Farragut North

Photo/Jacqueline Mia Foster

From the moment Stephen (John Gallagher, Jr.) appears onstage as a successful, 25-year-old press secretary who somehow still has morals, it's obvious that Beau Willimon can't wait to knock him down in Farragut North. Willimon plays politics in the same backrooms as Aaron Sorkin, but rather than pace around, he internalizes the gears, taking the focus off the Democratic primary in Iowa and putting the emphasis on what's underneath all off Stephen's gloss and spin. The result is rather Machiavellian: his enemy, Tom (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) undoes him with kindness; his friend, Paul (Chris Noth) undoes him with contempt; his lover, Molly (Oliva Thirlby) undoes him with compassion; and he completes the destruction with his own arrogance. Director Doug Hughes is accustomed to dealing with characters having a crisis of faith, as well as with addressing monsters who come clad in good deeds, which results in a well-oiled production that also manages to dip below the surface of politics.

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Dawn

Photo/Joan Marcus

Thomas Bradshaw's latest play, Dawn, is a challenging play. It's not subtle--his dialogue bashes us over the head with its gross exaggerations, and director Jim Simpson works with an empty stage so as to keep things transparent and obvious. However, by setting up his characters to fall--likeable alcoholics, intolerable saviors, abused annoyers--the play challenges our expectations, and aims to make our morals a little more fluid. The lead, Gerry Bamman, really helps on account of his sitcom-level likability, and the disgusting comedy of it all will unsettle you (especially on accounts of the double whammy of pedophilia and incest), whether you like it or not.

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The Footage

Photo/Joan Marcus

There are a lot of nice surprises in Joshua Scher's dark drama, The Footage. By using existing media and making it dark (LonelyGirl15, porn, machinima), Scher gives his plot credibility, which is the whole point in a play that focuses on the narrow line between what's real and not. That he manages to work in comic romances (like the flirting of two online avatars in World of WarCraft) is downright astonishing, especially given the way they enhance other aspects of the theme. Semiotics is often boring: here, it's fascinating, or perhaps that's just Scher's ear for the way people talk. The one unfortunate thing is that the ending compromises the theme: a play like this is ruined by a tidy ending, no matter how stylistically done (director Claudia Zelevansky does nice work).

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My Vaudeville Man

photo: Carol Rosegg

The book of this two-character musical, which charts the relationship between a born-to-dance Irish-American vaudevillian and his disapproving mother who's ashamed of his profession, is disappointingly shallow: the first act doesn't do much more than contrast his wide-eyed naivete with her cold-eyed suspicion, before closing with a stakes-raising conflict that is soon glossed over and made irrelevant in the second act. However, there are at least a few good songs in the score (the title song is especially infectious) and both Karen Murphy and Shonn Wiley are terrific. The show's chief pleasure - for me, a big one - is Wiley's tap-dancing: his extended second act dance number, which has the added twist of also being a drinking contest besides a tap challenge, is breathtaking.

Wintuk

There's magic blowing through the air. It might only look like flimsy pieces of paper "snow," and you can see the high-powered vent sending them through the theater in a Slava's Snowshow burst, can see the Sunday in the Park With George-level digital backdrop. But from the moment the first Cirque du Soleil performer slaloms down a hill, across an angled path center stage, and then back up a hill on the other side, you're a kid again, being utterly swept away. Wintuk is an aesthetic, intimate circus: there are no animals, and no high-flying acts. Instead, the focus is on the capacity of the human body to astound, whether through the first act's crazy gymnastic flips and acrobatic balancing acts or the second act's more subdued contemporary dances, the sort that make your single hula hoop seem lame, or shame you for not being able to climb a rope, let alone spin through the air and gyrate on one. It's also on the capacity of the human mind to imagine things: hence actors on stilts bring giant bird creatures to life, and bunraku artists lurk in the backdrop of giant ice golems that march across the stage as the actors sing foreign choral music. It is, admittedly, both an exciting and alien experience, and, as always, it is utterly spellbinding. Of particular note: a clever contortionist routine that gives new meaning to the word "rag doll" and an ever more precarious balancing act atop a tower of rolling pins. Of no importance: the plot, which introduces five breakdancing actors in dog costumes and a clown trapped in a garbage can. It's a whimsical breath of fresh air; go.

The Most Damaging Wound

Talk about range: Blair Singer's The Most Damaging Wound opens with a stream of curses and a flood of alcohol, builds from frenzy of casual crudeness into a series of subtle emotions and then--while still propelling itself through some wild antics--puts its hand on the pulse of Male Maturity, and keeps it there for ninety of the best minutes you'll spend in a theater. Chris Thorn delivers an impressive performance as he uses liquid courage to swing his character from comedy to drama and back again, and his energy helps to pull the entire play along, not that the rest of the cast, with their ease and real camaraderie, really needs much needling. Much of that credit must be laid at Mark Armstrong's feet: the best directors are the ones whose touch is invisible, and even with the actors just feet away in this intimate space, I didn't notice a bit of blocking. The theater needs more of this honest naturalism, and less of the bullshit machismo you'll find in a Neil LaBute play.

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