The Break-Up and the Happy Sad

Photo/Joan Marcus

Ken Urban's new one-act, The Happy Sad, is as bipolar in tone as it is in title. At times, it is quirky (characters do not break into song so much as they deliberately pause the action and drift into a reverie) and at others it is profoundly honest (scenes between Marcus and Aaron seem particularly exposed and raw), but it is never wholly comfortable within its own skin. Stephen O'Reilly and Annie Scott, who give a spine to the cyclical scenes as the broken-up Stan and Annie, are good actors stuck in leaden roles (I'm giving O'Reilly the benefit of the doubt that it's just a badly written opening): however, if there's vulnerability beneath Stan's headphones or Annie's nest of hair, it never shows. And that's what Ken Urban struggles most with in his play: showing the truth beneath his tacky, stylistic trappings.

(As for Tommy Smith's ten-minute The Break-Up, which precedes Urban's play, I have nothing -- nothing -- positive to say. Sorry.)

[Read on]

In The Heights

photo: Joan Marcus

Andy Blankenbuehler can plan on a Tony Award right now: the Latin-flavored, newly-transferred-to-Broadway musical In The Heights is sure to win Best Choreography this year. The numerous ensemble dance numbers are fresh and sensational, pulling from the vocabularies of hip-hop and salsa at least as heavily as from the traditional dancing we're used to seeing in musical theatre. What's more, the dances work even more effectively on a big Broadway stage than they did when the show played off-Broadway last year. The pity is that the show's book, while certainly improved and tightened since the show's previous incarnation, is still weak and wanting: the show presents its Washington Heights barrio as if it was a hip-hop tinged Sesame Street, and the story we don't care about (will Nina leave the hood to return to Stanford?) gets more play than the one we do (will nerdy Usnavi get the girl?). But there are some terrific performers in featured roles - most notably Andrea Burns and Karen Olivio - and it's always a pleasure to see Prisciilla Lopez, even when as here her role is nothing, her song is nothing. Most appealing of all is twenty eight year old Lin-Manuel Miranda, also the show's bookwriter and composer, whose infectious warmth and off-the-charts charisma put a smile on your face whenever he's on stage. This may be his Broadway debut, but without question he is already a star.

The Conscientious Objector

photo: Theresa Squire

With Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon B. Johnson as its two main characters, The Keen Company's new play might sound like the kind of thing you were dragged to on your high school field trip. But the absorbing, intimate historical drama, which depicts the two leaders not as one-dimensional heroes but as men struggling mightily with their personal convictions and public responsibilities, is solidly entertaining and finally deeply moving. Not only extensively researched (with a great deal of its dialogue derived from surveillance materials that are now in the public record) but also expertly shaped for dramatic impact, the play's themes have obvious relevance to current-day events. And as we watch Dr. King's growing objections to the Vietnam conflict and we feel the escalating pressures (from Johnson and from civil rights leaders) that tempt him to keep silent about it, it's all too contemporary how even honest, peaceful dissent is demonized as "unpatriotic" in times of war. The playwright (Michael Murphy) creates an arc that convincingly tracks King's fall from popularity as a result of his alignment with the anti-war movement while it also tracks Johnson's growing irritation and impatience: the final scene between the two men is so wrenching it nearly reduced me to tears. I mean no slight at all to the fine ensemble (in which Jonathan Hogan is a stand-out) or to DB Woodside (quietly intense and altogether excellent as King) when I say that John Cullum's superb performance as Lyndon Johnson is practically a Master Class all on its own. There are many compelling reasons to see The Conscientious Objector but if you only need one, Cullum is it.

Dead Man's Cell Phone

Photo/Joan Marcus

Dead Man's Cell Phone is a marvelously quirky, beautiful love story. It's incredibly specific in tone, with poetics taking precedence over sense, but between Sarah Ruhl's easy control of language, Anne Bogart's gentle aesthetic minimalism, and the cast's unequivocal focus, the show works. It is, however, marred by a sloppier second act that reaches for extremes that end up blurring the precise magic of the first (and no wonder, given that Ruhl spent a year between acts). Sloppy or not, I've got no complaints at seeing more of the magnificent Mary-Louise Parker, who despite playing a mousy, timid do-gooder, is arresting even with her short, sparing snippets of text. Her physical control (and her powerful pauses -- I'd kill to see her do Albee or Pinter) fill in the rest of the blanks, and even seem to justify the aphorisms about cell-phones that are thrown around by the other characters, particularly the cool and direct Mrs. Gottlieb (Kathleen Chalfant) and her shadowed son, Dwight (David Aaron Baker), who anchor the show. It isn't so important that we make something of dead man Gordon's (T. Ryder Smith) monologue, or of Jean's arrival in a Beckett-like hell (think Play Without Words I), so much as we let the show, with its weird, wonderful rhythms, wash over us.

[Also blogged by: Patrick]

The Poor Itch

Photo/Joan Marcus

The Public Lab is selling itself short: not only is their production of The Poor Itch about as far as you can get from "barebones"; it's also incredibly rich, not just in content, but in the insightful glimpse it gives us of a playwright's mind. John Belluso died before completing his tale about a disabled (physically paraplegic and mentally PSTD) Iraq veteran, but his friend, Lisa Peterson, has boldly directed his play anyway, filling in the blanks by having actors read his notes for unwritten scenes, and by staging multiple drafts of scenes in quick succession. (Think of David Ives's Sure Thing, only not as a comic gimmick.) This choice also gives a nice parallel to Ian's deterioration over the course of the play: Act I is largely finished, but Act II is a much rougher beast, not just from the fragments that exist, but from the overarching attempts at symbolism and deep-rooted themes linking America and war. Especially for $10, this is a must-see.

[Read on]

The Drunken City

*** (out of five)
Playwrights Horizons
Now in Previews.


Bachelorette party in da house! Swooning ladies loaded up with engagement rings and high heels hit the big city for a night out on the town in this playful, if a little slight play by Adam Bock. Every one's happy and every one's sane until one too many drinks have been drunk then all the hell- she breaks a'loose. Old School. There are many laughs here as our girls compare engagement rings and as our cast devolves into those loud, slurring mobs you see stumbling out of bars at 5am. We've got a very sexy cast here that keeps things moving along (a number of the actors seem as though they've actually had experience being drunk in real life!). And if the script was a little thin and predictable I left this sweaty, sloppy, blood-shot romp without one hint of a hangover.

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