A Streetcar Named Desire

Photo: Kevin Sprague

Marin Mazzie may seem an unlikely choice to play Blanche DuBois. Mazzie is tall, strong, and sexually confident--not the first traits that come to mind when describing the damaged, desperate Blanche. However, in the excellent production of A Streetcar Named Desire at Barrington Stage Company, beautifully directed by Julianne Boyd, Mazzie makes Blanche her own, using her strengths to make Blanche's unraveling particularly poignant and heartbreaking. Christopher Innvar's fascinating Stanley, rather than a simple animal, is a complicated man whose feelings can be hurt--an interpretation that brings fascinating textures to the play, particularly when Stanley is going head to head with Mazzie's Blanche. Kim Stauffer is superb as Stella, struggling between loyalty to her sister and loyalty to her husband. Considering the many annoying revivals of the classics of the past few years, where the directors were more interested in expressing themselves than respecting the writing (for example, All My Sons and the Roundabout's Streetcar), this production is a particular treat: while done with complete allegiance to the text, it offers a fresh point of view of a sturdy masterpiece.

Viral

Uncompromising, provocative and often bitterly funny, Mac Rogers' Viral is the first must-see of this year's Fringe Festival. In lesser hands the story - of a suicidal woman who consents to let three fetishists videotape her death - could make for nothing more than lurid, soulless shock, but the playwright uses it as a high-stakes example of the potential for dehumanization in both fetish and in Internet culture. The play's suspense, as well as much of its pitch black comedy, comes mostly from the tension of whether close personal contact will thwart the suicide. As with his Hail Satan! two years ago, Rogers approaches edgy relevant topics with a probing intelligence and a wicked sense of humor and the result is an absorbing, thought-provoking entertainment. The cast effectively form a tonally cohesive unit but Amy Lynn Stewart, compelling as the suicidal Meredith, and Rebecca Comtois, vibrant as one of the fetishists, stand out in the show's most pivotal roles.

Fringe Preview '09

It isn't humanly possible to see every single one of the 201 shows in this year's Fringe Festival. That won't stop some of us theatre junkies from seeing as many as we can, hoping that what awaits at the top of the stairs at The Player's Loft is as captivating as Zombie or The Amish Project last year, or that one of the musicals at The Minetta Lane or Dixon Place will be as fresh as BASH'd or as fun as Perez Hilton Saves The Universe from festivals past. Maybe we'll be turned on to a theatre company we didn't know about, as I was when I saw Riding The Bull from the Flux Theatre Ensemble a couple of years ago.

Here's an index of the Q&A's I just completed to preview two dozen of this year's most promising Fringe shows. In addition to these, I'm hoping to also see Esther Steeds, His Greatness, Remission, Citizen Ruth, Alvin Sputnik, Dolls, Some Editing and Some Theme Music, Gutter Star, Complete and Two On The Aisle, Three In A Van.

Quick Q&A: FringeNYC#1 - Dramas Part 1
Michael Edison Hayden, The Books
Daniel McCoy, Eli and Cheryl Jump
Louise Flory, Look After You

Quick Q&A: FringeNYC#2 - Comedies Part 1
Jason Mitchell, The Boys Upstairs
Naomi McDougall Jones, May-December With The Nose and Clammy
Greg Ayers, John and Greg's High School Reunion

Quick Q&A: FringeNYC #3 - Musicals Part 1
Ren Casey, Graveyard Shift
Phil Lebovits, Dancing With Abandon
Ryann Ferguson, VOTE

Quick Q&A: FringeNYC #4 - Dramas Part 2
Monica Flory, Afterlight
Andrew Unterberg, The Crow Mill
Jonathan L. Davidson, Victoria and Frederick For President

Quick Q&A: FringeNYC #5 - Solo Shows
Elizabeth Audley, all over
Matt Oberg, The Event
Libby Skala, A Time To Dance

Quick Q&A: FringeNYC #6 - Musicals Part 2
Paul Schultz, Eat Drink and Be Merry
Ben Knox - For The Love Of Christ
Michael Chartier - Far Out

Quick Q&A: FringeNYC #7 - Comedies Part 2
Erin Judge, The Meaning Of Wife
Jon Galvez, 30 Minutes Or Less
Tim J. MacMillan, Photosynthesis

Quick Q&A: FringeNYC #8 - Dramas Part 3
Nicholas Gray, Population 8
Mary Adkins, The 49 Project
Mac Rogers, Viral

The Bacchae

photo: Joan Marcus

I cannot imagine an actor less suited to the role of Dionysus--the vicious, sexually charged god of wine--than Jonathan Groff. In Joanne Akalaitis' sterile new production of The Bacchae at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park, Groff cuts an attractive figure in his quasi-Jim Morrison jeans and bejeweled denim jacket, but whenever he opens his mouth to deliver Euripides' poetry, the battle is lost. That almost nothing in this production works is both terribly sad (considering the lack of major classical theatre productions in New York City) and not entirely unexpected, given Ms. Akailitis' history of putting her own directorial intentions above textual accuracy. She has set a large part of the Chorus text (in a new, serviceable translation by Nicholas Rudall) to an original score by her longtime collaborator and former husband, Philip Glass, that lacks any semblance of cohesion or tonality. The Chorus itself, often perched on a set of bleachers that act as the only real set piece, never seem entirely together throughout the proceedings. Among the principle actors, only Joan MacIntosh's Agave approximated the correct tragedian style. Her anguish upon discovering that, under Dionysus' spell, she murdered her own son, Pentheus (Anthony Mackie, still finding his footing), registers as the only truly thrilling moment of the evening.

Note: I attended the first preview of this production, so my opinions reflect something that is obviously still very much a work in progress. However, considering the abbreviated length of the run (it closes August 30), I felt that it was better to publish my thoughts now, rather than waiting until the production officially opens on August 24.

Burn The Floor

photo: Donna Ward

Dancing With The Stars sensations Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Karina Smirnoff may be the "guest stars" (through August 16th) but they have a surplus of what this dance revue otherwise lacks: personality and sex appeal. Certainly there are plenty of talented dancers on stage but the moves rarely allow them to express anything interesting; the show is ballroom dancing as if by boy/girl cheerleading squad: athletic, energetic, soulless. The artless presentation, which includes two generic singers who could easily be imagined working a wedding reception, is Vegas on the cheap.

Wildflower

photo: Joan Marcus

Capping 80 some odd minutes of "Lifetime movie"-sized doings with a "shock" ending (which I won't give away), Lila Rose Kaplan's Wildflower turns out to be a cautionary tale that seems to warn about the danger of not talking frankly with kids about sex. But what the painfully shy new boy in town does to the irritatingly precocious virgin in the play's final scene isn't merely misinformed - it's downright insane. The play's argument makes as much sense as saying that if you don't warn kids to wash their hands they just might stick them in a light socket. Most of the play's action is so bland that there's plenty of time for nagging questions - I wondered how a single mom could afford an indefinite stay at a bed and breakfast with her son on what she makes answering phones in a flower shop. The actors do what they can - Ron Cephas Jones comes off best, and Jake O'Connor is radar-worthy - but the play doesn't do them any favors.