Liberty City

Maybe every child should have to attend a school where they're in the 1% minority; maybe we should all have to watch our parents divorce and lose faith, live through race-incited riots, or have our father chain us to the rusted remains of slave shackles. On second thought, scratch that: April Yvette Thompson is a one-of-a-kind performer. Even if we recreated the exact circumstances that molded her childhood, there'd never be another actress able to convey those stories with such honesty, comedy, heartache, and strength. Her one-woman show, Liberty City, is filled with unabashed pride and embarrassing details, and it's one of the strongest solo shows to grace the stage not just because it's brave, but because it's necessary. We've had richly performed shows like Bridge and Tunnel or I Am My Own Wife take center stage, but it's been a long time since seeing such a pure (albeit processed) and relevant show.

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Cat's Cradle

Photo/Edward Einhorn

Just as making a cat's cradle is deceptively deeper than it looks, so it goes with adapting Kurt Vonnegut's less-than-sunny novel, Cat's Cradle. Edward Einhorn takes a pretty good crack at it, but his condensations of plot come at the expense of the characters, and his definitions of Bokononism's terms come across as anti-foma, that is, truth that hurts the narrative of the play. Worse still, while the calypso lyrics are mostly ripped from the pages, they're roughly delivered by a chorus of musicians who, quite frankly, aren't very good. And worst of all, the direction often forces the play -- most particularly the explanation of ice-9, a central conceit -- to compete with the music: to accurately quote a Bokononist, it's all busy, busy, busy. Our hero, John (Timothy McCown Reynolds) is rational enough to be engaging, and he holds our attention even as he grows more and more tangled in a web of hastily drawn characters. Kudos to Evolve Company's model set, a projection of which is the only colorful thing on stage: that sort of crisp, clean translation of a key stylistic point is what this adaptation needs more of, and that means more cutting, better casting, and some sort of message. If science is magic that works, then it's time for this company to look toward science, for the random hocus-pocus they've got right now isn't working.

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Welcome To Nowhere (bullet hole road)

Photo/Kenneth Collins

It's interesting to note that Kenneth Collins doesn't call Welcome to Nowhere (bullet hole road) a play -- he opts for "performance" instead. Well, that's true, what with the tightly framed "stage" (a pair of transparent changing-room mirrors), the languid language (mostly delivered in breathy whispers), and William Cusick's Lynchian dream projecting onto a widescreen banner above the set. I'd go with the word "experience" instead, as the whole production is so uniquely compelling -- controlled to the point of ultimate enthrallment -- that you won't soon forget this show. The film is shot like a photo-realistic noir that splices flesh-and-blood actors with static backgrounds; the play is a minimalist grounding for the memories projected above. The pace is a slow and sustained necessity, one that mirrors the endless drifting of its twinned protagonists, Hunter (Ben Beckley) and Wyatt (Brian Greer) as they slowly merge on the highway of life. Don't try to unpack the bags of plot; just hop in the passenger seat and let Collins take you for a ride.

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Into The Woods

Went to see the latest NYU/CAP21 production for the usual reason: it's a treat to see some young talented performers still in training, some of whom will undoubtedly go on to careers in musical theatre. These productions are not open for review, so I'm just going to shout out to Rick Bertone, who did a remarkable job as the show's musical director.

The Jazz Age

photo: Ryan Jensen

No man should go through life without loving another man. So says F. Scott Fitzgerald to Ernest Hemingway in Allan Knee’s frustratingly superficial biodrama which traces the friendship between the two iconic literary legends from their first encounter to their last. Too often, the play feels like nothing more than star-gawking in Roaring ‘20’s dress: both men are written one-dimensionally as if to keep them safe within their respective mythologies. The superficiality is especially noticeable when the playwright has the men quoting themselves: the gap between what these men wrote and how they are depicted here is vast. There is a third character in the play (F. Scott's wife Zelda) who often seems outside of the play's main interest, since the play offers few insights into, and doesn't adequately chart, her mental deterioration and its effect on the men's relationship. The production visually achieves a pleasurable elegance, thanks in large part to good design work (particularly the lighting and the excellent costuming) and there is also a small musical combo (on stage on the two-tiered set’s upper level) underscoring the play with songbook standards of the era. The music is meant to be decorative, adding an air of sophistication to the proceedings. It isn’t the band’s fault that they often pull focus.

Artfuckers

Photo/Carol Rosegg

Plays that trade on shock value generally aren't very good, and even in this town a racy publicity shot and a name like "Artfuckers" scrawled in some sort of blood-red is shock value. I'm happy to say that Artfuckers isn't as bad as I've just made it sound -- there's some merit to the artistic struggle that's got Owen (Will Janowtiz) trying to kill himself after a bad review in Artforum. But I'm sad to say that not only does Michael Domitrovich's script come across as forced, but so does the sex: Bella (Nicole LaLiberte) is the only character who ought to be methodical about sex, using it to create the illusion of happiness. But Maggie (Jessica Kaye), her sister, comes across as hollow when she goes after Owen, and Trevor (Asher Grodman), a DJ who claims to hear sex in his pulse, is so sluggish that he must be suffering from bradycardia (a slow heartbeat). The most entertaining scene is the most shallow: Max (Tuomas Hiltunen), a gay fashion designer, speaks with his agent, Maggie, about the upcoming show for which Trevor is recording music, Owen is sculpting for, and Bella is modeling in. That's no surprise: Eduardo Machado directs Artfuckers like a rave, so it's only the most heartless and over-the-top acting that catches our attention.