Dirt

Photo/Jordan Craven

Watching Dirt gave me theatrical blue balls. The script's repetition is fine -- necessary, even, so that Robert Schneider can impress upon us the way in which a culture thrusts a mentality of unworthiness upon immigrants (especially illegals). And the dim lighting, which makes it difficult to establish an emotional connection to the script, is at least qualified by protagonist Sad's electrical problems. I'm even willing to forgive Paul Dvorak's broken transposition of setting, from Germany to America, because even with ideological discrepancies, there's enough meat to Sad's struggle to light a fire under our asses. But all that this production manages to do is tease us -- the play promises to give us a release, but Christopher John Domig only snarls for a moment before taking it all back and reversing his position, settling -- always settling -- right back to where he began. That's frustrating enough, but when coupled with David Robinson's shaky direction -- he refuses to let Sad just exist, and needs to keep qualifying the long monologue with improbable changes in lighting -- it starts to get annoying. And above all else, Dirt fails the most important goal of a monologue: it speaks to no-one in the audience. We sure are talked at a lot, but there's never any sense that we're a necessary part of the play. Were we not there, I'm sure Domig would act exactly the same, and without that desperate desire to actually communicate something -- a problem compounded by the protagonist's tendency to lie about everything -- it's just a lecture, performed in darkness, with a slant that doesn't accurately mesh with America.

B-Alive!

Photo/Worldwide B

There's really not a lot of ballet in B-Alive, a story (told in dance) of the love between a hip-hop youth and a prim and proper lass. But you won't hear anybody in the audience complaining: they're too busy vibrating in their seats as the b-boy Gorilla Crew breaks down the house. The plot is a little ridiculous, but then again, so are the moves, and B-Alive b-eats out shows like Jump! because it is willing to take itself seriously, backing up the tricks with actual emotion (as shown by the fifteen-minute free-style curtain-call/encore).

Not that the show isn't willing to fool around: the thuggish dancers, who have a more vibratory and harsher stomp to their rhythms (but still a fluidity all their own), are great comic relief, even as bad guys to the heroic dancers who just like to freestyle. And Ahn Byungkoo's direction gets pretty inspired at times, with a black-light battle in which our hero confronts comes into our distressed damsel's dream and fends off an army of glowing, sinuous, spider-like dancers. There are plenty of moments of simple cheese, too -- as with the pompous self-seriousness of the local record shop owner or the playful sternness of the whip-like ballet teacher. The choreography (from Han Sangmin, Kim Woosung, and Shin Ilho) always evens things out, and while there are a few numbers that could be pared down in the interests of specificity, the show only lasts about seventy minutes -- I say, if you've got it, flaunt it.

Our Dad Is In Atlantis

photo: Carel DiGrappa

The two pre-teen Mexican brothers who are this play's only characters are essentially abandoned by their father (whose poverty compels him to head into the States to find work) and left in the care of their strict grandmother. When she dies, they're sent off to an uncle who regards them as cheap labor and treats them even more shabbily. Finally, after reading their dad's letter postmarked from Atlanta (which the younger boy misreads, hence the play's title) the two summon the courage to run away and sneak across the border themselves. The play (by Javier Malpica) has obvious social relevance but isn't preachy: its distinction is that it maintains its focus, over the course of its ten vignettes that total less than ninety minutes, solely on the boys' conversations. There's a gentle poignancy in the boys' dynamic, as the younger brother's unrealistic expectations of America are at odds with what the older, wiser brother knows. The two young actors (Steven D. Garcia and Sergio Ferreira) are natural and have a credible fraternal chemistry together, but their job of carrying the entire play is made more difficult by uninteresting staging and a fundamental sameness to the play's vignettes: the characters go through a hell of a lot of change, but the characters are written to repeatedly respond to it in much the same ways.

Our Dad is in Atlantis

Photo/Carel DiGrappa

While I admire Working Theater's goal to shed some light on the consequences of immigration in the working class -- Javier Malpica's Our Dad is in Atlantis focuses on two brothers left behind in Mexico -- this play sinks faster than Atlantis itself. The presentation is unimaginative, the translation is flat and repetitious, and the direction is so restrained that it stifles any life the young actors (10 and 12) might have. Come to think of it, the play itself isn't that good: Malpica doesn't follow through on the struggle of these two brothers; instead, he just strings together a series of vignettes about "stuff" and leaves all the real drama -- their abandonment, the death of their grandmother, their violent interactions with so-called friends -- on the side. The first scene establishes the likeable relation between the whiny younger brother and the steely attempts of the older brother to be a man, but each successive scene is just more of the same. Having an adult character would've helped to give some perspective -- additionally, having a more plausible ending would've helped to give the show some closure; as is, the play is just a lot of empty talk.

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A Little Night Music

photo: Richard Anderson

Baltimore CenterStage's production of the Sondheim classic (which happens to be one of my all-time favorite musicals) isn't exactly elegant: the interludes from the singing chorus have been tricked up with some cheapening, overly sexual business of the switching partners around a divan variety, and most of the cast's performances haven't been directed to evoke the manners and social codes of the turn of the century. There's also the problem that Barbara Walsh, who'd probably make a wonderful Charlotte, is not ideally cast as Desiree, and that Maxwell Caulfield, playing Karl Magnus with amusing bluster, is not up to the vocal demands of his role. And yet the show still makes for an enjoyable evening thanks to fluid staging, several vibrant performances and - of course - the strength of the material. (When will we ever get to see a Broadway revival?) Particularly good are Sarah Uriarte Berry as Petra and Josh Young as Henrik.

The Happy Time

photo: Stan Barouh

This infrequently revived 1966 Kander & Ebb musical (now at Signature's small black box Ark theatre, in Virginia) has been given a warm and intimate production that renders the earnest, tuneful score with just three musicians. The low-key, chamber-musical approach allows the charms of the simple intergenerational story to play out gently, without much fuss: it emphasizes the bittersweet, quiet nostalgia of the material. That goes a long way toward disguising that the book (newly restored to include cuts made before and after the original Broadway production) is amiable and pleasant but more than a little pat. Also, it too heavily favors the world-weary photographer who returns home to his quaint French-Canadian village rather than the impressionable nephew he dazzles and leads astray: the story would have more emotional resonance if we saw more of it through the adolescent's eyes. Nonetheless the show - besides boasting an often lovely lesser-known score - is enjoyable and well-performed: although Michael Minirik (as the photographer) could stand to put more zip in his early scenes when we're meant to see that his character's worldliness excites the nephew, his performance is otherwise strong and natural; Carrie A. Johnson is sweet in her "girl left behind" role without being sticky; as the nephew, Jace Casey is charming and free of child-actor preciousness. Best of all is David Margulies, whose seasoned know-how as the boy's grandfather is at all times a joy to behold.