The Legend of the Waitress and the Robber

You have only a couple of days to catch the delightful and odd musical The Legend of the Waitress and the Robber, running at Dixon Place through Sunday May 29th. It's worth the trip.

Eunji Lim, Yura Noh, NamPyo Kim, Kyongsik Won, Ju Yeon Choi .
Photo: Stefan Hagen

Presented by Concrete Temple Theatre, Playfactory Mabangzen, and Yellow Bomb Inc., The Legend of the Waitress and the Robber is a bicultural mash-up of Friedrich Schiller’s play The Robbers and the Korean novel The Story of Hong Gildong. With a cast of actors from both the US and Korea, the show is performed in Korean and English, each supplemented by supertitles in the other language. It takes place in a dystopian setting where two people--the robber and the waitress, natch--choose to break away from the rules and restrictions and act from the heart. For the robber, that takes the form of separating people from their cell phones. For the waitress, it's "kidnapping" senior citizens who are being abused or neglected by their families and providing them with a friendly home. Unsurprisingly, (entertaining) chaos ensues.

While the storyline is a bit wobbly and unfocused, the songs, directions, and performances are good, and the show has a beguiling madcap sweetness. 

One of the show's main strengths is the scenery, designed by Carlo Adinolfi. Made up mostly of cardboard and plywood (I think), it lends the show a sense of fairy tale or cartoon. "Props" are charming drawings of the items on cardboard. Doors resemble the frames of cartoon panels. Combining simplicity, utility, and wit, the scenery gently anchors the show in its own reality.

The Legend of the Waitress and the Robber was written by Renee Philippi, with a score by Lewis Flinn. Philippi directed with Eric Nightengale. The cast includes Carlo Adinolfi, Rolls Andre, Ju Yeon Choi, Hye Young Chyun, Lisa Kitchens, Nam Pyo Kim, Won Kyongsik, Eunji Lim, James A. Pierce III, and Noh Yura. Costumes were designed by Laura Anderson Barbata; the musical directors are Jacob Kerzner and Hee Eun Kim; Quentin Madia is the Production Stage Manager.

Overall, the show is unique and lovely.

Wendy Caster

Pound

Pound, the fabulous Marga Gomez's satirical exploration of the depiction of lesbians in old movies, has only one more performance (Dixon Place, on July 25, 2015). If you have any interest in Marga Gomez, lesbians, old movies, and/or laughing your butt off, run down there.

Pound (smoothly directed by David Schweizer) focuses specifically on The Children's Hour, The Killing of Sister George, The Fox, Bound, Basic Instinct, and Showgirls. It also makes quick visits to The Hunger, Orange Is the New Black, The Kids Are Alright, and Sphere, a movie in which Gomez and Queen Latifah had small parts, back in the day. Much of Gomez's commentary is well-trod ground. However, via her unique slant, intelligence, wit, comic chops, and likability, her insights morph into hysterically funny and fresh material that is both political and very personal.

Pound goes off the rails a bit when Gomez is sucked (don't ask) into a portal leading to a cloud populated by fictional lesbians. It becomes a bit difficult to keep track of the flashbacks and flashforwards, and it's not always 100% clear who's speaking. The writing in this section is also less incisive and pushes a little too hard for laughs. It's still funny; it's just not at the high level of the rest of the show.

Overall, however, Pound is a great way to spend 75 minutes.

I hope that some day Gomez extends her satire to the present day. One line on Orange Is the New Black is not enough, funny as it is. And it would be wonderful to hear her take on Blue Is the Warmest Color, Reaching for the Moon, Kissing Jessica Stein, Kalinda in The Good Wife, the treatment of the lesbian couple in Last Tango in Halifax, Cosima on Orphan Black, The Fosters, Kima on The Wire, Callie and Arizona on Grey's Anatomy, and the women on the dreadful social event that was The L Word. That the list is long might suggest that satirizing fictional lesbians is no longer necessary, but of course there's still plenty to say. And I'd love to hear Gomez say it!

(press ticket; 2nd row)