Hamlet

photo: Carol Rosegg

A modern-dress production in which the Danish prince snacks on a bag of movie popcorn and Ophelia wears an ipod, Shakespeare Theatre Company's Hamlet has the interesting idea of emphasing the youth of the title character: it's Hamlet as tossle-haired, shirttail-showing, backpack-wearing adolescent. It has its moments, but in all it sounds a lot more fun on paper than it has turned out on stage, mainly because Jeffrey Carlson is asked to rage through the title role at fever pitch and there's not a lot of variety in or relief from what amounts to a three hour fifteen minute sobbing tantrum. I've liked Carlson in just about everything I have seen him in but I don't think he's right for this: he's too extreme to communicate an adolescent rebelliousness that we can relate to. Additionally, it's never clear in this production how the character's "mad" behavior differs from his norm: if that's part of the point, that adolescence is a kind of madness in itself, then it's ill-defined and doesn't come across the footlights. Good performances are turned in elsewhere: Robert Cuccioli and Janet Zarish, as Claudius and Gertrude respectively, are vibrant and strike some notes of newlywed carnality; Michelle Beck is a memorably emotional Ophelia and Kenajuan Bentley a credibly honor-driven Laertes, Ted van Griethuysen brings a welcome, comforting old-school polish as the Gravedigger. Even with so little to do as Horiatio, Pedro Pascal is natural and easy on the ears: he knows how to make Shakespeare sound effortless in his mouth.

Mr. A's Amazing Maze Plays

The question presented by Ateh Theater Group's futurist performance of Mr. A's Amazing Maze Plays is: Are you hip enough to head out to a theater at 10:30 on a Friday night and guide two characters through a sinister yet farcical house in what can only be called a Choose Your Own Play? No longer filled with just the saccharine of the children's play Alan Ayckbourn wrote in 1988, director Carlton Ward has intensified the edges and made this show into the type of cloying, high-fructose corn syrup that can blow a somewhat sober crowd away. A rowdy, emotive production, led by an impeccably over-the-top ensemble, Mr. A's Amazing Maze Plays is an inventive eighty minute adventure. Just don't lead them up the wooden ladder.

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I Google Myself

photo: Max Ruby

An entertainingly pulped-up 70 minute black comedy, which begins as a needy masochist latches on to a gay porn star who happens to share his name, I Google Myself makes a lot of delicious (and sometimes lurid) fun out of our human need for recognition and connection in the information-soaked culture we live in. Playwright Jason Schafer overboils the plot devices and turns of events to Jerry Springer Show temperatures but that's part of the point: these characters (including a third, a seemingly normative mellow stoner who blogs his poetry) are probably the psychos we are afraid might be lurking behind anonymous screen names on the Internet, but underneath the sensational and ridiculous they are all too recognizably human and familiar. The fast-paced show intends to be more fun than deep and it is, but if it's a bit of a cartoon at least it's a smart one, and this production (from Theatre Askew, devoted to new "queer" plays) is put over very well by its cast: all three men are perfect and perfectly in sync. As the porn star, Nathan Blew lets you glimpse something behind the smug, hypermasculine mask; he reminded me of Marc Kudisch doing arrogant. As the stoner, John Gardner is believably laid back and does slow-synapsed amusingly. And best of all, as the stalkerish masochist who is the play's center, Tim Cusack is simultaneously able to be funny and to render harrowingly needy. And he has a quality that is essential for this play to work: you just like him, no matter what.

Washing Machine

Photo/Ben Kato

Washing Machine is a spin cycle of sorrow, going from the curious beginnings to the tragic, asphyxiating finale. This aesthetic foray into minimalism allows actress Dana Berger to maximize her connections with the various characters she plays, and with the audience itself. Writer Jason Stuart and director Michael Chamberlin don't presume to know what led to the drowning of a five-year-old girl in a washing machine, so they focus instead on the emotional reverberations of this single ripple in the pool of life. The pivots from character to character are harsh, but their stories are soft (not wrinkle free). Doing the laundry is a perfunctory task; seeing Washing Machine is more like watching perfection.

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Goodbye April, Hello May

Goodbye April, Hello May is like the quiet kid on the debate team: he makes good observations, but they go unheard in a sea of more aggressively pitched ideas. What's worse for Ethan Lipton's piece is that it's meant to be comic, something that's hard to do when you're this passive. Shows that succeed in this vein, like the recently alienating God's Ear and The Internationalist, do so on the strength of a consistent tone and a few overblown characters. You'd think that having Gibson Frazier (who was in both of those shows) would help, but unless he's given something outrageous to do (as in the opening, where he describes shooting a seven-year-old), he's just shooting the breeze with the rest of the cast. Those few slivers of Lipton gold are good, but they're drowned out by the bland narrative, unnecessary intermission, and overwrought staging.

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Hairspray

****
Hairspray

If the comic sensibility of this production is a little less unified and focused as it was in its first year, the replacement actors do bring fresh perspectives to the table that turn out to be quite fun. Shannon Durig, the prettiest Tracy Turnblad to date, owns her fat and imbues her role with a sexy confidence that makes the Tracy/Link romance all the more believable. More man-playing-man-in-dress rather than man-playing-woman, Paul Vogt's intermittent booming bass line deliveries as Momma Turnblad were hysterical and he sang the role better than I've ever heard it sung. And Jerry Mathers (The Beaver) as Daddy Turnblad comes off pretty clueless to everything around him which actually works in that same odd cult-ish way that Pia Zadora's or Patty Hearst's performances did in Waters' movies. After 5 years, that can-do moxie that gives Hairspray that triple espresso jolt of energy is definitely still there and if the Broadway production gets a nice box office boost after the release of the film then yay for Hairspray and yay for the fans who flock to it!