Pretty as a Picture

The aims of a playwright are not so different from those of a painter—both endeavor to present a representation of life that is viewed through the prism of their ideals. In Marie Antoinette: The Color of Flesh, Joel Gross has crafted such a richly imagined portrait of the life of the Queen, a friend, and their lover, that it’s easy to forget one’s history. With exquisite performances from the actors, the viewer is drawn into this fictional microcosm—a portrait in miniature that allows Gross to tell a sweeping tale that covers 20 years of the Queen’s life, leading up to the Revolution. If the ways in which history is bent to the interest of the artist are a bit too perfect, the flawless acting and the grace of the direction make it seem natural. After all, such perfection is expected, and admired, in a work of art. In Gross’s story, Marie is a pawn in the perverse love games of two manipulators: Elisabeth Louise Vigee le Brun, a beautiful young portraitist, and Count Alexis de Ligne, an ironic liberal. At the start of the play, Elisabeth, played with cruel flippancy by Samantha Ives, is seeking to gain royal favor to further her career. The opening scene sketches and nearly fills in her character: a charming, witty, but highly insensitive woman of low birth. The unevenness of the character—sometimes malicious, at other times tearful, gives Ms. Ives occasional trouble, but overall she manages Elisa’s mood swings and her impressive self-importance adroitly.

As Elisa paints she spars with her more-than subject, the Count, whom she mocks for his nobility. Their early flirtations humorously establish the tensions that will later tear them, and France, apart. At this point, however, class is the butt of every joke, and Elisa commands each punch line. Until Marie Antoinette, the 19-year-old Queen of France shows up, occasionally interfering, but also unintentionally fulfilling the painter and the Count’s designs. Though guileless and woefully stupid, the seemingly innocent Queen upsets the relations between the duo, setting in motion a dangerous ménage et trois that imperils them all.

As Marie, Amanda Jones is perfectly regal and excitingly free. In particular, in a scene in which Marie details the horrors of her deflowering by her husband, Louis XVI, Jones is as lovely as a portrait and yet refuses to remain still—she is the buzzing center of energy around which the other characters revolve. And despite her flaws, her girlish infatuations, and her ignorance, Jones’s Marie is quite sympathetic.

In rendering Marie as a hopelessly and helplessly sweet person Gross uses his boldest strokes. By making Marie sympathetic (a trait that emphasizes the wicked guile of those who use her), his queen is the victim. At one point Elisa says Marie was “born to be devoured by the mob.” Her friends who have likewise devoured her are therefore responsible for setting her downfall in motion.

Of course, with such a pathetic Marie at its center, the play gives little credit to what the Queen refers to as “the rabble.” The mob beyond Versailles is given voice through Alexis (an admirably game Jonathan Kells Phillips), who is made out to be an idealistic fool. By extension, the Revolution is represented as chaotic folly. While Marie falls victim to the intriguers, the revolting peasants are lawless monsters who cruelly mock the imprisoned Marie by giving her funeral flowers. Gross reverses the traditional caricature: while Marie is a fleshed out character with a range of emotions (not reduced to one fateful line), the peasantry is a faceless mob making impossible demands and baseless accusations.

Director Robert Kalfin puts the finishing touches on Gross’s portrait by placing his actors within frames onstage, with appropriately dramatic lighting and posturing. The audience’s gaze lingers the exquisite details of court life, specifically the costumes, designed by T. Michael Hall, which are gorgeous representations of the sumptuousness Elisa endeavors to capture on canvas.

In keeping with Gross’s tightly woven narrative, he uses controlling metaphors to emphasize the play’s themes. At its height, the era’s elegance is reflected in an impeccably dressed and mannered (i.e. silent) footman (Hugo Salazar, Jr.) who gracefully introduces characters and scenes. As the terror mounts, the footman becomes increasingly surly until he finally tosses off his powdered wig in anger. Standing in for the disgruntled peasantry, the footman is a simple means of representing the emotions of the lower class.

This representation underscores the focus of the show: the peasants are the unseen and unknown beyond the palace. Far more important to this story are the rises and falls of Marie’s temperament, and status. Though the victimization of Marie, and the opportunism of both Elisa and the playwright, can be frustrating given the historical context, the play is a touching, humorous portrait of the things in its frame.

Method Man

The Wings Theatre is by no means an ideal performance space. Tucked away in a basement on one of the Western-most blocks of Greenwich Village, the theatre is small, with tiny, rickety chairs and an absence of air conditioning. During the performance I saw, there were occasional problems with sound quality, theatergoers were sweating and several audience members continually talked to themselves. None of this mattered, though, as the lights came up on The Rarest of Birds. The 2008-2009 theatre season has just begun, but star Omar Prince delivers a turn that must be remembered at the end of the season as one of its best.

Prince plays late film legend Montgomery Clift in this one-man show, conceived, directed and written by the talented John Lisbon Wood. Clift, the tortured artist with an unfettered commitment to realism who was unfairly locked into comparison with Marlon Brando as one of two dominant actors to emerge during the 1950s’ Method acting era, experienced far more misfortunes than did his counterpart: drug addiction, a crippling lack of sexual confidence, a disfiguring car accident, and an untimely early death.

Rarest – the title comes from a reference made to Clift in a review – puts Clift’s entire life on display, both private and public. Wood sets it in 1962, as the star’s life and luck are already headed on their last lap, on the 1962 set of Freud, the unsuccessful John Huston film. The director has locked Clift alone in a dressing room to sober up and calm down. Clift, in between drinking, pill-popping, and shooting up, turns this time-out into a de facto therapy session with an absent Sigmund Freud, effectively addressing the audience with details of his life and work.

Wood structures this show in a non-linear way, to better mirror the inner workings of Clift’s mind. For instance, Clift talks about working on the late 1950s film Lonelyhearts long before he ever details his problems with earlier films like A Place in the Sun and From Here to Eternity. The effect can be frustrating for those wanting a strictly chronological interpretation of Clift’s filmography, but his fractured reflections become easy to adjust to.

What is clear is how meticulously researched Rarest is. Wood’s play is comprehensive but too interesting to be merely encyclopedic. He provides anecdotal references to his early work in Red River and The Search; his relationship with Elizabeth Taylor borne from A Place in the Sun; skirmishes with Frank Sinatra on From Here to Eternity and the many battles he had with studio brass, directors, and writers to improve scripts. Clift claims here that his dialogue upgrades in The Heiress are what won Olivia de Havilland an Oscar for the film. (Despite four acting nods of his own, Clift never won an Academy Award).

Wood also chronicles the actor’s deepening chemical dependency and health issues including colitis and dysentery. Perhaps the play’s greatest strength comes when it addresses Clift’s clandestine gay relationships. The actor’s self-doubt about his sexual prowess led to a lifetime of promiscuity and disappointment.

Prince’s performance is so specific, so physically detailed and emotionally bare, it stands as a textbook example of Method acting on par with Clift’s work itself. He makes Clift’s desperation and pain palpable through a series of carefully modulated tics: his inebriated swagger, the glazed look in his eyes, the way he treats his body with equal parts interest and repulsion. Prince makes Clift seem very much like a child who never came close to feeling comfortable with himself. His performance is what constantly drives Rarest and elevates what could have been mere exposition to a real performance.

Rarest is a fitting tribute to one of the all-time greats this craft has ever known. At the performance I saw, a technical glitch caused Prince’s curtain call to be cut short, which is a shame. A performance this dedicated deserves all the recognition it can get.

Arrested Development

For the characters in Chicken, the Mike Batistick dramedy playing at Studio Dante, age is nothing more than a number. While they've got on in years and even have raised or sired offspring of their own, they are all very much children themselves. Studio Dante is co-founded and co-run by Michael Imperioli, the Emmy-winning co-star of The Sopranos (he plays Christopher Moltisanti), and just like that acclaimed series, Chicken is about a highly dysfunctional family. Imperioli is Floyd, an unemployed powder keg who imposes on his childhood friend Wendell (E.J. Carroll) and Wendell's older, pregnant wife, Lina (Sharon Angela, also a Sopranos regular), by moving into their claustrophobic Bronx apartment. (Imperioli's wife, Victoria, deserves much applause for the realistic set design.)

Floyd and Wendell share a close, sad bond: both met as children in the New York foster care system. But the two have traveled markedly different roads into adulthood. While Wendell struggles to make ends meet and neglects his health, Floyd blames his childhood for his impulsive, hedonistic behavior and feels justified in taking Wendell's money; abusing Felix (Lazaro Perez), the father who gave him up; and even abandoning his own children.

Wendell has decided to raise a rooster for a cockfight and then reap the winnings. He deludes himself into thinking that Floyd, a Cuban-American, will assist him (apparently Felix used to do this sort of thing during his Cuban past) and feel compelled to move himself out of the apartment.

Imperioli may try to steal every scene, but director Nick Sandow makes it clear that the heart of Chicken lies with his married couple. Carroll is terrific as a flawed, harried Everyman whose loyalty to those around him is immense—to a fault. And Angela is every inch his equal as Lina, who knows no passion, only resentment—of her life, her apartment, her husband, her pregnancy. Watching the two of them together made me forget the opulent surroundings that make up the relatively new Studio Dante and left me convinced that I was watching—rooting for, even—a pair of have-nots.

The same cannot quite be said of Imperioli's scenes. Yes, Floyd is a showboating character, but he errs on the side of mania and seems like more of a cardboard character than a three-dimensional man, capable of changing. Furthermore, his accent—New York by way of Cuba—rings false. It sounds more like the highly YouTubed rap Natalie Portman sang last year on Saturday Night Live than organic speech.

This is never more evident than in Floyd's scene with Felix. Perez does an exceedingly moving job, capturing the rhythms of someone trying to reconnect with the son he once wronged even as his mind and body have failed him. To Batistick's credit, this pathos is never trite or cloying. I do wish, though, he had provided a little more information about Floyd's and Wendell's past. Every detail doesn't need to be spelled out, but by creating so much guesswork, he ultimately creates indifference on the audience's part.

I wish, too, that Batistick had found a way to integrate more of his characters at once. Many of Floyd's and Lina's scenes are two-character moments. For example, when Rosalind (Quincy Tyler Bernstine), Floyd's ex-wife, appears, she fires most of her tart daggers Lina's way. Why doesn't she have more of a confrontation with Floyd? This is an important question, since Floyd learns earlier that Wendell has been secretly providing her with money.

All this may have been a logistical choice on Sandow's part—the tight set allows for only so many characters onstage at once before they start blending and bumping into one another. Yet it would have been nice if this talented cast had had the chance to gel somewhat more as an ensemble.

I also found the Rosalind character a bit of a conceit. Though Bernstine delivers her lines with aplomb, Batistick makes them sound a little too articulate and perceptive, and as a result too rehearsed, for such a spontaneous character.

Sandow's pacing falters a little in the second act, which runs only half the length of the first. Major events occur with little time to ruminate on their consequences or to create full dramatic effect. Yet Batistick 's broader questions ring loud and clear by the play's end. What makes a family? What makes a man? I wish he had provided something in the way of an answer.

No Room at the Top

In front of the script for The Right Kind of People, playwright/actor Charles Grodin quotes Abraham Lincoln: "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." Said power may be relative in Charles Grodin's condescending new play, but it nonetheless corrupts his characters absolutely, and as a result, virtually everyone in People save for Tom Rashman (Robert Stanton), the protagonist, fails this character test. But it's not as though Grodin's play is a particularly winning success either.

In the program, Grodin tells the audience that he based People on his own bitter experience as a member of an elite Manhattan co-op board, and one can still taste the sour grapes. Tom, the morally upright milquetoast, is a theatrical producer invited to join the board based on the recommendation of his Uncle Frank (Edwin C. Owens), a highly influential member. Frank and his wife Edna (never seen, only referenced) raised Tom when both of his parents died during his childhood, though Grodin never specifies how. This is a problem, as the question is never answered but calls plenty of attention to itself. It would have been smarter for Grodin to have simply explained why and moved on.

Not only does Frank serve as Tom's father figure and fellow board member, but the two are also producing partners, currently working on bringing a Revolutionary War play to the Great White Way. Unfortunately, this makes for overkill. It is easy to show how their personal relationship could be affected by a professional one, but either the theatrical relationship or the real estate one would have sufficed; the two here are redundant. Nonetheless, Frank and his nephew become estranged due to Frank's growing problem with the bottle and his estrangement from Aunt Edna.

Frank proves to be one of the foolhardy members of the co-op board, but not the only one. Events escalate as the members make rather racist restrictions, and an ill-explained feud between Frank and bleeding-heart member Doug Bernstein (Mitchell Greenberg) boils over once Doug takes Tom under his wing. Grodin's message is obvious and thematically facile: the rich and privileged prefer to keep company only with their own kind and will take drastic measures to do so. After a coup disassembles the original board, a new one emerges, but it proves to be even more outrageous; its members are racist, anti-Semitic, even anti-children.

Stanton does what he can, but Tom is not a character; he is merely the playwright's alter ego. Grodin admits this in the playbill when quoting a particularly nasty co-op board member who treated him like a vulgarian for buying his wardrobe off the rack (he repeats the line early in the show). As a result, Tom is merely a reaction, not a human being. Grodin also makes an awkward misstep by having Tom close the show with an expository monologue, the only time he breaks the fourth wall. It is hard to say whether he made such a choice due to time restraints or a lack of self-censorship, but it was still a mistake. These are choices that director Chris Smith's fluid direction and Annie Smart's impressively realistic set design cannot rectify.

Both Greenberg and Owens are excellent, solid, and resolute presences in their respective roles. Film and theater veteran Doris Belack steals scenes in a dual role as a stuffy board member and an apartment applicant. But a solid cast cannot elevate the material. Grodin sounds too whiny in People, with its rehashing of uppity Upper East Side stereotypes.

Lincoln also once said, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." Here's wishing Grodin had kept his thoughts to himself.

Liberated

While it no longer packs the emotional punch of, say, Sophie's choice, Nora Helmer's decision to leave her marriage—and her children—to pursue her own happiness still resonates as one of the most thrilling denouements in theater. In A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen daringly thwarted the social conventions of 1879 Copenhagen, challenging audiences to debate the character of a woman who, trapped in unhappy circumstances, finds her way out. In Nora, his 1981 adaptation of Ibsen's classic play, Ingmar Bergman pares down the cast and strips away scenes to better examine the cascade of forces that act on Ibsen's famous protagonist. In his streamlined revision, she emerges as a true prisoner of her household, but, more important, the extent to which she has been imprisoned within herself becomes frightfully apparent. While impeded by some problematic performances, Test Pilot Productions nonetheless offers an admirable New York premiere of Nora, thoughtfully directed by Pamela Moller Kareman.

Beneath the arches of the ArcLight Theater, set designer Joseph J. Egan places Nora within a half-circle of ominous birch trees, where she remains—minus one quick costume change—for the play's entire 90 minutes. The other four characters sit along the circle's perimeter, filtering through the trees to enter for their scenes, but otherwise simply watching the action as it unfolds. (Interestingly, Bergman used a similar device in his 1991 direction of A Doll's House at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.)

The omnipresence of these observers heightens the urgency of Nora's situation. Years earlier, she had borrowed money from Nils Krogstad to secure money for a trip abroad to benefit her husband Torvald's precarious health, forging her deceased father's signature on the promissory note. Now, Krogstad, whose bank job is in jeopardy, threatens to tell Torvald the truth—unless, of course, Nora can persuade her husband, newly promoted at the bank, to let Krogstad keep his job.

Backed into a corner, Nora unsuccessfully pleads with Krogstad, enlists the empathy of her long-lost friend Mrs. Linde, and considers how she might procure money from family friend Dr. Rank. Throughout, Torvald's cloying, patronizing treatment of his wife becomes more and more evident, building to their final—and powerfully realized—confrontation.

Ibsen's fully drawn characters resonate with both positive and negative traits, and Carey Macaleer finds the contrasts in Nora, deftly portraying her selfishness, vulnerability, and steeliness. Her high, chirpy voice belies her inner torment, and one can see how she is, as she describes herself, "not happy, only cheerful." It's a subtle difference, but one she plays well.

The other actors, unfortunately, are less successful in developing fully resonant characters. While perhaps limited by an abbreviated script, Troy Myers, as Torvald, is overly stiff, monotonous, and lethargic in his delivery. A more complex performance from this unsympathetic character would certainly give Nora's final decision more credence.

Sneering and gesticulating with abandon, John Tyrrell overplays the villainous Krogstad. And although Sarah Bennett and Tyne Firmin show welcome restraint as Mrs. Linde and Dr. Rank, respectively, neither has enough stage time to leave much of an impression.

But it is, after all, Nora's show, and this production is most notable for the attention paid to her journey. Matt Stine's original music underscores her thinly disguised manic state with taut intensity; in well-executed transitions, hauntingly and thoughtfully revealed by David Pentz's lighting, we watch Nora fall apart as she acts out her anger. These episodes reveal a woman whose real, serious emotions are perilously locked away.

To walk out on one's husband is far from scandalous by today's standards, but the struggle between Nora and Torvald—provoked by issues of money, integrity, and power—feels all too familiar. In a recent New York Times column, Judith Warner addressed the death of Betty Friedan (The Feminine Mystique) and the failure of our society to fully realize her ideals. "We women have, in many very real ways, at long last made good on Ms. Friedan's dream that we would reach 'our full human potential—by participating in the mainstream of society,' " she writes. "But, for mothers in particular, at what cost? With what degree of exhaustion? And with what soul-numbing sacrifices made along the way?"

Nora's life, as rendered by Ibsen and Bergman, certainly registers as "soul-numbing," and the play offers an important glimpse into the first murmurs of the feminist movement, which, it would seem, is still in need of further advancement. While Nora's words might often sound antiquated to our ears, much of it is all too familiar. "No one sacrifices his honor for love," Torvald tells his wife, who replies, "Thousands of women have." Watching Nora march out that door yet again, it's still difficult to imagine exactly where (or when) she might find true happiness and fulfillment.

Prey for Salvation

In many ways, it's easier than ever to be gay in America. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy has shown mainstream audiences that homosexuals can be cool, creative, and kind. Brokeback Mountain has shown that they can love and be loved, and that good wives and family ties don't "straighten out" the situation. Though there is, and probably always will be, opposition to the lifestyle, it is no longer a social (or literal) death sentence to admit your sexual orientation in most parts of the country. But what if we as a country started going backward instead of forward? What if the LGBT community were treated no better than child molesters, or worse? And what if this treatment was authorized, and, indeed, authored, by our own government? This scenario is played out in Temple, a chilling though oblique piece by Tim Aumiller.

The show opens with the appearance of Russ (think a blue-collar Sean Astin with a longshoreman's vocabulary) as he storms into an abandoned room with boxes and a covered couch and yells at nothing in particular. He's soon joined by Walt (a bespectacled meek type), who's brought his older sister Brenda (a mentally challenged religious type) to meet up with an old friend.

This friend, John, has masterminded a plot to take down the U.S. Supreme Court as well as a computerized database (housed within the court building) that tracks homosexuals in America in compliance with the newly passed "Samuel Laws." Walt, who provided schematics of the target, and Russ, who is also in on the attack, are there for a post-mission rendezvous with John to find out the next part of the plan.

John, their charismatic and handsome leader, eventually arrives with most of the rest of the gang: the twitchy, straight Kent; the unconscious Remy, wounded in the attack; and the tough-talking Suzanne. (The other two in their party have gone missing.) Everyone but Kent, a hired gun, is gay and committed, to varying degrees and for varying reasons, to the cause and to John. As they wait for a phone call that will provide a pickup location, personalities clash and much speechmaking ensues—speeches that clarify the stratagem that occurred as well as the reasons for its genesis.

Sadly, the more we learn about these revolutionaries, the less we care about them. Sure, their plight is terrible: when the authorities learn that someone "plays for the other team," he or she is forced to "register" and made to go through counseling and treatments. The person's parents are sterilized and tested as well.

But the play's characters categorize all heterosexuals and practitioners of organized religion as evil and believe that the loss of life, as long as it's not their own, is just part of their work. They spend most of the evening whining and fighting and being consoled by John, who talks about their cause with a persuasive fervor but ultimately comes off as a selfish manipulator.

The actors put forth believable characterizations, and David Rudd, as John, certainly has the magnetism to make it understandable why all of these men can't seem to quit him. Greg Foro's direction keeps the actors moving and the atmospheric tension alive. Yet the audience needs to have a likable protagonist in order to become emotionally invested in the events, however horrifying, and especially if they're fantastic.

There have been complaints over the last ten years that while gays and lesbians are finally starting to appear in films and TV series, they are often emotionally and sexually neutered. Yet their mere presence has opened the door for more complex portrayals in Queer as Folk and The L Word. Those shows offer characters who are defined not just by whom they sleep with but by who they are; the audience in turn identifies with them. The gang in Temple define themselves solely on the basis of their sexual identity, and while audiences may pity them for their situation, they'll be hard pressed to find any reason to like them.

Sketching It Out

You don't have to have much to put on a show. All you really need is a script plus people to read it, a director to give it a vision, and an audience to watch it all. It helps, of course, if you have talent. Maybe the most important thing to have is heart: if you love what you're doing, it will smooth out any rough edges. TimeSpace Theater Company's presentation of short plays by Christopher Durang, Dessert With Durang, has all of these things. It's performed on a tiny stage at the Payan Theater in the Times Square Arts Center, and there was little room for fancy scenery, extravagant props, or elaborate lights. The basic set pieces—some chairs, a table, a squashy armchair—were reused in various combinations for each sketch. Costume choices were effective yet basic; for example, silky fabric wrapped with a belt became a toga.

This was clearly not a production with a big budget, but the simple design elements never felt like limitations. It was apparent that the entire cast had worked hard. Also, it didn't hurt that the playwright behind the material was talented satirist Christopher Durang.

TimeSpace chose six of his one-act plays. The opening piece, "Medea," was co-written with the late Wendy Wasserstein and dedicated to her memory. This version of the Medea story is a tongue-in-cheek look at the paucity of dramatic roles for women in theater. Full of wacky anachronisms and witty references to other plays, it was a fun choice to start with because of the high-energy performances by Emily Sandack as Medea and Kim Douthit, Cecelia Martin, and Allison Niedermeier as the all-female Greek chorus.

The highlight of the evening was "For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls." Durang created a clever adaptation of The Glass Menagerie that is both hysterically funny and faithful to the tiniest details of the original. In this version, the collection of glass animals has been replaced by a collection of glass swizzle sticks, and the troubled daughter Laura is now the troubled son, Lawrence. As Lawrence, Justin Lamb was the perfect combination of sweet innocent and slack-jawed moron. His performance was essential to the piece, and he brought to it the right amount of earnestness and comedy.

Equally flawless was Maureen Van Trease as Amanda, the overbearing mother. She was able to embody Tennessee Williams's flawed Southern belle while also layering in the twisted personality Durang adds to the character. And both Lamb and Van Trease had dead-on Southern accents. Paul Casali (Tom) and Cecelia Martin (Ginny, the "feminine caller") solidly supported the other characters without being overshadowed.

Another sketch, "The Hardy Boys and the Mystery of Where Babies Come From," again featured Lamb, this time as Joe Hardy, with Richard Rella Jr. as his brother Frank. The two young men had great chemistry together, and each obviously relished his role as a dimwitted, sweater-loving Hardy Boy.

All of the actors gave strong performances, and there were no "weak links," as can sometimes be found in ensemble casts. Michael Raimondi's direction was consistent across all of the sketches, and his interpretation of Durang's occasionally bombastic satire (gun-toting religious enthusiasts, a teenage anti-abortion zealot) was handled with the appropriate amount of irony. The energy level of many of the sketches dwindled at their conclusions, as if the actors felt the playwright's particular gimmick had gone on too long. But I believe this reflects more on the material than on this production.

The only blemish on the evening was that a program of six short plays was maybe too ambitious to be presented without an intermission. While Raimondi cleverly added stage business to the scene changes, there was never a full blackout onstage, and the audience never had any time to rest. With the show running about 90 minutes, a brief intermission could have ensured that everyone was as enthusiastic about the last three sketches as they were with the first three.

TimeSpace is a small and relatively young organization, founded in 2004. It no doubt faces many of the same hurdles that all fledgling companies come up against. But it's clear that the members care about theater and are willing to work hard to put on a good show. Dessert With Durang is ample proof of that.

Rules of Engagement

"What I really resent," sneers Carl, the brutish, Arabic-spouting interrogator, "is what you force us to become." And therein lies the transference of guilt and responsibility that, for many in power today, seems to sanction some, if not all, of the unspeakable acts that are part of the American war on terror. Yussef El Guindi's Back of the Throat is a provocative and harrowing critique of that act of transference, centering on the confrontation between two presumed government agents and a young Middle-Eastern immigrant, Khaled (Adel Akhtar), whom they suspect had an integral part in the 9/11 attacks. In order for the production to expose the (il)logic of Abu Ghraib and wiretapping, it requires its antagonists—Carl (Jamie Effros) and his Southern sophisticate partner, Bartlett (Jason Guy)—to self-consciously convey the bureaucratic tedium of privacy invasion and torture.

Much of the dialogue between Carl and Bartlett deals with interrogation tactics and their justification. El Guindi mines corporate-speak, often to comic effect: If a subject screams for longer than ten consecutive seconds or if his vital organs are pummeled directly, the methods used against him are not warranted, but if those narrow guidelines are followed….

In Khaled, a bookish introvert, we hear the voice of the unjustly accused. The production succeeds at being simultaneously provocative and entertaining in large part because of Akhtar's strong, deeply resonant performance; his Khaled is immediately likable, eliciting our empathy and concern.

Downstairs at the Flea is a long, narrow theater space that frames the action like a diorama or a letterboxed film. Audiences sit snuggly in one of only two equally long rows, with the actors merely feet away from them. A short wall, against which Khaled is repeatedly thrown and pushed, separates the stage from the rows of chairs. This kind of intimate space also works to communicate the production's immediacy. We are voyeurs, passive and silent, watching as this man, as much a citizen as any of us, has his rights systematically stripped from him.

Although the Flea's artistic director, Jim Simpson, who directed this production, efficiently works flashbacks into the narrative, using every bit of the space to its fullest potential, I wish he could have coaxed as strong a performance from his other actors as he does with Akhtar. Jamie Effros is believable enough and does fine as the more physically intimidating agent. Jason Guy's Bartlett, however, is incongruously slapstick, at times almost a sadistic, Southern Inspector Clouseau.

Bandar Albuliwi dutifully plays Asfoor, a dead Arab man connected to 9/11, with whom Khaled may or may not have had a relationship. And Erin Roth plays three separate women who give accounts of their interactions with Khaled. While her librarian is adequate, she does best as the spurned girlfriend; her over-the-top stripper is funny, but the laughs are cheap and keep the character from fully being the voice of ordinary American fear and distrust. Perhaps the fault lies with El Guindi's script, which, for all its critical strengths, artistically relies too heavily on cartoonish caricatures.

In the play's final scene, Asfoor speaks of the dominance of the English language, which does not have the "back of the throat" sound that Arabic does. He describes his desire to learn English so he can participate in the most basic sense, and how his anger grew when that participation was denied him. Back of the Throat is an excellent addition to the dialogue we must have about the war on terror and the investigation of that war's effects on us.

Rock 'n' Roll Saviors

Chekhov once quipped that "if there is a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, it must fire in the last." This basic dramaturgical tenet wasn't heeded in the productions of Cowboy Mouth by Sam Shepard and Thick Like Piano Legs by Robert Attenweiler, now playing at the Red Room. Nonetheless, the two one-acts packed enough heat to make an entertaining evening dedicated to down-at-their-heels musicians trying to find salvation amid the squalor of sex, drink, and rock 'n' roll. Attenweiler's new one-act depicts the regulars at a dive bar on the Lower East Side. The bar's struggling piano player, Tom (Nathan Williams), has one last big night to perform before he's off to Georgia.

When he enters the bar, however, he discovers someone's stolen his instrument. No one has a clue what happened to it. Upset that a "baby grand can't just fly away easy like, say, a baby elephant," Tom lashes out at the burly manager, Jack. Jack suspects Tom swiped it himself before scooting out of town. Meanwhile, Joanie, Tom's girlfriend and a cocktail waitress at the bar, gets upset that he has decided to leave her behind like "a chewed-off hangnail."

The play begins, though, with a fourth character, Billie, flashing a large wad of bills and asking Jack, "You wanna know where I got all this?" Jack would rather remain ignorant of what he suspects are her illicit dealings. Billie (Mary Guiteras) is a ne'er-do-well who lives out of her car and dreams of being a lounge singer. Like Tom, she's also back at the bar for one big last night—of boozing.

What I found odd was that the play never suggests a connection between the big wad of bills that Billie suddenly and inexplicably possesses and the conspicuously missing piano. To me, this looked like the gun that never went off, and could have acted as a dramatic decoy in the "case of the missing piano." As it is, Billie, though an amusing drunk, becomes somewhat extraneous to the plot.

Despite its loose construction, the play has enough action to hold one's interest. Attenweiler's one-act evokes the ambience of Tom Waits's ballads through its drunk and dreamy characters' slangy, exuberant dialect that's prone to down-home idioms and exaggerated storytelling, though the language slips into mannerism on occasion.

Likewise, the actors display panache and swagger without overdoing it most of the time. Bret Haines as Jack evinced a quiet control that radiated the sly worldliness, if not weariness, of the longtime bartender. Vina Less, as Joanie, conveyed the love-struck hysterics of a bright-eyed youth without resorting to melodramatic screaming.

"Cowboy Mouth," an early Shepard rock opera he co-wrote with Patti Smith, is pure spontaneous combustion throughout. Two lovers alternately argue and entertain each other with silly games in a seedy apartment. Slim unleashes his frustrations on his guitar, but can't quite be the rock 'n' roll savior that his quirky girlfriend, Cavale, hopes for. She's torn between romanticizing Johnny Ace, the black rock 'n' roll star who blew his brains out, and her more domestic dreams of owning a dishwasher and fancy shoes.

Bored, poor, and strung-out, the two lovers play out a fantasy life where they frolic like animals, pretend to go shopping, and make up wild stories. Eventually, they call the Lobster Man to get them some food. This strange delivery person intrigues them, and they call him back as a kind of prank to see what will happen.

Shepard's stage directions end the play on an intentionally ambivalent note, with the Lobster Man, unveiled as the rock 'n' roll savior, spinning the gun Cavale uses in her Johnny Ace monologue in a game of Russian roulette. The hammer strikes an empty chamber, and the lights slowly fade to black.

But director John Patrick Hayden chose to ignore the detail about the gun from Shepard's staging, and ends with the rock 'n' roll savior exultantly sprouting wings while Hendrix blares like an angelic chorus in the background. Without the gun clicking on an empty chamber, Shepard's well-constructed and grim parable about becoming disillusioned with the false idols of rock 'n' roll seems to have turned into a feel-good spectacle.

Overlooking my minor quibble with the last image, though, this fast-paced and exciting production is like a reckless joy ride with a stolen car. Becky Benhayon brings spunk, humor, and her own eccentricities to her interpretation of the peculiarly morbid yet bouncy character of Cavale, while Adam Groves delights with his boyish charm as the jumpy, energetic Slim.

While there weren't any smoking guns, these two one-acts successfully capture the explosive energy of down-and-out drifters in sexy, smoke-filled dives. Like rock 'n' roll itself, with its all-or-nothing attitude in the face of youth's big hopes and slim chances, these plays help life's disappointments seem a little less lonesome.

Ibsen With Robots

Heddatron is an over-the-top, mind-bending, jaw-dropping piece of masterful camp. Everything about playwright Elizabeth Meriwether's new play is brilliant. Produced by Les Freres Corbusier, this outstanding production boasts an extremely original and well-written script as well as a magnificent cast, inspired direction, and flawless design elements, all of which combine to make this the must-see show of the season. In short, it is pure theatrical magic (with robots!) that leaves its audience slightly delirious and breathlessly wanting more. In suburban Michigan, Jane (Carolyn Baeumler), a depressed and pregnant housewife, reads Hedda Gabler. As she folds laundry and cleans her gun, she finds solace in Ibsen's words, identifying with the title character's situation. Weeks later, Jane's 12-year-old daughter Nugget (Spenser Leigh) prepares to give a report to her sixth-grade class on Ibsen and the "well-made play."

Meanwhile, in 19th-century Germany, a melancholy Ibsen (Daniel Larlham) plays with dolls as his sadistic wife (Nina Hellman), a severe woman who refers to her husband only as "Ibsen!," gleefully calls his manhood into question. Back in modern-day Michigan, mild-mannered Rick (Gibson Frazier) and his arms-smuggling brother Cubby (Sam Forman) prepare to rescue Rick's wife Jane, who has been kidnapped by…robots.

Images of a news report about the robot abduction assault the audience from every angle. Ibsen frantically works on his new play, pausing only to battle his loathed enemy, the sexually depraved August Strindberg (Ryan Karels), and to find momentary happiness with his slutty kitchen maid, Else (Julie Lake).

Nugget presents her report, advising her classmates that if they don't like Hedda Gabler, it's probably because they saw it on a bad night or are too stupid to understand it. Rick and Cubby, armed with an arsenal of illegal guns, head to the rain forest lair of the robots. Deep in the forest, Jane performs Hedda Gabler over and over again as her kidnappers, Tesman and Lovborg (named after characters in Hedda Gabler) and their fellow robots, swirl about her. That the four story lines converge during a group chorus of Bonnie Tyler's unrequited-love anthem "Total Eclipse of the Heart" is just further proof of this work's campy brilliance.

A mixture of wry observations, hilarious jokes, social commentary, and literary criticism, Meriwether's writing is sublime. Through Jane's story, Ibsen's imagined history, and the robots that tie everything together, Meriwether expertly deconstructs Ibsen and his play. Alex Timbers's direction successfully weaves together all the story lines, guiding his entire cast to polished, accomplished performances.

The acting is also exceptional. Leading the ensemble is the delightful Leigh. As Nugget, she holds the play together with her natural acting style and deadpan delivery, showcasing a talent well beyond her young age. Carolyn Baeumler mixes comedy and drama as the suicidal Jane, fully and often hilariously committing to each bizarre situation, particularly those involving her robot captors. She turns in a tender and heartbreaking performance.

Hellman stomps about the stage screaming "Ibsen!" and delivering putdowns with bull's-eye precision, stealing every scene she's in. As the lusty Else, Lake is perpetually surprised and clueless while delivering her lines with a high-pitched, helium-infused voice that provokes many laughs. In Lake's capable hands, Else's monologue about her mother's brutal rape is, surprisingly, a comedic tour de force.

Larlham comically captures the self-aggrandizing soul of the tortured artist; his conflicted Ibsen is a man more concerned with writing about life than living it. As the bikini-underwear-clad Strindberg, Karels hysterically swaggers about the stage, full machismo bravado on display as he conquers every woman in his path. Karels is the perfect foil to Larlham's neutered Ibsen.

Forman attacks the role of wannabe mercenary Cubby with psychotic abandon, earning many laughs as his insane kill-the-robots-scheme spirals out of control. As the quiet center of the play, Frazier appropriately underplays each moment, imbuing the clueless Rick with a dim uncertainty about what is happening or why his wife is so unhappy. Like Tesman in Hedda, Rick simply loves her.

The unsung heroes of Heddatron are the robots. Designed by Meredith Finkelstein and Cindy Jeffers, they perfectly capture the personalities of their Ibsenian counterparts. The Lovborg robot is hunky and brooding, Tesman is dumpy, and the others—well, they should be seen for maximum effect. The robots provide some of the funniest moments and are so well executed, they achieve lifelike dimensions.

In a city bursting with theatrical options, Heddatron is a welcome relief. Not settling for the status quo or uninspired mediocrity of so many Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, Heddatron dares to be more. And while the flash of the robots is certainly alluring, the production's real magic is all human. Meriwether, Timbers, Les Freres Corbusier, and the exceptional cast and designers have given the New York theater scene a remarkable gift.

In a Frozen World

Theatergoers bold enough to brave the icy weather and take the L train to Brooklyn's Williamsburg will understand that The Snow Hen has found the perfect location. Situated away from downtown Manhattan and even a few blocks distant from busy Bedford Avenue, the Charlie Pineapple Theater has an isolated air. This isn't where your life happens; this is somewhere else, somewhere remote. Based loosely on a Norwegian folk tale, The Snow Hen expands on the story of a girl living in solitude in a snow hut after being abandoned by her parents. She continually fishes odds and ends out of the snow, and after a few years she's grown a plume of white feathers on her back. After the audience has observed the heroine's fascinating and bizarre existence, a towering stranger dressed in a long leather coat arrives, perhaps the only other person left in the world.

Director Oliver Butler has homed in on the play's haunting melancholy, and all elements of the production—design, sound, lights, performance—blend seamlessly into a cohesive whole. Besides Butler, the Debate Society's creative triumvirate consists of Hannah Bos, who plays the girl, and Paul Thureen, the stranger. As both writers and performers, they bring humanity as well as pathos to this farfetched and fantastical landscape.

From the moment Bos first slips her hands through the curtain and "invites" us into her strange little world, we become a part of her existence. Such is the miracle of her spontaneity that for the first silent minutes of the piece, as she picks her way through a multitude of props, there is no evidence of rehearsal or blocking. Instead, there is simply an ease of being. Bos never seems to be "acting"; she simply is, and her bleak yet somehow bright existence inside her snow hut seems as familiar to the audience as any childhood memory. With its laughter and tears, this life is a warm center of emotion within a frozen world.

Thureen's first appearance is shocking. Appearing nearly 9 feet tall in relation to Bos, the stranger is a monster bringing chaos to her world. Thureen wordlessly dominates the stage as Bos desperately tries to continue her life as it was before he came. But as he begins to discard layers of fur and leather (expertly crafted by Sydney Maresca), we see the man within the monster. The stranger seems to be susceptible to the girl's influence, and her spunkiness begins to revitalize him as he thaws out from the cold. Eventually, we realize that he is just as alone—and as vulnerable and capable of wonder—as she is.

The scenic design is both wondrously inventive and effectively oppressive. The child's Fisher-Price scale vividly illustrates that the girl has outgrown her home. More impressively, nearly every piece of the set is functional. There is an extension cord on the wall, and if one of the actors plugs in a hair dryer, it works. The floor has an ice-fishing hole, and if the actors lift the lid, there is water and a fishing basket. The wealth of gadgets and trinkets allows the actors to make discoveries throughout the course of the play.

Mike Riggs's light design presents an effective interplay between realism and artifice. Inside the hut, the lights are powered by a generator and fade as scenes progress. Frequent patches of sunlight add a stark contrast to the normally frigid tones outside. A quick glimpse of the northern lights, breathtakingly rendered, creates a greenish, surreal effect.

Nathan Leigh's sound effects include voice-overs by Pamela Payton-Wright and Adam Silverman, which occur naturally and heighten the loneliness. Every element of the design seems to have a slight echo, like music heard ringing on for miles. Or maybe the music is miles away, and we hear only the echoes.

The Snow Hen offers unique joys as well as sadness. To classify the play as experimental theater probably does it a disservice. Though some of the concepts and the performance style might be appropriate for that genre, the piece's overriding message about the need for shared existence will be accessible to anyone who sees it. Audiences may depart the theater feeling as if they've left a part of themselves in this mysterious little pocket of reality. As if somewhere remote and cold, a piece of us is cataloguing trinkets and hearing the echoes of a life long gone.

On Thin Ice

Beware the paralyzing power of public perception. In Theater Ten Ten's engrossing revival of Kiss and Cry, playwright Tom Rowan adeptly examines two arenas in which public persona is a make-or-break factor—figure skating and Hollywood. Actors and figure skaters achieve fame only to become veritable public property, spawning legions of fans obsessed not only with their talents but also with the most infinitesimal details of their personal lives. Rather than confront the origins of our obsession with celebrity, Rowan approaches his subject on a more personal level, chronicling the lives of two young stars with wit and sensitivity as they package themselves for public view. But the images they create, of course, bear little resemblance to the lives they truly wish to lead.

Stacy and Fiona first meet in Los Angeles at the premiere party for Fiona's new movie, Vampire Campus. Stacy is an up-and-coming pairs figure skater, while Fiona longs to appear in more substantial films. Discovering their shared preference for same-sex partners, they form a fast friendship. As they exit the party, a photographer snaps a picture, and their relationship suddenly becomes fodder for celebrity gossip columnists.

Pouncing on what she perceives as a golden opportunity, Fiona suggests that they play along with the story, letting their fans believe they are a couple. Stacy initially hesitates, but after a disquieting conversation with his skating partner, Brittany (who wonders whether he is a "faggot" or a "homo" in the chilling, derisive language of fundamentalist homophobia), he accepts Fiona's offer.

Embraced by the press, their relationship flourishes, and their careers do, too. Fiona finally lands a more legit role, while Stacy and Brittany win nationals and begin to prepare for the Olympics. As the relationship spins out of control, however, what was intended as a brief courtship turns into a marriage, spawning action figures and exercise videos; their personal lives, consequently, begin to feel the negative effects of their elaborate pantomime.

Stacy becomes involved with a fan named Trent, who begins to complain loudly about the enforced secrecy of their relationship, warning Stacy, "Lies come back to haunt you." And Fiona, who has lived with her girlfriend Lauren for years in their East Village apartment, has hell to pay when Lauren—usually immersed in alternative, feminist publications—finally uncovers her deception.

Lauren's rift with Fiona runs deeper than the matter of falsified sexuality, however. Committed to reaching people through the progressive theater she creates, Lauren has written plays for Fiona to perform that support their shared artistic vision. She accuses Fiona of selling out and "merchandising" herself to the mainstream culture, and their ensuing argument about the transformative powers of art is one of the play's most tautly written, directed, and performed scenes.

Director Kevin Newbury moves the action forward at a controlled pace that never feels rushed or labored. Clever voice-overs and upbeat music animate the transitions between scenes, and Robert Monaco's austere set keeps the focus on the performers.

For a show with figure skating as a main subject, it could be problematic that we never actually get to see any skating. Locker room scenes bring us close, however, and Joanne Haas's beautiful skating costumes add believability to the actors' athleticism.

Most of the cast participated in the play's hit run at the 2004 Fringe Festival, and the veterans have their characters firmly in hand. David Lavine is exceedingly earnest and lovable as Stacy, wearing his heart on his sleeve so palpably that, watching closely, you might even see him blush. Julie Leedes brings a sunny, girl-next-door energy to Fiona, likable even when her calculating actions threaten to expose her self-centeredness.

As Lauren, Nell Gwynn is instantly persuasive as a feminist playwright with transform-the-world ideals, and her intensity is tempered by her sure-footed delivery of many of the play's most ironic lines. Elizabeth Cooke offers a flawless performance as Brittany, innocently spouting the maxims of her fundamentalist upbringing, and Reed Prescott turns in a touching performance as Stacy's conflicted figure-skating friend-cum-lover, Ethan. Only Timothy Dunn, the cast's newcomer, struggles a bit with the bombastic Trent, and his over-the-top quality distracts at times from the realism of the other performances.

As Brittany laments the skating duo's loss of their "wholesome Christian kid appeal," it becomes clear that very nearly everyone has an image to sell. In Kiss and Cry, choosing to compromise your identity brings devastating consequences, and it is impossible to delude others without somehow deluding yourself.

Even realizing your utmost dreams, it turns out, offers little relief, and Fiona and Stacy become both perpetrators and victims of erratic cultural expectations. As a bit of dialogue attests, one must "encourage the untrue rumors to shut down the true ones." But when the truth is eradicated, what steps in to take its place?

Inhuman

Dread, terror, and paranoia run rampant through our society these days, the newspapers tell us, promulgated by the forces of war and an ever-growing culture of fear. Ostensibly written in response (and protest) to the Vietnam War, Walter Wangerin, Jr.'s prescient novel The Book of the Dun Cow is an antiwar diatribe that also parallels the current war in Iraq. Randy Courts and Mark St. Germain have adapted Wangerin's material into the most unlikely of forms—a musical—with quite thrilling results. In this haunting and cerebral production by the Prospect Theater Company, The Book of the Dun Cow examines existential questions of war, its motivations, and the responses it generates.

And did I mention that the protagonists are animals?

Welcome to an alternative universe where animals are the keepers of the earth, presided over by the gregarious and slightly pompous rooster Chauntecleer. When a neighboring ruler, Senex, decides to produce an heir, he unwittingly brings forth Cockatrice and the evil of the underworld (Wyrm). As animals begin to die, Chauntecleer must make difficult decisions about war and its consequences.

Although you might be tempted to interpret the show (the first act, at least) as an allegorical tale that predicts the coming of the Dun Cow (a savior figure of sorts), Wangerin's story pushes beyond the simple assignation of roles to a more complex narrative. As a result, characters are rich and multidimensional, but the story itself is so densely written that it is often difficult to tease out a clear sense of what has actually taken place (and why).

But in a story chronicling war, you might argue, this ambiguity is so much the better. War is, after all, cloaked in mystery; as Chauntecleer's wife (the hen Pertelote) queries, in the darkness of battle, "Who can tell who's right?"

Director Cara Reichel has created a thoroughly believable world for her characters, paying careful attention to the inherent power of storytelling. When the Narrator (Jacob Grigolia-Rosenbaum) takes the stage, he carefully opens a book. The animals file on wordlessly, giving the Narrator their undivided attention. As he begins the story, the characters come to life to act out the tale.

And although the Narrator somewhat perplexingly closes the book before the show ends, this too seems a conscience choice. "Is this the moment when the animals' story becomes our story?" wondered the friend who accompanied me. We weren't able to come up with a definitive answer, but the debate that ensued over this and other plot points indicated that The Book of the Dun Cow is replete with questions—imperative ones worth thinking about.

Courts and St. Germain's sophisticated, contemporary score, buttressed by percussion and guitar, has a sound all its own, full of lavish harmonies and evocative melodies. Marcus Baker leads an accomplished orchestra through the fine orchestrations provided by Courts and Daniel Feyer.

Portraying an animal can be a risky endeavor for an actor (the risk of embarrassment certainly runs high), but—thanks in part to David Withrow's intriguing and resourceful costume design—the performers are fully believable in their anthropomorphic state. Rather than attempting to realistically "transform" the actors into animals, Withrow merely suggests their animalistic traits. Boots, corsets, and vests form the standard uniform; a red scarf suggests a rooster's wobble, while the dog Mundo Cani sports a canine-channeling droopy hat. Hand puppets add another innovative touch.

Similarly, the performers, with a few exceptions, do not overplay their animal affectations, wisely opting for more subtle mannerisms. As a whole, this is a fierce ensemble of actors, wholly dedicated to their task. As the sparring roosters Cockatrice and Chauntecleer, Micah Bucey and Brian Munn dominate the proceedings with powerful, captivating performances. Vanessa June Marshall brings delicate sensitivity and a crystal voice to Pertelote, and David Foley Jr. offers a tender and mighty-voiced performance as Mundo Cani.

Paulo Seixas has provided an appealing multilevel set for the actors, but unfortunately Jessica Hendricks's choreography often fails to take full advantage of it. After exhilarating battle scenes and affecting group montages, the simplistic choreography in many of the full-ensemble songs often undermines its intricate accompaniment. This cast and this story, in other words, deserve more than a simple "step, touch, repeat" routine.

Why do we fight, and what do we hope to accomplish? What can we ever accomplish? Like the recent film Munich, The Book of the Dun Cow argues that even as we work to stamp out evil, it will always find a way to regenerate itself. Although the musical very nearly collapses under the weighty questions it poses, it is an intriguing inquiry into fundamental questions. When confronted with evil, do we resist violence, Chauntecleer asks, or do we "become a rat to kill a rat"?

Musical Romp

"Pardon the proximity of my person to your own." So steeped in politeness (and alliteration), these are hardly the words one expects to hear from the mouth of a prostitute. But in the world of fiction—and musical theater—possibilities expand. In the tradition of such innocent-girl-meets-big-city, city-proves-bad-influence tales as Thomas Dreiser's famous novel Sister Carrie, John Cleland's 18th-century novel Fanny Hill is tantalizing fodder for musical adaptation. If Ed Dixon's music and script are often meandering and overly simplistic, the ever-dependable York Theater Company has produced an endearing, jaunty romp of a show. And the overqualified cast, without fail, rises above the mostly mediocre material to turn in delightful performances.

Leading the pack is Nancy Anderson, who embodies the title character with sincerity and grace. Displaying vulnerability and pluck (sometimes simultaneously), Anderson brings to mind a young Bernadette Peters. With striking and precise comic timing, her strong performance anchors the show as the young heroine sets off to seek her fortune and encounters many curves in the road.

And Fanny certainly has ample ups and downs to navigate on her picaresque adventure. Orphaned in the small village of Lancashire, she arrives in London with little money but plenty of determination. The devious Mrs. Brown (Patti Allison), spying easy prey, scoops her off the street and whisks her into her house of prostitutes. Initially charmed by the house's splendor and luxuries, Fanny recoils when she discovers how the girls come by their money. After she falls in love with Charles (Tony Yazbeck), a sailor who spots her through her window, Fanny runs away to live with him. But when the sailors kidnap Charles and take him back to sea, Fanny finds herself back at Mrs. Brown's house, looking for refuge.

Resigned to her lot, Fanny throws herself into her new career, perfecting the prostitute's trade and becoming a kept woman for a wealthy country lord. The action finally resolves in a happily-ever-after(-ish) manner, but not until the requisite amount of mayhem and clever coincidences have occurred.

Billed as a takeoff on "the world's most infamous naughty book," Fanny Hill rarely feels truly naughty; sex scenes are highly stylized, and much of the humor comes from Fanny's wide-eyed, naïve reactions to provocative situations. With tongue firmly in cheek, the show often channels famous period pieces such as Candide and The Pirates of Penzance (the sailors, for one, immediately recall those infamous pirates). While comparably playful and frothy, Fanny Hill lacks the depth of those superior productions.

And Dixon's music cannot even begin to compete with the songs of Leonard Bernstein or Gilbert and Sullivan. Dixon's sprightly melodies are often as simple and repetitious as tunes from a music box. Largely unmemorable, the songs too often rely on short, rhymed phrases ("There's not enough pain / and I never was vain") that fail to develop into more substantive passages.

There are notable exceptions, however, which point to Dixon's promise as a songwriter. "Honor Lost," Fanny's lament after she first exchanges sex for money, is an evocative and moving ballad wrenchingly performed by Anderson, and "Every Man in London" is a show-stopping comedy song for the raunchy Mrs. Brown. Allison makes every moment count, and she quite deservedly brings down the house.

But with an ensemble that boasts such esteemed talents as Emily Skinner and David Cromwell, it seems a waste to let them languish in repeated, interminable choruses of "Clippy-clop-clip/Clippy-clippy-clop-clip" (the sound of horses as Fanny travels). If they feel their training is wasted, however, you'd never guess it from their dedicated performances. Skinner delights as Martha, Mrs. Brown's maid, while Cromwell shows comic flourish in several craggy, curmudgeonly roles. Michael J. Farina, Adam Monley, Gina Ferrall, and Christianne Tisdale round out the talented ensemble.

In the stock dreamy-male leading role (see Frederick in Pirates), Yazbeck gives a winning performance as Charles. Armed with a full-bodied, silky voice (as well as the uncanny ability to achieve beautiful resonance while splayed out on his back), Yazbeck should attract the attention of many casting directors. Keep watch on this up-and-coming young actor.

Fanny Hill, with its feisty young ingénue and torrid subject matter, would seem to be a prime candidate for musicalization. Widely considered the first "erotic" novel, Cleland's book, in print since 1749, has been the subject of multiple debates over censorship. Unfortunately, Dixon's adaptation ultimately lacks the substance to make Fanny's story a true theatrical event.

Still, James Brennan's direction is crisp and nuanced, Michael Bottari and Ronald Case's set and costumes are creative and lavish, and the cast is first rate, making this something of a guilty pleasure—a buoyant exercise in frivolity. "If you hold your head high and keep walking," Fanny says, "you might just end up where you're going." And at the York Theater, chins are held deliriously high.

Infernal Discourse

George Bernard Shaw imagined hell as an amusement park dedicated to licentious pleasures. While there may be "quite enough reality on earth," the "horror of damnation," he says through his mouthpiece, Don Juan, is that "nothing's real" in hell. Unfortunately, the horrific dreariness of reality intrudes into the Medicine Show's production of Shaw's dream play within a play, Don Juan in Hell, the self-contained third act of his Man and Superman. Dona Ana, an old flame of Don Juan's, is a fresh arrival in hell. She meets her former lover and her deceased father, an ex-military commander who is visiting from heaven. The devil calls and tries to convince Juan to switch places with the commander so that hell can have a new catch. Acidly eloquent monologues ensue about the nature of love, marriage, and the meaning of life.

The famous libertine, weary of endless sensual indulgences, decides he prefers the contemplative life of heaven. For some reason, the devil changes her mind and protests Juan's decision. But any dramatic conflict is secondary to the witty banter in this comedy of ideas that resembles a Platonic dialogue in the way Juan gets all the best lines.

Director Alec Tok appears to have made a deliberate choice to stage Shaw's philosophic reverie utilizing Brechtian dramaturgy. On the surface, this makes sense because Shaw is in many ways the English Brecht: both playwrights wrote "epic theater" that emphasized didactic arguments, often at the expense of action, in an effort to engage their audience's intellects and further social—and often socialist—causes. In addition, Shaw's dream play concocts an atmosphere of brittle illusions, which seems to make it suited to the distancing effect that was Brecht's goal. Brecht wanted his audiences to see the illusion of theater as an illusion, and not mistake it for some "naturalistic" reality.

The problem is that Tok stays on the surface; his use of Brecht's dramaturgy is superficial and distracts our focus from the depths of Shavian meditations. The play, for example, "breaks the fourth wall" for only an instant—when the devil hands a random audience member a dollar bill to demonstrate the allure of mammon. It almost works. But the gimmick takes attention away from the alluring sophistry, which is the heart of the play.

Likewise, the costumes, while well constructed and imaginative, led to confusion. Juan wore a codpiece, multicolored tights, and a troubadour outfit complete with plumage and ruffles, while the commander was adorned in a mink thrown over World War I gear bespattered with inexplicable, Pollock-like drips of yellow and gray. More disconcerting yet was the fact that he had silver glitter smeared on his face.

Tok and costume designer Uta Bekaia attempt the radical juxtaposition of styles that Brecht urged, but the effect is baffling. The bafflement was most likely intentional: a superfluous nonspeaking actor enters and exits at odd moments wearing a new costume each time, from cross-dressing in a French maid outfit to parading as a Roman soldier.

Moreover, while elaborate Brechtian masks are used, they are rapidly dropped with little change in the characters' voice or action to denote any transformation, thus nullifying their effect.

While many of Tok's attempts to set Shaw's play to Brecht's directorial music may seem interesting, at least theoretically, the production flounders because of more basic reasons: overzealous blocking and emotionally callow acting.

During the play's long monologues, the actors engage in incoherent and distracting behavior. The audience is never given the chance to focus on the intellectual gymnastics when the characters halfheartedly toss pillows, pantomime animals, or—in one of the most egregious scenes—pretend to give birth to a helmet. It's as if Tok, afraid the audience will be bored by Shaw's speeches, overcompensates with too much action. Yet the transitions between scenes stultify with moments of dead air.

The least ingratiating aspect of this production, though, was the cliché-ridden acting. Brecht proposed a theory of acting opposed to Stanislavsky's, which relies on the interiority of deep, primal memories. Brecht's theory proposed that actors articulate a series of controlled and highly stylized gestures. The actors in this production, however, displayed neither naturalistic emotion nor stylistic control in their movements. They travestied the subtlety of the text with the banality of their unfeeling expression. With the occasional exception of Peter Judd, who played the commander, they wallowed in overwrought melodrama throughout.

The entire play came to a fitting conclusion on the night I saw it. A prop malfunction caused the climactic unveiling of heaven to be delayed. As Mark Dempsey, playing Juan, fidgeted with a curtain, he came out of character for a second to shrug apologetically to the audience.

If Shaw—or Brecht—wanted to disabuse us of the possibility for human transcendence, he couldn't have hoped for a more earthbound production.

Tricks and Spirits

The veil between belief and disbelief is a fundamental element in the relationship between a play and its audience. If a play does its job, the veil should be transparent, allowing the viewer to move seamlessly from the real world into the fiction of the play. With Beyond the Veil, at Where Eagles Dare Theater, the veil seems barely existent, leaving all of the grinding nuts and bolts of the production visible to the audience. The production should stand out as a warning to theater artists whose scripts make promises that their budget cannot keep. John Chatterton's play follows a Victorian-era scientist, William Royce, as he sets out to expose the medium Florence King as a con artist. After the death of his wife and an inexplicable séance, Royce begins to believe that Florence and her mother may be more than parlor tricksters. Royce takes both women into his home and makes it his mission to scientifically validate Florence's abilities, even forming a bizarre sexual relationship with the ghost-like Trudi, a long-dead former lover from Germany.

In some places, the actors make very noble efforts. James Arden, Sean Dill, and Naama Kates, as Royce, the Vicar, and Florence, respectively, all bring a grounded sensibility to their characters, regardless of the sometimes farcical circumstances. Gregg Lauterbach has a tendency to ham and overreach as the foppish Lord Darnley, but ultimately his arrival onstage heightens the other actors' energy. Nora Armani's accent comes and goes, but her Mrs. King (Florence's mother) blazes to life in the second act. The pretty and likable Rachael Rhodes, playing Iris the maid, seems to have been given five or six lines as payment for doubling as run crew and manipulating the objects that Florence "levitates."

The production's real failure is the design and technical execution. Roi Escudero is credited as the sole designer of the scenic elements, costumes, art, props, and virtual effects, but she seems to be settling for things rather than achieving the production's true goals. Any interesting sequences building up to a ghostly visitation are ruined when the audience hears the slide projector click on and then realizes that the actors are marking time, waiting for it to project a brief and indistinguishable image of a ghost.

The script refers again and again to Royce's scientific equipment and his having brought this equipment into the main room (playing area), but it never happens. Even so much as a yardstick is kept offstage. There are numerous references in the text to lighting controls and a dial on the wall, both of which are tackily hidden just behind a jutting wall.

In the script, many of Florence's channelings occur by way of a spirit cabinet. The idea is that she is bound securely in a small space and therefore unable to produce the floating instruments and manifestations of ghosts that take place during the séance. As executed here, this device becomes laughable. The question of whether Florence is untying herself and flitting about Royce's study naked is answered when the audience can hear her disrobing and see her undoing the cords she was bound with. Most of Veil's special effects evoke only muted snickers when they should serve as a device to heighten the mystery and suspense. Even the simple manifestation of a chair being moved on its own volition is ruined when we see the "mover" brush the curtain just behind it.

Though the script suffers from some forced innuendo and double entendres, a lot of interesting character dynamics are at play. The repeated question of who is cuckolding whom reaches its crescendo at the start of the second act, and once the play settles into its more farcical purpose of producing the most elaborate con, the audience will no doubt find itself very engaged in what's going on.

Perhaps this production would benefit from a little variation in creative input. Here, the playwright also works as the theater owner, producer, and director. Any one of these tasks is taxing enough, and Chatterton seems to be juggling many responsibilities. The result is a production that looks thrown together, more along the lines of a "stumble-through" than a finished product. Also, with Escudero trying to fulfill all of the technical requirements, every area of design is bound to suffer. Separate lighting, scenic, and special effects designers might have focused more attention on the show's technical quality.

Beyond the Veil tries wholeheartedly to make daring choices but doesn't seem capably staffed to make the more spectacular moments seem smooth and believable. Tricks like floating instruments and projected ghosts are only able to trick the characters if they can fool the audience. Unfortunately, this Veil isn't thick enough to pull over anyone's eyes.

Ladies' Night

The director's role in the creation of most productions is that of Ultimate Decision Maker. (S)he is in charge of making key calls concerning the script, the actors, the costumes, the sets—everything that is seen or said onstage. Some directors will have a specific vision of what the show should be, and will work to make that vision come alive. Others will work with their creative team to put together a greatest-hits compilation of all their strongest ideas. But what happens with a show that's missing a director? If the writer is living and involved with the production, not a syllable will be omitted from the script, even if scenes are overly long. Often, the actors will be given too much freedom and will indulge in unnecessary pauses. Most of all, there will be no overarching purpose or plan for the play, resulting in a limp night in the theater. This is the case with Ham & Egg, a decently performed, sometimes funny, but ultimately uninspired sketch show currently running at Under St. Marks.

Six sketches and a few videos feature Meg Kelly Schroeder and Pam Wilterdink, two thirty-something actresses who are skinny enough to pull off wearing micro-mini nurse uniforms and rocker spandex, and ballsy enough to play characters like snaggletoothed, jazz-loving sisters and middle-aged, middle-American bus drivers. Each scene is played with elaborate costumes and wigs to transform these ladies into women (and one boy) from different walks of life.

Generally, the live sketches tended to run a little long without decent resolution. Longer still were the videos, some picking up on the stage action, some telling their own stories, but all relying on the Family Guy idea that something dumb or awkward is amusing if left to go on for a ridiculous amount of time. There were also problems with the sound not syncing up to the picture, which made the short films seem even less short.

The scene changes were lengthy as well, probably to give the actresses time to change. Cleanup was done by Scott Myers (in purposefully unconvincing drag or in character from previous scenes), taking his sweet time to remove furniture or to add set decoration. (What Myers lacks in swiftness he certainly makes up for in popularity; on the night of this review, he seemed to have a lot of supporters in the crowd who loved his bits.)

The distaff duo's most effective characters were the ditzy blond nurses of "The Nurses" and the buttoned-up Victorian librarians in "The Eagle & the Hawk." It wasn't just that these were well-known stock characters that the audience had an easy affinity for. These scenes (the first and last of the evening) were highly stylized, and Schroeder and Wilterdink seemed to have a great time (and a natural instinct for) tapping into the soap opera and Masterpiece Theater genres. The writing was also wittier and more playful. Perhaps more than two scenes played so archly would've been overkill; still, that seems preferable to being underwhelmed by the rest of the show.

It's interesting to wonder what Ham & Egg could have been with a director. Instead of 90 minutes, it could've been a tauter 60. Instead of interminable film clips, it could've had quick gags (with quicker costume changes backstage to make up for time lost in the video segments). And instead of a slapdash production with flashes of brilliance, it could've been a streamlined show and a better showcase for its stars' talents.

Proof Positive

When David Auburn's Proof first premiered in 2000, it took the theater world by storm. Quickly transferring to Broadway from the Manhattan Theater Club, it garnered five Tony Awards, including Best Play, and won the Pulitzer for drama. Auburn's compelling work about trust, sacrifice, and the wonder and madness of mathematics captured the popular imagination and critical attention. It was an intensely captivating play that deserved all of its accolades. Ground Up Productions is now reviving Proof at the Manhattan Theater Source. Its production, which is much more modest in scale than the original, further proves that this play has all the makings of a modern classic. Its early success cannot be attributed to the size of the house (Manhattan Theater Source has a few hundred fewer seats than the Walter Kerr Theater) or whether household names are in the show (the Broadway production starred Mary-Louise Parker; this production stars four relative unknowns). Proof works first and foremost because of Auburn's brilliant writing. Still as engaging as ever, the play, directed by Adam Gerdts in this revival, does not disappoint.

The story begins when Robert (Stuart Marshall), an acclaimed mathematician, startles his mathematician daughter, Catherine (Kate Middleton), who is asleep on the porch in the middle of the night. He wakes her so they can celebrate her 25th birthday with a bottle of cheap champagne. But when his former student Hal (Guy Olivieri) appears, Robert vanishes.

Actually, it is the night before Robert's funeral, and Catherine has only dreamed that she saw her father. She wakes from her slumber when Hal emerges from the attic after poring over notebooks filled with Robert's nonsensical writings scrawled during his years of mental breakdown. The young mathematician is determined to find any shred of brilliance left among these scribblings.

Eventually, Catherine does show him a work of unquestionable genius, but its authorship is called into question by Hal and her sister, Claire (Amy Heidt), who is in town for the funeral and to convince Catherine to live with her in New York. Claire, a mildly successful, even-keeled urbanite, thinks her sister inherited both her father's intelligence and his susceptibility to insanity. With no concrete proof as to whose work it actually is, Hal, a man of science, is forced to realize the unpredictability of true brilliance.

Catherine sacrificed college to care for her ailing father, and Middleton's performance captures the social awkwardness and gruffness that comes with such isolation. But Middleton fails to display the quality of madness that Auburn equates with genius—an insanity, it's implied, that Catherine may also succumb to, like her father. Rather, Middleton is depressed, mopey, and withdrawn. It makes her all the more human, but forces one to wonder whether someone without a hint of madness could in fact be truly brilliant. Middleton's performance begs the question without convincingly answering it.

Olivieri, Marshall, and Heidt are all strong in their supporting roles. Olivieri's Hal is passionate—about math and Catherine—but he is ultimately limited by his work and mediocre career. Even in his distrust of Catherine, he is kind and motivated by his feelings for her, yet he remains aloof, as one would imagine someone obsessed with numbers would be.

Marshall embodies Robert's manic brilliance, which is illustrated in Catherine's flashbacks when he switches from lovable and caring to frenzied and possessed. Heidt's stability and assuredness as Claire balances out Middleton's Catherine. Claire has spent years working endlessly to pay the bills for her father and sister once her father could no longer work. She is smart and successful, but in a bland way when compared with her sister and father, Still, Heidt conveys this without giving a one-note performance.

The production is guided by Gerdt's deft directing, which keeps the pace from flagging. Travis R. McHale's lighting design helps maintain a sense of timing and rhythm, as all the action takes place on a quaint and intimate back porch at varying points over a long weekend.

Overall, Ground Up's Proof shows what makes this play a classic in the first place: it is intense, intelligent, and thoughtful. If you've seen it before, it deserves a second viewing. If you haven't, definitely go to the Manhattan Theater Source for this worthwhile production.

Solo Turns

Four Women masquerades as a play. Playwright Cheever Tyler has assembled four unrelated monologues and ineffectually linked them together under the broad themes of love, loss, and destiny. But the monologues' only true connection is that they are told from the perspective of women. Under Christopher Carter Sanderson's pedestrian direction, the monologues meander and grow tiresome, failing to reach a point and often getting lost within Tyler's unpolished writing. The evening begins with "Dixie Glitter," a convoluted, mildly amusing piece about an uneducated trailer-trash yokel (a favorite type of woman in Tyler's monologues) who finds herself playing host to the spirit of Carry Nation.

Who? Exactly. Carry Nation was a quasi-famous prohibitionist during the early part of the 20th century. Her claim to fame was that she would take a hatchet and smash bars to pieces. The monologue spends a lot of time explaining this, as do the program notes. One day Dixie, a would-be psychic, has Nation's spirit passed on to her by another crazy local. The trouble is that Dixie is a good-time girl who loves her drinking as much as she loves her men.

Suffice it to say, she and Carry are quite the odd couple, and hilarity ensues…or is meant to ensue. Robin Benson throws herself into the role but can't overcome the flawed writing and lame jokes. After almost half an hour, even she appears to want the piece to end.

In the second monologue, "Albany Drive Thru Pawn Shop," a Southern belle named Celeste finds herself trapped in the past with her fragile sanity teetering on the brink. She is unable to recover from a soured love affair, and her problems are further compounded by the hardships of the Depression, which force her to sell off her family's beloved belongings to make ends meet. The monologue seemingly takes place over decades, but the time line is annoyingly unclear, and the resolution is a train wreck of psychobabble. As Celeste, Ninon Rogers is all demure Southern accent and genteel affectations, but little else.

The most troubling piece of the evening is "Inventory," featuring Charlotte, a physics professor struggling with the deaths of her husband and son. The monologue is an unfocused debate on the roles of science and religion, as Charlotte tries to reconcile her profession with her faith. Speaking to an unseen therapist, she calmly rails at the gods for taking her family while calling upon her scientific background to provide answers. Debbie Stanislaus does very little with the piece, aimlessly circling the stage and occasionally raising her voice beyond a calm whisper to show anger or confusion.

The show concludes with "Trip to New Jersey," an unfunny and borderline racist monologue about another trailer-trash heroine, Trumpet Vine, on the verge of marrying a much older Middle-Eastern man. Trumpet waxes philosophical about love and, more important, money as she explains why she is marrying her rich sugar daddy. Seduced by jewelry and his endless wealth, Trumpet decides life in a burka can't be all that bad.

Playwright Tyler makes sweeping generalizations about the Middle East, conceiving Trumpet's beau as a stereotypical "evil doer" complete with henchmen, oil fields, and a harem of beauties waiting at his beck and call. Kelly Tuohy revels in Trumpet's trashiness, almost making the audience forget how thin her monologue is. Ultimately, though, Tuohy succumbs to bug eyes and "golly gee whiz" deliveries.

Sanderson provides little direction for his actresses, most of whom wander helplessly about the stage wearing out the same 5-by-5 patch of space. Although hindered by Tyler's amateurish writing, the director fails to provide a beginning, middle, and end for each monologue, leaving his actresses stranded and stuck.

Four Women suffers from many problems, but its biggest obstacle is the script itself. Stale situations, underdeveloped characters, and empty dialogue prove too difficult to overcome and too uninteresting to care about.

Paranoid-in-Chief

Presidential pomp and circumstance has always been a surreal spectacle. How bizarre was it when "Dubya" searched under his Oval Office desk looking for lost weapons of mass destruction in a self-satirizing skit for a press gala? Of course, the Clinton years provided their fair share of sideshows in the Oval Office, too. Our current political climate contains enough levels of dramatic irony to plunge even the most casual political observer into the spinning vortex of partisan rancor and the warped rhetoric of media manipulation. Who needs theatrical send-ups of political life when our real-life political theater sends itself up?

In the Brick Theater's revival of Richard Foreman's 1988 play, Symphony of Rats, directed by Ian W. Hill, the president gets sucked down the rabbit—or, in this case, rat—hole of paranoid schizophrenia. The media have swarmed around the president's sex life like a pack of frenzied rodents scavenging in a back alley for a piece of garbage to gnaw on. The president cracks up. He imagines he's communicating with voices from outer space. As his delusions of grandeur grow, he believes he's been beamed to another planet where angels, aliens, dancing rats, and comic-book monsters run amok. Each delusional episode blurs together into a jumbled pastiche of sci-fi freaks and screwball comedy that portrays the president's increasingly manic imagination.

Alyssa Simon, playing the First Lady with the "reptilian smile," however, deserves special mention among a crowded supporting cast for the subtlety with which she makes a "straight" character appear more strange and sinister than the fantasy creatures that too often appeared like benign waxwork figures around her.

Many of the vignettes are visually arresting. The president—played by a hyperactive and often cross-eyed Hill—hears voices that tell him he's "lost his swing." As golf balls pop out from between his beret-wearing mistress's wide-open legs, he crushes them underfoot as if they were eggs. In another vignette, he watches in terror as his symbolic mistress, the Statute of Liberty, gets spread on the dinner table and raped.

The most powerful man in the world suddenly has his mojo go awry and his god-like abilities desert him. A paraplegic asks to be miraculously healed, only to rise up and turn into a towering demon with claw-like arms.

The president gets replaced by a cardboard cutout with a happy-face balloon for its head. He whisks scissors from his pocket and becomes a barber as the inner self seeks vengeance on the outer "suit." The suspense created by simply flashing a sharp object in the same visual space as a balloon is palpable.

Like a bad acid trip, events accelerate as they become more detached from reality. A character spoofing a film noir detective comes to investigate the president, the president boogies at a disco crowded with mindless ingénues, and he plays a life-size game of whack-a-mole.

Eventually, though, the incoherence and over-stimulation of these lavish spectacles get somewhat tiresome. Endless sight gags can hold our attention only so long, and one gets the sense that each outlandish scenario, funky costume, or entrancing prop exists merely to one-up the zaniness of the last. The production shares the aesthetic of the music video, the metaphysic of the short attention span, and the psychology of media saturation. Its first principle is "I think, therefore I—oh, heck, what's on the next channel?" Any sense of narrative or momentum liquefies into a sensual kaleidoscope of ever-changing sexual cartoons.

Because the president in this production is portrayed generically, any satire in the original production has been blunted, with no attempt to update the jokes to fit our current commander in chief. The play, therefore, is not so much about politics as it is about the thin line between sanity and schizophrenia.

In fact, the production embodies many of the dramaturgical ideals of that true paranoid schizophrenic, Antonin Artaud. At one point, an exasperated president, slouching behind his desk far upstage, asks the audience if anyone wants a glass of water, then realizes he can't give somebody one because he's supposedly on TV and not in a theater. Conversely, a few minutes later the president strides right up to the audience during an intense monologue where some of Hill's sweat dripped onto my notepad. Like Artaud's proposed "theater of cruelty," we experience an orchestration of pure theatricality that unfetters itself from narrative conventions and textual supremacy in favor of a savage attack upon our senses.

My own tastes, however, incline toward spectacles where the visual slapstick and visceral stunts hang on—or at least by—a thread of narrative. Films such as Fight Club and Schizopolis, for example, do a better job at conveying the schizophrenic nature of reality because they are able to represent the funhouse of a character's mental life without the story itself getting lost in it.