John

photo: Matthew Murphy

No one path leads to an indelible, unforgettable performance. Sometimes an actor takes a classic, timeless role and makes it truly their own, to the point where anyone else repeating it seems pointless. For me, Vanessa Redgrave's fearless Mary Tyrone (in 2003's Long Day's Journey Into Night) and Simon Russell Beale's intense, broken Lophakin (in Sam Mendes' underrated production of The Cherry Orchard, at BAM) fill out this category. Sometimes, an actor plays a real person more clearly than the person herself: think Christine Ebersole' Little Edie in Grey Gardens, or Audra McDonald's Billie Holliday in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, both instantly legendary. Occasionally, a writer creates a role for an actor that fits them like a glove, and the synergistic effect is immediately evident inside the theater: I felt it watching Tonya Pinkins at the first performance of Caroline, or Change, and I felt it again more recently, at two performances of Annie Baker's John at Signature Center.

The actor, in this case, is Georgia Engel, probably best known as the daffy Georgette Franklin on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. That instantly-recognizable voice -- something between a squeak and a wheeze, though carrying layers of possibility underneath -- is still there, but Engel's current creation couldn't be any further from her sitcom past. She plays Mertis Katherine Garven, the amiable proprietress of a tchotchke-stuffed bed and breakfast in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where she's as likely to discuss the transmigration of birds or theories of love as she is to serve Vienna fingers and chocolate tea to the young couple (Hong Chau and Christopher Abbott) who serve as her only guests.

The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey

Matthew Murphy

The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey, currently at the Westside Theater, is a sweet, thoroughly engaging one-person show, and I say this as someone who is not particularly fond of one-person shows. Over a brisk 75 minutes, several characters--all depicted by Lecesne, who is also the playwright--discuss the events surrounding the disappearance of the title character, a flamboyant and highly independent 14-year-old boy who lives in a small town on the Jersey shore. It's no surprise that Leonard turns up dead, or that he was killed by a person with no patience for difference; if you're looking for a really tautly-written crime drama that will keep you on the edge of your seat before all the loose ends get tied up in the last five minutes, you're looking at the wrong show. Rather, the pleasures of Leonard Pelkey lie in its vivid characters, all of whom are played with enormous sensitivity and insight by Lecesne.

Performers who inhabit many roles during a single performance tend to broadcast their own feelings about the characters they portray. I've seen a number of very well-respected storytellers and monologists who, either consciously or unconsciously, adulate or demean their own characters, thereby informing the audience whom they dig and whom they think are total douchebags. Yet Lecesne's characters, all humans and some more flawed than others, are presented without judgment. Characters that could very easily slide into parody never do. Lecesne depicts the mob wife with the heart of gold, the fey British drama teacher, the heavily accented hairdresser and her sullen adolescent daughter with the same nuanced, respectful distance that he does the aged and regretful clockmaker, the hard-bitten detective who investigates the disappearance, and even Pelkey's killer. The show benefits enormously from its creator's refusal to condescend to his characters or, by extension, to his audience.

The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey reminds us that for all the new freedoms we celebrate in this country, we still have a very long way to go when it comes to the embrace--or even understanding--of difference. This is an important message, but not one that's forced, here. This is a gentle, moving show, written and performed by one of the absolute brightest and most careful storytellers I've seen.    

Cymbeline

Photo: Carol Rosegg

There really is no such thing as a bad night at the Delacorte Theater, the venue nestled inside Central Park where The Public Theater has offered free Shakespeare (and Sondheim, and Chekhov, and Brecht, etc) for over 50 years. But this past Saturday was a night to beat the band. The weather was ideal: neither too warm nor too cold, with just enough breeze to stave off sweaty discomfort. The sun was still high at the beginning of the performance, but it gradually faded into a perfect rouge sunset, before settling into a clear, dark night. There was minimal air traffic going on in the sky above the stage. The audience was appreciative and exhibited good theatrical manners -- not always a given in this particular theater, where eating and drinking is not only allowed but encouraged, and the staff seems to let people wander in and out as they please. Yes, everything about Saturday night at Shakespeare in the Park was perfect ... except the production.

Pound

Pound, the fabulous Marga Gomez's satirical exploration of the depiction of lesbians in old movies, has only one more performance (Dixon Place, on July 25, 2015). If you have any interest in Marga Gomez, lesbians, old movies, and/or laughing your butt off, run down there.

Pound (smoothly directed by David Schweizer) focuses specifically on The Children's Hour, The Killing of Sister George, The Fox, Bound, Basic Instinct, and Showgirls. It also makes quick visits to The Hunger, Orange Is the New Black, The Kids Are Alright, and Sphere, a movie in which Gomez and Queen Latifah had small parts, back in the day. Much of Gomez's commentary is well-trod ground. However, via her unique slant, intelligence, wit, comic chops, and likability, her insights morph into hysterically funny and fresh material that is both political and very personal.

Pound goes off the rails a bit when Gomez is sucked (don't ask) into a portal leading to a cloud populated by fictional lesbians. It becomes a bit difficult to keep track of the flashbacks and flashforwards, and it's not always 100% clear who's speaking. The writing in this section is also less incisive and pushes a little too hard for laughs. It's still funny; it's just not at the high level of the rest of the show.

Overall, however, Pound is a great way to spend 75 minutes.

I hope that some day Gomez extends her satire to the present day. One line on Orange Is the New Black is not enough, funny as it is. And it would be wonderful to hear her take on Blue Is the Warmest Color, Reaching for the Moon, Kissing Jessica Stein, Kalinda in The Good Wife, the treatment of the lesbian couple in Last Tango in Halifax, Cosima on Orphan Black, The Fosters, Kima on The Wire, Callie and Arizona on Grey's Anatomy, and the women on the dreadful social event that was The L Word. That the list is long might suggest that satirizing fictional lesbians is no longer necessary, but of course there's still plenty to say. And I'd love to hear Gomez say it!

(press ticket; 2nd row)

Threesome

At one point in Yussef El Guindi's brilliantly surprising play Threesome, Leila (Alia Attallah), author of a book on sexual and racial politics, says to the man about to photograph her for the book cover:

I used to think men were a little like onions. Layered creatures who often make you cry, just because of who they are. But recently I have come to think of men as much less complex vegetables. Like carrots.

Quinn Franzen, Alia Attallah,
Karan Oberoi
Photo: Hunter Canning

Interestingly enough, Threesome is the opposite. In the beginning, it seems very much like a basic sex comedy--a carrot. Leila and Rashid (Karan Oberoi) are partnered, and they have invited Doug (Quinn Franzen) to have sex with them. Well, Leila has invited him, and Rashid has grudgingly acquiesced, partially as penance for a flirtation with another woman. Leila and Rashid wait in the bedroom, dressed, and Doug enters fully nude, telling a gross story about stomach problems. At this point, Threesome seems like a version--a smart and superior version--of the one-dimensional Bruce Norris play, The Qualms. It's very funny.

Judith & Vinegar Tom

Well-done political theatre can be invigorating, inspiring, and infuriating in the best way. Not-so-well-done political theatre, however, can be pretty tedious, as shown by the pair of one acts now at PTP/NYC (Potomac Theatre Company).

Nesba Crenshaw, Tara Giordano
in Vinegar Tom
Photo: Stan Barouh

Howard Barker's three-hander Judith presents the night that Judith, "a widow of Israel," meets with Holofernes, "a General of Assyria" and eventually cuts off his head. But first they talk, a lot: the cost of killing to both victim and murderer; the strange cravings of sex; the complex reality of power. Under the conversation throbs (or should throb) desire, not only for sex per se, but to remember how to feel.

In the PTP production, words win and ideas and desire lose, due to the directing (Richard Romagnoli), casting, and acting. The presentation is monochromatic, from the dark costuming to the deadpan pontificating. The sexual tension that could make the thing work is nowhere to be found. (Also, just to pick a nit, if you're carrying someone's head, it's heavy. It has heft. In Judith, it's carried like the rolled-up sheet it obviously is.)

Vinegar Tom, by Caryl Churchill, is more successful, but still a disappointment. Reminiscent of The Crucible (could any play about witches not be?), Vinegar Tom makes explicit everything that Arthur Miller left as subtext--and then some. Much of its honesty is wonderful: these women are sexual and strong and real. Their vivid characters provide a stark contrast to the restrictions that bind them. In the 18th century, they control little but their own souls, and even those seem up for grabs.