Closed But Not Forgotten

Nellie McKay: Silent Spring--It's Not Nice to Fool Mother Nature: Nellie McKay fits into no category. You can't describe her by saying she's like so-and-so crossed with so-and-so. If you tried to explain her in an elevator pitch, you'd need a roundtrip or two to the top of the Empire State Building to do her justice.

Nellie McKay is Nellie McKay. She combines charm, talent, imagination, determination, theatricality, a desire to make the world a better place, and a touch of nuttiness to provide shows unlike anything else you'll see in a theatre or cabaret. Her latest, which just ended at Feinstein's, is a tribute to/bio of environmentalist Rachel Carson using slightly adjusted standards (eg, "I'm in love with a wonderful sky"), her own music, prerecorded voiceovers, and an extremely game and talented four-man band (Alexi David on bass, Kenneth Salters on percussion, Cary Park on guitar, and Tivon Pennicott on sax and flute) to tell Carson's story. It's an odd piece, often delightful, sometimes sad. The highlights are the songs, which include "What'll I Do," Would You Like to Be the Love of My Life," "Ohio," "Anything You Can Do" (sung as a solo talking to herself!), and "Ten Cents a Dance." 

Keep an eye out for McKay's next appearance; she is well worth seeing.

Nellie McKay's website is here; Feinstein's is here.

Pipe Dream. Pipe Dream's book is dumb almost beyond comprehension. Boy meets girl; boy is separated from girl by a bunch of flimsy, pointless obstacles; boy gets girl in an anticlimactic, unmusicalized moment. I understand that the Encores! production probably utilized an abbreviated book, but it's the plot points that are problematic.

Meanwhile, a dull-witted guy sings about being a dull-witted guy; a bunch of happy prostitutes sing about being happy prostitutes, and the Flophouse Gang sings about being the Flophouse Gang. The melodies sound so much like Richard Rodger's other works that you keep expecting to hear, oh, "Don't Marry Me" from Flower Drum Song or "People Will Say We're in Love" from Oklahoma. Oscar Hammerstein's lyrics only occasionally rise above moon-June-spoon.

But the Encores! production was a pleasant-enough evening in the theatre. Laura Osnes sang beautifully and did what she could with her inconsistent, underwritten character. Leslie Uggams was charming. Will Chase sang well. The chorus was good.

Parade at Nyack High
Photo: Adam Littman

Question: Why did Tom Wopat wear a baseball cap pulled down low for most of the play? Is director Marc Bruni unaware that City Center has a mezzanine and balcony, and that the people up there might want to see Wopat's face?  If I were a Wopat fan in the higher reaches of the theatre, I would feel very ripped off. As it is, as a non-Wopat fan sitting way up, I felt quite disrespected.

Parade. The people at Nyack High School once again reached for the stars and once again grabbed themselves a few. Director Joseph Egan's decision to stage Jason Robert Brown's Parade was almost insanely ambitious for a high school, but Nyack High's production was lucid, well-paced, well-acted (particularly by freshman Evan Rocco in the lead), well-sung, and quite moving. Bravo, all. (Full disclosure: my niece was production stage manager on the show.)

The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess

I think we're well past spoilers on the plot of Porgy and Bess, but at the climactic point of the play, at which Porgy (Norm Lewis) has pulled a knife from his leg-brace and stabbed his crass rival Crown (Phillip Boykin) to death, the point at which he shouts, to his beloved Bess (Audra McDonald) that now she has a man, I started cracking up. I wouldn't read too much into this, or Diane Paulus's direction, as I was the only one in the theater to do so, but it left me puzzled as to why so many people have talked up, if not this production then at least the history of, Porgy and Bess.

But I don't care about the racial elements nor the wishy-washy religion (I almost lost it during "Oh, Doctor Jesus," too): not when I'm struggling with the ambivalence of the inhabitants of Catfish Row, South Carolina, ciphers of people who happen to sing very high and very low notes. I've never felt so disconnected from the emotions of a musical's characters. I longed for supertitles, groping as I was for some of the words sung in that super-high register or lost within the keening, dissonant chants of the community. I ached, too, for some sort of synopsis that might explain what I'd clearly missed, what with the irreverent presence of the devilish Sporting Life (David Alan Grier) and abrupt deaths of lovers Clara and Jake (Nikki Renee Daniels and Joshua Henry). 

Rather than critique -- honestly, there are people who prefer this type of artificial musical to the honesty of Once? -- it's safer to say, instead, that this medium of storytelling just isn't for me. Beyond Ronald K. Brown's lovely choreography, Porgy and Bess is just a lot of noise, with no soul or real substance to glue it all together.

Blast Radius

Photo/Deborah Alexander

This engaging work from Gideon Productions taps into the themes of humanity that made Mac Rogers's previous foray into science-fiction (Universal Robots) so compelling, and is both a heartbreakingly bleak look at our rebellion and, like third-season Battlestar Galactica, a useful mirror in understanding the nature of terrorism. (Humanity's last chance is to gather fifty-one suicide bombers in an attempt to topple one of the massive hives of the alien invaders.)

Although there's no need to have seen Advance Man in order to enjoy this sequel, those who have will appreciate all of the distress set designer Sandy Yaklin has put into this once-charming home in Coral Gables, FL, as well as the murkier lighting that Jennifer Linn Wilcox has brought to the clandestine meetings occurring there. Those just tuning in, however, will thrill to see the evolution of these characters. The Honeycomb's ambassador, Conor (Jason Howard), has now fully acclimated to his human body, putting his newfound appreciation of "individuality" to the task of loving, body and soul, his fellow human ambassador, Abbie (David Rosenblatt). Meanwhile, as Conor grows more human, mourning the illness afflicting his proxy (and Abbie's actual) mother Amelia (Kristen Vaughan), Abbie comes across as a spoiled brat, abusing his powers in the hopes of squashing the futile resistance he believes (correctly) his sister Ronnie (Becky Byers) to be mounting, convinced that humanity will only be saved once it no longer exists -- i.e., once it has been assimilated into a beautiful, ever-loving, single mind. As for Ronnie, her teenage rebellion has blossomed into a fully justified war, one in which she no longer has to stand alone, well-matched as she is by the wisdom of her co-leader, Shirley (Nancy Sirianni), and the strength of her beloved Peck (Adam Swiderski).


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(Press ticket)

Court-Martial at Fort Devens

Court-Martial at Fort Devens, by Jeffrey Sweet, tells the true story of a group of African-American women who joined the women's army corps during World War II to be trained as medical assistants, only to be assigned to washing floors and toilets due to a white officer;s racism. The women went on strike; most returned to work when ordered. Two, however, decided to take their chances with a court-martial. (I don't know how much theatrical liberty Sweet took with the story; I do know that the version he tells is convincing.)

Nambi E. Kelley
Photo: Gerry Goodstein

Sweet tells the story efficiently and cleanly, ably juggling the events and characters. Mary Beth Easley keeps the machine of the play moving smoothly, provides focus where focus should be, and guides the performers into an impressive ensemble.

The play shows us many brands of heroism. Ginny (beautifully played by Nambi E. Kelley) is a no-nonsense women who cannot back down from what she believes. She's genuinely frightened but moves forward anyway. In contrast, Johnnie Mae (the charming Eboni Witcher) doesn't frighten easily--Ginny describes her as someone who would jump into a pool without checking if there's any water--but she is fully aware of the risk she is taking. The two female lieutenants, Lawson, white (Emma O'Donnell), and Stoney, black (Gillian Glasco), display the heroism of self-control, of putting up with mistreatment now to achieve important goals later. Both O'Donnell and Glasco are superb, subtly revealing the three-dimensional women beneath the discipline and repressed anger.

Watching Court-Martial at Fort Devens is frequently painful and infuriating, and it stays with you. Since seeing it, I've been thinking about the myth of post-racial America. I've been thinking of how far we've come, with a largely well-integrated military. I've been thinking of how far we still have to go, with the Trayvon Martin tragedy being only the most recent proof that America is far from post-racial. I've been thinking of my parent's neighbor, who is incensed at the very idea of a black president. I've been thinking about who the heroes are, and who the villains.

Court-Martial at Fort Devens tells an important story, and the pain of watching it is well-mitigated by the pleasure of the writing, direction, and performances. It's only running through April 1st. If you are interested in serious theatre, it's a must-see.

(press ticket; first row)

The Maids

Ana Reeder, Jeanine Serralles
Photo: Carol Rosegg

In Jean Genet's intense one-act, The Maids, Claire and Solange are in service to a frivolous woman who treats them with a false bonhomie; she believes she is a generous and kind mistress, but she is self-centered and unaware they exist outside of her needs. The sisters express their repressed intelligence, energy, imagination, and anger in sadomasochistic play in which one sister plays "Madame" and the other her servant. The Maids is loosely based on a true story, and in response to the accusation that maids "never spoke like that," Genet said, "If one put one's ear on their heart, they would hear that, more or less. One must know how to hear what is not articulated." However, just as we don't really hear the ocean when we put a shell up to our ears, Genet didn't really hear the maids. What he did hear, I suspect, were his own thoughts and desires, which The Maid expresses with a clarity both compelling and fevered.

In the Red Bull production, the three-woman cast consists of Jeanine Serralles and Ana Reeder as the sisters and J. Smith-Cameron as Madame. All three are vivid and excellent. Dane Laffrey's fine set is boxed in, with two-foot-high walls and audience on all four sides. Director Jesse Berger has the women use the space as a combination of jail cell and boxing ring, and the viewers end up as voyeurs as much as theatre-goers.

Genet also said, "I go to the theatre in order to see myself, onstage . . . such as I wouldn't know--or dare--see or dream myself, and yet such as I know I am." In The Maids, we see a version of him, and it is an intense, disturbing, and often fascinating ninety-minute view.

(press ticket, first row, quotes from program)

The Lady from Dubuque

There's much to appreciate about the message at the muscular heart of The Lady from Dubuque, particularly David Esbjornson's fluid staging, the ease of which only serves to cast the two visitors with more menace. (Ever seen the film Funny Games? It's a bit like that, in that the calm veneer simultaneously masks and reveals the horror.) And Signature Theatre's revival boasts a terrific ensemble: not just the deeply wounded Hayden, utterly relaxed Alexander, scene-stealing James, and mighty Robins (who one can easily imagine doing true justice to Wit), but also Thomas Jay Ryan and Catherine Curtin as an annoyingly meddlesome couple. (It's much harder to get a read on C. J. Wilson's brutish Edgar and his more-than-a-floozy girlfriend, played by Tricia Paoluccio.) But much of the show's second act revolves around blind hysterics and an unfocused script that makes the first act's fourth-wall-breaking winks seem out of place. Albee notes that he lets the characters speak; perhaps he should have stepped in as an editor, then.

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