Spain

The only thing I could say after seeing Spain, mouth agape with the time I'd just wasted was: "Really?" To which I could only answer, of course not; Spain is fantasy masquerading as allegory (except Jim Knable doesn't have anything to say, just plenty with which to play). One doesn't learn anything from Barbara (a gleefully unnerving Annabella Sciorra) conjuring a Conquistador (a mustache-twirling Michael Aronov) from her repressed Freudian psyche (the script has a more lavish description, but this is all I remember). Certainly nothing about how she feels for the husband who just left her (Erik Jensen), now just a punchline waiting to be run through with a sword, nor why she hangs with the dour, aptly named Diversion (Veanne Cox). Director Jeremy Dobrish has them run through a series of hoops, wasting Lisa Kron on a series of exaggerated one-liners (she plays a self-aware mystic), and even when the acting soars, the fantasy fails. The set hinges open to reveal the "golden heart" of Spain . . . and it's what looks like golden aluminum foil, wallpapered into some minimalist vista. At one point, Distraction reveals her own longing, then bites into a big, unpeeled orange, lets the juice drip down her face, and exits. (Sanity exits stage left.) Knable's thrilling comic momentum promises the exotic but quickly fizzles out into the mundane neurotic.

[Also blogged by: David]

Spain

***1/2

MCC

(photo credit: buncha headshot photographers)

Edward Albee once stated that in terms of directing a production, casting is 90% of the job. He was right and one need look no further than Spain , a very funny yet somewhat flawed comedy, to see this notion in action. About a divorcee who seems to conjure up a real live Spanish conquistador in her living room, Jim Knable's script does certainly provide actors with rich, colorful characters and every one of this 5 person cast brings so much to the table. From Michael Aronov's hyper-virile Spaniard, to Annabella Sciorra's needful, heartbroken divorcee, to Erik Jensen's douchey ex-boyfriend, to Lisa Krohn's hysterical multi-roled chameleon-festival we have some of the best casting I have seen this year. And can we just talk about the gorgeous, statuesque Veanne Cox? Known for her quirky, offbeat style, as the worried best friend, she brings to this play an odd, charming, confused lilt that made it impossible for me to take my eyes off of her whenever she was onstage. So the play- as mentioned before, it is very funny- especially when we're dealing with getting our conquistador's boots off the living room table-but the story tends to meander and slack at places when more structured plotting would have bolstered its savory one-liners. Overall though, I sat among a very engaged and happy audience which is always a good sign of a recommendable production.

Die Mommie Die!

photo: Carol Rosegg

Charles Busch is back in wigs and heels to treat New York to one of his smart and snappy campfests, and while this one (set in the late '60's and spoofing Hollywood Gothic melodramas) is a little too loose to snap as tightly as his very best, he's at the height of his dizzying powers as a performer. Every cross of his leg and tilt of his head is an orgasm of kitsch pleasure, even for those in the audience who don't recognize Busch's style as a dead-on exaggeration of the feminine signifiers from vintage Hollywood melodramas. In this one, as a faded femme fatale and washed-up chanteuse who plots to murder her louse of a movie producer husband, Busch gives himself plenty of scenery to chew. Some of his supporting castmates do a bit too much chomping of their own, but it hardly matters in the end: Die Mommie Die! is still one of the funnest nights out you can have at the theatre right now.

Also blogged by: [David]

A Glance at New York

Photo/Dixie Sheridan

I'd certainly be woozy and out of breath if I had to get up on stage and perform under the tight, hyperactive confines of Benjamin Baker's 1848 hit, A Glance at New York. There's no way I'd be able to play two characters -- sometimes at once -- as Randy Sharp demands of her cast. I'd be more lost than George Parsells (Ian Tooley), the country rube who keeps getting swindled in the city, or confused by the local, colorful slang. However, to be fair, most of the cast seemed to be tripping over their lines, or half-heartedly moving together, and both the visual pictures and text seemed clumsy. Reviving the vaudeville comedy does indeed give us a glimpse of New York, a place so much chaotic and faster-paced than it is today that it's almost a foreign country. It lets us hear the old, sorrowful tunes of that era (as sung by Britt Genelin and Laurie Kilmartin): so what if the songs, like the cuts in scene, come out of the blue? The show explodes onto the stage, and ebbs away just as quickly 50 minutes later, and such oceanic theater isn't concerned with narrative so much as a theatrical flood of ideas and images. To its end, A Glance at New York succeeds in that, but without any sort of anchor, the production is a bit of a wash.

[Also blogged by: David]

The Blood Brothers Present: PULP

photo: Aaron Epstein

A Halloween goodie-bag of three one-acts and several short vignettes, Pulp is a razor-spiked treat for horror and gore fans. The tastiest bits in the mix - Mac Rogers' Best Served Cold and James Comtois' Listening To Reason - were adapted from 1950's horror comics: thanks in part to smart costuming, resourceful staging, and heightened performances (but mostly thanks to sharp writing) they both achieve the feeling of the era's comic books come to pulpy, blood-soaked life. (They also both feature macabre narration, which goes a long way toward unifying the 90-minute evening's plays with the shorter pieces). The third play, Qui Nguyen's Dead Things Kill Nicely, doesn't recall the era in the same way as the other one-acts, but its Evil Dead-like detour into more baldly comic territory adds another welcome flavor of tainted candy to the assortment. Just about every piece in Pulp - from the wickedly smart vignette that opens the show (in which a metaphor between the relationship of artist to audience and of doctor to patient is illustrated with a most unpleasant "surgery") to the chilling one that closes it (no, I won't say a thing about that one, except that it's not easy to shake off) ends in a splatter-fest. Hard as you try to keep your tongue in your cheek, you'll have a bloody good nightmare anyhow.

The Blood Brothers Present: Pulp

Pulp, a new horror anthology by Nosedive Productions, isn't just right for the October season, it's exactly what the doctor ordered. According to that eviscerating doctor of the opening number, "Metaphor," some pain is necessary to satisfy the audience's desire for catharsis, but this well-assembled production is pretty good about cauterizing the weaker portions and the evening is mostly a delightfully grim success. As hosts and stylistic centers for the show, the Blood Brothers (Pete Boisvert and Patrick Shearer) are a delight, shuffling across the stage in slick, funereal suits, all skeleton-bald with faces as white as the gleam in their sinister smirks. The pieces with Shearer glibly narrating go over best, namely James Comtois's "Listening to Reason" and Mac Rogers's "Best Served Cold." The evil narrator lends a brisk pace to the pulp, allowing us to revel in the splattering blood packets and to laugh along with him and his delight in schadenfreude. But the entire evening, even amid some poor acting in Qui Nguyen's "Dead Things Kill Nicely," captures the right mood, and the Nosedive company's collaborative efforts really pay off: this Pulp goes down smooth.

[Read on] [Also blogged by: Patrick]