Die Roten Punkte: Super Musikant

photo: Christine Fiedler

The brainchild of performer-musicians Daniel Tobias and Clare Bartholomew, Die Roten Punkte are a brother-sister pop punk band whose often very funny show is finally in New York this weekend, following much-awarded engagements at Fringe Festivals in Canada. It's easy to see why this show won Best Comedy at last year's Victoria Fringe - the duo have a gift for comic delivery and for improvisation within the "concert" format of the show, and their mock-serious solidly-crafted send-ups of new wave music are often hilarious. (The funniest has the two dancing the robot to a Krafterwerk-like beat made only of cowbell, three repeating synth notes and a drum machine.) The show's narrative, which exists mostly in the banter between the duo's songs, may be slight - Astrid, just out of rehab, eventually gets a talking-to from her "straight edge" brother Otto because she's been spiking her Vitamin Water with booze all night - but the slightness doesn't matter: the show's disarming humor comes not from the narrative but from character, and Tobias and Bartholomew have honed Otto and Astrid to perfection. The audience didn't seem to initially know what to make of the show - it took a couple of songs before there was clear permission to laugh - but after that it was practically a party. I doubt there was anyone there who hadn't been made a fan.

Eight

We draw our own conclusions about the eight young men and women of Eight before they even say a word. That's partially why the writer and director, Ella Hickson, has them stand in a silent line as the audience files in. They don't remain blanks for long: each has a monologue—the theatrical form of the short story—and over the course of the next few hours, they'll share them. While the characters may not have found a place for themselves, Hickson certainly has: she's a darkly comic playwright, social critic, and youthful voice, all balled up into one. Considering how rushed-to-Fringe this was, it's remarkable that only two of the monologues seem forced (and only comparatively so); as for her language, it's near miraculous.

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Transition

Photo/Noah Kalina

Reggie Watts is a bullshit artist, but a serious one. His deadpan act deconstructs both sound and comedy: imagine a hip-hop Andy Kaufman and you'll still be confused. Just know that Watts's entertainment comes first; the incidental laughs spray like shrapnel. Also, know that Watts gets away with it. The solipsism fades in front of an audience, especially a downtown crowd, and if his performance sometimes seems the equivalent of a precocious child taping a private radio program in front of a mirror, he at least has the voice of a DJ and the technical skills of a sound engineer. However, while the title implies that Reggie Watts is going somewhere, he isn't there yet.

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Wickets

There are no seatbelts on the mock airplane set of Jenny Rogers’s adaptation of Maria Irene Fornes’s Fefu & Her Friends. None are needed: Wickets is engaging and smooth, but it’s hardly dramatically turbulent. Nor should it be: by sticking to the surfaces, co-directors Rogers and Clove Galilee are being true to the eight stewardesses on Wicket Air Flight #1971. (The feminist content has been updated from 1935 to 1970.) The deeper truths come out in loose yet cryptic monologues, and through an interpretation of Fornes’s experimental style that collages text and breaks out into song and dance.

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Hello 2009!

Another year, another blog butt-kicking by Aaron, who handily won our race (again) and probably saw more shows than David and I did. Combined. Stamina, thy name is Aaron Riccio.

You've no doubt noticed that David has been posting only sporadically for the last six months. I don't want to speak for him, but I don't think he'd mind my saying that his focus began to change after he had his own show up last Winter. Come back to the five and dime David Bell, David Bell.

I can't wrap my mind around Show Showdown without David having some part in it, so the door will always remain open for him to post here whenever he is inspired to. Nonetheless, with David engaged only irregularly, it's impossible for me to imagine doing another blog race this year.

That said, Aaron and I both want to keep on posting on here, mostly because we see the value in a theatre review team blog that can concisely cover a wide range of theatre, many times with more than one take on the same show.

We're going to be joined this year by my friend Cameron Kelsall, who used to maintain a blog I thoroughly enjoyed and who has written for New Theater Corps. Look for his posts very soon.

In addition to Cameron, we'd all love to find yet another articulate theatre junkie to join us in '09. Email me if you're interested.

And now, here comes all the theatre we can manage to see in 2009. Thank you all for reading and for loving theatre.

Emmet Otter's Jug-band Christmas

photo: Diane Sobolewski

Jim Henson Productions and Goodspeed Musicals have joined up to stage Henson's much-loved 1977 tv musical, and the charming result ought to be a perennial hit. Essentially a woodland creatured revision of The Gift of The Magi in which puppets and actors co-mingle as animal characters, the musical is agreeably low-key rather than brash and enjoyably cute rather than precious. Although Paul Williams' score is only serviceable, and the show's pace at times a tad sluggish, the production aces one of theatre's toughest tests and holds tykes in rapt attention thanks not only to Henson's delightful, by now familiar puppets but also to the expert cast whose performances have been well-scaled to the material. Most obviously terrific are Cass Morgan as Ma Otter and Daniel Reichard as her son Emmet, both highly accomplished music theatre performers who bring warmth and a gentle touch to their characterizations. But there's also plenty of skill on display elsewhere from performers in supporting roles, from the unseen puppeteers who play a pack of red squirrels in a running bit that gets the show's biggest laughs, to Alan Campbell and Kate Wetherhead, who bring just the right tone and amount of personality as a father and daughter whose Christmas Eve heart-to-heart is the stage musical's added framing device. Even the three minor characters who fill out Emmet's band are given amusing, memorable characterizations from Robb Sapp, Daniel Torres, and the always hilarious Jeff Hiller.