Love, Death and Vengeance: A Comedy

Adding "A Comedy" to the title of a play is always dangerous, for it adds the high expectation of laughter to that show. Luckily, Daniel Kelley, like most of his cast, does sketch comedy, and he knows how to conjure up a laugh: in this case, it's by cramming every Greek myth he could remember into the show. Some scenes still seem too hastily sketched: Al Gibbins (Ben Correale) loses his high school crush, Lily Droshpat (Leah Rudick) because of a ketchup stain, and is thereby cursed by the lightning-clapped Will of High School to be a loveless player for the rest of his life. But the delightfully precise chorus (Katie Hartman, Rachel Risen, and John Moreno) remind us that the humor's been well planned. Though there are many things that will remain unclear about this production -- for instance, why are all the women in Hades blond Southern belles? -- the comedy is crystal, especially when the cast's more-is-more approach (at one point, Al promises to push a boulder up a hill, while wearing wings burned by the son, then to chain himself to a rock to have his liver picked out, &c., &c., all after blinding himself) blocks out the lack of a set and the cheap flickers of the lights. Extra credit to the adaptable Henry Zebrowski, who channels a certain sloppy sort of cool, and to Kelley's modern poetry: "You break our trust as if it were an unlubed condom."

The Homecoming

photo: Scott Landis

Psst. I have a confession to make. I don't enjoy Harold Pinter's plays. I can see why lots of other people do, but even this one - widely considered his masterwork - drives me to immediate distraction. Am I the only one who sees it as passe, a relic from a time when it was considered intellectually fashionable to aggressively jolt an audience out of its passivity? It's the theatrical equivalent of films like Last Year At Marienbad or Antonioni's Blow-Up which leave the audience to puzzle out meaning in their seats. There's nothing wrong with forcing an engaged audience into deconstruction and analysis, but when the result is Pinter's blend of blatant artificiality and relentless nastiness I begin to wonder if he's getting at anything deeper about the human condition than "everyone is rotten". In this one, we are probably meant to think that the endless power games and pervasive air of sickness are somehow just us at our worst, the dark "truth" about how people truly are once you get past the socialization. I reject that; it rings as false to me today as it would if everyone ran around smiling ear to ear for two hours.

Vital Signs: New Works Festival Week Three

OK, put down the bell; stop tolling the death of the American playwright. In the last two weeks, I've seen at least nine promising writers, each with a distinct vision and voice, and different social woe to expose, on the Vital Theater stage. This isn't developmental theater either, but fully produced works that range from Shelia Callaghan's always welcome eccentricity (Ayravana Flies or A Pretty Dish) to Sharyn Rothstein's insightful humanity (Senor Jay's Tango Palace). Directors like Blake Lawrence (The Lock) and David A. Miller (Ayravana) make even the most sedentary blocking charming and alive, and actors like Nick Merrit, Carla Rzeszewski, and Lauren Walsh Singerman make these new voices positively sing. I'm fast becoming convinced that Vital is one of the best places to find fresh, young talents: head over there now so you can say you knew 'em when.

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A Very Nosedive Christmas Carol

The "very Nosedive" addition to the classic Christmas Carol title promises the usual festive story, along with bonus, over-the-top extras: and that's exactly what you'll get. Caroling monkeys and sock-puppet Tiny Tims, a Shakespearean Scrooge, and all the other fixings, only this time viewed from the perspective of four very frustrated ghosts, doomed to spend each Christmas doing the same old play. James Comtois knows how to pack in a bunch of hilarity, and the Nosedive Company (members like Brian Silliman and Patrick Shearer) know how to turn his phrases for the maximum of laughter. This is the show that got me out of a Scrooge-like funk of dreary productions, so it's very much recommended (but be advised: tonight's the last night).

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The Santaland Diaries

Photo/Jennifer Maufrais Kelly

When I think of David Sedaris's icily hilarious The Santaland Diaries, I don't leap at the chance to put that up on stage: the audio book is already so cool and precise that such an adaptation seems pointless. And if I did yearn for one man to caustically belittle Macy's Santaland exhibit, it wouldn't be Joe Mantello's sensationalism that I turned to. (The guy turned even the natural drama of Blackbird into a Hollywood-lit play.) And yet, that's the production Jason Podplesky is directing for The Gallery Players, and the result is predictably commercial: it runs smoothly from joke to joke to joke, but when it suddenly ends, you're left craving so much more -- not because you enjoyed yourself, but because you're unsatisfied. B. Brian Argotsinger, who plays David, seems uncomfortable imitating Sedaris's light voice, and is therefore a good fit for the play, which constantly abandons the high-class disdain of the book in favor of the sort of boisterous vocal impersonations found in stand-up dive bars. The final product is all the worse off for being passably funny: it is the junk food of theater.

[Read on] [Also blogged by: Patrick]

Kiki And Herb: The Second Coming

*****

Carnegie Hall

Making their second pit stop at Carnegie Hall, Kiki and Herb have successfully turned their screeching, drunken cabaret act into the hippest, most entertaining, must-see events of the year. Taking swigs off a bottle of Canadian Club, Kiki slurred her way through her catalogue of Christmas tunes that seamlessly segue into songs like "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and in between numbers she hysterically rambled on about politics, religion, life, and Jon Benet Ramsey. Trusty Herb banged away at the piano and back-up shouted the harmony. Three hours of yelling. The nodes on her vocal chords must be the size of testicles. But who cares? Have another drink and let's sing one more song before we die. That's what Kiki is all about. Pre-show and at intermish the people watching was out of control (sighted: John Cameron Mitchell, Jeff Whitty, Rufus Wainwright, Neal Medlyn, Bridgett Everett). I saw drag, tattoos, fedoras, moustaches, piercings, zootsuits, feather boas- a cornucopia of the downtown fabulous and slutty. I was in heaven.