Pinocchio

photo: F. Brancoli Pantera

Marking the U.S. debut of a multi-disciplined troupe called Teatro Del Carretto, this production of Pinocchio is spoken in Italian but, except for a couple of relatively static dialogue scenes, it hardly matters. The show speaks the universal language of inventive, heightened theatricality (although it's too intense, and not intended, for children). Aided by an effective soundscape and using a minimum of props, the troupe performs their dark, dream-like adaptation of the tale in which woodcarver/father figure Gepetto is almost entirely absent: the focus is squarely on Pinocchio's determination to become fully human despite the harsh realities of the world. The story unfolds in a semi-circular arena: Pinocchio (Giandomenico Cupaiuolo, giving a physically expressive and memorable performance) spends the entire ninety minutes on the circus ring-like stage enduring each lesson in its turn. Thanks to the troupe's commedia approach, which includes mask work and broad physicality, there's a great deal of levity to balance the grim: the business with Pinocchio's broomstick-long nose is as amusing as his near-lynching is harrowing. Recommended.

Arrive early and have a look in the lobby at some eye-popping stills from other Teatro Del Carretto productions. Or poke around here.

Reading: David's Play

For all the obvious reasons, it wouldn't be fair to review the staged reading I saw of this new play by Tom Rowan. But I don't see any harm in saying that it concerns a group of theatre-minded college friends who reunite about a handful of years after graduation when one of them Broadway-debuts in a Duran Duran jukebox musical (as a character named....Rio.) I also don't see anything wrong with posting that the seven actors in this lively reading were judiciously cast in their roles and did terrific work: I was especially pleased to see Elizabeth van Meter, Bobby Steggert and Jake Alexander, who've each impressed before in other shows, along with Julie Fitzpatrick, Walter Brandes, David Lavine and Paco Tolson. I finally don't see a problem telling you that I would gladly see David's Play again when a full production comes to pass.

Under the Radar: Day 3

- Generation Jeans
Photo/Natalia Koliada

With so much weighty relevance behind it, Generation Jeans doesn't need to be very theatrical. Just like jeans themselves can be an act of rebellion in a country like Belarus, so too can words operate simply. Nikolai Khalezin, speaking in his native tongue, avoids doing too much because he wants to speak directly to us, and it works: his lack of refinement speaks toward a greater honesty. Even the DJ (Lavr Berzhanin), who at times is out of place, helps to unite the piece with samples of music that are wholly effective every time Khalezin pauses for a moment to reflect on his own freedom.



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- Terminus

Photo/Ros Kavanagh

If it weren't for Mark O'Rowe's clever verse (e.g., smitten/admitten, invective/ineffective, identical/antithetical) and graphic language, it would've been hard to sit through his ninety minute triptych of monologues, Terminus. Harder still given the taste of thick smoke in the air and the dim and sideways illuminated sight of the actors on stage. But the language justifies the appearance of demons (composed of worms), easy-going psychopaths, and matter-of-fact violence by elevating it to the metaphor of poetry. Though I'm not sure there's a hidden meaning to a man swinging from a crane by his entrails with a demons barbed tail sticking out of his mouth as he sings "Wind Beneath My Wings," it seems not only plausible in O'Rowe's world, but oddly humorous, too, an impressive feat for such a dark piece. (It brings to mind similarly glamorous works of violence, like The Lieutenant of Inishmore.)

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- Disinformation

There isn't a person out there who will leave Disinformation saying anything negative about Reggie Watts's voice: the man is an aural artist, capable of many octave-spanning notes, and that's without the assistance of his voice modulators and track-recorders, two twinned devices that let him layer distortions upon distortions upon himself. However, this show seems more like a sampler of what he can do than a statement of anything worth saying, and one of his faux-corporate slogans rings a little too close to home: "The More That You Use, The Less That You Are." That said, there isn't a person going to Disinformation who won't be amused. From his satirical intellectualizing (his stuffy accents are enjoyable) to his retro film clips, Reggie Watts really knows how to pick his words carefully (even at their most vulgar, his "Shit Fuck Sandwich" rap is still eerily specific).

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Under the Radar: Day 2

- This Place is a Desert

Photo/Hayden Taylor

"We can talk about love and all the ways it wraps itself around us until it's just another form of suffocation," cries one of the many characters caught up in the pains and pangs of Jay Scheib's This Place is a Desert. And that's exactly what happens: a series of tight and interconnected rooms give way to a tangled snarl of relationships that overlap and clash like human hurricanes. Furthermore, a series of cameras and a passive observer (Kenneth Roraback) air the real time scenes from multiple angles, catching each character's reactions like windows to the soul, a creative use of multimedia that allows for poetic, image-heavy transitions.

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- In Spite of Everything

Photo/Caroline Harvey

In Spite of Everything is the best use of spoken word that I've seen in a play yet; an urban yet arty mix of Laramie-like exploration and poetic imagination that divorces itself from reality even as it plunges itself back in, deeper, through brilliant metaphor. Only The Suicide Kings (Rupert Estanislao, Jaime DeWolf, and Geoff Trenchard) know how much of their story is true, but it hardly matters: whether it's a poem about getting fed up in the service industry, dealing with acne, or watching Columbine in reverse, there isn't a verse that isn't relevant, not a thought that someone in the audience won't agree with.

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- Low: Meditations Trilogy Part 1
Photo/Jean Jacques Tiziou

Low opens with a blank slate: an empty chair on one of those white-floored and white-walled setups most familiar from a modeling session or an Apple commercial. For the first fifteen minutes; Rha Goddess endears us to Low, putting a high squeak in her voice to sound purposefully cute, moving around the space freely yet gracefully. But Meditations is an all-too accurate description of this trilogy, for if the first part is any indication, her characters will all be internalized rather than experienced. Chay Yew has done an excellent job of casting cages of light on the floor, and moving his actor across the stage, but it's up to Rha to show us something more. Right now, Low is just talk, and it's nothing we haven't heard before.

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- Regurgitophagy

Photo/Debora 70

I'm sure that Michel Melamed's Regurgitophagy is a great stream-of-consciousness play: I say this because it's one of my fundamental beliefs that you should always give a man who is electrocuting himself the benefit of the doubt. But what I saw was a man desperately trying to communicate something to the audience about consciousness, and an audience desperately trying not to laugh. You see, thanks to Melamed's "Pau-de-Arara," any time we made noise, he'd get an electrical shock. Honestly? After ten minutes, I wanted to clap just to hurt him.

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Pinocchio

**** (...out of 5 stars)

Teatro Del Carretto at La Mama

This sexy, highly stylized, wildly theatrical production of the story of the puppet who wants to become a boy is glorious. Italian director Maria Grazia Cipriani has meticulously created a dusty, surreal, dark world that at times has the feel of a well produced Beckett play. Just beyond an imposing circular black wall, curious- possibly malevolent- masked figures lurk in the shadows and drift in and out of the playing space leading our hero on his journey. WARNING: This production is performed entirely in Italian. If you don't know a lick of Italian (like me) relaxing into the fact that you're not going to understand a single word and allowing the music of their movement and expressiveness guide you through this beautiful production is the best way to go about it. Whether you speak the language or not, this show is worth it.

Under the Radar: Day 1

I'm doing four days of Under the Radar mania. The first three days will focus on what's at The Public, while the fourth day will take in some of the site-specific works.

- Church

Photo/Ryan Jensen

For the most part, Young Jean Lee's Church, a quiet exploration of the power of faith, avoids the pontification that she declaims early on as "masturbation rage." Instead of focusing on anything negative, she opens with a voice calling out from the darkness, then introduces us to four ordinary people, Reverends Jose (Brian Bickerstaff), Weena (Weena Pauly), Katie (Katie Workum), and Katy (Katy Pyle), who each deliver a sermon asking simply for our prayers to help them (and us) through the most understandable of troubles in our lives: the tendency to whine, for instance. The play then moves into a series of absurd testimonials which, because they are delivered straightly, without satire and with tenderness, give us a touchstone for why some people are able to believe, and why others are not.

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- Poetics: A Ballet Brut

Photo/Peter Nigrini

They may not be from Oklahoma, but if Nature Theater of Oklahoma's recent works prove anything, it's that they understands nature: human nature. Just as No Dice exaggerated our casual conversations through the veil of dinner theater, Poetics takes our ordinary movements and filters them through a dream ballet. They dress like hip twentysomethings, all colorful sneakers, funny socks, and graphic Ts; and they act like us -- sipping on a soda, crossing their arms behind their head or placing their hands in their pockets, basically trying to find a way to idle comfortably on a narrow swath of space between the audience and a looming red curtain. And when these movements start coming together in sync, as "All By Myself" starts playing, they dance like us too, or like those of us who don't know how to dance would dance (or have danced: like children, unfettered by form, unrestricted by rules).

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