Rafta, Rafta

I'd rather see an original show struggle and fail, like Chuck Mee's cultural smörgåsbord Queens Boulevard, than to see something like Rafta, Rafta succeed at mediocrity. For me, Ayub Khan-Din's done little more than make an ethnic adaptation of Bill Naughton's All in Good Time, and much of the comedy, not to mention drama, feels forced. Scott Elliott does his best to dress things up with bright lights, cultural knickknacks, and his use of Derek McLane's two-story set, but the story isn't big enough to fill the house, nor is the acting firm enough to make it seem lively. What we want to see -- more of the rambling but chaotically lively wedding party, or more ruminations from the father-figure's proud and troubled past -- is covered up with cheap sexual distractions and farce: no wonder the main character is impotent.

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Substitution

***

The Playwrights Realm

This play about a mother and substitute teacher wandering through the grieving process was written for the actress, Jan Maxwell. Thank Thespis she was available for the evening belongs to her realistic and heart-breaking take on the mom who is reeling over the death of her son. Every laugh, tear, and wring of the fist was earned as she stormed through this production with harrowing rage as though she were cornered by the entire world. She is supported by the handsome (and ripped) Kieran Campion whose nervous energy and adorable pluck matches Jan's intensity. Their scenes together are pretty damn riveting. Unfortch they are chopped up by erroneous scenes about a pair of the dead student's peers having long rambling teenage philosophical conversations about you know- teen stuff. The poor young actors are doomed from the start as we are forced to go from Jan Maxwell weeping uncontrollably to lets play a game! It seemed like two separate plays and I longed to get back to Jan every time the kids popped up. But not to fear 2/3 of this production is hardcore Maxwell and for that, it's totally worth it.

Cherry Docs

I wish that I could believe Mark Zeisler, who plays Danny, a liberal Jewish lawyer appointed to defend Mike, a Neo-Nazi on trial for an act of violence that led to a man's death. The plot, you have to admit, is hard enough to accept. I want to believe, so that I can get behind the sort of moment when Danny, holding his anger in check, refuses to punch Mike (who welcomes the violence, the language he understands best): "If I start, I'm afraid I won't be able to stop." Mike nods and gets really close to Danny: "Now you know how I feel." But because Mr. Zeisler doesn't seem genuine about any of this, we never know how he feels. Luckily, I'd recommend Cherry Docs anyway, solely on the commanding performance from Maximilian Osinski (Pablo Schrieber, look out!): I dare you not to shed a tear at his redemptive journey, going from smug and manipulative to conflicted and worried, and then from forceful denial to apologetic grief. As for David Gow's script and direction -- too much seems forced, especially the tidy final ten minutes; he would do well to listen to his characters.

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UNCENSORED

Not a review, just heartfelt praise for the MCC Theater Youth Company (ah, memories). Their latest group piece, "Uncensored," combines spoken word with monologues and ensemble pieces, all of which are about the empowerment of these teenagers. Here's freedom of speech, whether it's about "skinny jeans" (trivial to some, crucial to others), the latest gossip on "Gossip Girl" or even, with a nod to the audience, where exactly the denouement is supposed to go, and what a play's supposed to be. (There's even a storybook presentation about the child-raping "muffin man.") "This is not a play," says one of the 26 actors on the stage. But it is: minds at play, and audiences engaging with them, and damned if there isn't enough clever splicing from the cast and director Stephen DiMenna to make the whole evening slide smoothly from segment to segment, even if the pieces themselves often crash up against one another.

The New Century

photo: T. Charles Erickson

How can you tell that the man sitting near you at the theatre is gay? A) he's saving the Playbill and B) he's awake. So go the quips from the title character in Mr. Charles, a one-act previously seen downtown a few seasons ago and now flanked by two new monologues - one starring Linda Lavin and the other Jane Houdyshell - to form a Paul Rudnick evening. (There's also a fourth piece, which brings all of the characters from the three preceding plays together, but it's generally banal and the less said about it the better). The Mr. Charles play, in which Peter Bartlett reprises the limp-wristed title role with delicious panache, is the only one that has something interesting to say - namely, that the social acceptance of gays has erased a once-prevalent brand of eccentric cultured pansy - but the Lavin and Houdyshell monologues make up in snappy comedy what they lack in substance. Lavin is marvelous and has perhaps never been funnier as a Jewish matron from Massapequa whose tolerance is pushed to its beleaguered limit by her childrens' "alternative lifestyles": the fun comes from watching the character try to stick with the program of unconditional love and acceptance no matter what the kids throw at her. The monologue performed (to astonishing perfection) by Houdyshell gets off to what seems like a rocky start when it appears that Rudnick is patronizing the character (we're asked to laugh at the macaroni-and-glue crafts that she makes, for example) but soon the playwright neatly inverts the message so that it pokes fun at supposedly sophisticated tastemakers. That slyness made it my eventual favorite of these one-acts.

The Caucasian Chalk Circle

Photo/John Castro

For better or worse, Hipgnosis Theatre Company has put the "fun" in Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle. At times, that means a loss of specificity, and a sacrifice of strong opinion in favor of hammy polemic. At others, it means that straight actors like Rachel Tiemann and comic actors like John Kevin Jones come full circle in their arcs and drive home the vignettes that they, as central characters, link together. Ultimately, the narrow theater is a poor choice for theater-in-the-round, and yet Margo Newkirk's clever and uncluttered direction, Demetrios Bonaros's singing and arrangements, and of course, Brecht's neatly didactic writing, all rise to the occasion and turn out a neat little play that I only wish, like Azdak the judge, had tried neglecting order.

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