A Widower's Sexual Salvation

“I’m standing in the street feeling murderous toward this prostitute, thinking about stabbing and stabbing and stabbing her and I know she doesn’t deserve it.”

This expression of raw emotion is uttered in the compelling Second Act of Toni Press-Coffman’s Touch. Directed by Deborah Mathieu-Byers, these powerful words are spoken by the play’s protagonist Kyle Kalke (Jonathan Berenson), a heart-broken astronomer, struggling to come to terms with the murder of his wife Zoe (Rachel Spencer). He tries explaining to his best friend Bennie Locasto (Mike Petrie, Jr.) how he began seeing a prostitute in the wake of his wife’s murder.

The moment Kyle, full of rage and desire, first encounters the prostitute is the point of attack when the play should begin because something vital is at stake where a conflict will lead up to a crisis and the protagonist has reached a turning point in his life. Yet inexplicably, Press-Coffman, an experienced and award-winning playwright has made the near fatal error of filling the first act with tedious exposition and characterization.

How could someone so accomplished make such a miscalculation? I have no idea. But it’s as if she didn’t realize how good the writing and acting are in the second act — at times electrifying and chilling. As Lajos Egri said in his 1946 classic treatise on playwriting The Art of Dramatic Writing: “A play should start with the first line uttered. The characters involved will expose their natures in the course of conflict. It is bad playwriting first to marshal your evidences, drawing in the background, creating an atmosphere, before you begin the conflict.”

Yet in the opening monologue, which seems to drag on interminably, Press-Coffman seems determined to disregard Egri’s wise counsel. She marshals her evidences, draws in the background, and creates an atmosphere, before beginning the conflict. We learn that Kyle was an introverted nerd who became fascinated with astronomy and star gazing, and how he fell in love with and eventually married the Annie Hall-like Zoe. Mercifully, the opening monologue ends and so does the first act as Kyle recalls the night his wife was murdered.

It is in Act II where the play really begins.

The energy in the theater changed when the prostitute Kathleen (Dorothy McMillan) strode onto the stage in daisy dukes over fishnet stockings, and a red bra under a lace top (kudos to costume designer Miodrag Guberinic). Kathleen filled the theater with the sweet stank of sex. As she strutted to the front of the stage and began soliciting audience members, she supplied the edge, sexual energy, and spunk the play so desperately needed. But why did we have to wait so long to see her?

Interestingly, Kyle is a much more compelling character when talking about his raw, strictly sexual relationship with the prostitute, than when he is reminiscing about his love for his murdered wife. While explaining to his best friend the erotic charge and rejuvenating force which Kathleen has brought into his life, he comes alive. In these moments, the writing and the acting sparkle. In one passage Kyle says, “Because I can feel myself making and expending energy again. Because when I’m lost inside this woman’s body, I don’t think about who killed Zoe. I don’t think about how much pain she might have been in before she died.” If only there had been more moments like these!

As advertised, this staging of Touch by Avalon Studios NYC was a multimedia affair — Jarrel Lynch (production design), Nicholas Ortiz (photography) and Max Ridgeway (media design). Unfortunately, the use of the jumbo screen which hovered above Marija Plavsic Kostic’s stage — two opposing chairs and a raised platform with a pile of rocks — could hardly have been less imaginative. Throughout Act I, this potentially powerful media serves merely to echo the protracted backstory: Kyle mentions first seeing Zoe in a science class. An image of Zoe leaving a classroom flashes on the screen. Kyle recalls their winter vacation in New York. Pictures of a snow-covered New York flash on the screen.

What a waste.

These images would have been much more compelling if woven seamlessly throughout the play, rather than dumped at the beginning. If images of Kyle’s murdered wife had flashed on the screen during his tense and initially guilt-ridden encounters with the prostitute, they would have added layers of meaning and heightened the dramatic intensity.

One only hopes that this play is restructured and restaged. There is too much good, serious and compelling work here not to be put together more thoughtfully.

In a Dark Place

Rebecca Gilman’s 1999 play, The Glory of Living, ambitiously revived in a shoestring production by Revolve Productions at The Access Theater, feels very timely indeed. With the horrific revelations of the torture and rape of three young women in Cleveland still fresh in the news, Gilman’s examination of two lethal losers resonates powerfully.

Gilman, whose play won an Evening Standard Award in London and set her on course to her better-known works, Spinning into Butter and Boy Gets Girl, splits the two acts of her play by letting us first get to know Lisa (Hannah Sloat), a reticent young woman whose rough-and-tumble home life is deftly outlined, and Clint (Hardy Pinnell), the roistering man who takes her away from it all and into a life of crime and sexual depravity.

Almost all the scenes in Act I progress over months and years. They take place around a bed in a motel room, where Clint, whose high spirits conceal a small, suspicious mind, gradually seeks more sexual fulfillment than Lisa (they have quickly married) can provide. It’s a good sign the marriage is in trouble when the pillow talk turns to “Your mother’s a drunk whore.”

Eventually the pair progress to kidnapping young women, and the compliant Lisa acts out Clint’s sexual fantasies. They involve luring young women into a vehicle and kidnapping them, drugging them and having sex. After that, the young women disappear. It’s a mark of Sloat’s affectless, sullen performance that she comes across as ambivalent about what she does; it’s not until Act II that one realizes something is fundamentally wrong inside her. Still, Lisa has a hang-up about leaving the women’s bodies in the wild for animals to find. She surreptitiously telephones police and guides them to the corpses. But that apparent kindness backfires once she is traced and she and Clint are arrested.

The second act examines Lisa during her incarceration for murder, and here set designer Alexandra Regazzoni provides stunning visual counterpoint. The first act is awash in bright colors and contrast. For the second, Regazzoni places a clear plexiglas wall between the audience and the action, with chain link fences on the other three sides, and a gray-and-black color scheme. It’s a nice touch, subtly emphasizing the danger the young woman poses. Tuce Yasak's lighting complements the concept: warm amber in Act I; harsh white fluorescents and pockets of darkness in the second. The inspiration carries over to Regazzoni’s apropos costumes — there’s a peach of a blouse for Lisa’s slutty mom in Act I that has a plunging neckline and weird pieces of cloth hanging from it; the blouse screams “trailer trash.” (The action is set in Alabama, though it might take place anywhere in rural America.) 

As Act II unfolds, The Glory of Living (an ironic title, since almost nobody in the story has an smidgen of glory in their lives) assumes the routine of a Law & Order episode. Lisa meets with her court-appointed lawyer Carl, who tries to get her to help with her defense. Her descriptions of events suggest that Clint’s hold on her wasn’t absolute. Why didn't she flee? Why didn't she turn him in? Even after one has seen Clint’s brutality toward Lisa and his sexual hang-ups, Gilman relays enough ambiguity that one has to ask, “Is it possible Lisa is more dangerous than Clint?” Investing the production with unsettling silences and claustrophobia, director Ashley Kelly Tata maintains the uncertainty to the end; between what the authorities allege and what is shown to the audience, there is a gulf large enough to make one doubt that truth is ever discoverable in actual legal proceedings.

Tata has also gotten mostly good performances from the supporting team, especially Richard Hutzler as Lisa’s lawyer and Stephen James Anthony (the only Broadway veteran, from War Horse) as Steve, the boyfriend of one of the slain women; he survived Lisa’s attempt to kill him. They share a scene, and Anthony’s compelling performance melds regret, loneliness, bewilderment and anger into a memorable portrait of a victim/survivor, while Hutzler as the attorney treads a fine line to get information to help his client without alienating the witness.

The Glory of Living isn't an easy piece. For August entertainment, there is nothing frivolous or summery about it, but this ambitious production affirms Revolve as a troupe that's willing to tackle serious topics without regard to the temperament of the season.

An All-Around Messy Situation

Hoarding is a jumping-off point for Jay Stull’s interesting but unfocused drama, The Capables. The dire medical phenomenon has been the subject of reality television, but it has rarely been used dramatically: its most notable appearance was in Richard Greenberg’s 2002 play The Dazzle, about the real-life Collyer brothers in 1947.

Now that the disorder is widely known, however, it is bound to crop up more often, and Stull’s first play employs it primarily for comic effect. The disease, though given astonishing visual presence by George Hoffmann and Greg Kozatek’s extraordinary set, which appears to be the result of mating a toy drive with a flea market, is ultimately just window dressing — and inevitably more orderly than the real thing — for the personal conflicts of the family of the title.

Those conflicts spill over to encompass the crew of the reality TV show that is invited into the home of Anna Capable (Dale Soules) by her daughter, Jessy. To help Anna clear out the family home, Jessy has persuaded her reticent, fundamentalist Christian mother to unburden herself on a broadcast. Part of Jessy’s worry is the near-blindness of her father, Jonah, a fan of classical solo piano music. Inexplicably, director Stefanie Abel Horowitz has him waving his arms as if directing the music in his imagination, apparently unaware that solo piano recitals do not involve conductors.

It’s surely Stull’s bad luck that a razor-sharp satire on reality TV, Good Television, premiered at the Atlantic just a few weeks ago, with several striking similarities to The Capables, including a ruthless producer and an obsession with entertainment over human needs. Here the TV producer is David (Charles Browning), a hard-driving team leader who wants “authentic and spontaneous displays of emotion” to fuel his ratings. Among his assistants is a cameraman, Tommy, a dryly humorous, easygoing participant played by Micah Stock with a slight goofiness and reassuring demeanor. Those qualities help him in a budding romance with Jessy (inhabited with deceptive verisimilitude by cross-dressing performer Katie, aka Jay, Eisenberg).

Stull has a gift for writing sarcasm and arguments: disputes over the use of the word “retarded” and riffs on McDonald’s food choices produce some good comic moments. But the horrors of hoarding are sidelined in favor of the unscrupulous behavior of reality TV; a family mystery the Capables are hiding; and the liaison between Jessy and Tommy.

Fresh off her performance in Hands on a Hardbody on Broadway, Soules displays another expert Southern accent (the setting is Virginia). She is by turns blustering and proud, overbearing and condescending, and when the therapist from the show (Jessie Barr) tries and fails to persuade her to discard items, it’s one of the comic high points of the evening. But she also reveals a cruel streak.

Amid the strands of his plot, Stull has also stuck a peculiar flashback, in which young Anna and Jonah meet. Young Anna is portrayed by an effective Dana Berger, crying and cursing from some he-done-her-wrong interaction. Approached by a concerned young Jonah, her hard-edged, scowling Anna insults and baits him, and the scene drags on past the turning point when Anna, finally playing nice, could have earned some sympathy. But Max Woertendyke’s Jonah — confident, easygoing and sympathetic — is a gem. He conveys an innate kindness in the character that puts over an unlikely plot twist, and Stull’s ear for dialogue helps, as in Max’s description of Anna: “You got a serious hatred for the innocent and what most would call devotion or love you describe it like the plague, like it something shameful.” Still, the bit of back story doesn’t have a payoff sufficient for the time it takes up.

Also too lengthy by far is the opening scene of Act II, when Tommy and Jessy take a trip out to the woods, and Tommy begins to reassure Jessy that although she hardly knows him, he won’t rape her. It’s the comedy of discomfort that’s fashionable today, and although Stock plays it deftly, the pace dwindles to a standstill; the play needs pruning by Stull and/or Horowitz.

Ultimately, the playwright ties up the knots of his plot with a finale that Mark Twain would call a “stretcher.” There is a good deal of talent here, obviously attracted by the promise of the script. But Stull's nascent talent needs stronger directorial focus and more discipline to help it grow. 

Sea Dogs on Shore

The Boat Factory, a two-hander from Northern Ireland currently playing as part of the Brits Off-Broadway festival, has a bit of a split personality. Its first half details the early life of the main character, Davy Gordon, and the way he becomes a worker in Belfast’s boatyards, along with their rich background. The boatyards date back to ancient times, and the two actors, Dan Gordon (who is also the playwright) and Michael Condron, embody a variety of characters to catalogue the major steps in Belfast’s glorious maritime history—it was at Harland and Wolff, the boat factory of the title, that the Titanic was built. Happenstance Theatre Company, from Belfast, even provides an impressive souvenir booklet about the factory.

The play draws on a tradition of British dramatic works (not to mention those of Shaw) about public issues involving the working classes, politics, and industry, such as John Arden’s Vandaleur’s Folly (1978) or David Hare’s The Permanent Way (2003). But in this case, Gordon’s recounting of the vessel-making visionaries and the growth of the industry comes across initially as rather dry and parochial for an American audience. It’s not just the unfamiliar words and accents (only minimally an issue), but the lists of ships, Belfast landmarks, and people whizzing by that make it hard to connect.

Gordon does his best to alleviate the unfamiliarity. For instance, the headlong race through history is handled with stream-of-consciousness and word association, and such passages have rhythms that sound like poetry. Davy: “The boats—the trade—we must act—Act—in Parliament—Irish acts—”

Geordie: “Acts—Romans—Corinthians—Galatians—Ephesians—Ahhh—men.”

Davy: “Acts for cleansing the Ports of Galway, Sligo, Drogheda and Belfast—Clarendon Dock—Hugh Ritchie—John Ritchie—Alexander McLaine.” 

Still, the amount of information thrown at the listener may make you feel you've been dropped into a novel by James Joyce. The actors play a lot of parts, sometimes switching to the same character back and forth. There’s not a really strong focus except for the complex narrative itself, making it hard to connect to one person for very long—even Davy, who’s played by Gordon alone.

The second half of Philip Crawford’s production, however, is almost a different play. In it, Gordon develops Davy’s friendship with a young man named Geordie, introduced in the first part, and their relationship provides a way to engage with the play more easily than in the first half. Although Condron plays Geordie, he’s also assigned the bulk of the other roles, including the comic ones. He’s especially good as Clifford, a mentally challenged young worker with a cherished tool belt. Although Clifford's job is secure because of nepotism, he is the butt of practical jokes and abuse from others. His nemesis is the big boss, Mr. Marshall (Gordon, fitting easily into the role of a heavy). After Davy becomes Clifford’s protector, he learns a crucial secret that Clifford knows about the boatyard.

But it’s the friendship of Geordie and Davy that anchors the second half, and the actors shine. Although a key element—Geordie’s love of Moby-Dick—is introduced rather late in the play, most of the writing is sure-footed. One might wish that Gordon hadn’t written a shoe salesman who is gay in quite so hackneyed a manner, although Condron brings it off, or that the poetic litanies about hammers, nails, saws, and chisels didn’t become so predictable; at the same time, the accumulation of details echoes the passages about whales and harpoons and gams in Melville’s great novel. They give the story a texture.

The set of scaffolding on both sides of the stage and a map of the Belfast shipyards that covers the upstage wall are simple but effective. (Graphic design is attributed to Andrew Campbell). It’s clear that the production is a labor of love and civic pride, and its two performers make a success of it.

No More Business as Usual

In 1992, when Stephen Daldry revived J.B. Priestley’s warhorse An Inspector Calls, the British playwright was largely forgotten. Daldry’s inventive staging was a runaway triumph in London and New York, but only sporadically were Priestley's other plays revived here: Dangerous Corner at the Atlantic, The Glass Cage at the Mint. However, they added to the suspicion that Priestley’s obscurity was unfair. Now the Finborough Theatre, arriving from London with Cornelius for the Brits Off-Broadway festival, provides the most damning evidence yet.

Priestley’s play is about many things: a society in change, the callousness of the business world, and the way that work defines people. James Cornelius, a partner in Briggs & Murrison, an aluminum importer, is awaiting the return of Murrison, who has been scouring the country for orders. Meanwhile, the firm’s finances are shaky; creditors are beating at the door, and the staff is awkwardly trying to avoid them in the street or give them assurances of imminent payment that they know to be uncertain.

Over two turbulent weeks, as the firm totters and falls, Priestley examines the victims, their past hopes, and their probable futures. They include Miss Porrin (Pandora Colin), a middle-aged spinster whose commitment to the business hinges on her secret love for Cornelius; Biddle (Col Farrell), an elderly and kindly loyalist who doesn’t care to retire yet; and Lawrence (David Ellis), a frustrated office boy.

Beset by the creditors and flummoxed by various attitudes of the staff, Cornelius has a further problem when Judy Evison (Emily Barber), a lovely young woman, arrives to fill in for her sister, who is a secretary at the firm but has been called away to care for an ailing husband. The outspoken Judy, played by Emily Barber with pluck and confidence, is also a competent, unemployed secretary, and Cornelius reluctantly allows her to fill in.

Cornelius bears surprising parallels to current events, not just in the fallout of the company’s collapse, which is engendered by falling prices and export barriers that sound familiar to the modern ear, but in other ways. A former airman (Andrew Fallaize, in a poignant cameo of a man struggling to keep his honor in desperate straits) arrives to sell business supplies, but he almost faints. Trying to establish himself in the civilian world, the ex-officer is starving and falling through society’s cracks. Cornelius’s advice—“Think of some way to make money”—is absurdly futile. “I’m not allowed to earn a living in any of the old ways,” laments the flier. 

Priestley’s details create a mosaic of a world in flux. A stream of door-to-door salespeople arrive, but when a young woman enters, selling shaving products, the male workers are astonished. In one of many comical moments, Miss Porrin flies off the handle, labeling such saleswomen “vulgar, shameless sirens.” When Lawrence complains of being 19 and still at a boy’s job, Cornelius asks, “What do you want to do?” Lawrence answers, “Something to do with wireless and gramophones. I’m really interested in them.” And Cornelius responds, “So is everybody else of your age…. Wireless and gramophones and motor-cars and aeroplanes.… And how everybody’s going to make a living out of that beats me.” 

As Cornelius scorns those future staples of modern technology, you may find the words “smartphones,” “tablets” and “apps” leaping to mind. Everything, new and old, can be turned into a business transaction: the aged Biddle is collecting estimates for his eventual cremation. As the demise of Briggs & Murrison approaches, Cornelius begins to question whether he has any future. Clearly he has always taken his lead from Murrison, but the arrival of a changed Murrison undermines all their hopes.

Director Sam Yates has drawn sterling performances from 11 of the dozen cast members, and the bar is set high from the moment Beverley Klein’s hearty cockney charwoman enters. Klein reappears later as the landlord’s niece, unrecognizable in her change; she and others, like Fallaize, vividly take on multiple roles.

Unfortunately, Alan Cox in the title role is problematic. From moments after his first entrance, Cox plays to the audience in a noticeable way. If he turns, he lingers full front just long enough to acknowledge the viewers; late in the play, when he toasts Judy’s happiness with a flask, he turns from her to hold the flask up full front to the audience. It’s a habit that’s irritating and tiresome and distracts from the story; Yates should have curbed it, because Cox is just fine when he’s fully focused on his fellow actors.

Still, Priestley’s astonishing play shines through, and the wide net Cornelius casts in its look at British society—there are romantic subplots as well—is a sad reminder that few dramatists nowadays, except Tony Kushner, offer such breadth in a single work.

Bull

Mike Bartlett’s Bull is subtitled The Bullfight Play, but the four characters in Clare Lizzimore’s production clash for 55 minutes in what appears to be a boxing ring, with a water cooler in one corner. Outside the ring, audience members stand (there are also seats around the room). As Bartlett’s characters confront each other, it gradually becomes clear that Sam Troughton’s bespectacled, apprehensive Thomas has been singled out for slaughter, and his office mates are the picadors in the process.

Unlike the colorful participants in a bullfight, the three men and one woman are all dressed in gray or charcoal (costumes and sets are by Soutra Gilmour), but what ensues in this businesslike atmosphere is nevertheless blood sport, as Thomas has his worst fears confirmed: his co-workers Tony (Adam James) and Isobel (Eleanor Matsuura)  are ganging up on him to have him removed from their “team”—Tony is team leader. They have located his weaknesses and exploited them; they have also sabotaged him by withholding information for an important meeting with their superior.

Isobel has a go at him first, softening him up by implying Thomas is unprepared: He has something on his face, his suit doesn’t look good, he’s unprepared to meet the boss, Carter, who is expected shortly. When James’s smooth, boisterous Tony joins her, he underlines her criticisms. To Thomas, though, it’s clear that they are in league against him. Their mind games are ruthless, careering from apparent camaraderie and beneficence to outright belittlement. “You’re like any physically odd man," says Isobel, "talking too much, strange gestures, yapping away, does get annoying, but essentially you're harmless." Or, "You know you can get stuff for hair loss?" She also suggests that his aversion to drinking will certainly hurt him with Carter (Neil Stuke). 

Indeed, Isobel is as ruthless and nasty as any Strindbergian female. When she claims to have been abused by her father, it’s never clear if she really was abused: she may have invented the story to exploit the moment or not. She radiates a certain cold-bloodedness. It's easy to believe that she would use actual sexual abuse to her competitive advantage to undermine Thomas’s confidence. The stakes are ratcheted higher as Tony and Isobel lure Thomas into touching Tony's bare chest—Isobel puts her head against it first—in a homoerotic moment that, in Troughton’s performance of ache and desperation, is obviously humiliating. James is equally superb as the bristlingly confident and ruthless Tony, smiling broadly as he enjoys the game.

Slowly but inexorably, Thomas loses control as the story moves straightforwardly to the arrival of Carter, when Isobel and Tony denounce their colleague as incompetent. The plot is not particularly original—the business world and its sharks have been portrayed before in plays like Other People’s Money and Glengarry Glen Ross, though perhaps not quite at this primal, Darwinian level. Still, Bartlett repeatedly refers to school and childishness, and his portrait of the business world suggests the players in it are no more than childish bullies in a playground. "Promise," Isobel and Tony say to reassure Thomas; it's a childish refrain, and and the astute Thomas even responds, "We're not at school."

Lizzimore paces the show adeptly, and the intensity builds as Thomas, like a wounded bull, thrashes around trying to escape his tormenters. Stuke's Carter is equally uncaring about Thomas's ordeals with his colleagues, spouting boilerplate as he's about to can one of them: "When it comes down to it we're people aren't we, all of us, every single one and we should be treated as human beings." But then he can't remember Thomas's name, and when he does address Thomas, obliviously calls him "Tom"—a point that offends Thomas's dignity.

In last season's Cock, also by Bartlett, a similar arena staging was used, and the title was understood to be a shortened form of a gutter term; it's clear as Bull progresses that it's less about a bullfight than about a dehumanizing business atmosphere where offensive matter is callously slung—more than that, where tooth and claw are used to cull the herd. It's not a terribly original social comment, but it's vividly brought to life in this production.

Love Therapy

In an age where every reality TV star thinks he or she is qualified to throw around Freudian terms, psychology and therapy hold a very mainstream place in our culture. Yet what has this inundation of pseudo-psychological information in our lives done to us? Have we lost track of what therapy is really meant to do? This is the central question in Wendy Beckett’s new play Love Therapy, currently playing at the DR2 Theatre near Union Square.

I was first introduced to Australian playwright Wendy Beckett through her play A Charity Case, and quickly realized that she has a lot of fresh ideas. Love Therapy displays a great deal of interesting characters and some nice scenes, though unfortunately the overall arc of the play is not fully satisfying.

Part of this has to do with problems that actually stem from Jo Winiarski’s set design. The stage is a substantial size, but the actors do not have dynamic spaces in which to work, and therefore their blocking often seems un-moored and distracting. This is coupled with the fact that because Jill Nagle’s lighting has taken on some of the work of creating discrete spaces, the actors often necessarily move into darkened spots because of the limited scope of the lights.

When they are lit, Patricia E. Doherty’s costume design has us wondering why a therapist would be wearing an outfit that looks a bit more risqué than one would expect. The shining example on the technical side of the show is Fight Director Brad Lemons, who does an excellent job with some very fantastic fight choreography.

Despite these design problems, the actors do a good job of holding our interest. The supporting actors give solid performances, especially David Bishins’s portrayal of Steven and Janet Zarish’s of Carol and Mary. Margot White plays marriage counselor Colleen Fitzgerald, who believes in a kind of radical love therapy in which genuine emotion takes the place of distant formality.

Unfortunately, though she exhibits the idealism of the character, White does not seem warm and genuine. She is engaging, but director Evan Bergman has not pushed her to exhibit the kind of strength this character needs to portray throughout her sessions. There are, however, a few shining moments for White where I did get a glimpse of how her character could have been with stronger direction.

Of course, the other stumbling block here is the uneven trajectory of the play itself. Beckett writes excellent and interesting individual scenes, but the overall effect is a bit too choppy. The ending was so abrupt that I did not actually believe the play had ended. Yet something about Beckett’s quirkiness kept me engaged and interested in these characters even when I was unsure where the story was going.

The play's questions are pertinent and complex: how can a therapist help if they are detached? Where is the line between emotional and physical intimacy? Has contemporary life inhibited our ability to connect with each other? The answers seem to hinge on Colleen Fitzgerald’s struggle between her powerful position and her weakened emotional state, yet Bergman has not created enough of a contrast between these two parts of the protagonist for this to be fully effective.

Love Therapy is an interesting but ultimately flawed attempt to look at the power dynamics that result in trying to work on romantic relationships like we would any other business transaction. With the help of a good dramaturg and a different design team, this piece could find some strong footing and be a solid piece of theatre. My hope is that it will do just that. 

I Want a Cool Fist Pump

For most people, the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons does not summon images of people who commit armed robbery. Yet Lynn Rosen’s new play, Goldor $ Mythyka: A Hero is Born, is based on the case of Roger Dillon and Nicole Boyd, “a nice young couple enamored of fantasy role-playing games,” who an armored car of $7.4 million dollars. This is the second play to be produced by the New Georges special initiative known as The Germ Project, which basically asked writers to make plays of “scope and imagination.” G$M certainly qualifies, and the creative visual style of the play makes for an exciting audience experience of an odd story to be sure. Upon entering the New Ohio Theatre, the DJ -- who will be our dungeon master on this journey -- is already on stage spinning some tracks. Bobby Moreno’s DJ is not a bad concept, but it is unfortunate that this is the way that the piece begins, as it is the weakest aspect of the structure in a lot of ways. Director and co-developer Shana Gold seems unsure of what to do with this figure, a DJ/rapper who seems out of place in the world of the play.

Luckily, the other characters, including our “heroes,” Garrett Neergaard’s Bart/Goldor and Jenny Seastone Stern’s Holly/Mythyka, are particularly well cast and utilized. We watch as these two overlooked individuals come alive through the world of Dungeons & Dragons, and their mutual passion for the game becomes a passion for each other. This eventually culminates in their idea of robbing the money transport company for which they both work. The play also projects into the future to imagine what might become of this “Goth Bonnie and Clyde” and their son.

In the midst of this, our dungeon master DJ cuts, spins, and mixes the stories together with the media elements to create a story that not only resembles D&D, but also mimics the experience of being on the internet. I believe that Moreno’s DJ is supposed to invite us into the play, but his persona seemed forced in a way none of the other characters did.

The characters move with ease through the various locations created on Nick Francone’s minimalistic set, which brings to mind a basement, though it also transforms into homes, restaurants, and other places through various moving set pieces. Lenore Doxsee’s lighting design and Tristan Raines’s costume design also continue this aspect of less-is-more conceptualization, and though there are a lot of design elements in the show, they never seem overwhelming.

The show's multimedia structure is impressive; there is an interesting device of projection and live action that reminds me of having many windows open on a single screen at the same time. This engaged approach to the media, designed by Piama Habibullah and Jared Mezzochi, is closely linked to the sound design by Shane Rettig, both of which add to this idea of making the Internet experience a theatrical one. It is a very successful and interesting concept.

Of course, like any new piece, there are a few aspects of this piece that need a bit more attention. Melissa Riker’s choreography was interesting for actors like Stern who clearly have had movement training. Unfortunately, when dealing with actors who look like they can play D&D and who sit in front of their computers a lot, it is quite a challenge to find people who can move gracefully. This made the dance moments less successful than they could have been.

I also had a few questions about the play in general. The most important is this: what are we supposed to think of our heroes? The play vacillates between casting them as glorious underdogs who get revenge and the frightening loners who spend too much time in a fantasy world and eventually snap. I think it’s great that the play doesn’t shirk this complicated balance, but if you’re looking for a play with easy answers, this isn’t it. I do think that this is a very creative piece and one worth watching, especially if you have any knowledge of D&D, LARP, or any other kind of role-playing game. As the Federal Agent says at one point in the show, “I want a cool fist pump,” and if that describes you, then this is one not to miss.

Photo: Garrett Neergaard Jenny Seastone Stern and Bobby Moreno Photo Credit: Jim-Baldassare

Big-Top Horror

Don’t be fooled by the title: The Pilo Family Circus is by no means a show for children. It’s based on a novel of horror fiction by Australian Will Elliott. Whether Matt Pelfrey’s stage adaptation is faithful, only those who’ve read the book can judge. But if you think of “family” in the title as referring to a mob organization, and you throw in comic-book characters—not those featuring Donald or Daffy Duck, but the dark, sinister kind, with distorted visages and evil cackling—you’ll have an approximation of the tone of the Godlight Theatre Company production. The story might be lifted from—and belongs in—a comic book, in spite of higher-brow references to Tod Browning’s Freaks and Robert Louis Stevenson. An earnest and likable Nick Paglino as Jamie, a meek and aimless guy in his 20s, begins the tale, relating that he was found wandering the streets in a clown costume. Pretty quickly his adventures are seen in flashback. Jamie, along with his roommate, the overbearing Steve (Craig Peterson), was kidnapped in a home invasion by circus clowns (in distinctive, differentiating costumes, by Orli Nativ, and masks, by Brendan Yi-Fu Tay).

The ringleader of the clowns is the green-haired Gonko, played by Lawrence Jansen with a voice that starts as Ed Wynn and modulates to Jimmy Durante and then adds a layer of thug. Gonko and his cohorts (Chris Cipriano, Jarrod Zayas, and Michael Shimkin) are only minions to the Pilo brothers, who own the circus. The Pilos are George, suited but menacing, and played by a marionette (skillfully operated and voiced by Brett Glass), and Kurt, played by Gregory Kondow on stilts in a black cassock that apparently comes from Big and Tall, Taller, Tallest. He holds a very high wooden cross.

But even the Pilos aren’t in charge. “Spooky powers” are the ones who really run things, and “they live in a very hot place.” And what do the circus acts get for their obedience? The use of “wish powder,” which grants almost anything they want, if it’s OK with the spooky powers.

Jamie hopes to escape, but can’t, according to fortune teller Shalice, because he’s “in another dimension.” Or, as Steve puts it, “It’s like Alice in Wonderland, bro, only way more twisted.” Jamie is slowly pulled into a nightmare. Trapped in the circus, he attends a clown wedding, discovers a splinter rebellion against the Pilos, and, most important, battles himself. When greasepaint is applied to half his face, his personality splits à la Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: half of him becomes the evil clown JJ.

Directed with verve by Joe Tantalo, the show is designed within an inch of its life—and frequently several yards beyond. Maruti Evans creates some spectacular lighting, especially with backlights and bulbs on four strings descending from the flies. Using primarily white and red, he achieves the garishness of film noir with ease, from the opening moments when Paglino stands in a pool of light amid smoke and silhouette, throughout the wearying story. (To be sure, there are a few glimmers of humor, as when Gonko declares that the resistant Jamie is a clown. Jamie protests, “That’s just it. I’m not! I’m a concierge. I have a BA in theater.”)

Neither the script nor the sound design, however, helps the actors. Broadly played, the characters growl, snarl, whoop, guffaw, shriek, and shout at one another. When, at the last, Paglino stands and recites his prelude a second time, it’s a relief to hear a normal voice. One longs to see Paglino as a real character rather than a cartoon. It’s possible the other actors playing clowns hold as much promise—at least they manage to distinguish their characters vocally—but it’s impossible to know.

Ien Denio’s sound design starts well enough, incorporating such appropriate sources as a midway pinball machine, calliope, and even a brief passage from Franz von Suppé’s “Poet and Peasant Overture,” de rigueur for a circus show. But as the evening barrels on, it becomes relentless. It seems every line is punctuated by a percussive bang, zing, clang, or dong, or some other noise. When Shalice holds up an imaginary crystal ball for Jamie to see his grim future, in an echo of It’s a Wonderful Life, we hear the sound of a balloon squeaking. The sum effect is of being trapped inside a funhouse, with precious little fun.

Photos by Sean Dooley

Facing the Great Beyond

The actor Hamish Linklater, perhaps best known for playing the brother of Julia Louis-Dreyfus on the CBS series The New Adventures of Old Christine, makes an impressive debut as a playwright with The Vandal. In a mere 70 minutes he makes a persuasive case that he has a promising career to fall back on if acting fails him. The play opens at a bus stop in Kingston, N.Y., on a frigid night. A middle-aged woman (Deirdre O’Connell), huddling in layers of clothing and looking weary, sits on an exposed bench. A teenager (Noah Robbins) approaches her and tries to engage her in conversation, explaining that he’s been in the nearby cemetery cleaning the grave of a friend who died. There’s something not quite right about him—is he a robber? A molester? Eventually, he wheedles her into going to a nearby liquor store and buying him some beer. But that’s not all he’s hoping for.

Inside the liquor store one learns the woman’s identity as she attempts to make the purchase. She is Margaret Cotter, and the owner, Dan, gives her an inordinate amount of difficulty, but with reasons that are slowly revealed. In an explosive scene, we learn Margaret’s story, and O’Connell gets to cover a lot of emotional bases—fear, desperation, pain and sadness among them.

The boy’s identity, Robert, is also known to Dan. He has been sending people in on a regular basis to buy beer for him. Though Dan has occasionally gone out to look for him, he has failed repeatedly. Oonce Margaret delivers the beer to the boy, they open up to each other. The final scene takes place in the cemetery, after Robert and Margaret have left the bus stop to go drinking there and have become separated. As a drunken Margaret searches and yells for Robert among the gravestones, she runs once again into Dan.

Those are the bare bones of the plot, and you don’t want to know more, because there are nifty surprises all along the way, handled with both daring and assurance. The Vandal is about grief and the ways in which people cope with it, and how it can seize you and immobilize you until you become deadened to life.

The Flea Theater production, directed by Jim Simpson, is beautifully judged and splendidly cast. Linklater provides vivid, poetic imagery for his actors, and they all rise to the occasion. Even so, O’Connell is riveting in her silence, reacting minimally as Robbins natters on, yet she conveys volumes with a sidelong glance. Claudia Brown’s costume for her incorporates layers of fabric, from a T-shirt to pullovers and a scarf; they are both appropriate for the weather and serve as visual parallels to the many layers of defense Margaret has in her misery. And when Margaret lets loose emotionally, she’s frightening and pathetic.

Meanwhile, Robbins tries to find out why Margaret isn’t using her car; he describes his love of French and his teacher’s obsession with another student; and he guesses that she has been to the hospital across the street (represented in David M. Barber’s spare set simply by an Emergency sign on the wall). Noah Robbins is engaging, irritating, and fascinating in the part, as well as a bit snarky at times, providing welcome humor.

As the liquor store owner, Zach Grenier is an irritating foil for Margaret, provoking her with his questions and asides and a demand for identification, though she is clearly past the threshold age for a purchase of alcohol. Although he knows Robert has sent her in, his reluctance to make it an easy buy for her goes beyond safe business practices. He’s weary, too, and beset by personal trauma, which he gradually reveals.

Occasionally a question arises: Do teenagers really clean off their friends’ graves? Why does Robert lounge with his jacket and shirt open, seemingly unaffected by the cold that had made him shiver minutes earlier? But Linklater ties up those loose ends nimbly. The Vandal isn’t a “big” play, in spite of its themes and the listing of the characters as Man, Woman, Boy to indicate intentions of universality. It’s better to think of it as a sterling novella, a harbinger of bigger things to come.

Photos by Joan Marcus

A Stendhal Misstep

Adaptations of great novels for the theater have a pretty spotty record. Among big-budget, nonmusical successes, only Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Steppenwolf’s The Grapes of Wrath come easily to mind. However, in the last decade Moby-Dick and The Turn of the Screw had imaginative, shoestring productions Off-Off-Broadway, and director Deloss Brown, in staging Stendhal’s great novel, The Red and the Black, has chosen the bare-bones approach for his own script, using only several chairs, a cloth backdrop, and a minimum of props. The unwieldy result suggests that Stendhal's novel isn't a natural for the stage. The story follows Julien Sorel, a young man of 19 who worships Napoleon, but in secret. In 1826 France, with the royalists back in power under conservative King Charles X, any mention of Napoleon may mean arrest and imprisonment. “Under the Emperor, a man could make his way by his talents,” explains Julien ardently. “Napoleon—poor—with no friends—made himself master of the world with his sword. But nowadays the army’s for the rich, and a priest makes three times as much money as one of Napoleon’s generals.” Thus Julien, whose father and brothers beat him for his love of learning, has determined that becoming a cleric will give him the means to escape his horrid family. Before Julien takes his vows, though, his mentor, Father Chélan (Jeremy Johnson), arranges for him to become a tutor to the de Rênal family.

M. de Rênal (Brian Linden) has little interest in whether Julien can educate his child, but he hires the young man because of a bitter social rivalry with M. Valenod (Keith Herron). Valenod, a crass lecher, has some fancy horses that give him cachet among the aristocracy, but, exults de Rênal, “His new Norman horses won’t matter. His children don’t have a tutor!”

Once installed as a trophy instructor, the 19-year-old Julien soon discovers that de Rênal’s wife, Louise, who is ten years older than he, is attracted to him. Eventually, Julien decides he should have experience of a worldly kind, namely an affair with Louise. Happily, the strikingly youthful Lucas Wells conveys Julien’s confidence, apprehension, and philosophical observations, along with a sly rakishness, in a measured and well-spoken performance, and one follows the hero eagerly when he is on stage.

Unfortunately, most of the other performers seem to struggle with their parts. Brown relies on the actors to narrate large chunks of the story in an abundance of monologues. Two or three characters in succession will have a monologue, then a scene will follow, often brief, sometimes not. At times actors enter to deliver a single line, or swerve in and out of a scene to speak to the audience. The dizzying staging adds an air of desperation: it's no wonder many of the actors veer toward Dickensian caricature, particularly Linden and Krista Adams Santilli as the cuckolded husband and neglected wife.

As the peremptory, snippy de Rênal, Linden is, according to the situation, appalled or comically grateful that Julien, “a servant,” has his way. (The vaguely Edwardian costumes of Lux Haac manage to convey the social backgrounds of the characters effectively, though the maid’s above-the-knee outfit seems ill-judged.) Santilli as Louise displays little sense of period movement or grace. She might have stepped out of Sex and the City, and she makes Louise so whiny and mercurial that you wonder why Julien doesn’t just take a vow of celibacy on the spot.

When the play works best, as in a garden scene with Louise, Julien, and Louise’s cousin Marie (embodied by Jessica Myhr with poise and intelligence), it allows some breathing space and a build-up of dramatic momentum. But then the rapid-fire pace resumes.

In spite of the haste, the show exceeds the posted running time by at least ten minutes. One suspects that the chief problem is that Brown is loath to cut his own script. Hypocrisy, Voltaire, wealth, aristocracy, and politics—in spite of assurances by Stendhal and his editor (Herron and Linden, respectively) at the outset that politics will be kept to a minimum—are  touched on rather more frequently than seems necessary. An amusing remark de Rênal makes about women as machines is quite funny the first time; the second time, not so much; the fourth time, it thuds. A different director might have done a better job in helping Brown condense the novel. In this case, however, The Red and the Black more aptly applies to a checkered production.

Photo by Hunter Canning

Dreams Plus Action

A unicorn made of glass catches the light. Laura is holding it, but this is not The Glass Menagerie . Gone are Laura’s limp, Tom’s struggle with his identity, and several of the other tragic details that color Tennessee Williams’ touching dream play. In its place is The Pretty Trap . The streamlined one-act, penned prior to its better known cousin, replaces the melancholy with the comedic. Cause Célèbre’s production does a nice job of bringing this piece to life. We quickly locate ourselves in the Wingfield’s household through Ray Klausen’s realistic set. Tennessee Williams spends a great deal of time intricately explaining the physical locations of his plays, and though I value the creativity of scenic designers, I am always happy to see that someone has taken the time to respect the playwright’s wishes. David Toser’s costume design and Bernie Dove’s lighting and sound are also well tuned to the realistic and naturalistic demands of the script. The design supports this world, and the characters seem to belong to a pre-war New Orleans.

However, there is one obvious choice that Director Antony Marsellis has made that gives me pause. Though Katharine Houghton has the charm and the vivacity to play Amanda, she is unfortunately a bit too advanced in age to be undertaking this part. Amanda is an aging southern belle, but in order for us to understand how overbearing Amanda is, we need to be bowled over by her energy. Though Houghton does a fine job, I wish I had been able to see her play this role ten or fifteen years ago.

Whereas The Glass Menagerie is Tom’s play, told from his memory, The Pretty Trap is certainly Amanda’s play. She is the ultimate manipulator, the “witch,” which is something that Houghton cannot quite pull off, as her presence is too gentle. This is more a fault of casting than of anything else, and her performance is still strong.

But it is the scene between The Gentleman Caller (Robert Eli) and Laura (Nisi Sturgis) that stands out in this production. As Sturgis overcomes her shy ways, drawn out of her shell by Eli’s friendly optimism, we watch as Laura has the first real emotionally intimate encounter of her life. But unlike the bittersweet conclusion that normally follows this scene, The Pretty Trap allows us to imagine a happier version of events.

Yet this aspect of The Pretty Trap is also, in my opinion, why the play has not had the lasting impact on audiences that The Glass Menagerie has. The happy version of events is nice to watch, but it does not have the emotional impact of the dramatic version. The arc of The Glass Menagerie tells the story of a family full of people who have convinced themselves that getting a suitor for Laura will solve all of their problems. By the time The Gentleman Caller comes, we are invested in this dream right along with the Wingfields. In The Pretty Trap we do not have time to get attached to Laura or Amanda, to know their hopes and dreams, to understand the stakes; not to mention the fact that Tom (Loren Dunn) is barely given a role in this family event.

We are happy at the end of this Williams play, something that cannot often be said. Perhaps this is because we like to see ending full of potentiality, or perhaps because we like to think of what it could have been like if things had been different from the Wingfield story in our heads. The play looks very much like dreams plus actions, just as The Gentleman Caller and then Amanda herself say. Whichever it is, this is a great chance to see a rarely seen Tennessee Williams work in a good production.

What a Piece of Work is Hamlet

In the Drilling Company’s Hamlet, staged as their Shakespeare in the Park(ing) Lot offering this summer, there is great drama being presented. Not only are there the conflicts between Hamlet and the rest of the Danish court, but there is also the real world drama of the conflict between an actor’s voice and a car rushing by or a helicopter overhead. Watching this play from the comfort of a lawn chair in a municipal parking lot on the Lower East Side is a unique experience, to be sure. For those looking for a definitive production of the Bard’s text, this is probably not the production to see. It is at times difficult to understand (both to hear and to follow) and there are many odd choices made here. If, however, what you are after is an opportunity to experience the play and to enjoy the New York City summer night, then this production is well worth your time. It is very pleasurable to be confronted with Shakespeare as you watch the city move by around you. The classic revenge drama is staged in such a manner as to cleverly incorporate its parking lot surroundings. A street lamp is placed in the center of the action, both to illuminate the stage action once the sun has set and as a platform on which the actors may climb. The brief moment in which an actor takes advantage of this lamppost is one of the highlights of the production. In a piece with such a special setting, it is hard not to wish that director Hamilton Clancy had incorporated the surrounding environment more. What would it mean if Hamlet were taking place in a literal parking lot? What might that setting do to the meaning of the plot(s) unfolding?

Instead of attempting to answer these questions, the company seems to be using their locale as a forum for presenting Shakespeare at no cost to whoever wishes to stop by and hear it, which in and of itself is a very noble cause. Hamlet is one of the greatest plays in the English language and for those who may have no other chance to hear it performed live, this production is entirely worth taking advantage of. There is real heart in what the performers do here; it is clear that much effort has been put into this production and the actors perform the lengthy play with much zeal and zest.

There are many alterations to the text that are hard to justify. For instance, instead of opening the play with guards on watch, the play opens with a famous speech by Hamlet. By having the play start with Hamlet, the director is entirely reframing the context of the action. Although this is an acceptable choice–and similar to what many other contemporary directors have done with the play–these cuts and rearrangements detract from the overall impact of the play’s meaning. Rather than being a larger rumination on certain human issues, this production seemed much more concerned with the unfolding of the basic revenge plot.

In addition, many production choices are distracting. It is hard to place whether this production is meant to be a contemporary rendering of the play or a period piece; some actors wear what appears to be mid-twentieth century apparel while others are more casually attired in modern dress. There are also many unnecessary props on stage. Yet, at moments in which a prop would be useful, an actor would mime an object.

That being said, the stage design is fine overall, and the configuration of benches and sheet that create the grave is ingenious. The actors utilize the space well, making an effort to be seen on all sides of the audience. Unfortunately, I found the performers were often quite difficult to hear over the ambient noise of the city surrounding them. Some actors chose to shout over the sounds; this often took away from the larger impact of their performances. Hamlet, for example, played by Alessandro Colla, often seemed angry, as there was extensive effort put into projecting the voice above the din of city life. That being said, the Hamlet that he created was overall interesting to watch and sympathetic. The supporting cast, too, gave a laudable presentation of these oft-performed lines.

All in all, the joy of watching Shakespeare come to life in the unlikely location of a pay-to-park lot off of Delancey Street outweighs any possible flaws with this production. Witnessing this performance in this unlikely locale is a special occurrence and one worth taking advantage of before the transformative magic of the theater vanishes and the city goes back to its regularly scheduled business.

The Weather Is Nice Here

The road to hell is paved with the best of intentions… Or the road to heaven is littered with landmines… Certainly, for the Weather Underground, the truth lies somewhere in between the fuzzy, yellow lines. home/sick by The Assembly, now playing at The Collapsable Hole in Williamsburg, examines that rugged terrain through their thought-provoking production. The audience walks into a converted industrial space greeted by a man in a black suit and sunglasses. He politely offers us a beer and a button that reads, “My brain is a bomb.” As we take our seats- on chairs or benches or pillows- the lights shift, whirling us deep into a subversive world of young American idealists fighting for what they believe is the equality of all mankind. They are angry. They are fearless. They are brilliant. And they believe pacifism is a dead-end road.

Jess Chayes’s direction is daring and engrossing. The lines between actor and audience, play and reality, right and wrong, become so blurred it is hard not to get caught up in the fervor and passion of these romantics- even if you whole-heartedly disagree with their actions. Chayes intricately blends movement, dance, lighting and sound to capture not only the counterculture of the 70s but also the complex struggles and political questions these very real people were grappling with.

The talented ensemble delivers their performances with such empathy and honesty it is hard not to feel moments of compassion for a group of people who just blew up a building or robbed a truck. One of the most powerful moments for me was watching Edward Bauer fight back this child-like vulnerability when called out in front of the collective for confiding secrets and intimacy in one member over the others. And the rest of the cast is equally terrific! Their connection with one another, both as actors and characters, is palpable and powerful.

The Assembly does an impeccable job of presenting a fair, honest, and unapologetic look at who these people really were. I never once felt like I was watching a political play, but rather an honest depiction of real lives asking big questions about the nature of humanity. This is a group of brilliant artists who will, without question, make their mark in the world of theater for a long time to come.

It is hard to really understand the nature of a revolution when one has never suffered from oppression. Sure, there are plenty of battles worth fighting in this country. There is an abundance of greed and destruction and corruption worth questioning every waking moment of our lives.

But how does one really ignite a revolution when drugs, sex, food, and entertainment are so plentiful? When one has never watched his family starve or had his house burned to ash by ruthless armies? When one’s freedom of expression- the very freedom that allows us to put on theater in such abundance- has never been censored? Not that these are the only roots for a revolution, per se, but it has often been the case throughout history that society as a whole must hit rock bottom, people must truly have nothing left to lose, before they are willing to sacrifice their existence and beliefs to rise up against their own country.

The Weather Underground, in their haze of drugs, sex, and egos, seems to lose sight of this reality. Fortunately, The Assembly has retained the insight to question their actions… and ours.

Memories from Hurricane Katrinia

The Play About My Dad at 59E59 is a rare gem masterfully guided by an incredible new voice in theater. Boo Killebrew’s beautiful play depicts several heartbreaking stories about the lives of people she knew and loved that were forever altered by Hurricane Katrina. The glue of the play is Boo Killebrew herself and her father Larry Hammond Killebrew, an emergency room doctor who was on duty in Pass Christian, Mississippi during Hurricane Katrina. The stories the play tells are recollections of Larry and Boo’s memories woven together by their own turmoil. The play opens on a spare stage sprinkled with a few milk crates, old chairs and plywood boards. Larry (Jay Potter) and Boo (Anna Greenfield) enter with scripts in hand. Boo announces to the audience, “ We are going to play with magical realism and time travel and side stories and make the whole thing sort of like a tapestry.” After an awkward introduction from Larry, who reminds us he is not an actor, he and Boo introduce the other characters in the play. Kenny Tyson (Jordan Mahome) and Neil Plitt (TJ Witham) are two childhood friends of Boo’s who happen to be EMT workers on duty the day Hurricane Katrina hit. The scene opens with the two caught up in heated banter about whether or not Kenny, as he claims, can actually travel to other dimensions. Neil does not believe him, but his tone quietly changes when Kenny reveals a piece of news that sends a wave of fear through Neil.

Jay Thomas (Juan Francisco Villa), his wife Rena Thomas (Annie Henk) and their five-year-old son Michael (David Rosenblatt) are locals from Pass Christian. They are in the process of boarding up their windows before the storm hits. Michael is frightened by the loud thunder, but is quickly calmed by his parents who tell him they are going to have a hurricane party. Essie Watson (Geany Masai) is an elderly woman who helped raise Larry as a child. Larry stops by on his way to the hospital to check in on Essie. He tries to get her to go with him, but she refuses to leave her home. “You think I can’t take care of myself?” Essie remarks. “I taught you how to wipe your own backside.”

From there we watch the events of that all-too-familiar day unfold onstage. We watch as families and lives, just like memories and ghosts, are swirled up by nature. We watch as Boo and Larry, through the chaos of nature, gain the courage to finally confront their own memories and ghosts.

The entire cast is absolutely wonderful. Especially noteworthy are Anna Greenfield and Jay Potter. Both give nuanced and heartfelt performances, intimately capturing the complicated and universal relationship between a father and a daughter. During one of Greenfield’s monologues, the play was interrupted by a cellphone buzz. Without batting an eye, Greenfield paused the story and asked that the phone be shut off. It took me a moment to realize that this was not part of the play.

Lee Sunday Evans’s direction is subtle and effective. She creatively uses a somewhat awkward space to the play’s advantage through minimalistic choices. There are no sound effects or dramatic lighting or theatrical movements. She strips the play to its bare bones, allowing the audience to be swept up by the stories onstage mixed with our own memories of that event. Killebrew skillfully navigates a terrain that is full of very big landmines. How do you objectively write a play about yourself and your father? But she manages to do so while avoiding traps- such as sentimentality or self-indulgence or superficial dialogue- that a lesser writer could easily succumb to.

The Play About My Dad is about Boo and her father, sure, but it is also about much more. We waste so much time holding grudges against the people we love, but we never know when that devastating storm will hit in our own lives and never give us the chance to forgive. Luckily for Boo and Larry Killebrew, nature gave them a second chance that they tenderly share with the rest of us.

Putting the Man in Manipulate

The beautiful but creepy opening tableau of Cherry Lane Theatre’s production of Manipulation sets the tone for this cerebral production. A woman is lying down. A slowly spreading spotlight on her face gradually reveals several marionettes invading her space. This artistic representation of the greater metaphors of the show is a perfect example of this production’s brave interpretation of Victoria E. Calderon’s American debut. If you are looking for a high-flying (or crashing) action epic, this is not your show. Calderon and Cherry Lane bring you an aesthetically pleasing production of a complex play, making it an exciting prospect for those of you who enjoy the rare delicacies of thought-provoking theater. Set in a place designated only as “Latin America,” Manipulation does an excellent job of literally setting the stage for a story specifically not set in the United States. I am far from an expert on the “Latin American” play, a term that is complicated by the lack of discrete boundaries for Latin America. Yet there are certain aesthetic sensibilities that stand out in all of the Latin American plays that I have read, and it is of vast importance that these themes are being exposed to US audiences in such a well organized production. The most notable of these themes is the palpable violence. Both physical and emotional violence are inflicted on characters in the show, while shadowy camouflaged figures are occasionally seen around the periphery of the action.

This leads me to the overall wonderful design of the show, which does a great deal to facilitate Director Will Pomerantz’s clear stage pictures. Bill Stabile’s towering wooden structure is comprised of sticks, making it seem both permanent and permeable. With the addition of Kirk Bookman’s delicate lighting design and Jeremy Lee’s operatic sound design, the scenic elements are able to play many roles. Sometimes they are as ambiguous as the plot itself.

I can’t pretend that this is an action packed show, so if you are looking for high flying stunts, you should go elsewhere. But if you are ready to be intellectually stimulated, then this is the show for you. Calderon’s protagonist Cristina, well played by Marina Squerciati, is constantly abused by the men around her. The misogynistic power order of this world is clearly established, yet things are not so simple. Despite Cristina’s complaining about her philandering, king-like husband Mauricio (Robert Bogue), Cristina herself has affairs and is free to take extravagant trips to Paris for two months. Nothing in Manipulation is how it seems at first. In the end we must ask ourselves who is being manipulated by whom. Is Cristina the victim?

These questions are posed more often than they are answered. Adding to the mystery are a series of choreographed moments throughout the show that hearken back to the puppets who opened the show. In the midst of realistic dialogue, the highly stylized moments lead us to question what we are seeing. At one time or another each and every actor channels the marionettes. At one point Mauricio is Cristina’s puppet-master, yet again we see that things are not that cut and dry. In a scene towards the end, all of the other people in Cristina’s life are puppets, and Cristina watches them. Is this meant to suggest that everyone else is a puppet, but Cristina is separate? In this instance, Cristina is the only one who can see that she is being manipulated. Or are we to infer that Cristina is actually controlling these people who she sees to have abused her? Characters are constantly telling Cristina that she is the only one who can save herself.

The uncertainty is not disconcerting. In fact, the twists and turns keep the audience engaged, as does some of the eloquent prose. The performance that I saw was peppered with murmurs of appreciation after particularly powerful lines. Every person who goes to the theater secretly hopes for a moment of illumination in the show, a line or a moment that reveals some fundamental truth articulated in a new way. This play delivers. Indeed, this play delivers overall. Combining a solid production with the kind of play too rarely offered to US audiences, Cherry Lane Theatre’s Manipulation is a great night at the theater.

Thrills, Chills and Interpretive Dance

After leaving the Mckittrick Hotel, I found myself with various souvenirs, including a creepy white mask, a saliva-covered ring, and a (fake) bloodstain on my shirt. I also had to contain the urge to run after interesting-looking individuals on the street - not an urge I usually have after an evening of theater-going. But there was nothing usual about this particular theater piece. Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More offers audiences full immersion into its heightened world of dark corridors and dastardly deeds, a night of escapism like no other. The night unfolds something like this: after "checking in" (getting your tickets), you head up a flight of stairs and through a series of disorienting dark hallways, emerging into a jazz-era bar complete with specialty cocktails and dimly lit little tables. You are called away from the bar in small groups, given masks, told not to speak, and herded into an elevator, which spits you out into a series of rooms: fully realized replicas of abandoned hospital wards, offices, bedrooms, eerie forests and graveyards, shops, banquet halls and bars, all dimly lit and constantly filled with moody music.

You are free to explore any way you choose: props are meant to be handled and picked through. The space is littered with texts, including books, clippings on the walls, ledgers, and letters, that invite you to open and read them and discover what you may. Entries are constantly being locked and un-locked and lighting and moveable set pieces change the look of a space so significantly that you could enter a floor three times and experience it in three completely unique ways.

After wandering around for a bit, you begin to run into actors, perhaps mid-action, or running from point A to point B. The latter was most exciting to me: after wandering around aimlessly, running into an actor felt like an important discovery. Something was going to happen, and if I kept up, I would see it happen, and others wouldn’t. I’ll admit I was often disappointed by the happening itself: scenes are primarily movement-based, and while interesting and well-executed, they never satisfied my expectations. When walking around, I could, from time to time, feel completely immersed in the world of Sleep No More , as though I had stepped into a noir film myself. But the dances took me out of the reality of the space, reminding me that I was watching a performance. The characters and plot are taken from Macbeth, and if you are familiar with the Scottish King’s tale, you can make meaning out of characters’ actions and interactions, but one’s experience is so fractured and incomplete that it is difficult to connect to these elements so as to care what happens to them.

If you’re lucky, you’ll have some sort of one-on-one experience with an actor. From time to time, actors will pull audience members into small rooms, locking the door behind them. I couldn’t tell you what goes on in these rooms, but I can tell you I ached to be pulled into one of them. I did, however, have an intriguing public interaction with a woman in a red dress. As she slowly, thoughtfully ate a chicken coated in a deep red blood-like sauce, she locked eyes with me, and continued to stare into my eyes for several minutes. Her gaze was penetrating, searching, intense. Eventually, she spit out a ring, motioned me over, and, without breaking her stare, put the ring on my finger. I am not sure if I could have participated in this interaction if it wasn’t for the mask I was wearing: it protected me, kept me anonymous, less vulnerable. Though it was thrilling to be brought into this woman’s world, it was a safe thrill, a comfortable thrill.

The designers, Felix Barret, Livi Vaughan and Beatrice Minns, cannot be praised enough for the renovation of the McKittrick Hotel. Rooms are detailed and specific, sometimes realistic, sometimes terrifying strange or surprising, but never dull. Lighting, designed by Felix Barrett and Euan Maybank and sound, designed by Stephen Dobbie, adds a sense of magic and suspense, the constant feeling that ‘something is about to happen’ that is perhaps the most thrilling aspect of Sleep No More . And everything, everything is beautiful. Just stunningly gorgeous. It is a thrilling world to live in for a few hours.

In the end, the experience is what you make of it. It reminds me of a quintessential post-modern novel, most strikingly of House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski, which presents multiple possible ways of reading, offers puzzles in the text and invites you to dig deeper to solve them, making it easy to explore but difficult to come away with a full, unified understanding of the experience. However, the novel is filled with questions and musings that one can chew on for ages.

Sleep No More gives one puzzles to solve and choices to make, the thrill of potentiality and the chance to escape into a world much more beautiful than one’s own. But I came away wanting more: more connection to the characters and the narrative, more discomfort, more challenge, more fear. Sleep No More comes close to offering audiences a transformative experience but stops just shy of delivering. It is excellently produced and absolutely worth seeing, but not the end-all and be-all of theater experiences. See it, and dream on.

Shakespearean Echoes

Even the most ardent fans of Shakespeare may not have heard of Double Falsehood, which is getting a rare production by Classic Stage Company. It was only last year that the Arden Shakespeare decided to include the play among Shakespeare’s works, with an edition describing its shaky provenance. An 18th-century reworking of a collaboration reputedly by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, Double Falsehood is presumed by some scholars to be based on Cardenio—the holy grail of lost Shakespeare plays and the first collaboration of the playwrights, whose Henry VIII and Two Noble Kinsmen have survived intact. (Fletcher, no slouch as a playwright, was half of Beaumont and Fletcher, and became the house dramatist for Shakespeare’s company, The King’s Men, after Shakespeare retired.)

Some quick history. Oliver Cromwell and his Puritans closed theaters in 1642, and they weren’t reopened until after the English Civil War, in 1660, with the restoration of the monarchy. Many scripts from earlier in the 17th century ended up in the hands of playhouse owners or producers such as Lewis Theobald (pronounced TIB-alt). In 1727 Theobald’s repurposed version of the drama was staged. Though the play, which was based on an episode from Don Quixote, has been knocking around for more than three centuries, the Arden Shakespeare’s endorsement has given it unexpected attention. A production at the Royal Shakespeare Company in England is planned this year.

Passing through so many hands, the play retains surprising echoes of other Shakespeare works. Two brothers, the decent Roderick and the rakish Henriquez, are sons of a duke (As You Like It), who pretends to have died (Measure for Measure). Henriquez rapes the lovely Violante, then abandons her to pursue Leonora (Hayley Treider), whose father intends her to marry a suitor—Henriquez—against her will (Romeo and Juliet). Leonora’s true love, Clayton Apgar’s dashing Julio, exiles himself to a forest, where, dressed almost naked and smeared with dirt, he goes temporarily mad (King Lear).

The plot elements are common among Shakespeare, Fletcher, and their contemporaries, but the unfamiliarity of this text lends it freshness, and it moves swiftly (a Fletcher strength). The simplicity of Oana Botez-Ban’s design—a series of hanging Oriental rugs, with three on the floor, shifted back and forth—helps focus attention on the story, although in one case the budgeting of actors—Philip Goodwin as the magisterial Duke and distinguished Camillo—may confuse even attentive listeners. Director Brian Kulick has staged the play with a minimum of fuss and even eliminated CSC’s side seating.

The cast clearly relishes the opportunity to create characters from this neglected classical drama. Slate Holmgren as the slimy Henriquez manages to find layers in a stock villain. Even after Henriquez has “reformed,” there’s a lingering suspicion that he’s manipulating people, as he’s forced (the way Lucio is in Measure) to marry the woman he wronged.

Apgar, too, is a fine, heroic Julio. Playing the good guy isn’t usually as interesting as playing the bad one, but Apgar embodies charm and sincerity, strength and honor. And Jon DeVries as Don Bernardo, blessed with a rumbling voice and extraordinary command of verse, makes the most of Leonora’s alternately doting and scheming father, torn between love and greed. He’s a joy to watch whenever he’s on stage.

Only Hayley Treider’s Leonora, and to a lesser extent MacKenzie Meehan’s Violante, occasionally move with more gesturing than women of that period would, and Treider has a habit early on of falling into shrillness. (Botez-Ban has dressed the cast in clothes that mix peasants’ rags with evening dress but reflect no particular era, although they are of more recent vintage.)

Still, even with a Shakespeare name tag, the play never burns brightly. There are no speeches on the order of “To be or not to be” or “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” or “The quality of mercy is not strain’d.” Ardent fans who feel they’ll never have another chance to see a production of this historical curiosity are probably right.

Although Double Falsehood is close in temperament to Cymbeline or The Winter’s Tale, two late romances, it can’t touch them. Still, it has charms, good performances, and value beyond scholarship. One hopes that Kulick will start looking at all the playwrights of the period who have been overshadowed by Shakespeare. He’s found a topaz; there are diamonds still out there.