Crazy Mary/10 Million Miles

Playwrights Horizons/Atlantic

These two productions, so early in previews that I cannot find publicity stills, are definitely worth recommending but are not ready for one of ShowShowdown's good ole' opinionated, brilliantly worded, guerrilla reviews. So in lieu I will say one good thing about both productions: Matthew Morrison is stunningly charming in 10 Million Miles, the new country/folk musical at the Atlantic and Kristine Nielsen is stunningly charming as the title character in A.R Gurney's Crazy Mary at Playwrights Horizons.

The Secret War

Singing, dancing, and Satan. An epic 75-minute-long adventure, produced in the cavernous Milagro Theater. Evil Imams, devout but demon-possessed Muslims, and the unstoppable evil of Ahriman. And the one thing that can save the day? A mystical DJ. Darius Safavi's The Secret War ("Episode 1: The Desecrated Ziggurat") is absurd but enjoyable, sloppy but creative. Don't expect to have any idea what's going on, but in the third chapter, "Gemini," the action switches to a modern-day land that rules with an admixture of technology and magic and lets loose language like "Let air-conditioned stars swallow the souls of prophets!" Sure, I'm game for that.

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Stairway To Paradise

photo: Joan Marcus

The final Encores! this season, a song-heavy revue newly culled from revue shows, never gathers any momentum: it's hit and miss from start to finish. Some of what hits is thrilling - Kendrick Jones' two tap numbers, one done solo and the other done in syncopation with a chorus of army boys, are dazzling and exciting. Too much of the rest is bland and mild - only one of the evening's two non-musical comedy bits scores and even it, a fluffy goof involving a dimwitted starlet making a movie with a gorilla, lacks a good, capping punchline. Kristin Chenoweth was an obvious choice for this show - she's one of the few current Broadway performers with a personality strong enough for revue material - but she's the only one-of-a-kind up there. The show is packed with talent, but that's not the same thing as personality.

Brand Upon The Brain! (Live)

Brand Upon The Brain! for those of you keeping score at home, isn't just a show -- it's a spectacle. I'm too young to remember the golden days of film, but Guy Maddin's photo-play brings new levels to black-and-white expressionism, and revives the exhibitionism of silent films with live scores. For this limited run, various "interlocutors" provide the sparse text of the movie (John Ashbury when I saw it, Isabelli Rosellini for the recorded one), while Ensemble Sospeso provides an excellent rendition of Jason Staczek's classical score. Plus: Foley artists, in all their white-coated glory. Oh, and the film is pretty good, too: a comically bleak semi-biography that uses exaggerated characters (like the tyrannical mom and professorial father) to explore childhood and adolescence between Guy and his Sis. There are so many lively shots and such charm that it's easy to forget the dark Grand Guignol of the story or the stark mise-en-scene, but it all ties together rather neatly. Not to be missed!

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The Jocker

photo: Carol Rosegg

There's a moment in The Jocker when an abusive tough-guy wakes up a runaway by roughly snatching his blanket and leaving him bareassed naked. The runaway (Nick Matthews) stays exposed far longer than the mere purposes of drama would reasonably allow; we're being given time to linger on the actor's dimpled butt. There's no doubt we're at the Wings Theatre seeing something in their annual Gay Plays series, where the stories are usually like pulp novels and there's almost always gratuitous male nudity. This one, a drama about men who ride the rails during the Depression, has more skin than most, so much that after a while it starts to feel like we're watching a gay porno film minus the sex scenes. The performances are, of course, better than that: the play's nicely-rendered B-plot, about a warm-hearted married hobo and the African-American male whore he falls for, is especially well-acted by David Tacheny and Stephen Tyrone Williams. The play is tidy and one of the better examples of what the Wings does, but I never know quite how to take what it is that they do.

Blackbird

David Harrower has found a way to add color to the formerly black-and-white subject of pedophilia. Whether that's a good thing or not, his gripping play Blackbird is an effective and balanced study of a twisted relationship back to bite our "hero" in the butt. Jeff Daniels is a likeable man, trying to hold on to his job and his life, and Alison Pill is an outstanding performer who channels the traumatized girl at the same time as the seductive adult, all while taking her pound of flesh from her one-time abuser. I only wish director Joe Mantello hadn't taken away from the powerful office setting and the naturally staccato script by fiddling with the light switch. Thought: maybe love--which affects the mind, body, and heart--is a trauma, too.

[Read on] [Also blogged by: Patrick ]