Tom Crean: Antarctic Explorer

It took a long time for me to warm up to Aidan Dooley's portrayal of Tom Crean, one of the unsung "heroes" of Ireland (this, assuming that there is something heroic about plunging into the unknown whiteness of the Antarctic not once, not twice, but three times). Ironically, it was at Crean's coldest moment--the approximately 40-mile solo trek through the snow, blizzard at his back, that he undertook to save his companions--that warmed me to the survivalist narrative. I can't say, either, that Dooley oversold the role: his wild gesticulation and shrill, incredulous commentary at his own accomplishments seem a bit hyperbolic, but not any less believable. What I can say is that Dooley's writing was held back by his own slurring, stumbling performance in the second act: short of that, I was on the edge of my seat at the odds-defying account of an 800-mile voyage with Captain Shackleton (all undertaken in a tiny, wooden rescue boat), not to mention the pitch-dark slide down the side of an icy mountain, nor the depraved conditions of their various camps. There are a few anachronisms that Dooley should remove ("like banshees on a roller coaster"), and the show would be better as a 90-minute one-act, but Tom Crean: Antarctic Explorer is pretty arresting stuff.

The Black Eyed

photo: Joan Marcus

In Betty Shamieh's provocative, stunningly lyrical and sometimes darkly funny The Black Eyed - currently being New York premiered in a brilliant production at NYTW and easily one of the most exciting new plays I've seen so far this year - four Palestinian women from different historical periods congregate outside a mysterious door in the afterlife, unsure if they are in heaven, hell, or some terrible limbo. Each of their lives was deeply altered by violence: they spend the play trying to make sense of and peace with it, sometimes with profound humour and sometimes with passionate urgency. The play is bold and thematically ambitious - the characters' reach through the ages (for instance Delilah, from Biblical times, is right alongside a modern-day secular architect) widens the playwrights' questions about oppression and violence beyond the context of modern-day conflicts. That's one of the play's strongest qualities: it pushes buttons about terrorism, religious divisiveness, and warfare, but none of them activate hate. The play has a humanity-affirming bird's eye view and it challenges us to take one too.

Also blogged by: [Aaron] [David]

The Hand and the Hen

I don't think there's a problem in Woken'glacier's translation of Chilean playwright Fernando Josseau's plays: it's more a problem with transitions from director Oscar A. Mendoza, and enunciations from actress Coco Silvera. The plays themselves are giddily tragic one-acts, brief but memorable for their eccentric poise (like something out of Borges). In the first, The Hand, an inspector investigates the mysterious severance of a middle-aged man's hand. The amputee (Jeffery Steven Allen) is reasonably panicked and perturbed, whereas the detective (Paul Daily) is surprised and a little irritated by the interruption of his routine: a missing hand isn't so bad as a corpse.

The lively exchanges of desperation and exasperation work well, but the momentum is constantly interrupted by lengthly blackouts. The music that plays through them, composed by Spiros Exaras, is just as rhythmic as the language, but it clashes with the text: it has its own story, and the two don't work well in tandem. As for the second play, The Hen, let's just say that it takes a certain sort of talent to turn a tale of rape, cuckoldry, and chickens into comedy. The alienating blocking puts Him (Allen) and Her (Silvera) at odds before the show even begins; the comedy is that we root for the self-assured rapist (Daily), but it's less funny when we root for him because of his victim's poor acting.

Gypsy

Photo/Ari Mintz

After hearing all the praise for Gypsy, I was expecting to drop dead of excitement watching LuPone channel all of her estimable skill into the role of Rose. Maybe I suffered from a case of overexpectations. Maybe there were too many fawning fans in the audience--a celebratory praise party--for me to enjoy the oft-interrupted performance. Maybe I was sitting too far away from the stage to appreciate the phenomenon happening on it. But I don't like to make excuses: maybe the show just wasn't as good as it was hyped up to be.

[Read on] [Also blogged by: David | Patrick]

The Black Eyed

Photo Credit/Joan Marcus

New York Theater Workshop is on a roll this season: Horizon was a Beckett-like allegory on religion and faith, and The Black Eyed is a Callaghan-like parable on what will happen to our faiths if we cannot learn to understand one another. Betty Shamieh's play is controversial--it features an unrepentant suicide bomber in the afterlife and has harsh words for martyrdom--but it is written beautifully, with shades of slam poetry and Greek choruses. Though the polemic is passive, the performances are passionate, and Sam Gold's direction serves as supportive punctuation for the finely crafted message already laid bare on stage.

[Read on]

[Also blogged by: Patrick | David]
Tickets only $35.00 with code BEBLG28

MITF: "The Broken Jump"

OK, so these days, vaudeville really isn't that funny. However, watching actors like Jack Boice ham it up in a flattering homage of the old days; that's comedy. The Broken Jump isn't just a comedy, though, and that's what makes it pretty good, too. King Talent's script tells the story of an elder performer, Julius McGowen (whom he also sagaciously plays) coming to terms with the life he left when he fled the ill-repute of his ex-prostitute lover, Natalie (played by Melissa Jo Talent) to pursue an eventual Broadway act. Fifteen years later, and McGowen's a dying breed who finds a breath of fresh air in Natalie's precocious daughter, Christina Bell (Caitlin Mehner). Unfortunately, his partnership with young Milton Kean (Tony King) is threatened by his big plans for Christina, and by the aggressive politics of conservative Senator Irving Drew (Greg Homison), who'd like to ban children from the inappropriately lascivious messages of "the theater." The show bustles along, building relationships and lovingly embracing the history of vaudeville, and it's not until the abrupt, mood-changing finale that The Broken Jump appears to be broken.