Max Understood

Reviewed for Theatermnia.

Broke-Ology

photo: T. Charles Erickson

The story behind Broke-Ology makes it the kind of play you want to love, or even enjoy: a young playwright (Nathan Louis Jackson) lands in New York without a dollar to his name, and within a year goes from homeless and sleeping on the subway to a position as a commissioned writer for one of the foremost non-profits in the country (Lincoln Center Theater). Unfortunately, the play itself holds no more drama than your average freshman television series; it's often so predictable that I could guess not only the situations in which the characters would find themselves, but even the words they would use to describe them. The production (somewhat lazily directly by Thomas Kail) does have one thing going for it: a strong central performance by Wendell Pierce, as a proud patriarch whose life and community are crumbling before him. Pierce--along with Francois Battiste and Alano Miller as his adult sons, and Crystal A. Dickinson as his beloved wife--works hard to infuse the play with a level of tension that simply isn't there in the writing. Hopefully Jackson's next work for Lincoln Center, set to premiere next year, will give his actors more to work with.

Wishful Drinking

Based on her book of the same name, Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking is 45% autobiography, 45% stand-up, and 10% twelve-step meeting. Much of the material is very funny; little of it is new. The show runs a good 15 to 20 minutes too long, and Carrie Fisher the performer is not in the same league as Carrie Fisher the writer. (A friend of mine commented that Meryl Streep played Carrie better than Carrie plays Carrie, but it's not a fair comment. After all, Meryl could probably play all of us better than we play ourselves.) Wishful Drinking is for the already converted. If you think you'll enjoy it, you probably will. If you think you won't enjoy it, you probably won't.

My Scary Girl

He's a doofy 30-year-old virgin looking for a woman who reads and thinks. She's pretty, demure, and well-read, with one little, uh, quirk. Based on a movie, the campy and delightful My Scary Girl (at the New York Musical Theatre Festival) provides a highly entertaining 100 minutes or so in the theatre. Sung in Korean, with English supertitles, My Scary Girl shows that certain things are universal: love, shyness, and laughing at bloody body parts. With Broadway-style music by Will Aronson, book and lyrics by Kyoung Ae Kang, direction by Jung Joo Byun, and choreography by Sun Ho Shin, My Scary Girl has the makings of an Off-Broadway cult hit. Well performed by Jae Bum Kim, Jin Ui Bang, Jin Hee Kim, Jae Hong Jeon, Sang Hyun Jin, and Gi Ho Yu.

Mo Faya

Part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival, Mo Faya, (book, music, and lyrics by Eric Wainaina, who also plays a lead character) gives us a slice of life in a ghetto in Kenya ("They call it a slum, we call it home.") The music is a lively mix of reggae and African rhythms, the choreography is energetic and entertaining, and many of the performers are excellent (in particular, Dan 'Chizi' Aceda, Valerie Kimani, and Eric Wainaina). Unfortunately, due to a combination of accents, hyper talking, and bad miking, the dialogue and lyrics are frequently unintelligible. However, I suspect that, with some trimming and focusing, there is a good show in there.

Next to Normal

Photo: Joan Marcus

The best seat in the house is a matter of opinion. Some people prefer first row mezzanine center so that they can view the entire stage picture. Other people like four or five rows back in the orchestra so that they are close, but still have some perspective. I prefer to sit as close as possible. On Thursday, I had the wonderful experience of seeing Next to Normal first row center orchestra. (Thanks to Susan and Andrea for getting to Shubert Alley at 7:30 in the morning to buy rush tickets!) Yes, there are things you miss sitting first row--in the case of Next to Normal, you can't see the entire top section of the set. But, oh, what you do get to see. And feel. For example, the first row reveals whole new levels to Alice Ripley's performance. Her lips move nervously while the others talk. Paranoia wafts off her skin. You experience her craziness as you might experience a friend's. And the most emotional scenes are right in your face, as though you are in Dan and Diana's house rather than in a theatre. On a more mundane level, first row allows you to hear the performers' actual voices a bit and not just the amplification and also to appreciate the mechanics of putting together a song that goes from person to person and scene to scene, as the actors go up and down stairs, move furniture, and clean up messes, all in character. The excellent Michael Berry was on for J. Robert Spencer. He plays Dan as a warmer, more loving person, which I liked a lot.

Wishful Drinking

photo: Kevin Berne

A word to the wise: don't eat before you see Wishful Drinking, the acerbic and utterly enjoyable one-woman show written and performed by Carrie Fisher, which opens tonight at Studio 54. No, there's nothing disgusting onstage--unless the sight of a slightly zaftig fifty-three year old woman trying to dry hump a young male audience member doesn't exactly do it for you. Rather, the reason that you should refrain from food prior to Fisher's two-hour confessional is that, if your reaction to the show is anything like mine, you'll be heaving so heartily in your seat that by the end of the evening you find yourself on the verge of nausea. Fisher--back on Broadway for the first time in nearly three decades--holds the audience in the palm of her hand for the show's entirety, skillfully wringing waves of comedy from some of the most unfunny moments of her life: the dissolution of her parents' marriage; her fraught relationship with ex-husband Paul Simon; having the father of her daughter leave her for another man, and then promptly announce that she'd "turned him gay by taking codeine"; and, above all, her almost lifelong battle with substance abuse. All of this material is inherently dramatic--most of these plot-points could easily make their way into a play by Martin McDonagh or Tracy Letts--which is all the more reason to praise Fisher and her comedic prowess. She throws up her hands and laughs at her pain, and you'd better believe we're laughing with her.

Kiss of The Spider Woman

It's well-known that productions at NYU's Steinhardt School tend to be very good if not excellent. While I intend to honor the policy that they're not open for review, I really see no harm in spreading the word that their current production, of Kander and Ebb's Kiss of The Spider Woman, demands you clear some time on your calendar. Remaining performances through Monday night.

Hamlet

photo: Tristam Kenton

A note to Michael Grandage, artistic director of The Donmar Warehouse and director of its production of Hamlet, currently playing a limited engagement at the Broadhurst Theatre: just because you have Jude Law in your cast doesn't mean that you can skimp on the rest of the ensemble. Though far from perfect, Law acquits himself nicely as the Danish prince, commanding the attention of the audience throughout the role's myriad soliloquies (his delivery of "What a piece of work is a man..." is particularly good). However, there's hardly anyone else in the cast that's up to his--or, for that matter, any professional--level. Especially horrific is Gugu Mbartha-Raw, who reads Ophelia's lines as if they were being fed to her through an earpiece. The great Geraldine James is no better as Gertrude--she announces Ophelia's death as casually as one would order a glass of wine at a bar--and Ron Cook's dual performance as Polonius and the 1st Gravedigger is hammier than an Oscar Mayer delivery truck. Grandage's overall production is overwhelmingly grey and dull, and adds no dimension to the hollow performances on stage. His intention was probably to spotlight the text through the absence of scenery, but the sight of the Broadhurst's brick stage wall simply made me miss Mary Stuart more than ever.

The Buddha Play

Evan Brenner's one-man play is a simple piece of theater, but not simple-minded. Mr. Brenner plainly and engagingly recites from the oldest Buddhist sutras, known as the Pali Canon, recounting the life of Siddhartha Gautama, who became forever known as the Buddha. He brings the characters alive, not histrionically, but through measured, focused, artful talk and movement. As the play begins it feels more like storytelling than "drama"; but it slowly becomes suspenseful in spite of itself. Gautama does not take lightly his decision to leave behind his rich inheritance and "go forth" as a seeker of salvation. And after he has achieved Nirvana he continues to live in a warlike world, with followers, family – and the Devil periodically prodding him away from his path. Read the full review.

A Steady Rain

photo: Joan Marcus

Where's the fun in a star performance that doesn't capitalize on the star's star qualities? That's what I wondered watching Hugh Jackman work his ass off during this one act in which he sits with legs wide apart and says "moherf@*ker" a lot to play a lower middle class Chicago beat cop. To borrow from Pauline Kael, it's like watching Julia Roberts not smiling. Jackman does a commendable job vocally - there's no trace of his Australian accent - and you see all the work he's done on his physicality. But that's just it - you're watching sweat. In the chair beside him all evening is Daniel Craig, whose disappearance into his more character-y character is so complete you'd barely recognize him even without the mustache. You forget almost immediately that he's the James Bond of our day, but you don't forget for an instant that Hugh Jackman is Hugh Jackman. This isn't to say that Craig is a better actor than Jackman, but instead that Craig isn't yet limited by stardom the way that Jackman is.

Superior Donuts

Photo: Michael Brosilow

I knew better than to expect that Tracy Letts's new play Superior Donuts would be as good as his Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County, but I did dare to expect that it would be good at all. Instead, Superior Donuts is a badly-stitched-together series of cliches. In brief: a woebegone, isolated man in late middle age (Michael McKean, in a performance that doesn't read at all from the mezzanine) hires a young black man to work in his donut shop, and the young man gets him re-involved in life. This scenario could have worked, I suppose, if the young man didn't have way too much wisdom, confidence, knowledge, and achievement for a 20-year-old with serious problems. And if he didn't have a frame of reference suspiciously resembling that of a middle-aged white playwright. And if the older man were an interesting character. And if the people frequenting the donut shop--two cops, an alcoholic old woman, and the Russian shop owner from next door--didn't practically wear signs saying, "Aren't we quirky?" And if it weren't predictable from her first entrance that the alcoholic old woman would eventually say something brilliant and life-changing to the shop owner. And if the second act didn't feature one of the worst fight scenes in the history of bad theatrical fight scenes (a competitive category!) And if the whole thing didn't feel cobbled together. On the positive side: Jon Michael Hall, as the young man, acts with energy and charm; the set is very nice; and I guess parts were funny, since the audience laughed and laughed, though I was never quite sure why. There's no doubt that Tracy Letts is a first-class playwright, but everyone has a bad day at work. This is his.

(Note: I saw this at an early preview. However, since it came from a long run in Chicago, there was already plenty of opportunity for the creative team to iron out any problems.)

Superior Donuts

photo: Robert J. Saferstein

From the moment that young, vital Franco (Jon Michael Hill) comes bounding in with hope and promise to the crumbling donut shop where Arthur (Michael McKean) has withdrawn into a fog, we know what's going to happen; it isn't the plot of Tracy Letts' latest play (which has followed his August: Osage County into The Music Box Theatre) that grabs the attention and holds it. The joy is in Lett's textured writing; it's in the humor he finds in his affection and compassion for his characters and the Chicago/America they inhabit. A compassionate drama with plenty of crowd-pleasing comedy, the play sounds notes of renewed hopefulness that seem right-on-time in this Obama age, and the unified ensemble put them over beautifully. At the center are the two extraordinary performances by McKean and newcomer Hill: their rapport helps to make the relationship between discouraged, world-weary middle-aged man and young, bright dreamer just about impossible to resist.

circle mirror transformation

photo: Joan Marcus

Anyone who's been around theatre games or acting classes will key right in to the humor in this new play (by Annie Baker) at Playwrights Horizons in which an acting coach (played brilliantly and with delicious detail by Deirdre O'Connell) leads four adult students through exercises. The play is heightened just enough to make even the most ordinary theatre games seem strange and funny but not so much that it mocks or belittles the craft - it's grounded in truthfulness and reveals a surprising poignancy beneath the humor. The play may be a tad overlong at this early stage in previews, but all five actors - Reed Birney, Peter Friedman, Heidi Shreck and the scene-stealing Tracee Chimo - are already spot on individually and as a team.

'Tis Pity She's a Whore

Photo: Teresa Olson

Though the script and character count have been cut, John Ford's humor, along with his audacious story and effervescent language, survive well in this fit and flowing staging, thanks to superb direction, an ace production team, and a fine cast. Michael Nathanson is a wonderfully entertaining Bergetto, and Sarah Hankins, in a fine dual performance, actually gets two death scenes. Andrew Krug as Giovanni is very facile with the high-toned language of his flowery speeches. But the big discovery here is Jessica Rothenberg, who gives a spellbinding performance in the tricky and probably exhausting role of Annabella, the incestuous sister. She is as beautiful as she is talented, and while in some roles that might be a distraction, here it adds a dimension, as one can easily identify with Giovanni's ardor. Yet through body language and makeup she transforms, heartbreakingly, into an ashen moral wreck, as the Friar's prediction – "death waits on thy lust – nears fulfillment. Read the full review.

Viral

Based on Viral and Universal Robots (see review here), I would have to say that Mac Rogers is one of the best playwrights writing today. Rogers's compassion, insight, unique point of view, and dark sense of humor combine with his prodigious talents to create remarkable evenings in the theatre. Viral, which was part of the Fringe Festival and the Fringe Encores, focuses on a woman who Goggles the phrase "painless suicide." She ends up in what she thinks is a support group with Geena (the wonderful Rebecca Comtois), Jarvis (Matthew Trumbull), and Colin (Kent Meister), three losers who have a rather unusual favor to ask of her. Viral provides genuine suprises and the characters fascinate and remain sympathetic even at their worst. Director Jordana Williams has led the superb cast to perfectly calibrated performances, and the amazing Amy Lynn Stewart is perfect as Meredith.

Thunder Above, Deeps Below

It's quite a sight, this play, with lavish costumes, grandiloquent sound design, and a spectacular set by Sandra Goldmark. It also boasts some very fine performances, led by Maureen Sebastian, who was so good as the swashbuckling hero of Soul Samurai back in February. The material, however, is somewhat lacking. The script veers from overly self-conscious poetics to cliched and unrealistic dialogue. It's a testament to the skill of the actors that we nevertheless grow to like and appreciate these homeless teens, rooting for them to get to their Promised Land of San Francisco, just as we root for the production, which has many good elements, to reach the transcendent heights suggested by Sandra Goldmark's two-level, industrial-mythic set. It never does, partly because it tries too hard to escape the base world of humanity. The play's second flaw is the way the playwright weaves a perplexing and unnecessary element of magic through the plot. The scenery may be operatic, but the characters aren't mythic heroes; in spite of their sometimes unrealistic dialogue, the cast makes them seem real to us. That's why we like them. Applying magic to point their way and solve their problems seems like cheating. Read the full review. Photo by Cory Weaver.

Henry V

A few scenes seem rushed in this Queens Players staging, but overall this is a strong production of Shakespeare's stirring history play. Danny Yoerges makes a marvelous Henry. Early in the proceedings, he seems stuck in an angry declamatory style, but his character fleshes out methodically, until by the time the young boys guarding the storehouse are killed by the fleeing French cavalry, Henry's seething, buttoned-up rage is thoroughly believable. Subsequently, after the battle is won, he transforms handily into Katherine's arch, bright-eyed wooer. The story is told straightforwardly, without extravagant sets and props, and, except for numerous cuts, in a form Shakespeare himself would probably recognize easily. The cast is very large, which makes for effective charging unto breaches. Casting the members of the French court as women, from King down to Herald, might in another production seem experimental or even outrageous, but after initially absorbing the conceit, one takes relatively little note of it, in large measure due to Jennifer Ewing's suitably regal performance as the French king. Read the full review.

Photo: posttheater

Japan, early 1950s. With his country still reeling from the war, weapons engineer Masaru Ibuka (Alexander Schröder) dreams of founding a new consumer electronics company where he will run "the ideal factory" and help "reconstruct Japan." He will "eliminate any untoward profit-taking" and in the process "elevate the nation's culture." Doesn't sound much like the dog-eat-dog world of American business, and indeed it's not. heavenly BENTO, a German production which just ran for three nights in English at the Japan Society, uses narration, dramatic conversations, dance, and innovative video to tell a stylized but engrossing version of the founding and success of Sony, first in Japan, then in the US. The audience sits above a raised white platform which is both stage and projection screen. The players – two actors and a dancer – interact with projected images at their feet. One thinks of a boxing ring. One thinks also of a giant flat-screen TV. Read the full review.

The Pied Pipers Of The Lower East Side

****1/2 (out of five stars)
The Amoralists

Too many smart people have been urging me to catch playwright/director Derek Ahonen's giant three act play of which the postcard warns of "explicit sexual content and Utopian ideals". They were right to urge. Loaded with beautifully designed characters, crackling dialogue and non-stop action, this play of ideas sucked me in had me fully invested in the lives of this quartet of polyamorous modern-day hippies. Zooming between hysterically funny and tragically sad, the action never slows down as our tribe attempts to justify their lifestyle to a visiting relative and also to themselves. This production has recently (and deservedly) made the leap from off-off to Off, and my friends, it should be seen.

Make sure you check out the preview on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILwQVH6z3-M

Next to Normal

Photo: Joan Marcus

Some five months into its Broadway run, Next to Normal remains vibrant, polished, impressive, and heartbreaking. The actors, led by the indomitable Alice Ripley, were excellent to start with and have gotten even better, and I'm finally ready to forgive J. Robert Spencer for not being Brian d'Arcy James. I saw Next to Normal twice Off-Broadway, once in D.C., and once before on Broadway, and watching the show develop--the rewrites, the cuts, the new songs, the changes in emphasis, the maturing of the performances--has been an education in the development of a first-class musical. (My original review can be found here.)

Altar Boyz

I know I am quite a late arrival to the Altar Boyz party, but count me in. I thoroughly enjoyed its humor, warmth, and delightful silliness. A tip of my hat and thank you to book writer Kevin Del Aguila and music and lyric writers Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker. It takes a lot of talent, work, and smarts to make a piece of fluff this good!

MilkMilkLemonade

Photo: John Alexander

The Management has become known as an edgy downtown group with notable depth. Their new production explores being gay in America, but specifically Middle America, and more precisely a chicken farm not far from the implied national nightmare succinctly summed up in the name "Mall Town, USA." Joshua Conkel's script feelingly and very humorously explores the relationship between two schoolboys, one effeminate and (mostly) liking himself that way, the other so desperately fighting his homosexual urges that he lashes out in a number of ways: "setting stuff on fire," getting into fights at home and at school, and punching and kicking the air like Cuchulain battling the waves. There's a talking chicken and a seething spider and – oh, it's all just too, too much. How it all ends isn't terribly important; getting there is where the fun is, and there's an awful lot of it – a number of moments had the audience in such stitches the cast had to wait patiently for the laughter to fade. Meredith Steinberg's energetic and funny choreography deserves mention, and the choices of music are spot-on – how can you not love a show that features "I've Never Been to Me"? Read the full review.

The Royal Family

photo: Boneau/Bryan-Brown

The scenic aspect of Manhattan Theatre Club's revival of The Royal Family is stunning--John Lee Beatty's set received rousing applause the moment the curtain was raised--but there's not much else happening on the stage of the Friedman to recommend devoting nearly three hours to this poorly-performed bagatelle. The play itself is quite funny and biting, but you'd never know that from watching Doug Hughes' largely miscast cast struggle through three acts of flubs, dropped lines, and seemingly iron-clad jokes landing with a resounding thud. The biggest disappointment is Jan Maxwell, who seemed perfectly cast as devoted actress Julie Cavendish, a woman who has given everything up to follow her devotion to the stage. Maxwell cuts a striking figure in Catherine Zuber's lush costumes, but delivers her lines as much enthusiasm as ordering a sandwich at the deli. Even Julie's magnificent second-act monologue couldn't rouse any emotion for her. Sadly, Rosemary Harris fared no better--she appeared lost and confused, when she was audible. Of the principles, only John Glover's Herbert Dean--a vainglorious old-timer who cannot accept that he's past his prime--hit all the right notes and reminded me how sharp and satisfying well-drawn satire can be. Still, he's not enough to recommend investing any time in this brightly colored but ultimately empty pastiche.

The River Crosses Rivers: Series A

The River Crosses Rivers: Series A is another strong evening of one acts by women of color at the Ensemble Studio Theatre (my review of Series B is below). The standout of the evening--of the whole festival--is Lynn Nottage's heartbreaking Banana Beer Bath, a monologue, brilliantly performed by Elain Graham, about hiding from the Ugandan rebels who are attacking her parents. It was breath-taking in the literal sense of the word.

During both evenings, I was struck by the variety of topics depicted: angels, history, punk rock, the pressure to get married, ungrateful children, parenting, loss, romance, dishonesty and truth, how a second can change an entire life, and more. And the characters were varied too: men and women, young and old, straight and gay, black, white, and subcontinental Asian.

I started going to theatre in the 1970s. When people of color, lesbians, gay men, and/or women had the rare opportunity to be heard, they/we generally grabbed the opportunity to talk about being people of color, lesbians, gay men, and/or women. There was so much education to do; in many cases, merely getting across the simple message, "I am a human being," was the primary--and difficult!--goal. And when they/we wrote about anything else, who would put that work on?

I look forward (with more hope than optimism, to be truthful) to a world where everyone's voices are heard. Many thanks to Going to the River 2009 and the Ensemble Studio Theatre for getting us a little closer to that world.

Aftermath

Photo/Joan Marcus

Yes, the cast of Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen's latest documentary play, Aftermath, are actors. But in perfectly speaking the exact words of Iraqi refugees in Jordan (well, 90% of their words), they are something more, too: they are mediums. At their best moments--and there are many--they are mirrors, too. And yes, the show has been edited--piecing together moments from six different interviews--it's not blatantly agenda-driven, or accusation-based. In other words, it's a lot harder to dismiss. The show is so quietly powerful, in fact, that even Blank's expert direction, full of subtleties, is even too much: the actors are convincing enough to make us forget the conventions of theaters. What we won't forget are their words--"There are some things for which apologies are not enough," says an imam unjustly brought to Abu Ghraib--or their surprising characters, like the arrogant dermatologist Yassir (Amir Arison), whose idolization of Richard Gere ("He is...steely") says a lot for what traits he now values. The play is also filled with a variety of wonderfully mundane moments, like a wife "negotiating" the facts her husband is laying out, and sometimes the description of how a man's wife has stopped painting (after the bombings) is just as affecting as a widow's keening over the infant son she just lost in the bombing. The news may have inoculated us against one type of sorrow, but not the other. Do yourself a favor and stop all these "afters"; go now.

[Read on]

Bash

Photo/Christine Han

Given the Greek names, trick endings of a blood-thirsty O. Henry, and the lack of anything overtly religious, it's hard to believe that when Neil LaBute's bash premiered in 1999, it had the subtitle "latter-day plays." But whatever; ten years later, Eastcheap Rep attempts to at least keep it present, with director Robert Knopf forgoing a stage in favor of a more intimate coffee-house set-up, an attempt to make the creepy casualness of LaBute's three one-acts even more apparent. For the first two pieces, "Medea Redux" and "Iphigenia in Orem," the acting holds up. In the first, Chelsea Lagos pins the audience to their seats with her eye-contact, ensuring that we're on the same page as her character--a 13-year-old having her teacher's baby--while at the same time reminding us that we can't possibly understand. In the second, Luke Rosen's focused nonchalance as a well-intentioned middle-manager serves him well, especially as he explains his calculated choice to let his infant daughter smother. However, the final piece, "A Gaggle of Saints," needs to abandon the naturalist staging, because while the engaged Sue and John may be telling their own sides of the same story, it's awkward to have them one standing awkwardly as the other explains the truth of what happened that night in Central Park. (Worse, Rosen's disaffected demeanor now makes his character one-dimensional and unbelievable.) This revival of bash isn't anything to rush out and celebrate, but if you drop by a 10:30 weekend performance, you do get a glass of Prosecco to help wash down the dirty feelings LaBute so expertly evokes.

[Read on]

The Hole

* (out of five stars)

The Theater At St. Clements

Circa 2002 the police were more apt to turn a blind eye to seedy East Village joints like The Hole, The Cock and Fat Cock with their hidden sex rooms, porn screens, and naked coke-head strippers. Cherished memories. Sadly, THE HOLE, a messy, poorly conceived musical, currently playing in the basement of a church (a church!), fails to capture the vibe or energy of this long lost hardcore scene. Granted, intermittently there is a low, sexy thumping beat piped in over the dialogue, however, when it is time to sing, we get a full score of corny, poppy showtunes that are less sexy/edgy and more silly/ridiculous. In its attempts to be as naughty and filthy as they can get, the whole evening becomes a numbing hodge-podge of cliche' one liners, and confusing romantic entanglements. And when you have a fully grown man cast as a baby in diapers and rolled around in a wagon, you know that the desperation for the laugh is unmistakable.

The River Crosses Rivers: Series B

The core of drama is someone desperately wanting something. In The River Crosses Rivers (Series B) the strong evening of one-act plays by women of color at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, people want--and need--to be loved, to be safe, and to be heard. Despite their similar desires, however, these people run the gamut from a woman whose husband of decades is a cheat (in the excellent Hot Mehuselah by J.e. Franklin) to a Middle-East journalist who risks her life to tell the truth (in the powerful Truth Be Told by Melody Cooper) to a wife and husband who just want to love each other (in the funny and moving Jesse by P.J. Gibon) to a couple of gay men who wish they could bring their son back (in the heart-breaking His Daddy by Cori Thomas) to a tech genius who wants to be loved for who he really is (the entertaining Sloppy Second Chances by Mrinalini Kamath). Of the generally high-level performers, standouts include Vinie Burrows, Shetal Shah, Maya Lynne Robinson, Christopher Burris, Matthew Montelongo, and the very likeable Vedant Gokhale. The Ensemble Studio Theatre and Going to the River work together to make sure that the voices of women of color are heard. By doing so, they make the theatre world a better place for all of us.

The Bereaved

Photo/Louis Changchien

Look, as long as you're fine with surface-level laughs, The Bereaved satisfies. But is that all that Thomas Bradshaw's after? I mean, it's one thing to shock us into seeing slavery and alcoholism--two things we've all got pretty strong opinions about--in a new light. But we already know that American families are increasingly callous and disconnected. What's the point of Bradshaw's 80-minute bit of shocksploitation, save to let May Adrales show off her lack of inhibition as a director? Without giving away any surprises (since that's all the show has up its sleeve), just know that things quickly elevate from Michael (Andrew Garman) and Carol (McKenna Kerrigan) arguing over chores and their son's semen soiled underwear; Carol has an adverse reaction to some of Michael's casual cocaine, and their son, Teddy (Vincent Madero) is soon playing Nintendo DS by her deathbed, barely listening as she advises Michael to marry her best friend, Katy (KK Moggie), so that they can continue to support their upper-middle-class lifestyle. (And Teddy hasn't even gotten his schoolmate Melissa [Jenny Seastone Stern] pregnant yet!) The speedy delivery of plot- and comic-heavy scenes is somewhat refreshing--who needs subtext?--and the lack of hidden facets doesn't diminish the surprising effect of seeing the characters actually doing what they're talking about (like a rape scene in blackface). It's just a shame there's nothing to actually mourn in the play, let alone to feel the smallest shred of sorrow for.

Emily

Photo: Firebone Theatre

This modestly diverting play partially succeeds in bringing Emily Dickinson to life, but less through the script's conception or realization than through the lead performance, a finely calibrated, unsentimental yet touching portrayal of the poet by Elizabeth A. Davis, and the poetry itself. In spite of the graceful cast and their lush costumes, director Steve Day doesn't develop much of interest to look at on stage; the slow pace sometimes sinks into ennui rather than expanding into stateliness. I can't deny, though, that Chris Cragin's script and Ms. Davis's sweet recitations of some of the poet's well-known works succeeded in sending me home to crack open my copy of Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems. Read the full review.

Broadway on Broadway 2009

photo: Matthew Arnold

The Broadway season officially began a few months ago but for many strong-legged tri-state area fans the real kick-off is this annual Times Square concert where most if not all of the currently running musicals are represented. As always there were numbers by new cast members in long-running shows - of these, Beth Leavel scored with "The Winner Takes It All" from Mamma Mia! and Laura Osnes did well by "I'm In Love With A Wonderful Guy" from South Pacific - and there were songs from productions that haven't opened yet. This year that meant the originals Fela! and Memphis and the revivals of Bye Bye Birdie, Ragtime and Finian's Rainbow. While "One Boy", the number from Birdie, was charming and well-sung, and the crowd very clearly responded to the title song from Ragtime, it was "Ol' Devil Moon" from Finian's Rainbow that did it for me. I can't think of two musical theatre performers I'd rather see in those lead roles than Cheyenne Jackson and Kate Baldwin, and their old-school musical comedy chemistry helped to make their rendition of that ol' showtune standard the concert's most transporting delight.

Lizzie Borden

Photo: Carl Skutsch

The songs in this new rock musical are set in heavy-metal modes, but little about the score screams "genre." It's loud, but never painfully or confusingly so, and it's edgy, with some gloomy imagery, but in essence it's comprised of simply wonderful tunes, with satisfying crunch, engaging and well-crafted lyrics, and bright (okay, dark) pop hooks. Fortunately the sound designer (Jamie McElhinney) keeps the levels sensible, mics the singers well, and mixes everything properly, so one seldom misses a lyric. Even more fortunately, the four-woman cast is absolutely stellar, wonderful actors with clear, powerful voices that cut through the tight band's rock bombast without trouble. There are no characters but the four women: Lizzie herself (a supremely confident and perfectly fetching Jenny Fellner); her older sister Emma Borden (a sharp and funny Lisa Birnbaum, who has a powerful alto); her regally coiffed but passionate friend Alice (a radiant Marie-France Arcilla); and the maid, Bridget (a fierce, punked-out Carrie Cimma). The choice to leave out the elder Bordens seems a little odd at first, but its wisdom quickly becomes apparent as we're plunged into the closed, claustrophobic world of the sisters' half of the divided household. An early song between Lizzie and Alice takes place in the barn, where Lizzie escapes her hellish home life to tend her beloved pigeons. Artfully lit and shadowed by lighting designer Christian DeAngelis, it is beautifully, movingly performed, as is most everything in this sharp-as-an-axe show. Read the full review.

Lizzie Borden

Photo: Carl Skutsch

Can murdering one's parents with an axe be a woman's path to empowerment? In the excellent rock musical Lizzie Borden, it certainly can. Lizzie, abused, in danger of being disinherited, and lacking options, finally decides that freedom lies in ridding herself of her incestuous father and her horrid stepmother. After an attempt at poisoning them fails, she grabs an ax and, well, takes matters into her own hands. Lizzie Borden (with book, lyrics, music, concept, direction, and musical direction by Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer, Tim Maner, and Alan Stevens Hewitt) beautifully combines a kick-ass score, strong lyrics, surprising humor, sweet sexiness, cheerful anachronisms, and an eerie atmosphere. The multitalented designers Caleb Levengood (scenery), Christian DeAngelis (lighting), Jamie McElhinney (sound), Bobby Frederick Tilley (costume), Carrie Lynn Rohm (hair and makeup), and Zoë Woodworth (video) manage to evoke a vivid, attractive, and affectingly creepy time and place in a small space on what must have been a small budget. And the four actress-singers--Marie-France Arcilla, Lisa Birnbaum, Carrie Cimma, and Jenny Fellner--are heartbreaking, satirical, funny, sexy, real, and larger-than-life, sometimes all at the same time. And can they rock! Special notice must be paid to the superb Jenny Fellner as Lizzie. Fellner's transition from repressed to explosive is calibrated perfectly, and she performs with her heart, body, and soul--and with great intelligence. (A few small quibbles: the lyrics were occasionally difficult to hear; both acts end with whimpers rather than bangs; playing unrelated rock music during intermission hurt the mood.) At The Living Theatre at 21 Clinton Street in the Lower East Side.

Our Town

Having always believed that Thornton Wilder's Our Town is one of the few irreproachable works in the American dramatic canon, and always lamenting the fact that I'd never seen a truly terrific production of it, I attended David Cromer's ridiculously acclaimed production at the Barrow Street Theatre with something greater than the highest hopes that I, too, would be mesmerized by it. And, well...I wasn't. The magic of this particular play is two-fold: the language is beautifully simple but also theatrical, and the play itself, which premiered in 1938, is unapologetically progressive, meta-theatrical before the term existed. That's the idea that Cromer seems to be pursuing with his deconstruction here, but I couldn't help but feeling that three-quarters of this production felt no different than any community theatre mounting of the play. It isn't until the coup-de-theatre in Act Three--which I won't reveal, but which happens to be the most un-Wilderian aspect of the production--that the audience somewhat understands the feeling Cromer was trying to achieve. It doesn't help that Emily Webb (Jennifer Grace, dreadful) speaks her lines as if she were a mental patient, or that her suitor, George Gibbs (James McMenamin) acts like he's in the slow class at Grovers Corners High. Thankfully, two pitch-perfect performances stand out: Jason Butler Harner, the first Stage Manager I've seen who is neither glib nor overly earnest; and Lori Myers, simply heartbreaking as Mrs. Gibbs.

Spinning the Times

Part of the Origin Theater's 1st Irish festival, this production brings together brief new works by five female playwrights. Though the writers all hail from Ireland, it is a highly international evening, and director M. Burke Walker seems to have chosen the order of presentation with care, as one might map out a world tour. It begins with Rosemary Jenkinson's The Lemon Tree, which takes place in a modern-day Belfast where violent echoes of the Troubles linger, and linger. Young Kenny likes to stir up mischief with his pals and harass the local Catholics, but he's affected more than he'd like to admit by an encounter with an American relief worker drumming up aid for Palestinians in Gaza. As embodied by the lanky, magnetic, and focused Jerzy Gwiazdowski, who dominates the stage seemingly effortlessly, Kenny is not merely a fully realized creature, but bigger than life in that believable, language-soaked Irish way. Ms. Jenkinson has the exceptional storyteller's talent of deriving large truths from small fictions. Her play is a compressed, polished marvel, practically a poem, with not a word out of place, nor, thanks to Mr. Gwiazdowski and the exquisitely skilled direction, an extraneous gesture. Read the full review, covering all five plays.

Candide Americana

Photo: Edward Elefterion

[possible spoilers in this paragraph] What if Candide were a modern young refugee in the United States from Bosnia? What if he remained convinced that this is "the best of all possible worlds" despite living through a ferry accident, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina--and seeing his tutor hanged and believing the love of his life to be dead? What if seven people seemed like a cast of twenty? What if no one sang?

You'd have Candide Americana, the Rabbit Hole Ensemble's extremely enjoyable version of Candide at the Fringe Festival. Playwright Stanton Wood's updating of the story is apt and well-done; the minimal props and costumes provide a simple yet effective backdrop for funny and sad story-telling; the cast is protean, talented, energetic, and polished; and director Edward Elefterion keeps everything moving at a pace that parallels the breathlessness of Candide himself as he goes from disaster to disaster.

Two--and only two--complaints: (1) It needs some trimming (as has every Candide I've ever seen), and (2) I really missed "Make Our Garden Grow."

As You Like It

Photo: The Queens Company

Extraordinarily well directed by Greg Cicchino, this Queens Players production of Shakespeare's comedy triumphs. While historical opinions on the play have varied, we can safely say, reinforced by the elastic Claire Morrison's animated and expert performance, that Rosalind is one of Shakespeare's most fully realized and interesting female characters. If, as the clown Touchstone lectures, "The truest poetry is the most feigning," it is nonetheless the rhymes carved in the trees by Rosalind's swain, the passionate, lovelorn Orlando (the effective Anthony Martinez), that keep hope burning, not to mention the story. Director Greg Cicchino has a gift for focusing his actors' strengths, and for creating moments of unscripted, silent humor that move the action swiftly along. From his fine cast he draws out a number of standout performances in the smaller roles as well as the leads; indeed, despite the dominance of the Rosalind-Orlando storyline, the production is the very model of a modern ensemble piece. Leave it to Shakespeare, in the loving and crafty hands of a director like Mr. Cicchino, to bring to glorious life the human tapestry in all its poetic good cheer under the rumbling elevated trains of Long Island City. Read the full review.

The Crow Mill

photo: Aaron Epstein

When I saw his The Infliction Of Cruelty at The Fringe a couple of years back, I was struck by Andrew Unterberg's ability to credibly depict literate, intelligent characters. That skill is again evidenced by his latest, a tight, suspenseful 90 minute one-act in which a university professor is urged by his wife to uncover what he can't remember about the abuse in his childhood just as his mother, suffering from Alzheimer's, is losing command of her memory. There's an unfortunate credibility lapse in the play early on - frustratingly, it's a needless one - when the wife, a psychologist, coaxes the husband into her treatment: that's an ethical no-no that went out with Karen Horney. Once past that, the play is wholly believable with well-paced, gradually rising tension. All three performances - Geraldine Librandi, Quentin Mare, and Margot White - hit the mark.

Citizen Ruth

Photo: Dixie Sheridan

Based on the non-musical movie by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, the musical Citizen Ruth (book and lyrics, Mark Leydorf; music, Michael Brennan) is the tale of an unrepentant loser who becomes a pawn in an ongoing battle between a group of pro-lifers and a group of pro-choicers. The musical is quite true to the movie (which is smart since the movie is funny, biting, and excellent) and has some good and some not-so-good songs (Leydorf's lyrics are studded with painful half- and quarter- and not-even-close-rhymes). Garrett Long is first-rate as Ruth--although her voice is not perfect, her sneer is. The outstanding supporting cast includes Craig Bennett, Janet Dickinson, Sherri L. Edelen, Marya Grandy, Joel Hurt Jones, and the ever-wonderful Annie Golden. If this Fringe Festival show is to have a future, it will need to be trimmed and polished, and many of the so-called rhymes will need to be cleaned up, but it is a solidly entertaining two hours in the theatre.

His Greatness

Photo: Neilson Barnard

Playwright Daniel MacIvor describes his Fringe Festival play His Greatness as "Inspired by a potentially true story about playwright Tennessee Williams." The Tennessee Williams character--known here only as "the playwright"--is an over-the-hill alcoholic desperate for a final hurrah. His assistant both adores and disrespects him, while the uneducated hustler that the assistant procures for him, who has never heard of the playwright, is nevertheless dazzled by his fame. His Greatness has some interesting and moving moments, and the changing allegiances among the three men are intriguing, if not totally convincing. However, the play relies too much on not-so-sharp campy humor and truly dumb "dumb jokes." I feel that there is an excellent play hiding in His Greatness, but it would be about the assistant, rather than the playwright. The assistant is the one who has the most at stake, the assistant is the one who learns something, the assistant is the one who changes.

A Lifetime Burning

Photo: James Leynse

The concept is intriguing: Tess (Christina Kirk) opens the New York Times one morning and discovers that her sister Emma (Jennifer Westfeldt) has published a memoir in which she claims, untruthfully, to be part Incan and part Cherokee. When Tess confronts Emma, the conversation bounces from the memoir to their relationship and back again, but, unfortunately, never gets anywhere interesting. The direction (Pam MacKinnon) and writing (Cusi Cram) offer little that is thought-provoking or new and instead rely on "family dynamics 101" and the occasional funny line. Isabel Keating, in a very entertaining turn as Emma's editor, manages to bring more depth to her two-dimensional character than the others bring to their ostensibly complex ones. And if we are to believe this story at all, if we are to believe that Emma's clearly intelligent editor buys that Emma is of part-Incan-Cherokee heritage, it would be nice to cast someone not blond and not so light-skinned.

Dancing With Abandon

Of all the musicals I saw at this year's Fringe Festival, this is the one I'd most want to see again after some more development. The characters - a world famous opera diva and the rocker teenage son she abandoned years ago - are extreme and don't behave as people are supposed to in musicals. Example: when mom and son are reunited his neediness is almost psychotic and she, not the least bit maternal, responds by locking him in a closet. The material needs plenty of work - his songs (which contrast with her opera arias) need to rock much harder, the quality of the lyrics is wildly variable, the show should be his story more than hers but is currently the opposite. And yet despite the hot messiness the authors have written a story that demands to be musicalized, and the parts that work are fresh and wildly entertaining.

All Over.

photo: Samanthe Burrow/Rachelle Beckerman

In Elizabeth Audley's solo show, which vividly recounts her long solo car trip through parts of America, the actress begins in a place of some cynicism about the United States and ends soon after she decides to work on the Obama campaign. Although Audley does a fine job of making clear how the trip restored her political optimism - lots of those red state people have blue state social values, it turns out - the show's most affecting stretch is more personal: as Audley drives on through underpopulated terrain day after day, the isolation forces her attention inward and makes her confront personal demons. What is she doing with her life, and is anything she's ever done worth anything? That's the moment our intelligent, engaging, sometimes humorous tour guide becomes someone we care about and root for.

Population 8

photo: Larry Gumpel

Set in a North Dakota town with a population of 8, this play (by Nicholas Gray) is peopled with characters who live simultaneously in isolation from the world and in close association with each other. There is a main story that takes hold of our attention, but the often atmospheric, evocative play is driven more by character than by plot: we're watching the last gasps of a distinctive community of people. The details, such as how the act of changing the city limits sign has become ritualized, are thought-out and credible, and the characters are individuated and just oddball enough to ring true. The production doesn't rise to all of the play's challenges - there has to be a more fluid way to quickly delineate the space and move between the often very brief scenes - but it gets the general job done and doesn't ever blunt what is special about the play. Cast stand-out: Gideon Glick

Willy Nilly

My reaction to this one-act musical went from mild amusement to annoyed tolerance to outright loathing within 20 minutes. Is there a reason we have been asked to watch a snarky, cartoon-thin spoof of the Manson Family murders in which everyone, criminal and victim alike, is turned into an object of snickering mockery? There's stage craft and songwriting skill on display, and many performers giving their fully committed all, but the material is bad taste for its own sake. The use of a square law-and-order narrator recalls the Jack Lord character in the in every way superior Manson Family Opera - here the character is eventually cross-dressed as Tiny Tim to infiltrate the cult for no apparent reason but convenience. The mocking caricature of Sharon Tate, the cult's most famous victim, is a new low in cynicism: are we really being cued to laugh at what a Hollywood bimbo she was, when we all know how viciously she, and the baby she was carrying, were murdered?

May-December With The Nose And Clammy

I'm hard to please when it comes to romantic comedies, but I was instantly won over by this one-act which keeps the light comic tone of the genre but gives its couple true-to-life rather than easy-to-solve problems. The heroine (played with irresistible charm by Naomi McDougall Jones, also the co-writer) laments early on that in movies the girl has to choose between the guy who is clearly great and the one is clearly an asshole, but in real life guys are a combination of the two. She can't make up her mind if she wants to stick it out with Noah (Craig Waletzko, also perfect for this material) and enlists us in direct address to help her decide as they re-enact the highs and lows from their relationship. Their conflicts aren't glamorous - she says he turns into a "swinging dick" when he's around his friends, and he says the accusation reminds him how young she is, 15 years his junior. He's insecure and clingy, she won't make him the only important thing in her life as he has made her in his. We all know problems like these and that recognition helps to make the show consistently engaging and memorable.

Two On The Aisle, Three In A Van

photo: Patty Wall

No one will claim that this backstage comedy (by Mary Lynn Dobson) breaks new ground - you know every "type" in the beleaguered community theatre troupe from their entrance line, from the spoiled diva (Natascia Diaz) to the egomaniac artistic director (John Dowgin) to the seasoned seen-it-all veteran (Terri Sturtevant). But the yuks and gags are nearly relentless and, apart from some wheel-spinning at the top of the tad-too-long second act, the show undoubtedly works and is broad, old-school funny. My favorite running joke involves a desperate, overeager performer (Stephen Medvidick) who keeps trying to grab the spotlight - he thinks as the Gentleman Caller in The Glass Menagerie he should launch into a tap routine. While the show doesn't give Natascia Diaz the chance to sing and dance, it does give her a terrific showcase for her unerring skills as a comedienne. As always, she's captivating and reason enough to see any show.

Harold Pinter Pair

The Lover, the first of the two Pinter plays in this double header, is pitch perfect, from the chime-like Beatles instrumentals that play over the scene changes, to the color of the furniture, to the choice of each cocktail glass. Most importantly, the direction (by Patrick McNulty) is right on point and the actors (Chris Thorn and Juliana Zinkel) are keenly attuned to each other and expertly maintain the chilly tension in Pinter's dialogue. Similarly astute choices mark the second play in the show, Ashes To Ashes, and the performances (by Allen McCullough and Christine Marie Brown) are quite good but I must admit a hard-to-ignore bias here: the play - more grave and enigmatic and with a wider narrative reach than the first - is much less to my personal taste. Nonetheless, both Pinter newbies and devotees are urged to see the pair.

Gutter Star

Gay women are under-represented on stage compared to gay men, so it's especially regrettable to report that this musical - about a screen star in "golden age" Hollywood whose lesbian affair threatens to destroy her career - is disappointingly bland and often inept. The show's synopsis promises "a trashy tale of forbidden love from the tawdry pages of pulp fiction" but the show lacks not only the heightened style needed for pulp but any style at all. Plot holes and contrivances are plentiful - you wonder why the studio chief goes to all the trouble of having his male assistant dress in lesbian drag to spot the screen star in the all-girl Coconut Club when he's just going to rip up her contract anyhow, and why he says things to the star like "We don't tolerate that sort of thing in this day and age" as if toleration used to be policy.