OH, THE HUMANITY and other exclamations

***1/2

The Flea Theater

Like in his Thom Pain (based on nothing), here in Will Eno's hour of 5 short plays, we are again exposed to his very unique, hyper-philosophical voice and characters who are struggling to make sense of themselves and world around them. When a playwright's voice is so startlingly original (a marriage of deep, harrowing insight and a conversational, matter of fact tone), it takes a while for the audience (or at least me) to learn the language and I have found his work to alternate between thrilling and confusing, moving and boring. Enter The Spokeswoman, Gently about an inexperienced airline representative making a speech about a recent plane crash, and The Bully Composition about a photographer and his assistant taking a photograph of the audience shimmered with sadness and humor and were the best of the five. Unlike in her current film, Before The Devil Knows You're Dead, Marisa Tomei's oozing sexuality is muted honing in on the very down to earth and naturalistic actress that has always been present underneath the eyeliner and the boobies. She is perfectly cast here as is Brian Hutchison who shoots out fear like laser beams through his blood-shot, watery eyes.

The Piano Teacher

Photo/Carol Rosegg

Like her contemporary, Adam Bock, Julia Cho's The Piano Teacher plays with judo-like grace and strength, against our expectations in order to better unnerve us, and to create an air of unease, even in the coziest of homes, and with the friendliest of narrators, former piano instructor, Mrs. K. (Elizabeth Franz). Kate Whoriskey does her best to tear down the boundaries between audience and actor, her most overly familiar (and therefore effective) act is to have Mrs. K. open the show by sharing some of her stockpiled cookies with the front row. Her suspense, she says, is now our suspense, and as the darkness creeps in on her, with the flickers of light drawing our eyes to something as innocuously menacing as a ringing phone, one can't help becoming fully involved. Is her former student, Mary Fields (Carmen M. Herlihy) as well-adjusted as she seems? Is Michael (John Boyd) even one of her former students? And was her husband, Mr. K., just doing crosswords with the children in the kitchen as they waited for their lessons? Save for one moment of unrestrained violence (that actually comes as a relief to an audience weighed upon by intense, sharply crafted pp suspense), The Piano Teacher will leave you on the edge of your seat, trusting nothing, fearing everything.

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Becoming Tennessee

The new Artistic Director of The Emelin Theatre (in the Westchester town of Mamaroneck) has big and bold plans for the house, which include a major renovation to accomodate big musicals and the addition of a second small black box theatre for plays. His first season has included a series of concerts and new works; this one, a reading of a new musical which concerns Tennessee Williams' first week off the bus in New Orleans, has undergone some revision since it was workshopped last year at the O'Neill Center. As it was a reading and not open for review, I don't want to say too much about it, except that Brian Charles Rooney - without benefit of costume or makeup - ably captured something recognizable of Williams in his portrayal of the playwright as a green twenty-eight year old. (Everyone in the cast was well-suited to their respective roles, in fact: I especially also liked Jerry Dixon, whose character serves as something of a bad influence on Williams). The show's book is essentially solid, depicting several key relationships that shape the young man into an expressive artist, and the score is well-suited to the time and the place of the story: one section of music, which covers Williams picking up a soldier and spending the night with him, is transporting and lyrical: it's still lingering in my head days later.

Queens Boulevard

photo: Carol Rosegg

The second play in Signature's Charles Mee season is a fairy tale which begins with a joyous and colorful marriage ceremony. The play-with-music gently questions how romantic love can be balanced with social responsibility, as Mee contrives a series of events that keep the newlyweds apart for nearly their entire first day as marrieds. Contrives is the operative word, regretably: although Mee scores many thematic points over the course of the intermissionless 100 minute play, and his collage style of narrative keeps things lively and layered with meaning, the play's events begin to feel manufactured. There comes a point when you just want to yell at the continually detained groom to get on home to his wife already.

The Eight: Reindeer Monologues

Jeff Goode's The Eight: Reindeer Monologues have a lot of creativity poured into them, but not enough energy to keep that overladen bag of toys in the air. Each reindeer is tethered to the same stockpile of jokes (although they each have different attitudes about it), but without a belligerent Santa breathing whiskily down their necks, they only manage to go in similar circles. Dasher (Robert Brown) tells us, in his best Tom Arnold impression, how the Rudolph thing was a fluke; Donner (Jason Unfried) uses alcohol to forget the screams of his retarded son, Rudolph, upon meeting Santa's "jolly old elf"); Blitzen (Rachel Grundy) speaks rationally as to why the reindeer need to go on strike; and poor Vixen (Jennifer Gill) "accepts" that Santa's rape of her was something she had coming because of her frisky lifestyle. Some of the actors explode onto the stage with memorable impressions, like the openly gay Cupid's (Peter Schuyler) dance to Electric Six's "Gay Bar," or the flamboyant Hollywood's (Geoffrey Warren Barnes III) cooler-than-the-North-Pole attitude about movie-making. But ultimately, the show is just low comedy, strung together with some reindeer ears thrown on for good measure (which, admittedly, is good for a laugh).

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Queens Boulevard (the musical)

photo: Carol Rosegg

***1/2

Signature

(now in previews)

Though the writing is not as succinct and focused as the searing Iphegenia 2.0, the same uncontainable passion that explodes into music and dance also brings technicolor vitality to Charles Mee's latest production at Signature. As a newly married groom wanders the streets of Queens searching for a rare flower for his wife, he learns lessons about marriage, lust, life and love from the colorful characters who reside in the neighborhood. Many of the stories that our residents tell crackle with witty and keen observations and if perhaps one or two get bogged down in exposition or pat philosophy it isn't long before our play zooms along to the next pit stop on our hero's journey. Mimi Lien's scenic design, a cacophony of neon signs and cluttered shops, is spectacular- to the point that I audibly gasped when I walked into the theater. And as always when dealing with Signature, we have a perfectly cast production and a director (Davis McCallum) who honors the spirit of the playwright's work. I am very glad I got to see this production.