Hospital 2008 (episode one)

Photo/Dixie Sheridan

The saying goes "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," so the fans and fanatics drooling each year over Axis Theater Company's serial drama Hospital are not likely to be disappointed with this year's four surreal, comic installments. But from a critical point of view, it's hard to process what, other than a ridiculously experimental showcase, Axis is after. Watching Hospital 2008 episode one is akin to grabbing 35 minutes from the middle of a David Lynch film: the narratives are loose and disconnected, the actors are disturbingly present (yet blurred), and the ambiance (nicely evoked here by Kyle Chepulis's literal cavern of a set and David Zeffren's selective lighting) is unsettling. The trouble is that this serial version lacks the deepening compulsion of Lynch's craft: nothing within this segment ties in to anything (unless you count cryptic references to "an apartment"), and with such a short run-time, the mood of the piece never pulls the audience under.

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Len Asleep In Vinyl

photo: Joan Marcus

Carly Mensch's brief and underdramatized play about a burned out middle aged record producer barely finds a groove before it's over: for about as long as it would take to play the average CD (seventy minutes) we watch the depressed, somewhat volatile main character holed up in his getaway cabin following a tabloid-level incident at an awards show. He's descended upon by his estranged son, his ex-wife, a neighborhood kid who idolizes him, and a troubled Britney Spears-type pop star who is his latest project: potentially interesting characters all, put over by a capable cast, but the playwright, despite a talent for dialogue, doesn't do anything particularly interesting with them. The relationship between the son, an aspiring musician, and the neglectful dad, who isn't interested in hearing the kid's "chamber pop" music, seems to be meant to illustrate a cultural chasm between the generations, but it doesn't have much resonance for me at this moment in time during the phenomenon of Guitar Hero and the resulting popularity of new rock.

Jollyship The Whiz Bang

Reviewed for Theatermania.

EST Marathon 30: Series B

As I said about Series A, it's not worth focusing on the flaws of an uneven one-act festival: better to take note of those runners who hold up their leg of the race. To be fair, it's necessary to at least mention Neil LaBute, who has grown so sharp in The Great War that he's cut off all emotion and become an incindiary M. Night Shyamalan. That makes it easier to note the wild story of David Zellnick's Ideogram which manages to sharply satirize stereotypes while at the same time boiling down and condensing jealousy into a weird sort of mental noir. The weaknesses stand out right now (the forced flute solos), but that's only because the play is so short, and the concept otherwise so comic: undeveloped, it's still right up there with, say, the magical realism of Kevin Brockmeier. It's also important to illustrate the struggle, because then when you hit upon a winner, like Taylor Mac's fully developed and wholly satisfying Okay, it's clearer how good of a race the playwright's run. Setting a tragedy in a series of bathroom stalls keeps the door open for farce, and Taylor balances not only between the two styles, but seven wholly different voices, too--the show bursts with personality as the characters rant, snort, drink, and . . . sadly . . . give birth. Sound like your high school's senior prom?

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How Theatre Failed America

The Times, the "Internets", the Mermaids on skates: Mike Daisey makes it known right at the top of his brilliant, energizing ninety-minute monologue that he's not interested in these usual superficial complaints about what's wrong with theatre today. His targets are more systemic: theatre in America is broken, and the reasons are more cultural than economic. He puts over his lively state of the art address in the manner of a trusted truth-telling friend, using personal recollections and experiences to ease in and out of his (ultimately sobering) grand statements. The success of the piece is that it is capable of being strong and provocative without being assaultive, informed and informative without being the least bit dry. Its genius is that it has been carefully crafted to empower the audience and to covertly rally us into action; for theatre lovers, this is not to be missed.

How Theater Failed America

Spalding Grey meets Chris Farley? I don't know how else to really talk about the manic energy that Mike Daisey brings to such serious and well-spoken topics, but it's his cross of personal stories and irrepressible personality that make this man such a powerful monologist. Because he spends the whole evening sitting at a table, there's no sense of showboating and, because he speaks without a script (extemporaneously, to a well-rehearsed extent), his connection with the audience seems more direct, more intimate. The play isn't so much How Theater Failed America, so much as it is How Theater Failed Mike Daisey, and as he quickly glosses past Charles Isherwood, Disney, and the big "capital T" Theater industry, that's something to be glad for. Daisey's story is far more interesting, from his inspiring school days to intrepid theater company work to suicidal dejection and the "super fucked up" garage theaters of Seattle. The play is filled with well-spoken insights about the regional machine-like "freeze-dried" actor model or the ironic atrophy of institutions that, having made the money to take risks, now become too afraid to take them, along with witty observations, like how subscriptions are "an opportunity to be randomly fucked in the ass." If the theater has failed, nights like this are exceptions that hopefully don't prove the rule.

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