Preview: Twelfth Night

It was only the second preview performance of this Shakespeare In The Park production yet it's obvious it's going to be a huge crowd-pleasing hit once word is out. In other words, go sooner rather than later because by the end of the run you'll need to get on line at the crack of dawn for tickets. It may be too early to properly review the show, but I'm comfortable saying that the performances are delightful: Anne Hathaway, who seems entirely at ease with the text and who gets to sing one of the production's handful of songs, is thoroughly beguiling as Viola; her scenes with the wonderful Audra McDonald as Olivia, who falls madly in love with Viola when disguised as her brother, are a real kick and are the show's comic highlights. That's saying a lot, with brilliant comedy talents like David Pittu and Julie White also on stage as well as a quirky-funny turn by Hamish Linklater as the foolish, cowardly Sir Andrew. Raul Esparza, Jay O. Sanders, Michael Cumpsty and Stark Sands round out the principal cast.

The Amish Project

photo: Geoff Green

The real-life 2006 shootings of young Amish girls at their schoolhouse in Pennsylvania are the inspiration for this extraordinary and deeply affecting sixty five minute solo show, written and performed by Jessica Dickey. While always dressed as an Amish schoolgirl, a choice that not only unifies the production but also emphasizes some of the play's themes, Dickey plays a variety of characters - the shooter, his wife, neighbors, etc. - who are directly or indirectly affected by the crime. Her portrayals are detailed and distinct - Dickey can shift with lightning speed from one of the fresh-faced innocent youngsters to an outraged neighbor and register each so vividly that we recognize them again without a word. As a playwright, she avoids easy sensationalism - there is some needed expository information, but her focus is not simply on exactly what happened nor even on why but on the spiritual challenge presented in the crime's aftermath. The Amish Project gently asks enormous questions about our cultural capacity for forgiveness and grace; it's generous, thoughtful and nourishing for the soul.

The Pied Pipers of the Lower East Side

Photo: Larry Cobra

Playwright Derek Ahonen has a finely tuned ear for the way his Communist-Anarchist-Environmentalist heroes and heroines talk. The play skewers their free-love and pop-psychology platitudes, while loving the characters to death at the same time. I say "the play" because while Mr. Ahonen may be responsible for the dialogue, the Amoralists truly are, as their mission statement proclaims, an "actor driven" company. It feels as if these actors were born to play these parts. The play is a perfect whole -- not for a second is the theatrical spell broken.  And somehow the political and moral message survives all the mockery. Each member of this outstanding cast can dominate the stage in one way or another; together they're an ensemble of scary intensity, one minute boiling in anger, the next erupting in crazed funnyness, yet always, in their overcooked way, seeming to truly love one another. In the end they send us reeling into the street feeling provoked, enlivened, even a little bit enlightened.

Things Of Dry Hours

photo: Joan Marcus

If poetic dialogue alone made a play, this one (at NYTW) would be one of the best shows in town. The language is so rich and evocative that it's transporting, and the cast (under Ruben Santiago-Hudson's direction) deliver it with the precision and sensitivity of finely composed music. The play (by Naomi Wallace) opens up the soul through the ears. It's a pity then that it is weakened by its narrative construction - it's hard to track the logic in the shifting dynamics between an African-American father and adult daughter and the mysterious white fugitive who forces them to give him shelter, circa the early 30's in the Deep South. Example: the stranger is almost instantly attracted to the daughter - he advances clumsily, rudely, and she keeps him at bay with hostility and poisonous world-weary one-liners - but right after a scene that would seem to indicate that she's shut him out entirely, the next begins as if they've softened toward each other. There are similar missteps in the depiction of the relationship between the father, a member of the Communist Party, and the stranger, who he (with a bit too much dramatically static speechifying) sets out to recruit. The playwright seems to aim to keep us guessing about the stranger - are his motives essentially good or bad? - but she hasn't effectively dramatized him for that purpose, which puts limits on Garret Dillahunt's effectiveness in the role. Delroy Lindo conveys both commanding strength and thoughtful sensitivity as the father; as the daughter, Roslyn Ruff is deservedly embraced by the audience partly for her sharp, seen-it-all line readings.

Coraline

You think of words like "uncompromising" and "integrity" as you watch Stephen Merritt's musical of the enormously popular children's tale. The score's strange, angular melodies as primarily played on a single tinkling keyboard, the casting of mature Jane Houdyshell as the adventure-seeking nine year old heroine, the avoidance of anything that smacks of gratuitous crowd-pleasing: a unique artistic vision has been rigorously followed and realized. But it's hard to feel anything besides detached appreciation for the show's uniqueness: despite a uniformly wonderful cast and many isolated performance moments that tempt the imagination, the production is curiously remote and short on the inventive theatricality that would showcase the very special material to advantage.

Next Fall

Reviewed for Theatermania.