Yank!

****1/2
The Gallery Players




Give me a respectful, carefully paced, sensitively acted, gay romance with equal parts of unrequited love, shame and intermittent explosions of passion and you will have me bawling like a melting fagbeast... which is exactly what I was doing at David and Joe Zellnik's Yank!, currently in previews at The Gallery Players in Brooklyn. Led by a stunningly charming Bobby Steggert and swoontastic Maxime de Toledo, we have here a funny and heart-wrenching, old-school style, big musical about seldom explored stories of gays in the military during WW2. Thanks to Igor Goldin's tight, smart direction and a well cast company of actorsoldiers, this is one hell of a good production. Oh yes, and among this sweaty rabble of dogtagged mancastedness is a one Ms. Nancy Anderson, who, as listed in the program, plays "all females" and does so tremendously. She seems to be channeling every diva from Judy Garland to Bernadette Peters. How completely appropriate.

seating ARRANGEMENTS

Honesty, via Denmark and The Flea. Via an old short story by Isak Dinesen -- an 1881 period piece, nonetheless -- and the modern retelling (with all its quirks and flairs) of it by the young repertory theater company, the Bats. Grab a seat: you're invited to dine on the politics and passion of these eight actors as they engage in a neo-futurist banquet (with shades of expressionist direction by Erik Pold). They'll play the violin for you, sing for you: if that's not enough, they'll rap for you. They'll invent whatever characters they need to make a point, or they'll just be themselves, stomping invisible buildings in a mock Godzilla-meets-Trump parody about his commercializing of the SoHo neighborhood. Or maybe they'll just lean across the table, make eye contact, and say hello. Whatever the case, you'll be feasting on some del.icio.us acting, and while their rants may be incomplete and disparate, their performance of seating ARRANGEMENTS is united.

[Read on]

Yank!

Photo/Jennifer Maufrais Kelly

Yank! is a new musical, but this WWII-era score pays such respectful homage to the past that it almost feels like a revival. (A very topical revival, one that looks at gay life in the military long before Don't Ask Don't Tell.) David Zellnick's script is as smart as his brother's score is sweet: it parodies the classic camaraderie of, say, M*A*S*H, but doesn't get lost in caricature. As a result, the chorus supports the script with more than cheap laughs, and their songs all add to the mood, even if they don't always further the plot. As for the leads, Bobby Steggert (straight out of 110 in the Shade) has a quiet reservation that allows him to grow dramatically when placed in contrast with the strong, confident "Hollywood" Mitch (Maxime de Toledo), their neat little affair is well-balanced by the lively, gay-and-loving it Artie (Jeffry Denman, a scene stealer), and the whole play is given a nice slice of femininity (and occasional masculinity) by Nancy Anderson, who exhaustively plays all the female roles. Color me charmed.

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

Speech And Debate

****

Roundabout Underground

(now in previews)

What a fun, edgy, modern, youthful, messy play to inaugurate the new hush-hush! basement blackbox theater hidden at the Laura Pels behind an "employees only" type door and down an elevator shaft! Dedicated to cultivating new work from emerging playwrights, Roundabout has gathered some amazing talent to bring to blazing life Speech and Debate, a tale about 3 hyper-opinionated teenagers with like, super-serious omg! secrets. Jason Fuchs, Sarah Steele and Gideon Glick look like teenagers, act like teenagers but have all the talent of seasoned university trained, professional adult actors. Special shout out to Glick's take on a faggy, came out at 9, choreographically inclined, Internet cruising, barely legal gayboy. His delivery was- well I can't do it justice here, but it was SO OUT THERE and extreme and it like TOTALLY worked. And my secret straight crush on [title of show] alum, Susan Blackwell, who hilariously owns the room in her two scenes as the only adult presence, continues to ensizzle my great actress-loving heart. Playwright Stephen Karam, who co-authored 2006's columbinus (which I LOVED at NYTW), has given our actors so much to play, with his hip, realistic, wordy dialogue and his ever-present need to keep the audience fully engaged. It mostly works amazingly though this need sometimes plays against his work as there are times when we are in overkill mode (one can only be in a room with talkative teenagers so long before one wants to strangle and/or fuck them) and with its 4-ish endings is perhaps just a few minutes too long. It's not a perfect play, but I kinda think it's not supposed to be and I loved it and I can't wait to sneak back down to Roundabout's hideout to see which diamond in the rough they illuminate next.

Also blogged by: [Patrick]

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.