Parade (New Hazlett Theater, Pittsburgh, PA)

Parade (book by Alfred Uhry, music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown) is a musical about the 1913 Leo Frank case, which culminates in his lynching in 1915. A lot of people find entertainments about abominations of justice that culminate in brutal murders by angry mobs of morons to be sort of oxymoronic, which explains, at least in part, the chilly reception Parade got when it opened on Broadway in 2000, and closed after 39 previews and only 84 regular performances (the collapse of its chief producer, Livent, during its run, probably didn't help boost sales, either). Sure, it's possible to have a musical that is a smash hit and also a total downer--Cabaret and West Side Story are proof--but Parade came off as just a little too clinical, a little too two-dimensional, to stir the emotions of its audiences.

While this may be a central flaw in the musical, it's also one that I find particularly understandable. Leo Frank, after all, was unfairly accused of a murder, given an outrageously sham trial, and wrongly sentenced to death, basically because he was Jewish and unpopular. When the sentence was finally commuted to life in prison instead of death by hanging, he was promptly lynched by several upstanding members of the Marietta, Georgia, community (including a former governor of Georgia, several sheriffs, a judge, the mayor, and a general assemblyman who later formed the town's first Boy Scout troop). At their most basic, the events are so dreadful, so grotesque, so completely Kafkaesque, that I can understand the hesitancy among the creative team to flesh out the characters too deeply. Encouraging your audience to bond with a character who was, in reality, so terrifyingly doomed is its own fucked-up kind of torture. I would be willing to bet that the creative team struggled mightily on this front.

A Sunday at the Circus with the Bread and Puppet Theater

Photo: Me.

Bread and Puppet Theater, a politically radical puppet theater troupe, has been around since the early 1960s. In its first years, it was based in New York City, where, presumably, it fit in nicely with the many other socially conscious, and politically active fringe theater companies that had begun to crop up in the East and West Village as part of the mighty and influential Off Off Broadway movement. While most of the Off Off companies to emerge at the time were dedicated to using theater for social, cultural, and political change, Bread and Puppet set itself apart in ways that its name implies. First, it used puppets--graceful, beautiful, hand-made ones ranging from teeny-tiny ones to ones so enormous that they relied on several troupe members to lift, let alone operate. Second, it made a practice of serving its homemade sourdough rye bread to audiences after performances.

Robert Joyce papers, 1952-1973, Historical Collections and Labor Archives, Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University.

The emphasis on puppets emerged from founder Peter Schumann's interests in dance, music, and sculpture; the practice of serving bread to the audience emerged from the company's interest in creating a sense of community among its audience members, and in encouraging spectators to think of the arts as just as central to life as food is.

Bread and Puppet left New York City in the early 1970s to become theater-in-residence at Goddard College, an innovative, low-residency liberal arts college in rural Plainfield, Vermont that was, at the time, a hotbed of radical thinking and artistic innovation. Once their residency ended there, the troupe decided to stay in Vermont. In 1974, they set up shop at a farm in Glover, Vermont, where they remain.

Thank you, Robin Williams.

Dragon's Breath

It's a great concept: "the story of a Young Adult paranormal romance writer who accidentally creates a dangerous cult." The cast includes the fabulous Lorinda Lisitza and Hannah Sloat. What could go wrong?

Lorinda Lisitza

Unfortunately, a lot. Michael C. O'Day's Dragon's Breath, awkwardly directed by Mikaela Kafka, offers unconvincing characters, a meandering plot, lame satire, and endless, pointless, dull exposition. There are moments that hint at an interesting, even thought-provoking play, but they are wasted in the empty noise.

The show begins with author Justine Drake doing a reading from her new novel, Dragon's Breath. We learn quickly that she is uncomfortable giving readings and that she longs for physical copies of her book, not just e-books. We learn these facts many times. As written, Justine is a major whiner who weirdly pays no attention to her online presence, even after being told that it will determine whether her book ever sees print.

The people who attend Justine's readings represent one satirical type each and are directed to be as cartoony as humanly (cartoonly?) possible. Only two exist in two dimensions rather than one (no one makes it to three): Rocco, a self-proclaimed dragon expert who picks at every sentence in Justine's books, and Laura, who perceives Dragon's Breath and its sequels to be the genuine word of the dragon gods. It is Laura who starts the cult.

Puppet Titus Andronicus

If ever a play merited skewering, it's Shakespeare's messy, pointless bloodbath, Titus Andronicus. The delightful Puppet Shakespeare Players skewer it with great glee, fabulous puppets, silly humor, clever satire, some genuinely moving acting, and lots and lots of Silly String.

The story of Titus Andronicus, a Roman general who has captured Tamara, Queen of the Goths, and blah, blah, blah, it doesn't really matter. Here's what does: Titus's family and Tamara's family are mortal enemies, and they express their animus with the ornate nastiness of a Roman tragedy crossed with a Quentin Tarantino movie, to which Puppet Titus Andronicus adds a large and welcome helping of Looney Tunes.

Puppet Titus plays fast and loose with plot, with is okay with me. It turns the first act into a song, theoretically a great idea, except that it is unintelligible and therefore a wasted opportunity. In most other ways, however, Puppet Titus makes the most of Shakespeare's worst.

The company is excellent, with Mindy Leanse the standout as poor, beleaguered Lavina. She can make you laugh and break your heart pretty much simultaneously. The three non-puppet performers--Adam Weppler as Titus, Sarah Villegas as Tamora, and Christopher Gebauer as Titus' brother--are quite effective. The puppeteers are wonderful: A.J. Coté, Tom Foran, Ross Hamman, Alex Offenkrantz, Shane Snider, and Drew Torkelson. Ryan Rinkel's direction keeps everything bopping along. And the puppets, designed by A.J. Coté, are fantastic.

Your life would be complete if you never saw Titus Andronicus. However, it would be missing something if you never saw Puppet Titus Andronicus.

(first row, press ticket)

Varekai: Cirque du Soleil

I am a big fan of Cirque du Soleil, so it pains me to write the following: Varekai is mediocre and even kind of boring.

Octavio Alegria

To be perfectly fair, I'd like to provide some context. Varekai is at Barclays Center. My friend and I got there 15 minutes before the doors opened. We were moved to different doors and different doors again, supposedly because the original doors were not being used. And then they were used. But that's a small inconvenience that I probably wouldn't have noticed if my nerves were not on edge from listening to the Barclays announcement be played again and again and again and again and again while we waited. Loudly. The announcement talked about restrictions on what you could bring in (food, drink, bottles, cans, fireworks, and weapons, in that order), their no-reentry policy, and so on. We heard it some 20 times, without even a few seconds between each playing. And did I mention it was loud? Really, really loud? And when we were let in, we were treated like people with prison records visiting a nuclear missle site.

The show itself began slowly, with forest creatures (I guess) slithering and sort of dancing. There was a lot of slithering and sort of dancing in the show. The non-acrobatic interludes were the dullest I've ever seen at Cirque du Soleil, by far. The clowns were largely annoying. The male clown did have a nice bit trying to sing a song in a, well, erratic spotlight. The female got bonked on the head and was treated as sexually desperate. At one point, her head exploded. He was presented as a sort of noble fool; she was presented as an idiot.