The Long Shrift

With its even-handed, honest, and thought-provoking examination of the gray area between sex and rape, The Long Shrift has the makings of an excellent play. However, its execution is not up to its concept, and the result is a disappointment.

When the play opens, we see Henry and Sarah bickering as they move into an ugly apartment after selling their home to pay for their son Richard's legal bills. Richard is now serving ten years in prison for rape, and Henry is horrified by his growing realization that Sarah believes it is possible that Richard is guilty. In the second scene, years have passed, and Richard is home, hardened and bitter. Then Beth, his accuser, shows up, wanting to discuss what really happened on that long-ago night that exploded both of their lives into shards of pain.

The Qualification of Douglas Evans

Derek Ahonen’s The Qualification of Douglas Evans, directed by James Kautz, is the second in the Amoralists' "two play repertory exploring man’s vicious cycles." (The other is Enter at Forest Lawn, reviewed here.) Ahonen is the extraordinary author of such amazing plays as The Bad and the Better, Happy in the Poorhouse, and The Pied Pipers of the Lower East Side. His plays are distinguished by their passion, poetry, humor, and unique point of view. Usually.

Samantha Strelitz, Penny Bittone,
Derek Ahonen
Photo: Russ Rowland

The Qualification of Douglas Evans is passionate and poetic, but it is far from unique and almost totally lacks humor. The story of Douglas Evans (well-played by the author), a drunk playwright of dubious talent, The Qualification of Douglas Evans follows a familiar path to rock bottom as Evans alienates everyone in his life, including the women who inexplicably care about him. (I suspect that blondes who throw themselves at drunks exist much more frequently in the minds of men than in the reality of women, but I suppose I could be wrong. I hope not.) 

While The Qualification of Douglas Evans is largely unpleasant, unedifying, and kind of pointless, it doesn't lack redeeming features. The cast is excellent; in particular, Penny Bittone is impressively effective in his many roles, and Barbara Weetman breathes dimensionality into characters who could easily be flat and cliche in lesser hands. The writing has moments of ugly beauty, and the show is well-paced and involving until a series of ill-conceived blackouts toward the end. 

I love the Amoralists, and it gives me no pleasure to give them not one, but two, mediocre reviews. However, their "two play repertory exploring man’s vicious cycles" comes across more as a two play rep exploring edgy-male cliches and fantasies.

(press ticket; second row) 

Enter at Forest Lawn

The people in Mark Roberts' Enter at Forest Lawn, directed by Jay Stull, fall down, squat in frozen crouches, twitch like dying break dancers, sashay, and ooze disjointedly, respectively. They spew words, plot, lie, manipulate, fuck, abuse drugs, molest children, and commit acts of violence. Love is unknown here, as are friendship, loyalty, and morals.

Lemp, Roberts, Pilieci
Photo: Russ Rowland.

Welcome to a version of show biz that I suspect exists far more frequently in the minds of male playwrights striving to be edgy than in real-life Hollywood. And, while Roberts, Stull, and the excellent cast offer vivid language, smart pacing, and never-flagging energy, this show suffers from the opposite of the emperor's new clothes: the clothes are real, but there is no emperor.

Which is not to say that the show isn't worth seeing. This production, presented by the Amoralists as part of a "two-play repertory exploring man's vicious cycles," is polished, frequently entertaining, and never boring. And it is acted with the Amoralists' signature balls-to-the-wall commitment, with author Roberts effectively slimy as the producer whose multi-million-dollar deal is at risk; David Lanson, physically and emotionally tied in knots by his inability to choose morals over money; Sarah Lemp, quivering with nerves and fear; Matthew Pilieci, skin-crawlingly creepy; and Anna Stomberg channeling Annette Bening's performance in the Grifters as the up-and-coming producer who would fuck a hyena if it helped her career.

If I never saw another play about the evils of L.A., it would be fine with me, but this one ultimately made it worth my while.

(press ticket, fourth row)

NYMF - Searching for Romeo

I just got back from this evening's performance of Searching For Romeo, and I have to say...I was utterly charmed.

Searching For Romeo is a comedic backstory musical for the Bard's Romeo and Juliet...think of what Gregory Maguire/Stephen Schwartz's Wicked does for L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  It's kind of like that.  Our protagonist is high school student Roz, who has just been unceremoniously dumped by her jerky boyfriend Tony (potential West Side Story ref?).  Her girlfriends try to pep her up at the start of English class, as does the Boy-Next-Door type fellow Perry.  In the midst of a class reading of Romeo and Juliet, Roz finds herself transported to Verona.  She has assumed the role of Romeo's jilted lover Rosaline; Jerk Boyfriend Tony is Romeo, Jerk Boyfriend's new girlfriend is Juliet, and Boy-Next-Door Perry is Paris.  Roz's English teacher, her friends, and classmates fill a variety of roles including Friar Laurence, Mercutio, Tybalt, the Nurse, and Lady Avare (Paris's scheming rich mother).  Despite frantically searching for Romeo at the Capulet's party, she keeps running into and finds herself strangely attracted to Juliet's recent fiance Paris.  Needless to say, hijinks ensue all around the play's famous scenes as we follow Roz/Rosaline and Paris, hoping that they will get a happy ending as opposed to the star-crossed lovers' tale of woe.

The Pigeoning

Great news: the Pigeoning is back at HERE.

"The Pigeoning is 70 minutes of pure delight. . . . Do yourself a favor and go."

Photo: Richard Termine

Cabaret

Joan Marcus

It's one thing to enter the canon; it's another to do so while simultaneously bucking just about everything the canon dictates in the first place.

I've been thinking a lot about Cabaret since I saw the Mendes revival (of the revival) last week. I've been thinking that a big part of what makes Cabaret such a masterpiece is its central dichotomy: it is an incredibly compelling, brilliantly scored stage musical that goes against everything we have been conditioned to assume we're going to get from a stage musical. Cabaret is the most ingenious, inspired, total bummer of a musical I can think of, and certainly that I have ever seen.

Yeah, I know musicals are varied and that there's no one type and that it's hard to generalize them, and all that. But still, an awful lot of American stage musicals rely on structures and tropes and trajectories that we see over and over and over again: boy meets girl, loses girl, wins girl back. Love saves the day even in times of despair. The community prevails even when terrible things happen. In the saddest musicals I can think of--Carousel, West Side Story, Fiddler, Hedwig and the Angry Inch--people die, love is denied, families and neighborhoods are torn apart, bad things happen to beloved characters. But then, audiences are always left with hope, even if just the teeniest ray of it: Billy gives his lonely, outcast daughter a star, and the whole community sings a song of strength. Maria tells everyone off after Tony dies, and the gangs imply that things will improve, or at least that they heard what she said and will take it seriously. Tevye and his neighbors are driven from their homes, but he grudgingly wishes his intermarried daughter well, and takes his traditions with him to the new world where, we presume, he'll be safe. Hedwig releases Yitzhak from bondage and gets the audience to wave their hands in solidarity with him as he sings a big rock anthem. There's always hope. Always. Even if it's very far off in the distance.

But Cabaret? Not a goddamned glimmer. The musical is set at the dawn of Nazi Germany, for chrissakes, so all there is for the characters is certain misery, angst, and fear. And Totalitarianism. Also, for many of them, suffering, torture, and death. No hope--not even, as Sally Bowles would say, an inkling. Cabaret is a musical that dangles dread in your face from the second the lights go down and the first notes of the opening number sound. Wilkommen? Bienvenue? Welcome, my ass. The music sounds great and the Emcee is beckoning, but we all already know that he's the embodiment of a country gone insane. We're in for two-plus hours with a group of characters who are manically forcing themselves to go gleefully through the motions as the city around them teeters on the brink of hell. Sure, they all get to drink, do drugs and have increasingly unsettling sex while the decline is happening, which is some small comfort for them and for us: It's nice to self-medicate in times of crisis. Anyway, it keeps the terror and the hunger at bay.