Mamma Mia!

photo: Joan Marcus

The insipid, sub-sitcom jukebox musical Mamma Mia! is set in Greece, the birthplace of drama. That's what I call "irony".

365 Days/365 Plays: Week #18

From the get-go, I said that Susan Lori-Parks' 365 Days/365 Plays was an attention-seeking stunt that would never amount to anything. I don't care how many awards you've won: it takes more than a day to write a play. Sure enough, I'm correct. What Lori-Parks has done is to write a series of vignettes, and I only attended tonight's free performance because it was done by the New York Neo-Futurists, who pretty much do the same thing every week at Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. I was mildly entertained by how the troupe managed to bring their own experimental group direction into the piece, and by the way they maintained their refusal to play anything other than themselves. But the seven plays they performed, along with three "constants," were just plain bad. Surrealistic and devoid of emotion, not to mention plagued with some technical difficulties, I hope that audiences are still willing to check out TMLMTBGB despite this wacky one-night stand.

Janyl

Hate subtitles? Janyl will make you long for them. I was drawn to the theater by the idea of a multicultural Kyrgyz theater, but what I got was far from epic. Three musicians, four performers, and an American translator, basically ululating and dancing wildly before a slideshow of places in some foreign country. I couldn't understand the plot, nor why there were some actors in traditional clothing and others wearing silk suits. It seemed anachronistic, antagonistic, and pointless to me, and it bothers me that I can summarize this rich oral saga with less than a sentence: strong-willed girl captured; strong-willed girl escapes. Also, the cast kept mentioning something about magic horses that could sing like the wind, but also that their story was entirely true. I'd beg to differ, but if this evening of lackluster performances is something they'd call magical, maybe it's an apt description after all.

Spring Awakening

photo: Monique Carboni

My friend and I risked the scolding looks of strangers by taking her two twelve year old daughters and their schoolfriend to Spring Awakening. Fifteen minutes in, the first question was whispered my way: "When is this supposed to take place, Patrick?" Big thumbs down on the "stupid" on-stage seating. But otherwise, according to the three middleschool gals, it is "a great story" that is "like Rent" and "good for teenagers to see." All three agreed that they liked "the gay guy" (Jonathan B. Wright) and that Jonathan Groff would be cute if he didn't spit so much ("That's SO gross!") At intermission they pronounced the "I can feel your heart beating" lyric "way cheesey". Nonetheless, they had the cast album loaded into their IPods in a matter of days right alongside Fall Out Boy and Blink 182, deciding that "I Don't Do Sadness" and "The Bitch Of Living" were the show's hits, and that the musical is even better than their previous favorites Hairspray and Wicked. Best performance? John Gallagher; even I could agree with that. Critic-approved and tween-tested, Spring Awakening will win the Tony for Best Musical in June. It won't even be close.

Men of Steel

Vampire Cowboy Theater Company isn't about being glamorous or being profound: it's about kicking ass. Their new show, Men of Steel, takes the same approach as Heroes for the first three chapters, using a comic book format of narration (complete with video montages during scene changes), and over-the-top acting to go with over-the-top action. The first segments are uneven, especially the opening fight, but charismatic performances help, like Paco Tolson's super villain, "The Mole." There's also a great stop-motion-animated Lego battle that spoofs the genre, and plenty of in-jokes about the nature of superheroes and vigilantes. The only problem is that Men of Steel's themes have recently been addressed by the comic universes, which threatens to leave this show an entertaining parody alone. Scene 3 the surprise: the tale of an invulnerable retarded man who lets people pay him to beat him up is tragic and elevates the show for a brief moment. And speaking of elevation: the superhero melee in Act 2 has some real chops: not as impressive as Big Time Theater's The Jaded Assassin, but fun all the same.

[Read on]

Fugue

****
Cherry Lane

"Oh my God, this is so Prince Of Tides!", SNL's Linda Richman once said. Yes, this play about a psychiatrist and his amnesiac patient follows the old formula of the damaged dr./patient healing each other through a series of breakthrough sessions and that's just fine because it works here. Dealing with issues that I knew little about and the fluid way the patient's memories are theatrically presented made this a very interesting and thought provoking play. Most importantly though, Deirdre O'Connell as the amnesiac running from her past is giving an extraordinarily natural, honest, likable performance that is the soul of this production.

Also blogged by: [Aaron]