Surrounded by Aching Hearts

Dating in New York City has often been represented in situation and romantic comedies, from On the Town to First Date the Musical, and on TV shows like Sex and the City. In fact, the neuroses and eccentricities of New York singles have provided inexhaustible fodder for playwrights and screenwriters.

Add to this mix director Michael Counts’s immersive theater experience, Play/Date, a collection of 22 one-act plays about the dating scene in the Big Apple. The plays—which stage hookups, breakups, and everything in between—take place simultaneously in an actual nightclub, Fat Baby, on the Lower East Side. This production’s greatest strengths lie in its design: the stimulating lighting by Ryan O'Gara and Marcello Añez’s sexy soundtrack, along with Counts’s staging, create an experience that surrounds the audience. The production’s weakness, however, is an overall inability to convey many honest or original messages about the trials and tribulations of dating in New York City.

Just as any other night at Fat Baby, audience members must wait behind velvet ropes before entering Play/Date. Though the interior of the club is emptier than it would be on a regular night, the rave lights are on, and the bar is open. But the bar is only one of the spaces where these solo and small-cast one-acts take place: various concurrent scenes take place at the tables upstairs, on the dance floor, and in dark enclaves around the club. There is even a series of projections, in which the texts of a character on a cellphone are displayed on the wall behind them.

For the most part, the simultaneity and technique of the short plays are managed impressively well, though there are some moments when it is hard to hear performers. As with many immersive productions, audience members are generally able to roam about and watch any scenario they like; these free-form periods are interspersed with moments when the action comes together in choreographed spectacle. As the plays progress, characters and audience become progressively drunker—for the performers, this means the usual fights, along with regrettable phone calls and lurid meet-ups in bathroom stalls. Because of these simultaneous storylines, one will find it impossible to see everything that Play/Date has to offer in just one visit.

While the physical space of the nightclub is thrilling to explore, and the ensemble is talented and committed, the plays that I encountered do not really say anything new or different about New York City dating. Overall, they mostly redistribute the tired narratives that are already prevalent in television, movies, and theater. Many of the plays overreach in their commentary on technology and its insipid ubiquity through dating websites, social media, and smartphones.  

Although there are some unexpected moments involving hand puppets, alien conspiracy, and a random shirtless woman, they are overshadowed by the production's sexiness, reading ultimately as trite rather than meaningful. Overall, there is something more generous to be said about dating in this crazy city, something that these plays are too short and too scattered to capture. Play/Date is worth seeing for its production elements and site-specific location, but do not expect to walk away with an especially nuanced understanding of the New York City dating experience.

Show times for Play/Date are Sunday through Wednesday at 8 p.m. at Fat Baby (112 Rivington St., between Essex and Ludlow streets, on the Lower East Side). Tickets start at $55 for general admission; reserved tables are $75. The new $95 "Friends with Benefits" ticket option includes reserved priority table seating with waiter service, plus an opportunity to fully interact with the performers in specially created scenes that take place at the table. Tickets are available by calling Ovationtix at 866-811-4111 or visiting www.playdateny.com.

A Cop and Clowns Walk into a Bar…

The lights are dimmed, the room is silent. “You can sit here,” the usher says. “Oh, and don’t forget this.” As if it came out of thin air, it appears between his finger tips and he places it in the palm of my hand. I look down, and there it is — a bright red clown nose. I look up and realize that everyone in the room is a clown with the same red nose. I look back and a clown appears out of the darkness into the doorway I had just walked through. I knew then that this was not a regular clown act.   

Now I know what you are thinking, and no, this was not a nightmare. It was the set of Clown Bar — a show about a cop named Happy Mahoney who returns to his old clown life to figure out the murder of his brother, Timmy, and seek revenge. Written by Adam Szymkowicz, this play combines the visual familiarity of the bright clown costumes and exaggerated clown make–up with the 1930s gangster’s ambiance. 

In this performance directed by Andrew Neisler, the audience is introduced to the world of the play with red noses of their own, waitresses dressed in proper clown attire, and a 15-to-30 minute pre-show. The stage is set up so the actors have the space to perform on a small stage at the very end of the room, as well as walk up and down the center row of a very cozy bar. From the beginning to end, the vibrant costumes and well-designed set captures your eyes. Throughout the show, the lighting perfectly frames the actors to help the audience look in the right direction while the mime pianist makes you laugh as he plays the appropriate tune to set the mood or to help support a singing number. 

Credit must also be given to the actors on the stage. With a straight face, the cast delivers ironic word play, double entendres, puns and even bad jokes that keep the audience in their seat wanting more. To be able to get the audience’s attention no matter where in the room they deliver a line is a reflection of their talent. Clowns such as Petunia (played by Jessica Frey) and Dusty (played by Salty Brine), catch your attention and make you fall in love with their characters, no matter how many clowns they may or may not have killed that day.

The only warning I give to you is to be careful where you sit. On the one hand, while the cozy atmosphere of the bar adds to the world of the play, it causes some audience members to have partial view. For example, although it's exciting to sit on the small stage to be close to the action, depending on the angle, some of the staging can be lost if you are too close or too far away. 

On the other hand, by sitting that close to the action, you are able to interact with the actors. While some audience members are sprinkled with the glitter of the gun shots, others become a part of the act. 

Overall, these criminal clowns are successfully able to take the audience on a ride into the underbelly of clown crime in order to solve the murder of Timmy Mahoney — the unfunny clown. Although I only chuckled a few times, the impressive set, costume and talent makes it worthwhile show. Just be ready for puns and a room full of clowns — and don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Clown Bar ran through Sept. 27 at The Box (189 Chrystie St. between Stanton and Rivington).

Invest In Your Theater Experience

If you thought Governors Island was only for bicycling, picnics and electronic music concerts — think again! Because theater visionaries David Evans Morris and Kristin Marting have transformed the island's historic Pershing Hall into a "living market" for their latest immersive theater creation entitled Trade Practices, which kicks off the 2014-15 season at HERE Arts Center. Like our nation's economy, Trade Practices is intricately structured and impossible to wrap your head around. The rooms of Pershing Hall have been transformed into departments of a fictional currency-printing corporation, Tender, Inc. Each audience member receives a roll of cash and, accordingly, the power to invest their time and "money" into whichever storyline they choose. Part of the fun and frustration of Trade Practices (and immersive theater in general) is knowing that every audience member's experience must be different, and that one can't possibly see or experience everything.

By dividing the threads of action into separate spaces, Marting and Morris have created for themselves an unprecedented freedom to play with style and form. Within each plot line, the collaborators dive enthusiastically into genres such as satire, participatory theater, dance, melodrama, musical theater, and so much more. More emphasis is placed on unity of theme or thought than stylistic or aesthetic unity (as in Punchdrunk's cinematic behemoth of immersive theatre, Sleep No More). Yet this schizophrenia of style works wonderfully for the piece, ensuring that audience members are never, ever bored and never, ever sure what is going to come next. 

A particularly charming stylistic tangent is the musical numbers performed in the "Owners" story line, as well as every incident of full-ensemble choreography that takes place on the trade floor, where the entire audience convenes between each plot episode. These dance numbers smack of the virtuosic yet amateurish choreography of Elevator Repair Service productions, as well as the quirkily empowered dance moments in the work of Young Jean Lee (no surprise since Trade Practices incorporates actors and collaborators from both). Fully committed to the song and dance, the brilliant ensemble cast is present at every moment — be it wacky, heartfelt or politically charged.  

The complexity and thought behind the text of Trade Practices (written by Eisa Davis, Robert Lyons, Erin Courtney, Qui Nguyen, KJ Sanchez, and Chris Wells) indicates some serious dramaturgy and research, and the program indicates a bevy of bankers and financial workers that lent their knowledge to the project. There are times, however, that the finance-speak becomes overwhelming for those of us without a banking background. Rather than weighing down the piece, however, these moments only serve to enhance the feeling of intricacy and insurmountability of the economy — a formidable beast of our own creation. For audience members who are finance-savvy, the moments of intense economic debate are likely to be stimulating. Regardless, Trade Practices manages to unmask the relationship between money, power and the human condition. The results are messy, but undoubtedly thought-provoking (and worth the ferry ride to Governors Island).

Trade Practices ran until Sept. 21 at HERE Arts Center (145 Avenue of the Americas). For more information, please visit www.here.org. 

Prince George of Broadway

The Mint Theater, upstairs in a loft building on West 43rd St., pursues forgotten plays with the vigor of a dachshund digging for moles. Over the course of 18 years, this dogged Company has unearthed a surprising number of theatrical treasures buried by time, as well as a few mislaid scripts (but only a few) of primarily academic interest. Since the Mint's founding, the professionalism of its productions has risen steadily. The company is now among the foremost nonprofit theaters in New York City. Next month an audience of unprecedented magnitude will see this accomplished group's work when London Wall by John Van Druten, presented on-stage at the Mint last spring, is telecast as the inaugural episode of Theater Close-Up, a weekly series hosted by Sigourney Weaver on New York public broadcasters WNET and WLIW.

While waiting for its television debut, the Mint has unveiled a top-flight production of The Fatal Weakness, a 1946 comedy by George Kelly, directed by Jesse Marchese. Last year, the satiric Philip Goes Forth, another Kelly revival at the Mint, was noteworthy for acting and design; the play itself proved more historically intriguing than dramatically satisfying. In The Fatal Weakness, sprightly, intelligent dialogue and engaging turns of plot overcome the liability of Kelly's sluggish, old-fashioned exposition. Even in its less engaging moments, The Fatal Weakness is an ideal vehicle for the Mint's two masters of high-comedy style, Kristin Griffith and Cynthia Darlow. 

In the 1920s, Kelly graduated from vaudeville (for which he wrote popular sketches) to Broadway, where he won a Pulitzer Prize for Craig's Wife. Though frequently satiric and always concerned with the follies of the American middle and upper-middle classes, Kelly's plays are too varied to be summed up in a phrase. The Fatal Weakness is an urbane comedy of manners which was presented originally by The Theatre Guild in 1946 with the great comic actress Ina Claire in the leading role. It played 119 performances, a respectable Broadway run for a non-musical play in those days and sufficient to recoup the producers' investment. Kelly was 63 when the play closed; he survived another 27 years, but The Fatal Weakness was his last new work on Broadway. Except for a 1976 television adaptation, introduced by Kelly’s famous niece, Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco, The Fatal Weakness has hardly been seen since it closed on Broadway in 1947. 

The heroine of The Fatal Weakness, Ollie Espenshade (Griffith), is the kind of mid-century matron who would have been susceptible to the happily-ever-after hype surrounding the nuptials of George Kelly's movie-star niece to Rainier III, Prince of Monaco. (That much-chronicled event took place less than a decade after the play's premiere.) Ollie's "fatal weakness" is a combination of sentimental heart and romantic imagination. After 28 years of marriage, she has discovered that husband Paul is having an affair with an osteopath (an off-stage character). As one might expect, Ollie is incensed. When her busybody friend Mabel Wentz (Darlow) procures details of Paul's clandestine activities, Ollie's fancy shifts into high gear; and, as Ollie's rose-tinted imagination transforms Paul and the osteopath into Abelard and Heloise, The Fatal Weakness barrels forward on an unexpected narrative route.

Griffith makes Ollie's extravagant unworldliness endearing and, for the most part, credible. Marchese has surrounded her with actors who have a knack for Kelly's kind of urbane, out-of-kilter comedy. In addition to Darlow (a consummate, poker-faced comedian), the cast includes Cliff Bemis as the wayward husband, Victoria Mack as the unsympathetic daughter, Penny, and Sean Patrick Hopkins as the bewildered son-in-law, Vernon. Patricia Kilgarriff wrings maximal humor from the role of a parlor maid whose purpose in the script is largely, perhaps exclusively, expository. Garbed in handsome costumes by Andrea Varga (including, most notably, lavish frocks and lounging attire for Griffith), the cast cavorts around a richly detailed drawing room, designed by Vicki R. Davis (with period-appropriate bric-a-brac and props provided by Joshua Yocom). The single stage set, which received a round of applause when the curtains first parted at a recent performance, features high reflective panels that ought to be distracting but, in fact, contribute a dazzling visual effect to the scenic design throughout the evening.     

The Fatal Weakness belongs in the company of those distinctively American high comedies written between the World Wars by Kelly's contemporaries Philip Barry (The Philadelphia Story) and S.N. Behrman (No Time for Comedy). Kelly's plays have fallen out of sight to a degree that Barry's and Behrman's have not. With several more Kelly plays ripe for revival, the Mint may redress that situation in seasons to come. In the meantime, New York audiences are learning that there's more to George Kelly's story than that famous niece. 

The Fatal Weakness was scheduled to play through Oct. 26 but has now been extended through November 2, 2014, at the Mint Theater Company (311 West 43^rd St.). Running time is 2 hours and 20 minutes. Performances are 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday; 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. There is a special matinee at 2 p.m. on Oct. 15 and no performance on Oct. 14. Tickets are $55 and $27.50 and may be purchased at www.minttheater.org or by calling 866-811-4111.

Odds Against Happiness

Some excellent performances give buoyance to Robert O’Hara’s Bootycandy, a comic series of vignettes that are awkwardly interrelated but provide plenty of laughs as well as fodder for thought. The story follows a young black gay man from his troubled childhood through to adulthood, as if in snapshots. 

Phillip James Brannon plays Sutter, the son of a flashily dressed single mother (Jessica Frances Dukes) who has little patience for his childish questions about words such as “period” and “bootycandy.” (She explains the slang term as “the candy for the booty,” i.e., a penis). In Brannon’s strong, well-modulated performance, one can detect the seeds of shyness that continue into adolescence, when he has an obsession with Michael Jackson, including dressing like him. When Sutter tries to tell his family that a strange man has followed him home, his mother (now played by Benja Kay Thomas), as self-involved as ever, doesn’t believe him and even disturbingly suggests "you musta done something" to attract the man's attention. She and his stepfather ban him from school musicals and urge him to take up sports as a solution. “Kung fu,” recommends Lance Coadie Williams’s uninterested parent. 

Though his parents can't understand him, the unhappy Sutter reaches adulthood as a confidently gay man, aloof but with a quiet strength that belies his indifferent upbringing. Bootycandy, however, also includes scenes that seemingly have no relation to Sutter — a preacher (Williams) who announces to his congregation with wild flamboyance that he’s gay; a lesbian “divorce” ceremony that’s silly and a little stale; and a phone conversation among four black women (two each played by Dukes and Thomas) who are costumed with cleverness by Clint Ramos. 

O’Hara, who directed and is himself black and gay, has no qualms about satirizing the bizarre names some black parents give their children, nor about employing the drawling caricatures that once characterized shows like Amos 'n' Andy. If anything, the drawls are broader here. An older black woman on the telephone berates her daughter for naming her grandchild Genitalia: “How you gon go n name that chile genitalia fool?” The daughter in the sketch (Dukes, who excels at embodying dim-wittedness) sounds like a female Stepin Fetchit, but the effect cheerily gives the raspberry to political correctness. The scenes, although imparting a choppy feel to the play, serve to identify the social milieu surrounding Sutter. 

There is darkness, however. Eventually, in the second half, we learn more about the hero. Sutter’s close friend is Larry (Williams), and in a bar one night they pick up a straight white man eager for gay sex. There’s a horrific twist in which O’Hara shows us the profound damage created by Sutter's upbringing, and how reverse racism simmers. The only person Sutter can relate to, the only one who has ever encouraged him in his adoration of Michael Jackson, is his aged grandmother who raised him and now lives in a nursing home; but even she wants a bribe before she “recognizes” who he is. 

Unfortunately, Bootycandy sometimes indulges in meta-theatrical antics. In Act I, a white moderator (Jesse Pennington), assembles a panel of five black playwrights on the stage of Playwrights Horizons. O’Hara’s premise is that the five playlets we’ve witnessed are the works of the quartet, but the gag strains to make us believe that the playwrights don’t really know why they’re appearing in the panel discussion or what the topic is. 

In Act II, after a tense sequence, the actors rebel against the playwright/actor Sutter, and the fourth wall is again knocked down. There are hints of autobiography in Bootycandy (the moderator asks a black playwright how she got the surname O'Malley, and she answers, "Slavery"), but O'Hara hasn't transformed all of them coherently into a whole; there's a ramshackle feel to the work. Still, there’s no question that he's a playwright worth watching. 

Bootycandy runs through Oct. 12 at Playwrights Horizons (416 West 42nd St. between 9th and 10th Aves.). Evening performances of Bootycandy are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7 p.m.; Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; and Sunday at 7:30 p.m. Matinees are at 2:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Tickets start at $75 and are available by calling 212-279-4200 or visiting www.playwrightshorizons.org.

Kicking Feminism

Early in Micheline Auger’s Donkey Punch, frank banter and satirical jabs suggest the playwright has written a sex comedy. But Auger is out for more than just laughs. Gradually, in Audrey Alford’s production for the Ivy Theatre Company, the dramatist’s comedy-drama becomes a troubling look at the state of feminism. 

Two women are the focus of the plot: the plump, wryly comic Sam (Lauren Dortch-Crozier), easygoing and unhappy with life, and her high-octane friend Kareena (Cleo Gray), who takes on the role of Sam’s mentor. 

Kareena has recently put Sam in contact with Kyle, a man Kareena once communicated with online, but only briefly, before she met her boyfriend Teddy. Now also talking to Kyle online, Sam has discovered that he makes soft-core “horror porn” films; his latest is called Donkey Punch. Sam is reluctant to meet him because she assumes his work degrades women, but Kareena insists Sam is a prude and needs to widen her erotic horizons; she encourages a first date. (It’s at this point, ironically, that  a role reversal briefly occurs. An unenlightened Kareena learns from Sam the meaning of Kyle's title. It refers to a sexual practice — bizarre and obscure, judging by the surprised reaction of the audience — that heightens a man’s climax during intercourse.) 

Auger has a good deal of fun with the contrast in sexual awareness between the high-earning Kareena and the struggling, diffident Sam, who has hitherto worked as an actress in commercials. “You’re a strong and independent woman,” Kareena exhorts Sam. “You should have a dildo.” Trying to meet her on less intimate ground, Sam responds (with a delivery that evokes a laid-back Jo Anne Worley): “Better health insurance would be nice.”  

Once Sam and Kyle (Jon McCormick) meet, a Pygmalion transformation occurs: Sam bleaches her hair, enlarges her breasts, and ends up the focus of a documentary that entails Kyle’s filming her wherever they go. The repressed Sam embraces life, but it upsets the worldview of the nominally liberated — actually controlling — Kareena. 

Unfortunately, Kareena’s a hard character to like. She is taken aback when Sam begins to talk about her sexual exploits and realizes that Sam’s experience now outstrips hers. A career woman with a vengeance, Kareena declares, “There’s a lot of fish in the proverbial ocean and I’m hot and make a ton of money.” Her feminism is a tangle of contradictions: she advocates pole dancing as “good for your core…it’s totally liberating” but defaults to feminist mantras as well, such as “Bitches before bros.”  

Perhaps the most objectionable thing about Kareena is her emasculating treatment of Micheal Drew’s sensitive Teddy. In Drew’s gentle performance, the strapping boyfriend cooks and attends to her tenderly, but never seems wimpy. Yet when Teddy tries to enter a conversation, Kareena rebuffs him with “We’re having girl talk.” When the accommodating Teddy declares, “I can be one of the girls,” she says, “No, you can’t.” (How many boyfriends would even make that offer?)

Although there’s little about Kareena that’s endearing or redeeming, it’s to Gray’s credit that one is able to feel the character’s confusion and pain even while withholding sympathy — and that includes after she is unexpectedly raped. (Crucially, she doesn’t protest; nonetheless, the sex scene is clumsily staged in a way that tries to be brutal and coy at the same time). 

Meanwhile, Kyle doesn’t conform to any of Sam’s preconceptions. She expects him to call women “bitches” and “hos,” but McCormick, in a nicely understated performance, turns out to be quiet, thoughtful and confident. 

Auger has created four fascinating characters, and situations that make one think, but she doesn’t really offer a diagnosis. Has feminism just created a huge muddle? Have the signals become so mixed, and the dialogue between the sexes so charged, that the old verities of feminism are no longer grounded in reality? Are men now just as much the victims? Auger’s coup is to provide an entry point of discussion.

Donkey Punch runs through Aug. 31 at the SoHo Playhouse (15 Vandam St.). Evening performances are at 8 p.m. on Wednesday through Saturday and 6 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are $45 and may be obtained by calling 212-691-1555 or visiting www.sohoplayhouse.com.

Agent of Change

Have you ever met a pimp? Or talked to a 19-year-old prostitute? Or tried to avoid your menopausal boss who keeps screaming for the stapler you know you didn’t take? For most people, the answer would be no. But for Helena D. Lewis, she has met these people and many more unique individuals.Call Me Crazy: Diary of a Mad Social Worker is a brilliantly written play, filled with poetry that makes you wonder, “did this really happen?” In her autobiographical one-woman play, Lewis recounts her interactions with 25 people in order to understand how she slowly lost her mind and why she became just as crazy as everyone else. 

With clear transitions between the scenes and distinguishable characters, Lewis did a beautiful job at constructing a play that is easy to follow and understand. While some character portrayals make the audience erupt in laughter, others make you question whether you should be laughing at these very off putting (and sometimes borderline offensive) impersonations. However, it is through the harsh realities that she forces us to face that we finally see that change cannot be made without someone as dedicated as Lewis.

This plays relies heavily on the audience’s ability to use their imagination.  When walking into the space, one must be prepared to see a mostly empty stage. The venue, Nuyorican Poets Café, provides Call Me Crazy a very intimate environment allowing the audience and Lewis to feed off each others' energy. Lewis uses the two long black flats on stage left and right to indicate a different location or character change. The only other set piece is a folding chair located in the center of the stage. In addition, Lewis only used roughly seven props that are easily stored in a pocket or hidden onstage. The very minimalistic set and props help keep the focus on Lewis and her powerful dialogue.

The less smooth transitions occur during the costume changes and lighting transitions. Although she does not change her costume for each character, the few costume changes that occur are a bit awkward. However, this is to be expected when one woman is playing all the characters and has only a matter of seconds to put on/take off a jacket or shirt.   

The lighting is predictable and did not have much of a design concept. It seemed as if the lights were used to add light to the stage rather than add depth to the design. Overall, the lighting was a very simple design — the lights changed color to imply a change in the mood or changed direction to prompt the audience where to look on the stage. 

However, the minimalistic design concepts are often overshadowed by Lewis’s performance. If you are looking for a funny and motivational show, Call Me Crazy is the show for you. Within five minutes, you will be hooked on Lewis’s story of how she strove to change the world for the people who are often ignored in our society. And by the end, you will finally figure out why this woman has sacrificed her sanity in order to be a true agent of change.

Call Me Crazy: Diary of a Mad Social Worker runs until July 27 at the Nuyorican Poet’s Café (236 East 3rd Street between Avenues B and C in the East Village). Daily performances are held at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $15. For tickets and further information, visit www.nuyorican.org.

More Ado in Harlem

The Public Theater presentation of Much Ado About Nothing, with a starry cast performing in the bucolic setting of Central Park's Delacorte Theater, is likely to be among New York City's most sought after tickets. Up at the 133rd Street Arts Center, What Dreams May Co. Theatre and Queens Players are currently offering another Much Ado, hardly publicized but well worth a visit. In a perfectly ordered New York City, the masses of would-be theatergoers who fail to score seats for Much Ado in the Park (and those unwilling to sacrifice a day to waiting in line for free tickets) would find their way to Harlem to see the handiwork of 14 unknown actors, directed by Nicole Schalmo, in a tiny, second-floor auditorium with a minimum of scenery and equipment. 

Much Ado About Nothing is a rowdy mixture of the silly and the serious. The central plot comes from classical Greek literature via 16th-century Italian sources — Ludovico Ariosto and Matteo Bandello — and Edmund Spenser's English epic The Faerie Queene. The story concerns Claudio (Gregg Ellson), just home from war, who spurns his bride, Hero (Christina Sheehan), at the altar. Hero is virtuous, but circumstantial evidence, contrived by the toxic Don John (Jonathan Emerson), suggests otherwise; and Claudio has been taken in by Don John's scheme. Hearing Claudio's harsh accusations, Hero faints away; her father, Leonato (Rafael Svarin), claiming she's dead, concocts a plan to clear her name and punish Claudio's arrogance. Things are dire until a band of bumbling rustics — constable Dogberry (Kenny Fedorko), his sidekick Verges (Nathan Beagle), and two officers of the municipal watch (Kate Fallon and Meghan Blakeman) — unwittingly thwart Don John's conspiracy.

There isn't much that's plausible about the misunderstanding between Claudio and Hero or what follows it; and, based on that implausibility, W.H. Auden has declared that Much Ado is "not one of Shakespeare's best plays." Yet throughout the past four centuries, this relatively dark comedy has been a crowd-pleaser. Its popularity is due, in large measure, to the subplot in which Hero's cousin Beatrice (Aimee Marcelle) and Benedick (Gonzalo Trigueros), a military comrade of Claudio, are tricked into falling in love with each other. The opinionated, sharp-tongued Benedick and Beatrice are among Shakespeare's most vivid creations; and Auden aptly describes them as “the characters of Shakespeare we’d most like to sit next to at dinner.”

The youthful cast handles both verse and prose with confidence and brio. Fedorko, adept at low Shakespearean comedy, makes Dogberry a highlight of the proceedings. Emerson, a forceful, nuanced Macduff in the What Dreams May Co. Macbeth last December, does what he can to lend verisimilitude to a one-dimensional role; his Don John is an exuberantly villainous cartoon, enormous fun to watch but inexplicably malevolent.

As in most productions of Much Ado, the evening belongs to Beatrice and Benedick. Shakespeare uses the reluctant lovers as tools to skewer the conventions of courtly love; Marcelle and Trigueros (presumably guided by Schalmo) ensure that Beatrice and Benedick are always emotionally complex and convincing. Marcelle is a striking comedic presence, compellingly vivacious without upstaging her compatriots. She's well-matched in raillery and romantic chemistry by Trigueros's Benedick. The pair navigate a credible, touching transformation from prickliness to devotion. 

In addition to being the production's director, Schalmo is responsible for costumes and, with Emerson, for the lighting design. She has transferred the action of the play from Renaissance Messina to a small town in the American Midwest. This conceit, applied with a light touch, works very well for a story of deception, backbiting and intrigue; and it frees the actors of anxiety about speaking Shakespeare's lines in their natural accents. 

Schalmo and her self-assured cast keep the action moving at a swift, consistent pace and make the most of the modest dimensions of the 133rd Street Arts Center stage. With no design fripperies to distract the audience, the production is focused throughout on the humor and beauty of the Bard's text. The simplicity of this Much Ado turns out to be a formidable asset.

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare, presented by What Dreams May Co. Theatre, in association with Queens Players at the 133^rd Street Arts Center (308 West 133rd St. between St. Nicholas Ave. and Frederick Douglass Blvd. in Harlem), runs Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays at 3 p.m. through June 21. Tickets: $18. For tickets, visit www.brownpapertickets.com/event/495842 or call 1-800-838-3006. 

Sexy Star Vehicle

A “village bike,” one learns in the script of Penelope Skinner’s new play, set in an English country town, is slang for a woman who has slept around — she has been ridden by everyone. At the Lucille Lortel Theatre, that description eventually applies to Becky, a young wife who is newly pregnant but not showing. Vividly embodied by film star Greta Gerwig (Frances Ha), Becky exhibits a growing erotic desperation as her husband, John (a superbly blockheaded and smug Jason Butler Harner), seems to have lost interest in having sex. But though MCC Theater's production of The Village Bike initially has the makings of a sex comedy, Skinner has much more on her mind.

Becky gradually tries to spark John's libido by watching porn movies, but nothing seems to help. At the same time, she has bought an old bicycle in the town so she can get herself out of the cottage and get some exercise, in spite of John’s overly solicitous worries. He’s the kind of guy who is more in tune with the rights of free-range chickens than his wife’s needs.

Skinner’s early scenes are laden with comic double entendre. When Mike, a plumber who has come to fix John and Becky’s leaking pipes, needs to be paid, Becky can’t find her checkbook. “What can we do?” she asks, clad in a shift and a skimpy robe. “Is there something we can do?” It’s a scene out of a porn film, delivered by the sexy Gerwig with enough ambiguous lubricity to make Max Baker’s wide-eyed handyman wonder what kind of solution she has in mind.

When Oliver Hardcastle, the seller, delivers the bike to Becky, he and Mike discuss it in language that confuses the sexually volatile Becky: “She’s a pretty one, though.” “Gorgeous.” “Hardly been ridden.” But the bike chain is not quite right, and so Scott Shepherd’s strapping Oliver promises to repair it. At the moment, however, he’s dressed as the historical character Dick Turpin in a redcoat outfit, since he’s a re-enactor in village pageants nearby. (His name and costume also suggest a nod to She Stoops to Conquer, by Oliver Goldsmith, a comedy with a character named Hardcastle that is about people assuming disguises for “romantic” reasons.) The older Oliver is also married, but his wife, Alice, has a high-powered job that takes her away from the village for long periods. Inevitably, fixing the bike becomes fixing Becky's sexual needs.

Ultimately, Becky finds herself more satisfied by the sex-without-love she has with Oliver than by the love-without-sex at home, and she takes risks to keep the fulfillment going. She and Oliver explore fantasies, such as rape-by-intruder and making videos. Skinner’s play is not so much about sexual needs as about the ways that men and women use each other. Under Sam Gold's direction, the point is made that Becky finds herself imprisoned by her marriage. And Becky’s friend, Jenny (Cara Seymour), a chatty but well-meaning neighbor, confides her frustrations at the absence of her husband, Jules, who has a job that takes him abroad. Intellectually stultified, she still advocates parenthood for Becky even as she confesses it destroyed her self-esteem and her desire for sex. But she masks her disinterest from Jules, just as Oliver seems to hide his affairs from his wife, Alice. Or does he?

With nobody to confide in, Becky becomes more and more dependent on her trysts with Oliver, and more desperate to solidify her relationship with him, even as she loses all sense of herself. Gerwig charts a course from befuddlement and dissatisfaction to tearful desperation and near-insanity. Stooping, she still fails to conquer. It’s a harrowing journey.

Shepherd brings a devil-may-care attitude to Oliver, yet Skinner implies he might be far more dangerous than Becky realizes. Harner fills a thankless part, that of a man so obsessed with social issues that he is clueless about his personal life. Talking of the apparently repaired pipes, he says, “They haven’t made a noise. Doesn’t mean it’s fixed. If something makes a noise, then stops making a noise, that’s when you should be really worried.” He has no idea it applies to his own marriage. It’s merely one of many moments to ponder at length in Skinner’s deftly plotted drama.

Penelope Skinner's The Village Bike is running until July 13 at the MCC Theater at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher St. between Bleecker and Hudson Sts). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. Matinees are at 2 p.m. on Saturdays and 3 p.m. on Sundays. There are no performances on July 4 and 7. For tickets, call MCC Theater at 212-727-7722 or OvationTix at 866-811-4111.

Looking Forward to Looking Back

Nostalgia is a powerful thing — it connects us all to a collective memory, reminding us constantly of better days when we were, perhaps, our better selves.  In the midst of the 2010s, when everything from our fashion to our music to even our social media outlets (hello, instagram) derives inspiration from a previous era in one way or another, it is interesting to note the ways in which we are exploring our past. The Mad Ones — which has made its mission to "investigate cultural memory and nostalgia" — are doing just that in their latest outing, The Essential Straight and Narrow, currently playing at the New Ohio Theatre (154 Christopher Street, Ste. 1E).

The play starts when we meet a woman named Jo (Stephanie Wright Thompson) on the set of what looks like a motel room. It is presumably the 1970s, and the movie script she is privately rehearsing is also presumably a cheesy 1970s cop drama. There is a record player in the corner and a bedspread in off-colors: shades of mustard yellow and burnt sienna, just in case you had any doubt when this play took place. The opening scenes start out with Jo practicing a phone conversation and immediately pull you in with humor as Thompson pulls practically every slapstick move known to man while managing to ground it in reality. A hard thing to pull off, and something Thompson does throughout the play with ease and grace. It is this very skill that endears the audience to her, which is important as we start delving in and out of her character's memory. Moments later, the scene with Jo at the telephone "dissolves" — theatrically, of course — into a memory, in a motel room not unlike the one she is playacting in just moments before.  

Here, other characters emerge: there's the charming Miss Debbie (Marc Bovino), a transgender woman Jo befriends; Paul (Michael Dalto), the quiet guitarist to Jo's former music ensemble; and Gram (Joe Curnutte), the gruff and standoffish vocalist. With each recurring flashback, we see snapshots of the group's time together in the motel room: a friendly bout of "The $10,000 Pyramid," a Dia de los Muertos-themed arts and crafts session, a country-folk-rock rehearsal, a crazy Halloween party soundtracked by James Brown and local urban legends are just some of the antics they get up to over the course of the night. With Laura Jellinek's set design, as well as Mike Inwood's lighting, we completely become immersed in these scenes, however brief they may be. (Also noteworthy are Asta Hostetter's costumes, which also delight in the weird and wonderful fashions of the '70s. I mean, flared jeans with cowboy boots, anyone?) 

Adding to the immersion are the actors themselves, displaying a natural rapport and believable ease in their exchanges, creating a voyeuristic feel to each scene. In their respective roles as Paul and Gram, both Dalto and Curnette provide more-than-sufficient support to Thompson, complementing her often self-conscious Jo with their characters' quiet self-awareness. As the vivacious Miss Debbie, Bovino steals more than a few scenes, not only leaving the party-goers in his thrall, but the audience, as well. Rounding out the cast is an equally scene-stealing ensemble; in particular, Blake DeLong as Barrett, a headdress-donning party crasher who not only steals scenes, but also booze, and — of course — "the new James Brown!" 

Despite its title, the play isn't a "straight-shooter" — when it comes to dispensing information, instead opting to leave it up to the audience to come to their own conclusions.  What this critic has come to conclude is that The Essential Straight and Arrow is less an examination and more an ode to our past selves and what we once hoped and dreamt. Just as Jo's past struggle as a musician is reflected in her "current" struggle as an actress, perhaps what we can glean from the play is the idea that we must look back to our past in order to journey on into the future. The road ahead might not be a straight shot into success, but perhaps it's the getting there that's worth looking forward to.

The Essential Straight and Arrow ran at The New Ohio Theatre (154 Christopher Street, Ste. 1E, between Greenwich and Washington Streets) in New York City until June 14. For more information, visit www.NewOhioTheatre.org.

Central Park or the Forest of Arden

Often, when New Yorkers think of theatre in Central Park, they think of the Public's Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte Theatre. Flying under the radar of the Delacorte, however, are other theatrical happenings taking place in the nooks and crannies of Central Park.  One of these lesser-known jewels is the New York Classical Theatre, who have been performing their signature "panoramic theatre" in public outdoor spaces such as Central Park, Prospect Park and Battery Park since 2000.  Under the artistic direction of Founder Stephen Burdman, the New York Classical Theatre has most recently applied their panoramic style (a roving, interactive experience that adapts each script to its location) to Shakespeare's As You Like It.  While staging moveable theatre in a park has its obvious difficulties -- such as lighting, sound, and seat comfort -- the overall experience of As You Like It is a delightful summer treat for all ages.

The performances in this play deserve special applause.  While some of the movement is a bit grandiose, this is probably an attempt to fill the unique and sprawling space of Central Park-as-stage.  The cast works together to keep energy high and the pace clipping.  Rin Allen breathes new life into the cross-dressing Rosalind, delivering her lines with vocal color and physical playfulness.  Clay Storseth delivers Jaques' beloved "All The World's a Stage" monologue with insightful nuance.  Also notable is Antoinette Robinson's sassy Phoebe.  Overall, the ensemble has an excellent command of Shakespearean language, making the plotline accessible to even the most inexperienced Shakespeare audiences.

New York Classical Theatre employs crafty design techniques to overcome the obstacles of staging As You Like It outdoors.  Once the sun goes down, company interns whip out an arsenal of flashlights to light the action.  While only partially effective in illuminating the faces of the actors, this makeshift lighting technique creates a magical, "summer camp" type of atmosphere that trumps any expensive lighting system in town.  Similarly, without amplification, the actors must use extra projection to compete with the rich soundscape of the park:  birds, crowds of tourists, people on cell phones, passing ambulances, etc.  These moments of aural interference, however, only enhance the excitement created by the re-articulation of a public space like Central Park.  As you move from scene to scene, be sure to sit close to the action so you can catch most of the lines spoken by the talented performers.  Also, since you will be sitting on the ground, bringing a picnic blanket might not be a bad idea. 

Unlike the Shakespeare in the Park series at the Delacorte, audiences need not wait in long lines to get tickets.  New York Classical Theatre productions are completely free and you can show up at any time to join.  For anyone who enjoys both serious theatre and summer fun, As You Like It is an enchanting summer treat.

Performances of As You Like It runs at Central Park (West 103rd Street and Central Park West) on Thursdays through Sundays until June 22. Performances in Prospect Park (Long Meadow near the Picnic House - 5th Street and Prospect Park West) run every night, June 24–29. Performances in Battery Park (meet in front of Castle Clinton) run Tuesday through Sunday, July 1– 27. All performances are free, begin promptly at 7 p.m., and last two hours. For more information, call 212-252-4531 or visit www.newyorkclassical.org.

Missed Connections to Happiness

In a program note to one of the current productions of his plays at 59E59 Theaters, British playwright Alan Ayckbourn acknowledges a debt to J.B. Priestley. Priestley’s inventive splintering of time in plays like Dangerous Corner, Ayckbourn writes, has inspired him. Thus the simple time frame of Ayckbourn's early masterpiece Absurd Person Singular (1975), which charted the changing fortunes of its six characters over three Christmases, led eventually to Communicating Doors (1994), where stepping through a door in a hotel suite takes a character back 20 years. In 1999 came the tour de force House and Garden, which have to be played in adjacent theaters simultaneously, so that characters from House exit into Garden, and vice versa, and actors work in two plays in one evening.

Ayckbourn also plays with time in his newest work, Arrivals & Departures, a comedy that may rival Woman in Mind (1985) and Wildest Dreams (1991) as one of his darkest.

At a railway station, Quentin (Bill Champion), the director of a police task force, is planning to intercept a seemingly slippery and dangerous criminal, “codename Cerastes.” Quentin is directing a squad of agents in their disguises, and things are going egregiously wrong. One “father” holds his “baby” by the feet; a female “tourist” mangles a would-be Norwegian accent. As Quentin notes, “The closest she’s ever been to Norway is Botswana.” In short order, though, Quentin has other worries. A young female police officer, Ez (Elizabeth Boag), who is about to be discharged from the force, is assigned to his unit to protect the only known eyewitness who can identify Cerastes, a bluff old Yorkshireman named Barry (Kim Wall), who arrives by helicopter.

The story then journeys in flashbacks to Ez's childhood and adolescence, as scenes alternate between her recollections and the inane attempts of Barry to talk to her. Her father dies in military combat, and she develops a deep-seated hostility toward men, feeling abandonment. Eventually she joins the police force. Even though she shrinks at anyone's touch, she has a romance with a man named Rob, but at her insistence there is no sex. At 23, she is constantly morose and, unfortunately, one finds it difficult to sympathize with her. Boag is suitably dour, and suggests that Ez has unresolved daddy issues.

Act II is when Ayckbourn pulls off one of his expected theatrical tricks: the action of the play starts over (with subtle adjustments), and this time we follow Barry's early life — marriage, children, overbearing in-laws — through flashbacks. A man who seemed eccentric, charming, and harmless turns out to be as deeply unhappy as Ez. In what is surely one of the bleakest endings of any Ayckbourn play — and it feels like a forced plot twist — Ez and Barry finally find a connection.

Well-known Ayckbourn themes are reworked here. Among them are the unseen misery of people who seem content and confident, and the incompetence and pettiness of people who hold authority (echoing 2011’s Neighbourhood Watch). The dramatist's observation of the British middle class is as astute as ever.

Although Ayckbourn intends Arrivals & Departures to be in a more serious vein, fans who are used to his generally comic spirit will find this atmosphere predominantly tragic. That’s the playwright’s prerogative, of course, but the comedy and tragedy here jostle each other uneasily. The harshness of Ez’s character, though it abates in the second act, when Barry is the focus, is off-putting. A confrontation between Ez and Rob’s parents touches abruptly on British class friction, and the final portrait of Rob that emerges doesn’t square with the patient, decent character that Richard Stacey has created.

Nonetheless, under the author’s direction, the actors do a fine job bringing this thorny anomaly to life. As part of the Brits Off-Broadway festival, 59E59 is offering a generous helping of Ayckbourn (he has written 78 plays), with visiting productions from the playwright’s own Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough: a revival of his 1992 play, Time of My Life, is also being presented, and though it, too, has a serious side, a third bill contains two one-acts under the umbrella title Farcicals.

Arrivals & Departures, Farcicals and Time of My Life play in repertory through June 29 with marathons on Sundays. For tickets and times, visit www.59e59.org.

Woman is the Future of Man

What do you get with a play that infuses all the elements of a classic farce with a modern soundtrack and an all-female cast? You get complete and utter hilarity. Much of this hilarity is owed to the wit of English playwright Aphra Behn, known to many as one of the first female dramatists and therefore a key figure of Restoration-era theater. Who better to mount a modern production of one of Behn's most ridiculously raunchy plays, Sir Patient Fancy, than all-female troupe The Queen's Company? Founded in 2000 by director Rebecca Patterson, the company is dedicated to introducing classic works to a contemporary audience through the use of gender-blind casting.

It is the late 1600s in England, a time when fiscal inequity meant marrying for money, and not for love. As a result, in the director's words, "all hell breaks loose and hearts get broken." Sir Patient Fancy, though written in the 17th century, feels a lot like something one would read in today's gossip rags: Lady Fancy is married to the titular Sir Patient Fancy, but really fancies Charles Wittmore, who is friends with Lodwick Knowell, who is in love with Isabella Fancy, who is betrothed to Sir Fainlove who actually is Charles Wittmore. Needless to say: the plot thickens and madness ensues, with a lot of laughs along the way. In a modern-day context, Behn's female characters here are not passive pretty little things, but rather active, doing most of the scheming. This is made even more interesting with an all-female cast, where the men answer to the women.  

As for the actors themselves, their onstage antics are well-timed, comedic perfection. The distinct personalities of Behn's characters combined with the irreverent kookiness of each cast member creates a bubbly atmosphere not unlike the fizzy champagne one would have in Sir Patient Fancy's court (if one had time to drink in the midst of all that scheming and meddling). The pacing and delivery of lines is never tired, maintaining a consistent rhythm, much of which is due to the company's evident chemistry with one another. One pairing with such notable chemistry is that of Tiffany Abercrombie and Elisabeth Preston, who play Lady Fancy and Wittmore, respectively. Each complemented the other with quick and natural ease; their expressions and mannerisms only helped to heighten the comedy in which they were immersed. Other standouts include Virginia Baeta as the bumbling but eager Sir Credulous Easy and Natalie Lebert as the clueless Sir Patient Fancy himself. While Matthew J. Fick's set design maintains the play's classic roots, Kristina Makowski's costumes are a fusion of both modern and period elements, providing the perfect visual representation of the company's performative style.  

Boasting a chuckle-enducing, genre-bending soundtrack and a plot with more twists than a daytime soap opera, it is clear that The Queen's Company has put their own unique stamp on classic Restoration comedy with Sir Patient Fancy.  

Sir Patient Fancy runs from March 15 – April 5 in a limited engagement at the Wild Project (located at 195 East 3rd Street between Avenue A and Avenue B). Performances are Wednesdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. Tickets are $18 and can be purchased online at www.queenscompany.org or by calling 1-866-811-4111. Tickets are 2-for-1 on Wednesday nights.

The Power of Love

What happens when a god falls down to Earth and a mortal ascends to the heavens? You get one of the most enduring stories of love wrapped in a myth — Cupid and Psyche, a story from Apuleius's Metamorphoses, which was recently presented by Turn to Flesh Productions at TBG Theatre (312 West 36th St.). Under the helm of playwright and artistic director Emily C.A. Snyder, the theater company re-contextualized a classic legend about Cupid's fabled experience of the trials and agony of love. 

We first meet the titular God of Passion when his mother Aphrodite (Goddess of Love) notices the hearts of men are turned away from her and towards Psyche, a mortal woman who would not love. The goddess urges her son Cupid (also known as Eros) to put a spell on her so as to win the world back to love. Determined to carry out his mission, Cupid swoops down to Earth with an arrow poised on Psyche. However, the winged archer soon finds himself falling for the mortal being and kisses her. This riles the gods and before Cupid knows it, he has killed Adonis. As punishment, he walks the Earth as The Beast, forced to kill all lovers in his path, forever searching in vain for Pysche's heart. 

Playing gods and mortals is itself not an easy task and only one that Turn to Flesh could achieve with an energetic ensemble: charming leading man James Parenti as Cupid; Erin Nelson as the cerebral Pysche; Kelly Laurel Zekas and Laura Iris Hill as scheming sisters Livia and Dareia, respectively; the sensuous Laura Hooper as Aphrodite; Stan Buturla as their regal father Thanos; Patrick Marran as the confused Chrysos; as well as Parker Madison and Gwenevere Sisco as the deliciously devious duo, Adonis and Persephone. This eclectic cast of characters helped flesh out what those unfamiliar with the mythological texts would view as ancient relics, truly carrying them into the 21st century.

Indeed, it was this vision of modernizing an old fairy tale that even carried over into their costumes. Costume coordinator Emily Rose Parman injected some anachronistic flair into the earth-bound Gods' apparel. For the Goddess' self-proclaimed "rags," Parman had Aphrodite donning lots of lingerie-inspired shift dresses, as well as sexy camisole-and-shorts nighties — replete with a matching silk robe, of course. As Goddess of Death, Persephone was in full-on Victorian dress, with a Gothic twist, making her seem like something out of a production of Sweeney Todd. The mortal lovers wore contemporary clothing, as did Gods Adonis and Cupid: the former in a bomber jacket, wallet chain and heavy boots that would make any punk rocker proud; the latter, dressed simply (as any respectable Winged-Archer-God would), in a streamlined, hipster jacket and jeans combo that would not be amiss in ol' Billyburg. As for young Psyche, she sported free-flowing dresses throughout — ensembles that looked modern, and yet also recalled the simplicity and elegance of Ancient Greek dress. 

Furthering the play's modern twist was the music, which punctuated each act with a sweeping, guitar-driven indie soundtrack. As for the staging, Michael Hetzer's multi-purpose two-story set-up represented the worlds of the Gods and the Mortals: upstairs, not only provided entrance for various characters — God or Mortal — but also represented Heaven later on. Similarly, downstairs were the grounds that stood in for the gardens where Cupid and Psyche would meet, which also later provided Persephone's domain, Hades' Underworld. Though simple, the set looked as if it did not coalesce with the play's romantic themes. However, this is more than made up for in Zephan Ellenbogen's beautiful light-bulb fixtures and lighting cues, which were moody and stark, especially during the Underworld scenes in the play's latter half. 

They say "love is blind," and this much is true in the case of Cupid, a God who fell for a mortal. As Turn to Flesh's production shows, sometimes falling in love is worth all the pain. If there's anything the story Cupid and Psyche has given us, it is the gift of forever reminding us of the perpetuity of love and its ability to make every one of us — even a God — fallible.

Cupid and Psyche opened at the TBG Theatre (312 West 36th Street) ran from February 13-16. For more information, visit TurnToFlesh.com.

Lips Locked Uneasily

Sarah Ruhl’s new play, Stage Kiss, examines the rekindling of a romance between a scattered actress and a struggling actor as they discover they have been cast as lovers 10 years after their break-up and estrangement. Foolish, egotistical thespians and their hangers-on have long provided comic fodder for the stage: George Kelly’s The Torch-Bearers (1923); George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber’s The Royal Family (1928); So Help Me God!—a 1929 play by Maureen Dallas Watkins that was unearthed by the Mint Theater in 2009; the madcap Room Service (1937); Noel Coward’s Present Laughter (1942); Moss Hart’s Light Up the Sky (1948); Michael Frayn’s 1982 farce Noises Off; and, of course, Mel Brooks’s The Producers (2001).

Sarah Ruhl’s attempt to follow in those footsteps is stutteringly amusing but mostly tiresome. To be sure, the piece suggests that she is after something closer to the heftier entries (more Royal Family than Room Service), but Ruhl has significantly not given her main characters real names. They are She, He, The Director and The Husband, and they come off as ciphers more than flesh-and-blood people. Other hurdles include the disruption of comic momentum by songs in Brechtian fashion (including “Some Enchanted Evening”) and an interlocking monologue.

The show that the actors are appearing in is, crucially, an old musical. “It was a flop on Broadway in 1932,” says The Director (a nebbishy Patrick Kerr), “but we think with the proper cast, a new score, and some judicious cuts it will be really very well received in New Haven.” That’s a terrific line, but the arch dialogue and melodramatic situations of the revised book that are presented make it inconceivable that any sane producer would back the show. And The Director in rehearsal is earnestly incompetent; he would never have earned a reputation that would put a major musical in his hands.

This all undermines the essential grounding the comedy needs. No matter now farcical events become, there must be a kernel of truth, a modicum of believability. Director Rebecca Taichman has not imposed a singular tone or sharpened Ruhl’s intentions, and the lack of credibility and cohesion may be one reason the performers seem to flounder. Dominic Fumusa and Jessica Hecht as He and She have little chemistry and sometimes seem at sea in their parts.

The splendid first scene, as She arrives late for her audition, promises far more than the remainder delivers. She hasn’t read her “sides,” she asks for an explanation of the plot, and her photo résumé seems to have been trampled in a buffalo stampede. The Director asks her to read with the unprepossessing Kevin (Michael Cyril Creighton), the leading man’s gay understudy. She gets the job. When She discovers that her ex-lover has the role, one might expect comic fireworks on the order of Private Lives, but the results are sporadic cherry bombs and a drifting, angst-ridden affair.  

It seems Ruhl’s intention to contrast stage passion with real passion, the heightened romance and physicality of love with the routineness of marriage and workaday life. (“Love me just shy of forever, or love me till six o’clock” goes a song about the gossamer nature of it all.) The significance of a kiss is parsed by He, who takes the position that an audience only tolerates kissing “because it signifies resolution which people like to see on stage but they don’t really like to see the act of kissing on stage, only the idea of kissing on stage. That’s why actors have to be good-looking because it’s about an idea, an idea of beauty completing itself.” (How ironic that critic John Simon was often assailed because he held actors’ looks against them for a similar reason: good looks are a way for an audience to summon quick sympathy for a character in a play’s short span.)

A variety of kisses appear in Stage Kiss, by far the funniest being those of Creighton’s roly-poly substitution for He. The talented actor particularly enlivens a scene on a divan when he opens his mouth wide as if to devour She just before he kisses her (“like a placoderm,” She complains) and frightens her. His nimble physical presence is a choice asset in a comedy that promises much, but delivers little.

Sarah Ruhl's Stage Kiss plays through March 23. Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday; 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday; and 7:30 p.m. on Sunday. Matinees are Saturday and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Ticket prices start at $75 and are available by going to www.playwrightshorizons.org or calling Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200.

A Winter's Tale Ends in Spring

The WorkShop Theater Company’s production of The Winter’s Tale is a very traditional staging of William Shakespeare’s play, which emphasizes the beauty of the words and the great characters that define the Elizabethan bard. In the play, Polixenes, the ruler of Bohemia, has been a guest for nine months at the court of Leontes, the king of Sicilia. He is about to leave, yet Leontes’s wife, Hermione, lovingly persuades Polixenes to postpone his departure. That is the moment when jealousy blinds the Sicilian king. He subsequently accuses his pregnant wife of being unfaithful and imprisons her. Notwithstanding Paulina’s (a noblewoman loyal to the queen) defense of his wife’s innocence, Hermione gives birth to a girl in prison. Only after their young son and Hermione die of grief and the newborn has been abandoned in the dangerous Bohemian woods under his own orders, does Leontes realize the error of his ways. This is only the first half of a play whose surprising turns include a confirmation of innocence by the Oracle at Delphi, a fatal bear attack, and a statue that suddenly comes to life.

In the staging, the action is divided between two countries, Sicilia and Bohemia. Sicilia is portrayed as a barren and cold space. The walls are covered by curtains of black plastic bags and the nobility is dressed in dark suits. Leontes himself wears a black military uniform, which brings to mind the fascist dictators of the mid-20th century. Ethan Cadoff does a great job of portraying the frigidity of the character, whose only humanity is exposed with his jealous outbursts. Laurie Schroeder’s performance as Hermione exudes a flirtatious candor that somewhat explains her husband’s reaction. The production does a great job in staging the tragic first half of the play, the winter part of the tale referenced in the title.

In the second half of the play, the action moves to Bohemia 16 years after the incidents in Sicilia. At this point, the play is taken over by the light, humor and festivities of spring, whose overt sexuality follows the spirit of the pagan fertility rituals. The plastic bags slide open to uncover the mountains and blue skies of Bohemia. Michael Minahan’s set design marks in a simple and effective way the change in space and tone from the first half. Autolycus, the comic rogue, further establishes the merriment that distinguishes Bohemia. Robert Meksin plays the character with delicious abandon, singing and picking the pockets of the bumpkin clown.

Ryan Lee’s direction successfully portrays the Sicilian barrenness that opposes Bohemia’s chaotic innocence.

Angela Harner’s costumes also distinguish each space. The Sicilian dark suits are discarded for the colorful Bohemian garbs that allude to 1960s trends. On one hand, Polixenes’s attire brings to mind the Eastern influence on Western fashion, while on the other hand Autolycus’s clothes represent the errant hippie. Although some of the Bohemian costumes are too ridiculous and lack a general cohesiveness, they create an interesting effect since the same actors who wore the repressive and uniform suits during the first half, now appear as Bohemian revelers wearing neon colored see-throughs, heavy makeup and shiny pants.    

The whole cast does a marvelous job of juggling the two opposites of Sicilia and Bohemia. While Annalisa Loeffler’s Paulina fervently defends Hermione’s virtue while constrained in a gray skirt suit in Sicilia, her Bohemian Dorcas dons a feathered boa and red sunglasses. Along the same lines, Jacob Callie Moore plays the Clown with comedic energy and hence is almost unrecognizable as the much more serious Sicilian Dion. This production of The Winter’s Tale turns the bleakness of a tragic winter into the vibrant sensuality of spring.

The Winter’s Tale runs through March 15 at the WorkShop Theater Company's Main Stage (312 West 36th St., 4th Fl.). General tickets are $18; $15 for students and seniors. For tickets, call 866-811-4111 or visit www.workshoptheater.org.

Down the Road and Back Again

If you were born or grew up in the mid- to late-1980s, chances are the names Blanche, Rose, Dorothy and Sophia will strike in you a very nostalgic cord. When the four Miami-based retirees known as The Golden Girls debuted in 1985, they immediately became a hit with their post-menopausal, cheesecake-slicing antics. From the ditzy, air-headed Scandinavian Rose to the wonderfully saucy and sex-driven Blanche, it wasn't hard to laugh along with these Girls. The show ran for only seven seasons (practically a lifetime by today's standards), but it made an indelible mark on American pop culture; Thank You For Being a Friend, which is currently running at the Laurie Beechman Theatre is definitely evident of the sitcom's impact. The musical parody features an all-male cast as the Golden Girls themselves with music and lyrics by director Nick Brennan.

Here, the names are slightly different: Blanche is now Blanchet; Rose is Roz; and Dorothy and Sophia are Dorothea and Sophie. Despite the slight changes, the rest of the show is still in keeping with the original television comedy — from the dialogue to the overall episodic tone. Indeed, at the show's start, we find Blanchette (with binoculars in hand and her booty out to the audience, of course) snooping on the new neighbors next door. The other ladies soon make their entrances into the kitchen, and we learn that their new neighbor is actually none other than Latino pop star Ricky Martin (played by Adrian Rifat).

As dinner theater entertainment goes, Thank You For Being a Friend makes for a super fun night out. Each of the cast members have their share of the stage. Chad Ryan as Blanchet is spot-on, and both Luke Jones and John de los Santos are hilarious as the mother-daughter duo. However, it is Brennan as the naive but sweet Roz and Adrian Rifat as the pop star has-been that completely steal the show. Brennan doing Betty White's "aw shucks" mannerisms and Rifat's entrance with Ricky's signature "prayer hands" were hilarious.

As a group, they complement one another very well and seem to have an intricate knowledge of the others' rhythms, which only further helped the comedy along. Also bringing on the funny were the songs, among which were revampings of old showtunes, as well as originals written by Brennan. Some examples include "All That Jizz," an obviously classy homage sung by Ricky; "Roz's Turn," in which Roz proclaims her right to Shady Oaks fame; "Sex Changing," in which Dorothea goes through some, er...changes; and the oh-so-catchy finale, "Miami."  

Of course, one cannot write about a musical set in the '80s without talking about the clothes. The costumes by Jessa-Raye Court are absolutely fab in all their shoulder-padded glory. At one point, the girls do away with the talent show doldrums with some good old-fashioned retail therapy ("Fab Fads") with...what else? A fashion show with cardboard outfits and sequins. As for the set design, much of which revolved — literally — around a couple of multi-purpose panels, behind which was where all the mind-boggling quick changes took place (seriously, the cast of Broadway's Cinderella would even be impressed). The stagehands even donned as golden-aged girls themselves with wigs and tacky pantsuits.

If you're in for some great food, drink and some raucous laughter, then you'll love Thank You For Being a Friend. It will not only make you pine for the good old days of over-sized blazers and the "Latin Invasion" of '99 (a moment of silence please), but it will make you remember that aside from the fashion blunders and questionable musical taste, not all of it was bad. So head down to the Laurie Beechman Theatre and walk down memory lane — it'll make your life less of a, well...drag!

Thank You For Being a Friend is playing at the Laurie Beechman Theatre (which is located inside West Bank Cafe at 407 West 42nd St.). Evening performances are Wednesdays at 7 p.m., and Fridays, Feb. 28, March 14 and 28 at 10 p.m. with added shows Saturday, March 8 at 7 p.m. and Thursday, March 27 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20 (plus a $15 food/drink minimum) and available at 212-352-3101 or Spincyclenyc.com.