Close To You: The Carpenters

photo: Russ Turk

The idea of performance artist Justin Bond (the "female" half of Kiki and Herb) performing the Carpenters' album "Close To You" in its entirety might sound like a recipe for camp send-up. Instead, the most cutting edge thing about the evening was that it was played (mostly) as sincere, respectful, and highly personal homage. A couple of attempts to give the evening a momentary '70's variety show feel didn't change that, and when Bond got a seemingly unexpected laugh out of a lyric in "Baby It's You," he pulled back from it immediately. Backed by an impressive (but, regretably, underrehearsed) band aimed at approximating the Carpenters' distinctive sound, Bond marched through every song on the album in order, including the hit singles "We've Only Just Begun" and "Close To You," covers of The Beatles' "Help," Rod Stewart's "Reason To Believe," and the aforementioned Shirelles song, and little-known Carpenters oddities such as the album's closer "Another Song," which ends with three minutes of acid-lite jam session. It's a weird, early album that could never lay claim to being representative and typical of the brother-sister duo's music, but its variety and relative obscurity make it a lively set on stage. More urgently, it means something to Bond - the flyer that served as the evening's program includes his recollections of first hearing it at the age of seven, and being profoundly affected by Karen Carpenter's voice, both "reassuring and profoundly sad." Bond's own voice is an entirely different kind of instrument somewhere in the gin-soaked, world-weary Marianne Faithfull family, but that's what makes the evening's drama. Listening to Bond reverently reproducing each of Karen's vocal phrases without any of her prettiness, the underlying sadness is front and center. It seemed an entirely appropriate tribute.

I.E., In Other Words

Somewhat of a cross between the ironic metadrama of Urinetown and the over-the-top mood of Essential Self-Defense, Mark Greenfield's comedy, I.E., In Other Words speaks for itself. In fact, it does so literally, marking its unique language by often announcing what its doing, a postmodern trend that would be annoying if it weren't so cute and infectious at The Flea, performed in an epic ham style by The Bats, the young resident company there. Kip Fagan does an excellent job of directing fourteen actors (playing thirty-three parts) in ninety minutes, all while conveying the story in a more-or-less consistently funny fashion (whatever isn't funny is soon over and done with). Using a new narrative style to tell an old-fashioned story is a winning combination almost every time, i.e., you should check this surreal playsical out.

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Wonderland: One-Act Festival

I hate to compare Wonderland, a one-act festival at Theater Row, to anything so crude as reality TV, but it reminds me a lot of the first week of movies being premiered on FOX's On The Lot. Substitute theater for film (call it Standing Room Only) and leave the judges off-camera, and you've distilled the popular elimination format of TV for off-off-Broadway, a battle of the fringe. The work is what you'd expect: it's crammed, sometimes crude, and certainly rushed from a technical standpoint. But that just makes the performances and the plays all the more surprising: diamonds in the coal bin seemed to be a dime a dozen when I went, and three of the four one-acts I saw were engaging enough to make me want to see more. From heightened language in one play to an all-out battle of personal put-downs in another, or domestic violence stuck in a poetic frame alongside brothers making peace on their father's deathbed, these plays found ways to work around cliche to do good work, and while they're far from perfect, they're getting there.

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Fate's Imagination

The armchair psychologist in me was fairly irritated halfway through this new unruly play, which has some good moments of keen interpersonal observation but too many others where the characters' actions simply don't pass the believability sniff test. Playwright David Randall Cook has a good ear for dialogue and a solid dramatist's sense of how to put a kink in a story, but he piles on too many twists in this play at the expense of credibility, before finally overreaching for political statement. Cook is promising - he's especially good at rendering the hollow rhetorical speeches for the character of the female Presidential candidate (played deliciously by Donna Mitchell) - and the play is lively and moves at a clip, so it's never dull. The play doesn't lack imagination. Discipline, perhaps.

Fate's Imagination

***
Gotham Stage Company

photo: Monique Carboni

Crisp, fresh-out-of-the-wrapper new play alert! With a journalist son wanting to make a difference in the (that) war and a liberal senator mom who is running for president and actually has a good chance (yeah, her) we got some pretty timely subject matter here. Mixing politics with familial relationships with romance, this play endeavours to provide an intriguing portrait of a trio of struggling with all the new millennium has to offer them. It pretty much succeeds, especially with the help of some fun plot twists offered up by playwright, Randall David Cook. Thumbs up!

A Kiss From Alexander

photo: Joe Oppedisano

As Alexander The Great, who is returned to Earth incognito to "correct" a tacky gay musical about his life, Craig Ramsay radiates an endearing innocence. His "fish out of water" bits, as he interacts with the queeny chorus boys, are this musical's best moments. But not much else is funny, and that's especially true of an appalling subplot which ends "happily" when an obnoxious, abusive drama queen finally accepts the overtures of a sweet, adoring fanboy when it's learned that the nerdy fan is a millionaire. What is THAT about?