The Apocalypse of John, the Rabbit Known as Chicken Little

The modest Freddi Price's The Apocalypse of John, the Rabbit Known As Chicken Little does for shadow puppets what South Park did for cutouts: literally and figuratively crude, his show takes an absurd Terry Gilliam-like glee in blatantly satirizing the book of Revelation. That John has been replaced with a masturbating, alcoholic rabbit who believes the sky is falling is already plenty silly, but he soon encounters "Henny Penny" ("That's the lamb of god, bitch!") and "Goosey Loosey" (the whore of Babylon), and it's only a matter of time before the scrim is overrun with demons, from a dancing, googly-eyed 666 to a snooty Frenchman drunk on absinthe ("Wormwood"). More is more, but the exaggeration of such wild contradictions is hysterical: "How many thirds can you divide the world into?" As a means of moderation, Price also performed his two-person bunraku, Frank, which while just as heavy-handed in the murmuring voiceover, was a valuable reminder of the power of silence, and the transitory power of theater.

Around the World in 80 Days

Photo/Sandy Underwood

Mark Brown's adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days is all about transportation, and not just the physical kind. Exaggerated accents, comic physical action and a briskly narrated pace (with two Foley artists for emphasis) transform Jules Verne's novel into an adventurous bit of theater. In the same vein as The 39 Steps, Brown's script calls for a small ensemble (five actors), with Daniel Stewart as the straight man, Phileas Fogg, and Evan Zes as his indomitable sidekick, the flexibly French Passepartout. They are joined by Lauren Elise McCord as Aouda, who comes across as the loveliest of plot contrivances, while the very talented Jay Russell and John Keating spin around them, filling out the other twenty odd characters. If gas prices are keeping you from traveling much this summer, why not take a trip Around the World? This slapstick adventure is far roomier than coach, not bogged down by any weather delays, and, thanks to the expert acting, there's no chance of you missing anything along the way. As Fogg would say, it's all accounted for: entertainment most certainly included.

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[title of show]

***** (...out of five stars)

Lyceum

Manifest destiny: realized! From the New York Musical Theater Festival to off-Broadway at the Vineyard to a brilliant and sassy Youtube campaign, this musical about making a musical finally makes its triumphant debut on Broadway. Exclamation point! For those of us out there who fell in love with this show in its earlier incarnation, the [title of show] family remains happily intact as do all of the songs. Add to that some new, stronger choices in terms of plot development, new scenes marking their journey from off-Broadway to Broadway and a blissfully full house of [title of show] fans ("tossers") hooting and hollering every time the cast makes a reference about hoping they make it to Broadway, and we have ourselves one happy night at the theater. For those of you out there who have not seen [title of show] yet, GO, for this unique musical is one of a kind. The actual composer and the book writer are playing themselves 8 times a week in their own show. Would Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse ever do something like that? (The mind boggles). Also playing themselves are Susan Blackwell and Heidi Blickenstaff, friends of Hunter and Jeff's, who round out the show with hysterical observations, kick ass vocals and a warm feminine soul. It's damn near impossible to not fall in love with these kids who collectively throw it all out there in their bid to become "part of it all". This is the most charming Broadway production I have ever seen. And I say that having seen Mamma Mia twice.

Kicking A Dead Horse

photo: Joan Marcus

A dead horse, an open grave and a man struggling to put the former into the latter: this is Sam Shepard's Beckett-like eighty minute one-act in which the playwright seems to be moaning about his own work through the metaphor of a disillusioned New York art dealer in search of "authenticity". Essentially a monologue, the play is spiked with dark deadpan humor which only occasionally lands as intended: for too much of the play we're inpatient for the inevitable (and obvious) conclusion and wondering why Shepard wrote the piece for Irish actor Stephen Rea, whose effortful try at an American accent is unconvincing and distracting.

What To Do When You Hate All Your Friends

photo: Martin R. Miller

Larry Kunofsky's snappy semi-absurd comedy seems at first to depict the paranoid fantasy of a wallflower who believes that the friends who barely tolerate her are part of a exclusionary cult. Turns out it isn't a fantasy: the friends have formed a secret and soulless society that gives them access to popularity. The play has a lot of satirical fun with this central idea - as cold and as selfish as the friend system seems, it's only an exaggeration of how most people use each other - and although the play goes slack in the second act as it transitions into a less antic tone, it's nonetheless always clever and wholly enjoyable. It's also ideally served by the five members of the ensemble (Todd D'Amour, Josh Lefkowitz, Susan Louise O'Connor, Amy Staats, and Carrie Keranen) who all seem to be on the playwright's wavelength.

The Proposal

Seth Powers's disturbing The Proposal begins with a simple revival of the short Chekhovian farce of the same name. But the actor/director (Daniel Irizarry) isn't quite sure the message is getting across, and doesn't know how to simultaneously reach the older theatergoers looking to relive the peaceful past of passive theater and the younger iPod generation. The question he poses is a bloody difficult one--"Why can't theater be art?"--and it's made all the bloodier by the violence of good doctor Chekhov (Laura Butler) and the well-intentioned puerility of a thick-bearded, cookie-laden Nietzsche (Vic Peterson). Actor's search for truth twists into a dark farce, from an animalistic portrayal of the creation myth to a Gallagher-like climax, with a few breaks to dance the mazurka. Under normal conditions, such dangerous leaps in illogic would simply be dismissed as pretension, but Irizarry wrestles Powers's script to the floor by grounding everything in the intensely physical, and it's near impossible to look away.

[Note: To clarify a point, when a script tackles complex ideas in a nontraditional way, the casual theatergoer is quick to label it as "pretentious." If I were to have simply read Seth's script , I might have done the same. But this is why theater works best as a collaborative effort: I very much enjoyed The Proposal, and it illustrates the positive ways in which even pretension itself can be used to enrich the very valid critiques being made about art.]