Class Clowns

The Upright Citizens Brigade Theater touts itself for specializing in affordable, high-quality comedy shows, seven nights a week. It's hard to get more affordable than free, and Wednesday night's final show, School Night, is just that: free. As for quality, the show has its finer moments as well as its lesser ones. Emceeing the evening was Justin Purnell, who hyped the show up to high levels of expectation. His naturally likable personality made him more convincing than most emcees, but his between-skit banter tended to drag on too long, slowing down the show's pace and forcing the comedians to spend too much time trying to bring back the crowd's enthusiasm. Purnell's consistent use of "um" and "uh" betrayed a bit of discomfort in the spotlight, which also sapped the audience's energy.

The show's opener, Tony Camin, came on strong with some potentially offensive but truly clever jokes, but then quickly sank into witless grade-school humor. While his sex jokes were merely unoriginal, his material mocking people with mental retardation was offensive. His efforts to point out that retarded people are indeed retarded merited neither laughter nor applause.

Billy Merritt and Pam Murphy increased the laughs with their improvised show called "Bicker." Taking a key word from the audience, the two portrayed numerous bickering couples, cleverly weaving each couple's story line into the next couple's story line.

Daily Show correspondent Miriam Tolan and her skit partner, Jason Mantzoukas, exemplified improv at its best as they too portrayed a couple in a situation taken from an audience member's suggestion. Tolan and Mantzoukas seemed completely comfortable as their characters, easing into joke after joke while simultaneously building the world their characters inhabit. As a young married couple who met in rehab, Mantzoukas was a lovably homicidal and hilariously neglectful husband/father of two, while a deadpan Tolan doted on every one of her beau's psychotic flaws.

While attempting to introduce the night's next act, emcee Purnell was interrupted by his overbearing girlfriend, Sara Schaefer. A clearly obsessed Schaefer bounded onstage, stopping the show and producing a slide show of imagined romantic moments between the two lovers before strong-arming Purnell into a disturbingly well-choreographed ribbon dance that was like Olympic rhythmic gymnastics.

Chris Gethard played a slow-witted and comedically challenged Queens restaurateur named Uncle Billy. His terrible delivery of unfunny jokes was riotous, rivaling Tolan and Mantzoukas as School Night's best performers. Gethard was not just a comedian delivering his material but an actor giving a carefully scripted and brilliant performance.

Aziz Ansari entertained with his personal style of self-deprecating yet self-obsessed humor, and the duo of John Conroy and Rachel Hamilton closed out the show with another portrayal of a bickering couple. Conroy and Hamilton had some funny moments but found themselves at a distinct disadvantage, having followed two pairs of performers who were more adept at the same game.

The show started 20 minutes late, and with seven performances and emcee banter in between, it dragged on about 20 minutes too long. The comedians ranged from good amateurs to bad professionals to seasoned pros. As is the nature of improv, School Night is guaranteed to be different every time, with any number of performers appearing.

Still, at the unbeatable price of zero dollars, the show is worth the risk, especially if you find yourself bored, broke, or looking for an excuse to stay up late on a school (or any other) night.

Mother Dearest

"The world is getting more brutish," trophy wife Gloria Temple tells her estranged daughter, Marcie. "And that makes art even more important." Temple's reasons for saying this are selfish: she wants her daughter to abandon her happy bohemian life in New Mexico to take over the family's New York business, a foundation for the performing arts. But her quote feels resonant outside its context, especially in regards to this production of December Fools, playing at the Abingdon Theater Company. Perhaps playwright Sherman Yellen has expressed his own feelings in this dialogue, for this funny, touching and inspiring story of a mother and daughter coming to terms with their past is a perfect illustration of why art is important.

Temple, played by the distinguished stage veteran Elizabeth Shepherd, is the vivacious, driving force in this story. Though she is a sick, elderly woman dependent on her trusted housekeeper, Mrs. Hogan (Celia Howard), to help her get around, she carries herself with a stunning grace that can come only from one who has lived an upper-crust lifestyle. There is a spark in her eyes and a fire to her personality that give us a glimpse of the kind of lady she must have been many years ago when she married a philandering Broadway composer.

Her wayward daughter Marcie (Arleigh Richards) has inherited her inner fire, if nothing else. The rift between them is visually obvious. Gloria is a graceful, refined woman often clad in furs and silk shawls. Marcie stumbles around in jeans and a sweater, hardly what one would expect from the privileged daughter of a celebrated Broadway composer and his elegant wife.

But despite their image as a prosperous Broadway legend's picture-perfect family, neither Gloria nor Marcie has led a happy life. Both women were wronged by the men they loved, betrayed by those they trusted, and hurt by the tragic, senseless loss of a family member. Marcie has no hesitations in vocalizing her disgust with the world around her, but Gloria can express her feelings only by writing letters she never plans to send.

Her nonconfrontational approach comes back to haunt her the day Marcie accidentally stumbles upon her collection of indictments against family, friends, and acquaintances. One letter hits particularly close to home, as it involves a hurtful secret her mother has lied about for years. Determined to right this injustice, Marcie mails the letters.

When December Fools opens, it appears the main conflict will be Gloria's efforts to keep her daughter in New York to run the family business, but as the play unfolds, it is clear there is much more at stake. Gloria and Marcie are two divided souls trying to find a common ground, not only because they are family but also because they need each other. When they face off, they are evenly matched, as only a mother and daughter can be. Their verbal battles are laced with telling one-liners and weighty revelations, but in the end there can be no winner. Both women carry a heavy amount of baggage and will never be fully relieved of the burden.

Their history feels deeply rooted and real. Shepherd and Richards are thoroughly convincing in their roles, especially in the climactic final fight where stifled emotions bubbling beneath the play's surface explode in a flurry of hurtful accusations. The conclusion spares us a neat resolution. The characters continue on, shouldering their burdens and harboring their resentment, yet acknowledging that in the end none of this matters when all they have is each other.

In a beautiful and touching line of dialogue, Gloria says, "Memories make such bad company. They come uninvited, overstay their welcome, and leave a mess when they go." Indeed, these memories have left quite a mess. Fortunately, Marcie and Gloria reach a place where they find it in themselves to clean things up together.

Child is Father to the Man

Sam Shepard Rodgers Jr.'s father arrived home from World War II with shrapnel lodged in his neck. Junior was an Army brat; his father, a nomad who moved his family from Illinois corn country to the Badlands to rainy Guam to the balmy weather of Southern California. Sunshine and happiness didn't suit the old man. Instead, he just wandered off one day to live alone in the arid desert of New Mexico, where he eventually burned to death and became the land. Still a teenager, Junior decided to leave town and hitched up with a troupe of traveling actors performing in churches, then hit the road to New York City. There, he dropped his family name and took to jazz and rock 'n' roll, bussing tables, playing cowboy, and writing crazy plays.

Buried Child, for which he received the 1979 Pulitzer Prize, is not one of Shepard's crazier dramas; it is, rather, a drama about the impulses of craziness that well up when family skeletons are repressed. In the words of director and longtime Shepard interpreter Cyndy Marion, it is "structurally his finest play." The mythic bronco bucking of Shepard's early works—with their jagged and jazzy improvisations—is here harnessed with a mature guile and a mastery of form.

In Buried Child, Shepard lays a slow fuse of narrative to ignite the spontaneous, combustible images of his early plays. The psychological and symbolic impact is more profound than a random fireworks display. The bitterness and betrayals exchanged between fathers and sons are given an eloquent and excoriatingly rigorous expression.

As the play begins, an old man named Dodge is harassed by his wife yammering from the next room. Dodge's aging son, Tilden, brings in corn and husks it. Something is amiss: there hasn't been corn outside for years.

Vince, Tilden's son, arrives at the house with his big-city girlfriend, Shelly. No one in the family claims to recognize him. Vince drives off to fetch Dodge a bottle of whiskey, leaving Shelly behind to fend for herself amid his messed-up, madcap relatives. Bradley, Tilden's brother with a wooden leg, nearly rapes her.

The next morning, Dodge's wife viciously attacks everyone in sight. Only Shelly has the nerve to stand up to her. But the family members refuse to acknowledge Shelly—as if she were the surrogate for the audience members, who are powerless interlopers in this violent family romance. Dodge, perhaps impelled by Shelly's boldness and recognizing his own impending death, unleashes the family's secret—the buried child.

Vince comes staggering back, smashing beer bottles on the porch as if they were hand grenades. Now it's Vince who can barely recognize his family; Shelly who's not sure who he is. It's as if Vince, climbing through the porch screen ripped open with a knife, is the buried child, exhumed and birthed from a new womb.

Dodge, before dying, cedes Vince the house. In doing so, Vince's epiphany during his nightlong drive—that his "face became his father's face, and his father's face changed to his grandfather's face"—is given dramatic truth. Vince begins to resume the same posture Dodge had on the couch in the play's beginning, curling up like a crumpled fetus.

The sudden transformations at the play's finale do not feel forced, which is a triumph both of Shepard's writing and the control with which the cast members portray their characters. They do so with a stark realistic edge and generous amounts of dark humor in the midst of madness.

Paralyzed, impotent, emasculated, and put upon, the males in this drama are all losers and loners, formless half-wits and former halfbacks, invisible and dead to the world in one way or another. Yet while each reflects the others in a sort of shattered hologram, each has a peculiar isolation all his own.

Rod Sweitzer as Tilden mesmerizes with his eerie, autistic stare. Bill Rowley as Dodge manages to give complex shadings to his character, who can go from a mean ol' cuss to a surprisingly sympathetic man beaten down by life in his second childhood. Likewise, Ginger Kroll as Shelly gains our affection despite her first impression as a stuck-up big-city girl. Chris Stetson as Vince displays both the swagger and vulnerability necessary for the role.

Like the painting of a whitewashed farmhouse half buried under rows of overgrown corn, which hangs from the set's wall, this profoundly moving production of Buried Child reveals uncanny levels of significance underlying a seemingly innocuous portrait of an American family.

Inner Life of an Outer Borough

While Manhattan might be the proverbial melting pot, Brooklyn is more like a smorgasbord of borscht and oxtail stew, spicy red curries, and dim sum dumplings. The rich diversity of the borough has a long history, too. Brooklyn—or Breuckelen, in the original Dutch, meaning "broken land"—has always been a city of down-on-their-heels eccentrics, from the Mohawks who lived in Gowanus and helped build the first skyscrapers to the more recent immigrants from Russia in Brighton Beach, Poland in Greenpoint, the Caribbean in Flatbush, or Puerto Rico in South Williamsburg. Chris Van Strander's new play, Breuckelen, puts Brooklyn's newest wave of immigrants—glib, disaffected hipsters—into the perspective of the borough's storied past. As one of the play's most poignant moments reveals, Brooklyn is a metropolis where the living literally walk upon the dead, since potter's fields abound underneath many major landmarks. Grand Army Plaza, we learn, used to be the site of public hangings. But while the play does attempt some somber realizations, its brightest moments occur when it simply revels in the exuberance of its wacky characters.

The play begins as if it were an open mike night at a typical Williamsburg bar. The performers for this framing device change every week—I saw a slam poet, a standup comedian, and a folk singer. Overall, their quality was much higher than one would expect from a typical open mike, and entertaining enough for their five- to ten-minute spots.

The last open mike performer who takes the stage, Melissa Schneider, segues into the plot of the play proper. She gives a monologue in the guise of a longtime Bushwick resident who is asking people to sign a petition to stop the rezoning laws that would allow a cherished local museum to be torn down. After she takes her seat back in the audience, a twenty-something from Park Slope (Jack Ferry) with the requisite thick black frames and laptop approaches her with such pickup lines as "Are you from Tennessee? 'Cause you're the only ten I see" and "I'm new around here, do you think you could give me directions to your apartment?"

Their exchange of quick-witted quips reveals that he's a lonely blogger lacking any historical sensibility, while she is a witch (not Wiccan) who conjures exotic spirits from the past. Ferry and Schneider have a fun chemistry that easily elicits laughs, and the script for this scene provides ample jokes. Their tête-à-tête can be difficult to hear, however, depending on where one sits in the audience.

The rest of the play is devoted to monologues from the ghosts of Brooklyn's past, which range from a lesbian owner of a speakeasy to a Russian squatter who was booted to make way for Prospect Park. Director Matthew Didner has chosen to stage simultaneous monologues to different sections of the audience, which are later repeated to the other side. While intriguing at first, this technique quickly becomes a distraction, then irritating, and finally boring, since one may have already tuned in to the monologue across the room when the one closer seemed less interesting.

Karie Christina Hunt upstages all the other ghosts as she whisks in on roller skates while rocking out to the Beastie Boys. She plays the naïf teen "guidette" stereotype from Sunset Beach in punk-rock 80's garb: a pink and black miniskirt; a tight, cleavage-bearing rainbow sequins top; and florescent-green knee-high socks. She tells the story of how a slimy older guy in a speedo picked her up by promising to get her on his cable-access TV show, and then took her to an abandoned building where the roof collapsed on them as they made love. Funnier and flashier than the more dour monologues by the other ghosts, hers may be worth listening to twice.

The problem with the other monologues is that they attempt to be the tragic equivalent of a punch line. Such short-form drama has a hard time pulling the heartstrings, however, when the late-night beer-drinking crowd is focused on "rollergirl" gyrating in the background.

One aspect I found disconcerting was that in a play that purported to be about the marginalized histories of a city boasting enormous diversity (in fact, all the ghosts were women), no people of color were in the cast. Now, I'm not the P.C. police, but a fair representation of Brooklyn's richness would demand at least a token Muslim, Dominican, or African-American.

Like an open mike night itself, the whole show was hit or miss: some monologues and scenes evoked spot-on laughs about our shared frames of reference and Brooklyn's encroaching gentrification. Other acts or monologues languished under the weight of their dreary earnestness.

But, like Brooklyn the city, Breuckelen the play is worth the trek: while you might not like all the characters, you're sure to find a few amusing.

Her Tormented Selves

The Classical Theater of Harlem has faithfully mounted Adrienne Kennedy's 1964 Obie Award winner, Funnyhouse of a Negro. Directed by Billie Allen, who starred in the original Off-Broadway version, the current production unearths the stark racial torment characteristic of the 60's civil rights era. There is immense value in this kind of artistic faithfulness; by witnessing Negro Sarah's descent into madness, we are jolted by the depiction of her barefaced self-hatred and mental torment. She is a light-skinned black woman who feels betrayed by her complexion, tainted because she is almost light enough to be considered a member of the majority race. Almost, but not quite.

One could argue that if Sarah had been wholly and unmistakably black, she would have at least been afforded membership in a community that gathered strength and pride in the civil rights struggle. Sarah goes mad because she exists in the non-space between mutually antagonist races at a historical moment when that antagonism comes to a head.

In the one-hour play, which is like a tension-filled snapshot of madness, Negro Sarah is tormented by "herselves," whiteface black ghosts of a crucified Christ (Lincoln Brown), the Duchess of Hapsburg (Monica Stith), Queen Victoria Regina (Trish McCall), and the martyred African nationalist Patrice Lumumba (Willie E. Teacher).

That we cannot completely trust the stories Sarah tells—she is mad, after all—only intensifies the play's sense of distress. Sarah raves that she was violently conceived when her father raped her mother in a moment of rage. Her confusing and confounding narrative speaks to the inheritance of madness: after the rape her mother went mad and her hair began to fall out, while Sarah's father was troubled because he could not live up to his own mother's expectation that he would save the black race.

At several points during the play, Sarah refers to a complexion-based value system that has her struggling between opposite poles. "My mother," she coos, "looked like a white woman, hair as straight as any white woman's. I am yellow, but he is black, the darkest one of us all." The Duchess of Hapsburg and Queen Victoria Regina are the two herselves who represent Sarah's self-loathing the most. They are porcelain images of royalty and femininity who play out the young woman's visions of sexual desire.

Suzette Azariah Gunn is an exceptional Negro Sarah because she believably and admirably maintains what must be an exhausting level of anxiety throughout the play. She allows that anxiety to color the other emotions Sarah displays, including a kind of fraught anger at Patrice Lumumba and a worshipful deference toward Queen Victoria Regina. The actors playing herselves complement Gunn's performance with an automaton otherworldliness, especially Monica Stith as the Duchess of Hapsburg.

In keeping well within the visual and narrative boundaries established by Kennedy's script, the current production does not deconstruct or comment upon the original play but re-presents it like a thing unearthed from a time capsule. The fight for civil rights feels a bit different compared with 40 years ago; we've survived identity politics and are experiencing a shift from race- to class-based struggles for equality. I wonder if there is room for this play to recreate itself and, in so doing, speak to the nuanced versions of himselves and herselves that lurk about in the minds of the distressed today.

Trash to Treasure

Welcome to Objeté, the trash heap of the imagination, where bits of wood, tools, toys, and antique furniture litter the landscape, left to rot in a forgotten wasteland. Produced by the Cosmic Bicycle Theater and the creative genius of the multitalented Jonathan Edward Cross, the show is a visually stunning feast for the eyes that springs to magnificent life in an explosion of childlike abandon and brilliant imagination. Equal parts puppet show and Dada cabaret, it offers pure magic that will enchant children and stir to life the sleeping child within those older. Discarded objects populate the world of Objeté, telling the tender story of Johnny Clock Works (aka Jonathan Edward Cross) and his assistant, Emmy Bean. Johnny longs to experience the world, to fly away, but he remains confined to his little corner of the world with his faithful friend by his side. As the delightful twosome bring the forgotten denizens to life with a mixture of humor, hope, and music, the audience witnesses a wonderful transformation as waste becomes raw materials and decaying debris turns into living beauty. An old grandfather clock lays eggs. An enamel coffeepot becomes a belligerent man. The blades of a fan form wings to fly. An eggbeater and copper mold take the shape of a dancing chorus girl. An antique trunk becomes a boat.

Imagination gives way to Johnny Clock Works's story amidst the backdrop of a silly cabaret. Emceed by a gruff-talking, cigar-chomping baby marionette, the cabaret features a pair of Abbott-and-Costello-style prosthetic legs. Surmounted by fake teeth, the legs tell bad jokes while a sexy dancer, made up of shapely legs, an antique clock, and a red boa, cancans the night away. The cabaret comes to a conclusion with a heavenly chanteuse, in the form of an angelic baby-doll marionette, who sweetly sings herself to sleep. With the help of Emmy, Johnny finds his way through the trash heap into his imagination and beyond, fulfilling his dream to fly off and see the world.

Cross's imagination is nothing short of breathtaking. As writer, director, designer, puppeteer, and star, he displays a talent matched only by his boundless dedication to his craft. His inspiring vision culminates in a hypnotic 50-minute production that is often intriguing, always amusing, and genuinely wonderful.

The radiant Emmy Bean lights up the stage. Never saying more than a half-dozen words, she uses her body and facial expressions to create a fully realized character of affecting depth and humor. With her incandescent smile and sad eyes, Bean is a delightful foil to Cross's fumbling hero.

With this show, Cross has created a vivid reality out of a capricious fantasy. Talking babies, dancing clocks, and a dreamscape of poetic magic await the audience at every turn. Objeté will captivate both children and adults with its whimsical journey into the heart of dreams.

Psycho/Sexual

Nelson Avidon's new play, Girl in Heat, now at the Michael Weller Theater, isn't so much a fresh skirmish in the war of the sexes as it is a recap of the conflict's main themes. She's crazy; he's horny. Mind games and clumsy flirtation—the former by her and the latter by him—unsurprisingly ensue. It's tempting to dismiss the piece reflexively, the same way you would wave a hand at a friend telling you something you already know. And if Girl had been cast any differently, this might indeed have been the best way to salute both its coming and its passing. But someone, either Avidon or director Robert Walden, had the good sense to cast Avidon himself and the wonderful Cheryl Leibert. What might otherwise have been as erotically charged as a student essay on Freud becomes, in their hands, less a two-dimensional map than a light sketch of familiar territory. In their best moments—the ones where they are man and woman, instead of "man" and "woman"—you can practically smell the pheromones in Avidon's script.

Given the general lawlessness of the gender war, it's a welcome comedic touch to stage this particular tussle in a lawyer's office. (The richly convincing set is by Maya Kaplun.) Joseph (Avidon) is a litigator coming up for partner in his firm and a married man. Marilyn (Leibert) is a young temp in the last hours of her summer employment. After everyone else in the firm has left for the night, she invites herself into his office for her particular brand of face time with the boss. The erotic tête-à-tête that follows alternates between playful Eskimo kisses and brutal, emotional head butting.

The imbalance is clichéd. He has everything to lose—wife, job, future—while she has nothing, not even (surprise, surprise) her sanity. But underneath its conventions, Girl is entertaining for spotlighting the irrationality at the heart of the human mating dance, particularly on the male end: just how much abuse and manipulation will a man put up with when the carrot of sex hangs, he thinks, just within his reach? The question is practically a part of testosterone's chemical composition.

And if Joseph is any indication, the answer is: quite a lot. Marilyn begins to break him down almost before she's opened his door, mostly through an aggressive insincerity that Joseph is too libidinous to take offense at. As she asks after an exceptionally nasty mood swing, "We're playing games, aren't we?" "Sure," he responds, perhaps a touch too lightly. "Well," she presses, "where's your competitive spirit?"

Elsewhere, after one of her more disconcerting maneuvers, Joseph is left to gawk. "Where did you come from?" he asks, to which Marilyn will only offer, "From reception." Leibert is a torrent of inappropriate emotion; it's a pleasure to watch her sweep the buffoonish Joseph away.

For his part, Avidon uses his wonderfully expressive face to chart Joseph's slow slide backward—as he submits himself ever more fully to Marilyn's wiles—until he has landed squarely in his long-past teenage years. "This is what I thought sex would be like before I had sex for the first time," he giddily confesses while Leibert looks on at him with inscrutable, cold eyes. She is his captor. He is the willing captive. Avidon is cheekily walking us through the Stockholm syndrome of the dating man.

It's a shame, then, that Avidon the writer doesn't walk us as far as we could go. Girl is only two-thirds of a decent play. Questions about what effect the various secrets and bodily fluids swapped by the pair will have on both their lives—in his case, professionally as well as personally—are brought to a fever pitch, only to be abruptly tied off in a nice, writerly bow. A little messiness can be a virtue, however. If Girl in Heat needs to be tied off at all, I would have preferred a tourniquet.

Good Neighbors

Nowadays, actors are not content simply to be told what to do and say. Their discontent frequently leads them into the more powerful roles of writer and director. Sometimes they are looking for different means of self-expression. Sometimes they want to explore careers that don't end at age 50. And sometimes they just feel they could do the jobs better than the current crop. Jeff Daniels, known mostly for his film work, has been writing shows for his Michigan-based Purple Rose Theater Company for the past 15 years, a fact that the average moviegoer (and even theatergoer) may not know. But what's most surprising about his theatrical work is not that he's doing it but that, if Apartment 3A is any indication, he's doing it so well.

Producers Lisa Dozier and Traci Klainer are presenting Apartment 3A at the ArcLight Theater, a classic proscenium stage within a church and a fitting location for this spiritually minded piece. When the play opens, public television employee Annie Wilson moves into the titular apartment after catching her boyfriend "in bed" (or, really, on a table) with another woman. Her self-sought isolation in the new building is shattered by Donald, her nosy but well-intentioned neighbor across the hall. He pushes Annie to engage with the world and the people around her, including Elliot, a co-worker who's desperately in love with her. What Annie needs most is to discover her faith in the world so she can find her faith in love.

Amy Landecker's Annie is private, sarcastic, and introverted, but also very passionate, funny, and smart. Landecker makes sense of the open and hidden areas of the character's personality while at the same time hinting at further complexity. And her interactions with the other actors crackle with life and intensity.

As the quirky and faithfully married Donald, Joseph Collins finds a way to keep "nonthreatening" from being boring. And Arian Moayed invests Elliot with a boyish energy that becomes sexy once Annie, and the audience, catches on to his deeper passions and eccentricities.

Set designer Lauren Helpern has created an apartment set that most young audience members would find nicer than their own dwellings, with dark-wood floors and a lovely, powder-blue paint job. A projected TV logo on the wall and the conversion of the kitchen into an editing room transforms 3A into Annie's office, a very effective solution for streamlining the scene changes.

Daniels's script pops with witty exchanges that are neither too smart nor dumb for the room; every joke worked, even in a crowd that ranged in age from 20's to 70's. When the tone shifted from comic to serious, the author's words and the actors' delivery made for seamless transitions.

Valentina Fratti's assured direction kept the action moving along while allowing for the kind of pauses that occur naturally in awkward situations. The most refreshing aspect of this production was its polish—a rare and beautiful thing in Off-Off-Broadway theater.

Daniels has earned much praise recently for his acting in the indie film The Squid and the Whale. While no one would want to keep a gifted actor from doing good performances, one hopes that as a playwright he'll continue to turn out moving, character-driven plays like this one. Who knows? Perhaps one of these days he'll be better known for his side career than for his day job.

Funniest Mother Around

I am not Jewish, and I am not a mother. Fortunately, neither condition is a prerequisite for attending—or enjoying—25 Questions for a Jewish Mother, Judy Gold's entertaining one-woman show at Ars Nova. What first drew me to this production was not Gold's reputation, which I recognized, but the reputation of the credited writer, Kate Moira Ryan. I'd never seen one of her plays, but I had seen her name mentioned again and again in relation to downtown theater, and I wanted to become familiar with her work.

After watching this show, I still don't believe I've seen a Kate Moira Ryan play. That is, this production didn't look like a play. Instead, I felt as though I were in a small cabaret, set up with only a chair and a microphone, watching Gold perform her life's story, along with the stories of the Jewish mothers interviewed for this project.

The influence of Ryan, director Karen Kohlhaas, and the show's designers was undetectable throughout the hour-plus production. Gold's performance seemed well practiced, but never scripted or staged. The others clearly supported her, and the result appears effortless and polished.

Part standup routine, part autobiography, and part investigative performance, 25 Questions has Gold introducing us to the larger-than-life character of her mother and wondering why exactly she is the way she is, leading her to ask whether she's likely to turn out the same way. In order to better understand her own mother, Gold and Ryan pose 25 questions to Jewish women—all mothers—from a variety of backgrounds.

For the performance, the stage is divided into thirds. All interview questions are asked and answered stage left. Stage right is reserved for excerpts of standup comedy routines, while the narrative is told from center stage. We hear the question asked, followed by a recorded voice indicating to us the number of children, occupation, and level of religious observance (Orthodox, Reform, etc.) of the mother we are about to meet. Taking a seat, Gold then re-enacts that mother answering her question.

The questions ranged from the expected (what typifies a Jewish mother?) to the universal (what is your biggest regret?) to the very specific (how do you feel about the way women are treated in your religion?). Each question illustrates Gold's story, a tale that begins with childhood and charts her adolescence, her early career, her identity as a gay woman, and, finally, her introduction to motherhood. The questions worked well as transitions and advanced the narrative without losing touch with its premise.

Gold is probably best known to audiences as a comic, and her ease in front of a crowd is instantly apparent. Her deadpan delivery is perfect for the wry tone of the material she performs. She morphs well into each interviewee; she was able to inhabit them physically instead of relying too much on the standard comedy technique of impersonation. There was not a particularly wide range of characterization, since all the interview subjects were female, and I would have preferred knowing the age of each woman Gold portrayed, as these details were only occasionally referenced in their answers. When they were not obvious, I had some trouble differentiating between a 45-year-old and someone older.

I also struggled to differentiate new mothers, mothers of young children, and mothers of grown children. While these details weren't needed to understand the responses, I often got distracted trying to figure out which category each mother belonged in.

Just past the halfway point, the show seemed to lose its quick pace when Gold's story shifted to 9/11 and her run-in with the U.S. Homeland Security Department. However, the connection to her mother remained constant, and when, at the end, Gold herself answers one of the interview questions, we realize that she too is a Jewish mother. This is never a fact that she hides; she makes a point of mentioning it at the beginning of the show. But until the audience sees her sitting in the interview chair—no longer affecting another's posture or voice—she still seems slightly distanced from this world.

Many of the questions in this project could be asked of any woman, because they deal with basic gender-identity issues and the relationship of motherhood to modern society. Gold's goal is to explore these areas in her own life. She poses serious questions and receives serious answers, but balances them beautifully with humor and a winking self-deprecation. One interviewee, when asked for the best advice she had received from her mother, declared it was optimism. Through Gold's energetic performance, this optimistic spirit pervades the show, and I left feeling happy, hopeful, and with an overwhelming urge to call my mother.

On the Front Lines

The International Federation of Journalists recently issued a report documenting that 150 journalists and media staff died in 2005, the most ever recorded in a one-year time period. This statistic should debunk the old notion of the glamorous life led by war correspondents, if it has not been proved archaic already. But what this document does not touch on—and what the evening news neglects to report—is the price paid by the thousands who do survive. Safety, a new play by award-winning British playwright Chris Thorpe, aims to shed light on this disturbing situation. Safety is the second part in a trilogy of plays that examine various aspects of the human experience in response to violent political conflict. It is the dark and complex tale of Michael (David Wilson Barnes), a British war photographer renowned for his iconic global images in the late 20th century. He is an absentee husband and father who has trained himself to see the world through a lens—an occupational hazard of sorts. This allows him to remain at a safe distance, not only from the violent images he documents but also from his own family. But when a stranger named Sean saves Michael's young daughter from drowning while Michael was standing only feet away, he is forced to re-evaluate his roles as a journalist, husband, and father.

Thorpe's play, under the superb direction of Daisy Walker, maintains a heightened level of intensity throughout. This intensity is echoed in designer Kevin Judge's stark, white minimalist set, which doubles as a hotel room and Michael's living room. The set is startling in its emptiness, and in essence represents the dichotomy between the disturbing acts Michael has witnessed and the void it has left in him. The fact that the living room is without any family photographs—and he is a photographer—and that it also serves as the place where Michael carries on an affair with a journalist further illustrates this point.

On this blank canvas, the talented ensemble cast, led by Barnes, delivers compelling performances all around. They clearly relish playing the complex characters Thorpe has created. None are very likable, but none are despicable either. They are human and real.

Michael's wife, Susan, has given up on him and on their marriage. She used to be dazzled by his job and loved hearing about his adventures, but now she is disillusioned by the toll it has taken on her family. Katie Firth plays her with a dejected reserve that enables her to maintain a sense of strength and dignity.

Sean, played by Jeffrey Clarke, at first appears awkward and weak when he comes to the couple's house for dinner. He brings a jar of peanuts as a present, arrives soaking wet, and feels completely out of place in the upscale surroundings. This causes Michael to underestimate Sean's inner fire, a result of serving time in jail. He scorns Michael for his inablity to save his daughter and for his photographs that chronicle death without making an attempt to preserve life. Clarke's performance makes believable the young man's transition, in the course of one evening, from being feeble to being in control.

Susan Molloy plays the other woman in Michael's life. She is a features writer and celebrity interviewer who meets him on assignment and becomes infatuated more with his lifestyle than with their relationship. Susan is Michael 20 years ago, eager to take on the world and naïve about the cost.

But the show belongs to Barnes and his controlled performance as the conflicted photographer. Michael unapologetically embodies the contradictions of those in the profession and the difficulties they face. Barnes's performance--part blowhard, part masochist, part weakling—is equally unapologetic, and honest and raw. Perhaps for the first time is his life, Michael is exposed. After his daughter's near tragedy, he is forced in front of the camera without his weapon of choice—the lens—to rely on. Barnes skillfully captures the unfamiliar sense of vulnerability that Michael experiences.

Thorpe writes in his program notes that Michael "and those who do the job in the real world are unquestionably brave, committed, and necessary." Safety allows us to begin to understand the psychological and emotional price that these men and women pay. A finely crafted play that is of the moment, it is one of those important works that will change the way you look at the world.

Party Hardly

If you get invited to Beverly's party, don't go. She will tear you up. Expect debauchery. Expect her to either try to sleep with your husband or worry you about your children. She will also try to get you drunk. Now if you get invited to Abigail's Party, the 1970's play by Mike Leigh about a woman named Beverly who throws a sad little party, and you like to see people get drunk and try to sleep with someone else's spouse, then you might have a good time.

Abigail's Party is not a comedy. It has been called a "dark comedy," and that is more accurate. Though it shares many attributes common to satire (unexpected situations, making fun of a certain group), it has strong elements of tragedy, and in a way it can be seen as such.

True, during the performance there was a lot of laughing; apparently many audiences (and most reviewers) find it very funny. The New York Times called it "a merry slice of misanthropy." And yes, it is funny, although it is the kind of humor that makes you wonder why you are laughing. There is a pervading sense that the two middle-class couples and one divorcée sharing their lives with us onstage deserve more sympathy than ridicule. Their glib comparisons and nonchalant conversations about alcoholism, divorce, and domestic violence are a fiercely sad sort of humor. The play's focus on these poor schlubs is so intense that it ignites into flames, and the blaze, while short, is impressive. Yet it leaves the audience with little warmth.

Abigail's Party is in fact about Beverly's party. Abigail herself is never seen in the play, though her party is raging down the street. Abigail's party represents the longing for the other: the better party, the younger crowd, a better life.

At Beverly's sordid soirée, she and her husband Laurence, a middle manager (played frantically by Max Baker) who fancies himself cultured, are host to their neighbors for an alcohol-infused evening. Beverly is without a doubt the master of the house, and of the play, as she plots to perpetually harass her husband, placate Abigail's worried mother Susan (Lisa Emery), debauch the mousy newlywed Angela (Elizabeth Jasicki), and seduce Angela's brooding husband Tony (Darren Goldstein). In short, Beverly wants to ensure that everyone has a good time.

In fact, partying with Beverly (an aging trophy wife played excellently by Jennifer Jason Leigh) is worth it if you go prepared with a taste for the bleak humor. The strength of the piece lies in the poignantly understated desire that permeates every folly, foible, and fixation of the miserable suburban wrecks on display. Think Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? minus the American academic intellectuals.

The dialogue sizzles with animosity and loathing. Husband and wife duos are more combatants holding drinks than partners in marriage. They valiantly attempt to harm each other, emotionally as well as physically. But with all the crisp dialogue, there is essentially very little plot. This may be a product of the improvisational script-development style that playwright and filmmaker Mike Leigh is known for. Leigh arrives at the first rehearsal without a written script, bringing instead a basic idea for the play. He relies heavily on what the actors contribute to this idea. The actors create the characters, and they look for their characters' motives to create the plot.

In the case of Abigail's Party, this leads to highly developed characters who drink a mean Cosmo but essentially have nowhere to go. The piece is more a shrewd meditation on the desires of middle-class English suburbanites in the late 1970's than a lucid narrative with a beginning, middle, and end. Indeed, the "ending" seems like a copout that results because of time constraints, not the culmination of a finely tuned story.

Jennifer Jason Leigh (no relation to the playwright) is stunning as Beverly. She seduces, she chortles, she harasses, and she gets what she wants through a sashaying of her hips and her piercing, repetitive shriek of her husband's name.

Elizabeth Jasicki as the demure Angela is wonderfully nerdy, while Lisa Emery as the understated Susan strikes a fine note of balance. Darren Goldstein as the gruff former footballer Tony, Angela's abusive husband and the object of Beverly's desire, is dead-on: he is dispassionate, angry, threatening, and, above all, silent.

The set by Derek McLane, a kitschy 1970's creation, is fabulous. It's the nightmare post-disco décor that now older people were either too cheap or too poor to rid themselves of when they were younger.

Party on if you like. But if you laugh, just be ready to feel a guilty hangover.

Other Voices

The effect of being shoehorned into your seat at the Helen Hayes Theater is not unlike taking your preferred form of public transportation, whether subway, bus, or train. Legroom is in short supply, but elbow contact abounds. Still, there is no better way to make the trip through this Bridge & Tunnel than being crammed in shoulder to shoulder with people you've never seen before, and very likely will never see again. A much-hyped, much-celebrated success at Off-Broadway's Culture Project last year, Sarah Jones's solo tour de force has survived its uptown trek intact, continuing its celebration of the spectacular diversity that defines New York City. Written and performed by Jones, who persuasively inhabits more than a dozen different characters, Bridge & Tunnel features personalities that traditional Broadway audiences have all too rarely seen—voices that are accented, transplanted, and grappling for definition.

As a framework for her characters, Jones wisely chooses a form of theater historically tied to the world of downtown performance—the poetry slam. As introduced by good-natured host and comedian-wannabe Mohammed Ali (definitely not the boxer), a series of poets (and would-be poets) step up to the microphone at the Bridge & Tunnel Café in Queens. Undeterred by the exposed pipes and brick walls of David Korins's carefully demolished set, they speak not only because they want to but because they need to.

Using her powers of observation as much as her acting training, Jones worked for years to create these characters, and the results are disarmingly authentic. Clad simply in black, Jones layers on a variety of accessories (jackets, hats, glasses) to distinguish between characters, but such surface differentiation is hardly necessary given the indelible nuances she brings to each performance. No one actress should be able to embody such a variety of ages, accents, experiences, and postures, but such is Jones's miraculous range.

Jones is no showoff, though, and she gives herself over to her performances so completely you almost forget she is there. Among the many standout characters are Bao, a young Vietnamese boy who uses poetry as "a slur-proof shield"; Mrs. Ling, a Chinese mother coming to terms with her daughter's unconventional romantic choices; Juan Jose, a wheelchair-bound Hispanic man who shares the story of his lost love and destroyed body; a petrified 11-year-old Dominican student from the Bronx whose poem, "I Don't Want to Grow Up," is an affecting spin on the perils of adulthood; and, of course, the affable Mohammed, who returns intermittently to "bring the next poet coming." And while one character near the end, a Russian Jew from Brooklyn named Boris, seems less developed than the rest, his presence still enriches the broad landscape of experiences represented here.

While some of the performers do more talking than poeticizing, they all reveal their experiences with the ever-elusive American Dream. Whether confronting prejudiced real estate brokers, unfaithful lovers, or reductive stereotypes, these characters are hungry for freedom, acceptance, and recognition. As a conduit for these characters, Jones links them at once to herself and to each other. In the absence of a specific shared heritage, she underlines their common humanity.

Meryl Streep, a champion (and sometimes producer) of the show since its downtown days, has praised Jones for both her authenticity and her gift for "compassionate storytelling." Indeed, it is Jones's tremendous empathy that allows her to connect to her characters so seamlessly. With her open, straightforward style, she extends this compassion to the audience as well, creating a compelling transaction between character and audience.

This audience involvement is a staple of many poetry readings, and Tony Taccone's dynamic direction ensures that the audience is an integral part of the show. Lighting designer Howell Binkley has strung multicolored lights far out into the audience, connecting us to the stage and its player(s). Each character seems to speak directly to us, inviting audience participation, response, connection, and, perhaps most profoundly, empathy.

At one moment, Mohammed quips that he might be "hiding the limericks of mass destruction," but his joke only undermines the very real threat to minorities present in this country. While it's tempting to be swept away by the entertainment, the show encourages a vital political act—the imperative, instructive practice of listening to a collage of voices and experiences.

If Bridge & Tunnel leaves you wanting more of these lively personalities (as it undoubtedly will), count yourself lucky. Whether it's on the crowded streets, in your neighborhood, or on the subway, there are important stories to tell and be told, Jones contends. Just follow the trail back to Bridge & Tunnel's origins in downtown theater. Or, better yet, simply listen to the person crammed into the seat beside you.

Quixotic Reveries

If you crave minimalist, character-driven drama where playwrights construct complex yet coherent plots, actors invest themselves in the psychology of their characters, and directors have a totalizing style and vision, then the sublimely subversive group with the officious-sounding name the National Theater of The United States of America is not for you. On the other hand, this troupe of merry pranksters offers "maximalist" experimental spectacle driven by myths and metaphors, arresting images, and restless slapstick and vaudeville. While their plays don't always add up, that's often beside the point—or, perhaps, that is the point: theater is not supposed to be an equation. The sum of their disparate parts—which includes influences as diverse as Dada cabaret, big Broadway extravaganzas, and the twilight zones of Sam Shepherd and David Lynch—always seems happily greater than the whole.

Their newest creation, ABSN: RJAB (Abacus Black Strikes NOW!: The Rampant Justice of Abacus Black), is their first to be performed in a "legitimate" theater space, P.S. 122, though some of their members have been working together since 1997.

Abacus is a parable about the stubborn quixotism that is necessary to pursue one's artistic calling in the face of technocratic philistines and corporate zombies who devour brains. At least, that was my reading of it.

To say that this theatrical event is "about" anything besides its own exuberant theatricality (and the sharing of experience that is its prerequisite) raises the very notion of theater that this group challenges. What makes theater unique as an art form is not plot or characters or a unifying vision but those momentary and too-often elusive experiences of participation in an event that is potentially transformative because it has the immediacy and liveliness of human interaction in a community.

After a purposefully alienating welcome by the show's impresario, the actors construct not one but two stages in the process of a dance sequence set to deafening glam rock. The first is a Coney Island-like sideshow proscenium arch, while the second is a small, slightly elevated "black-box" stage, which lurks behind it. Most of the action, however, takes place between these two frames. Narrators on the proscenium describe the 600-year journey of Abacus Black, an aging knight in search of the lost City of Gold, then reveal vignettes of this story behind the curtain while they strike poses as caryatids.

An impromptu third stage even appears at one point for a mock puppet show, which ends with the largest puppet flipping to become a costume for a character that is part sun god, part scarecrow, and part Texas chainsaw massacre. Later, near the end of his journey, Abacus himself transforms into a human marionette.

One of the most striking scenes occurs when Abacus wraps his legs like a knapsack over the shoulders of a disbelieving yet loyal shaman figure who plays Sancho Panza to Abacus's Don Quixote. The shaman carries Abacus on his back so they may continue their mythic quest. Distant wolf howls pierce the static noise of surf in the background, while a smoke arabesque forms a golden, apparitional aura around a plywood cutout of a saguaro.

The story, however, is quick to break down for poignant philosophical fillips, such as "this was in olden times when knowledge brought people together." The story is equally ready to serve up pointlessly surreal songs—one memorable number might be described as a zombie picnic with Mephistopheles meets The Sound of Music.

Although the dance numbers have more panache than precision and one can hear less than half of what Abacus says in his inaudible, synthesized wheeze, the faults of the production do not prevent it from being an odd sort of triumph. It succeeds as conceptual theater—where the concept is to have fun, and to take the risks that fun entails.

The troupe's frenetic energy is catching. Backstage, I imagine the sound and light crews were equally busy multitasking to provide all the smoke-and-mirror effects.

The last—and most lasting—image of the play depicts the decrepit Abacus sitting on his throne (which has turned into a cage), as if his mythic quest ended with him being a sideshow freak, his sallow face illuminated by a small florescent light. The cage is wheeled backward, and his face recedes slowly into the void of history even as he lives on as the Ancient of Days.

The National Theater's method is truly collaborative: each of its members writes, acts, directs, and lends whatever other skills he or she has to the production. This difficult, though not untenable, democratic ideal permeates their performances, too. In their depiction of the continual metamorphosis of the self, from private hallucinatory revelation to public spectacle within the shared space of theater, they may be doing something truly experimental—appealing beyond traditional downtown theater audiences.

Big Chill

"I come in the cold, wintry night, chilling everything in sight," croons a menacing Mr. Cool to a freezing child named Irene Bobbin, who's on a mission to deliver a dress in a blizzard. Brave Irene is the latest play to come out of the innovative Manhattan Children's Theater, a company that consistently meets its goal of providing quality entertainment for children and adults alike. Written and adapted to play format by William Steig, Brave Irene is a beautifully realized production that chills your spine and melts your heart. Designer Cully Long provides instant shivers with his frosty set. A giant white snowflake is painted across the pale blue floor of a dim living room, framed by snowy white trees and dangling icicles. In the room's center hangs an elegant pink dress fit for a princess, clearly out of place in its meager surroundings.

The play opens with Irene (Heather Weneck) eagerly watching her mother, Mrs. Bobbin (Maura Kirzon Malone), put the finishing touches on the dress, which we learn is intended for the Duchess's ball. Mrs. Bobbin is a rosy-cheeked mother, pleasantly resigned to her lot in life designing clothes for balls she can only watch through a window. Irene takes her mother's role in the Duchess's ball preparations very seriously, and when Mrs. Bobbin falls ill, Irene instantly volunteers to deliver the dress in her place.

The first courageous step of her journey is tiptoeing out of her cozy, candlelit home and into the bitter night. Once outside, Irene stands alone, hugging a pale green dress box to her chest while the wind whistles around her. It is not long before the wintry elements emerge to slow her progress. Three mischievous Snowflakes (Christopher Kloko, Perryn Pomatto, and Britni Orcutt) circle her in black and white dress suits while she gleefully attempts to catch them.

The fun ends when the wind picks up and the Snowflakes' aggression increases. They bellow, "Go home, Irene," shoving her back and forth between them, wrestling the box from her arms, and finally waving the dress before her horrified eyes. "We're taking all your dreams away," they say, before disappearing into the darkness.

Irene sinks to her knees crying, as all her mother's long hours stitching and hemming the gown have amounted to nothing. Weighted by her failure, she trudges on, hoping to plead her case to the Duchess so she will know the Bobbin family tried to make good on their responsibility to her.

Weneck's portrayal of Irene is sweet and touching, especially in the understated way she conveys her fear with worried, darting eyes as if registering for the first time the dangers that lurk outside her mother's home. We feel for her helplessness in the face of the elements, especially Mr. Cool (Pomatto), who circles her like a schoolyard bully with rolled-up sleeves and a confident swagger. Irene's desperate attempts to fight him off involve countering all his icy whisperings with thoughts of warm things. When Mr. Cool hisses, "Turning blue," she defiantly responds, "Barbecue!"

But her true inspiration comes from the Trees (Orcutt, Pomatto, and Kloko), stunningly costumed with shimmering white branches tied to their arms and crowning their heads. When Irene is lost, frostbitten, and swallowed by the night, the Trees tell her in a tender song that "love will carry you through the darkness." Thinking of her mother, Irene plows on.

Joan Cushing's upbeat musical lyrics give the play the colorful touch it needs to comfort children as Irene's situation worsens. At the same time, adults in the audience are likely to appreciate the complexity of her obstacles, along with the strong but simple moral she learns when overcoming them. Children will certainly see a heroine and kindred spirit in young Irene. She is a small girl who, when confronted by a large, cold world, fights against the odds to prove to all her doubters that one does not need to be big in order to be brave.

Domestic Politics

The perpetual urge to rearrange furniture suggests emotional unrest, and when the curtain rises on Lovely Day, we find Fran arranging and rearranging the beautiful objects in her well-decorated living room. This ongoing reconfiguration works as a brilliant metaphor in Leslie Ayvazian's trim and thoughtful domestic drama. On Fran and Martin's anniversary, their 17-year-old son, Brian, returns home with the news that a military recruiter has visited his school. As the couple discusses this new development, they begin to pick at the veneer of their relationship, exposing layers of emotional disconnection. The resulting action brings political subjects into highly personal focus. "It reminded me of what's there," Fran explains, after moving a set of cumbersome bookshelves, and the Play Company's incendiary production unearths both old resentments and shocking surprises in a seemingly comfortable marriage.

Martin, a successful designer, is the family's breadwinner, while Fran's painting career seems to have leveled off. She now fills her time meeting with "the group," which turns out to be an assembly of peaceful demonstrators. When Brian offhandedly mentions the military recruiter's visit, she reveals to Martin that while he was away training to be an officer in the Vietnam War early in their marriage, she was secretly attending war protests.

Martin complains early on that their "politics have diverged," but suddenly it appears that their beliefs have been widely disparate all along. Confronted with their son's potential involvement in the Iraq war, Martin and Fran find themselves at war in their living room, with words as their weapons.

Accomplished actress Blair Brown (a Tony Award winner for her performance in Copenhagen) makes her New York directing debut with Lovely Day, proving that she is just as adept offstage as on. She allows the action to build at a very controlled pace, and the couple's arguments unfold with an authenticity that is staggering in its precision and tension. David Korins's warmly hued set works as the perfect upper-middle-class battlefield, enhanced by the convivial glow of Paul Whitaker's lighting design.

Ayvazian develops her dialogue with David Mamet-like briskness and Edward Albee-esque viciousness, and the inclusion of domestic elements (the sound of Brian practicing electric guitar in his upstairs bedroom, the couple's planning and execution of a party) only magnifies the severity of the couple's disputes.

The play investigates the rather naïve assumptions we make about those closest to us, as well as how familiarity and unfamiliarity can exist so inauspiciously in a relationship. For while Martin and Fran can communicate in a nonverbal language all their own, often anticipating a response or simply grunting or gesturing, they have remained complacently ignorant about each other's deepest values and ideals.

Deirdre O'Connell and David Rasche are perfectly cast as the sparring couple, and their airtight rapport should be required viewing for acting students. O'Connell captures Fran's artistic eccentricity and earnest conviction, while Rasche gives a thoroughly compelling, subtle performance as the rather turgid Martin. Both characters are flawed, but both are sympathetic—having no clear winner always makes an argument more interesting to watch.

As young Brian, Javier Picayo makes the most of his limited stage time, convincingly portraying the natural gap that widens between parents and their teenage children. It's never clear exactly where Brian—who would rather play his guitar than consider his future—stands on the topics that have divided his parents. And this may be the most powerful statement of all. While his parents may passionately argue, it is Brian who will ultimately have to face the consequences of the country's actions; whether by the country or his parents, his future seems to have been decided for him.

"Words are what we have," Fran avows, and Ayvazian's script shows the destructive and illuminating ways in which we grip onto our words and our ideals. In Lovely Day, neither playwright nor director shies away from exposing the costs and compromises of domestic negotiations. The political and intimate are bound to intersect, and this very topical production will undoubtedly leave you thinking for some time to come.

Play Back

Did he or didn't he? Should he or shouldn't he? Will she or won't she? These questions broadly describe the major dramatic issues at the heart of Stephen Belber's Tape, playing at the Abington Theater and the inaugural production of the Underground Artists Theater Company. The company's mission statement says Underground Artists seeks to "illuminate new works and resurrect the old." Tape has been resurrected, but the experience is not entirely illuminating. The play's setup reunites old high school friends Vincent and Jon in a Motel 6 in Lansing, Mich. Vincent has made the trip to see Jon's film premiere in the Lansing Film Festival. Small talk gives way to Vincent's true motive in catching up with Jon after ten years: Vincent wants to know if Jon date-raped his high school sweetheart.

A heated argument leads to a tape-recorded confession of guilt. But before Jon can appropriately respond to this breach of trust, Vincent hits him with an even larger surprise: Amy, the girl in question, is on her way to the motel.

Jay Pingree's economical scenic design works well with Kogumo Dsi's lighting to lock the audience in the motel with Jon and Vincent. The Abingdon Theater's intimate, three-quarter thrust stage is appropriately used to show that no one is getting out of this room until a resolution is reached.

Jayson Gladstone (Vincent) and Benjamin Schmoll (Jon) present a persuasive portrait of a friendship that has been long smoldering with jealousy. Vincent is clearly the more dominating character in terms of stage presence and volume, but Schmoll gets a lot of mileage out of struggling to match his partner's intensity and intentions. Jon is like an ignored sibling: with a friend like Vincent, it's no wonder he became a filmmaker, since apparently that's all he could do to be heard. Randa Karambelas adds a logical center to the threesome as Amy, by fully embracing her character's prosecutorial side. She doesn't hesitate to render judgment immediately and emotionlessly on her two high school loves.

Tape is a study of the complex mechanics of guilt and responsibility. The text of Belber's script leaves little room for embellishment, and it would be a disservice to try to force a broad concept on the piece. That said, director David Newer fails to present a vital or unique staging. The argument between Jon and Vincent reaches its peak very early in the play and fails to rise or fall with any variation afterward. Newer directs in long strokes of "anger" and "remorse" without allowing the actors to explore the more intricate tones. The script's strength should be enough to carry any production, yet here the play never lives up to its multifaceted potential.

Instead, this production feels like a conservatory scene study, performed before a live audience. Each of the three actors is given his or her moment of focus. Schmoll's awkward apology to Karambelas for the rape, Gladstone's realization that his interference has further complicated the situation, and Karambelas's defiant gambit when she pretends to have both men arrested—these defining moments radiate with humanity in the hands of these actors. Here, the script is used as an educational tool to reach these moments for the cast, but nothing more. As a result, the play never gets its moment.

For those unfamiliar with previous stage and film versions of Tape, Underground Artists' production will serve as a good introduction to the material and to the questions Belber asks about digging up old skeletons. If the goal in producing this script was to provide an able vehicle for the freshman company's actors, it succeeds. But if Newer and his cast's intention was to perform a revealing "resurrection" of the play for new audiences, perhaps they should have left it undisturbed until they could present a more adventurous production.

Poet in Exile

Governing bodies have a long history of silencing their critics. In The Art of Love, an opinionated but unsatisfyingly passive piece, playwright Robert Kornfeld examines how the Roman poet Ovid's innocent gibes at his fellow man's sexual proclivities earned him a spot on his government's hate list, and ultimately cost him his freedom and happiness. A famous writer and ladies' man, Ovid has been banished to the Greek colony of Tomis, where he has spent most of his days in his own company. After many months, he's decided to make a public appearance, where he'll discuss his famous book The Art of Love and present a performance on the circumstances surrounding his exile from Rome. Some of the townspeople gather to speak with him and end up being figures in the quietly engaging and sorrowful presentation of his past.

The Roman emperor Augustus, plagued with a wayward and immoral daughter and a cold, post-menopausal wife, can't get no satisfaction. He is at odds with his own morality, forced to uphold a public policy of zero tolerance toward sexual misconduct while needing to take a lover on the side to make sure he has sons to continue the line of succession. Augustus believes Ovid's works, with their playful talk about rape and adultery, are poisoning the minds of the Roman people, especially his daughter, as well as undermining the state. Ovid's only powerful champion is Augustus's stepson Tiberius, who begins to be seduced by politics and power plays once he is in line for the throne.

Through it all, Ovid's one source of strength and comfort is his wife, Fastina. For her, he has given up all thoughts of extramarital conquests, and he dedicates his life and writing to their love. His interactions with her in his performance/memories attest to how he misses her more than anything else in Rome.

James Nugent does great credit to the law-trained, romance-obsessed Ovid. His ability to answer directly the questions he wants to answer—and to dance around the questions he would rather avoid lending an opinion to—was enjoyable. There's a rationality to Ovid's passion, so that it wasn't weepy and feminine but a truthful and masculine emotion.

Tom Thornton's Augustus certainly has the gravitas and bearing of an emperor, possibly because he is also the director and people naturally deferred to him. But there were times when he took a bit too long with his speeches, and the pacing suffered from the director not directing himself. It was interesting to watch Stephen Francis take the future emperor Tiberius from a misfit stepchild to a calculating ruler. And as Fastina, Laura Lockwood radiated loveliness and intelligence.

Special mention (and great acclaim) must be given to set designer Mark Mercante, who took advantage of the soundstage-sized playing space and bedecked it with a marvelous interpretation of ancient Italian architecture. It's always refreshing when the proper budget and time are given to set design, as it often gets short shrift in Off-Off-Broadway productions.

Since there were no blackouts to signify scene changes, the lighting designer had the challenging task of keeping things visually interesting in order to hold the audience's attention. While Alex Moore did a nice job illuminating sections of the stage to define the boundaries of the scene's playing area, Thornton's staging was a little demure. This was particularly the case in the first act, when endless exposition and speechmaking slowed down the action. (Higher stakes and more energetic performances enlivened the second half of the show.)

Obviously, exile is missing from our country's punishment playbook; otherwise, people like Michael Moore and Jon Stewart would be missing from movie theaters and television. But censorship is still alive and kicking and making trouble for "troublemakers." It's good to be reminded that it is not a new phenomenon, so we can enjoy our current liberties and know what would be sacrificed if they were taken away.

Anatomy and Psychology

Soleil hates thongs. Devon can't stand to be objectified by her rugby-playing boyfriend but doesn't understand why her cousin Rebecca thinks she's such a prude. Rachel is hoping that the drastic, mood-altering side effects of her new birth-control regimen will soon wane so she and her boyfriend can wallow in the pleasure of unprotected sex. Elissa resents her father for being such a great role model.

And Jennifer is moments away from performing her first on-camera nude scene and needs her best friend, Katy, to support her decision to go through with it.

These women are angry. They are young, too. Some are clad in low-rise jeans, while others slink around the stage in miniskirts, corsets, and silk robes. Each one wears her emotional issues on her sleeve—or garter belt, as the case may be—and each one is a character in Matt Morillo's collection of monologues and one-acts, Angry Young Women in Low-Rise Jeans With High-Class Issues.

Devon Pipers acts with manic fervor as the reluctant Jennifer in the show's finale, "The Nude Scene." She preens for the camera like a ridiculous peacock before abruptly halting the production so she can down a few shots of whiskey to get comfortable. Her onscreen lover, Barry, spends time between takes pumping iron to ensure he appears plenty sweaty, while the second-rate director tries to keep the production from descending into mayhem as the understated cameraman Kristoff clashes with the overstated Katy.

"The Nude Scene" is brilliant. The stakes are set high from the outset, and Morillo's script keeps the audience guessing whether Jennifer will actually doff her top. Every flubbed take leads her closer to going all the way before ultimately finding yet another reason not to. First, Katy is running late, and Jennifer just can't do it without her friend's reassurance. Then Barry, played by a hilariously dull Major Dodge, manhandles Jen's breasts and whispers suggestive catchphrases in her ear.

From Thomas J. Pilutik's performance as hack director Spencer to Jessica Durdock's lusty interpretation of Katy and Jason Drumwright's mute-yet-furious Kristoff, the cast members who surround Pipers counterpoise each other perfectly. Different conflicts between different people arise at every turn in the script. Moments of calm are broken by outbursts of hysteria. One character storms onto the set the same moment another character storms off. Every joke is fast and funny, consistently topped by the gag that follows. It is nearly impossible to find a reason not to laugh at this ingenious farce.

Unfortunately, the same blitzkrieg attack isn't nearly as effective in the four shorts leading up to "The Nude Scene." Whereas Jennifer appears to be a conflicted and complex individual, the other women in Angry Young Women come across as erratic, one-dimensional figures.

As Soleil in "My Last Thong," Jessica Durdock cuts off her thong...while still wearing it. The daughter of hippies, Soleil finds thongs vulgar, sexist, and more than a little bit uncomfortable. Moreover, she can't believe her bra-burning mother could go from not shaving her armpits to trimming her bikini area and sporting a thong. She is disgusted that her 12-year old niece shaves her bikini area. And while Soleil does provide some amusing observations on women's body-maintenance routines, the monologue comes across as more of a rant than a character study. It isn't long before the monologue begins repeating its points, dulling the humor of jokes that weren't exactly side-splitters the first time around.

"Playtime in the Park" and "The Miseducation of Elissa" suffer from the same problems, repeating themselves frequently and airing complaints without any apparent purpose other than to complain. "Unprotected Sex" stands out somewhat from the others, but only because hockey fans Brian and Joe (Dodge and Thomas J. Pilutik, respectively) provide the audience with a reason to ignore the hormone-saturated caricature that is Rachel.

The cast also seems to be hyper-directed, gesticulating wildly and speeding through their dialogue without taking much time to even breathe between lines. As a result, the tongue-tied actors misspeak more than once.

Still, laughs are to be had throughout the production. Angry Young Women is an entertaining show, questioning the ideals of what women want to be, what men want women to be, and what both men and women are willing to do to get what they want. The first four skits prove to be a fun distraction, but "The Nude Scene" is worth the price of admission by itself, a truly great piece of theater.

Rites of Passage

When Navin, an Indian college student, opens his mouth to speak, it's hard to resist laughing at his thick Calcutta accent. Sadly, this is exactly what the American media have primed us for: Indian accent equals stereotype, cheap humor, caricature. But thank goodness for Rajiv Joseph, the bright, young playwright whose magnificent play, Huck & Holden, is enjoying a first-rate world premiere at Cherry Lane Theater's studio space. Joseph's writing has the smarts and sophistication to rip away stereotypes while revealing his characters' raw humanity. With simple storytelling, he deftly constructs Navin's coming-of-age story with comedy, pathos, and a distinct emotional core. This is theater at its finest, and theater that matters.

It'd be easy, of course, to portray Navin as a clichéd fish out of water who stumbles onto the American college scene, discovers drinking and debauchery, and forsakes his straight-laced past. Of course, there are the requisite lost-in-translation moments (Navin asks a friend, "How many times are you making love in your life?"), but lucky for us, Joseph grounds these comic moments in something more meaningful. He gives Navin room to wrestle with his inhibitions, toy with his temptations, and negotiate a new identity in a foreign land.

A dedicated engineering student, Navin (Nick Choksi) goes to the library in search of the book Huck & Holden for his required English class. There is, of course, no such book—Navin has mistaken the paper's topic (the literary protagonists of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Catcher in the Rye) for a book title. There, he meets Michelle (Cherise Boothe), a voice major with a work-study library job.

The two quickly strike up a friendship, and when Michelle discovers that Navin is still a virgin (saving himself for an arranged marriage back in India), she vows to shatter his polite, polished shell. She invites him to her boyfriend Torry's (LeRoy McClain) fraternity party, and Navin's evolution begins.

Michelle is African-American and a lapsed Catholic, which provides a dynamic foil to Navin's strict Hinduism. Navin is determined to live by the "the rules"—the norms and behaviors that will reward him in his life back in India. But as Michelle shares how she has created her own system of values, the two characters share moments of connection almost poetic in their lyric simplicity. In short, Michelle helps Navin learn how to carve out a life all his own.

The inclusion of two supernatural figures gives this romantic comedy a twist. Like so many college boys before him, Navin begins to idolize Holden Caulfield while reading The Catcher in the Rye, and Holden springs to life in the form of Singh (Arjun Gupta), who was the cool kid in Navin's private school in India. Singh becomes an anti-conscience character, encouraging Navin to take more risks. And near the end of the show, the Hindu goddess Kali (Nilaja Sun) appears as part of Michelle's consciousness (blame it on overexposure to Kama Sutra).

A stellar cast and superior production team bring the script fervently to life. Choksi gives a star-making performance as Navin; he is a compelling, controlled actor, and he contributes a natural grace to a very complex comic and dramatic arc. Boothe gives tremendous heart to Michelle's up-and-down emotions, and she finds a myriad of inflections in the expression "Daaaamn."

Gupta shows smooth confidence as Singh, and McClain's charismatic take on Torry is so infectious you wish he could be onstage more often. And in her fierce, no-holds-barred portrayal of the monstrous goddess Kali, Sun very nearly steals the show.

Director Giovanna Sardelli keeps the action moving at a crisp pace, but she also gives Navin the necessary space and time to think through his actions. The production team proves that mastery lies in the details. Regina Garcia's functional set features rows of rotating bookshelves, literally framing the proceedings in the acquisition of knowledge (or books); Pat Dignan's lighting beautifully captures natural light filtering through a windowpane; Rebecca J. Bernstein's costumes capture both Navin’s finicky taste and the disarming spectacle of Kali; and Bart Fasbender's punchy sound design keeps the energy up during the quick set changes.

Everything in this highly polished production cries out for mention, but at the heart of it all is Joseph's taut, masterful script. Resisting a happy ending, Joseph leaves us on a precipice right alongside Navin, but this uncertainty somehow feels like the happiest possible ending of all. The journey toward self-definition may be messy, but in Huck & Holden it's definitely worth the bumpy ride. And by the end, don't be surprised if you forget about the accent.

Les Misérables

According to the myth of the starving artist, one must endure misery for the pure joy of making art. It's a romantic idea, to be sure, but what happens when merely surviving isn't enough? In LMNO Theatre Company's production of The Understudies, Jeff Bedillion's playful "flirtation" with Jean Genet's The Maids, a pair of starving artists decide to stage a rebellion. The understudies, Ami (Maiken Wiese) and Evadne (Stefanie Eris), plot the demise of the star, Donna (Jennifer Susi), who is the diva of divas—demanding, high maintenance, cruel, and spoiled.

Although this is meant to be the tragic story of Ami and Evadne, in the end, oddly enough, it's easier to sympathize with the villainous Donna. Whether or not this was Bedillion's intention is unclear, but his script leaves us little opportunity to root for his underdogs. Instead, in the midst of a rather overwrought and unbalanced production, a seemingly heartless character wins our hearts.

Likable or not, Donna's understudies certainly suffer for their art. Ami and Evadne live like sardines in a tiny apartment, toil away as understudies (glorified tech crew) for a thankless director, and spend the wee small hours of the morning performing in their "safe place," a late-night cabaret show emceed by a drag queen. They also have their respective backstage dramas. Ami frolics in the light booth with the stage manager, while Evadne has recently accused their director of sexual harassment.

But their lives, at least by their estimation, are finally about to change. They begin to enact a fantasy in which Evadne (played by Ami) fights with Donna (played by Evadne) to the death. Although they always stop before its completion, they decide to kill Donna with a cup of poisoned tea. But, as so often happens, circumstances conspire against them, finally suggesting that destructive personalities often destroy themselves.

Genet based The Maids on an actual event in the 1930s in which two maids killed and mutilated their employers. Bedillion smartly extends this conceit to theater, where hierarchies abound. When repressed and beaten down, he proposes, those at the bottom of the totem pole will eventually plot their rise.

Unfortunately, Ami and Evadne aren't written or performed with enough humanity to make the story work, and their game of charades rambles on interminably in the first scene. While Bedillion has penned a pleasing style of elevated dialogue, the female fighting too often devolves into petty and shrill scream-fests, and it's difficult to see the dimension in these understudies.

Ironically, it is when Bedillion tries to be his most melodramatic that he (perhaps unwittingly) creates moments of emotional truth. And as (prima?) Donna, Susi steals the show with her stunning dressing-room scene, employing superb comic timing and stylized characterization in her mercurial tirades. She unveils Donna's emotional neediness, and when she expresses her wish to "take off the mask" and be an understudy herself, the result is poignant, even more so when it is followed by a gale of manic laughter.

Bedillion channels Genet by evoking a French mood, beginning with his use of marvelously gritty Edith Piaf music. Anna Peterson's well-defined lighting contributes to the foreboding atmosphere; her exquisite illumination of a taxicab's interior is a particularly haunting touch. With its exposed brick walls and darkened basement, Under St. Marks is the perfect venue for a piece exploring the sinister corners of humanity.

In addition to The Maids, The Understudies echoes another powerful piece of drama, last season's The Pillowman, in which the line between fantasy and reality was horrifically blurred. While that territory could be more artfully explored in The Understudies, Bedillion's inquiry into the debauchery of fame, celebrity, artifice, and, of course, theater raises intriguing questions about the price we pay for our art and the hierarchies in which we live. Ami laments, "We're lucky enough to survive, but not quite lucky enough to live." And if living is the goal, sometimes surviving just isn't enough.