Essential Self-Defense

Am I just not hip enough for Essential Self-Defense? Dysfunctional humor is all too easy to write: just introduce characters who constantly say the unexpected (e.g., "Dolphins don't talk to terrorists") and you've got yourself a script. But awkward, funny lines do not a show make: this is Jack Goes Boating off the deep end, the Duranged end, and all you really need to do is replace the summer house of Betty's Summer Vacation with Kip's Karaoke Bar to see the same. I'm more impressed with the musical talents of Adam Rapp and his cohorts, Ray Rizzo and Lucas Papaelias than with the show itself (though Paul Sparks and Heather Goldenhersh lead an excellently absurd cast). This is the same way I would describe the surreal early Sam Shepard, but I sincerely hope that Rapp grows up and does more with his talent than these shallow amusements. Sweet as the roller-skate scene is, perverse as Klieg the Butcher is, ridiculous as Yul and Sadie are about grammar, is this the best we can expect of modern comedy? The trappings of form without the substance of soul?

Also blogged by: [David] [Patrick]

A Guy Adrift in the Universe

A Guy Adrift in the Universe is a playfully straightforward show that gets pretty close to summing up the meaning of life (if not the universe, and everything) in eighty rip-roaring minutes. The subtle direction by Jacob Krueger and the half-tender, half-boisterous cast (led by Cory Grant of Fringe 2006's Broken Hands) makes Larry Kunofsky's script more substantial than its curse-heavy dialog and relentlessly innocent jokes, but it's nice to see such a full-bodied comedy be so honest.

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transFigures

Photo/Carol Rosegg

Here we go, folks! Aaron's first unmissable show of 2007. I raved about Lear deBessonet's work last year in Bone Portraits, and I'm more than happy to do it again here. She's a theatrical DJ, sampling texts and themes from all over the place to make them stronger individually and overwhelming together (and that's no small feat when you're borrowing from Chuck Mee, Henrik Ibsen, and Joan of Arc). Hyperreligious delusions make for good theater, especially when you're a director who is unafraid of putting your actors "stage up" and "stage down," and when you've got a flair for the malleability of string, paper, and people. Wonderful lighting, beautiful choreography, and above all: passion. It's not a traditional plot, though there is a central story, but it evokes one heck of a powerful ambiance, and as a writer, mood makes the story, any day of the week.

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LoveMusik

The second preview of this new Hal Prince-directed musical, which travels the arc of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya's relationship using his songs, nearly hit the three hour mark. That's at least an hour too long for what it is, which is slight and dramatically static: we clearly see what's the matter with their love in the first fifteen minutes (she won't acknowledge that she loves him, and in sadness he returns the favor) and, although this or that event comes along to keep things lively, nothing tangible happens until the last fifteen minutes to raise the stakes. This is not a plot so much as it's a situation. I'm going to go back next week to see the show in tighter shape - I have to believe there will be cuts - and until then I only want to add that Michael Cerveris is all aching and longing as Weill; he delivers his intimate solo numbers ("That's Him" and "It Never Was You" in particular) with beautifully restrained emotion.

Neal Medlyn's Coming In The Air Tonight

****

Galapagos

You're not going to find shit like this anywhere else. This impassioned tribute to the music of Phil Collins has downtown comic personality Neal Medlyn once again stripped down to his underwear and covered in blood (this happens to him a lot). Lovingly screaming out the lyrics he and his best friend, Carmine Covelli (intermittently confined to a wheelchair) provide their own unique take on the songbook via erratic vaguely choreographed movement about the space. There are no traditional punchlines in this show. The comedy lies in the reckless earnestness of his delivery or the desperate fumbling to locate a prop. At one point he invited an audience member to join him saying "Will you come up onstage and pretend to care about me?". They did and they did.

Committed

Photo/G. Roeker

I have no idea how the three one-acts in Committed are supposed to connect with each other. Every play is about relationships, but then again . . . every play is about relationships. That's what people go to the theater for. Living Image Arts (LIA) has missed their mark with this production: it's nice to foster diverse and distinctive voices, it's no good if they've got nothing to say (that is, if it's not "compelling and innovative" or "living and relevant"). To be fair, I don't see how you can do either of those quotable things in a stylized comedy like "Off the Cuff" or how you make something as cute and bland as "Men Are Pigs" anything more than the short and sweet joke it is. "Boxes," which is a sharp, smart, poignant piece by Robert Askins, is put off by a lulling monotony between the two actors (who are all brogue and no brash), so even the success of the night comes with a grain of salt. But hey, writing theater's hard: you have to be committed, in both meanings of the word, to really make it work.