Dead Man's Cell Phone

photo: Joan Marcus

Anne Bogart's tuned-in direction, G.W. Mercier's lean sets and witty costumes, Darron L. West's nifty soundscape, Mary Louise Parker's heightened, oddball performance heading up an able ensemble: everything is in place for Sarah Ruhl's latest flight of whimsy to soar. But it doesn't. After an intriguing set-up (with Parker as an awkward, disconnected introvert who begins answering calls to the cell phone of a man who's died at an adjacent cafe table) and some promising speeches that toy with the idea that our technological connectedness has actually made us more disconnected from each other, the overly precious and overlong play starts to grate on the nerves: so much quirky style to deliver so little.

Bride

Photo/Richard Termine

The first thing Father (Kevin Augustine, as a yellow, dessicated god) does in Lone Wolf Tribe's Bride is blow his own brains out. Unfortunately for him, as Monkey (Rob Lok) reminds him, pointing out a few key lines of the Bible, he's "everlasting," and with a shudder, he awakes. What follows is his attempt to fashion a messiah for a world that won't stop calling him with their woes. Weirdly wonderful, and filled with fantastic special effects, make-up, and the most disturbing puppets this side of R. Crumb, this show is a macabre dance between Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas and some Terry Gilliam-like Brazil. This is twisted, clever, incredible theater: I strongly recommend this stark, beautiful puppet/human hybrid.

[Read on]

The Fifth Column

Photo/Richard Termine

In his introduction to The Fifth Column, Ernest Hemingway writes that "while I was writing the play the Hotel Florida, where we lived an worked, was struck by more than thirty high explosive shells. So if it is not a good play perhaps that is what is the matter with it. If it is a good play, perhaps those thirty some shells helped write it." Like the statement, his play is wishy-washy: at some points, an ironic, self-deprecating look at the lifeless insistences of counter-espionage, at others a cheesy romantic comedy styled in the mannerisms of '30s movies (the play was written in 1937), and also a play about slow, hot days -- Tennessee Williams with the booze, but without the passion. Everything about Jonathan Bank's direction of this play is slow, including the scene changes, and perhaps that's meant to help the text itself seem more urgent -- but it's a failure, even in the interrogation sequences. What once may have been a startling look at the dirty truths of war is now a passive play filled with cryptic remarks and unfinished characters.

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Something You Did

In previews; opens 4/1.

I respect Primary Stages for trying to open the doors to a younger audience, but they rushed into a quaint show about as full as packing bubbles with last month's Hunting and Gathering, and now they've stumbled into an unfeeling drama that reminds me of a Mitch Hedburg one-liner: "I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it." My primary complaint with Something You Did is Carolyn Cantor's direction, which theatrically gets things off on the wrong foot and never regains its balance: Why do maximum security visitations take place in the library? And why does this (presumably indoor) library have a barbed-wired fence? My secondary complaint is with Willy Holtzman's shallow caricatures: Uneeq (Portia), the attitudinal black female cop; Arthur (Jordan Charney), the rotund, smug, and glib lawyer; and Gene (Victor Slezak), an unfathomable asshole who writes provocative op-eds like "All African-Americans Should Be Thankful for Slavery" and is anything but grounded in fact. (OK, well that last character's about as a real as any newscaster on FOX.) Alison (Joanna Gleason), jailed thirty years ago for a explosive protest gone wrong, is a relic of the past, stilted and upright, is fighting for a cause that post-9/11 America must condemn as terrorism. Her musty idealism shines for a few moments here and there, specifically when she tries to apologize to Lenora (Adriana Lenox), daughter of the cop she inadvertently killed, but on the whole, this play is a well-crafted, well-intentioned shrug of a play. Where's the shrapnel?

[Also blogged by: Patrick]

Spring Awakening

**** 1/2 (out of 5 stars)

Eugene O'Neill

My buddy and I were going to do the Wicked lotto but the line was seriously about 200 teenagers long so we were like fuck that shit. We decided to do SRO at Spring Awakening instead ($27.00...easy). The production is holding up quite wonderfully after 515 performances. Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff are still glorious. I'm still obsessed with mega-talented Jonathan B. Wright. And the new guys are turning the shit out old school (Blake Bashoff as Moritz is kinda insane and our two adults- Glenn Fleshler and Frances Mercanti-Anthony- are hysterical one scene and scary the next). Damn I love this show. One complaint: Who are the singers dressed up like Rent cast members upstage right and left? Pit singers? Understudies? They kept pulling focus with all of their look-at-me American Idol gyrating.

Something You Did

While squarely structured and formulaic, Willy Holtzman's Something You Did is nonetheless a solid no-nonsense example of an absorbing "issue" play, the kind that holds the audience in rapt attention partly because of its swift entertainment value and partly because of its topicality. The plot concerns an anti-Vietnam War domestic terrorist (Joanna Gleason) who hopes for parole after thirty years of imprisonment: the playwright makes a lot of hay contrasting America's socio-political climate then and now by pitting the inmate against an ex who has since become a right-wing celebrity. Yes, the play is as tidy as it sounds: despite some lively arguments it is always clear where the playwright stands, and the audience hissed one of the right-winger's speeches as if on cue. But I have a special respect for popular entertainment that a) has something immediately relevant on its mind and b) is made with enough skill to rally an audience around what it says. In many cases when I am invited to a show in very early previews, I'm hesitant to make definitive statements about performances that will, common-sensically, improve within a week. But at this third preview, this entire cast (which includes Adriane Lenox, Victor Slezak, Portia, and Jordan Charney) was already in excellent shape, and Joanna Gleason was extraordinary. Her line readings, one after another, are marvels of subtext.