FRINGE: Lights Rise on Grace

Five words, six years, three things. Three actors, three chairs, a series of light cues. But Chad Beckim's brilliant new play, Lights Rise on Grace is anything but by the numbers. Told through parallel monologues that evolve into fully fleshed scenes, Beckim uses the repetition of events and the shuffling of time and perspective to unify the three disparate roles into one. Along with Robert O'Hara's seamless direction, he transforms the spotlights into prisons and the actors into a contemporary urban chorus, catcalling disses from the background. This, while moving at a rapid pace that compresses three lives and ten years into a tight sixty minutes.

[Read on]

Being Alive

photo: Richard J. Termine

Roughly two dozen Sondheim songs are re-imagined (mostly in the r&b idiom) and performed by an African-American ensemble in this confused and overly ambitious revue, conceived by Billy Porter and currently running in Westport. One of the aims is for a fresh new spin on the songwriter's material. Instead, the music often sounds like a bad concept album by The Fifth Dimension. The show does the nearly unimaginable: it makes Sondheim sound pedestrian. Walkouts began at the preview I saw around the half hour mark and continued steadily, with a few especially noisy and disgruntled ones for Natalie Venetia Belcon's eleventh hour all-hummed "Send In The Clowns." I don't object that these songs have been re-imagined, but I do object that the results here are numbing and diminishing on stage: the few moments that do spark some dramatic interest are the ones which are performed closest to how the songs were written to be sung in the first place with minimal musical re-invention. (Joshua Henry's heartfelt rendition of "I Remember" from Evening Primrose is the show's highlight) As if the Sondheim Goes Black conceit was not enough, there's another that has the performers quoting lines from Shakespeare plays between songs, and as if that also isn't enough to bite off and chew, the book makes a feeble attempt at a story. Sample song-segue dialogue: "What's all this talk about giants in the sky, son?" "I'm all alone, Mama" "No, no one is alone". Being Alive is the kind of out-there risk that only well-meaning, highly creative people can think up and take, but in this case, the risk doesn't pay off.

100 Saints You Should Know

The vibrant, instantly fascinating characters in Kate Fodor's gorgeous, not-to-be-missed new play are all struggling with isolation and loneliness; while a priest, returned home to his mother from his parish, begins to lose his faith, the single mother who works as a maid in the rectory begins to search for hers. The first act is thick with prickly humor, the kind of laughs that come from our recognition of believable, sharply observed behavior. Gradually, and with an elegant gracefulness that is the opposite of a heavy hand, the play flowers into a deeply affecting drama about the soul-searchings of identifiably real everyday people. This production, directed with sensitivity and clarity by Ethan McSweeney, boasts a flawless ensemble: all five actors (Jeremy Shamos, Lois Smith, Janel Moloney, Zoe Kazan and Will Rogers) make strong characterization choices that enrich the play's humor while remaining connected to the sadness of the characters. In a word, 100 Saints... is a gem.

Also blogged by: [David] [Aaron]

BLOG DISCOUNT OFFER:
Order before September 18th
$40 (Regular $65) for all performances August 24th through September 2nd.
$50 (Regular $65) for all performances September 4th through September 30th.
ONLINE at www.playwrightshorizons.org or www.ticketcentral.org and use the code SABL.
PHONE Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200 (Noon to 8 PM daily) and mention the code SABL when ordering.
IN PERSON Noon to 8 PM daily at the box office; 416 West 42nd Street (between 9th and 10th) and mention the code SABL

100 Saints You Should Know

****1/2
Playwrights Horizons


Heads up! An exceptional production has just started previews at Playwrights Horizons. The themes of Kate Fodor's beautifully crafted drama are so clearly (and heartbreakingly) delivered by her finely drawn characters that she has rendered her 8 paragraphs of Playbill notes (including the phrases "It's a play about.." and "The play is also about...") obsolete. Musing on religion (or the absence of), loneliness, and parent/child relationships this often funny/often sad play provided perspectives and insights that were as modern as you could get. The 5-person cast is top-notch including Zoe Kazan and Will Rogers brilliantly playing teenagers with all of the rage and awkwardness that comes with it. And I FINALLY got to see Lois Smith onstage. That was a special treat. This one's a keeper.

Also blogged by: [Patrick] [Aaron]

FRINGE: PN1923.45 LS01 Volume 2 [The Book Play]

After watching Hotel Oracle, the last confusing collaboration between writer Bixby Elliot and director Stephen Brackett, I was hoping that Mr. Elliot would skip the intellectualism and the magical realism and simply get to the point. With PN1923.45 LS01 Volume 2 [The Book Play], he's gone one better: he's pinpointed the message. That message--about homosexuality's struggle for rights and need for acceptance--is at times a little overbearing. However, the playful magical realism (which collides a couple from the '50s, the '80s, and a mysterious stranger from the future) keeps the action at least theatrically plausible. Furthermore, the central characters are likeable and understandable, even at their worst, and their struggles are identifiable and sincere. Jonathan (James Ryan Caldwell), ashamed of being gay, tries to avoid committing to his open partner, Brad (Yuval Boim), even after Brad is bashed for it. In the '50s, things are even worse for Laurence (Chad Heoppner), who expresses his shame with his self-loathing homophobia and a shy attempt at marriage with a spinster librarian, Madeline (Marguerite Stimpson). The contrast--seamlessly (and at times emphatically) navigated by Brackett--speaks wonders for the cultural differences and struggles. If the fiery Everett Quinton's performance as Harry, the Fierstein-like proselytizer, weren't so emotional, it would seem superfluous; as is, it's just another layer to a solid tome.

[Also reviewed by: Patrick]

FRINGE: Susan Gets Some Play

Being single in the city sucks, and dating is hard. But if it could always be as funny as in Adam Szymkowicz's Susan Gets Some Play, then we'd at least have something to look forward to. This show builds on everything Szymkowicz developed in last year's Nerve (it even pairs the two leads again), but escapes the easy situational comedy of a blind date by building the story around a real (albeit metadramatic) heart: Susan Louise O'Connor's, to be specific. You see, the plot of the play revolves around a director (Kevin R. Free) who creates a play solely to find Susan a boyfriend. We, the audience, get to watch (and perhaps take part in) auditions, then to delight in the growing farce. But Susan Gets Some Play is grounded in her likable innocence, and sparkling honesty: when she talks about how nice it would be simply to be held (even if she has to play a character for no pay, no lines, and a terrible commute), it seems blissfully sincere. Mortiz von Stuelpnagel's direction amplifies the ridiculous, but remains elastic enough to snap back into seriousness. Comedy is built on such distortions of mood; this production has near perfected the necessity of equal parts silly and sincere.

[Also reviewed by: Patrick]