Artfuckers

photo: Carol Rosegg

The young super-privileged scenesters who are this play's characters (and I use that word loosely) are all relentlessly selfish, self-absorbed a-holes. Typically their brand of willfull narcissism is cause for satiric ridicule but here the insufferable brats are meant to be taken seriously as they talk through their dramas (unconvincingly, and usually in direct address mode) and whine about this or that speed bump toward their own fabulousness. Almost none of it smells of real life: the play is as shallow and unsympathetic as its characters. As a writhingly insecure artiste who suffers suicidally over a bad review in Artforum, Will Janowitz fares best of all the actors; as for the rest of the cast I look forward to seeing them all in something else.

Rock 'n' Roll

Photo/Joan Marcus

If, as Tom Stoppard mentions in his notes for Rock 'n' Roll, "Dramatists become essayists at their peril," then the good Sir is playing things incredibly safe with his latest play. Or maybe the music that drives his play (and his his semi-autobiographical lead, Jan) has put him in an altered state. You see, there isn't an essay in Rock 'n' Roll, not a single wrong note. What wordy sections remain -- largely lectures between teacher and student in the home of the scholarly (and, given Brian Cox's performance, far too stuffy) Max -- are shaken up, as in The Coast of Utopia, only with less melodrama, and more of a pressing moodiness. We can thank the undercurrent of political repression for that, a dark and shattering presence that Jan (the remarkable, hopefully Tony-winning Rufus Sewell) tries to block out from his bloc of Prague. What the play lacks -- and this is Trevor Nunn's fault as director -- is the theatricality of rock. The fragments of song that play during the blackouts are cheapened by the flimsy typocraphic (putting the crap in typographic) projections of liner notes (unnecessary -- in these moments without words, it's the music that's important), and Robert Jones's revolving set only heightens the text toward the end of Act I, when Jan stands in a sea of shattered records. Only then does the fragile, necessary escapism (turned to revolution) feel complete; the rest of the time, we must rely on Sewell's reedy squeals and fastidious fidgeting to excite us, or on Alice Eve's restless rebellion (first as the young Esme, then as Esme's daughter, Alice) to help us connect with the exceptionally natural text.

FRIGID '08: Fool For A Client

A self-made millionaire whose American Dream went horribly wrong thanks to "a saga of litigation", Mark Whitney would have good reason to be bitter. Instead he's become an ironist, and his sixty minute fact-based monologue (currently part of The New York Frigid Festival) is rich with darkly funny, often cautionary, observational humor. There are so many sharp and succinct one-liners that I stopped trying to retain them all and just let them come and go. Most are derived from Whitney's bullseye-aim at some of the injustices and flat-out absurdities of our legal system, but Whitney's eventual target is larger. It's a well-written piece, absorbing from start to finish, in which warm and conversational Whitney mines his real-life personal nightmare to warn against (among other things) blind faith in authority. That's a message that never gets old.

Beebo Brinker Chronicles

****

37 Arts

Beebo is back! I went apeshit over this play in its initial run with the Hourglass Group and I raced to the new production as soon as they would let me in the door. Though I missed the edgy, underground vibe at the tiny Fourth Street Theater, taking up shop at the big, giant 37 Arts space imbued this new production with a prideful air of legitimacy- a symbolic and charming journey for a piece such as this one. I'm glad that more people are going to see this sizzling 50's style lesbohomo pulp drama. It's really worth it. And Jenn Colella as the title character? HGA!

Macbeth

There is a compelling chill-to-the-bone nastiness to director Rupert Goold's production of The Scottish Play (previously in London, now at Brooklyn Academy of Music and soon on Broadway) that makes up in visual interest and visceral excitement what is lacked in clarity. (The unacquainted would likely find this a confusing introduction to Macbeth). Thanks to rear projections (often stretching the entire width of the creepy tile and steel fit-for-a-horror-movie set) the mid twentieth-century dress production is big on sound and fury, although it isn't always clear what's meant to be signified, and there are many brilliant and effective staging choices (including a stunning directorial conceit for the pivotal banquet scene) that keep the show engaging and visually fascinating for nearly all of its three hours. Although the production is not without some missteps (the characterization choices for The Porter are so over the top that they cross the line from creepy to silly) and there are some weak performances in the ensemble, the three performances that matter most are all sensational and help to make this don't-miss, "event" Shakespeare. Patrick Stewart is masterful as Macbeth from start to finish, traveling credibly from morally conflicted sabateur to power-mad paranoid. As Lady Macbeth, Kate Fleetwood is suitably intense and driven initially, and gives the character a touch of emasculating cruelty. And finally, as Macduff, Michael Feast economically renders anguish and anger in what is the production's most lingering emotional scene.

Lower Ninth

Photo/Joan Marcus

Beau Willimon's uneven new play, Lower Ninth, suffers from a refusal to confront its circumstance -- an estranged father and son, trapped on a rooftop after Hurricane Katrina. The design, direction, and acting reduce the high stakes to jokes and melodrama; the play itself is a good look at two characters struggling to stay afloat in a sea of anger. James McDaniel, when he's not proselytizing, is utterly engaging as Malcolm, a reformed street tough who -- though he now uses his knife to cut oranges -- still has a knife, and an edge. Gaius Charles, who plays his son, Ezekiel (aka E-Z), suffers from television-actor-syndrome, and often plays to the audience rather than Mr. McDaniel, but seems otherwise legit as a troubled teen who doesn't fit in with the good or bad kids. But the real trouble comes from Lowboy: not the actor, Gbenga Akinnagbe, basically playing a softer side of his character on The Wire, but the character, who is admittedly worm-food, and whose revival is just a redundancy for what we already know about Malcolm and E-Z. There's humor and truth, but very little drama, and that's because nobody acknowledges -- in a serious way -- that these two men have been left for dead in an river of oil and corpses. I watched Lower Ninth, but at no point did I ever feel as if I -- or they -- were really in New Orleans; it was like being a tourist who keeps his head buried in the guidebook the whole time.

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