Theft of Imagination

What Theft of Imagination? All I see on display in David Negrin's new anti-war play about a last ditch attempt to broker piece between two allegorical nations is a ton of imagination, a precise line of thought that so drives the show that we can use our own imaginations to fill in the budgetary gaps in set and the occasional lapses in acting.


Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

Diplomacy, like theater, is the art of the possible: it's an act of convincing an audience, captive or otherwise, of something that does not necessarily exist. In the case of Theft of Imagination, it's a hard battle, considering that this free production, part of the PEACE ON WAR festival, is done largely with no set and an occasionally exaggerated cast. But it's also a leap of imagination well worth taking, as David Negrin's script is a sharp series of clashes between the diplomats of two opposite (but all the more similar) countries on the brink of war, and a well-planned parallel between the idealism of the youthful negotiators and their aggressive and adult handlers. And though Kat Chamberlain (who co-directs with Negrin) has little to work with on set, she plays up the split-screen action of the two sides very nicely: she really only needs a fight choreographer and some better sound effects.

Aside from a lackluster opening by a blustering priest straight out of Shakespearean dinner theater (Brad Russell), Theft of Imagination benefits most from its pacing. It opens with an ultimatum (there will be thirteen days to make peace, or the nations will go to war), quickly introduces the diplomats (an introverted boy and an outgoing boy), and then plunges them into high-stakes negotiation. Negrin's references to chess and diplomatic strategy (references to "blocks" and "cascades" are thrown around, as well as "misappraisal") keep the talks interesting, and the differences in character keep them dramatic. And don't be fooled by their archetypal names: though they begin committed to their "names," it isn't long before Outgoing Boy (Max Hambleton) is using more than his laid-back mouth, or before Introverted Boy (Kit Redding) learns to think with his heart and not just his mind.

As the days pass in a flurry of proposals and counterproposals, the two slowly begin to form a friendship, only to find that their handlers aren't looking for peace. This is where Negrin falls into a theatrical trap: he pads (unnecessarily, as it turns out) the handlers out, giving them a series of conversations outside the conference room where they speak about their hopes and insecurities. But in the second act, those characters become less human and more mechanical, with their words becoming just that -- words -- with no motivation or conviction behind them. Whereas Christopher Hurt is able to show growth (ironically, as the Outgoing Boy's Handler, he is the rigid and gaunt one), Angus Hepburn is locked into a sly and increasingly smug role. Their lines become the stuff of cheap television dramas: "If they stay on the path...." [conspiratorial pause] "Then we shall have to place land mines." As father-figures, guiding their children, they are humanized and all the more mysterious; outside of that, they're just villains.

I make these suggestions because at two and a half hours, the show runs a little long. There aren't enough subplots to require such length, and there are more than a few scenes (especially toward the end) that start to feel redundant, and while Negrin finds dozens of ways for his Introverted Boy to say "no" (he even turns it into a fun little game), the centralized action of the play doesn't give him the room to expand his initial parallels. Theft of Imagination ends up relying overly on the charisma of Mr. Hambleton and his character's outside-the-box thinking: if it can remain fair and balanced, it'll be an even better play.

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Players Theater (115 MacDougal Street)
Tickets: FREE ($20 suggested donation)
Performances (through 12/9): Thurs. - Sat. @ 8:00; Sun. @ 2:00 [dark Thanksgiving week]

Baby with the Bathwater

Just when you thought it was safe to have a baby, Christopher Durang's hilarious (and hopeful) look at family values, parentage, and maturation (despite it all), is back on the stage. Baby with the Bathwater is no-holds-barred comedy, and under Kevin Connell's playful direction and the cast's exaggerated smiles, the play is as relevant now (if not more) as when it premiered in '84.

Victor Verhaeghe, Anna Fitzwater, and Karen Culp look at the baby.
(Photo/Randy Morrison)

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

John (Victor Verhaeghe), a despairingly incompetent and increasingly drunk father, has a song he likes to sing: "Hush little baby, don't you cry/or Mama's gonna give you a big black eye." Those aren't the words to the song, and he despairingly knows as much, but in a world of foamy floor mats, hazardous alphabet cubes, and an LSD-inspired wallpaper of bright pink polka dots, they might as well be. Baby With the Bathwater, first penned by Christopher Durang in 1984, is a glorious satire on bringing up baby, without any childproofing, let alone adult proofing. There are sharp edges everywhere, from his wife Helen's (Karen Culp) passive-aggressive comas that say so much about our so-called "loving" relationships to their Nanny's (Anna Fitzwater) perverse, baby-shaking Mary Poppins shtick. Under Kevin Connell's crisp direction, even the pre-show is rich with the wicked underbelly of family values: a retro edutainment tape plays congratulating a family on successfully teaching their child about menstruation.

Baby with the Bathwater is a difficult sort of comedy, the kind that you'd get if George Carlin had been George Carlin instead of Mr. Conductor on Shining Time Station. It is unrelentingly funny, but repetitiously so, which requires that the actors remain fresh and absurdly perky. In this, Ground UP Productions has nailed the casting, with Mr. Verhaeghe visibly unraveling, and Ms. Culp always looking for affection (despite her own affectation) in new and unusual ways. They are gross exaggerations, but pleasantly so, and Gina Restani, playing a variety of straight women (well, by comparison at least), puts their comedy in modulation, and Ms. Fitzwater, as a literal handful of psychoses, continues to distort their well-intentioned efforts. As for their son Daisy (Jeremy King), he's exactly what you'd expect of such parents, when he eventually appears toward the tail end of the show. Standing in a spotlight, speaking to an unseen psychiatrist, he is wide-eyed, twitchy, and soft-spoken, a product of days spent lying depressed in a laundry basket or running suicidally toward buses.

According to the crazed schoolmarm Mrs. Willoughby, such suffering never fails to produce great art, and Daisy's "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" essay truly sounds like "Donald Barthleme meets Sesame Street." (It's also suspiciously like the more adult Matt's manic monologues in Durang's 1985 play, The Marriage of Bette and Boo.) Fun as some might find the suffering prose of Woolf or Plath, Durang isn't interested in plumbing the depths of depression so much as he is in distorting them to comedic highs, and Baby with the Bathwater is a success. Here, The Brothers Karamazov is used to explain that everything is permitted because there is no God, and that there is therefore "no right or wrong, only fun": with that motto in mind, one can only delight (and even find hope) in the thought that no matter how insane your parents were, life goes on.

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Manhattan Theater Source (177 MacDougal Street)
Performances (through 11/17): Wed. - Fri. @ 8 | Sat. @ 2 & 8
Tickets (212-352-3101): $20.00

Secret Order

Secret Order is an actor's play, full of barbed lines, wry deliveries, and so little substance that the play revolves around exaggeration and half-truths. That said, no matter how well Bob Clyman arms them with lines, or Charles Towers removes all other distractions from their work, the play fails if the actors aren't all on their game, and Larry Pine has a ways to go before he's comfortable enough to play the confident Dr. Brock.

Photo/Carol Rosegg

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

Chemical strings like bc12 and p55 have never been so exciting to the layman before: in that regard, Bob Clyman's new Mametian play is a success. At the same time, Clyman builds medical suspense at the cost of realism, amping up the basest components of character so that for all their bellowing, they are unflappable in the dramatic wind. Thankfully, it's not all hot air: Clyman's plotting is airtight (if a bit predictable), and although the characters are obvious, when the actors are on, they're an exaggerated delight.

We first meet William Shumway (Dan Colman), the well-intentioned rube of the play, a scientist from Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, who may have just stumbled upon the cure for cancer. It isn't long before he's approached by the brusque and confident Robert Brock (Larry Pine), a twice-nominated scientist, respected elder, and father figure, all rolled into one. He's quickly coerced into a job with Hill-Matheson in New York City (the pacing zips from lecture to phone call to live visit to job in under three minutes of smooth storytelling), and soon after meets an excitable undergraduate, Alice Curiton (Jessi Campbell), and irritable codger, Saul Roth (Kenneth Tigar), his jealous rival from Toxicology. As pressures mount (with high expectations generated and then manufactured by Dr. Brock), Shumway makes an unethical decision to hide his results: not lying, exactly, but far from honest. Charles Tower's direction, minimal in design, and always jumping to the middle of action, helps to make the unspoken conflict into a central character: Shumway is always caught in the spotlight.

But the play falters when the characters miss their beats: rhythms that are already artificially inflated really need to be said by an actor with a pulse. When Larry Pine is on, the show is electric, sucked into his brash and biting enthusiasm ("My grandson talks about fair, and he's five."), his manipulative wit ("Why bother lying to him if he doesn't know it's a lie?"), and his sardonic affability ("Were you severely beaten as a small boy for talking too much?"). But more often than not, Pine is stumbling over his lines, looking far from persuasive: blustery, yes, but effective, no. And this in turn spoils the dynamic between him and Mr. Colman, who is obviously playing dumb, holding his charisma in reserve so as to play a struggling scientist. Worse still, when Pine loses his humanity, he makes Mr. Tigar seem even less likeable, more a malicious force for revenge than the slighted and wrathful elder that he should be. In turn, between all these exaggerated archetypes, Ms. Campbell gets lost in the kerfuffle, a pushy character who is so likable that she's forgettable.

Ultimately, the play doesn't really say anything that's all too surprising about the medical industry, and the shallow ethics on display, all half-truths and dodges, aren't as loaded as Clyman would like them to be. The play actually works best in the awkward relationship between prideful father-figure (Brock) and prodigious son (Shumway), which again, only works when Mr. Pine is nailing his lines. But Clyman doesn't have that much of a spine to fall back on: beyond his scathing lines and accessible science, Secret Order is an actor's play, and that's no secret.

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59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street)
Performances (through 12/9): Tues. - Sat. @ 8 | Sat. @ 2 | Sun. @ 3 & 7
Tickets (212-279-4200): $50.00

Corn Bread & Feta Cheese: Growing Up Fat and Albanian

An Albanian woman spends her life trying to divide herself from her heritage until she learns to love and embrace it. This solo comedy is engaging and fun, but the history lesson and pride in Albania is superseded by the multiple European and American cultures that influenced it....................................................

Reviewed by Cindy Pierre

To grow up Albanian is hard. To grow up fat and Albanian is even worse. In Elza Zagreda's Corn Bread & Feta Cheese: Growing Up Fat and Albanian, the writer and performer cycles through the 80s, the worth of women in the Kanun (the Albanian bible) and gunshot weddings (yes, gunshots, gunshots from guns that get hidden in the underpants of children when cops are around) to get to the other part of her being, the part that isn't tied to her roots. But after jumping continents and jumping states, Zagreda finds that such a part does not exist. Try as she may, she simply can't divorce herself from her little-known town and country. But as she paints such an eclectic picture of her early experiences, it's hard to imagine why she would want to.

In this 80-minute show that has been performed for three years counting, Zagreda takes us through her rough childhood as the eldest of four girls in her family and the disappointments associated with not being born male and a rightful heir to the family name and property. She recalls how difficult it was to blossom into womanhood in her culture, where women's rights were nil and the only profession that she could ever strive towards was to become a Nuse (wife) and satisfy her husband. Through the timely integration of voiceover clips, Zagreda is able to convey the heavy hand that the Kanun and men have on a woman's propriety. There would be no wonder in why Zagreda balked at growing up Albanian but for a few things: although the oppression and depression that she felt are clear, she also highlights a great sense of family within her community, a coveted experience for many. Also, her elaborate descriptions of parties and the various personalities that she mimics wonderfully under Vincent Marano's direction are done so jovially that it's difficult to fathom her torture. Even sheep herding, a lucrative profession for the rural country, elicits a smirk or two.

Another matter that remains ambiguous is the true essence of Albania, though that is the very thing that the premise of the show rests upon. Zagreda tries to bring awareness of Albania to the stage, but very little of its etymology and antiquity is addressed. That would have been helpful in light of the fact that Greek and Italian references are rampant both in characters and in customs. For instance, the use of the well-known Greek expression "Ooompa!" during festivities and the importance of foods such as Italian pasta to Albanian cuisine that rivals their famed corn bread and feta cheese. Although Greece and Italy did have great influence in forming Albania's culture and history, the land of Albania did exist prior to that, populated by Illyrians (Indo-Europeans) that we don't really hear about here. And this show is also saturated with American pop culture and music, more so than the folk music of the many clans that reside there. But this can also be partially attributed to the fact that Zagreda and her family lived both in New York (the Bronx) and Florida. Interestingly enough, Zagreda does comment about the fact that the language of Albania has no known root, so perhaps the lack of distinguishing Albanian characteristics stems from lost facts.

Zagreda puts her heart and soul into Corn Bread & Feta Cheese, creating a warm, friendly atmosphere for her country folk and everyone else alike. Although there are instances where Zagreda should project her voice more, her ability to manipulate you into good cheer is clear. Also, you may be stumped by the various Albanian terms used with few translations, but the show is still funny and endearing. Part-standup, part-therapy, and part-storytelling, you'll never forget that you've met at least one Albanian in your lifetime.

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Through November 24th. Tickets: $22. TheaterMania at 212-352-3101.

Players Theatre 115 MacDougal Street New York, NY

The Broadway Strike

Far be it from any of us here at New Theater Corps to judge the actions of producers or stagehands, but rather than bemoan the absence of shows we were looking forward to, like August: Osage County or The Farnsworth Invention, why not take this as a valuable opportunity to explore some of the Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway shows that we try to shed light on each week? The season's far from over, and we'll keep you posted with notes from the field as we continue to highlight some of the hits and misses off the Great White Way.

Archipelago

Try as Emerie Snyder does to unify these playlets in staging and theme, the ten segments of Archipelago (some newly commissioned, some salvaged) come across as crude entertainment. There isn't enough time for these characters to change, nor do they ever have a catharsis of closure or camaraderie, and that makes the show continue to seem like it's simply developing, and nothing more.

Photo/Joanna Wilson Photography

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

The way an island is formed, specifically an archipelago of them, is through random tectonic shifts on the ocean floor that cause volcanic rock to rush up and solidify on the surface. That said, it seems a bit disingenuous for a company that calls itself the Intentional Theatre Group to plan out a series of isolated incidents that bubble to the surface and blot out the sea. And sure enough, some of the ten one-act islands are half-formed in execution, over-produced and controlled so tightly that they have no room to develop of their own volition. At the same time, however, this group has managed to force some undiscovered riches to the surface, commissioning new and old playwrights alike (or borrowing from rarely produced offerings) and bravely producing the results. And thanks to the smooth direction of Emerie Snyder, the evening is spent hopping from one loamy substance to the next: the bad plays are quickly forgotten, and we're willing to jump, as the set is reconfigured -- sculpted -- into a new land, waiting and wanting to see what's next.

Where the playlets stumble most is in their dishonesty, moments where either the playwright or actor fails to address the most important concerns: why tell this story, and to whom are you speaking? In Davy Rothbart's "Scarface," the imprisoned hero must convince his wife to come upstate, children in tow, to make him look good in court, but the one-sided phone conversation lacks immediacy from actor Gavin-Keith Umeh and Rothbart sticks him with false humanity in his anecdotal attempts to help his children kill and dispose of a bat. This sometimes calm, sometimes enraged man has no real life, no real environment, and it becomes impossible to place him.

On the opposite end, Brian Patrick Leahy's "Cranberry" locks onto a unique story about a suicide artist who has strapped enough dynamite to her chest to make sure that when she explodes, the four canvases that surround her will literally make her mark for her. Even when actress Therese Barbato slips into an exaggerative mania on the phone with random interviewers (who we again have no attachment to or through), the idea is captivating.

As a state of theater, Archipelago unwittingly provides a measure of how far a playwright will go to stand out in this simplest and most communicative of forms: the direct monologue. Some, like Sarah Carbiener, revert to cliches, as in her madness-stricken narrative "The Cat's Fault." Others, like Sheila Callaghan in "Hold This" break the text up so unconventionally that the fragments (at least as performed by Nick Lewis) are hard to piece together. Then again, we are also treated to the premieres of Anton Dudley's "Up Here/In Here" and Erica Rosbe's "Orbit," not to mention the classic Beckett pantomime of despair, "Act Without Words I" (a bit noncommittally performed by Daniel Owen Dungan, though the malaise works for this scene). In "Up Here/In Here," Abigail (Lethia Nall) speaks in dreamlike repetition about her broken-glass dreams of the son she has, now dead, a sing-song approach that resembles the intentional parsing of Jenny Schwartz. And in "Orbit," Jeremy (Dan Via) deals with being the last man alive by erratically confiding in us, the stars surrounding his space station, the story of his lonely narcissism. With engaging presentations and charismatic roles, it's no surprise that these are the two best actors of the evening.

Unfortunately, Archipelago never comes together, despite a bookending recording that attempts to put the collection in context. Snyder's direction is focused so much on the pieces that she avoids dealing with the whole, and as a result, the pieces jostle against one another, the better parts sinking the others, rather than merging to create a more solid whole. There's much to be said for this sort of cruise-line theater tourism (you can gain a lot from briefly visiting a series of disparate plays), but the overall message comes as a bit cheap and somewhat crude: the catharsis of loneliness everyone's waiting for never comes.

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Altered Stages (212 West 29th Street)
Performances (through 11/18): Wed. - Sat. @ 8:00 | Sat. & Sun. @ 2:00
Tickets (212-868-4444): $18.00

Crime and Punishment

Dostoevsky's classic novel makes an excellent transition to the stage in this dramatically and psychologically focused retelling of Crime and Punishment. From the cramped set to the floodlights of truth and repression to the tightly mirrored direction to the elegant and subtle acting, the Writers' Theatre isn't being cruel, nor unusual (but not easy either); just exactly the sort of ninety-minute sentence one hopes for.

Photo/Courtesy of Writers' Theatre

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

Adaptations of stories rarely work, especially when they're epic, psychological romps through a tortured psyche, as is the case with Dostoevsky's classic Crime and Punishment. But Chicago's Writers' Theatre doesn't bother trying to fit the novel onto the stage; instead, Eugene Lee's set focuses the action with a cramped series of asylum-like doors that pin Raskolnikov, like some rare butterfly, beneath high-vaulted buckets of light and two low-hanging, interrogative ceiling lamps. The story does away with the third-person narrative and traps us beside the tortured intellectual as his mind punishes him -- physically and mentally -- for his murderous sin. For emphasis, Jesus hangs from a large cross, silently observing through his own blessed pain.

What Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus have accomplished is an abridgment that lends a real dramatic arc to the structure, doubling back for emphasis on the keys to Raskolnikov's salvation (the redemptive Lazarus) or replaying, in slow motion and shuddering gasps, our hero's double homicide. As for director Michael Halberstam, by simplifying the murders to their implications and clothes-strewn, body-twitching aftermath, he enables us, as did Dostoevsky, to still relate to this troubled protagonist, a man at odds with his own convoluted theories of the extraordinary people (like Newton, like Napoleon) who are entitled to kill for the greater good, and of his own simultaneous desire to be so transcendentally powerful. (He is, as costumer Theresa Squire never lets us forget, one step from vagrancy.)

The final key in the production is Raskolnikov himself, played by an endearingly restrained and soft-spoken Scott Parkinson. He stands in a reductive way that makes him seem to take up even less space, and he slumps against walls with a visible shudder (that "cold shiver of murder"). Halberstam often uses the revolving walls to strand Raskolnikov alone, without his beloved Sonia (Susan Bennett), his would-be confessor, or free of Porfiry Petrovich (John Judd), his equally calm and mannered pursuer (think of a more patient Javert). At times like this, Raskolnikov pleads directly with us, trying to convince us of the convictions it is clear he no longer holds, pushing off his cold nightmares onto us. (Though it is too early, the ghostly flickering of the Keith Parham's lights bring to mind the foreboding atmosphere of death row.)

Crime and Punishment isn't epic anymore; it's essential. The play is direct and haunting, relevant and true, and filled with the kind of introspection rarely seen outside of Shakespearean tragedy. And best of all, because it so fairly depicts the complex ideas discussed by Dostoevsky, it makes the audience want to rush out and buy a copy of this fantastic novel. As Writers' Theater grows, Oprah may need to watch her back.

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59E59 Theaters: Studio B (59 East 59th Street)
Tickets (212-279-4200): $35.00
Performances (through 12/2): Tues. - Sat. @ 8:15 | Sat. @ 2:15 | Sun. @ 3:15 & 7:15

Bottomless

Amusing but unsatisfying, Bottomless gives us an inside look at two women you hope to never encounter in the dressing room.

Review by Elizabeth Devlin

The types of conversations you can overhear in women’s dressing rooms vary from the inane to the scandalous, and in Bottomless, a new play by Kellie Arens, we are offered both. The first act gives us the inside of the dressing room, where frustrated, unsuccessful actress Portia is trying to find the perfect pair of jeans. (A task that would, in reality, take not just 90 minutes but rather up to 90 days). She goes on about her obsession with her handsome, unmotivated boyfriend, while prattling about her career and her relationship with best friend Dolly, who is waiting on the other side of the dressing room curtain. She also takes a Hoodia diet pill every 5 minutes. While some of the observations about life and herself are amusing, the character is so self-absorbed you easily lose interest in her trials and tribulations.

The second act shows everything from Dolly’s point of view, with the exchanges between the friends remaining mostly the same, but we are spared most of Dolly’s humorous, but conceited, chatter. Instead, we are introduced to a multi-faceted character in Dolly, someone who is disturbed by past experiences which cripples her life and social relationships today. The juxtaposition between the friends’ airy chatter and the moments of darkness is not definitive enough to create sympathy for the characters, although it is difficult to tell whether this is a result of the acting or the writing.

If the play is meant to amuse, it could easily do that in a much more condensed version. If the goal is to have humor balance the serious emotional damage that Dolly (and on some level, Portia) has to deal with, those somber moments would need to feel more grounded.

Running through November 24, Bottomless will be performed at the Bowery Poetry Club, located at 308 Bowery, between Houston & Bleecker Streets. Show times are Saturdays at 8pm. Tickets are $18.00.

The "Ladies" of Avignon

The prostitutes that inspired Picasso's Ladies of Avignon painting come alive in Thalia Spanish Theatre's production of Jaime Salom's drama. Although this bilingual production is entertaining and reasonably smooth with an imaginative set design, the political climate during the painting's conception and the introduction of cubism is barely touched upon, making it more fluff than tough..........................................................
Reviewed by Cindy Pierre


In 1907, Spanish sculptor and painter Pablo Picasso completed his most famous work, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, depicting five prostitutes in a brothel on Avignon street in Barcelona. 100 years later, Jaime Salom breathes life into these mysterious "ladies" and turns them into vibrant, entertaining characters in The "Ladies" of Avignon (or, Las "Senoritas" de Avinon). Here, they are treated not as the symbols of cubism and the influence of African art that critics are fond of analyzing, but rather as hot-blooded, emotionally frayed women who were the company of Picasso as he was penniless and lustful. Unfortunately, there's simply way too much focus on the women's personal lives and occupation. A lot more consideration for the substance of the painting and the political climate surrounding it would have gone a long way to making this show not only amusing, but poignant.


Picasso (Raul Sigmund Julia, son of Raul Rafael Julia of Addams Family fame) is immediately established as passionate and fleshly, and his portrayal as such never deviates. Julia steps into Picasso's charm, endearing drunkenness, and handsomeness easily, but Salom only gives him a one-dimensional character to play with. Strangely enough, his limitations suit the "ladies" of Avignon just fine. When we are introduced to the "ladies," they look the part in authentic, beautiful period costumes by America Barrera. The costumes may mislead until one considers that 100 years ago, the prostitution industry was well-regulated and organized, and that the normal garb for everyone covered more skin, regardless of whether they were gentlewomen or pros. They look like esteemed members of society until the cackling and vulgar talk begins. Antonia (Ivette Oliveras) is especially feisty, mincing no words when it comes to their profession, and dealing in too much reality to sugarcoat it. They discuss Picasso's latest painting, and try to guess just which one of the "scarecrows" represent them. Salom begins the play with the end, and the scenes that follow are a fictional recount of Picasso's muses and their lives.


Madame (Soledad Lopez) runs a tight ship at her brothel. There is the dreamer and love interest of Picasso, Rosita (Angela Perez), her younger, perpetually laughing sister Pepita (Loena Jorge), morbidly depressed Pilar (Kathy Tejada) and the aforementioned Antonia. Sofia (Coco Nunez), Madame's daughter, runs the household, but does not partake in the servicing. The cast works exceptionally well together, playing off of each other's comedic timing and sexiness. They prance around in negligees, but never create an atmosphere that is trashy or exceedingly sexual. Their colorful corsets and dresses work wonderfully against Angel Gil Orrios' off-white and translucent set. Their melodrama is standard fare for this type of setting, but they get in trouble whenever a sob story is introduced. Because of the light mood created by the revelry, any hope of creating a genuine, tender moment or a serious one is lost. Picasso and the women giggle, drink and are merry, and the good times that they create are hard to shake. As a result, the interjections of deep discussions seem spurious, and the passing references to the importance of Picasso's art do not have the impact that they should.


Although some of the scene changes are rocky, the production is well-executed. Orrios uses sheer screens and projections for dramatic effect, both in splitting the stage into various locations and for creating allure and mystery. Under his direction, the cast is energetic and infectious. Charles Philip Thomas' English version (produced on alternate nights of the run) is full of colorful euphemisms that are engaging and eye-popping, including a brazen reference to golden showers (or urolagnia for the clinically conscious). However, Salom could have used this play as an opportunity to explore broader topics, particularly when the importance of the artist and the painting in question are broad in scope. The play also has a delayed ending that lacks punctuation. Nevertheless, if you're simply looking to be amused and not enlightened, The "Ladies" of Avignon is a fine choice.
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Through November 11th. TICKETS: $25 718-729-3880.
Thalia Spanish Theatre, 41-17 Greenpoint Avenue, Sunnyside, Queens

Arpeggio

Is Arpeggio a farcical look at our culture’s dependence both on electronic distractions and the consumerism driven by our obsession with celebrities? Or is it a drama about one slightly off-kilter girl’s unhealthy fixation? Is it a tragedy? A murder-mystery? A meditation on the isolation inherent in modern urban life? Even several promising performances can’t save Arpeggio from collapsing under the weight of all of the above.


Photo by Vanessa Lozano

Reviewed by Ilena George

When Midwestern Gerry (Allison Ikin) moves to New York, she does so alone: without friends, a job, or an apartment. After moving in with Zeb (Andy Travis), a neurotic writer who does not watch television or listen to music because “We fill our lives with this stuff that keeps us from thinking,” Gerry finds a devoted friend in Zeb and an arch-nemesis in Zeb’s childhood friend and current employer, pop singer Cindy Hall (Kristina Kohl). Part of why Zeb allowed Gerry to move in was because she was not as instantly wowed by Zeb’s connection to a celebrity as most of his prior roommates had been. Eventually, Gerry confesses that she is unmoved by Cindy’s celebrity because she is the secret girlfriend of soulful crooner Tobin Grey (Jonathan Albert). Or is she?

Punctuated by live music by Tobin and his band, one of the themes of Arpeggio is separating out truth and reality from the gossip and confabulation that surrounds celebrities. As Gerry, Allison Ikin embodies the perfect mixture of innocence and latent insanity. But once the initial mystery surrounding Gerry’s claim is resolved, the main thrust of the story remains the rivalry between Cindy and Gerry. Waiting for the escalating tension between them to erupt is not nearly as suspenseful as parsing out the enigma Gerry presents.

Although Zeb and Gerry’s interactions can be engaging and entertaining, the other characters feel shoehorned into the story. This is particularly true of Zeb’s boyfriend, Ricardo (Marino Antonio Miniño), whom Gerry marries in order to allow him to remain in America. But his tendency to rant about the country’s unfair immigration policies feels as though it belongs in a different play entirely.

The play is not quite intimate enough to be a piercing look at one girl’s fixation on a particular celebrity. Nor does it effectively hold up a mirror to the generation of twentysomethings looking for their place in the world: Gerry and Zeb’s on the nature of our unnamed generation and the fact that teenagers drive the economy as the biggest consumers of pop culture are sometimes insightful but more often stilted. “We define ourselves by our taste in music rather than our politics,” Zeb says. This flavor of conversation you might sample on the floor of a college dorm room at 4 am, but is perhaps not the most engaging way to make a point outside that venue. Nor was it a skewering of the over-the-top nature of celebrity lifestyles and society’s devotion to them. However, one moment that more successfully lampooned the current state of pop culture, especially pop music, was Cindy’s solo act, where she sings “Shopping Around,” while dancing with a chair. The fact that Cindy is much older than her target audience, her overtly sexual dance moves, and the song’s lyrics, (“I get my kicks shoppin’ around./Baby, that’s just how it is./A new voice speaks and I like the sound/Variety is sung in my key.”) which are a pretty fair, even generous, approximation of something you might hear on the radio, make for an entertaining opening to the second act and one that makes several points about the music industry without necessarily spelling them out for the audience. But soon afterwards, with the addition of a melodramatic murder-mystery, the play tries to wear too many hats. Gerry defined the show’s title, saying, “Arpeggio allows you to hear the truth of each note,” but in Arpeggio, the truths about society come through with static.
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Arpeggio by David Stallings, music by Alec Bridges
Directed by Cristina Alicea
45th Street Theatre (354 West 45th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues)
November 1 – November 18
Tickets: $20-$25, (212) 352-3101 or www.theatermania.com

Ryuji Sawa: The Return

Famed Japanese impresario Ryuji Sawa leads a troupe of 11 to dazzle us with comedy, quick change, geishas, kabuki dance, singing, and much more.

Photo caption (L-R): Ryuji Sawa and Ryoki Kiuchi

Courtesy of David Gibbs/DARR Publicity

Reviewed by Cindy Pierre

What were you doing when you were 12? Were you hiding from your teacher behind a kid at school, playing video games until your thumbs were raw, or waiting for your life to begin? If you're Ozora Takami, you're doing your unintentional best to steal the show from Ryuji Sawa with your fan and sword prowess in Theater For a New City's production of Ryuji Sawa: The Return. Not that the acclaimed Japanese film, theater and TV star doesn't put on a show. At 70 years old, he can still thrill with his knee-slapping comedy, singing, and charismatic presence. And he does it with very little dialogue by paying homage to Japan's illustrious past as well as a nod to America's (most notably in a clever rendition of Michael Jackson's thriller). But in featuring this prodigy in two magnificent solos, you can't help but compare the tried and the new, and hope that the latter comes out to give you more. Yet, Takami is also testament to Sawa's ability to groom such a spectacle of talent.

Lips and Lucky Cheng's ain't got nothing on the drag in the form of geishas in this show, but our very own downtowners could show Sawa a thing or two about the art of the imagination. The opening teaser in which Takami comes out as a little dude and transforms into a lady takes too long and falls flat. But if you're the type who likes to know how the trick works before seeing the trick, you'll be wowed just the same. Still, there's enough impressive drumming, skits, kabuki dance, harakiri and swordplay (Kill Bill fans will want a stronger display, not the pretense here) stuffed into 90 minutes to titillate you. Now what will you be doing when you're 70?

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Through November 11th.
Tickets (212-352-3101): $30

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th & 10th Streets)

Humans Anonymous

Humans Anonymous is overstuffed with good will and funny comedy. That's nothing to feel bad about, so don't help Kate Hewlett's excellent play avoid the anonymity of the city and get yourself out to see it; you'll be charmed.

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

Since the characters of Humans Anonymous spend so much time sharing their innermost fears with the audience (from foghorns to death, centipedes to not being liked), I'll add one of mine: I'm always afraid that the show I'm attending is going to be horrible, and that I won't be able to find anything positive to say about it. Well, while the sexy but insecure hero, Ellen, has to open the show with a false smile, nodding and holding herself as if she can simultaneously fit in and stand out, I don't need to be false at all: Kate Hewlett's written a wonderful comedy that zips through overtly comic scenes while remaining anchored to a real human connection.

Here, that connection comes via the Internet: Ellen has fallen for her soul mate, SmartyPants17, and at long last, she's going to get to meet him, the man of her dreams. Unfortunately for her, that happens to be a woman, not Lenny, but Jenny, a young, adorably persistent klutz with a penchant for typos. Worse still, Ellen's homophobic, and while she's businesslike enough to grin and bear her way through the date, she's got no interest in seeing the smitten Jenny ever again.

That's where the matchmaker of this comedy enters: Ellen's sly and sagacious employee, Peter (who is also, tellingly, her gay best friend), accidentally glimpses that first date and starts pulling strings to make Ellen happy, whatever it takes. Peter and Jenny become fast friends, and it isn't long before Ellen's fallen for "A" (for Anonymous), a gift-giving secret admirer born of Jenny's heart and Peter's playful scheming.

Here's where the play gets more complicated: Ellen becomes convinced (painting the picture she wants to see, rather than looking for the riddle she needs) that "A" is Arden, an overwhelmingly shy UHB ("You Handsome Brute") who stammers his way from his seat in the audience into our hearts. Arden we can handle, even if his antics are a little thematically distracting, but Hewlett starts interjecting too much of herself when she joins the cast as Gema, Peter's socially awkward sister. None of this stops the play from being funny, but it starts to push the jokes ("Can I come out now?" says Peter; "Didn't you do that once already?" Ellen rejoins). I never saw the hour-long "Best of the Fringe" version when it played in Toronto (2006), but it's not hard to tell when Hewlett is writing for an audience instead of her characters.

To stress again, however, none of this stops Humans Anonymous from being wholly enjoyable. Robin A. Paterson's direction is engaging (directly so when Dustin Olson's amidst the crowd), and with the exception of an unnecessary intermission, the play segues well from scene to scene. All three leads (Esther Barlow, Jennifer Laine Williams, and Philip Graeme) have excellent chemistry, and they each find the nuances of their characters: with Barlow, it's the cracked smile, growing more and more genuine with every gift; with Williams, it's the sense of purpose and general cheeriness; and with Graeme, it's the dry amusement that serves to mask his genuine concern. While Hewlett and Olson both put in admirable performances, the play itself would be better served to keep the focus on the actual story: that would tighten the jokes, the pace, and with those, the show.

Don't be a stranger to Humans Anonymous, go and check it out. We're all a little bit lonely, a little bit insecure: this show's for you.

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Theatre 54 @ Shetler Studios (244 West 54th St., 12th Floor)
Performances (through 11/18): Tuesday - Sunday @ 8:00
Tickets (212-352-3101): $18.00
Length: 110 minutes w/intermission

The Runner Stumbles

There are some good performances in The Runner Stumbles, and a very simple, elegant direction for the piece, but all of this only exacerbates how upright the script is. It shies away from emotion, hiding in melodramatic testimonies or in restrained religiosity, and this makes even the balanced ideas seem feeble where they should be febrile.

Photo/Jennifer Maufrais

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

The Runner Stumbles is a contemplative drama that needs to learn from its own title; written in 1976 by Milan Stitt, this play is so stilted that it never has the opportunity to fall into any emotion. The subject is about the improper affair between a nun and her priest, so it's already chaste and tasteful: what the play needs are some teeth. Instead, it throws in a weak murder trial to frame the play, and then sends contemplative memories swinging in and out of the prison through imposing hinged gates.

The best moments are those that match Father Rivard's unstinting intellectualism against Sister Rita's practical interpretations and Mrs. Shandig's deep-seated emotional beliefs, for Stitt's proselytizing is balanced enough that at times it serves as a suitable dramatic replacement. However, as the play sluggishly continues, the audience needs something to break up the monotony, and the disconnected melodrama of the courthouse scenes is not the answer. Furthermore, there's a bland repetition in this back and forth: we see Louise and Erna testify in the present, but then also watch the memories they've just iterated being formed in the past.

When director Scott Alan Evans is allowed to drop the baggage, he manages to focus quite well on the acting; there's a great moment of restraint where Rivard, Rita, and Shandig are all sitting in the same room, giving one another the silent treatment as they go about their daily work. The three eventually argue their way into praying together, and the shocking thought is that just as religion is what splits them apart, it is also the only thing that brings them together.

Ultimately, The Runner Stumbles lacks enough life and momentum to actually illustrate how Rivard's small concession ends up making him stumble into a lie with the diocese and eventually leads to his fall from the Church. Similarly discursive plays like Doubt and the recent 100 Saints You Should Know allow their characters to use religion to work through their pain: The Runner Stumbles gets all tripped up trying to use religion alone.

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Beckett Theatre @ Theatre Row (410 West 42nd Street)
Performances (through 11/23): Mon., Thurs., Fri. @ 7:30 | Sat. @ 2 & 8 | Sun. @ 3
Tickets (212-279-4200): $20.00

The Turn of the Screw

Wake Up, Marconi! resists the temptation to go for the cheap scare in its adaptation of a classic American ghost story.

By Ellen Wernecke

Like many horror movies today, Henry James’ novella “The Turn of the Screw” begins with a group of people sitting around telling ghost stories. The story being told is a work of one-upmanship on the part of the teller, who inherited the story from his sister’s governess. Wake Up, Marconi! Theater Company’s production of Jeffrey Hatcher’s “The Turn of the Screw” keeps this moment with the play’s audience as the initial narrator’s, and delivers a chilling and thoroughly Victorian take on the classic.

A young governess (Melissa Pinsly) takes a job caring for two children whose uncle and guardian (Steve Cook) insists only that he not be bothered with their problems. The children (one played by Cook, one in pantomime) are perfect angels and the setting a bucolic wonder, but strange apparitions begin to appear looming over her charges at play. Gradually, the governess, confiding in the housekeeper (Cook as well), begins to believe the ghosts of the former governess and a handyman are controlling the children, who in turn are lying to their governess about it, and she becomes obsessed with protecting them.

Using the organizing metaphor of the six days of creation in the Bible, Hatcher plays up the theme of repression and the Governess’s sexual inexperience, using wordplay and adding conversations which flesh out what James might have implied. (On offering the job to her, the master says, “Have I seduced you?” a question repeated throughout the show.) In a certain sense, this limits Pinsly and Cook in what they can do onstage since the book’s more deliberate character development cannot be reproduced here. Still, this makes more of a mark on the directing (a few lines leaned on too heavily) than in the actors’ performances. Pinsly’s young governess could easily have been a one-note character, but there’s something more than desperation in her portrait of the innocent lost. Cook juggles his roles using his body language and voice to separate young boy from creepy old housekeeper, but he’s most frightening when standing in the shadows as the ghost--a surprisingly effective device which the play never calls attention to directly. Despite a few horror-movie moments, “The Turn of the Screw” sticks to its creepy origins and captivates to the final moments.

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Through November 17 at the Bank Street Theatre
151 Bank St.
Tickets $10-18, Theatermania.com
For more information, visit WakeUpMarconi.com.

Sister Cities

The intimacy of Sister Cities is at times almost unbearable; the audience is drawn into a heavy confrontation between four sisters as they unravel the events leading to their mother’s suicide and each sister becomes personally unraveled as well. Playwright Colette Freedman keeps the intense drama strongly grounded in reality and, under Cat Parker’s direction, the play is beautiful and devastating.


Reviewed by Ilena George

To stage a taut family drama, there is no place quite like the intimate T. Schreiber Studio. Just as with their production of You Can’t Take it With You earlier this year, the audience is seated virtually within the boundaries of the Baxter family living room where four very different sisters are mourning their mother’s suicide in four very different ways.

Like the nesting dolls that feature prominently as a symbol of the family unit, the play contains within it many different versions of itself: it is the story of a family tragedy, but it is also very funny. It is fraught with current medical ethics issues and references to pop culture. Between walls full of family photos and a dozen bottles of vodka, the sisters hash out the circumstances of their mother’s final months. Uptight Carolina (Ellen Reilly) demands to get everything out in the open immediately so she can return to her orderly professional life as a lawyer and her messier personal life as an unhappy divorcée. Inoffensive, people-pleasing Dallas (Emberli Edwards), whom her sisters repeatedly accuse of being “perfect,” is glad to be free of her mother’s tyrannical influence while free-spirited Baltimore (Jamie Neumann) keeps a relatively even keel and uses her Harvard-trained sociology expertise to analyze everyone else’s reactions. Sarcastic and confrontational Austin (Maeve Yore) was the only one who was living at home and who knows the truth about their mother’s state of mind and her final moments. The sisters spend the day pulling toward and away from each other, reminiscing and recriminating, while waiting for the coroner to arrive and remove their mother’s remains. Luckily, the actresses are all evenly matched and skillful enough to present the push and pull of this emotional tug-of-war in a way that grips the viewer by the throat.

In this family, each member feels like an outsider. No two sisters have the same father, nor do they share much in common beyond their mother. Each sister’s distinctiveness is indicated by her distinct styles of dressing, the physical isolation she experiences in relation to the others within the confines of their mother’s living room and even the way she puts up her hair. George Allison’s set capitalizes on the Studio’s space; together with Carolyn Mraz’s set decoration, the set embodies a very realistic suburban living room. Karen Ann Ledger’s costumes also speak volumes as to the wearer’s personality.

As the play proceeds, each of the sisters also proves herself to be both beautiful and terrible and very human. But where the first act raised thought-provoking questions about the ethics of suicide and just how far a sibling bond can be stretched before it snaps, the second act counters with pop-psychology issues and comparatively petty traumas that lack the dramatic resonance of the play’s beginning. However, the emotionally fraught performances each actress renders, and the relentless momentum of the first half are the heart and soul of Sister Cities; it is a moving and relevant look at how our families both shape us and break us.

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Sister Cities by Colette Freedman
Directed by Cat Parker
T. Schreiber Studios (151 West 26th Street)
October 18 – November 19
Tickets: $20, (212) 352-3101 or www.theatermania.com

The Runner Stumbles

Suspected of having more than God and the confessional between them, a priest is accused of a nun's murder after her remains are found in his garden. Despite one unforgettable scene, sporadic passionate performances, and an intriguing real story as its foundation, The Runner Stumbles is structurally unsound, slow in pace and boring in long stretches.

Cynthia Darlow, Ashley West and Mark L. Montgomery

Photo by Jennifer Maufrais

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Reviewed by Cindy Pierre

To uphold doctrine, or not to uphold doctrine, that is the question. The doctrine in point is Catholic, and the question is lobbied between feeler Sister Rita (Ashley West) and thinker Father Rivard (Mark L. Montgomery) in Milan Stitt's The Runner Stumbles. But the dilemma isn't confined to a lengthy discussion. It instead oozes across the stage like a blob, entangling the legs and arms of the well-intentioned as well as vengeful people who all want to weigh in on the debate. And when dissension is taken to the extreme, there is usually bloodshed.

Father Rivard is under the gun for the murder of Sister Rita, but he claims he's innocent. With the smooth integration of flashbacks and courtroom scenes, the play unfolds the events that led to her untimely death, but Stitt's approach is quite stoic and omissive of some of the real story's drama. The playbill includes some choice details about the true story that began in 1906, but very little of it translates to the stage here. Father Rivard had enlisted the assistance of Sister Rita to teach the children at the school that he founded. Sister Rita does her job with enthusiasm and passion, but her approach to helping the children with their sorrows and their problems extends well past the Catholic Church's teachings. Instead of a rigid execution of policy, Sister Rita prefers to allow emotion and heart to cushion the policies. She challenges Rivard, and to his own dismay, excites him. These two pillars of godliness clash amicably at first, until Sister Rita's unrelenting need to be humane even in the face of disobedience turns the tide.

Montgomery is an austere, joy-deprived Father Rivard, and rightly so. The script and direction by Scott Alan Evans is so driven by Rivard's cruelty that I was fully expecting Montgomery to be on his knees, facing the cross and whipping himself with something barbed to stay the temptations to be a normal human being. Unfortunately, it also makes his opening "I'm innocent" position difficult to debunk or even care about. He's not alone in Unsympathetic Land. West's Sister Rita embodies the benevolence and dutiful nature of a nun, but her willingness to take Father Rivard's spiritual and physical punishments is alienating in spite of her difficult childhood. And since the victim and purported victimizer of this play are both hard to identify with, the audience is at a loss when it comes to who to side with and what lesson or meaning to draw from the play.

The Runner Stumbles has a good supporting cast who all make great appendages in the blob, jumping in rather than fleeing from the hungry mass of opinions. Almost everyone from the mouthy housekeeper Mrs. Shandig (Cynthia Darlow) and the Bishop's right hand man Monsignor Nicholson (James Murtaugh) to students Erna Prindle (Julie Jesneck) and Louise (Christina Bennett Lind) have distinct positions on the doctrine debate, whether they realize it or not. However, the slow pacing of the play dilutes the impact that each of these characters make. Not quite a court drama and not quite a religious drama, The Runner Stumbles is definitely as talky as the two. There are long stretches of serious, reverent conversation that occasionally are broken by deliberate stabs at other denominations and genuflections. The set design by Dana Moran Williams is wonderfully practical, beautiful, and ironic. Genuine gates hide panels of heavenly clouds and lush landscapes that are lit to punctuate a mood or an action. The panels also represent God's omnipresence, and they never let the audience forget that the characters are aiming to do for God and unto God, despite their many failures.

After 30 years, The Runner Stumbles returns to New York without a bang. But the trouble lies mostly with the script. The story takes two steps forward and two steps back, and never gets its footing. The particular performance I attended even had a false ending, where audience members began to clap prematurely before the last, lackluster scene. What it lacks in structure and excitement, however, it compensates for in establishing Catholicism as a dominant entity, most notably in the line delivered by Mrs. Shandig: "I didn't know there were Catholics. Just God." Whether the characters want to yield or not, they're living in a Catholic world with Catholic rules. And no amount of braying, bloodshed and court rulings will change that before the show is over.

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Through November 24th. Tickets: $20. TicketCentral: 212-279-4200;
Theatre Row - Samuel Beckett Theatre (410 W. 42nd St.New York, NY 10001)

Milk 'n' Honey

Like a chef's tasting menu, LightBox uses Milk 'n' Honey as a food-oriented pulpit to cram a lot of diverse theater down your throat. It's all quite agreeable, it's delectably plated (with a multimedia bent), and the servers are talented actors (as most waiters are, ha!), but the lack of a main course is ultimately a little unsatisfying.

Photo/Benjamin Heller

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

It's a little ironic that Milk 'n' Honey best illustrates American eating habits with the structure of the play itself: an "a little of this, little of that" melange that throws together anecdotal monologues, hyperactive school-play presentations, comic PowerPoint demos, and a few unconnected vignettes. It's nice to see LightBox gorge itself on the different art forms out there, but the finished product achieves only the ephemeral sweetness of the honey bun our unfortunately diabetic hero so craves. That said, the honey bun, as depicted by the five writers of this play (C. Andrew Bauer, Ellen Beckerman, Shawn Fagan, Madeleine George, and Bray Poor) still happens to be pretty filling.

That's because the play has real characters, the integral ingredient of any show. Never mind that the plot comes in bite-sized portions that can't sate our appetite: we've got Audrey, a rebellious grocery store clerk; her would-be-boyfriend, Ambrose, a dumpster diving stockboy; then there's Renee, a glutton forced to change her lifestyle after a diabetic scare; Jesus, an immigrant trying to keep pace with the tomato trucks in the field; and Fred, a flavor chemist who turns from processing jellyfish jellybeans toward manufacturing a new taste, that of light itself. In addition, the cast also doubles to provide testimonials -- slices of life -- as if this were The Fajita Monologues: farmers, waiters, homeless men, grandmothers, even the Secretary of Agriculture speak out about food problems in America. And because more is better, we get to meet some anorexic children, watch the reactions of students watching slaughterhouse footage (i.e., an animal snuff film which, in its thirdhand descriptions, is the sliest portion of the night), and muse over a 6th grade Thanksgiving presentation that mines Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma for exuberant comedy:

"Did you know that corn is what feeds the cow that turns into a steak?" "And also the cow that makes the milk that turns into cheese and yogurt and also ice cream." "Amazingly, soda is also corn, as it is made out of High Fructose Corn Syrup, so when you enjoy a Coke...or a Pepsi...that is also the enjoyment of corn!"

I've read Pollan, and I must say, this is the more immediately digestible diatribe. But Pollan actually made his points, and LightBox glosses over far too much, avoiding any real sympathy for its characters, with the exception of Vaneik Echeverria's tender depiction of Jesus. Here the illegal immigrant is not shown as an alien or as a hard worker, but as a man suffering to support the family that he has had to leave behind. It's in total opposition to Shawn Fagan's goofy performance as Fred, a role which -- while appropriately comic -- has no spine to it (which, perhaps is also appropriate, since its main focus is on a jellyfish).

What is more impressive with Milk 'n' Honey is the plating of the play: audiences are seated at picnic tables, treated to popcorn and sucking candies, surrounded by groceries (White Rose Vegetarian Beans, Luigi Giovanni Plain Tomato Sauce, Honey and Oat Blenders, Bavarian Dutch Style Pretzels), and then blitzed by a technologically savvy space. Ellen Beckerman turns the 3LD space into an abandoned factory floor, a tall and wide chamber that keeps the focus on the machinery within it (in this case, the actors). Multimedia usually comes off as a gimmick, but for a show like this that is already so subsumed by Americana, it works as a reflection of the constant imagery of the food industry, not to mention a really great way to focus all of the information being heaped onto the audience's plate.

Milk 'n' Honey is ultimately a tasting menu, a sampler of what LightBox and its team of writers-cum-chefs can do, and as such it's very satisfying. But I wouldn't ask for seconds: next time, I'd rather just have one main course, cooked to perfection.

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3LD Art and Technology Center (80 Greenwich)
Tickets (212-388-7371): $20.00
Performances (through 11/18): Mon., Wed. - Sat. @ 7:30 | Sun. @ 3:00

Hoodoo Love

Young playwright Katori Hall offers up a lot of promise in her play, Hoodoo Love, and manages to cast a spell over the audience. But that spell is cast with about as much substance, rhyme, and reason as the magic Candy Lady describes within the play, and when the predictability or the repetition kick in, the show doesn't give much of a reason to really love it.

Photo/Jaisen Crockett - Art Meets Commerce

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

You don't have to be a young playwright to get down and dirty in your text. But it helps. Just sit down and talk with Candy Lady, the saucy and grandmotherly conjuror of Katori Hall's brash new play, Hoodoo Love. She'll tell you that the best way to keep that shiftless blues singer man of yours around for the nine days it'll take to put a love hex on him is to menstruate in his coffee. She's not juggin' you either: go to church all you want, but she's the one who gets shit done.

It's a shame that you--that is, that Toulou, the bright young heroine, doesn't know enough to be careful of what she wishes for. She pins down a piece of Ace of Spade's heart, and in return finds something to really make her turn to the blues. Shackled to her small shack, she's as far from Memphis as anyone, and her needy (and somewhat incestuous) contradiction of an older brother, Jib, doesn't want her running off any time soon. The moral, told in a combination of Candy Lady's passed down wisdom and Toulou's dramatically earned experience, is that freedom must come freely, and yet is never actually free. Ace of Spades and Jib, who wander around squandering their talents for singing and preaching (mirrors of one another), are free, but they're bound as much by their gambling and drinking as they are by the necessities of the road. And Candy Lady, despite possessing magical powers and knowing volumes of hoodoo lore, can't actually save Toulou from the troubles that plague her: as she points out, there's no such thing as a backward potion.

The issue with Hoodoo Love, however, is that all of these thoughts and ideas are evoked without ever really being provoking. Maybe it's the rhythmic lull of the sentences, or the way in which everyone around Toulou is just a little too exaggerated. More likely, it's the build of the play, which has two separate climaxes, both of which are clumsily telegraphed and emotionally void. At times, Angela Lewis, who plays Toulou, only seems as if she's half there, and though her plight isn't hard to empathize with, it's veiled in darkness both by the director and by the playwright, moments that are set just out of reach. Where the play works far better are the dangerously tense moments directly before the storms, much of which is contributed by Keith Davis, who plays Jib as such a solid block of sternness that when he teeters, it is with a frightening force and an unsettling vulnerability. You can tell these moments are effective not just by the palpitation of your heart, but by the choice of director Lucie Tiberghien to step back and not clutter the truth with unnecessary illusions (as when Candy Lady casts a shadow over the golden light illuminating the tragic end of Act I).

Not to say that Hoodoo Love is any less watchable for these moments: while it may not always engage our guts, it still manages to portray a dirty South, circa 1930, a nasty world where African-American men are more likely to pick cotton than pluck guitar strings. The set is vague (the shack looks as if it is caught mid-hurricane, all odd angles and suspensions) but the setting is specific and the dialogue is era-appropriate. Like the stray musical numbers, or Toulou's infectious bellyful of hope, Hoodoo Love is catchy. It just needs to catch on something deeper.

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Cherry Lane Theater (38 Commerce Street)
Tickets: $51.00
Performances (through 12/7): Mon. & Tues. @ 7:00 | Wed. - Sat. @ 8:00 | Wed. @ 2:00

12th Night of the Living Dead

Brains are the food of love in this gleefully gory Shakespeare adaptation.

Review by Ellen Wernecke

What would Halloween be without zombies? The wild-eyed, off-balance creatures may drool blood over everything, but they’re just so cute—why, they’re practically human! The Impetuous Theater Group’s production of “12th Night of the Living Dead” could be read as a classically strained call back to the George Romero, social commentary model of zombie, but let’s call it what it is: a joyful and gross re-imagining of a comedy that has never quite been treated like this before.

The love in this Illyria is catching, bite to bite, from the twin passengers on a ship which is struck by a meteorite and wrecked. No one seems to notice the gurgling Viola (Lindsay Wolf), gnawing on a severed arm, doesn’t particularly resemble a boy when she joins the service of the Duke Orsino (Aaron Zook). They don’t even ask her to stand upright for her pains; instead, they pack her off, gleefully biting her way through the crowds, to woo Olivia (Shashanah Newman) at the tomb of her sister. Meanwhile, Sir Toby Belch (Timothy J. Cox) and Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Benjamin Ellis Fine), who in their drunkenness resemble slightly the zombies encircling them, enjoy taunting Malvolio (Tom Knutson) even as he himself slowly succumbs, despite his starched propriety, to a nasty little bite.

However clever, the original premise of “12th Night of the Living Dead” can’t be sustained long—zombies, after all, are not famous for their elegant soliloquies. Where Impetuous succeeds there is in letting the disgusting scenario play out to its inevitable conclusion. These characters don’t get Hamlet-style extended death scenes; they wander off and then return dope-eyed and moaning. Director John Hurley continually raises the stakes on the blood and guts (audience murmurs told of a front-row splatter zone, but no one was brave enough to test it), resisting the temptation to rewind the damage that was wrought when Viola and Sebastian washed up on shore. It’s completely sickening, but necessary and more than a little hilarious. The show is not for the squeamish, but the groundlings would have cheered.

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Now playing at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center
107 Suffolk Street
Tickets $18, brownpapertickets.com
For more information, visit the Impetuous Theatre Group website.

12th Night of the Living Dead

What happens when you cross Shakespeare's Twelfth Night with George Romero's Night of the Living Dead? You get the perfect Halloween treat: a zombified Shakespearean comedy that is a well-balanced mixture of clever, disgusting and hilarious.

Photo by Tony KnightHawk

Reviewed by Ilena George

The La Tea Theater, which houses 12th Night of the Living Dead, forever won my admiration earlier this year as the venue for Point Break Live!, a production based on the Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swazye film about an FBI agent who goes undercover to infiltrate a gang of bank-robbing surfers. The show involved a lot of audience participation, from soaking the first two rows, to holding them up in a “bank robbery” to actually using a member of the audience each night to play Keanu Reeves’ part. 12th Night has a similar appeal: The show is playful, a little ridiculous and completely entertaining.

Although the space lends itself to productions that have an informal feel to them, that’s not to say that the production is poorly put together. Quite the opposite is true. As a whole, 12th Night of the Living Dead melds together Shakespearean and modern references in several entertaining and smart ways. Lillian Rhiger’s costumes mix elements from modern clothing with period dress: The opening scene features Orsino and one of his musicians dressed in bathing suits over white stockings, while also sporting ruffs. The men wear modern suit pants modified to become trunk hose. Even Feste, who is a long-haired, round sunglasses-wearing free spirit in this production, has his jeans hemmed up to the thigh.

Surprisingly, and satisfyingly, the zombie trope is completely apropos for the Twelfth Night story: not only does much of the dialogue readily adapt itself to a more horrific situation (“What kind of a man is he?” asks Olivia, referring to the zombified Viola/Cesario. “He is of…mankind,” replies Malvolio.), but turning the characters into ravenous, cannibalistic zombies also perfectly illustrates the complete self-absorption of all the lovers in the play.

The show stays true to Shakespeare’s dialogue. However, since the undead are rather reticent, the conversations get more and more one-sided as more and more characters become zombies. But many of the characters are so caught up in themselves that they are utterly unable to see the terrible reality right in front of them. Duke Orsinio’s solipsism is especially hilarious; he forms a close bond with Viola/Cesario, thinking “he” is a willing audience to his (Orsinio’s) constant ramblings on life and love, never realizing the obvious—that “Cesario” is a woman and, at least in this particular production, undead.

From Larry Giantonio’s stoner Feste, to zombie Viola (Lindsay Wolf) and her insatiable hunger for human flesh, to Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Benjamin Ellis Fine) and his dead-on comedic timing, to gaunt and severe Malvolio, played by Tom Knutson, the vivid characters are in turn winning, funny and all completely doomed. Although the zombie comedy can start to lose its luster— at times, there is such a thing as too much zombie physical comedy or dribbling blood—the production includes enough gory surprises to keep the material fresh. No pun intended.

12th Night of the Living Dead is a delicious gorefest, including a (literally) visceral death scene near the conclusion and a grand mêlée ending, one that guarantees a bloody good time.

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12th Night of the Living Dead Adapted by Brian MacInnis Smallwood
Directed by John Hurley
La Tea Theater (107 Suffolk Street, between Rivington and Delancey)
October 25-November 10
Tickets: $18, 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com

Speech and Debate

Roundabout's youthfully oriented new play Speech and Debate has a lot to say about the issues that outcast students deal with (like sexual identity and social ineptness), but while it uses the various "subjects" of a speech and debate team to frame these points, it does so with broad comic strokes. The acting is, at times, a little much, but the overemphasis generally works to remind us that even if the subject matter is heavy, the characters dealing with it are still a little immature.

Photo/Joan Marcus

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

I went to high school at roughly the same time as young playwright Stephen Karam (26), and things weren't quite as silly as they're presented in his excellent new play, Speech & Debate. But times have changed, and Karam's done his research: he's taken two of the oldest stereotypes in the book, the untalented drama "major" and the overzealous nerd, paired them with an openly gay student, and modeled the scenes after various exercises from Speech and Debate. For instance, Extemporaneous Thought, follows Diwata's stream-of-consciousness rants (and Casio-composed songs) as she vents the only way she can: to her website, Monoblog. Or Storytelling, in which nebbish Solomon tries to interview "queenie" Howie over the phone, looking for the drama behind a drama teacher's online solicitations for sex. Though the play continues through Cross Examination, Declamation, and Student Congress (to name a few), it never strains the idea, and each scene cleverly ties these disparate students into an unlikely friendship, the kind that, given each one's secret, they all really need.

Speech & Debate is light and open-minded, but this doesn't stop it from being critical and dramatic where necessary. That Mr. Karam is able to jump from a teleconferenced chorus of song into a trumpeted chatroom conversation, and from there into a debate on freedom of speech (within a school) or the right to personal secrecy, speaks more clearly than I can toward his strength as a playwright. He's helped by the intimacy of the classroom set (the audience is proximal enough to be students) and by the masterful direction of Jason Moore (Avenue Q) who knows a thing or two about indulging quirks while still being truthful, if not insidiously so.

The acting is probably the weakest part of the show, and that's more a testament to the rest of the production than it is a critique of actors Sarah Steele, Jason Fuchs, Gideon Glick, and Susan Blackwell. They're all good, and they play well off one another, but they're channeling such exaggerated tics that they sometimes come across as self-aware and glib, particularly with Mr. Fuchs, who pulls faces more than some of the actors in 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. It still works, but it'd be nice to see more than a brief glimpse of the real Ms. Steele, who is currently hiding behind what I'll call her character's Eyebrows of Indignation.

Some nitpicking seems de rigueur for a show that boldly traverses comedy and drama so well, but I wouldn't want to risk discouraging anyone from seeing this delightful show. This is good, topical theater, done professionally, and ticketed cheaply ($20), so get going!

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Roundabout Underground (111 West 46th Street)
Tickets: $20:00
Performances (through 12/16): Tues.-Sat. @ 8:00 | Sat. & Sun. @ 2:30 | Sun. @ 7:00

Welcome to Nowhere (bullet hole road)

Reality, memory and identity are distorted for six nostalgic characters whose lives all converge on a road that is nowhere and leads to nowhere. Formerly of Richard Foreman's ontological theater, Temporary Distortion's clever use of multi-media to represent the psyche is impressive, but this pensive, occasionally bland performance will resonate with David Lynch fans who may cry foul for the aping. Photo by Kenneth Collins

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Reviewed by Cindy Pierre

David Lynch, beware. There's a small theater in town named Temporary Distortion trying to steal the thunder of your Lost Highway, and they're doing it in just an hour. In Welcome to Nowhere (bullet hole road), they've taken your pale-hued, spooky characters, trained them to whisper ponderously, and have detached them from any linear story lines. But here, they've also spliced film with performance art, audio with visuals, and are using what appears to be tricked-out sound booths with a time-travel chamber as the light-happy set. But with all that glitz and creativity, the show is still sometimes snooze-inducing.

It's not the visuals. With carefully-calculated lighting design, interesting looking characters, good film work, catchy, repeat-along captions and a set straight out of a science lab, there's enough eye stimulation to keep you alert. And it's not the theme. Identity, memory and reality are always juicy themes to dig into, particularly when they're elusive and can't be pinned down to satisfy the need for regularity. The only things left are the pacing and the stylized vocal arrangements. For the most part, the pacing is lazy, tempered and monotonous, as are the monologues and dialogue. The words themselves are not noteworthy, and delivered in a mono-tempo and cadence, the allure dies quickly. But it is not all boring. Just when you are being lulled to sleep, the vocal design changes between two characters or music interjects your nap. But you have to wait 25 minutes for the first change, and that just may be 25 minutes too long.

Welcome to Nowhere is pretentious: it tries too hard. Perhaps it would be more successful as a single medium, like as a fully-fledged film. Then again, it's sexy and sports enough messed-up characters to make for good drama. It emulates a master--not well enough to hide the flaws--but in such a way that the flaws create their own flair. If Temporary Distortion can find some of that flair earlier, the show may evolve into that new, ground-breaking creature.

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Through October 27th. Tickets: $15. http://www.ovationtix.com/ Chocolate Factor: 5-49 49th Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101 (Queens)