Fate's Imagination

***
Gotham Stage Company

photo: Monique Carboni

Crisp, fresh-out-of-the-wrapper new play alert! With a journalist son wanting to make a difference in the (that) war and a liberal senator mom who is running for president and actually has a good chance (yeah, her) we got some pretty timely subject matter here. Mixing politics with familial relationships with romance, this play endeavours to provide an intriguing portrait of a trio of struggling with all the new millennium has to offer them. It pretty much succeeds, especially with the help of some fun plot twists offered up by playwright, Randall David Cook. Thumbs up!

A Kiss From Alexander

photo: Joe Oppedisano

As Alexander The Great, who is returned to Earth incognito to "correct" a tacky gay musical about his life, Craig Ramsay radiates an endearing innocence. His "fish out of water" bits, as he interacts with the queeny chorus boys, are this musical's best moments. But not much else is funny, and that's especially true of an appalling subplot which ends "happily" when an obnoxious, abusive drama queen finally accepts the overtures of a sweet, adoring fanboy when it's learned that the nerdy fan is a millionaire. What is THAT about?

The Eaten Heart

Another aesthetic must-see, The Eaten Heart is the kind of show that puts other directors to shame. In the mode of the epic "Decameron," The Debate Society has taken a series of lives in miniature, and then revealed them to us--slowly, subtly, seductively--in a world of motels and wolves, charming pizza-boys who cannonball in their off-hours, sudden thunderstorms and power outages, and televisions that won't turn off. Everything about this show works, from the compelling power of silence to the parallel motions of strangers who are just a thin skin of a wall apart. Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen play all the parts, which means they change costumes as fast as they change characters, but they're as technically slick as they are theatrically solid, and it's rare to see such complimentary performances working toward Oliver Butler's overarching truth. Dare I say flawless? I do.

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Lipstick on a Pig

I'm glad, in a way, that Lipstick on a Pig doesn't try to actually put lipstick on its own piggish plot. That at least makes it a more honest failure. But this bedside drama of a fractured family trying to recoup itself in its final hours pulls so much that's formulaic and that has been done before that it's like watching a "worst of" compilation that someone thought might be a "greatest hits." Though the play starts off strong with some paternal ambiguity, it's not handled with enough subtlety to be a big revelation, and the play swerves instead into a botched surgery for its dramatic closure. It's odd that a play this clean still manages to stay so mired and muddled, but between the sluggish script from Linda Evans and the hands-off direction of David Epstein, there's really nothing to take pleasure in from this production.

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Xanadu

Adapted from the horrendously inept, cheesey-80's-ugly movie that nailed the coffin shut on the roller disco movie craze, Xanadu may be the gayest, campiest musical to ever open on Broadway. It's relentlessly spoofy fluff, "children's theatre for forty year old gay people" as one character says succinctly in the Douglas Carter Beane-authored book. The story is dopey: some muses spring from a chalk drawing to inspire our hero to realize his dream....of opening a fabulous rollerskate nightclub with tunes by ELO. But I have to say that the Broadway musical does what it sets out to do: it takes itself seriously not at all, a 90 minute party musical that you laugh out loud at with your friends before heading out for drinks. You teehee at the 80's references as you did at The Wedding Singer, you chuckle everytime leading lady Kerry Butler does a dead-on spoof of Olivia Newton John's breathy singing style, you simply give in to the disarming charm of seeing a Broadway musical that dares, absurdly, not to pretend to be anything more than ridiculous disposable camp. Theatregoers who can never remove their State Of The Musical Theatre hats are forewarned: you are sure to leave grumpy. I saw a very early preview - the finale needs to be bigger, Tony Roberts' first number brings the show to a dead halt (Roberts seems to have been asked to play it straight, but he sometimes uncomfortably seems to be the only ensemble member not in on a joke) and the choreography could capitalize more often on roller boogie nostalgia. Still, the mostly gay audience I saw it with was beside themselves with glee and all but swarmed the stage door afterward. Impossibly, ludicrously, this could be Broadway's surprise hit of the year.

The Chronological Secrets of Tim

The company may be Impetuous, but the production didn't have to be. Instead of watching three actors fling themselves around a nice, but underused set in a vain attempt at comedy, we could've focused on the more structured scenes of the past, the sexier, funnier, more entertaining moments. Furthermore, for a show so obsessed with time, it didn't have to move so slowly either: farce or not, there's no way a man sits on a ledge threatening to jump for two hours without cops--even the inept ones--breaking in. I mean, if there's time enough for both of his ex-girlfriends to show up and try (for some inexplicable reason) to stop him from jumping (between mercilessly mocking him, that is), surely there's at least one cop somewhere in New York City who can take action. Energy only takes you so far: if you're stuck in a hamster wheel, your show isn't going anywhere.

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