Heistman

Photo/Brian McDermott

Of all the shows at Soho Think Tank's Ice Factory, Heistman is perhaps the only one that shouldn't be open for review: not because it's bad, but because it's still very much in the midst of percolating. Matthew Maher's script is fantastically daring: a philosophical assessment of Personal Happiness and The Fear, and Steven Ratazzi's portrayal of Heistman--this manifesto-spouting bank robber, a hostage to his own heart and insecurities--is top-notch, calling to mind Wallace Shawn. But Gabriella Barnstone's direction, created and performed by el gato teatro, takes the work in a different direction, with four scantily clad actors dancing on stage. Or should I say, distracting, for there's nothing interpretative about their movement, and the vivid physicality prevents us from focusing on Maher's syllogisms, which read as a smartly punctuated David Foster Wallace essay, full of meandering side points and examples. The manifesto is a tough sell, and I can't fault the company for wanting to experiment with the text, but the play has been stolen from the Heistman, and it may take a one-man show to get it back.

VGL Gay Boys Live inParty 'n' Play

After following their video series on youtube, I made sure to see the first VGL Gay Boys live show at D-Lounge. Billed as a "live sitcom", Party 'n' Play is essentially a goof on the age-old "young hopefuls in the big city" story that's been tricked out with cocktail-hour sauciness and smiling homo-fabulous snark. (Imagine a twink Odd Couple where the punchlines are about piss parties in the Poconos and you're on the right track.) The boys (Jeffery Self and Cole Escola) write from a post-queer point of view that is more concerned with having fun than with demanding or apologizing for anything, and they put their material over on stage with infectious charm and plenty of appeal. I'm a fan.

All the Rage

Photo/Benjamin Jaeger-Thomas

All The Rage is really just a character vehicle: ten actors maneuvering a strip of stage that has essentially been stripped of comedy, tragedy, and a real sense of development. I felt it was an empty production, and yet was utterly engaged by the actors.

[Reviewed for Time Out New York]

Edgewise

When the war comes home to America, it won't be with a whimper or a bang: it'll be with fries. That's the beauty of Eliza Clark's darkly comic Edgewise, in which three teens find their everyday Saturday morning shift at the local (Mc) Dougal's interrupted by an air strike and a bloodied stranger. The whiff of bombast is bombed away with surgical precision, forcing the characters to grow up rather quickly, their mundane ramblings quickly turned to panicky attempts to restore order to their safe little world. From the convincing mannerisms of the actors to the sharp set design, which contrasts torture in the storeroom with the service with a smile of the cheery dining room, and smart direction, which plays the moment-to-moment shifts in full so that the exaggerated comedy never compromises the integrity of the situation, it's a clever look at what a Civil War on Terror between an indistinguishable Us and Them might look like: an order of paranoia with a side of fear.

[Read on]

MITF/Eighty-1

Mary Stewart-David and Clive Chang attempt to revive Phileas Fogg's journey as a musical comedy set in 2011: Eighty-1, or "Around Around the World in 80 Days in 80 Minutes." Phileas Fogg IV (Daniel Lincoln) is forced to validate his great-grandfather's record by recreating the journey (that's by rail and by boat, for you Verne purists). He's joined, of course, by the descendants of that trip, JP Passepartout (Brayden Hade) and journalist "Fixey" Fix (Nicole Weiss), and yes, an Indian princess (Jen Anaya) appears. The show is in extremely good fun, but it speeds through so much that it fails to develop much character, and the songs--all piano-based--suffer from not having the strength of personality behind the words. The haste also sacrifices adventure for a shallow love story: not always a bad thing, but without the exotic danger there's a lack of obstacles and an excess of exposition. Developmentally, though, Eighty-1 is in great shape: when's the last time you saw a show whose only problem was learning how to slow down?

MITF/Daguerrotypes

Elisa Abatsis's Daguerreotypes stretches a metaphor about the halation of this ancient photographic technique into a play about transitory relationships and the need to let go of the past.
Instead, it ends up frozen in time: the bookending scenes between Gemma (Storm Garner) and her beloved art teacher, Norman (Doug Rossi), were taken without the flash on, and the lack of chemistry (or even reason for those scenes) muddies the rest of the picture. The play suffers from a lack of circumstances: Cece (Jessica Morris), pregnant with a brain-dead baby, is unable to explain why she's come to a studio that specializes in peaceful photographs of dead babies and Henry (Alfred Gingold), who runs the studio, isn't able to express his passion for this sort of photography or for the love of his life, the country gal Darcy (Lynn Spencer). Consequently, the drama often seems slower than the lengthy (but musical) scene changes. Chase (Jared Morgenstern) is the one character she nails, an angsty employee of Henry's: of all the characters, he speaks without thinking--and that leaves him free to simply be.