Our Lady of South Division Street

In Our Lady of South Division Street, the Nowaks are just another family in Buffalo, NY, except for one little detail--years ago, the Virgin Mary appeared to one of their relatives. This funny and moving story of a revelation that forces the Nowaks to reconsider both their history and their identity, is currently playing in an excellent production, nicely directed by Joe Brancato, at the Penguin Rep in Stony Point, north of New York City. It was written by Tom Dudzick (who, full disclosure, is my brother-in-law) and it addresses his favorite themes of belief, miracles, and family in a very enjoyable couple of hours. The cast, led by Peggy Cosgrove as the mother, does a fine job, and Joseph Egan's set is wonderful.

Vieux Carre

Photo: Gregory Costanzo

Tennessee Williams wrote Vieux Carre both early and late in his career. He started it in the late 30s and went back to it in the late 70s. Based on his time spent in a rundown boarding house in New Orleans, Vieux Carre can be viewed as a sort of The Glass Menagerie 2: What Happened After Tom Left St. Louis. In many ways, it is vintage Williams: full of aching loneliness, emotional scars, and the hope/prayer that connecting with another person--particularly sexually--can heal both psychological and physical damage. The Williams stand in--known as the Writer--is young, yearning, and not quite in touch with his homosexuality. He has left his family behind and wants no new parents; his life is his now, however it may turn out. At the boarding house, he gets to know a variety of fragile people: an artist with TB, an upper class woman who both loves and hates her lower class boyfriend, a pair of elderly women slowly starving to death, and a landlady whose nastiness and neediness have blended into one large mass of jagged emotion. In some ways more a series of character studies than a plotted play, Vieux Carre is a clear-eyed yet loving look at the people who fall into life's cracks. The reliable Pearl Theatre is offering an excellent, if flawed, production of the play, directed by Austin Pendleton. The idea of having one bed stand in for everyone's bed is awkward and confusing, and the use of the aisles of the theatre for exits and entrances is jarring. But the performances are excellent; Sean McNall, Rachel Botchan, Carol Schultz, and George Morfogen are particularly moving. Two other points: (1) It's a pity that the play was written in a time when Williams could thoughtlessly give an actual story to everyone except the "Negro maid," who ends up being more of a prop than a person (although Claudia Robinson gives the character dimension through the excellence of her performance); and (2) a number of reviews have referred to the artist, an older man who seduces the Writer, as "predatory" and even "aggressively homosexual." I think that these are misreadings of the character, who is a gentle man who wants desperately to connect with another person and who is offering the Writer all he has to offer. The Writer is an adult, able to say no, and while he accepts the artist's overtures ambivalently, he does accept them and perhaps is the better for it.

Ore, or Or

Duncan Pflaster's tale is essentially a classic love triangle, with the beefy Calvin Kanayama (E. Calvin Ahn) at the apex. He seems to love his new girlfriend, down-to-earth Debbie (Elizabeth Erwin), but lusts after the lithe and forward Tara (Clara Barton Green). Along the way he bonds with Sean (Shawn McLaughlin), Debbie's gay roommate, who, through no fault of his own, suffers from knowing more than he wants to about his friends' love lives. In creating a supportive and single "gay best friend," Mr. Pflaster flirts with cultural stereotype, but comes out pure, as Sean flowers into the most likable and vivid character of all. The action skips deftly through one seriocomic situation after another, as the mostly solid cast has fun with video games, food poisoning, Star Trek, and Sean's adventures as a substitute teacher. Periodically, a gong and some evocative shakuhachi music divert us into one of Calvin's dreams, inspired by the legends of Yamashita's treasure. This sub-theme is an appealing, ornate framing device, though perhaps not totally necessary, as the imperfect, realistically rough-edged New Yorkers living their laughing, heartbreaking lives in front of us are intriguing enough by their plain selves.

Squiggy and the Goldfish

Photo: Elisha Schaefer

A brave, sharp performance by Josh Breslow as the title character (Squiggy, not the fish) can't make up for this play's weakness of focus. Abuse at the hands of his suicidal father has made Squiggy a cutter of long standing, though he's successfully hidden his scars from his ineffective, half-unmoored mother (Dana Aber). Terrorized by his cruel fiancée Veronica (the excellent Katrina Ylimaki) and her violent father (Jonathan Miles), Squiggy gets no relief even in his dreams, where a horror-movie psychiatrist and a nightstick-happy cop chase him through paranoid fantasies. As the realities of Squiggy's past and present tribulations (and those of the women in his life) are revealed to us, the characters stimulate aches of recognition, but the effect is too often subverted by Recovery Movement catchphrases, characters stating the obvious to one another, and narrative inconsistencies. Mr. Breslow does absolutely all he can to keep the play centered, but he can do only so much.

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson

photo: Joan Marcus

With more than a little bad-ass nose-thumbing attitude, this show at The Public (seen here staged and costumed but billed as a "concert version") about Andrew Jackson pokes some snarky fun at rock musicals (the anachronisms of Spring Awakening, for instance) but beneath the snotty 'tude are some provocative ideas about Jackson's legacy. Was the fourth President a hero or an American Hitler? Was the populism he preached a recipe for pure democracy or for chaos? The show, which has an unpretentious rag-tag looseness, isn't out to make a definitive statement and it steadfastly refuses to get too serious until the very end, but that's part of its refreshing appeal. As staged by Alex Timbers, it's silly and smartypants at the same time. The show's conceit has Jackson in strutting rock god drag which not only amusingly illustrates his celebrity and resonance with the people but also allows Benjamin Walker to rock out old school in his thoroughly winning breakout performance.

Le Serpent Rouge

Photo: Steven Schreiber

Austin McCormick's Company XIV is back with another extravagant, sexually charged dance-theater piece of the kind only they can produce. Where last year's Judgment of Paris drew on the young choreographer's study of French baroque dance (pre-classical ballet), the dancing in Le Serpent Rouge is more modern; but again the company creates a visionary re-imagining of a classic story, this time the legend of Adam, Eve, and Lilith. Swings, a giant chandelier hung low to the ground, a focused rain of water, a huge mirror (for Eve to lose herself in), light bondage, near-nudity, and the world's first threesome are only a few elements of this luridly opulent production. The choreography is continually expressive and beautifully realized by the amazing dancers. It's a richly woven, thoroughly rewarding entertainment.

Read the whole review.