Honey Fist

It's amazing what really excellent playwrights can pull off. Take the Flux Theatre Ensemble's Honey Fist, by the wonderful August Schulenburg. In a dry description, it sounds like a stew of worn-out tropes and creaky devices: a reunion of old buddies, mourning the friend who died; sparring between the one who moved away and the ones who stayed; the newcomer who doesn't fit in; significant alcohol and drug use; revealed secrets and heartbreaks; and so on. Yet in Schulenburg's deft hands, these rusty old parts become something new and shiny, funny and engaging, sad and meaningful, silly and occasionally wise. He does such a smooth and entertaining job, in fact, that by the time the storyline becomes completely unbelievable, you choose to believe it anyway.

Parquet, Rahn
Photo: Ken Glickfeld

How does Schulenburg pull this off? I believe Honey Fist succeeds because he makes this group of old friends unique, detailed, and vivid; this reunion specific and suspenseful; this sparring real, with high stakes and human failings; these secrets particular to these people and this time and place. In other words, he de-clichés

the clichés and un-tropes the tropes, with deep compassion and gentle humor.

And then there is the language:

Round this time I had this thing for this girl from summer camp, in Falmouth, for my Dad still had his mind and his job in those days; but this was a sweet-ass sleep-over camp and even though half the boys are still thinking girls got cooties, there was this one girl, Margaret Mayer, who even the hard-core cootie-phobes harbored a crush for. You know how it is, girls in the summer, in their soccer shorts, their pig-tails, they make your skin grow up before your mind knows a thing about it.

Or:

Sometimes I think, if Justin hadn’t died, I might’ve been an actual artsy-fartsy artist instead of one hell of a drunk carpenter. Crazy how something like that alters your course forever. Sometimes I feel that other life rubbing up against this one, you know? Like I could just breach that invisible wall and reach into that other life, where he’s still alive, and I’m, you know, finding the shapes in shapes for real. This is reflective pot, are you feeling reflective?

What's even better is the give-and-take of his dialogue, people chatting, bantering, wheedling, fighting, with distinctive voices, in language both lyrical and real.

Director Kelly O’Donnell smoothly leads a strong cast of Flux regulars and one newcomer. They are Matt Archambault, providing a calm center amid a fair amount of insanity; Nat Cassidy, full of nervous energy and desperation; Lori E. Parquet, beautiful, sad, and wry; Anna Rahn, somehow retaining her dignity even while behaving in a deeply undignified manner; Isaiah Tanenbaum, likeable in the least interesting role; and Chinaza Uche, doing his best work yet as man deeply in love and not sure what to do about it.

As I reread this rave review, part of me feels like I'm overselling the show. I don't think Honey Fist will live forever as a classic. I don't think it is Schulenburg's best work. But his brilliance is all over it, and as I see more and more mediocre plays (and I unfortunately see a lot of mediocre plays), I more deeply respect the skill it takes to write a good one.

(press ticket; 4th row)

The Call

When reading reviews, you sometimes just have to wonder, "Did we see the same play?" The Call, written by Tanya Barfield, directed by Leigh Silverman, and currently playing at Playwrights Horizon, was largely well received, garnering an overall B from StageGrade. The reviews called it thoughtful, though-provoking, and sensitive in its depiction of a white couple who decide to adopt a child from Africa and the way it affects their best friends, an African-American lesbian couple. To me, however, The Call is a potentially fascinating essay awkwardly jammed into the lives of cardboard characters who exist only to represent political points of view. And the final crisis, [spoiler] whether the couple should adopt a 4-year-old from Africa, is used to indict the wife as selfish and perhaps mildly racist, when in reality the problems associated with adopting a child of that age are well-documented and serious, whether the child is from West Africa or Westchester. But that's not the only artificial situation in The Call: the lesbian couple have no chemistry, nor do the married couple; the friendship between the white wife and one of the African-American lesbians rings false; and the African next-door-neighbor is an embarrassing and preachy plot device. The scenery was nice.

Song of Norway

Okay, Collegiate Chorale, you spoiled us with The Mikado, and raised the bar far too high. Then along comes Song of Norway, an okay presentation of an unimpressive show. It doesn't help that the sound was spotty, and that Jim Dale, as the narrator, and David Garrison, as a French impressario, were about 97% unintelligible.

Danieley, Silber, Fontana
Photo: Erin Baiano

The story of Song of Norway is silly and predictable. Composer Edvard Grieg is part of a trio of friends, one of whom he partners with to write, the other of whom he marries. But fame goes to his head, blah, blah, blah.

But there were highlights: Judy Kaye, wonderful as always and clear as a bell (though often blocked from view by her own music stand); Jason Danieley, adorable as always and giving it his all; Santino Fontana, singing beautifully (but not quite bothering to give a peformance); Alexandra Silber, singing and acting the heck out of her role; and Anita Gillette, extraordinarily likeable. And while the Collegiate Chorale itself was splendid, I wish it had had more to do.


(press ticket, orchestra, side, ~14 rows back)

Sans Merci

In Sans Merci, written by Johnna Adams and directed by Heather Cohn, two young women, Kelly (the awkwardly, impressively real Rachael Hip-Flores) and Tracy (the lovely and intense Alisha Spielmann), fall in love and decide to try to save the world, starting with a small mountain in Colombia. Their plans go terribly, fatally, wrong. Some years later, Tracy's mother Elizabeth (the wry, subtle, and heartbreaking Susan Ferrara) shows up at Kelly's home, seeking information, Tracy's belongings, and ownership of Tracy's memory. She does not seek closure; in fact, she and Kelly both cherish their grief. 

Susan Ferrara, Rachael Hip-Flores
Photo: Titus Winters

Elizabeth and Kelly go on to spar a bit, but with a strong underlying connection. Elizabeth may be a Republican who wishes that her daughter had never met Kelly, and she may be there to take some of Kelly's treasured keepsakes of Tracy, but both recognize their unshakeable connection: they, and only they, understand the true, deep horror of losing Tracy.

Sans Merci is mesmerizing, heartbreaking, grueling, and, yes, merciless. It is also damn good. Johnna Adams gives us three-dimensional characters in all their messy glory, and Heather Cohn provides her usual clean and smartly paced direction. The scenery by Charles Murdock Lucas supplies a strong sense of who lives there, and the lighting by Kia Rogers and the sound by Janie Bullard contribute a vivid emotional landscape. It's another excellent production from the Flux Theatre Ensemble.

(The title, by the way, references Keats' poem, "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," which was/is loved by both Tracy and Elizabeth and which was instrumental in Tracy and Kelly's becoming friends. The poem is about being left behind after a deep love, and it is echoed in the play in ways both metaphorical and concrete.)

[spoilers]
There are points where the edginess of Sans Merci tips over into creepiness. While it is difficult to experience some of these moments, they are also some of the play's strengths.

For example: Kelly lays out the clothing that was torn from Tracy before she was murdered, and Elizabeth finds this a comforting sight, feeling that it partially makes up for having been unable to see her daughter's body. She explores the remnants of Tracy's suffering with something like a sense of wonder.

For example: When the show starts, Kelly is lying on the couch, listening to her iPod, her hand in her pants. She seems more to be comforting herself, holding on to herself, than touching herself. We later find out that she is listening to Tracy's accidentally-taped tirade against her murderers. This tirade is Tracy's declaration of independence: with her clothing, dignity, future, and (she thinks) her lover stripped away, she banishes her fears and panic attacks and spews out her emotions. Her outburst (which, injured and nude, she screams at the audience) ends with the bullet that ends her life. It is an excruciating moment and a very successful piece of theater, even though the tirade itself goes on too long (it becomes repetitive, and the murderers would have shot her much sooner; with her nudity, it almost tips over into suffering porn).

Elizabeth also listens to the tape, once. After Kelly tells her it exists, she can't resist hearing it. In a way it is a gift, providing her with a hysterical catharsis that she desperately needs. However, when Kelly then offers her a copy (a moment that was greeted with understandable nervous laughter the night I saw the show), Elizabeth says no (which seems a sane answer).

But we're left with the question: why does Kelly listen to Tracy's dying words over and over? I think listening to the tape is Kelly's penance and comfort both. She feels responsible for Tracy's death (with some justification), and listening to her murder over and over again is brutal. On the other hand, Tracy goes in a blaze of glory, during which she declares her love and respect for Kelly at the top of her lungs. It is a testimonial to their relationship; it is proof that Tracy did not blame her; it is a pure, uncensored version of the woman Kelly loved.

And why is Kelly's hand in her pants? I think she is holding herself together. Because she and Tracy were being physical when they were attacked--because Kelly had practically badgered Tracy into having sex at that moment--Kelly's sexual life may well be over, destroyed by guilt and memories. But listening to the tape is unquestionably, if weirdly, intimate. Does she feel any arousal? Maybe, maybe not. I'm not sure I'd want to know.

Grief is not pretty, or sane, and Adams is willing to wrestle with that.

[end of spoilers]
I'm find I'm still thinking about Sans Merci. I try to figure out the characters' motivations--and the playwright's. I become more aware of its flaws and more aware of its strengths. It is a brave play--braver sometimes in its quiet moments than in its showy ones--and, in its own way, beautiful.

(third row on the aisle, press ticket) 

The Drawer Boy

At the beginning of Michael Healey’s play, The Drawer Boy, a young actor/director named Miles (Alex Fast) shows up uninvited at the door of a farmhouse, hoping to carry out research on farming for a play he wants to write. The farmhouse is inhabited by two middle-aged men, the slow and halting Angus (the superb William Laney) and the bright and articulate Morgan (Brad Fryman).

Alex Fast, William Laney, Brad Fryman
Photo: Alexander Dinelaris

Little by little we learn that Morgan has been caring for Angus since the latter suffered a brain injury in World War II. Angus is not able to create new memories, so he lives in an eternal present. When the play begins, in 1972, the two men have lived on this farm in the middle of nowhere for three decades. It seems likely that each of the thousands of days they have spent together was much like the others.

Miles is fascinated by Angus, and starts questioning and even challenging him, soon throwing off the largely serene and changeless cycle of days that has constituted Angus and Miles' lives and causing the layers of their assumptions and stories to rupture and peel away.

This three-hander is well-written and entertaining. It doesn't reach brilliance, but solid, involving, insightful excellence is nothing to sneeze at; I certainly found it superior to Orphans (also a three-hander), which is currently running on Broadway. What keeps The Drawer Boy from reaching its potential is the unevenness of the acting. Brad Fryman is quite good, and Alex Fast is not bad, but neither equals William Laney in subtlety, complexity, and that extra undefinable something that raises a performance to the highest levels. Director Alexander Dinelaris keeps the evening moving along nicely, but it's hard not to wonder what might have been.

Ultimately, however, it seems churlish to complain about an evening in the theatre this satisfying.  The Drawer Boy has much to offer, and its B-plus level puts it well above many other dramas of this past season.

(third row center; press ticket)

Pippin

Photo: Michael J. Lutch

 

Allow me to cut right to the chase: Diane Paulus's revival of Pippin, which opens Thursday, is sublime. At the risk of sounding cliched, there are just not enough superlatives to describe how excellent, brilliant, wonderful, warm, engaging, astonishing, entertaining and just plain delicious it is. I might need to start making adjectives up for this one. It's been a long time since I saw a show that was so tightly directed, so gleefully and brilliantly performed, so genuinely and ecstatically received by its audience--so very, very good.

Some of this is, of course, the source material. Pippin is a great show, if also a quirky one. It has a consistently strong, memorable score that was released on Motown Records, and that most people of my generation thus grew up listening to and loving, even if most of us never saw the show or knew what it was about. It had an innovative, fringe-influenced book that reflects the darkening moods and growing inwardness of the 1970s and yet refuses to relinquish the dogged optimism and communal spirit of the 1960s. It has been indelibly marked by the brilliant and complicated Bob Fosse, whose trademark jazz hands, bowler hats, swiveling pelvises, and skin-tight costumes helped make the original Broadway production a huge hit that practically bellowed his name at every turn. Fosse's shadow looms so large, in fact, that it's no wonder the show hasn't been revived on Broadway before. I can imagine that the task was daunting, but Diane Paulus's production manages to keep the show squarely in Fosse territory, and yet to radically reinvent it at the same time.

I've long admired Diane Paulus's productions. She strikes me as the best kind of postmodernist: she regularly tries to to simultaneously reinvent and pay homage, to wildly different ends. The Donkey Show was not only hilarious and weird and unlike anything I'd ever seen, but it also tapped directly into the Off Off Broadway experimentalism that was hot during the 1960s, and that she has long been influenced by: theater as communal celebration and ritual, theater as sociopolitical commentary, theater as a bonding force between performer and spectator. I loved it, and remember it fondly as another high point in my life as a theatergoer. Yet some of her more recent productions haven't quite managed the same kind of delicate balance. Don't get me wrong: I saw her revival of Hair twice. But I've studied the original production a great deal, and aside from a slight shift away from its more aggressively masculine tone, I was never convinced that her revival was so terribly radical a departure. Similarly, for all the hype around her Porgy and Bess, I wasn't convinced that the changes Stephen Sondheim got all pissy about were all that big a deal in performance, either.

But her Pippin nails the landing, and then some. As noted, purists need not fret: The show remains strongly committed to Fosse, to whom it pays homage in multiple ways: the costumes, the postures, the dances, the splayed fingers, the leering faces, the bobbling pelvises, even much of the casting.

Yet at the same time, Paulus modernizes the production with a number of choices that threaten to come off as gimmicky or superficial, but never, ever do. Set in a circus bigtop, and featuring players drawn from the Montreal-based troupe, Les 7 Doigts de la Main, this Pippin has a strongman, trapeze artists, contortionists, jugglers, acrobats, and guys who balance on impossibly precarious contraptions for our viewing pleasure. On the surface, this all sounds perfectly nice, but what it does in performance is drive home Fosse's fascination with powerful, twisting, sensual bodies, while dazzling audiences in brand new ways.

Casting Patina Miller in the role of the Leading Player--a character that Ben Vereen has pretty much trademarked--also sounds a little gimmicky: "Oh, a female Leading Player? Cool, whatever." But again, in performance, the choice shifts the dynamic dramatically: the supportive, headstrong, ultimately petulant Leading Player is as sharp and sexy and sneering as Vereen was, but now also touches, in the most subtle and fleeting of ways, on just about every aspect of contemporary feminist philosophy. And she totally rocks her jaunty, frighteningly angular bowler hat.

Then there's the rest of the company. Terrence Mann is perfectly cast, and perfectly pitched, as Charles, Pippin's goofily distracted, blithely bloodthirsty father. Mann's rendition of "War Is a Science," with its slipping, speeding tempos, made sense to me for the first time, ever; it and "Glory" do well, also, to carefully reflect what is eerily seductive--beautiful, even--about blood and gore and violent death. Mann can ride a unicycle, to boot--who knew? Charlotte D'Amboise plays up the ridiculous stereotype that is Fastrada, while dancing up a storm. Rachel Bay Jones adds nuance, dimension, and a touch of pain to the bubbly Catherine in the show's quieter and yet endlessly compelling second act. And Matthew James Thomas is a winning, scruffy Pippin, whose desperate search for meaning sets him off from the rest of the ensemble. Thomas is not as intensely physical as the rest of the cast, which works, surprisingly, to the show's advantage: as a lost everyman, his Pippin is just as blown away as we are by the taut, beautiful, powerful bodies surrounding him.

And then there's Andrea Martin, whose Berthe brings the house down with an absolutely brilliant blend of grandmotherly warmth and matronly bite. It's a rare, beautiful thing to see a single performer so thoroughly charm an enormous audience as quickly as she does here. I remember once seeing Neil Young address a screaming arena of thousands by grunting "hey," at them, as if they were all hanging out in his living room with him, languidly sipping cheap, lukewarm beer. Martin can do this too, and it's awesome. Within moments of "No Time at All," she had the entire house singing along with her--loudly and happily--as the lyrics were projected onto the backdrop. The communal spirit she musters in this scene is, again, a nod to Paulus' admiration of the 1960s Off Off Broadway scene: I suspect that if Martin had asked us to run out into the street and take our clothes off, we totally might've. But then, the stunts Martin accomplishes on the trapeze later in the scene--and no, I'm not joking--are something fresh, new, and unbelievably wonderful.

Which makes sense, really, since all the superlatives I've ended up using in this writeup apply to every single minute of this fresh, new, unbelievably wonderful revival.