BASH'd: A Gay Rap Opera

A straight opinion of BASH'd: A Gay Rap Opera: there has got to be a better, funnier way to reclaim the word "faggot." Visually pared down (but full of sight gags), the show comes across as a cross between Altar Boyz and Xanadu (without the sharpness of either), and sounds as if it's performed by a white R. Kelly (and he knows a thing or two about repetitive hip-hoperas). The show opens with a comparison to Romeo and Juliet's "star-crossed lovers," and devolves from there to an uneven gloss of how country boy Dillon (Nathan Cuckow) wound up with city boy Jack (Chris Craddock), and how violence caused one of them to fight back. But it's too playful to get that serious, so while Craddock (the stronger of the two) can pun Eminem's "Cleaning Out My Closet" into "Coming Out The Closet," BASH'd misses the otherwise inexpressible emotions that make rap worthwhile in the first place. "Smash, Boom, Crash," a first-person account from the receiving end of a gay bash, comes across as a grotesque: Aaron Macri's music allows us to keep a distance from the true pain behind it. The truth is, it's hard to be tongue-and-cheek with rap unless your cheek's as fast as your tongue.

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A Perfect Couple

At first, Brooke Berman's latest play, A Perfect Couple, feels as forced as Isaac and Amy's relationship must be, a collection of well-worn memories held together by the projections of "everybody" involved in the production. But as it turns out, Berman's too-perfect structure is an intentional jab at such happiness, one that gives her the "perfect" opportunity to be gleefully glib. Maria Mileaf has assembled a top-notch cast, from the comic flirt, Annie McNamara (Emma), to the domineeringly deadpan Dana Eskelson (Amy). She's also had Neil Patel build a set that's up to task with the tone of the piece: a symbolically "perfect" blue outline of a house, its fixings (and feelings) all neatly cupboarded away. Even the men, who Mrs. Berman always seems to have difficulty writing in a balanced way (so much so, that at times, she comes across as a female Neil LaBute), are done justice by James Waterson's gropingly sincere Isaac, and Elan Mose-Bachrach's cheerfully intelligent Josh. It's all so happy that the plot has to force an artificial confrontation, but a few wine coolers later, it's near perfect again.

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Standing Clear

Standing Clear, a new group comedy from the Coffee Cup theater company, has a very simple message: our anonymous city is a hotbed of comedy, you just have to take off the iPod long enough to listen, put down the book long enough to look. But while that's true of the actual subway, it's sadly not the case with this random assemblage of "stops" (scenes). For all that material, the show is rarely even skin deep: that's worse than an episode of MADtv. It's rather telling that Ishah Janssen-Faith and Jack McGowan, the two actors credited with writing the show (with additional material from the cast), choose to play almost identically annoying busybodies: they're after cheap laughs. Barbara Kerger's direction keeps the train running on schedule, but had there been an emergency brake, I'd have pulled it: there are too many real subway stories for me to sit through such wasted potential.

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Crother Spyglass/The Resistible Rise of Fatlinda Paloka

Although this double-bill from Serenitas Media was open for review, it came across more as a learning experience for both writers and the director, and as a showcase for a few actors struggling to put meat on their bones and meat on their roles. Timothy Dowd writes like a Mamet-in-training: what he needs to work on is his specificity. In Crother Spyglass, Ray Crother (Brendan Wahlers) comes across both as a slick Roma-like salesman and as an insecure Aaronow, and it makes it totally unclear whether he's setting up young Adam (a sheepish Timothy McDonough) and what exactly he wants out of Christine (Erin Leigh Schmoyer), a character who is far too flat to stand up to Ray. (That she does anyway speaks to the artificiality of the plot.) Marcy Wallabout's The Resistable Rise of Fatlinda Paloka is in much better shape: she just needs to reel in her characters a little bit. She's made a nice parable out of the conflict between the homegrown Southerners, Jimmy and Jolene Earp (the hysterically tight Nick Palladino and Siobhan Doherty), and the Paloka clan, who they perceive as loud and obnoxious immigrants, gobbling up their culture and replacing it with pizza (which they're addicted to, complaints not withstanding). But Mrs. Schmoyer goes far too far into a faux-Borat as Fatlinda, and only Mr. McDonough, as the bluegrass-loving Blerim, manages to make the deeper message about cultural acceptance actually stick.

photo: Scott Suchman

The Signature's austere, superbly realized production of a newly revised version of The Visit is extraordinary music theatre of high quality: Terrence McNally's adaptation of the grim morality tale has great dramatic impact, and the cohesive Kander & Ebb score rates consideration with some of their best work. After a flawless first act, the storytelling missteps - once we know the dark reason why the world's richest woman has descended on the desperately poor town where she grew up, we have limited patience for the romanticized remembrances of her first love (even if it is George Hearn taking the trip down memory lane about Chita Rivera.) The two stage vets are riveting, often using stillness to great effect, and Hearn - who has a challenging job as the emotional center of the cold-eyed story - has a subtle and profoundly sad moment in the second act that moved many in the audience to instant tears. Rivera's character walks around with a cane thanks to a wooden leg, but the show nonetheless contrives a way for her to have an Ann Reinking-choreographed dance number. Is there anyone with blood in their veins who is fool enough to complain about that?

The Mystery Of Irma Vep

Reviewed for Theatermania.