The Beebo Brinker Chronicles

photo: Dixie Sheridan

Lesbians are disproportionately under-represented on New York's gay-friendly stages, and for that reason I'm inclined to stress that this off-Broadway one-act (which adapts Ann Bannon's 1950's-era lesbo pulp novels) has some girls-night-out value. (And David loved it too.) It's a lively and sometimes amusing show, although it lacks the strong point of view that the purple material demands for current audiences. The play wants to have it both ways by gently playing the then-tawdry exploits in the books for camp, while mining them for a now-typical gay-is-okay coming out story. The result is that the show doesn't do a bang-up job of either: the tone is all over the place. (I was reminded how much more successful Nosedive's Halloween show was, on a shoestring budget, at staging pulp fiction style). The production, which hasn't been adequately re-imagined to work in its new, bigger space after its hit run last year downtown, looks underfurnished and on-the-cheap. Yet it isn't boring, and the performers often get to look like they're having fun. That, and the fact that gay girl stories are relatively uncommon on stage, gives it some coolness points.

FRIGID '08: Great Hymn of Thanksgiving/Conversation Storm

The Nonsense Company is exactly why I go to festivals: they're a fresh, vibrant group, producing theater that's unlike anything else out there. That it's politically themed adds an extra edge, but I'm giddy enough to pronounce this the must-see play of the FRIGID Festival. Their first play, Great Hymn of Thanksgiving looks like Chuck Mee slamming into Philip Glass, and features "three speaking percussionists" (more like Foley artists here) who use ordinary dinnerware (and a few musical instruments, like a cymbal and harpsichord) to create a thankless Thanksgiving. Their second play, Conversation Storm, presents a series of non-linear scenes that, nonetheless, escalate and oscillate between humor and drama as three friends go at one another over the morality of using torture in the so-called "ticking time bomb" situation. A little dinner talk, a little nuclear apocalypse, a fancy meal, a torture session -- wow. What's most impressive is how human the cast is, despite the machine-like precision of their shifts between on only scenes but entirely different plays.

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FRIGID '08: Diversey Harbor

There's not much theatrically going on in Annie Coburn's direction of Diversey Harbor, but she's really nailed down the acting, which in turn has cemented playwright Marisa Wegrzyn's very young, very talented voice. Her monologued play feels like a cross between Brooke Berman and Connor McPherson; I only wish that the ghost story she introduces late in the game tied more into the other loosely connected narratives, or better still, remained grounded in the sort of grim reality that can call craigslist "a dark alley littered with crack pipes," sum up a character with "I'm off to watch Jerry Springer with my thumb in my vagina," and honestly depict the cavalier attitude of some Lotharios: "It's entirely possible that I'm about to fuck up someone's life. And I can't wait." From the laid-back, drinking dog-walker James (Avery Pearson) to the selfish and angry Dennis (Dorien Makhloghi), to the high-strung Grace (Dana Berger) to the carefully poised and meticulous Stephanie (Amanda Sayle), Wegrzyn presents four very human chapters in life and loss, and, up until Stephanie's encounter with some muddy footprints, has a very funny and fresh look at kids today.

The Night of the Iguana

This well-directed and only occasionally overacted revival of Tennessee Williams's The Night of the Iguana matches well with Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon's idea of "operating on the realistic level." The small theater has been turned into an airy veranda, with audiences on three sides and gauzy, inviting hotel windows in the background, and director Terry Schreiber doesn't hesitate to play up the lush physicality in everything, from Maxine's (Janet Sala's) sharp needs, Hannah's (Denise Flore's) pliant kindness, and Shannon's (Derek Roche's) wild terrors to the invading forces of loud German tourists, accusatory guardians, and lovestruck little girls. The play crosses successfully from the chaotic, character-defining first act into the quiet, intimate second act through its excellent use of space and sense of self, and whether the rain-soaked climax of the first act trigged it or not, the second act, for all its inward action, gets even wetter and wilder.

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Blue Man Group

No one is too cool and blase for The Blue Man Group. Sometimes silly, sometimes performance-arty, sometimes just funny, the show is by now an institution that most New Yorkers leave to the tourists. Score one for the tourists. There's a very good reason why. more than a decade into the show's run, the blue-latexed aliens are still very often a tough ticket: the show is loads of playful, high-stimulus fun for all ages. Set to highly percussive music, three mute blue men (my friend dubbed them "noisy mimes") perform a varety of acts ranging from the strange (drumming on liquid) to the weird (catching marshmallows in their mouths) but always with disarming mock-gravity and sharp comic timing. It's like losing a staring contest for ninety minutes: the Blue Men don't blink, but you're a hot giggling mess.

Beebo Brinker Chronicles

Photo/Dixie Sheridan

There's a moment where the text of Ann Bannon's 50s lesbian pulp novels is really turned to flesh -- a hot, torrid scene of tangled emotions that feels real, despite the intentionally cheesy writing. But Leigh Silverman's sparse direction ends up focusing too much on the swaggering one-liners, and while Marin Ireland, David Greenspan, and Carolyn Bauemler find ways to balance witticisms like "We can't think straight because we always think gay" with honest lines like "Do you think some pretty twenty-five year old is going to fall for a bald, middle-aged bastard without a bank roll to offer?" the same can't be said for Autumn Dornfeld, who relies too heavily on telegraphed actions, or Jenn Colella, who has to work so hard to make us buy her brutish turn as Beebo that she has little energy left to do anything else. For all that, I guess I'm a sucker for camp, because I still had a good time at Beebo Brinker Chronicles; I just wish the play had found better ways to balance the threads.

[Read on] [Also blogged by: David | Patrick]