Disaster!

Seth Rudetsky is arguably one of the most talented people in New York and definitely one of the funniest. His latest production is Disaster!, co-written with Jack Plotnick, and it is over two hours of comic joy.

Seth Rudetsky

The premise is simple: Disaster! is a musical spoof of disaster films, using songs from the 1970s. It features a lot of the jokes you might predict, but with twists that make them funnier, plus jokes and situations and visuals that are surprising and wonderful. Under Denis Jones's insanely creative direction, the small space bursts with action and fun and inspired silliness. And the helicopter rescue is a delight.

Impressively, the songs aren't shoehorned in. As a matter of fact, one or two are weaved in so well that they seem written for the show. As just one example, Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff" becomes an effective opening number with a surprising range of interpretations.

And the songs are beautifully sung by the amazing cast. An extra bonus is that the performers enunciate like the musical theatre pros they are. Last night was the first time I ever understood all the words to "Alone Again, Naturally" and "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight."

The charming Zak Resnick plays the lead, a sexually successful waiter who is secretly nursing a broken heart. Carrie Manolakos is his staunchly feminst ex-fiancee; she is woman, hear her roar. Rudetsky plays the dour scientist, and he's perfect in the role, mining the humor and springing out a long and surprising high note when needed. Lacretta Nicole is hysterical as the down-on-her-luck diva; Felicia Finley is amazing as the almost-as-dumb-as-she-seems pop singer; Anika Larsen shines as the nun-slash-compulsive-gambler; and Annie Golden is delightful and impressive, as Annie Golden always is. Others in the wonderful cast include Paul Castree, Kevin Loreque, Clif Thorn, Saum Eskandani, Clark Oliver (great fun as twins), Tom Riis Farrell, Jennifer Know, Linsay Nicole Chambers (those of you who know her from Submissions Only will get an extra kick out of seeing her actually smile), and Sherz Aletaha.

Unfortunately, as of this writing, Disaster! has only one more performance: March 25th at 9:00 at the Triad. Catch it if you possibly can!

And, to the producer I was chatting with yesterday, yes, Disaster! could have a larger audience. And it should!

(reviewer ticket; audience left, five-ish rows-ish from stage)

Must You Go? My Life With Harold Pinter (book review)

In 1975, Antonia Fraser, biographer of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Henry VIII's six wives, and Harold Pinter, renowned playwright, fell madly in love, pretty much at first sight. Over the next decade or so, they disentangled themselves from their respective spouses and eventually married. They remained besotted with each other until the day Pinter died, some 33 years later.

Fraser's memoir of her time with Pinter is based on her diaries, and it includes some surprising glimpses into his complicated psyche, along with some intriguing anecdotes about life in the theatre. However, it is haphazardly put together, with no footnotes, index, bios, or cast of characters. People show up with little intro, and disappear with little notice. The new writing she has added to tie the diary entries together is interesting but insufficient.

I am a major fan of Fraser's. I think her bios are superb. But this collection of memories is the sort of book one should self-publish and share with loved ones. Selling it at $28.95 a pop is ridiculous.

(library book)

Venus in Fur

Hot damn; I still love Nina Arianda's performance as much as when I first encountered Venus in Fur two years ago at CSC, but unfortunately, I've yet to see anyone who could match up to her -- even as a submissive! At the performance I caught, Arianda's Vanda was up against Hugh Dancy's understudy, Mark Alhadeff, who can't handle a live wire like Arianda. While her wattage fluctuates throughout the night, his remains static; only occasionally is there enough friction to actually spark some tension between the two. When he says that "There can be nothing more sensuous than pain, nothing more pleasurable than degradation," they're just words, but when she quips that "You don't have to tell me about sadomasochism, I'm in the theater," every word lands a punch. And while it's true that she's meant to be the more extroverted, energetic of the two, from the moment she runs into the theater with an umbrella, squealing her apologies and stripping to her lingerie, Alhadeff must do more than play a lethargic opposite; at some point, mustn't he feel the thrill that the audience receives from Arianda's deft command? As she often instructs, he must be appear ambiguous, not ambivalent. 

[Read on]

(Press; twelfth row, left side)

The Maids

Forget Venus in Fur; the real power play walking the boards this year is Red Bull's revival of Jean Genet's savage 1947 drama, The Maids. Claire (Jeanine Serralles) and Solange (Ana Reeder) are sisters in the employ of Madame (J. Smith-Cameron), social prisoners who give their lives meaning by acting out, each night, a spiteful exaggeration of their oblivious mistress, all so that the other sister may pretend to kill her. Penned in by propriety, however, they are unable to exact their true revenge, and each time it seems that they may at last free themselves -- if only in a dream -- the alarm rings, snapping them back to their grim reality.

[Read on]

(press ticket, East Entry)

Painting Churches

Kathleen Chalfant, John Cunningham
(photo: Carol Rosegg)

It's hard to know how to respond to Tina Howe's 1984 Pulitzer-Prize-nominated play Painting Churches in 2012. It's not the play's fault that the past three decades of theatre have been stuffed full of adult children coming home and fighting with their parents. (Recent example: Other Desert Cities, which resembles Painting Churches in some significant ways, right down to the petulant daughter who learns, gasp, that her parents aren't quite what she thinks.)

Painting Churches's plot is simple and familiar: artistic, unappreciated adult child visits. Fights are fought; old wounds are reopened; a form of reconciliation occurs.

To work to full advantage, Painting Churches requires a balanced triangle, with mother, father, and child having strengths and flaws, legitimate grudges and sympathetic blind spots. In this production, however, due to the casting and awkward direction by Carl Forsman, the parents come across as difficult but likeable while the daughter comes across as a loud, overgrown, whining baby.

John Cunningham does nicely as the father sinking into dementia, but he also has the most consistent--and most consistently sympathetic--character. Kathleen Chalfant does well with the quiet moments but seems less comfortable being "quirky." Both Cunningham and Chalfant mostly come across as real people, but Kate Turnball, in the least sympathetic role, declaims and emotes and suffers and acts. Forsman has done her no favors in allowing her to (or asking her to?) completely unbalance the triangle. In addition, the threesome is not physically convincing as a family.

The set is handsome. The costumes are effective. The lighting is odd (but I think they were having tech troubles the night I went). The musical choices are a bit heavy-handed.

And the title is flatout odd. The family's last name is Church, and the daughter, an artist, wants to paint her parents. Painting Churches. Get it? But why?

(press ticket; fourth row on the aisle)

An Iliad

The Poet is exhausted, and why shouldn't he be? He has been telling tales of man's inhumanity to man for years, maybe centuries. If a poet can have post-traumatic stress disorder, he does. Or perhaps it would be better termed intra-traumatic stress disorder, since the trauma never ends. He's a bard of war, and there has always been a war and it seems there will always be a war. And each time he tells his stories, he relives them, poetic flashbacks that break his heart and stir his blood, even though he knows that rage is a disease.

He also knows that we have heard many tales of war--so many, in fact, that we have probably distanced ourselves from the horror. He cuts through the distance. He tells us that the men at Troy are not from Coronea, Haleartus, Plataea, and Lower Thebes, but rather

. . . from every small town in Ohio, from farmlands, from fishing villages…the boys of Nebraska and South Dakota …the twangy boys of Memphis…the boys of San Diego, Palo Alto, Berkeley, Antelope Valley…You can imagine, you can imagine, you know, um…there are soldiers from Kansas. There are soldiers from Lawrence, Kansas. There are soldiers from Springfield, Illinois. Evanston, Illinois; Chicago, Illinois; Buffalo, New York; Cooperstown, New York; Brooklyn; Queens; Staten Island; uh, the Bronx; South Bronx.

And he asks us, "Do you see?" Because he wants very much for us to see, to understand, so he won't have to keep singing of dead boys and mutilated bodies and rape and infants with bashed skulls. Again, he reminds us:

. . . and uhhh the battlefield was just littered with bodies and when you look at it you think, “Oh, well these are a bunch of bodies” but they’re not just bodies cuz this is this is Jamie and this is Matthew and this is Brennan and this is Paul, this is Scottie he was 19, he was 21, he was 18, Brennan was meant to go to Oxford – he had gotten a scholarship because of his writing – his father was a postman he would have been the first child in his whole family ever to go to University -- but he didn’t..

And again he asks, "Do you see?"

"Every time I sing this song," he says, "I hope it’s the last time." But he's not really hopeful. There have been too many wars, too much destruction, too many cases of rage poisoning. Too many people poisoned by pride as well. Too many people in too deep to pull back.

Yes, The Poet doesn't want to be here. He doesn't want to tell the story again. His memory is going. He's profoundly burnt out. But he's a poet and an old pro, and even while he wants to teach us, shock us, he also wants to enthrall us. And he does.

Director Lisa Peterson and actor Denis O’Hare have done a magnificent job streamlining The Iliad (based on Robert Fagles's translation) and making it speak to the 21st century. It's a bit too long, and it can be hard to keep track of who's on whose side and why, but these are small complaints in light of the brilliance of what they've accomplished.

And, of course, it takes a village to raise a one-man show. Director Lisa Peterson, bassist Brian Ellingsen, scenic designer Rachel Hauck, costume designer Marina Draghici, lighting designer Scott Zielinski, and composer-sound designer Mark Bennett all contribute enormously.

So now we get down to the performers alternating as The Poet: Denis O'Hare and Stephen Spinella. Both are excellent; both give performances of olympian stamina and memory. But Denis O'Hare brings more depth to the story. Spinella comes across as an actor who wants to be loved and wants to impress us. O'Hare comes across as The Poet, burned out, heartbroken, wanting only to make us see.

(press ticket, third row center)