Killing Women

Photo: Ry Pepper

What happens when a paid assassin can't make the hit because she has to drop her daughter off at pre-school? The women in Killing Women, by Marisa Wegrzyn, have unusual careers but the usual work pressures: being passed over for promotions, trying to maintain work/life balance, being treated with condescension by co-workers. Oh, and ostensibly hard-boiled Abby has an extra problem: she just doesn't like killing women. The play is a little thin, but well-acted, entertaining, and occasionally quite funny. It would be even more entertaining with quicker scene changes and no intermission; every time it gets up a head of steam it interrupts itself.

The Kid

The New Group's latest production, The Kid, begins with gigantic projected heads speaking, and then singing, about their sexual, uh, challenges. We are in the living room--and mind--of Dan Savage, sex writer extraordinaire. The Kid follows Dan and boyfriend Terry's quest to adopt a child. As played by the charming Christopher Sieber, Dan is an amiable bear of a man with a wicked sense of humor, a tendency toward paranoia, and a big heart. Terry (touchingly played by Lucas Steele) is lithe, slim-hipped, long-haired, and much younger, and at first their partnership is a little jarring. But it soon becomes clear that they adore each other and that they both want very much to share their love with a little one. The Kid takes us through an orientation with other (straight) couples (where Dan and Terry jump to the conclusion, "They Hate Us"), a home inspection (featuring the wonderful Susan Blackwell), and Dan and Terry's hopes and fears as they deal with a homeless birth mother who may--or may not--give them her baby. The music is accessible and likeable, the lyrics are funny and smart, the book is efficient and entertaining, the direction is appropriately energetic, and the impressive cast includes Ann Harada, Brooke Sunny Moriber, and Tyler Maynard. If The Kid had opened on Broadway in the season that just ended, it would be a shoo-in for a bouquet of Tonys. Still, I hope it has a nice long run Off-Broadway, as it is an intimate, small, lovely musical.

City of Angels

Photo: Bella Muccari

City of Angels, a delightful musical by Cy Coleman (the enjoyable music), David Zippel (the mixed-quality lyrics), and Larry Gelbart (the hysterical book), combines the real world (the story of a novelist struggling to write a screenplay) and the reel world (the screenplay come to life). With multiple sets, a large cast, frequent costume changes, and the need for over-the-top performances that don't go too far over the top, City of Angels is an ambitious choice for an Off-Off-Broadway theatre company. However, the folks at the Gallery Players, located in Brooklyn, are more than up to the challenge. The five-piece band is excellent, and the cast handles the humor, singing, and costume changes with aplomb. Particularly outstanding were Blair Alexis Brown, playing secretaries in both worlds; Danny Rothman as the fictional private eye; and John Weigand, who knows how to make the most out of performing in an iron lung. The weaknesses in the Gallery Players' production can mostly, I suspect, be chalked up to lack of funds. The scene changes take too long, and the differentiation between the real and reel worlds is accomplished with a lighting scheme that makes the actors look a little green around the gills (in the Broadway version, the real world was in color and the reel world--scenery, costumes--in black and white). The voiceovers could also be a little clearer. But the strengths of this production far outweigh the weaknesses, and it's not too late for you to see it (it runs through May 23rd).

White's Lies

Reviewed for Theater News Online.

The Forest

A contemporary of Tolstoy's, Alexander Ostrovsky has been described as "the king of 19th Century Russian theatre" (CSC Newsletter) and "the bridge" between Gogol and Chekhov (Pearl Playgoer's Supplement). In The Forest, Ostrovsky assembles a selfish widow, a slow-moving sardonic servant, poor relatives, star-crossed lovers, a wily merchant, and the widow's charismatic actor nephew and his comic friend. Hearts are broken and mended, a gun is brandished, parts of the forest are sold, promises go unkept, and the two itinerate performers provide high-falutin' speeches and low-falutin' humor. The characters and the story would seem to be rooted in Chekhov; however, chronologically speaking, Chekhov's work is actually rooted in Ostrovsky's. The first act drags; some of the plot devices creak; but overall The Forest is worthwhile both as a historical piece and in and of itself. John Douglas Thompson dazzles as the dramatic actor, and Tony Torn sharpens his excellent comic turn with a nice edge of anger. The usually wonderful Dianne Wiest isn't quite; her very contemporary voice works against her. Santo Loquasto's set design, while handsome and effective, includes stairs so steep that the performers seemed in danger. (Is this a theme this year? Sondheim on Sondheim also features stairs that justify hazard pay for the actors.)

Bass for Picasso

Photo: Carol Rosegg

The Theater Breaking Through Barriers production of Bass for Picasso makes surprising mistakes for a play written, directed, and performed by theatre professionals with extensive credits. Described in the press release as "an insanely funny, irreverent 90-minute look at gay and lesbian life in the new millennium," it is in reality a random and arbitrary array of extreme situations and rarely funny one-liners. Each character is assigned a grab bag of traits that don't quite cohere, and their actions reflect the author's attempts to be funny rather than human behavior. Similarly, the cast members play the jokes instead of the situations, italicizing every supposedly funny line (and killing the few that are genuinely funny). Bass for Picasso also strives for significance, touching on drug and alcohol addiction, child custody, and the perils of giving birth at 13--the last in a monologue that seems dropped in from another show. Finally, if you're going to play child abuse for laughs, it would help if the depiction were remotely funny.