The Wendigo

Tales like Algernon Blackwood's classic "The Wendigo" electrify our fur by pricking at our most primitive, arboreal fear: that of becoming prey. "The Wendigo"'s direct descendant, The Blair Witch Project, took a modern approach, made possible by the medium of film: it placed the audience behind the eyes of the characters. One can't do that in the theater, of course. But one might imagine staging a wordy story like "The Wendigo" by turning it inside out, snaking deep into the minds of the characters in some other way. Playwright Eric Sanders has chosen to tell the story straight, though. Essentially true to the action of the original, his 45-minute version relies heavily, as did the original story, on atmosphere. Here it's created by the trusty trappings of B-movie horrordom: insistent sound effects, spooky music, sudden and extreme lighting changes, a murky forest set - along with that modern theatrical staple, projection. But this is "The Wendigo" minus the rich texture of Blackwood's prose, and the special effects don't fully make up for that.

Read the full review.

The Fantasticks

I took advantage of the 20at20 off-Broadway promotion (in effect through Feb. 8) to catch The Fantasticks for $20. (Actually $21.50.) What better way to spend Super Bowl Sunday afternoon, after all, than attending a classic piece of musical theater? There wasn't very much to note; it's The Fantasticks, after all. Subbing for Lewis Cleale was Scott Willis, who made a formidable El Gallo. I teared up at "They Were You." A basic good time was had by all. There was something a tiny bit odd about the venue, though. It's in the Jerry Orbach Theater, in the Snapple Theater Center. Hence the lobby has a dual Snapple-and-Jerry-Orbach theme. Wonder what Orbach - who was in The Fantasticks when it first opened off-Broadway, in 1960, long before Snapple was a gleam in some marketer's eye - would have thought. The Fantasticks: maybe not the best stuff on Earth, but for a Jackson plus a buck-fifty, how can you go wrong? Bonus lobby feature: read all about Jerry Orbach during intermission.

Raised in Captivity

[Greetings! As this is my first post at Show Showdown, here's a quick introduction: I'm Jon Sobel, a New York theater critic. (I'm also a music writer and a musician.) I'm the Theater Editor of Blogcritics Magazine, where our theater series is called Stage Mage, and I also post at my own blog, The Bagel and the Rat, where you can usually find my theater and music criticism as well as the occasional book review, political ramble, or reflective grumble about life in New York City.]

A parent gets sick or dies; damaged or estranged family members gather. This is the ur-text of present-day American theater. We can't avoid this fundamental plot machine. But we can appreciate what different playwrights do with it. Dark drama, comedy, absurdity - all are valid approaches. But the talented playwright Nicky Silver tries all three in Raised in Captivity, and perhaps inevitably, though he nails various targets over the course of the longish two-acter, he ultimately gets spun around one too many times and pins the tail on the Led Zeppelin poster.

[Read on]

Photo by Nathan Johnson.