, is; without a running theme or gimmick, Be is out of focus and quickly forgotten, and without the charm and personality of its New York rivals. Cirque du Solei changed their marketing to do burlesque work in Vegas, and De La Guarda delivered on specialized thrills for an older New York crowd. Be exists this moment, but unfortunately, I don't see it lasting for long.

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Union Square Theater (100 E. 17th Street)
Tickets (212-505-0700): $20.00-$60.00
Performances: Tuesday-Friday @ 8; Sat. @ 7 & 10; Sun. @ 3 & 7

Theatre Art Japan's It is said the men are over in The Steel Tower

From left to right: Josh Peters (Kogure), Christopher Loar (Jonouchi), and Gili Getz (Sasakura)

In this Japanese to English translation, The Happy Lads, a vaudeville troupe that escapes from guerrilla warfare to a nearby steel tower, pass the time and soothe their fears by incorporating an AWOL soldier into their comedy act. Unfortunately, what could have been a weighty piece with light overtones is thwarted by questionable casting, production elements that are too risky, and a general lack of entertainment value.

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Reviewed by Cindy Pierre

Japanese playwright Hideo Tsuchida's it is said the men are over in The Steel Tower has a great premise, but falls short on execution. In it, five men, 4 relief performers and one soldier, grapple with impending doom from deserting their military base by hashing out new bits for their comedy routine. At least that's what we're told. A heightened sense of danger, however, is never really created until the closing sequences, and as a result, the juxtaposition of the “humorous look at the nature of conflict” lacks an opposite for measure. That the dialogue is neither engaging nor humorous further slams an anvil down on the playwright's intentions.

The steel tower, designed in a most dismal, but aptly war-torn way by Tomoyuki Ikeda, should be a clear indicator of peril and a small ration of comfort. The actors and script, translated by M. Cody Poulton and adapted by Matthew Paul Olmos, work diligently to present the opposite. The opening scene, running for more than 15 minutes in snooze-inducing darkness, presents unintended lethargy in the actors where they should be at least moderately manic. The energy remains diffuse from there.

The fact that they're in a steel tower and the reasoning behind it should be immediately revealed. Instead, the dialogue meanders on without a particular aim other than to frustrate the audience. This does not bode well on a flashlight-lit stage that already dulls the senses. If Lighting Designer Rie Ono introduced this risky lighting choice after the characters had already been established, their identities wouldn't be so enshrouded in mystery and nonchalance. Also worth a second look is the sharpness of the light cues that do not allow for distinct scene changes.

The original Japanese names are retained for this production, and it is a strange choice because the cast is completely Caucasian. I'd prefer to see Japanese actors in this english translation, as Tsuchida's perspective would be preserved even if the original tongue isn't. Caucasian actors calling themselves “Jonouchi” and “Kamioka” is just too much of a stretch, even if actor Gili Getz (Sasakura) attemps to say the names with a Japanese inflection.

With very little action and no stimulus, It is said the men are over in The Steel Tower drags without a payoff. Although the sound effects by Udi Pladott are done well, his cricket chirps seem to be set to a timer, fading in and out without purpose. Originally titled “The Happy Lads”, the only thing lending itself to that name is their fun, but hokey theme music. Still, the title It is said the men are over in the Steel Tower is a mouthful that should be revisited. With so many structural issues in this production, there are far more things to be remedied than the semantics.

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Through March 18th. TBG theatre:312 West 36th Street, 3rd Floor (Between 8th and 9th Avenue). Smart Tix: Phone (212) 868-4444 $18

The Director

The Director, premiering at The Flea Theater, is a woman's odyssey to regain her sense of self after falling prey to a notorious sexual predator. In a search for answers she pursues the women -many and from all walks of life -who also succumbed to his advances, and so ensues a psychological battle with her as pursued versus her as pursuer. This thriller will no doubt leave you breathless and wanting more. Go see it while you still can.




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Reviewed by Kristyn R Smith

There is much The Director gets right. For starters, the acting is top notch. The Bats (resident company of The Flea Theater), an ensemble of eight women and two men, were excellent. The women, particularly, stand out. Partially because they carry the show; partially because I can't remember the last time I saw so many amazing actresses on one stage. It was a pleasure. So too was the commitment of this cast to their characters. All embodied their character every moment of the play. The physicality, glances, and other gestures of non verbal communication spoke volumes. That's important in a work centered on passion and sexual tension, but here it proved invaluable because so much is left unspoken.

I can appreciate playwrights seeking thinking audiences, provided there is something to think about. Barbara Cassidy generally excels here. One exception is the character Shoot. Shoot silently watches tv in one corner of the stage, while the audience take their seats and throughout most of the play. Except for a few brief interludes of comic relief, he does little more than stare blankly and take up space. I'm not certain of his purpose. I found his presence onstage distracting. Perhaps such a device would be better suited to a larger theater, where there's more space between this loafer and the action. However, this play isn't served by his presence.

The designers, by contrast, use the resources of play and theater to full advantage. The set, by Neal Wilkinson, lends an eerie tone to the piece; its multiple shadowy corners allow for characters to instantly emerge and disappear. The video design too was quite masterful and certainly a highlight of the show. Without revealing too much, all I can say is I found the last video clip haunting, both in content and style. I think the play would have benefited from more. After all the designers had two large wall sections for video projections, and the title character, the subject of nearly every discussion in the play, was a film director. Perhaps that will come about in future incarnations of this work.

Even without the added video, there is great beauty in this production through its attention to detail and bold approach to a disturbing reality. Cassidy takes a penetrating look at victim and victimizer, shedding light on issues such as sexual harassment, rape, child molestation, lesbianism and male and female stereotypes. That alone more than pays for admission. But when you also consider the performers and production value, the total is well, priceless.

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The Director runs through March 31
at The Flea Theater
41 White Street
between Broadway and Church St
Tickets are $20
Call 212-352-3101 for reservations

Vortex Theater Company's HMS Pinafore

The Vortex Theater Company’s HMS Pinafore reinvents the classic Gilbert & Sullivan work, creating a show that is both deranged children’s storybook theatre and homage.

Reviewed by Elizabeth Devlin

The elaborate, hysterical plots of a Gilbert & Sullivan show, told through elaborate, hysterical (and beautiful) music are firm in the hearts of many, musical theatre and opera fans alike. No wonder these shows are often treated like classical works of sculpture: they may be faithfully re-created as homage to genius, but are rarely reinvented.

The Vortex Theater Company’s HMS Pinafore does just that: reinvents the classic Gilbert & Sullivan work by taking its inspiration from Gilbert’s own retelling, “The Pinafore Picture Book.” Director Dave Dalton takes the idea of reinventing even further than that, creating a show that is both deranged children’s storybook theatre and homage. Gone are elaborate sets, costumes or even cast sizes: this show has only 7 cast members. From the narrator as a small, awe-struck girl to a Buttercup in drag, the show brings the original work to a new and imaginative level.

Standouts in the talented cast include David Macaluso and Jeni Tarde. Macaluso plays both Buttercup and Sir Joseph, switching easily between one’s bizarre, swooning antics and the other’s arrogant, hysterical pomp. He is clearly having way too much fun with that hoop skirt as Buttercup, and you can’t help but laugh. Tarde’s Josephine finds comedy in every moment as well, but it is her voice, perfection even when making a ridiculous face, which carries the role.

Vortex’s HMS Pinafore is tongue-in-cheek and artistically reverent at the same time, and certainly worth a look. Whether you enjoy G&S or have never experience a light opera, this show deserves “three cheers, and one cheer more.”
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Vortex Theater Company’s HMS Pinafore
Based on Sir W.S Gilbert's "The Pinafore Picture Book: The Story of HMS PINAFORE"
Thurs. – Sun. @ 8:00, Sun. @ 5:00
March 5 - March 31, 2007
Sanford Meisner Theater
http://www.vortextheater.com/

H.M.S. Pinafore

(L to R): Paul Sigrist (Boatswain), David Macaluso (Sir Joseph Porter), Billy Ernst (Deadeye), Sarah Hartley (The Girl), Max Miller (Ralph Rackstraw), and Jendi Tarde (Josephine) Nich Kauffman (Captain Corcoran).
Photo by: Jim Baldassare

Legendary operetta H.M.S. Pinafore is repackaged and scaled down in cast size and grandeur at the Sanford Meisner Theater. Fortunately, the talent of the ensemble and the quality of the production are exceptional in a theatrical experience that takes wonderful risks with familiar material, but entertains, thrills, and rubs warmly on the funny bone.

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Reviewed by Cindy Pierre

Artistic Director Joshua Randall and Director Dave Dalton have plowed through the conventional telling of Gilbert and Sullivan's legendary American musical H.M.S. Pinafore, and have emerged victorious. Based on Gilbert's own digression of the classic, The Pinafore Picture Book: The Story of H.M.S. Pinafore, you have never seen this naval love story quite like this. First produced in London in 1878, this highly imaginative version takes liberties with the original context and content, but manages to stay loyal to the motif “love levels all ranks.”

A satire about love that defies social classes, this production employs a cast of seven where it habitually employs 18-20. The end result is a tighter piece that exploits the versatility and skill of a strong cast. They are not afraid to make fun of themselves, and appear to be getting a kick out of doing so. Led by chameleon David Macaluso (channeling John Ritter in posture and facial expression) in the meatiest roles of Sir Joseph and Buttercup, these players perform like seasoned thespians, and under the direction of choreographer Carrie Cimma, are adept at utilizing every inch of the stage to engage and stimulate the audience. Macaluso and Nich Kauffman (Captain Corcoran with a sprinkling of Billy Crystal) have great comedic timing, and the amusement that is derived from their tomfoolery is only matched by the excitement of the singing. Singers Macaluso and Jendi Tarde (Josephine) tantalize us with their vocals,and I am certain that their ranges are capable of enveloping a more spacious theatre. The only disappointment in the acting is the choices made by Billy Ernst as Deadeye. Unfortunate in looks and odious in behavior, this surly character is stifled by Ernst's stale choices.

With inspired costumes, puppetry and a colorful set, H.M.S. Pinafore is a delicious treat, and I couldn't help but feel a sense of child-like indulgence while experiencing it. The only thing that casts a shadow in this show's brightness is the integration of The Girl (a manic Sarah Hartley). Through little fault of this animated actress, her interjections are distracting from the narrative and too invasive. I question the need for her role at all, particularly in this more intimate, reduced version of the tale. I also think the ending, which is as profound as this operetta will allow, is rushed and Buttercup's contributions to the plot are glossed over as a result. Otherwise, with romance and fun musical numbers, this H.M.S. Pinafore is an accessible light opera that's not to be missed.

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Through March 31st. Sanford Meisner Theater: 164 11th Avenue,

New York, NY 10011 Tickets: 212-352-3101, 866-811-4111 $18

Los Angeles

The plight of the young adult lost in the debauchery of Los Angeles is so ingrained in our pop-culture mentality that we hardly need another play about it. But Julian Sheppard's Los Angeles is surprisingly smooth and effective in reminding us of how easy it is to get lost in a world of such careless, frivolous, accidental evil.

Photo/Max Ruby

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

Julian Sheppard, in the program notes of his new play Los Angeles, asks: "In the end, in L.A., is there really anything more than sex, drugs, and swimming pools?" Although there is plenty of that in his somewhat flimsy series of vignettes, there are a few moments in the overall production (well directed by Adam Rapp) where there's the sensation of striking something more fathomable than nihilism.

The show opens with an innocent but already damaged Audrey being led by her boyfriend, from the Midwest to L.A. The subsequent scenes, always jumping an unidentified period of time forward in Audrey's downward spiral of a life, take her from party to party and man to man (to woman). Despite the cliched encounters (a drug dealer, a married man, a high-powered agent, a model/actress), Sheppard's writing is fairly clever. It also offers a neat turnabout: the majority of people Audrey encounters actually want to help her, and the first few scenes end on upbeats -- the tragedy is that after the scene change, things are always worse than they were before. The intimate space under The Flea abets the character acting; the scenes are already familiar to the audience, but the close proximity of it makes us feel like the bystander at a really hot party where someone is being slowly stabbed to death for our amusement.

Audrey spends most of the play in a "comfortable fuckedupness," -- perhaps too much for us to care about the pain she keeps trying to drown out -- but the play itself, with the moody lighting of neon-stripped bars and dim, coffin-sized apartments, shows the squalor for what it is. The transitions between scenes are handled by Amelia Zirin-Brown's lovely voice (Life is a cabaret, my friends) and Audrey is shuffled from set piece to set piece like a prop herself (which, to be fair, is what she becomes). The inevitable overdose scene is handled well, with a chorus of spectral scene-partners; the only off-kilter choice is the tenth scene, which serves more as a confusing "lost episode" than an epilogue. (Other choices, like coloring all the drinks and money blue, are odd, not distracting.)

Over the course of the play, Katherine Waterson, who plays Audrey, is given plenty of time to shine, and there are a few scenes where she bravely succeeds at seeming like a stranger to her own body. The problem with a play like Los Angeles is that Audrey does not change, and each scene is just more of the same. The cast, made up of The Bats (The Flea's young repertory company), has the same dilemma, each being called upon to play a caricature that only a few of them manage to deepen (Ben Beckley and Emily Hyberger) or fully inhabit (Tanya Fischer).

A play like Los Angeles doesn't need to be written -- it's enough in our pop culture already -- but it has been, and it's enjoyable even if it's not brilliant. I hope Julian Sheppard will focus on actually developing a story in his next play, rather than just telling it; it's really the only thing holding his writing back.

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The Flea Theater (41 White Street)
Tickets (212-352-3101): $18.00
Through March 17

it is said the men are over in The Steel Tower

it is said the men are over in The Steel Tower tries so hard to be about nothing that it eventually succeeds. The subtext is caught up in the allegory, which makes it hard to watch anything but the constant squabbling of four vaudeville actors who are afraid that War will squash the Entertainment they once provided.

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

"How can you be a good performer?" asks Jonouchi, an AWOL soldier, of Sasakura, one of four frightened, mediocre vaudeville actors who have fled a relief show to hide from War in a giant steel tower. "Just take a deep breath and say whatever comes to mind," he replies. This philosophy is the heart and undercurrent of it is said the men are over in The Steel Tower, a play by the prolific Japanese playwright Hideo Tsuchida, now in production at TBG Theatre.

Something has been lost in translation; Tsuchida's parallel about trivial bickering in the light of an overshadowing war is clear enough, but the endless, repetitive chatter used to get there isn't entertaining (especially when it goes on for almost two hours straight). Given an American adaptation (Matthew Paul Olmos) of an English translation (M. Cody Poulton), not to mention director Ronit Muszkatblit's interpretation of the final text, how much of the original still exists? Coupled with the lethargic blocking of the action and the unusually low energy of the performers: Not enough.

The play succeeds in frustrating the audience, but that only allows us to sympathize with how the characters in this play feel stuck. One of the "shticks" performed involves a pantomime of how different types of people walk up and down stairs; that subtlety is called out as markedly unfunny in the play, but it's the same device the play uses. The common, ordinary dialogue (which sounds improvised, even with a script in front of me) leaves profundity to the subtext; unfortunately, this cast allows for only the mundanity of the text. The ensemble is so locked into the passive-aggressive that their range is limited, and the few scenes that would show us another side are set at night, on a dark stage lit by flailing flashlights.

There are some good sequences: at one point the act of creation is compared to giving birth (to triplets), and later on, the joke is carried on when one of the troupe offers to help the rehearsal process along by being a Lamaze coach. Running jokes, even those about overused metaphors, are a window into seeing the history of this troupe, pre-war, and the rare moments when we see the characters vulnerable (Christopher Loar, as Jonouchi, has a sweet innocence) give heart to an otherwise dispassionate, Seinfeld-ish play.

it is said the men are over in The Steel Tower tries to mix subtext and symbolism, but you can't hide allegory in a message that is already hidden. This adaptation is simply too subtle for its own good: the play we wind up seeing is the opposite of the play we want to watch.

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TBG Theatre (312 W. 36th Street)
Tickets (212-868-4444): $18.00
Wednesday-Saturday @ 8:00/ Sunday @ 3:00

Los Angeles

The city of angels falls hard as a young woman descends into LA’s shadows by way of drugs, sex, lesbianism and the inevitable unloving father figure. Who knew LA had so much in common with NYC, after all?


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Reviewed by Cait Weiss


There are a lot of things to hate about the city of Los Angeles. The smog. The traffic. The agents. I grew up there, right where with 101 and the 405 meet – and I moved to New York as soon as I could. I am no advocate for the City of Angels, believe me. Still, watching Julian Sheppard’s Los Angeles, playing at The Flea Theater, I couldn’t help but feel like I was being asked to heckle the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium – considering where we’re all seated, isn’t the attack just a little too obvious?

Los Angeles centers around Audrey, a 20-something college grad who finished school in California and, scarred by the experience, high-tails it to LA’s geographic antidote Seattle. That’s when we first meet her, fragile as a newborn swathed in an XXL sweatshirt, talking with her big-dreaming boyfriend. He needs a change, she needs a makeover – Los Angeles seems the obvious solution for both. Despite her initial misgivings about heading south to the Land of Shallowness, she gives in when he offers to “fix” her.

And here in this first scene, is the whole unraveling of the play. Los Angeles tells the story of a woman who is so eager to be fixed, she shatters herself into dust. From the Seattle table to the LA lounge, from physically attacking her boss to sleeping with a producer for $1000, Audrey is just another sucker for a savior. Sure, Drama Desk Award nominee Sheppard distracts us with speed and lesbianism, even yoga in undies, but at the core of Los Angeles, we’ve got a play about a damsel in distress. Problem is, this Los Angeles is flat out of white horses, let along knights.

Oddly enough, unalleviated suffering is the topic of a lot of enjoyable entertainment – Candide perfected the idea in literature and paved the way for all the sick/brilliant drama to follow. Sheppard’s script is full of humor, and much of it works onstage. However, Los Angeles, for all the uppers Audrey inhales, remains a bit of a downer.

Audrey, played by Katherine Waterston, never changes. She begins a mess and she ends a mess. In the very first scene of the play, Waterston is already trembling and vulnerable. By the time we get to the final act, the audience begins to wonder if all that happened in between needed to happen at all – would she have been this way regardless of all the drugs, alcohol and men we’ve just watched her consume? If so, what was the point of any of this?

Furthermore, it’s hard to watch someone “be damaged” for an hour and forty minutes. Yes, some moments she’s crying, some she’s screaming, and in one of my favorites, she’s hurtling a chair across the stage, but all those are just manifestations of The Crazy. It’s hard to sympathize with someone who seems unaffected by everything happening around her. While her level of instability is very fitting for the later scenes of the play, early on, this unflagging vulnerability makes her difficulties more inherent in her personality than responsive to the ensuing onstage action.

Unfortunately, the problems in acting are compounded by the staging. As director, Obie Award winner and Pulitzer Prize Finalist Adam Rapp makes many strong and thoughtful choices – the opening sequence, for example, where all the men dismantle and reassemble the set is wonderful – but he continually missteps by thrusting Audrey too far into the audience. Instead of giving us the distance we need to at least value the humor behind the insanity onstage, her vulnerability is almost literally shoved under our noses. Rapp has Audrey repeatedly lean on the divider between the audience seats and the stage, breaking any kind of critical distance we especially value when looking for dark humor.

Despite these few flaws, though, the show succeeds, in large part due to a strong ensemble cast, tidy scene structure and the smart, quickly paced dialogue. Sheppard succeeds the most when he says the least, placing hints as to exactly what has happened – and when the actors respond without overemphasizing their emotions, the result is great theater. Both Cooper Daniels, as the attractively creepy Keith, and Emily Hyberger, as the chill and entrancing Veronica, give wonderful performances, bringing the cleverness of the script to the forefront without taking us out of the action.

The scene between Audrey and Donna (played as disarmingly shrewd by Tanya Fischer) is an especial triumph – both Waterston and Fischer are so wrapped up in the energy of demands and desires that they let go of all the wounded hurt that sags them down. Instead of watching the distressed damsel weep in yet another turret, we get to see two smart, capable women work out how to get what they want as quickly as possible. Sure they have baggage, but they also have objectives – and that’s a nice thing to see. Even in Los Angeles.

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Flea Theater (41 White Street, between Broadway and Church)
Tickets (www.theatermania.com, 212.352.3101): $18
Performances: February 14th through March 17th, performance schedule varies.

Coming or Going

Short on the cries but long on southern discomfort, Lisa Roth's new drama examines the lives of four Texan sisters as they reunite for their father's funeral. With wonderful set and lighting design, the production value is high for this piece. The pacing, however, makes for an uneven drama with climaxes and points of conflict that are foreseeable and powerless.
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Reviewed by Cindy Pierre


With a stage the size of Mick Jagger's walk-in closet (on ABC's Knights of Prosperity), anticipating an intimate experience at Manhattan Theatre Source's production of Lisa Roth's Coming or Going seems justified. After all, as I walk into the space, I tread on the pebbled, dirt pathway that signifies the “backyard.” With porch railings and wicker furniture, the setting is authentic and inviting. Unfortunately, not everything is as cushy.

Tracey B. Wilson plays Meredith, the protagonist and only character who left her hometown. With a flat monotone and a desire to “act” without regard for her scene partners, Wilson seems to forget that the medium is the stage, and not the soap opera sets that she has frequented in her career. She's not entirely to blame for her woodenness, though. As the first person to enter the stage, her emotional life is never established by Roth, and she proceeds through the play as if she doesn't own one. If being a New York transplant to Roth means aloofness and dark eye shadow, Tracey Wilson has Meredith down pat.

Wilson and Christopher Blessitt (Bryan Manning) take Leslie Cloninger's direction well to establish history and camaraderie in their physical actions, but they lack the connection that warrants the play's future plot developments. As the eunuch in the play, Manning has very little to do and does little with what he has been given.

As Bryan's live-in girlfriend and the baby sister, Amanda Hilson (Jen) conveys the right mixture of southern grace and underlying animosity to enliven her character. She is aided greatly, however, by her interactions with Amy Dickenson (Maureen or Mo). As the oldest and most caregiving, Dickenson embodies her character with warmth and wonderful talent. Every scene with her is an exercise in raw ability, and she is key in approximating the endearing moments that are much in the vein of Steel Magnolias. Her acting chops make everyone who shares a scene with her rise to the occasion. Even Shannon Yocum (Betsy), not exactly an acting lightweight herself, is able to communicate a thing or two as the devout Christian with Dickenson's earnest promptings.

Thematically, there are many delays in both the playwright and the characters' purposes. The dialogue, admittedly some of it very sharp, rages on without a cap before we discover that this is a play about the complexities of women's lives and the ever present opportunity to start over. Acts One and Two are imbalanced, as Roth inserts revelations in places that should be prefaced much earlier, and weaves a plot with tardy, frayed edges. As a result, this piece does not make a big impact emotionally because the audience's sensibilities are not invested. Despite beautiful, mood-sensitive lighting and good sound effects, Coming or Going is not the tearjerker that Roth envisions. But perhaps she inadvertently concedes that in attempting to navigate through the female emotive spectrum , “it's never going to be perfect.”
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Now playing through March 10th. Manhattan TheatreSource
177 MacDougal StreetNew York, NY 10011Tickets: 212-352-3101
866-811-4111 (Toll Free)Info: 212-501-4751

The Girl Detective

"The Girl Detective" is a magical, illogical piece in which robbers dance and a redhead saves the world. But why not?

Review by Ellen Wernecke

"The Girl Detective," a new musical by the Ateh Theater Group now playing at the Connelly Theatre, is a jaunty bit of postmodern fun that doesn't care whether it has a beginning, middle, end or sequential plot. Its source material, a short story of the same name by Kelly Link (her book Stranger Things Happened can be purchased or downloaded here), is usually shelved in the sci-fi/fantasy section, but also taps into Greek mythology, an obsession with list-making and the captivating powers of the Nancy Drew archetype.

The titular heroine is a redheaded (we think) woman of indeterminate age who eats dreams instead of regular food and who is a regular visitor to the underworld. She gets wrapped up in simultaneous mysteries involving a missing wife and a cloud of tap-dancing bandits who leave objects behind in the banks they visit, while the rest of the world tries to figure out who the Girl Detective is. "The Girl Detective has saved the world on at least three separate occasions," confides one would-be expert. "She reminds us of the children we don't have," says another, "the girl we hope to marry someday." And if all that wasn't enough, her mother is still missing and there's a guy in a tree outside her house.

Adapter and director Bridgette Dunlap captures the whimsical spirit of Link's prose and resists the temptation to slot it into a more conventional arrangement. As protagonists go, the girl detective assumes the mantle of both the noirish sexpot and the hard-boiled crime-fighter with a bottle of scotch in the drawer. Ensemble member Kathryn Ekblad stands astride these two seemingly opposed characterizations with grace -- and she even manages to quick-change herself into the chorus for full-stage dance numbers. Choreographer Whitney Stock makes a rich man's daughters swing dance in the underworld and the masked women swirl their skirts in the robberies. And among the unnamed characters Ben Wood, as Guy, is a sympathetic favorite who pines away for the summer he and the Girl Detective had together even as she tells him to take a hike.

I left the theatre wanting to have seen more of the Girl Detective's world (after a spare 75 minutes, a benchmark no Broadway show has ever dared to reach for), a world in which people go out for Chinese takeout and get stuck in the basement instead of going home. It may be a narrow slice of magic, but like all great fairy tales it can be told again and again.

"The Girl Detective"
Connolly Theatre, 220 East 4th St. (between Av. A and Av. B)
Tickets: $15, 212-352-3101 or Theatermania.com

The Jaded Assassin

Big Time Action Theater's new show, The Jaded Assassin is big time action. It's surprising how many film styles they manage to reference, parody, and successfully pull off in this small-budget production. Bring on the weapons, I'm ready to get funky.

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

If you've been paying attention to martial arts movies, then you already know how that genre flick has grown into far more of an actual art form than the cheesy, badly dubbed, hastily edited films of our youth. Films like Kill Bill, with their choice lighting and dance-rhythms, have become more theatrical, not less, and so it should be no surprise to hear that Big Time Action Theater has put together a live-action response to the whole Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon era. Enter The Jaded Assassin.

The show, set atop a large gymnastic mat (for reasons that should be pretty obvious), uses only a backdrop for staging, though the place and setting aren't what's important. Instead, the script calls for a narrator (Laine D'Souza, stage left) and a Taiko drummer (Malika Duckworth, stage right), and everything else is pretty much left to the actors, who are as athletic as they are hammy. As the script meanders through spoofs of famous martial-arts conventions, the story tells of a young girl, Soon-Jai (Jo-Anne Lee), whose entire tribe was killed by a magical plague that conveniently waited until she had grown into the fiercest warrior in the land. Now, consumed by anger, she hunts the man responsible, an evil wizard named Rektor (Marius Hanford). Joining her is the lovestruck peasant boy, Ouyang Feng (Aaron Haskell) and his father, a wizard (Nick Arens) -- and between them, a whole bunch of talented warriors (Maggie MacDonald, David Solomon Rodriguez, Jason Schumacher, Tonie Tirado).

The Jaded Assassin keeps to a brisk pace: Michael Voyer writes only a few short romantic scenes (flashbacks between Soon-Jai and her dead love, Li), and Timothy Haskell throws in just enough stagecraft (from paper-mache-masked ghosts to bunraku puppet fights to a fullscale shadow war [using the scrim]) to keep the play original before handing the reins back to the fight choreographer, Rod Kinter. Even the fights are playful; this group must have just sat down and thought about what looked cool before thinking about how to stage it, because there are all sorts of gimmicks that are well worth the price of admission. From slow-motion Matrix spoofs to spring-loaded jumps and bungee-cord backflips, The Jaded Assassin is almost always successful. The one exception is a strobe-lit battle with the breakdancing Electricity, which is just a little too sloppy in execution. Aside from that, bring on the ball and chain, spear, sword, katana, and dagger, and turn up the "Seven Nation Army" and "Welcome to the Jungle" soundtrack (to name a few) -- it's time to get crazy on the stage.

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Ohio Theater (66 Wooster)

The Girl Detective

Curvy girls to entice, and choreography that's nice; that's what Girl Detective is made of. The metaphysical and mythological splice in this ensemble piece adapted from Kelly Link's short story of the same title. Unfortunately, the show lacks coherence in all other areas with a cast that's too large and a narrative sans focus.
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Reviewed by Cindy Pierre


Campy is as campy does. With an intro reminiscent of “Police Woman” (1970s show starring Angie Dickinson), karate chops and tumbles inclusive, it it immediately clear that The Girl Detective will be visually stimulating. As it progresses, it doesn't disappoint on that regard. Adapted and directed by Bridgette Dunlap, The Girl Detective has dancing bank robbers, slinky restaurant diners, and overzealous narrators to keep your eyes darting to and fro. However, trying to decipher a theme or message beyond an abstract revamping of the Persephone myth with a sprinkling of mystery and intrigue would require you to work harder than The Guy (a dry Ben Wood) does to stay atop his vantage point (Emily French's creative-looking “tree).

At the center of this presentation is the Girl Detective (Kathryn Ekblad), an admired and desired, flawed and endowed with the “law”, heroine. She is a daughter on the hunt for her mother, eating dreams and unearthing truth along the way. The ensemble lobby facts about her to each other and to the audience, and never deign us with an explanation of purpose. Ekblad, camouflaged in the choreographed sequences, distinguishes herself only when she is allowed to dwell on the emotions associated with losing her mother. She does so well, but simultaneously slows down what seems to be a preset, haphazard pace for the piece.

If anything, the play communicates a very feminist perspective, promoting girl power in its portrayal of women who are independent, fancy-free, and sexy. It demonstrates what transpires with the presence of women, and delineates the dream-scape that occurs without them. With the telling line that “the mothers are usually missing in fairytales”, the very notion that a girl's flights of fancy exist because of the absence of a strong, maternal presence is implied. Or, if you prefer, all mothers are and perhaps should be stolen away into dance, and thereby, validates escapism. Of course, this is merely speculation, as no strong disposition towards either exists. Historical heroines such as Amelia Earhart are name-dropped, and stories about strong women are folded unto stories like streams of birthday cake batter.

Whitney Stock's choreography is fun and imaginative, but executed clumsily by the troupe. They are hopelessly out of sync, and those that repeatedly flub their steps are placed at the outskirts. In character, they struggle to distinguish themselves from each other and nondescript names such as Birthday and Housekeeper are fitting. Ironically, with all the activity developing onstage, the principal players of this piece are behind the scenes, or more apropos, the vignettes. Chris Rummel provides eerie sound effects and a good score. French selects costumes that are easily augmented and stripped away to allow for the fluid and frequent changes.

The Girl Detective appears to be bent on investigating the substance of the dreams of girls. From a world that doesn't necessitate eating to naughty indulgence, it is as much a work of inward expression as it is a work of psychoanalytical regression. Here, girls are free to pirouette and plie through their musings with no lasting consequences. There's something to be said about the allure of that world. But we need more that what's presented here to access it.
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Through March 17th. Connelly Theater220 E. 4th St.New York, NY 10009 Ticket Price: $15 Ticket Information: TheaterMania: 212-352-3101; http://www.theatermania.com

The Girl Detective

This adaptation and staging of The Girl Detective is an admirable effort, but it lacks the illusory stagecraft necessary to get this type of narrative off the ground. The cast is leaking energy from a lack of focus and cohesion, and while the dancing is exciting, it's simply not enough.

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

It's a very ambitious thing, to adapt a metafictional short story. What works well on the page in parable, or metaphor, or parallel is hard to translate to stage -- harder still when the work is geared so specifically for the page itself. To go through all that effort to convert a difficult story means that you're bringing passion to the project, and I wish I had nothing but cheery things to say for Bridgette Dunlap's efforts to recreate Kelly Link's short story, The Girl Detective. But while the show begins at a brisk and breezy tempo, filled with omniscient narrators whizzing in and out of scenes and bank-robbing tap dancers stealing the show, the longer the play continues, the harder it is to figure out what exactly the point is. In a story, you have the luxury of rereading a section; on stage, the work has an obligation to be clearer to its audience -- at least, it should be, if your goal is to entertain.

Here's the kicker: despite the complicated layers of the show, the story has a lyricism that does carry over well into the theater, and the plot--adapted originally from Grimm's Fairy Tales (story 133 - "The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces") and merged with the idea of Persephone's Underworld by Link--has a mystical beauty to it. The jazz dancing brings Chicago to mind (albeit an amateur version: the actors haven't perfected Whitney Stock's choreography yet), and the secretive journeys across rivers to hidden dance-halls is very Prohibition-era. Even when you're completely at a loss, the catchy lines ("Only heroes and girl detectives go to the Underworld on purpose") and the catchy dances keep you tuned in.

I'm not a fan of the play's resolution, and I find the ambiguity of many of the scenes to be what some might call a "negative choice" in the theater. The work is very intellectual, which means that there aren't clear actions in the scenes, and as a result, the already inexperienced cast ends up speaking most of the lines, rather than acting them. Many deliveries are either too much over the top, or underplayed, and the only person who really shines is Kathryn Ekblad, who plays the Girl Detective. At its heart, the show is a play about a girl looking for her mother; it's very telling that all the bells and whistles fade away when the Girl Detective at last gets the opportunity to rhapsodize about her missing parent. Her counterpart, Guy (solidly but blandly played by Ben Wood), is stuck narrating from afar (a tree, actually), and what he needs is never clear, unless what he's after is indifference.

I respect the director's desire to adapt The Girl Detective, but she doesn't have the budget to be as dreamlike or visual as the piece requires (the opening montage makes the work seem campy, not surreal). Until she finds a way to make the drama more theatrical (and better synchronizes the cast), this show is a mystery that cannot be solved.

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The Connelly Theater (200 East 4th Street)
Tickets (212-352-3101): $15.00
Performances: Thursday-Sunday @ 8:00

Journey's End

A World War I period piece focussed on the British defense of a doomed bunker, Journey's End is an honest account of war: the importance of camaraderie, the mind-numbing necessity of alcohol, and the ever-present fear. For all the lack of wartime action onstage, the direction and technical work that's gone into this production makes me see light in the future of Broadway revivals; it's must-see theater.

Photo: Paul Kolnik

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

When R.C. Sherriff wrote Journey's End in 1928, he meant for it to be an honest, celebratory depiction of what he and his comrades went through, fighting for Britain in World War I. Regardless of how we much of an anti-war play it comes across as now (and it's impossible not to see the futility of war in this drama, set in an underground bunker over the course of four, terse 1918 days), the fact that Sherriff wrote the play with such open-minded wit makes it that much stronger as a stunning theatrical work. The simple truth of real, fleshed out characters--not the overdone proselytizing of The Vertical Hour or other "modern" pieces of propaganda--camaraderie does more to evoke emotions than intellectual discussions of such important matters.

Films like Saving Private Ryan and the HBO limited series, Band of Brothers, knew this and were the stronger for it, crafting silent scenes that spoke as much as the action. Journey's End, which is live and on a Broadway stage, can't do the same special effects, so instead the play focuses simply on the characters, with the war taking place just a few feet aboveground, an ominous presence brought to life by Gregory Clarke's spectacular sound effects. As for the bunker (designed by Jonathan Fensom), it's a dank, rat-infested mess, barely lit by candles (kudos to Jason Taylor's dim lighting), and the cramped quarters--wooden walls and poles pressing in from all sides--exacerbate the tension of the piece.

I've spent so much time establishing place (before even mentioning the excellent ensemble or the dashing director) because the world itself of this play is as much a character as anyone else, and because things like that too often go overlooked. But they're important to note; one of the reasons Journey's End is such a great play is that the pieces all work together--even the curtain call is gloriously rigged to continue the emotional toll of the show, and I'm glad that a director (David Grindley) finally had the balls to carry the reality of the theater past the threshold of the curtain. Within the show itself, he manages to carry more tension on a bare stage (the characters are all presumed to be fighting in the trenches) than many directors accomplish in their whole careers. One pivotal scene, filled with heartbreaking subtext, involves the fifteen minutes of preparation before what is essentially a suicide mission: the two officers deliberately keep switching the topic in order to clear their minds of their impending deaths (it's no surprise that another officer cracks) and their casual conversation about the English countryside is painfully oblique.

What I like most about the play's execution is that Sherriff's characters avoid the all-too-easy trap of stereotype. Though there are comic characters, like the rotund and mustached Trotter (John Ahlin), they are not just so. In Trotter's case, he is just a man coping with the constant pressure as best he can: "War is bad enough already, but war without pepper--it's bloody awful." In the case of our whiskey-addled protagonist, Captain Stanhope (Hugh Dancy), it takes a bottle to keep the demons at bay, and his wizened, gentle second-in-command, Osborne (Boyd Gaines) to keep him sane (and to tuck him in at night). Our heroes are the characters like Raleigh (Stark Sands), a newly minted officer who is perfect for leading nighttime raids through mortar-ripped holes in the enemy lines on account of his naivety about suicide. In this case, Raleigh also doubles as a connection to Stanhope's former life, which bolsters the awful truth that men must reinvent themselves in war: in order to survive, they must kill who they once were.

Journey's End, whether Sherriff meant it or not, makes for a relevant revival (at last!) on the Broadway stage, and is a far tighter production than last year's Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (perhaps because the play enlists theater veterans rather than television plebes). It's gripping, and utterly immersing: to the usher who recommended I bring a handkerchief: you were right.

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Belasco Theater (111 West 44th Street)
Tickets (212-239-6200): $36.25-96.25
Performances: Tuesday-Saturday @ 8; Wednesday & Saturday @ 2; Sunday @ 3

BFF

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