Il Trittico

photo: Ken Howard

Jack O'Brien, one of theatre's most versatile directors, was an inspired choice to helm the Met Opera's new production of Il Trittico, Puccini's disparate trio of one-act operas. Each of the three requires a different skillset - the first is a lurid melodrama of sexual jealousy, the next is a somber spirituality-based tale of a cloistered nun, the third is a farcical comedy in which a disinherited family fights at their relative's deathbed - and O'Brien delivers each with exceptional clarity and theatrical know-how. Except for re-setting all three in the 1950's, he doesn't do anything high-concept to unduly unify them: he simply realizes each opera fully, distinctly. Il Tabarro burns at a temperature that is just right for passionate, fevered melodrama. Gianni Schicchi is appropriately colorful and comic, with a sometimes dizzying amount of stage action and business. However, the production's crowning achievement is the nun's story Suor Angelica, which O'Brien builds slowly and carefully to a visually stunning, transcendent climax. Operagoers are hereby warned: this is going to be one of the toughest tickets of the season.

Alcestis

I held off on posting anything about this Friday evening performance of Alcestis until almost a week after watching it because I couldn't find much to say about it positively. I'm hoping the Chorus has since pulled together their synchronization and that the entire cast has solidified their grasp of the text: this is a fine translation by Ted Hughes, even if the play's second half derails into a subplot about Heracles (and then into a subplot about Prometheus). Sandwiched between serious Greek drama, the Heracles segment is pure comedy, and David D'Agostini, when he isn't overplaying the role, conveys an earnest authenticity to it. Unfortunately, J. Scott Reynolds, directs the play without an ounce of subtlety -- Kevin Lapin's Vulture chews the scenery more than Prometheus's liver -- and D'Agostini's set, a pallid display of gauzy curtains, really is just a flimsy background, and doesn't help to convey the complexity of the show at all.

Reynolds also seems unwilling to commit fully to any one decision: Alcestis is a drama queen in this performance (matched only by Admetos, who acts like a real queen), but that's at odds with how she returns at the end of the play, all smiles and roses. Using the chorus to make ambient sounds is a nice flourish, and could be very creepy in the long stretches of weepy monologues, but half-assed, it's just a distracting and awkward sound effect. As for the blocking, there seems to be little rhyme or reason to it: the chorus is constantly reshuffled to new positions, rarely in Greek movement, almost as if they are looking for feng shui and failing. As Hughes writes, "Abuse is the echo of abuse." This production, malnourished from the start, is the echo of itself.

110 In The Shade

photo: Joan Marcus

Okay, maybe Audra McDonald isn't the absolute worst choice to star as this musical's plain Jane prairie girl heroine...but c'mon, good-looking she of the highfalutin warble is certainly *one* of the worst. Her acting in the book scenes is fine, if you don't mind that her Lizzie is a dishrag and that she lays on the wallflower pathos so thick that she seems to have wandered on stage ready to play The Heiress, but the minute she sings it's all over and we're at arm's length. John Cullum escapes unscathed - at this point he can do plain-speaking homespun wisdom in his sleep - and Bobby Steggert lands his one-liners as Jimmy. Otherwise, the production is one mistake after another, beginning with the oddly Asian feel of the set, and culminating with the uncomfortably over-sexual direction of the (usually showstopping) second act comic number "Little Red Hat." Folks who have never seen this musical before would be forgiven for thinking that the material is third-rate. It isn't, and if time travel were possible, I'd prove it with City Opera's thoroughly delightful production years ago with Karen Ziemba. You'll have to take my word for it.

Dixie's Tupperware Party

****
Ars Nova

"I'm so excited I could vomit blood!" announces Dixie Longate, Tupperware's dirty little secret. I assume this burpable container corporation never expected a foul mouthed homosexual in a dress would hock their wares but with this sassy, catty, trashy one man show, Dixie has officially become their #1 top selling sales representative. How funny is that?? I am a sucker for a good drag queen (they're clowns but instead of their core audience being children theirs is drunk gay guys) and this is a damn hilarious one with a hysterical gimmick. With every audience member receiving a catalogue you can order whatever item Dixie presents to us in between candid asides about her sordid personal life. She is quick to point out that that cupcake holder also doubles as a jello shot tray. I highly recommend this show.

Hamlet

It annoyed me that the Public's recent King Lear wasn't cast multi-racially; the only role played by an actor of color was Oswald, the servant. (How un-Public Theatre is that?) I therefore made a point of seeing that production's Oswald, Timothy D. Stickney, sink his teeth into the role of Hamlet in this off-off production cast only with black and Latino performers. It's a shoestring production, which never locks down a time in which it is set, and although it can claim convincing swordplay and an emphasis on humor as two of its distinctions, the direction is mostly pedestrian. There are, however, some very good performances: among them, Stickney is exceedingly comfortable speaking Shakespeare and makes an always engaging, immediate Hamlet; Arthur French is a stand-out in the role of Polonius; and Seth Duerr makes a lively, crafty King Claudius.

Bed

Photo/Brian Michael Thomas

It feels like Nick Flint is sleepwalking his way through Bed, a well-written, small-scale tragicomedy by Brendan Cowell. The five intimate others Nick encounters in his cyclical bedroom scenes are all there, emotionally willing and ready, but Flint's passion is caught up in the facade that his character, Phil, tries so hard to maintain. Something of his character's arrogance must be backing him up, or perhaps he's afraid of such unbridled (and unexplained) bitterness; whatever the reason, the play is too short for the main character to give anything less than everything, and as a result, after fifty minutes of warm-up, the play ends before giving any real resolution to this man's life.

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