The Wendigo

The killer first line of Eric Sander's adaptation of The Wendigo establishes that it will be more streamlined than Algernon Blackwood's original 1910 short: "Our hunting party brought back no moose that year." Matthew Hancock's direction ensures that it will be smoother, for while his cast has accents, they're not exaggerated (saving us from accidental comedy). But despite all the slashing, the production isn't a killer, mainly because despite a terrific cast (led by Nick Merritt's smooth transitions from "ominous narrator" to "excited novice hunter"), the aesthetics fail to capture the mood. Based on M. L. Dogg's music and Erik Gratton's deep voice, this sort of Blair Wendigo Project, in which the evil is never really seen, might have been better suited for radio. Still, Brian Tovar's lighting does the best it can--pinpoints piercing the blackness--and for all that Nicholas Vaughan's set is a minimalist rendering of black poles as dead trees, there's plenty of lively worrying done on stage. More action would've gone a long way, but I won't penalize the Vagabond Theater Company for being true to the adaptation; in fact, I look forward to seeing what they'll do next.

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The Wendigo

Tales like Algernon Blackwood's classic "The Wendigo" electrify our fur by pricking at our most primitive, arboreal fear: that of becoming prey. "The Wendigo"'s direct descendant, The Blair Witch Project, took a modern approach, made possible by the medium of film: it placed the audience behind the eyes of the characters. One can't do that in the theater, of course. But one might imagine staging a wordy story like "The Wendigo" by turning it inside out, snaking deep into the minds of the characters in some other way. Playwright Eric Sanders has chosen to tell the story straight, though. Essentially true to the action of the original, his 45-minute version relies heavily, as did the original story, on atmosphere. Here it's created by the trusty trappings of B-movie horrordom: insistent sound effects, spooky music, sudden and extreme lighting changes, a murky forest set - along with that modern theatrical staple, projection. But this is "The Wendigo" minus the rich texture of Blackwood's prose, and the special effects don't fully make up for that.

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Leah's Train

Photo/Michael Ou

As will surprise absolutely no-one, the train in Karen Hartman's play Leah's Train is a metaphor: "Time seems to stop on a train." This may clarify some of the delusional theater that follows, but it in no way justifies the tale of a mother, Hannah (Mia Katigbak), and daughter, Ruth (Jennifer Ikeda), caught in the shadow of their migratory ancestor, Leah (Kristine Haruna Lee). Saying that it does is akin to saying that anyone who prizes a kaddish cup, that apparently most synechdocal of objects, is Jewish. (Which is what this play does.) Nobody wants to see last-resort theater, but that's what Jean Randich's direction feels like: "We didn't connect with this play, but here's our best shot."

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Music in the Air

Photo: Joan Marcus

Watching the weak and silly Music in the Air, the 1930s Kern-Hammerstein operetta at Encores!, affords a great opportunity to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the modern musical. On one hand, we have the joy of the grown-up musical. Just the past few years have brought us Caroline, or Change, Light in the Piazza, Spring Awakening, See What I Wanna See, Next to Normal, and Grey Gardens. How amazing and thrilling that these works of art have grown out of a lineage that includes Music in the Air, with its dumb plot, pointless conflicts, boring ingenue and juvenile, and long stretches of nothing happening. (Yes, Kern and Hammerstein also brought us Showboat, probably the more direct progenitor of the musicals just listed, but Music in the Air is no Showboat, even though, strangely enough, it was written afterward.)

On the other hand, we have an amazing array of profoundly talented performers who are being terribly, terribly underutilized. Kristin Chenoweth and Douglas Sills are the best of the best. They have charisma, endless creativity, impeccable comic timing, and singing voices that range from excellent (his) to gorgeous (hers). Why don’t they work more???? For that matter, why doesn’t Donna Murphy work more? Victoria Clark? Christine Ebersole? Marc Kudisch? Brian Stokes Mitchell? I know the answer, of course: musicals are expensive. But just imagine a theatre world where we could see these amazing performers in a never-ending flow of new works by Sondheim, La Chuisa, Finn, Tesori, Guettel, and others we haven't even heard from yet.

The American Plan

photo: Carol Rosegg

The character that Lily Rabe portrays in this revival of Richard Greenberg's play is "special", the kind of fragile wallflower who says whatever pops into her head and who we're meant to find beguiling. Rabe is miscast and doesn't convince as a hypersensitive girl-woman, which makes for a slow-going first act, but the role itself is more than a little precious, a combination of The Heiress and Laura from The Glass Menagerie. The play itself, one of Greenberg's earliest, is far from his best, and except for some business in the second act that I won't reveal here, it's baffling why the care has been taken to give it a Broadway revival. But care has clearly been taken: the production is handsome, the production values high, and most of the performances quite good.

Becky Shaw

Photo: Joan Marcus

All hail Annie Parisse. As the title character in Gina Gionfriddo’s Becky Shaw, who doesn’t appear until well into the first act, she manages to accomplish something that the others couldn’t do: make it seem as though something of note is going on. By the time she appears, there’s been much ado about a lot: a lost fortune, a semi-incestuous one-night stand, a Vegas marriage, and dozens of one liners, many quite funny. But somehow the much ado doesn’t add up to anything—other than whining and squabbling—until Parisse appears as the female half of an ill-advised blind date. She’s one of those performers who seem to bring their own spotlight with them, and her every word and movement as the surprising (inconsistent?) Becky fascinate and intrigue. However, even she cannot make Becky Shaw really work. While the play has much to say about love and deceit and how people interact, its point of view seems random since Gionfriddo consistently sacrifices clarity and character to get a laugh. The first act in particular wanders hither and yon without getting anywhere; the second act is entertaining enough that its lack of meaning is less apparent. But, on leaving, I had the same question I had with Prayer for My Enemy and The American Plan: What was this play really about?