FRIGID: Recess

Photo/Lauren Faylor

Reviewed by Ilana Novick

Una Aya Osato's Recess is based on the writer/performer's experiences attending and teaching in New York City Public Schools. Sharita Jackson is only six years old, but has to cope with a dying mother and a social and academic landscape that is more like Dangerous Minds than elementary school. Adding insult to injury, Sharita’s teacher, Ms. White, is convinced she’s the devil of second grade, due to her constant fighting and undermining. Sharita’s attempts to understand what’s happening to her mother and to fit in at school are heartbreaking and fascinating. She alternates between wanting to be mature and helpful (asking her mother if she wants her medicine) and like any seven-year-old, asking if she can never go to school again.

The other characters aren’t quite as developed--for instance, Ms. White is alternately disdainful and afraid of her students, which certainly rings true, but it’s never explained why her students provoke both feelings, or why, if she’s so scared and disapproving, she got into teaching in the first place. The subplot involving videotaped messages from the children to President Obama also seems a little extraneous, especially for an hour-long show dealing with such heavy matters. Still, thanks to Osato’s insights and her realistic portrayal of a six-year-old, Recess manages to carry that emotional weight.

FRIGID: Are We Freaks?

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

Bricken Sparacino titular question, Are We Freaks?, is both rhetorical and serious. This isn't bad, it's just unbalanced: the campy presentation of this Tales from the Crypt-like quartet of twisty sideshow stories overtakes everything else. At best, there's a gender-bending adventure in which Annabelle (Sparacino) unwittingly uses a two-wish death mask to turn her best friend Lizz (Uma Incrocci) into the man of her dreams ("I wish I could meet a guy just like you!")--it's clever and energetic. Not as good is the Carrie-like tale of Abby (Joy Gabriel), a socially awkward "freak" who heads off to college, knowing that she can hide her inside-out parts away. Superficial Pam and Devon (Hannah Wolfe and Annalyse McCoy) have been bribed (by Abby's mother) into letting her into a sorority (of all places), and face consequences when the truth comes out. The other two segments--involving the unconjoined Wonder-ful Twins (Sparacino and Jennie Inchausti) and Caitlin the Cat and Leslie the Lobster Girl (Melanie Wehrmacher and Kara M. Tyler)--are just silly. So what?

FRIGID: Now and at the Hour

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

"Do you ever have the feeling that everything that is happening has happened before and will happen again?" To this question, posed by the affable Christian Cagigal, the answer can only be yes, particularly when it comes to "mental" magic tricks. And no, it's not deja vu: if you see a lot of theater, you've probably seen some of these tricks before.

And yet, thanks to his casual showmanship--the deliberate placement of objects, the metronomic pacing of his transitions and tricks, his roll-with-the-punches attitude--we're able to humor him. And, in doing so, we're able to humor ourselves, especially if one stops trying to tear down the wizard's curtain, appreciating the illusions as an extension of our imagination. What's especially nice about Cagigal's performance is that the flair isn't squandered on razzle-dazzle effects; instead, it builds a strong narrative (involving Cagigal's memories of his sick, war-veteran father), one which nicely resolves itself in a metatrick that ties together all the talk of time travel and strange childhoods.

FRIGID: The Question House

The Question House

Reviewed by Cindy Pierre

Does your job keep you on your toes? Are you looking to keep your mind sharp, your juices creative and your heart strong? If so, Tara Dairman's funny black comedy, The Question House, is looking for you. But before you answer the call, there's one thing you should know: your job can kill you.

Set in Brooklyn, “God's last refuge,” The Question House is inhabited by Harvey Krytz (Howard Green) and Margaret (Cam Kornman), his most senior (naturally and professionally) employee. Business is rolling in, but there's not enough staff to handle the workload--they keep dropping dead when they don't follow the rule: all questions, all the time. If you forget and try to declare yourself (park your ego by the door), you'll die instantly from cardiac arrest (although on stage it looks and sounds like death by gunfire).

But not everybody goes quickly. Bingham, played strongly but over-dramatically by Snezhana Chernova, gives her job a good go until she forgets to put her resignation in the form of a question. After that, Krytz and Margaret are left to figure out how the paramedics can move the body safely without wearing toe tags themselves. Luckily, the grim reaper only lives inside the house.

The Question House is gimmicky, but it mostly works because the cast’s comedic muscles are well-developed. Kornman, under Catherine Siracusa's tongue-in-cheek direction, is especially great at putting a wily and facetious inflection on her questions, making it delightful to watch her at every turn. Dairman's script can be tiresome at times, but it is also quite clever. The writing shines the most in the amusing exchanges between Margaret, Krytz, and Charlie Peat (Nick DeSimone), a new applicant, and the show’s highlight involves the “questionable” parts of a Bob Dylan song—when Officer Franco (Tom Tinelli) decides he wants to hear the rest, that radio starts to boogie—and you’ve never seen a dance like this until you’ve seen Michael Broughton's special effects.

Between all the tomfoolery, you might “question” the premise: why subject yourself to this type of workplace, particularly when freedom is right outside the door? The answer is simple: for all the guffaws and goofy smiles that you're bound to experience in the show's curt 40 minutes.
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FRIGID: The Question House (Run Time; Intermission(s)?)
Kraine Theater (85 E. 4th St., btwn 2nd and Bowery)
Tickets: http://www.smarttix.com/ ($10)
Through March 7th.

FRIGID:The Black Jew Dialogues

Reviewed by Cindy Pierre

So a black man and a Jewish man walk into a cheap hotel room together, and after three days come out with The Black Jew Dialogues, a compare-and-contrast comedy that tries to figure out why black people and Jewish people have so much conflict. Written and performed by Ron Jones and Larry Jay Tish, this variety show uses video, interviews, puppetry, fat suits and characters to go through shared histories, customs and food, but there's little substance apart from the laughs.

This is partially due to the fact that the dialogue plays out more like an improvised conversation (both Jones and Tish have an improv background) than a structured script. The theme is simply too heavy to leave it up to chance. And the show itself, rife with stereotypes and popular history, sometimes talks at the audience rather than engage it even though there are some interactive segments. The laughs may be frequent, but they're bought with off-color jokes. For instance, in one interview, a white teenager jokes about kissing and humping a black girl, and then addresses his mom in a showy, rebellious act.

There are some good bits: one is a fun interaction between Jones and God (also played by Jones), in which they harmonize a progressive spiritual that includes lyrics like “bash the white man in the head.” Another is ONE (One N****r Everywhere), in which the government implants a black man in the unlikeliest of places, with President Obama as ONE's most crowning achievement.

It's not just silliness: there's a poignant statement about how Jewish people and black people have earned the right to laugh. It's even qualified by a series of gruesome stills and videos of oppression, but this context, which should frame the whole show, is just an ending. And that's too little, too late.

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FRIGID: The Black Jew Dialogues (60 minutes, no intermission)
Kraine Theater (85 E. 4th St. btwn 2nd and Bowery)
http://www.smarttix.com/ ($16)
Through March 7th.

FRIGID: The Dysfunctional Guide to Home Perfection, Marital Bliss and Passionate Hot Romance

Reviewed by Cindy Pierre

Ever wish that all the truths and mysteries unlocked about marriage and love over the centuries were contained in one source? Have therapy and friendly counsel failed to give you the answers that you seek? Then you'll be jumping for joy when you get yourself a copy of The Dysfunctional Guide to Home Perfection, Marital Bliss and Passionate Hot Romance, the companion to 2001's How to Have the Ultimate Orgasm Each and Every Time. Or not. Written over wine by Jennifer Gill, Rachel Grundy, Amy Overman, Amy Beth Sherman, and Theresa Unfried, this collaborative effort may display an impressive knowledge of strong historical females and may exhibit strong performances under Gill's competent direction, but the show itself stays too much in the head.

Gill incorporates her literary degree to develop the concept for the play, but the show never comes together as a cohesive drama. Rather, the narrative is broken up into all 9 chapters of the book (with chapter 9, The Sensuous Woman being the most lively and entertaining) that flirt briefly with characters such as Queen Elizabeth I, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Anne Bradstreet to give the audience different perspectives on dealing with relationships. It's just too bad that the presentation is little more than a literary course. The use of simple but effective props and costumes such as a bonnet and a knitted hat that convincingly dubs as a helmet allow the actors to shift in and out of the different characters, but the show is too monotonous. The stage is also littered with over 30 wine bottles that winds up being overkill: the wine is already mentioned in the playbill, and the labor involved in putting the show together is evident onstage.

What most holds The Dysfunctional Guide back is the lack of an authoritative voice. There are simply too many dissenting opinions, different writing styles and no unified theme. From remaining chaste and unmarried to keeping it sizzling in the bedroom, the show doesn't have any clear advice to dish out, which is what a guide should do. Perhaps the writers thought they could avoid the follow-through by calling it dysfunctional, but you still might walk out of the theater feeling short-changed.

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FRIGID: The Dysfunctional Guide to Home Perfection, Marital Bliss and Passionate Hot Romance (50 minutes, no intermission)
The Red Room (85 E. 4th St. btwn 2nd Ave and Broadway)

Tickets: http://www.smarttix.com/ ($15)
Through March 7th

JOIN the New Theater Corps

For years, print coverage of live theater has been shrinking, particularly of the quirky, young, off-the-beaten-path stuff. That's why THEATER TALK's New Theater Corps was established: to help find bold new voices from the next generation of theatergoers. Four years later, we're looking to find new, passionate contributing writers who can help us broaden our coverage, especially the viewpoint of those who are in college or have just graduated.

This is a learning position--that is, you will receive comp tickets for the shows we send you to, as well as editorial advice, industry connections, and the opportunity to grow a new, supporting network of criticism. If you're serious enough about theater to consider critiquing it--more spark than snark--please send a resume and a cover letter that explains why you want to join the New Theater Corps.

FRIGID: The Expatriates

Reviewed by Ilana Novick

The Expatriates, written by Randy Anderson, Jenny Bennett, and Harrison Williams (with contributions from the rest of the Beggars Group), is an abridged version of the life and career of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and feels more like a history lesson than a full-fledged play. Those familiar with the ups and downs of Fitzgerald’s (Harrison Williams) writing career and his marriage to the feisty, but mentally unstable Zelda (Morgan Lindsey Tachco) will not find any new insights into the author (or his Lost Generation peers).

Told in reverse chronological order, the play moves from Los Angeles, where he is writing for MGM, all the way to his time with Zelda Fitzgerald and his attempts to contain her mental illness. There are also plenty of guest appearances by other Lost Generation luminaries, like Ernest Hemingway (Preston Copley) and Gertrude Stein (Jenny Bennett). Zelda flails around the stage, Sara and Gerald Murphy (Sarah Anderson and Randy Anderson) keep her from failing down, and Hemingway drinks and teases Fitzgerald for not being masculine enough. But aside from Bennett's dryly hilarious turn as Stein (as elliptical and abstract in person as in prose), the play comes across as a live-action commercial for a biopic of Fitzgerald’s life. There's plenty of action, but it's harmless fun, easily forgotten.

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The Expatriates (55 minutes, no intermission)
Location: The Kraine Theater
Closed.

FRIGID: Freedom 85!

Reviewed by Amanda Halkiotis

Debra Hale’s Freedom 85! may be a condensed two-woman show, but multiple characters and slice-of-life storylines transcend this short, modest piece into an evening of thought-provoking and quality theater. Andrea Risk joins Ms. Hale onstage and throughout the night they switch in and out of different gender identities, ages, and ethnicities with ease and swiftness. Playing a sassy Jamaican diner owner trying to push the daily special of curried goat one minute and a shy recovering alcoholic new in town and looking for a fresh start the next, Hale gives an excellent performance with equal parts overflowing attitude and restrained vulnerability. As for Risk, first introduced as an aging British mother who refuses to move into an assisted living facility, she then almost instantaneously morphs into the concerned son who wants what’s best for his mother but can’t articulate the sentiment due to his gruff exterior.

Hale's chameleon-like script matches the versatility of the actresses, spanning geographical and historical distances. Director Kim Blackwell uses well-timed changes in music and lighting to make these shifts, but also maintains the theme of minimalism by limiting her use of any loud sound effects or bright flashes. This approach keeps the actors at the center of it all, letting them do all the work. It also keeps the pace moving and covers a lot of ground as it relates to plot while never allowing the audience to get too comfortable with one scene or character.

Short, intermittent flashbacks, for example, keep too much backstory from clogging up the dialogue while also helping bring to light present-day motives or behavior. An elderly woman’s fear of living alone suddenly makes sense when you see her years earlier in WWII England, shielding herself from air raid bombs and sirens while also trying to keep her little sister safe. Even the less dramatic aspects of the script have an overwhelming sense of sincerity. Common enough incidents like the torture of starting a new waitressing job during a breakfast rush or drinking too much at a wedding where you don’t know anybody ring distinct and isolated onstage, evoking visceral gut reactions of sympathy and concern from the audience.

With razor wit sticking out from all sides bound by a central theme of friendship, this play portrays the true landscape of a small-town diner and the stories behind its colorful regulars from all walks of life.

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Freedom 85! (60 minutes; no intermission)
Location: Under St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place)
Tickets [www.smarttix.com]: $10
Performances: Saturday 3/7 5:30pm and Sunday 3/8 1pm

FRIGID: End of the Trail

Reviewed by Cindy Pierre

If you really want to get to know someone using a fun, party-friendly tool, forget playing Truth or Dare. End of the Trail, by Kenny Neal Shults and Sean Owens, is a much more entertaining, exploratory and incredibly witty game. Written almost eight years ago by this pair of real-life friends, it's a shame that this gift wasn't bestowed upon the theatrical world sooner. When several predictions for Armageddon coincide on the same day and threaten to “reset” the earth, rather than cower under the table, Sean and Kenny spend their last few hours playing a dangerous game of truth, pain, and nostalgia. Going through emotional and mental landmines that would make a therapist shriek, the pair map out their lives from how they met to how they'd like to leave the earth with all the failed relationships in between.

Using great wordplay and chemistry, the two actors effortlessly engage the audience from beginning to end by encouraging them to think and laugh uproariously. From Cameron Eng's visually arresting “board” that resembles Monopoly on downers to Alexia Staniotes' foreboding “talky clock” (countdown to the apocalypse), the show is conceptually inventive and exciting. End of the Trail may denote the last moments of these characters' lives, but let's hope it's the beginning of a long and fruitful collaboration between the writers behind them.

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Frigid Festival: End of the Trail (60 min., no intermission)
The Red Room (85 East 4th Street, between 2nd Ave and Bowery)
Tickets: http://www.smarttix.com/ $15
Through March 6.

Zombie

Photo/Dixie Sheridan

Evil lurks in unlikely places in Bill Connington's one-man show adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' novella.

Reviewed by Ilana Novick

In Zombie, Bill Connington’s adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’s novella, Connington plays Quentin P., a man whose large, thick glasses, receding hairline, and monotone voice are almost aggressively bland, making his appearance in sharp contrast to his horrifying hobbies, which include attempting to give drifters frontal lobotomies, which he hopes will turn them into sex slaves (a zombie). Evil, in other words, lurks in the least likely places, amongst even those who have all the advantages in the world, and may appear as boring on the surface as it is violent underneath. We’ve learned as much from Hannah Arendt and Law and Order: SVU: everyone has learned to fear the loner at the back of the class.

Zombie is no action-packed television show, however. The play comes across like a prison interview; Quentin simply describes his crimes, without any kind of order. Quentin P., newly released from jail, sits in his basement apartment playing chess with himself, describing in exact detail, and chronological order, his extensive rapes and murders, with only brief flashes of insight into why. The robotically slow movements and flat affectation of early scenes are scarier and more compelling (and more realistic) than later scenes in which he’s angrily reenacting his crimes. His arm takes a full minute to move a piece on the chess board, as if he’s performing brain surgery rather than moving a pawn. His motives aren’t so complex: there was a particularly attractive boy in sixth grade who ignored him, he uncomfortably showered with his peers in high school, his father found a stash of his gay porn. Is this what turns people into a serial killers? And makes them obsessed with creating zombie sex slaves by giving drifters frontal lobotomies (none of which work)?

Connington plays against what he perceives as the our need for closure: Zombie doesn’t provide insight into why this particular killer committed his crimes, why the criminal justice system would let someone like him go after only two years in jail, and only prosecuted for one of his many crimes (his father knew the judge at Quentin’s trial), and how he could show so little remorse. However, while Connington is initially committed to Quentin’s personality, when he starts describing his crimes, as graphic and disturbing as they are (you may not be able to look at ice picks, vans, or mannequins the same way again) it seems like shock for shock’s sake. Shouting and eye-popping rage are expected for criminals, and the music that accompanies the reenactments resembles that of a low-budget horror movie. The lighting is similarly distracting, sudden bursts of spotlights highlight the most violent moments, instead of allowing the violence to speak for itself. Connington puts a lot of effort into capturing the nature of this man, but unfortunately succeeds at displaying Quentin’s actions, not explaining them.

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Zombie (70 minutes; no intermission)
Theater Row (410 West 32nd Street)
Tickets available at zombietheplay.com, or at the box office

Performances run February 18-March 29 Thursday-Saturday at 8pm, and Saturday and Sunday at 3pm.

FRIGID: Jet of Blood or the Ball of Glass

Reviewed by Amanda Halkiotis

This short piece has the heart of emerging, push-the-envelope theater but none of the follow-through. The actors are just as surprised by their antics as the audience, and with no one in control, the whole evening is a surreal example of the blind leading the blind. The minimal, monosyllabic script — which revolves around a young man whose quest for love is blocked by his lover’s parents — should provide clarity, but is so abstracted that there is little substance. The emotional original music by Nat Osborn and Dustin Carlson seems the most thought out, but the onstage synthesizer overshadows the actors. The costumes don’t help to set the scene: they mix the pastoral and futuristic, from floral cotton aprons to a cardboard bra shaped like gallon milk jugs (not to mention sequined mini-dresses and black sunglasses). Because the central theme is so abstract, these contradictions are just further examples of over-the-top and disorganized chaos. Similarly, the gratuitous profanity and overt sexuality burdens the performance instead of moving it along. The best part of the evening is Simon Gunner’s campy yet stylistic choreography, weaving in and out of the piece at just the right moments to break the tension and dismiss any confusion through laughter. Other than that, however, this is avant-garde theater at its worst.

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Jet of Blood or the Ball of Glass (50 minutes; no intermission)
Under St. Marks (94 Saint Mark's Place)
Tickets (www.smarttix.com): $11
Performances: Saturday 3/7 11:30pm and Sunday 3/8 7:00pm

FRIGID: Jihad for Vent and Dummy

Ron Coulter and Sid Star in Jihad for Vent and Dummy

Reviewed by Cindy Pierre

You may have seen plays before that attempt to debunk religious beliefs by emphasizing thought over faith, but you've probably never seen it done the way Ronald Coulter's Jihad for Vent and Dummy does it. In it, Coulter tells the audience that we're the “dummy” to his “ventriloquist” by conforming to religion and creating and subscribing to a faith instead of thinking for ourselves. Sid Star, the wooden dummy, acts as a devil's advocate and uses humor to question Coulter's points.

Before you remark to yourself that Coulter's mouth is moving, Star makes fun of him for that and other things involving the title and content of the show. Although Coulter takes caution not to single out a specific religion by name, the very title of the show and some of the dialogue suggest that he had Islam and Christianity in mind when he was developing the concept. It's just too bad that Coulter never makes a cohesive argument.

Between funny quips and a creative bit where he exchanges his voice for Star's, Coulter performs a play within a play with Star in order to establish the parallels between theater and religion. However, Jihad for Vent and Dummy is much more about making declarative statements about how arbitrary religion is rather than supporting it with solid examples. And never does Coulter allow for the possibility of faith/belief and intellect co-existing in a symbiotic relationship. Of course, to do that would negate the premise for his show. At one point, Coulter even inserts a Q & A session with the audience to get their feedback, showing insecurity in his theme.

Jihad for Vent and Dummy may get a few laughs, but this cutesy presentation and the lack of follow through won't get the spiritual and philosophical wheels turning in the direction that Coulter would like. You may be amused every once in a while, but you'll leave the theater the same way that you came in.
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FRIGID FESTIVAL: Jihad for Vent and Dummy (50 min.)
Kraine Theater (85 East 4th Street between 2nd Ave and Bowery)
Tickets: $15. http://www.smarttix.com/
Through March 8.

Universal Robots

How do you promote art, theater, music, and poetry in a deteriorating, postwar society? How do the dreamers of a nation remain true to their ideals and still connect to the civilians they hope to inspire? Mac Rogers succeeds in answering such questions through a fresh voice of reason and astuteness with his ambitious new play, Universal Robots.

Reviewed by Amanda Halkiotis

The year is 1921 and the place is Czechoslovakia. Karel Capek (David Ian Lee) is a playwright with his head in the clouds, privileged enough that he needs not worry about having to earn wages to supplement his art. So instead he and his older sister Josephine (Jennifer Gordon Thomas) spend their time indulging in drink and conversation. One Friday night at a nameless bar, egged on by their pal Vaclavek (Tarantino Smith), these impassioned, bright-eyed Bohemians get heated and personal as they try to resolve being romantics in a bleak, hardworking community. Simultaneously, however, someone has gone beyond simply talking about this social dispute; a local scientist has already begun working on an alternate form of labor to help achieve the human race’s strive for leisure and pursuit of personal dreams. These new creatures, no, not creatures, because they are not living, these automata, sexless and unfeeling, propose endless possibilities for labor production. Their future utilization, however, creates just as much a saving grace for society as it does a threat to its existing human population.

Bringing the witty, wonderful script to life is a true ensemble, one filled with doublecasting. Standout performances include Nancy Siriani as the misanthropic and arguably senile Rossum and Jason Howard in his second role of the evening as Rossum’s robotic prototype Radius. He combines halted, monotone pronunciation with powerful, sentimental expression towards the humans around him. This winningly bridges the gap between his basic functions as a mechanical robot and his constant evolution into something more, providing the audience tender attachment to something not real. The brother and sister duo Karel and Josephine Capek, played by David Ian Lee and Jennifer Gordon Thomas, make a convincing creative team of young idealists who know not the consequences of their aspirations. This is matched pound for pound by their smoldering sibling rivalry, the sort that draws a brooding silence from Josephine when Karel begins a love affair with Rossum’s daughter Helena (Esther Barlow), or that causes Karel’s aggressive aversion to Josephine’s emotional protests when he reprograms the robots for war.

Costume designer Nicky J. Smith took full advantage of the period setting, mixing vintage fabrics such as flannels, tweeds, and corduroy, often in sepia-inspired shades of browns. Mr. Smith also emphasizes the masculine undertones of the play (patriarchy, war, procreation) by outfitting his female characters in skinny ties, wide belts, and shallow, squat hats. Raul Abrego’s minimal set adds a stoicism and sterility to the space that matches the more somber notes of the script; the one piece left onstage is repeatedly reinvented as a president’s desk, laboratory slab, and bar table. This less-is-more stage philosophy synchs well with director Rosemary Andress’ use of doublecasting, providing an added layer of minimalism that works especially well since most of the second roles the actors take on are as robots. The growing desensitivity throughout the play, therefore, surfaces both visually and thematically. Also, the square stage and raised seating creates three intimate fourth walls and one narrow, makeshift offstage area visible through a thin black curtain, limiting mobility and making the actors look and move like robots at times —that is, when they are not actually playing robots. With no intentional upstage, downstage, stage left or stage right, this directorial approach is just another subtle creative choice that adds to the overall effect of the play.

An intelligent play that leaves no room for error, Rogers has created a contemporary gem that urges its audience to ponder whether the need for human contact and interaction can be discarded while still maintaining a collective sense of initiative, justice, and achievement. His alternate telling of the past ninety-plus years illustrates a world where toil and suffering can be handed off to an indifferent, unfeeling working class with astounding ramifications. In fact, this scientific upshot rewrites the entire history of the second half of the Twentieth Century. No, not history — in an age of asexual technology, it’s more like a rewrite of “itstory,” a rewrite with a staggering, gripping conclusion.

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Universal Robots (2 hrs. 45 mins; one intermission)
Manhattan Theater Source (177 MacDougal Street)
Tickets (212-352-3101): $18
Performances (through 3/7): Wed.-Sat. 7:30pm

The Philanderer

A womanizer gets caught between two very different women in this feisty and entertaining production of Shaw's gender-bending and socially critical comedy.

Photo by LAB Photography

Reviewed by Cindy Pierre

With the house seats right on the modest stage, any audience member is in a prime location to see the grimaces and false smiles bandying about in Theater Ten Ten's production of The Philanderer. And it's a good thing too because the cast's overexaggeration of gestures and body movements is exactly what will keep you laughing giddily. George Bernard Shaw's comedy about the evolution of relationships is great fun in the hands of a talented cast that is committed to authenticity, airs, and most pronouncedly, great diction.

With a delivery and tone that sometimes channels Family Guy's Stewie, you'll be able to detect other signs of immaturity in Julian Stetkevych's Leonard Charteris. Jumping from Julia Craven (Tatiana Gomberg), a wealthy and impetuous young woman, to Grace Tranfield (Anne Gill), a wiser, more subdued mate, Charteris delights in choosing promiscuity over marriage and lies over truth until his games turn Julia into a lovesick puppy.

Like The Philanderer's overly rapid pace in the beginning, Charteris does a lot of fast talking to escape committing to either woman, even though Grace, as a “new woman” who is advanced in her strong manner and elevated mind, is more his match. However, you wouldn't think so at first. Wearing an ill-fitting costume and locked in an amorous embrace with Charteris, Grace first appears to be the fleshly character that Julia turns out to be, but as the play progresses, her wit becomes evident. Despite Charteris' attempts to shake Julia at every turn, Stetkevych's zaniness plays well off of Gomberg's petulance, and one can't help but wonder why he won't make it work.

In addition to this lust triangle, there's a gaggle of philosophical heavyweights milling about the Ibsen (Henrik) Club, trying to one up each other while putting their two cents in about the trio's situation. There's Sylvia Craven (Barrie Kreinik), Julia's delightfully cheeky sister who pokes fun at everything and everyone. Their father, Colonel Daniel Craven (Greg Horton), thinks he's dying from a disease that Dr. Paramore (Mickey Ryan) diagnoses him with, but this storyline is far from morose. As the Colonel, Horton elicits more laughs naturally than anyone. Joseph Cuthbertson (Duncan Hazard), the Colonel's rival/friend, is spry and comfortable both as the center of attention and on the fringe of a scene. The Page (Shauna Horn), an unnecessary character, floats in periodically with announcements and deliveries.

Like many of Shaw's plays, The Philanderer executes biting and clever social commentary under the veneer of humor. Under Leah Bonvissuto's sharp direction, the whole cast flexes their acting muscles almost as if in a competition, but there's great, lively interaction between them even if it's sometimes at the expense of chemistry. Although four acts are excessive for 105 minutes, the set changes are smooth. If only gender and social relations were the same.

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The Philanderer (1 hr, 45 min with 1 intermission)
Theater Ten Ten (1010 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10028)
Tickets: $20 212-352-3101 or 866-811-4111(toll free)
Through March 15, 2009

Soul Samurai

Shut yo' mouth--Soul Samurai's only talkin' 'bout theater! Vampire Cowboys Theater, that is, which means there are sexy girls fighting and biting one another, not to mention exaggerated riffs on action-packed film genres: creator Qui Nguyen isn't far off when he says it's Kill Bill meets Shaft. Despite sounding like a B-movie, the cast is A-rated, as is the creative direction (puppets south of Avenue Q) and overall fun.

Photo/Theresa Squire

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

Qui Nguyen's latest play is badassss, tagging on two extra s's for Soul Samurai--though they could just as easily be demonstrative of the blaxploitation or symbolic of the very sexy asses involved. And while Nguyen samples from various genres (he accurately cites Kill Bill and Shaft, though there's also a bit of The Warriors's laughable panache), he's only imitating his own examples. All the staples of classic Vampire Cowboys Theatre are here: the introductory video ("Ninja, please!"), the montage (flag-twirling works well for transitions), and the hypertrophied wit ("Being able to kill is cash and yo' ass is broke"). Their hero grows unstoppable when she learns to no longer fear death; Nguyen and his director, Robert Ross Parker (who has to justify all that manic energy), have become bulletproof by throwing all their inhibitions away. (Cue the star-crossed stop-motion tale of an apple samurai girl and an orange ninja boy; there are puppets and pantomimes, too.)

It'd be accurate to say that Soul Samurai is played to the hilt except that this group is working with a pure blade--nothing slows this show down. After an introduction from G.I. Joe action figures Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow, the lights rise on a grindhouse-looking slum, all graffiti and metal shutters. Boss 2K (Sheldon Best) is in the middle of getting the best of Cert (Paco Tolson) when the hero, Dewdrop (Maureen Sebastian) shows up: "I'm the surprise, bitch." One dispatched villain later, and we're cutting to a week ago, as Dewdrop faces off with the pimped out Shogun of Manhattan, Grandmaster Mack (Jon Hoche); ten minutes later, we're tripping back to the real origin story, as Dewdrop's lover, Sally December (a white and sassy afroed Bonnie Sherman), gets killed by 2K and his gang of Longtooths (that'd be vampires). An interlude, "The Completely Uninteresting Tale of Marcus Moon," features a squeaky clean, nervous, and high-pitched Marcus (Best), who explains (as a masked Hoche pantomimes his actions) how he became such a completely interesting killer.

Something's always being flipped, which keeps Nguyen's fight choreography feeling fresh. One minute our heroes are wandering through the pitch-black subway tunnels, the next they're ragging on preachers (think Jon Tuturro in The Big Lebowski meets the Preacher comics); one flashback spoofs Mr. Miyagi as Master Leroy Green (Best) trains Dewdrop, another riffs on Avenue Q as political activist Sally December turns her back on a comically portrayed Puppet Earth (Hoche). Not only is it dazzlingly creative, but it's also never confusing: Sarah Laux and Jessica Wegener's sick costumes make it easy to distinguish bad guys from good guys, and Nick Francone's set and lighting make for clear, quick transitions from location to location (projections provide the details).

And then, of course, there's the acting: Tolson, who has always been the most successfully geeked out Vampire Cowboy (as the incompetent supervillain The Mole, or as the arrogant robot LC-4), gets to play an overconfident b-boy--who now actually has the skills to back his shit up when he says "My name's Cert--as in Death Cert . . . ificate." He's matched by the up-and-coming Best, who not only changes his voice, but actually carries himself differently from role to role. Everybody has their moment: for Hoche, it's the level of expression in his eyes while playing the Masked Marcus; for Sebastian and Sherman, it's their sustained attitude--they're not just posing when they say they're going to "kill you hard, slow, and sexy-like."

At last, Vampire Cowboys Theatre has found the right balance of action and adventure, creativity and control. Soul Samurai isn't just their best show, it's one of the best shows in the city, and until you see it, you'd better just shut yo' mouth.

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Soul Samurai (1hr 40min, no intermission)
HERE Arts Center (145 Avenue of the Americas)
Tickets (212-352-3101): $25.00
Performances (through 3/15): Wed. - Sun. @ 8:30 | Sat. @ 4:00

Five Days in March

In early February, Manhattan was host to the Chelfitsch Theater Company, a young Japanese troupe making a name for itself by specifically capturing the affect of Generation Y-ers in Japan. Though Chelfitsch’s stay in NYC was brief, based on their strong production of Five Days in March, the city will see more of them in the coming seasons.


Review by Amanda Cooper

From plot summary alone, Five Days in March comes across as pornographic: a young man and woman meet at a concert, exchange a few words, and then shack up in a hotel room for five days (in March). These five day also happen to be the first five days of the Iraq War. The play does not show us events. Instead, it is narrated—most scenes are conversations recounted to the audience; only rarely do the actors speak to one another. In addition to the hotel-bound main characters, we meet a number of their friends who are in town, and other individuals who are a degree or two of separation away from the pair.

The production is minimal—from the lack of a set to the subdued staging—but it is well thought out. A screen at the back of the stage shows supertitles (the performers stick with the play’s original language; the supertitles have been translated by Japanese-American playwright Aya Ogawa), and lighting effects. For the most part, the seven performers stay close to the screen, sometimes even leaning, or sitting against it. The actors look age-appropriate—part of the twentysomething Generation Y Chelfitsch intends to capture—and they carry themselves with an affectation familiar to anyone who has spent time with this age group (from any country). They present a detached, fast speech pattern, and low-key outward emotion—though feelings and philosophical emphatics seep through at times.

On the macro level, Five Days in March is a simplistic play. But what makes this show, and writer/director Toshiki Okada, worth watching, is what’s on the micro level: odd character ticks; small, sweet interactions; quick flashes of emotions; and yes, even optimism. All that honesty makes one eager to see more from Chelfitsch. Let’s cross our fingers that a theater like St. Ann’s or P.S. 122 brings them across the Pacific again soon.

Love/Stories (or, But You Will Get Used To It)

How do you stop your post-modern comedy from spinning out of control? Get post-post-modern on it. In his latest work, thirty-something Itamar Moses evolves, David Foster Wallace-like, from a cute couple of modern love stories, into a series of self-referential plays that send up his own act while at the same time validating and enhancing it.

Photo/Joan Marcus

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

The danger of writing, after that first initial flash, is that what you create will never be as close to that vision of perfection. Itamar Moses, no stranger to meta-drama and post-modern conventions (in which art comments on itself), must have had one hell of an initial flash, because his collection of one-acts is still pretty brilliant. In Love/Stories (or, But You Will Get Used To It), Moses works through the worries of a post-modern age by, appropriately enough, getting post-post-modern on them.

He begins, simply enough, with a prerecorded introduction, then enters into a "modern" play and a playful monologue before getting into the post-post-modern play-within-a-commentary-within-a-play. After some final thoughts on love as theater and theater as love, he ends with the depressingly sincere "Better never to begin." It's all exceptionally handled by the five-man ensemble of Bats (the repertory actors of The Flea), whose youth allows them to grasp the circuitous and often broken logic of the characters, and Michelle Tattenbaum, whose previous direction of Moses's work has taught her to let the words speak for themselves. (Joe Chapman's lighting non-intrusively juggles the various levels of "post.")

Moses's self-reference allows him to get away with a lot: for instance, the plot of "Chemistry Read," in which a writer tries to avoid casting the guy who stole the girl he wrote the play for, is justified by being demonstrably shallow. "Temping" uses the author's hyperrealistic ramblings--we've all heard halves of telephone conversations like this before--to heighten an otherwise banal breakup. And it's all uphill from there.

The centerpiece, "Authorial Intent," breaks a metaphor up three ways. Theatrically, B warns of overlearning--that is, knowing so much that your enjoyment is no longer pure--and A responds by breaking up with him: the man she's allowed to move in is no longer man she loves ("the you who doesn't live here"). Post-post-modernly, A and B speak only in literal subtext: "DEVICE: Costume Change i.e. 'B returns without his jacket and tie.' OBJECTIVE: Permission To Tell Lengthy Story TACTIC: Insistence Upon Lack of Desire to Tell Lengthy Story." "Realistically," the show has now ended, and the actors, Laurel (Holland) and Michael (Micalizzi), question their policy of not dating actors, wondering if there's perhaps some truth they can share after all--a measure of real knowledge that will transform them without destroying what they feel.

The second half of the title (or, But You Will Get Used To It) comes from "Szinhaz," as a Soviet director equates the strict suffering of his craft with the love he feels for his translator, finding that his consuming love can only adequately be expressed by stripping everything away into a silence. It's a silence that continues into "Untitled Short Play," as the evening's narrator (a bravura performance by John Russo), launches into a series of scene-delaying clarifications, mirroring the author's worry, indecision, and frustration at the unknowability of it all: "...how on earth could some lame scene where two people just talk to each other get more than thimble-deep into anything that remotely resembles anything that even comes within a country mile of an approximation of the barest outline of the feelings that gave rise to the need to write this..."

He has, of course, answered his own question--if it were ever really a question--with Love/Stories. (Or, But You Will Regret Not Seeing This If You Don't Go Now.)

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Love/Stories (or, But You Will Get Used To It) (1hr 30min)
The Flea Theater (41 White Street)
Tickets (212-352-3101): $20.00
Performances (through 3/9): Fri. & Sat. @ 9 | Sun. & Mon. @ 7 | Sun. @ 3

Chuck.Chuck.Chuck.

The title of Immediate Medium's latest work, Chuck.Chuck.Chuck. is apt, for they have captured the text and the sound of William Falkner's As I Lay Dying, in which the Bundren family self-destructs while attempting to bury the matriarch of their family. JJ Lind's aesthetics are as playfully fluid as the various narrative styles of the novel, as is his cast, a bunch of stone-cold-serious jokers.

Photo/JJ Lind

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

Chuck. Chuck. Chuck. is the sound Cash's adze makes as he cuts a coffin for his mother, Addie, in William Falkner's As I Lay Dying. It's a fitting title for Immediate Medium's adaptation, for they've not only brought the words of this classic family drama to life, but they've brought the sounds to life, too--even dead Addie's, with her whispering voiceover, and the murmuring brooks of human worry. Going one step further, Rob Ramirez actually turns Faulkner's stream of consciousness into a literal one, with projected lines from the novel snaking down from that centerpiece of a coffin. There's singing and dancing, too, much like Elevator Repair Service's adaptation of The Sound and the Fury, though it's not experimental so much as it's a necessary tact for wrestling Faulkner's prose to the ground without stifling it.

There's never the slightest risk of that here; Immediate Medium's ensemble work is superb, as is their aesthetic cohesiveness: Maki Takenouchi's set is a dirt-filled sandbox ringed with lights and rigged with laundry wires, Max Dana hides lights inside of buckets of water or beside the heat lamps so that each scene always feels distinct and a little private, and Suzie Chung's costuming strikes a nice balance between elegance and the requisite grime of this country family. If anything stands in the way of Chuck.Chuck.Chuck., it is Faulkner himself, whose narrative of the Bundren family's disasterous (and reflective) journey to bury Addie (LeAnn Lind), is sometimes overly oblique. Director JJ Lind combats this--a death that the doctor, Peabody, describes as "merely a function of the mind"--by remaining physical: Vardaman (Liz Vacco) guts a fish, Jewel (Megan Camisi) isolates himself from the family by drawing and redrawing his beloved horse on the exposed brick wall, Cash (Max Dana) makes his sawing into a workman's music, and Dewey Dell (Siobhan Towey) scurries about, keeping her brothers in line even as she frets about her secret pregnancy.

The big, action-packed climaxes of the novel--a perilous river crossing, a blazing fire--come to life in swirls of projections, dancing, and live music (provided by Ben Vershbow, Robin Aigner, Brady Jenkins, Suzie Chung, and Caroline Shaw, sometimes doing nothing more than stamping their feet). If there are exaggerated moments, like Vershbow's winking rapist, MacGowan, or Hugh Sinclair's drunken patriarch, Anse, it's only because Immediate Medium doesn't have space to let you reread and recontextualize the chapters: it all has to exist in the moment. And exist it does, from the tender way Dana's voice breaks in an otherwise technical account of the thirteen-step coffin-building method to the way Michael Rushton's Darl slowly grows more and more erratic, going mad, but rationally so.

Some cuts have been made, some text has been reshuffled or overlapped, but it feels as if it's all there, and that's what matters. For in the end, all there is for any of us is that final sound.

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Chuck.Chuck.Chuck (90 min.)
The Collapsable Hole (146 Metropolitan Avenue)
Tickets (212-352-3101): $12.00
Performances (through 2/28): Thurs. - Sat. @ 8:30 (except 2/21)

Astronome: A Night at the Opera

If Richard Foreman's work were ever able to be summarized in three lines or less, it would no longer really be Foreman. It's hard to say where his latest--a collaboration with avant-garde soundscraper John Zorn--fits in to his eclectic canon. Let it just be known that for all the vibrating, waggling, creepy voiceovers, oddball costumes, madhouse set, and overall absurdity, it does fit: a style all its own.

Photo/Paula Court

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

There's a second subtitle to Richard Foreman's latest work of theater, Astronome: A Night at the Opera, a collaboration with the avant-garde composer John Zorn. That title is the parenthetical "A Disturbing Initiation" (which happens to be especially accurate for me, a first time Foremanner), but that's not a warning, just as the complimentary earplugs aren't actually neccessary. It's a statement of fact--something that may not belong in a review of this almost text-less, symbolic work of theater (can it be called a play?). If Zorn's piece--the Tazmanian Devil doing a punk show--is meant to provide catharsis, then it is Foreman's half that is taking it on, showing how "human beings [are] buffeted by forces that invade human life." The result, which seems more directed at the actors than the performers, is one hell of an initiation. "Stage fright" is ominously, constantly whispered by Foreman's disembodied voice, and this is certainly one way to deal with it.

Textual analysis seems a little pointless, though, given the way in which Hebrew and English letters are spiderwebbed across the set, alchemical diagrams come wheeling out, and a woman in all black (Deborah Wallace) keeps attempting to erase an already clean blackboard. It's also hard to put a straight face on actors going in and out of a giant nostril and mouth, something that seems reminiscent of Double Dare, or the long-tongued lounge "singer," a green-skinned Tony Clifton (Jamie Peterson). What's necessary, by Foreman's rules--"I don't see it, you don't see it, nobody sees it except the man stumbling upon it quite by accident"--is to just experience it. Watch the symmetrical moments, the tightly choreographed shaking and collapsing. See the blinking photo flashes, the swinging pendulum, the out-of-place bras. Listen through the throat-clearing music.

"It's very easy to choose the negative path to avoid things that are painful," continues Foreman. His play isn't painful, nor really disturbing, and there are enough oddly wonderful and curious things to fascinate the intrepid theatergoer. But since we're talking about stage fright, isn't Astronome a word of advice to the artist? This is what you can choose, it says, don't avoid it.

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Astronome: A Night at the Opera (1 hour)
The Ontological Theater @ St. Mark's Church (131 East 10th Street)
Tickets (212-352-3101): $25 ($35 on Saturday)
Performances (through 4/5): Tues., Thurs. - Sun. @ 8

The Wendigo

Eric Sanders cuts to the bone of Algernon Blackwood's 1910 short horror story and Matthew Hancock's direction creates a minimalist smooth atmosphere. But for all the slashing of text, there's still too much description. That the cast nails it (particularly Nick Merritt) only makes us howl for more.


Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

Eric Sander's adaptation of Algernon Blackwood's The Wendigo, a spooky short story from 1910, starts with a killer line: "Our hunting party brought back no moose that year." It's a far cry better than Blackwood's clunkier version, and a hint of just how streamlined the Vagabond Theatre Ensemble's production is going to be (a little too slim, at only forty-five minutes). Matthew Hancock's direction helps to smooth things over, too: his actors have accents, but they don't exaggerate them. (Comedy is not the intended effect of this piece.)

In fact, the cast is generally terrific, with Nick Merritt smoothly transitioning from the task of "ominous narrator" to that of "excited novice hunter" and Kurt Uy's Defago slipping from a confident if somewhat brusque guide to that of a terrified, superstitious drunk. As Hank, Graham Outerbridge has the gruff behavior of a mercenary leader down cold, and Erik Gratton, with his deep radio voice, uses perfect enunciation to emphasize Doc's rationality.

However, despite Brian Tovar's excellent lighting (pinpoints piercing the blackness), the strict minimalism of Nicholas Vaughan's set (black poles hang like dead trees) and Gino Barzizza's static, projected backdrops prevent the show from capturing anything atmospheric. Candice Thompson nails the period costumes, but she's left threadbare conjuring up a wendigo. Only M. L. Dogg's calm, constant, cricketing sound design remains in the moment, and even that is undercut by the occasional use of generic thriller music.

That the play ends up looking a bit like The Blair Wendigo Project isn't necessarily a bad thing, and the production is constantly elevated by the careful culling of Blackwood's original descriptions. The smoke-lit darkness may not be terrifying, but it is certainly engaging, particularly when Hancock grounds the text in action--the ominous sound of Defargo's whetstone would make a Foley artist proud. If you ever see a wendigo, run; until then, you might as well walk to see The Wendigo.

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The Wendigo (40 minutes)
Medicine Show Theatre (549 West 52nd Street)
Tickets (212-868-4444): $10.00
Performances (through 2/28): Thurs. - Sat. @ 8 | Sun. @ 3

Thoroughly Modern Millie

The Gallery Players’ staging of this Tony Award winner is just a bonbon. But who says musicals have to be good for you?


BY ELLEN WERNECKE

When Thoroughly Modern Millie, a musical based on a British hit and envisioned as a Julie Andrews vehicle, hit movie screens in 1967, its conceit of a jazz baby trying to go straight just long enough for her to meet and land a rich man was already part of the past. Its 2002 Broadway resetting (involving new music and lyrics as well as an edited book), even further from the Jazz Age, needed heroine Millie Dilmount’s drive for laughs even more. It’s not that the notion of gold-diggers is that far from our national consciousness—we still have TV’s The Bachelor, after all—but Millie’s conviction (that to be “modern” is to make her marriage read like a balance sheet) is just as much of a joke as any show-tune anthem declaring that the character will never fall in love. (There are at least two of those songs here, “What Do I Need With Love” for the poor schemer who falls for Millie, and “Jimmy," her anthem for him.)

When Brooklyn’s Gallery Players try to go serious with Thoroughly Modern Millie, pausing to emphasize one character’s moral lesson or another’s hasty mistake, the show slows down without gaining any gravitas. But overall, it’s as light on its feet as its jitterbugging cast. Director Neal J. Freeman shows off their stuff to perfect effect by letting the production flow from scene to scene, a move that also highlights how much the company does without a Great White Way-sized budget. The song-and-dance number “The Speed Test” is a showcase for the tapping talents of the chorus as well as the “Modern Major-General”-style comedic timing of Andy Planck, who plays Millie’s boss. Allison Luff, as Millie, has clearly studied Sutton Foster’s Broadway performance of the role, but it doesn’t break her stride as the stubborn “modern” from Kansas; her friend Dorothy (Amy Grass) is just this side of shrill, but Millie quickly surrounds herself with more captivating characters like the international superstar, Muzzy van Hossmere (a deliciously grandiose Debra Thais Evans).

Unfortunately, Millie is burdened with a white-slavery subplot that, besides employing an ethnic caricature in a not very funny way, is also the one element that keeps the show from being family-friendly. (To begin with, no one uses the term “white slavery” any more, so good luck explaining that to little Dick and Jane.) Justine Campbell-Elliott (as the predatory Mrs. Meers) dons an Asian accent as a means of disarming the girls under her care at the Hotel Priscilla, but it’s too reminiscent of Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and even thoroughly, shall we say, un-modern. As a director, Freeman should have turned down the caricaturizing in order to allow the audience to focus on her henchmen, Ching Ho and Bun Foo (Roy Flores and Jay Paranada), who are funny enough even before the manually operated subtitles come out. Luckily, this sour chord doesn’t distract too much from the fun of following Millie and her jazz-crazy friends.

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Through Feb. 22 at 199 14th Street in Brooklyn. For tickets and more information, visit galleryplayers.com.

Great Hymn of Thanksgiving/Conversation Storm

Although the ability to ignore reality over a luxurious dinner and the knack for using torture are unfortunately unoriginal things in this country, the Nonsense Company's duet of one-acts is still terrifyingly original. They put the "fun" back in "fungible."



Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

Normally, when something as unique as Great Hymn of Thanksgiving/Conversation Storm comes around, it takes very little time for the derivatives to start piling on. Granted, theater is a far less immediate medium than television, but while it's terrific that this work still feels original a year after the '08 Frigid Festival (and its two halves have existed since '03 and '06), it's also a shame, surely, that not enough people have seen this production to pilfer from it.

Then again, there's the fact that stealing the Nonsense Company's technique is pretty damn hard; they, unlike some of the material they glibly discuss, are not fungible. Their first piece "Great Hymn of Thanksgiving," is aptly subtitled "for three speaking percussionists," and requires Ryan Higgins, Andy Gricevich, and Rick Burkhardt to follow sheet music for, among other things, mastication, wine-glass harmonics, and the plate-scraping rhythms of an errant fork. Parents: tell your children they can play with their food, so long as their mischief is synchronized and politically charged, for the monotonous cowbell-garblings of the cast are extracted from the Army Prayer Manual, world news reports, and Rae Armantrout's poetry. It is a clear collision of our hypercasual comforts with a distant reality: we cannot even imagine killing our own turkey, let alone visualize the charred casualties of war.

Without pause--for when is there ever a break in life?--the show segues into the second act, "Conversation Storm," a more conventional play only in the sense that there are characters, that they speak lines, and that there are scenes. But Burkhardt's writing here is just as inventive: he gives life to another too-casual behavior, the "thought experiment," by forcing Hugh (Higgins) to "out torture" Alec (Burkhardt) in a ticking timebomb game of "Do You Talk?" This isn't the audience-approved stuff of 24, but rather a boundary-pushing extrapolation: "You can either believe me," says the terrorist/victim, his testicles already crushed by a bathroom stall door, "or you can fuck my son." The one-act is performed lightning-fast, jumping forward and back between scenes--even rewriting some of them--as it mixes comedy and drama in an attempt to parse the concept that "torture is fine as long as we don't enjoy it too much."

Burkhardt and company succeed and fail in this endeavor: for all the unsettling screeches and scratches of the first act and the unpleasant scenarios and scares of the second, the performance is still primarily enjoyed--if not too much, then just enough.

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Great Hymn of Thanksgiving/Conversation Storm (75 min., no intermission)
IRT (154 Christopher Street, #3B)
Tickets (www.nonsensecompany.com): $15.00
Performances (through 2/15): Wed. - Sat. @ 8 | Sun. @ 3

Cornbury: The Queen's Governor

We may never know why it took Cornbury: The Queen’s Governor over three decades to receive its world premiere, but the virtuosic performance of David Greenspan, and the subversive thrill of the character he plays, makes it worth the wait.

Reviewed by Jason Fitzgerald



“I am civilization!” So announces the self-congratulatory Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, in Cornbury: The Queen’s Governor, a fanciful recounting of Hyde’s royal governorship of New York from 1702–1708. In the hands of playwrights William M. Hoffman and the late Anthony Holland, Hyde, whose reputed cross-dressing and sexual philandering is still up for debate in historical circles, becomes a symbol of social progress, moral freedom, and good fashion. A combination of Wilde’s aestheticism and Whitman’s inclusivity, Hyde embodies the revolutionary promises of the gay liberation movement, from whose energies the play sprung when it was written in the mid-1970s. To complete the parallel with the post-Stonewall, sexual-revolution culture wars, Hoffman and Holland set Hyde against the Puritan Dutch, who lived in New York at the time and resisted the libertinism of their English rulers. In this example of what Hoffman calls “revanchist revisionist history, or history as…it should have been,” the Lord Cornbury becomes a queer comic-book hero.

As played by David Greenspan, Hyde flutters around the stage in a revolving fashion show of dazzling, overwrought outfits, most of them dresses. As a performer, Greenspan (Some Men, The Beebo Brinker Chronicles) emphasizes style and gesture over psychology: his characters float above the stage in an aesthetic nether region that can make everyone else onstage appear foolishly earnest. These talents serve Cornbury in abundance, as in scene after scene Hyde knocks his enemies off their high horses not by argument but by turning them into contrivances, thereby dismissing them. To the repulsed insults of the pastor’s son, Greenspan faces the audience and speaks with a feigned coquettish whine: “Comprendre, c’est pardonner. I can scarce accept your proposal for I am married.” By showing how easily the young man’s earnestness can apply to a melodramatic love scene, Greenspan punctures the balloon of fundamentalist sincerity.

This project of deconstruction by theatrical silliness was once exemplified by the late Charles Ludlam’s Theatre of the Ridiculous, to whose aesthetic Cornbury owes an obvious debt. Stage designer Mark Beard is wise to construct a set of flimsy flats and curtains, so that the whole production yields to the meta-theatrical impulses of its main character (who watches the set unfurl at the show’s beginning, like a stage manager). And director Tim Cusack is wise to cast Everett Quinton, Ludlam’s partner and heir, as the Puritan pastor. But the rest of the ensemble struggles with the self-conscious style of the Ridiculous, despite glimpses of success in Ashley Bryant (as Hyde’s African slave) and Julia Campanelli (as his besotted wife). Hyde is never presented with a worthy adversary, and even Quinton, who works overtime to turn his character into a winking, “Dr. Evil”-like caricature, winds up unbalancing the production by drawing attention away from the pastor’s wife, who is meant to be Hyde’s true nemesis.

So Greenspan steals the show, just as Edward Hyde, at the play’s end, claims the spirit of New York City as his own. When the governor is offstage, we yearn for his return, not an inappropriate response given the politics of the play. But as a theatrical experience, it reveals the potential of Hoffman and Holland’s play while leaving space for a more definitive production in the future.


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Cornbury: The Queen's Governor (2 hours with intermission)
Hudson Guild Theatre (441 West 26th St)
www.cornburytheplay.com or 212-352-3101 ($18)
Through Feb 8: Sat 2pm, Sat 8pm, Sun 5pm

Hamlet

A condensed Shakespearean tragedy...in Japanese.

Reviewed by Caitlin Fahey

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melvillapalooza: Voyage A

To acutely interpret Herman Melville, notorious for his longwinded prose, is no easy feat. To adapt him for the stage in sixty minutes or less is divine.

Reviewed by Amanda Halkiotis

The Metropolitan Playhouse’s Fourth Annual Literature Festival focuses on the American writer Herman Melville. Through poems, staged readings, and musical interpretations, his work and personal history comes to life. This evening’s entertainment, Voyage A, featured a scripted adaptation of Melville’s Billy Budd and a playful slant on the conception of Moby Dick.

Scott Barrow’s take on Billy Budd aims to do justice to a story of adventure and honor by staging it with sensitivity and spark. The plot centers around Billy, a proud and naïve sailor who volunteers—at sword-point—to be part of Claggart’s crew. As Billy, Justin Gibbs brings out the sweet sincerity of a boy on the brink of manhood. Bud’s habit of nervous stuttering while denying an accusation or admitting a wrongdoing completes Mr. Gibbs’ delightful performance. He is well met by Andrew Gruesetskie’s chill-inducing menace as Claggart. The opposing morals these two characters represent reach their tipping point when a murder occurs on deck and a decision must be made how to prosecute the offender. With no law in place nor judge to enforce it, the men aboard must decide for themselves how to resolve the situation at hand. The story reaches an unexpected conclusion, and Mr. Barrow’s compact, well-paced adaptation brings to life the challenges and consequences of determining someone else’s fate, and the haunting retributions of such reckonings.

Dan Evans takes a different approach with The Archangel: glib historical inaccuracy. In this original work, Herman Melville (Dave Powers) is a modest, uncertain man bound by writer’s block. On the brink of beginning his great masterpiece, Melville, played by a magnetic Mr. Powers, paces the stage and performs a soliloquy of his neurotic insecurities to Nell, a past-her-prime prostitute and bar owner (LuLu LoLo). Without knowing much else about what he wants to write he discloses his allegory of the great white whale to Nell, who can’t believe her ears and calls for a second opinion. Out comes Delilah (an outrageous and shrill Amy Fulgham), a prostitute possessed by an archangel and thereby controlled by a great white force of her own. Though she’s resistant at first, she soon serves as interpreter between the archangel and those in Nell’s bar in an attempt to cure Melville of his writer’s block and thrust him into a creative frenzy. Joined by humorous cameos including a smug Walt Whitman (Laurence Waltman) and an impassioned Henry David Thoreau (Christopher Norwood), this lighthearted comedy takes just enough creative license with historical figures and events to make for an absurd and unforgettable night.

If Voyage A is any indication of the rest of Melvillapalooza, then anchors aweigh: these plot twists and character idiosyncrasies that put the life and works of Melville in a new light, not just meeting our expectations, but exceeding them.

The Judgment of Paris

Not only does Company XIV’s definition-defying dance/theater production of The Judgment of Paris transport, surprise and entertain with the ease of a blown kiss, but it is peopled by brilliant, engaging artists and is cut from a cloth that is entirely new, risky, and delicious.


Reviewed by Lyssa Mandel

Every once in a while, theater presents the fulfilling gift it’s capable of: it transports, surprises and entertains. Not only does Company XIV’s definition-defying dance/theater production of The Judgment of Paris achieve all of these things with the ease of a blown kiss, but it is peopled by brilliant, engaging artists and is cut from a cloth that is entirely new, risky, and delicious.

Housed in the appropriate environs of the shabby-chic Duo Theatre (here resmbling a Moulin Rouge-esque French brothel), Paris cross-breeds the mythical tale of Helen of Troy with gorgeous baroque ballet choreography. The result is a decadent, indulgent delight with the sinful aesthetic of a Toulouse-Lautrec painting.

Prince Paris of Troy (the dapper Seth Numrich, who serves as the Don Juan/carnival barker/MC of the show) must choose to give the Golden Apple of his favor to one of three feminine powers that be. Forgoing Hera and Athena, he chooses Aphrodite, the brassy, voluptuous Gioia Marchese (who is also the Madame of the house). And so the events of the story are triggered. Paris falls in love with Helen (the poised and mysterious Elyssa Doyle), only to discover she’s already married. The besotted prince steals her away from her husband in the night, sparking the Trojan War.

The ensemble of six, all nuanced performers and marvelous dancers, rarely leave the stage. Instead, they morph fluidly from scene to scene, changing costumes and characters as the production requires, creating the theatrical equivalent of a magic show. With the wide-ranging symphony of musical selections, the piece is like a live collage. Leigh Allen uses the lighting to conjure up gorgeous, stark tableaux for the performers and Olivera Gajic’s costumes create the effect of an exquisite, expensive period piece. The whole production is a masterful example of creative collaboration, helmed by choreographer/director Austin McCormick, a ballet scholar who also conceived the piece.

It would have been enough to watch the ladies basking in the can-can music, cooing and jeering at each other and the audience. But the mythical storyline deepens and grounds the production, making it more than just a feathery, if highly enjoyable, romp at an old-fashioned Parisian gentlemen’s club. Between the graceful, quietly intense ballet interpretation of the Trojan War and the myriad suggestive jokes and bosoms on display, high art and lowbrow raunch are corseted together in the span of one bewitching hour.