Next To Normal

photo: Joan Marcus

I can't with conscience talk about the theatrical merits of this revised version of Feeling Electric - the lively rock-tinged music, a couple of sensationally good performances (Alice Ripley and Brian D'Arcy James) and some dynamic staging - because I found the show's negative attitude toward drug therapy to be so silly. The show's message seems almost like something out of the Scientology mindset: throw away those pills and ditch that psychiatrist because all you really need to manage a physiologically-based mental illness (bi-polar depression, in this case) is to talk things out. The nice word for this is "naive". Besides that, the show traffics in the cheapest kind of sentimental cliches to get a reaction out of the audience: the nadir comes near the finale, when both leads get back to back tear-jerker moments that result from one of them doing something that seems otherwise wholly unmotivated. The lyrics to the final song are so vague and fuzzy, about the need to "step into the light out of the dark" or somesuch, that they instantly sound like a parody of themselves. Yet I looked around, and most of the audience was on their feet and wiping away tears. The show probably taps into some seldom expressed collective dread about our over-medicated culture, while pushing the old square buttons about family and the healing power of accepting oneself, and that seems to be enough for most people to connect to. But most people ain't me.

Cherubina

Photo/Matthew Koschara

The Sanford Meisner Theater, as with many off-off-Broadway houses, is a little run-down, and not all that much to look at. But as avid theatergoers should know, it's not so much the look of the place so much as the art that happens within it. That said, Cherubina is the perfect show to run there: based on the true story of the fictional Cherubina de Gabriak, the play skewers the hollow shell of artistic integrity when Elisa (Amanda Fulks), a frustrated would-be poet, collides with her friend, Max (Jimmy Owens), to create the sort of beautiful, mysterious woman capable of getting published by Max's boss, Nikolai (Teddy Bergman). After some suspenseful stakes-raising (the play opens with Nikolai preparing to duel with Max), the play spends its first half giving truth to the lie, showing poetry to be a sort of existential shell game in which your words aren't nearly as consequential as your voice. Witty and light, Paul Cohen's script allows us to feel for all three of the characters: even the snobbish Nikolai, who falls for Cherubina, is adorable, especially given Bergman's whole-hearted portrayal. These early moments also do well to establish the pace of the second half, in which Fulks, playing a fiercely vulnerable needs, falls for Nikolai, convincing herself that he will love her -- deformed leg and all -- because he loves her words. Ultimately, the body -- a very physical consideration of Alexis Poledouris's energetic direction -- trumps the text, and the play drops its excitable pace long enough for us to feel the cold that seeps in once the vodka's gone.

Fabrik

photo by Jim Baldassare

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

Urban Stages

I am so glad that I caught this very special production that Patrick and Aaron have been raving about. By presenting this story of a successful Jewish businessman eventually captured by the Nazis in the guise of a children's puppet show we are allowed to experience the innocence and naive false sense of security that many Jews felt early on when the Nazi movement was in its infancy. The puppet work was gorgeous, charming, quaint, and at times heartbreaking and harrowing. There was a scene where an imprisoned Jew (being manipulated by an SS) was being forced to do a set of stand-up comedy. It was just a puppet but the fear in his voice and eyes as he bombed was as shockingly authentic as you would ever want to get.

Actors Are F*@#ing Stupid

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

Push Productions

Never underestimate the importance of a good title. I ran to this. Written by actor Ian McWethy, this is his scathing one act rant against the soul-crushing machine of the audition process. Pretty much every character inhabiting the audition room and the adjacent waiting room is diabolical and self-absorbed. Everyone craves money, fame, and sex and if you're not offering then fuck you. This is guerilla theater at its most acidic and if sometimes it goes a little overboard with the profanity (I appreciate a good "fuck" as much as the next guy but less is more) and the yelling (the director character is going to lose is voice!), there is an edgy, raw, underground vibe made this a very fun and snarky night at the theater. HGA!

The Play About The Naked Guy

photo: Erica Parise

Personal Bias? Meet Door. I leave you there time and time again as policy. Not this time: I'm too pleased for my friend and fellow ShowShowdowner David Bell to have anything remotely objective to write about his fun and farcical, often theatre-insiderish comedy. Instead, I'll point you toward this thumbs-up in Variety and this "critic's pick" take in Backstage. And I'll tell you that "My safe word is Sutton Foster!" is the funniest line I have heard in months. Forgive me for spoiling it, but it's just too delicious. Congratulations, David!

The Crucible

photo: Schoolhouse Theater

Who could say how many thousands of young girls have sprung up from their seats to shout "I saw Goody Proctor with the Devil!" since Arthur Miller's classic Salem witch hunt drama premiered? Oft-performed all over the country at all levels of proficiency, the play has endured beyond its shelf life as an indictment of the McCarthy trials of the 1950's and surely stands as the most popular, widely-read American play to caution against theocracy. (Really, is there anything else that comes close that is assigned reading year after year for the average public high schooler?) It's partly because the play is so familiar and so often seen that this production's most distinguishing directorial touch is so effective: all of the actors in the ensemble sit on either side of the stage when not needed in a scene, as if they form a community that has come together in ritual to tell us this story. This conceit also suggests, as echoed by the set design, that all the settings of the play from bedroom to courtroom are public spaces when Church and State are enmeshed. The production, transferred from Westchester's Schoolhouse Theater and currently enjoying a limited run on the Upper West Side, is effective and finally wrenching as it should be, thanks in part to the play's especial revelance in this election season (Mike Huckabee, anyone?) and in part of course to some very good performances from key members of the ensemble.