The Book of Grace

photo: Joan Marcus

Elizabeth Marvel is one of the few actors who I'll see in absolutely anything, and you always seems to rise above and deliver when saddled with poor material. Case in point: The Book of Grace, the new play by Pulitzer-winner Suzan-Lori Parks, which is currently receiving a premature world premiere at the Public Theater. Marvel is the titular heroine, a woman whose pursuit of knowledge stands in direct contrast with the wishes of her hard-driving husband (John Doman, appropriately terrifying), an officer in the Texas Border Patrol. When his long-estranged, bi-racial son from a previous marriage (Amari Cheatom) arrives to "forgive but not forget", the fraught atmosphere proves detrimental for Grace, her desire to better herself, and her burgeoning sexuality. Marvel is brilliant at capturing every facet of this complicated character, but Parks has done her a disservice by leaving entire chunks of exposition simply unexplored. It also doesn't help that Cheatom is grimly miscast as the family interloper; he's nowhere near as seething as he should be, and his attempts at anger feel more petulant than anything else. In the end, it's Marvel's show (as usual). Surrounded by text and fellow actors, she still manages to stand alone.

When The Rain Stops Falling

photo: T. Charles Erickson

Andrew Bovell's dour, downbeat play, which flashes back and forward on several Anglo-Aussie family connections over four generations and eighty years, isn't for passive theatregoers; its ambitious structure demands patience and concentration just to connect who is who (despite the characters' family tree in the Playbill). While anything but formulaic, the structure is too clever by half: we're too often engaged with figuring out why the scenes are laid out as they are than with the emotional content. The reason for the challenging structure seems to be that it allows the playwright to delay the defining, key event that clarifies most of the play's characters, but to what end? Despite a sterling production (under David Cromer's direction) and many superb, detailed "kitchen sink" performances - particularly Mary Beth Hurt as an emotionally isolated alcoholic, and Victoria Clark as a wife slowly losing her sanity - the play is only involving as an intellectual puzzle.

+30NYC

The Red Fern Theatre Company describes +30NYC, its intriguing evening of one-acts, as "new plays imaging the next New York." Actually, New York is only important in a few of the plays; a more consistent theme is that the future is nothing to look forward to. In Tommy Smith's subtle tale, Thirty Story Masterpieces (directed by Jessi D. Hill), a young man (the excellent Brian Robert Burns) visits a middle-aged woman (Corinna May). Their conversation seems relatively innocuous (along the lines of, "Would you like a cigarette?" "Sure, why not?"), but a creepy, heartbreaking subtext gradually becomes apparent. In the confusing play in the Zone, a book becomes the center of a dangerous negotiation as well as a symbol of all that has been lost in playwright Michael John Garcés' dystopia. I suspect this might be a good play, but some of the performers were unintelligible; however, Maria-Christina Oliveras was excellent as the outlaw with nothing to lose. The affectingly creepy Fish Bowl, written by Christine Evans and directed by Melanie Moyer Williams, repeats a set of virtually identical lines, over and over, to limn a world where your body is not your own and no one is to be trusted. My favorite of the one-acts, Remembrance Vessel, smartly written by Ashlin Halfnight and well-directed by Melanie Moyer Williams, provides (welcome!) comic relief as the excellent Jessica Cummings, Kathryn Kates, and, in particular, Jordan Kaplan play people discovering that scientific advances can have surprising consequences. The other three plays, Footprint, Dodo Solastalgia, and Rosa's Little Jar of Fear, are all good; they explore, among other things, modular living, the return of the dodo, and airport security, respectively. In all, +30NYC is a strong evening of theatre and far better written, directed, and acted than many other collections of one-acts I have seen.

Adding Machine: A Musical

Photo: Mark L. Saperstein

My sojourn in Boston has given me, not for the first time, the opportunity to see a show that was well-received in a major New York production that I missed. So, while I can't compare Speakeasy's production of Adding Machine: A Musical to the multi-award-winning New York version, I can say that it's a demanding, rewarding, complex, beautiful piece of work. This staging is graced with a marvelous cast and a rich depth of talent, from the musicians and costumes to the lighting and sound and everything in between. Somehow, through the magic of theater, the bleak and barren story of soul-numbing social repression becomes an astonishingly refreshing and rewarding experience. Beautifully acted and sung, and sensitively directed by Paul Melone, with music brilliantly performed by a band of three, it's a triumph. Don't miss it if you're in the Boston area. It runs through April 10 at the Boston Center for the Arts. Read the full review.

All About Me

photo: Joan Marcus

Even if you are a fan of both Michael Feinstein and Dame Edna, as I am, you may feel that watching them take turns on, fight over, and share a stage in their duo show All About Me is a case where two equals less than one. The reason these unique, considerable talents have been put together probably has to do with the economic realities of today's Broadway, because nothing else about pairing Feinstein's elegantly phrased romantic crooning with Dame Edna's acerbic shtick seems to make potential sense. It's like chasing champagne with Scotch all night - one kills your taste for the other. Faced with the task of writing material that makes an evening out of two people who don't belong on stage together, Christopher Durang has basically tried to capitalize on the mismatch by underlining it - the show's conceit is that both stars think they are in a solo show but, accidentally double-booked into the same theatre, are forced to share the spotlight. It's the kind of blatantly artificial set-up that went out with yesteryear's TV specials - Judy answering the doorbell for daughter Liza, who's dropped by "unexpectedly" to delighted applause from the studio audience. It takes a certain know-how to sell that kind of pretend, and neither Dame Edna - whose humor is caustic with a smile - nor Feinstein - so earnest when he tells us between his first songs that his childhood was lonely - are that brand of player. The thin plot business is interminable (save for a stage manager, played by Jodi Capeless, who sends the bickering stars off stage to entertainingly steal the spotlight for herself) - you tolerate it waiting for each star to do what he does best. Despite Dame Edna's more outsize stage personality, and her hoot and a half rendition of Beyonce's "All The Single Ladies" that is the show's comic highlight, it's Feinstein who more regularly satisfies his fans. His polished, often sublime American songbook vocal stylings, whether accompanying himself on piano or working the stage backed by the 14 piece orchestra, are swank and swell. (My one complaint: it's 2010, but even this out gay performer changes the "he" in Oliver!'s "As Long As He Needs Me" to "she".)

Happy in the Poorhouse

Photo: Larry Cobra

Playwright/director Derek Ahonen and the Amoralists specialize in "going there" – that is, where other troupes usually dare not tread. The long opening scene is Ahonen at his best, and he has two fiery actors making it all shine. Now, "going there" is all very well. The Pied Pipers of the Lower East Side went where it went with enough focus to sustain itself. Happy in the Poorhouse, though, goes too many places. It has a lot of fun getting there, with memorable characters, much humor, and the kind of elevated working-class writing, self-conscious yet honestly poetic, that marks this playwright as a writer of great talent, and an evident nostalgia for the unsubtle big style of writers of the 1930's. And the troupe is up to the challenge of living his words. What's missing – not throughout, but for significant stretches of both acts – is focus. More characters pile on, announcing themselves with overdone aria-like bombast, and some seem to be there just for local color. Rochelle Mikulich is delightful as Paulie's country-singer little sis, and Matthew Pilieci deserves notice as Mary's preening mailman brother. But the structure feels imposed, the flow uneven. Read the full review.