Altar Boyz

I know I am quite a late arrival to the Altar Boyz party, but count me in. I thoroughly enjoyed its humor, warmth, and delightful silliness. A tip of my hat and thank you to book writer Kevin Del Aguila and music and lyric writers Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker. It takes a lot of talent, work, and smarts to make a piece of fluff this good!

MilkMilkLemonade

Photo: John Alexander

The Management has become known as an edgy downtown group with notable depth. Their new production explores being gay in America, but specifically Middle America, and more precisely a chicken farm not far from the implied national nightmare succinctly summed up in the name "Mall Town, USA." Joshua Conkel's script feelingly and very humorously explores the relationship between two schoolboys, one effeminate and (mostly) liking himself that way, the other so desperately fighting his homosexual urges that he lashes out in a number of ways: "setting stuff on fire," getting into fights at home and at school, and punching and kicking the air like Cuchulain battling the waves. There's a talking chicken and a seething spider and – oh, it's all just too, too much. How it all ends isn't terribly important; getting there is where the fun is, and there's an awful lot of it – a number of moments had the audience in such stitches the cast had to wait patiently for the laughter to fade. Meredith Steinberg's energetic and funny choreography deserves mention, and the choices of music are spot-on – how can you not love a show that features "I've Never Been to Me"? Read the full review.

The Royal Family

photo: Boneau/Bryan-Brown

The scenic aspect of Manhattan Theatre Club's revival of The Royal Family is stunning--John Lee Beatty's set received rousing applause the moment the curtain was raised--but there's not much else happening on the stage of the Friedman to recommend devoting nearly three hours to this poorly-performed bagatelle. The play itself is quite funny and biting, but you'd never know that from watching Doug Hughes' largely miscast cast struggle through three acts of flubs, dropped lines, and seemingly iron-clad jokes landing with a resounding thud. The biggest disappointment is Jan Maxwell, who seemed perfectly cast as devoted actress Julie Cavendish, a woman who has given everything up to follow her devotion to the stage. Maxwell cuts a striking figure in Catherine Zuber's lush costumes, but delivers her lines as much enthusiasm as ordering a sandwich at the deli. Even Julie's magnificent second-act monologue couldn't rouse any emotion for her. Sadly, Rosemary Harris fared no better--she appeared lost and confused, when she was audible. Of the principles, only John Glover's Herbert Dean--a vainglorious old-timer who cannot accept that he's past his prime--hit all the right notes and reminded me how sharp and satisfying well-drawn satire can be. Still, he's not enough to recommend investing any time in this brightly colored but ultimately empty pastiche.

The River Crosses Rivers: Series A

The River Crosses Rivers: Series A is another strong evening of one acts by women of color at the Ensemble Studio Theatre (my review of Series B is below). The standout of the evening--of the whole festival--is Lynn Nottage's heartbreaking Banana Beer Bath, a monologue, brilliantly performed by Elain Graham, about hiding from the Ugandan rebels who are attacking her parents. It was breath-taking in the literal sense of the word.

During both evenings, I was struck by the variety of topics depicted: angels, history, punk rock, the pressure to get married, ungrateful children, parenting, loss, romance, dishonesty and truth, how a second can change an entire life, and more. And the characters were varied too: men and women, young and old, straight and gay, black, white, and subcontinental Asian.

I started going to theatre in the 1970s. When people of color, lesbians, gay men, and/or women had the rare opportunity to be heard, they/we generally grabbed the opportunity to talk about being people of color, lesbians, gay men, and/or women. There was so much education to do; in many cases, merely getting across the simple message, "I am a human being," was the primary--and difficult!--goal. And when they/we wrote about anything else, who would put that work on?

I look forward (with more hope than optimism, to be truthful) to a world where everyone's voices are heard. Many thanks to Going to the River 2009 and the Ensemble Studio Theatre for getting us a little closer to that world.

Aftermath

Photo/Joan Marcus

Yes, the cast of Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen's latest documentary play, Aftermath, are actors. But in perfectly speaking the exact words of Iraqi refugees in Jordan (well, 90% of their words), they are something more, too: they are mediums. At their best moments--and there are many--they are mirrors, too. And yes, the show has been edited--piecing together moments from six different interviews--it's not blatantly agenda-driven, or accusation-based. In other words, it's a lot harder to dismiss. The show is so quietly powerful, in fact, that even Blank's expert direction, full of subtleties, is even too much: the actors are convincing enough to make us forget the conventions of theaters. What we won't forget are their words--"There are some things for which apologies are not enough," says an imam unjustly brought to Abu Ghraib--or their surprising characters, like the arrogant dermatologist Yassir (Amir Arison), whose idolization of Richard Gere ("He is...steely") says a lot for what traits he now values. The play is also filled with a variety of wonderfully mundane moments, like a wife "negotiating" the facts her husband is laying out, and sometimes the description of how a man's wife has stopped painting (after the bombings) is just as affecting as a widow's keening over the infant son she just lost in the bombing. The news may have inoculated us against one type of sorrow, but not the other. Do yourself a favor and stop all these "afters"; go now.

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Bash

Photo/Christine Han

Given the Greek names, trick endings of a blood-thirsty O. Henry, and the lack of anything overtly religious, it's hard to believe that when Neil LaBute's bash premiered in 1999, it had the subtitle "latter-day plays." But whatever; ten years later, Eastcheap Rep attempts to at least keep it present, with director Robert Knopf forgoing a stage in favor of a more intimate coffee-house set-up, an attempt to make the creepy casualness of LaBute's three one-acts even more apparent. For the first two pieces, "Medea Redux" and "Iphigenia in Orem," the acting holds up. In the first, Chelsea Lagos pins the audience to their seats with her eye-contact, ensuring that we're on the same page as her character--a 13-year-old having her teacher's baby--while at the same time reminding us that we can't possibly understand. In the second, Luke Rosen's focused nonchalance as a well-intentioned middle-manager serves him well, especially as he explains his calculated choice to let his infant daughter smother. However, the final piece, "A Gaggle of Saints," needs to abandon the naturalist staging, because while the engaged Sue and John may be telling their own sides of the same story, it's awkward to have them one standing awkwardly as the other explains the truth of what happened that night in Central Park. (Worse, Rosen's disaffected demeanor now makes his character one-dimensional and unbelievable.) This revival of bash isn't anything to rush out and celebrate, but if you drop by a 10:30 weekend performance, you do get a glass of Prosecco to help wash down the dirty feelings LaBute so expertly evokes.

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