The Boys of Summer

Temperatures have reached record highs in the city lately, and many New Yorkers are dreaming of surf and suntans. For most, a day on the beach, away from this concrete oven, seems like a blissful fantasy. But the boys of Tybrus could potentially ruin the tranquility of such reveries forever with their new production, You're Out Too Far! Tybrus is a two-man comedy team that consists of Justin Tyler and Jonathan Gabrus. Tyler and Gabrus (TYler + GaBRUS = Tybrus) are the writers and stars of this show, a capricious look into the lives of Cooper and Riley, two eccentric lifeguards who act out "manly vignettes" to impress babes, fall into vivid dreams of homoeroticism, and release unspeakable bodily secretions into the ocean. If nothing else, Tybrus's production has expanded my vocabulary—I hope to use the word "hydrodump" in a sentence very soon. Whereas poop jokes and barf jokes are enough for some comedians, Tybrus will unflinchingly stick the climax of Good Will Hunting, as well as the profession of any poor sap in the audience, into the toilet too.

In fact, Cooper and Riley seem to be prisoners of Tybrus's sadistic sense of humor. There are enough gross-out high jinks in You're Out Too Far! to keep up with the American Pie movies, but to simply write this off as adolescent would do a disservice to the imagination behind it. Tybrus could have allowed these lifeguards to be one-note caricatures, but Cooper and Riley are two refreshingly divergent personalities.

Tyler's Riley plays his butch girl-chaser mostly straight, while Gabrus's Cooper is ill-equipped for lifeguarding. Among Cooper's many loves are "Dungeons and Dragons," three-day-old milkshakes, and keeping potato chips in his Speedo. This distinction between the characters allows Tybrus to form a hilarious and innovative narrative that never peters out.

Director Adam Pally obviously has a handle on Tybrus's sense of humor and has accommodated the two performers' strengths. As my undergraduate directing professor told us on the first day of class, the easiest way to become a successful director is to always work with brilliant people and never get in their way.

That said, one crucial problem with the piece was the use of UCB Theater's space. A huge black post in the center aisle blocks sight lines, affecting views of anything within a few feet of it onstage. Unfortunately, from where I was seated the "Lifeguard Station" was completely blocked. As a result, I missed what sounded like (based on audience response) a lot of good sight gags. Moving this action a few feet toward the audience members or away from them should solve the problem and would allow everyone the pleasure of seeing Cooper's "white and viscous" sweat.

The Upright Citizens Brigade has a long heritage of catering to unique voices and personalities in sketch and improvised comedy. Tybrus is a worthy part of this tradition, as Tyler and Gabrus provide stomach-turning tomfoolery of the highest caliber. And somehow this material, while at times disgusting, is as refreshing as a summer breeze. Tybrus will present You're Out Too Far! only two more times in August, so get your beach bags ready and wait for the whistle.

Secrets and Lies

There are roughly three distinct plots that make up James Christy's new play, Never Tell. It starts out in straightforward fashion, with Manny (Jason Schuchman), a microserf pounding away on his laptop, announcing that he has just created a technological innovation that will make him the next Bill Gates. It is a computer-empowering idea that will let the machine actually intuit its owner's emotions and feelings. Manny is clearly sitting on a major success, but one braces as he shares the news with a lazy co-worker named Hoover (Mark Setlock). Clearly, some major betrayal will provide the fundamental conflict that's in store for Manny. But instead, Never Tell, as guided by director Drew DeCorleto at the Michael Weller Theater, heads off in a very different direction. Manny alludes to a breakup he had with his girlfriend Liz almost a decade ago, a relationship shattered by a supposedly devastating revelation from her. The audience must then wait for further answers, as well as for any more substantial scenes featuring Manny.

Pinballing among his quintet of main characters, who are all equally flawed and, sadly, vaguely defined, Christy begins to let Hoover guide the action. We see him encounter Anne (Teresa L. Goding) at a party, and we wonder in what direction this new pair might advance the story. Instead of advancing it, though, Never Tell makes concentric circles out of its plot. Anne, it turns out, is married, to Will (Matthew Wilkas), an artist and gallery owner. The play spends a lot of the first act dwelling on an extremely controversial work of video art depicting a brutal act of statutory rape.

So which is Christy's A-plot: Manny's creation or Will's work of "art"? Neither, it turns out. Anne and Will introduce Hoover to Anne's friend Liz (Eva Kaminsky). She, of course, is Manny's former flame, who is currently Will's lover (unbeknownst to Anne), and the deceptive Hoover insinuates himself with her to become her new roommate. What a tangled web, indeed.

Yet the play also falls short of its potential. Ostensibly, Never Tell is all about secrets: how one can build a lifetime upon them, and the damage they can both create and prevent. Each of the play's main characters at one point addresses the audience and confesses a secret from his or her adolescence, some of which are more life-altering than others. But what is missing is any real payoff from these secrets. Christy spends so much time intertwining his characters that he forgets that their subplots also need to intersect at some point, and as a result, his theatrical geometry comes off as hubris.

Yes, Liz and Will's affair—ultimately lacking in chemistry and motivation—will come to light, somehow. Yes, Hoover's manipulations will come to light, somehow. And yes, it turns out there is more confusion and disappointment in store for Manny, somehow. But when each of these big moments occurs, they feel so preordained, they're anticlimactic: the actual how no longer matters.

Both Goding and Kaminsky do what they can to bring their characters to life, but intentionally or not, Never Tell has a misogynistic quality and treats each of its two female leads as nothing more than a betrayed woman and a fool. It's the trio of leading male actors, all of whom have commanding presences and are vividly directed by DeCorleto, who provide the production with its pulse. Wilkas, in particular, is a fascinating example of male volatility, a kind of Stanley Kowalski for the digital age. Will wants what he wants, and does not notice when he has crossed the line.

I wish Never Tell featured more of Schuchman's Manny, a character who has the most emotional notes to hit but too little dramatic space in which to hit them. Had Christy structured the play differently, with Manny as more of a mainstay throughout, he would have been a more compelling figure. Still, Schuchman does great work and is certainly one to watch.

I would also keep an eye on Setlock, who plays the slyest of the five main characters. He is able to suggest so much at once that however Hoover comes out in the end—as the smartest, kindest, most foolish, or most evil character in the play—all possibilities are justified.

So what kind of character does Hoover turn out to be? I'll never tell.

Jazz Hands

Ah, the exuberance of wannabe theater professionals! It's so dear to witness their silly rituals of mock Oprah interviews, coaching each other's monologues, and … painting the toenails on their prosthetic feet? Triple Threats, now playing in its New York premiere at the Independent Theater, is not your average tale of actors being actors. Written by Los Angeles-based thespians-writers Alec Holland and Melissa Samuels, the play shows us the psychoses and bad behavior that can arise when untalented, unbalanced performers go through years of rejection. Unfortunately, it also shows us what happens when a decent play is not allowed to let its plot unfold gently and wears its craziness on its sleeve.

Actor-singer Bruce and actress-dancer Shirley share dreams of stardom and a two-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles. They consider themselves "triple threats" because, between the two of them, they're actor-singer-dancers. This is only one of many delusions that fuel their manic and fairly art-free existence. They don't take classes, choosing instead to perform along with the TV. They're looking forward to living on easy street once a settlement check comes in from the insurance company to compensate Shirley for her severed foot. Most delusional of all, they don't realize that they have no talent, and that their blind support of the other's career will always keep them from knowing the extent of their talentlessness.

Into the fray comes Kenneth, a fellow hyphenate (writer-director) who's looking for a place to live while he finishes writing a film. Kenneth is a foreign entity to Bruce and Shirley: a good-looking, fairly well-adjusted guy who's talented and having a big moment in his career. The roommates accept him into the apartment, with an eye toward bedding him and being cast in his film. Unfortunately for the new guy, he has no idea the lengths to which these two desperate people will go.

Holland and Samuels have written a mildly amusing black comedy that really requires the audience to sympathize at least in part, or even just in the beginning, with Bruce and Shirley. It shouldn't be clear right away that Kenneth shouldn't move in with them, or that they are anything but harmless, silly people who are a little high-strung.

However, the actors playing the actors let loose right away, showering the stage with their mania. Josh Painting's Bruce is a self-centered, egomaniacal closet case who fears that disclosing his sexuality will keep him from being cast as a romantic lead, not realizing that (a) he doesn't hide his homosexuality at all and (b) his "unconventional" looks will keep him from attaining leading-man status. Kat Ross's Shirley is a shrill, jumpy sycophant who trusts Bruce to do the thinking for both of them. If they started their characterizations at a 2 and then gradually worked up to a 10, we might be inclined to feel sorry for them rather than hate them.

As Kenneth, Richard Tayloe turns in a surprisingly strong performance as the normal third wheel. He takes the thankless job of straight man and radiates a naturalness and kindness, being an Everyman without stepping into Superman territory. Somehow he justifies his character's turning a blind eye to Bruce's and Shirley's come-ons in the initial interview, making us believe this guy's so hard up for a place to live that he'll deal with just about anything.

The apartment is fabulous, after all; Elisha Schaefer has clearly been hitting TKTS and the kiosks at the Port Authority for Broadway show handbills to adorn the red walls of their little place. The set design is cleverly extended along the walls of the house, with a piece of furniture propped up behind the audience to suggest that the theatergoers are sharing the space. There's also a bit of choreographed dance in the second half that uses a black light to turn the apartment wall into a stage. It would've been more effective, however, if this segment had been kept brief, with the music fading out; the joke is merely in the act of dancing, not in the way they dance.

It should be said that the performance seen for this review was on the first night of previews, and that the show was slated to open a few days later. If during the next set of performances the director is able to focus more on the setup of the dark material that is to follow and less on the comedy, he and his team could build a fine little show. In a city that often seems to be 50 percent actors, they've certainly got a captive audience.

Punk Rock Shakespeare

Don't be fooled by the complimentary earplugs handed out at the door. Despite a terrific premise—a punk rock adaptation of Shakespeare's goriest (and, reportedly, most popular) play, Titus Andronicus—Fugly Productions's Titus X: The Musical never becomes the earsplitting, cutting-edge spectacle it promises to be. Punk rock would seem to be the ideal medium for Titus, a play that boils with anger and revenge, but repetitious music and a poorly balanced sound system turn the production into a wall of gratuitous noise and performances that, like the distorted sound, lack nuance and precision. The first 15 minutes of the show (and many moments thereafter) are virtually unintelligible, as the vocalists and the band compete for supremacy. A brief prologue sets up Titus's entrance, and four performers chant his name with robotic diligence as the victorious warrior returns to Rome. With most of his sons slain in the war, Titus murders the eldest son of Tamora, queen of the vanquished Goths—ostensibly a religious sacrifice—and launches a series of violent acts that escalate as the play proceeds.

Director Peter Sanfilippo provides the simplistic staging. The three-piece band (guitar, bass, and drums) dominates the stage, and the actors run off and on to emote behind microphone stands. A screen set up behind the band serves as a backdrop, and although the multicolored abstract projections create spooky lighting effects as the actors walk across the stage, they are overwhelmingly generic, forming mottled geometric shapes and skull patterns. Sanfilippo also designed the costumes, a mishmash of punk and goth apparel—dangerous-looking boots, mohawks, crucifixes, and fishnet stockings.

Shawn Northrip, a graduate of New York University's Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program, created Titus X, and his book, while faithful to Shakespeare's plot line, lacks the richness of the Bard's language. Although a scene that uses a single word (an expletive that begins with "f") creates some unexpected humor, it stands at odds with the rest of the production, which drowns in plot exposition and questionable rhyming ("And though you're sweet, this is just a piece of meat," sings Tamora).

Northrip's music is a respectable batch of punk rock, with strong bass lines, guitar riffs, and explosive drumming. The dense compositions, however, offer little variation as the show progresses. Still, there are a few standouts. The lyric "I wanna get in ya, Lavinia," sung by Tamora's sons before they rape and disfigure Titus's daughter, pulsates winningly when crammed into a short, jumpy song, its perky beat bringing relief from an otherwise blandly loud and forgettable score.

The idiosyncracies and affectations of punk rock find their way into Titus X with varying degrees of success. Northrip's songs often end with an exclamation point—an ambiguous, abrupt ending that provides a neat transition but quickly loses effect with repeated use. The actors' performance styles also replicate the self-involved pose of many punk performers—hands wrapped tightly around the microphone, intensely gazing off into the distance, lost in their own world. Although this despondent posturing may work for rock musicians, in a theatrical production it reads as sullen and closed off, stripping actors of the ability to communicate with each other as well as depriving the audience of watching a dynamic exchange of energy. No amount of frenetic dancing can make up for it, nor can copious head-banging—could this be, I began to wonder, an alternate form of clapping for oneself?

The six performers sweat and emote prodigiously. Peter Schuyler brings a fiery presence to Titus, outfitted in a hip military jacket with thick black lines drawn under his eyes like a football player blocking out the bright stadium lights (which may or may not be the point, as Titus moves into deep darkness). Ben Pryor and Joe Pindelski (of last year's Fringe success The Banger's Flopera) bring valiant energy to a variety of roles. As Titus's doomed daughter Lavinia, Laurie Davis unfortunately recalls a tormented Britney Spears (or any other misguided teen queen).

Dwayne Thomas is fine as the kilt-clad Aaron, but it is Francile Albright who makes the strongest impression as Tamora. With her black-rimmed eyes burning with malice, Albright makes the most concerted effort to communicate and connect to the other performers. She can rock out with the best of them, but she makes it clear why and to whom she is screaming.

With the potential to be a polemic on war and violence, Titus X never creates much of a stir. "No one is free when others are oppressed," the ruler Saturninus attests, but the production, mired in blood and noise, ultimately refuses to explore this sentiment. Tucked into the tiny (and, fair warning, un-air-conditioned) Tank, Titus X finally registers as nothing more than a group of cocaine-snorting performers singing for themselves. And with so much violence and heartlessness on display, this is a script that begs for more sensitive and responsible attention. Otherwise, it becomes merely a cascade of violence for violence's sake—in which case you'd be better off using those earplugs after all.

Runaway Bride

When Blood Wedding debuted in 1930's Spain, right before the civil war, it became extremely popular there and was even called pure poetry by many critics. The flowing, rhythmical dialogue is underscored with a sad violin melody to give it the lyrical feel that its acclaimed Spanish writer, Federico Garcia Lorca, originally intended for the piece. Translated by Lillian Groag, the production playing at the Walkerspace theater bears the distinct mark of its theater company, Woodshed Collective, a group that seems to specialize in building elaborate sets out of nothing but wood. The raised square stage is made of wooden planks and surrounded by a moat of woodchips. In the backdrop, we see rows of cut logs tied together with rope hanging from the ceiling like a curtain, and two trees sprouting behind that, reaching their long, thin branches toward the stage. Eerie sawing sounds add to the wood-like atmosphere, culminating in an aggressive hammering just prior to the play's opening.

Blood Wedding is about a Bride (Anna Kull) who leaves her Bridegroom (Wil Petre) on their wedding day to run off with a neighbor, Leonardo Felix (Charles Sprinkle). Lorca's words are truly poetic and Woodshed Collective's set is beautiful, but the story is all style with little substance. The play is supposed to show the rawness of passion, the beauty of love, and the sadness of betrayal. But while these themes are conveyed by the production's technical and design elements, they are never truly embodied by its characters.

Perhaps this is because Lorca has drenched his characters in so much symbolism that it is easy to lose their realism. Only one character has a name; the rest are known only by their roles: Mother, Bride, Bridegroom, Wife, Mother-in-Law, and Father. Felix, whose family once murdered two of the Bridegroom's brothers and his father, is the only named character. But he too is a symbol, and the plot never gives a reason for the murders.

In fact, the strongest and most recurring symbol here is not a person but blood. Characters speak of blood in respectful tones as if it is an entity with a mind of its own, doing as it likes while the person it inhabits is forced to follow like a dog on a leash. The Bride certainly acts as if pulled by a chain when she impulsively leaves her new husband on their wedding day to run off with Felix, ending Act 1.

The tone changes in Act 2 when we enter a mythical forest where a white-clothed Moon (Jennifer Kathryn Marshall) weeps and the malicious, black-caped Death (Michele Athena Morgen) lurks about the trees looking for Felix and the Bride. In an interesting piece of casting, we see that Death is played by the same actress who plays the Bridegroom's bloodthirsty Mother. Their personalities seem so similar that when the Bridegroom asks, "What are you doing here?" you wonder if he is angry at the mysterious, black-cloaked woman or incredulous to find his own mother in the woods.

When Blood Wedding premiered, its themes and symbolism were relevant to that time and society. But this production establishes neither the setting nor the period, plunging us into the story as if we already know that this is early-30's Spain, on the brink of civil war.

Fortunately, the story is still interesting on a metaphorical level. There is a distinct poetry to the piece and a wonderfully established atmosphere that draws the viewer in. Its climax is particularly breathtaking. Two enraged men run at each other with knives, but before they can meet, Death raises her black cape, blocking the audience from seeing anything other than an explosion of bright, red rose petals. The scene looks like a painting, and it says more in that moment about the violence and hopelessness of the times than any other character does in pages of words.

Storm Front

Time stops. It goes backward and forward. Minutes are days, and hours are years. Time is ephemeral. It lives in the distance. Time does not occupy the same space as Celestina, the mysterious heroine of José Rivera's frustratingly vague Cloud Tectonics. Now receiving an admirable production at the Culture Project, from Out of Line Productions, the play is equal parts curiously ambiguous and distractingly unclear. On a rainy night in Los Angeles, Anibal (Luis Vega) picks up Celestina (Frederique Nahmani), a pregnant hitchhiker. He brings her to his house for the night to rest. Anibal is captivated by her intoxicating beauty. They talk. They kiss. Time stops. She claims to be 54 years old. She says she has been pregnant for two years.

Then Anibal's brother Nelson (played by Julio Rivera) arrives on his doorstop after a six-year absence. Nelson falls in love with Celestina, vowing to marry her and raise her baby as his own after he returns from war.

Nelson leaves and the storm rages on. Anibal and Celestina almost make love, interrupted by Nelson's return. While only minutes have passed, Nelson is older and changed. He claims that years have passed and that no one has heard from Anibal in all that time. Is Celestina the key?

Rivera, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of The Motorcycle Diaries, has written a haunting and lyrically beautiful piece. He creates intriguing scenarios of confounding depth. The character of Celestina remains an enigma throughout. Is she a dream? An angel? Or something sinister? Why does time stop around her? Why does she never age? Has she been pregnant for two years?

Unfortunately, the story never evolves beyond being intriguing, settling instead for frustrating. Rivera answers none of the questions raised by Celestina's presence, leaving the audience stranded. The prevailing sense of vagueness becomes less interesting and more distracting as the show progresses, to the point where one questions whether Rivera knows what is going on.

The actors fall victim to the script's uncertainties. Despite their appealing and strong performances, they are clearly as confused by the plot's ambiguity as the audience is. Still, Nahmani is radiant as Celestina. She delivers her lines in a wonderfully naturalistic manner, as if she were speaking them for the first time. With her girlish giggle and innocent expression, she perfectly captures the character's childlike abandon. But there is a disconnect in Nahmani's performance, a sense that she can't quite wrap herself around the mystery of Celestina. Ultimately, Nahmani is as undecided about her as the playwright apparently is.

Vega encounters a similar obstacle. After an unsteady start, his portrayal of Anibal becomes skilled and thoughtful. He is particularly effective in the later scenes, decidedly settling into the role and delivering a poignant performance in the play's final moments. But with only an unclear sense of who or what Celestina is, Vega has little to react to and is left to flounder.

Both the performers and the play become grounded with the arrival of Nelson, the outsider and the play's only certainty. He is a product of the real world—the world not affected by Celestina—and his arrival portends truth. Rivera does fine work as the testosterone-fueled Army grunt. Although somewhat heavy on the machismo in his first scene, he is perfectly haunting as the disabled war veteran in the play's second half. With his wounded eyes and blank expression, Rivera fully embodies the emotional and physical trauma his character has endured. The play makes sense around Nelson—he brings the clarity of the outside world into perspective. As a result, both Vega and Nahmani relax when Rivera's Nelson arrives, knowing they can at last grab onto something tangible.

James Phillip Gates's pedestrian direction is marked by awkward staging. His clunky blocking distracts, often leaving the actors to physically strain to deliver their lines. Gates does come through in the end, however, creating a beautiful and moving tableau that brings the play's emotional thrust full circle.

Out of Line Productions has made a valiant attempt to bring Cloud Tectonics to the stage. The company's passion, particularly its fondness for the script, is clearly evident, but after nearly two hours of vague uncertainties, the play's perennial limbo renders this production irrelevant.

John Chatterton and the Midtown International Theater Festival

As summer heats up, so does the summer festival season in New York City. Theater festivals are a wonderful way for artists and audiences to get what they need most: each other. These Off- and Off-Off Broadway festivals offer an abundance of affordable, convenient theater and give writers, directors and performers a chance to practice their craft with low overhead.

The Midtown International Theater Festival (MITF) begins its seventh season on Monday, July 17. It dares to brave the rough, largely undeveloped landscape of the Garment District, a region not generally known for a plethora of cultural offerings. The four theaters hosting MITF shows are located on the same block of West 36th Street. The venues are small, and the scale of MITF is more intimate than the sprawling New York International Fringe Festival held downtown. Forty shows will be presented between July 17 and August 6, with enough variety to satisfy a choosy audience.

The shows at MITF are in various stages of development, from staged readings and studio productions to full-length mainstage presentations. There are dramas, comedies, solo performances, and something listed as a “multimedia/collage” (that show is called The Answer is Horse, if you’re interested). No event runs longer than 90 minutes.

Unlike other festivals, the MITF is less intensely juried in its selection process. John Chatterton, the festival’s Executive Director, works with two artistic directors who are responsible for creating the season’s line-up. The co-artistic directors recruit participants from theater professionals they’ve worked with or whose work they admire, and choose the selections they like best from the applicant pool. MITF also offers several flexible producing plans that are ideal for Off-Off-Broadway productions. These range from full festival support (with the biggest box office split) to “pay up front” plans that allow companies to pay for the space at a discounted rate and receive the largest gross of the ticket sales. “Giving people options makes them happy,” Chatterton notes.

The 2006 Midtown International Theater Festival

John Chatterton is no stranger to the Off-Off Broadway community: thirteen years ago he founded “OOBR: The Off-Off-Broadway Review,” a publication of theater listings and reviews. “Off-Off Broadway has gotten more serious; there are fewer marginal theaters, due to expense, you’ve got to have your act together.” Thus, he maintains, a festival is a great place to get your “sea legs.” An artist can gain exposure with less risk and concentrate on the show itself. “This is why we have more festivals,” he surmises. “For artists, it’s a step on the professional ladder. Your voice can be heard.” Chatterton also finds that festivals are a great way for participants to network with other theater practitioners.

What does it take to run a three-week theater festival? “Logistics,” Chatterton firmly replies. “I’m very fortunate to have Emileena execute the logistics.” He’s referring to Emileena Pedigo, the festival’s full-time managing director. It’s her job to hire the festival staff and ensure that the schedule runs smoothly. Along with Emileena, Chatterton has four full-time reports: Judd Hollander, in charge of publicity; Bob Ost, who oversees festival marketing; and lighting designer Carrie Yacono, who coordinates rep plots for all four theaters. Other staff members operate on a part-time or volunteer basis.

Logistics seem to be paying off. Over the last seven years, MITF has doubled the number of productions and seen a steady improvement on the business side due, in large part, to great organization. They’ve cut the number of shows per production from seven to five, and try to seek out shows that allow for more flexibility with programming. The festival tries to operate as a support system for the participants while encouraging them to market themselves. Not only does this place the business responsibilities with those with the most vested interest (the producers of the individual shows), it also allows MITF to keep its own costs down.

Looking forward, Chatterton hopes to continue to expand cautiously and find new ways to promote the festival. However, he’s not concerned that MITF might be dwarfed by FringeNYC or festivals with larger budgets. “I’m encouraged by the proliferation of festivals.” He cites them as a great way to grow an audience base – especially with ticket prices under $20 – and to filter out less-serious offerings.

“My mission in life is to get the general public comfortable with the idea of going to Off-Off Broadway plays,” Chatterton states. Fortunately, the Midtown International Theater Festival, along with all of the summer theater festivals, offers audiences ample opportunity to do just that.

Kimberly Patterson is a staff writer for offoffonline. Her one-act play, Absence, is appearing in MITF’s Studio Series. Visit the Midtown International Theater's website at www.midtownfestival.org.

Last Confession

A solo performance, Tokyo Vampire is presented as the predator's last confession before he commits suicide by exposing himself to the sun. Spinning tales of blood-thirst, friendships destroyed, and tragic romance, he guides his audience chronologically from his vampire birth to the impetus for his decision to do the one thing that can end his otherwise interminable life. Throughout the 45-minute monologue, Dwayne Lawler easily commands the stage. With the demeanor and diction of a classically trained actor, he suffuses the character with an Old World dignity befitting this archetypical gothic antihero. The juxtaposition of his dignified presence with the bestial words he delivers is effective and will no doubt be appreciated by those with a taste for horror.

Adding to Lawler's natural stage presence is the flowing black costume he conceived, which melds influences from the goth subculture, samurai tradition, and the world of the Visual Kei—a popular Japanese musical subculture comparable to glam rock. To complete the image, a single red overhead light highlights the performer.

Slightly jarring, however, is the contrast of the classical acting with the simplicity of the writing style. Lawler, also the writer and director of the piece, declaims deliberately and with ample dramatic pauses. While both of these techniques can help performers clarify florid and archaically worded texts to modern audiences, they occasionally feel belabored when paired with this author's contemporary writing style.

Despite this incongruity, the production succeeds by delivering the voyeuristic horror thrills that most fans of the macabre eagerly expect from a vampire's tale. The performance achieves this through old-fashioned storytelling and without the presence of the vampire's victims—or any blood, for that matter. That is a feat that a lesser performer could not hope to replicate.

Out of the Woods

The Siblings, Rabbit Hole Ensemble's riff on the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel," is an eerily resonant theatrical meditation on the power and pitfalls of faith. Presented according to a stripped-down aesthetic that the company's artistic director, Edward Elefterion, calls "Theater of Essence," the production enchants with minimal artifice or technical assistance. This adaptation, written and directed by Elefterion, finds the title characters and their parents the apparently lone human inhabitants of a barren planet, taking direction from Him, a voice that speaks in dreams and directs them in their survival. Family unity dissolves, however, when He instructs Mother to leave her children in the dangerous woods, and tells daughter Gretel to avoid going into the woods at all. The foursome's faith effectively pits the parents against their own children.

The ensemble is uniformly strong. Kathryn Velvel Jones (Mother) displays the slippery manipulativeness of the self-righteous. As the father figure, Arthur Aulisi invites the trust of his children and the audience alike, but displays range enough to cue us when something is amiss.

Paul Daily's Hansel is childlike without sacrificing the knowing air of the older brother and the scientist—though science here consists of the foresight to drop those reflective rocks as a path to lead the siblings home the first time they are left for dead. Catherine Siracusa imbues the Old Woman with such a fiendish delight that she convinces the audience—if only for just a second—that a little boy and girl would make a very delectable meal.

It would be remiss, however, not to note the especially memorable quality of Amanda Broomell's turn as Gretel. Without upstaging her cast mates, she utilizes each facial expression, gesture, or word to draw the audience deeper into the ensemble's sweetly spun fairy-tale world.

Elefterion's minimal-design aesthetic makes a virtue of the technical limitations typically expected in productions at a festival. The performers are lighted by a few low-tech clip-on footlights, and the starkness contributes to the production's overall feeling of barrenness. A bench is the show's single set piece.

The black-clad Emily Surabian, credited along with the performers as "Props" in the playbill, sits in front of the stage and provides normal stage crew assistance (such as moving the bench) in full view of the audience. Additionally, she walks onstage to hand the performers the few necessary props and provides a few blatantly human-made sound effects.

The one design concession Elefterion makes is to wardrobe. Costumer Erin Murphy sets the tone and location with an aesthetic that can be described as postapocalyptic chic. Gretel's schoolgirl uniform is tattered and accompanied by legwarmers. Hansel sports a preppy look, though his blazer's sleeves appear to have met an unfortunate demise.

Only one incongruity provides a brief distraction from the show's spell. Immediately following a scene in which the family bemoans the lack of any living animals for them to hunt and eat, especially pheasants, Hansel and Gretel find themselves abandoned in the woods. As in the original, Hansel had believed that a trail of dropped breadcrumbs would lead them home, but Gretel reminds him of the birds. "The birds thank you," she remarks with no hint of irony, quashing her brother's hopes. At this performance, some audience members looked about quizzically, as if to ask, "What birds?"

This is of small consequence, though, within the context of the production's significant accomplishments. The woods are a dark and dangerous place here, but fortunately for theatergoers, we have the Rabbit Hole Ensemble to guide us.

Troubled Teens on TV

Sticky Girls, at the 2006 Midtown International Theater Festival, is subtitled "The Anti-Reality Show." I imagine the subtitle refers to a fictional talk show, The Roxy Rose Show, that the characters are appearing on, as well as to the ambiguous line between reality and performance on TV, which seems to be explored throughout the production. It might even refer to the dichotomy between the real world and the fantasy worlds that the two troubled teenaged girls—the sticky girls of the title—sometimes create for themselves. And yet, despite the negation in that subtitle, I had trouble determining what I was supposed to find real and unreal. The play's conceit, that we are watching a taping of a trashy daytime talk show, is introduced immediately. The Stage Manager comes out to "warm up" the crowd, to explain the rules of TV (no one gets to go to the bathroom) and to do the obligatory cellphone reminder. The introduction of the other characters is straightforward, as we now move into a more traditional narrative structure. Backstage before the taping begins, we meet Harley (Robin Long) and Sergeant Manley (David Copeland).

Harley, a young entrepreneur, is a guest on the show, invited to introduce her delicious brand of salsa. Sergeant Manley, we soon learn, is going to be on the show too. He's Roxy's reluctant hired muscle, the man who's going to toughen up some wild girls. Roxy herself (Sharon O'Connell) is a sweet-and-sour mixture of Jenny Jones and Sally Jessy Raphael: a brash, powerful woman with a taste for the sensational. It's her show, and she's going to make sure she delivers a good episode.

Once taping begins, we meet the saucy, outrageous Geo (Jennifer Loryn) and soon realize that maybe Harley's not as sweet as her inspired salsa pitch would have us believe. The two girls are soon in Sergeant Manley's custody. He tries to make headway with them so they can set themselves on a better path, but, as in real life, things are always more complicated than they seem.

Loryn's high energy as Geo and Long's complex yet delicate portrayal of Harley carry the show. Both young women had a strong understanding of their characters and gave spirited performances. It helped that playwright Linda Evans gave Harley such a splendid, quirky way of talking, while Geo had colorful speeches backed up with serious attitude.

Copeland was nicely believable as a good cop just trying to help some struggling kids. He seemed quite comfortable onstage and provided a solid foundation for his co-stars to play against. O'Connell's Roxy was crisp and menacing, but I wondered if she could have been bigger and bolder. Occasionally, she seemed overshadowed by the two girls.

The playwright's idea for a TV show scenario was fun and creative, and she's clearly a masterful writer. Unfortunately, I was often confused by the setting and by the action: I couldn't tell whether I was watching a scene that was "on-air" and directed to the TV audience or a scene taking place off-camera. A lighting cue or a sound effect, or even an illuminated "on-air" sign, would have helped. Also, a better delineation of the physical space—Roxy's stage setup, the holding cell—would have highlighted the talented performances more by giving the actors something to play "into."

The production was obviously limited by the venue—the Jewel Box Theater has a tiny playing area, and the placement of the audience was not ideal. The show might also have benefited from more sophisticated technical capabilities than were permitted in this space. While there were some "sticky" problems with structure and staging, these things could be smoothed out with further development. Overall, Sticky Girls has the potential to be an entertaining, successful show.

Love Made to Order

It's hard, in a relationship, to resist making over another person, to keep from molding him or her into who you want that person to be. When this happens—when one party is so controlling of the other—many relationships fail. Such is the basic premise of Michael Roderick's Props, one of the shows featured in the 2006 Midtown International Theater Festival. It's an interesting idea that's explored literally in this play, and it works well until the end, when it becomes almost too literal to mesh with the rest of the story. The story belongs to Andrew (Ben Sumrall), a man beleaguered by too many beautiful women. His ex-girlfriend Susan (Jennifer Boehm) is a sultry temptress who demands that he return to her. His lost love is the radiant Denise (Leigh Poulos), who realizes that maybe she hasn't gotten over Andrew as easily as she'd thought. Even his cheerful best friend, Melissa (Amy Lerner), is adorable. As if his life isn't complicated enough, Andrew is developing a serious attraction to Kerri (Corey Ann Haydu). She is lovely and adoring and by all means perfect for Andrew, which makes sense because he made her himself. Kerri is a life-sized puppet that Andrew, a prop designer, has meticulously built.

Most of the play is spent deconstructing Andrew's relationships with Susan and Denise, as well as determining whether Kerri is becoming a real girl or if Andrew is just going insane. The plot is simple and not at all sophisticated in terms of its discussions of love and relationships. Still, it's easy to watch: the young actresses are all pretty and vibrant, and Andrew's earnestness is endearing. Even the recycled device of "mannequin comes to life" is pleasant and engaging, as she's often animated in dream sequences scored with emotional, evocative music.

It's not until the final few minutes, when we get the big "reveal," that the storyline ceases to be so appealing. What seemed to be intended as a surprise ending (which I won't reveal) ended up feeling illogical and improbable in its details. I was happily suspending my disbelief for the story of Andrew and his puppet, but the plot twist made claims I could not reconcile with other information I'd been given and took me completely out of the story.

While the ending was disappointing, Props does have a lot of great things in its corner. Director Moira K. Costigan used the awkward space of the tiny Jewel Box Theater quite effectively. She kept props and scenery to a bare minimum and created staging that was straightforward and uncluttered. Also, William Demaniow's original music, mentioned earlier, did a great deal to influence and enhance the piece's mood. Finally, the program credits a makeup designer—Leetal Platt—who I believe had a strong hand in making sure that all of the ladies truly did glow.

The Midtown International Theater Festival is an excellent place for small companies and new works to gain exposure and experience, and the people behind Props are smart for taking full advantage of this opportunity. The show is well staged with a likable cast; the script contained some inspired writing and some strong dialogue. The production showed a lot of hard work by a lot of people, and it deserves to be recognized.

The Show Must Go On

It is often said that they don't make them like they used to, which implies that today's creative forces favor unoriginal productions that appeal to an impatient audience expecting formula work and phoned-in performances. But with the Peccadillo Theater Company's revival of the 1937 slapstick comedy Room Service, it can safely be said that they have made this one like they used to: just right. During the Depression, John Murray and Allen Boretz wrote this look at the backstage world of theater (it was turned into one of the lesser-known Marx Brothers movies), but the play's often dated references only serve to make it a charming period piece in Dan Wackerman's production at the Bank Street Theater. The action takes place entirely in the Midtown hotel room of theatrical producer Gordon Miller (David Edwards). Miller, a master of manipulation, is struggling to get a play, Godspeed, off the ground. Though the play has no backer yet—and therefore no money—Miller has nonetheless managed to scam the hotel into providing room and board, and rehearsal space, for himself, his crew, and a cast of 19 (though never seen) actors.

But with one week to go before opening night, the creditors have come knocking. At the same time, naïve playwright Leo Davis (the cherubic Scott Evans) arrives in the big city from upstate, with little more than a dollar and a dream, to meet his cast and crew and see the play performed. All this leaves Miller and director Harry Binion (Fred Berman) to attempt one bumbling scheme after another.

Abetting these artists are producer's assistant Faker Englund (Robert O'Gorman); frantic hotelier Joseph Gribble (Dale Carman), who also happens to have the poor fortune of being Miller's brother-in-law; and leading actress Christine Marlowe (Kim Rachelle Harris), Miller's girlfriend. In fact, all the characters end up as instrumental to one scheme or another, including a Russian hotel waiter named Smirnoff (Louis Michael Sacco), who finds himself onstage; Miller's secretary, Hilda Maney (Blythe Gruda), who finds love with playwright Davis; and hotel supervisor Gregory Wagner (Sterling Coyne).

In traditional fashion, all the pieces fall into place in the second act for a happy ending. But the beauty and grace of Wackerman's production is not so much what the play is about but how it goes about it. Wackerman could very easily have let the play's antics go wild in the small space of the Bank Street stage, but he modulates such mad-cappery perfectly. There is never too much action occurring onstage at any given time, and the action is so well choreographed that you always know precisely where to focus your attention.

And the prowess of Wackerman's players is not to be underestimated. Edwards is perfect in the lead role of the indefatigable producer who always has yet another trick up his sleeve. It is a witty performance delivered with perfect timing. Miller may seem cavalier at times (how can a producer fool an entire cast and crew into thinking there is money when a show has none?), but he genuinely wants the show to go on more than anyone else. To him, the play really is the thing.

Evans is absolutely perfect as the cornpone playwright with a heart of gold, and he becomes the heart and soul of the play. He is also excellent at physical comedy. At the end of each act, he feigns illness. In one of the evening's silliest, yet funniest, scenes, he even fakes his character's death, enduring histrionics that would impress a gymnast.

Of course, none of that would work without the rest of the cast reacting well around him. Theirs is an example of perfect synergy—they come together so perfectly that the show moves along fluidly, with nary a lull in the action or a hole in Wackerman's deft pacing.

Carman is hilarious as the high-strung Gribble, and Coyne is perfect as the explosive Wagner. Both supporting ladies, Gruda and Harris, are wonderful foils as well. Other actors, including Jerry Coyle, Louis Michael Glass, and Dennis Wit, stand out, with several playing multiple small roles in the small ensemble. All the performers mesh extremely well, yet it is Berman who ends up stealing the show with his mile-a-minute Noo Yawk talk.

Room Service proves that a play doesn't have to be hip and new to be entertaining. All a performance needs is the right ingredients, served fresh.

Stage Magic

The Father in Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author innocently asks a theater director, "Isn't it your job to give life onstage to creatures of fantasy?" This question gets at the central theme of Rinne Groff's dramatic comedy Orange Lemon Egg Canary, an entertaining new play about theatrical illusion. Canary is about a small-time magician named Great (Steve Cuiffo) whose illusions mystify audiences and seduce women. The story begins with Great waxing philosophical about the nature of illusion. He suggests that the creation of illusions is merely the fulfillment of the audience's desires. Since he is more of a philanderer than a philosopher, this maxim quickly becomes apparent in the next scene. Here, Great attempts to get rid of his most recent conquest, the attractive young Trilby (Aubrey Dollar), for whom the staged illusion of Great's greatness as a magician is presumably far more than Great, the man, can offer.

Trilby quickly becomes interested in Great's profession. And though Great is interested in her, like any great magician, he never gives away his tricks. Unless the trick he is turning happens to be on his ex-assistant and former lover, Egypt (Laura Kai Chen). The lovely former aide is angry at Great over a fizzled affair and is scarred, both physically and psychologically, from a trick gone awry called the "Hypnotic Balance," which involves balancing the hypnotized assistant on the end of a sword.

Simultaneously, another story develops through separate scenes as another magician's assistant, Henrietta (Emily Swallow), describes the seduction and allure of magic and life on the stage. Slowly, Henrietta reveals that she is more than just any assistant, and her story speaks directly to Trilby and Great.

The narrative has many twists and turns. Some are surprising, others not as much. The best bits come when Great reflects on what makes an illusion. Michael Sexton's direction is at its strongest in a flashback where Great and Egypt hilariously demonstrate how "magic" is made of this illusion—and how illusion is truly in the eyes of the beholder. They do this by tricking a volunteer from the audience, but let the audience in on the trick. The volunteer's expression during this stunt is priceless: she is amazed at what the audience sees as a simple trick, a flick of the wrist.

A major problem, however, comes at the end. Multiple plot lines are presented but are brought together too quickly at the conclusion, when everything is neatly tied up too fast. And, though I don't want to give away too much, the ending depends on a certain degree of serious drama (even after all the comedy) that is undercut by the absurdity and awkward humor of the situation.

Cuiffo as Great is, well, great, at once endearing and slimy. A huckster with a tender spot, he draws the audience into his snares as he does with the women in the play, using his quick smile, flash of the hand, and charmingly drunken manner. Before the play begins, he ambles out into the audience, doing cheap magic tricks and placing his hand ever so innocently on the occasional lady's knee.

Dollar is convincing as the ingénue Trilby, though she is not so successful as the more devious character she is supposed to be later. As Henrietta, Swallow is playful and audacious. Chen, as Egypt, plays the former lover with the utmost contempt, but she seems a little awkward in some of the more tender moments.

Andromache Chalfant's set is simple and utilitarian. The stage is decorated with merely a trunk, a small table, and a chair, but on both sides chairs are strewn about in disarray so that the setting looks like a theater that was destroyed and demolished some time ago. Representing the bygone venue where Great's grandfather (a magician as well) once played, this design produces an appropriately haunting aura.

Ultimately, the case made by the play is that illusion is a process that requires not only the creator of fantasy but also the intended audience, which participates fully in that creation by wanting to see the chimera played out. If the further illusions that Rinne Groff continues to fashion are anything like Orange Lemon Egg Canary, she should have no trouble finding willing partners in creating them.

Silent Richard

The program bio for actor Henry Holden, the mobility-impaired actor who plays the title role in Nicu's Spoon's new production of Shakespeare's Richard III, declares that Holden "lives by his motto: attitudes are the real disability." Disabled actors have long proved that motto true, overcoming with their strong, professional acting the prejudices of able-bodied spectators. For example, Sarah Bernhardt did not let the amputation of her right leg end her career. After her recuperation, she played Hamlet from a chair and, in the film Jeanne Doree, gifted her legendary talents to the silver screen. That film was a silent, but in her other late performances, as far as I know, Bernhardt memorized her lines and declaimed them herself.

I wish I could say the same of Henry Holden. Despite being credited as Richard, he speaks very little of the play's dialogue—the soliloquies, a few asides, and a few one-liners. The rest of the role is spoken by Andrew Hutcheson, who stands in a corner of the playing space reading from a script on a music stand.

Holden's acting style is completely different from Hutcheson's. Holden's Richard, when he speaks, is a grinning, sneering, truly captivating jester of misrule. Hutcheson's a prim, dispassionate shadow of Kenneth Branagh's declamatory style. This makes Richard look schizophrenic, and the constant shifting between actors violently jerks the listener out of the play's world each time it happens, like an alarm clock repeatedly interrupting a fascinating dream.

Worse, Holden does not even attempt to lip-sync to Hutcheson's recital. While Hutcheson talks, Holden keeps his mouth still in a half-open puppet-like expression. Because no other role is played this way, it makes Richard look like a robot or a puppet.

Is this a deliberate, radical staging concept? Not really. "Co-player" Hutcheson is a late addition to the cast: his bio appears in a program insert, not the program itself. When I asked a company member why Holden and Hutcheson share the role, she said that "circumstances led us to this point, and we're very happy with what we have now."

This production has a lot going for it. The play is directed competently and creatively by Heidi Lauren Duke, who clarifies the action by adding silent scenes that show the murders of most of Richard's victims. The supporting cast is strong, with standouts including Amber Allison's flexibly played multiple roles; Wynne Anders's vehement Queen Margaret; Rebecca Challis's haughty, vulnerable Queen Elizabeth; and Jason Loughlin's terrified Clarence and confident Richmond. Timothy McDonough, an actor to watch out for, makes an unusually arresting presence out of the minor thug Catesby.

Victoria Roxo's set starkly and clearly introduces Richard's uncomfortable, unstable obstacle course of a world. A crumbling granite arch balances precariously on a pair of splintered, haphazardly arranged wooden stilts. The floor is a tricky puzzle of mismatched gray stones bisected by a growing tree of dangerous cracks.

However, the vacuum at the center created by a mostly silent, mostly blank-faced Richard makes the whole look unprofessional and dehumanizes the character more than Shakespeare ever did. This is not, I assume, the intention of a company that aims to "give voice" to unheard groups, including the disabled.

offoffonline's Best of Season Memories: 2005-2006

Our staff writers take a look at the performances and experiences that have made this season of Off-Off Broadway theater memorable. Please click on the show titles to look back at the production's archived review.

Mitch Montgomery: My most memorable experience Off-Off-Broadway this year occurred the week that I saw "The Snow Hen" at the Charlie Pineapple Theater. It was the week of the blizzard, just after Valentine's Day, when I first risked the trip out to Brooklyn. I can distinctly remember walking down the completely vacant streets with snow piled up beside me. It actually took two attempts for me to see the show—we critics are fallible, it turns out—because the first time I misread the curtain time in the press rep's e-mail.

The Snow Hen

The second trip out to Williamsburg was two days later, and the snow had melted. Still, the idea of frost seemed to cling to the streets and the potential energy in the air. After wandering through this arresting environment, I stepped into the theater at around 7:40. As 8 p.m. approached, I became aware that no one else had shown up. I was alone, isolated in this theater. Finally, the gentleman working the box office came over to me at five till 8 and asked what I wanted to do. Would it make me uncomfortable if no one else was in the audience? Would I like to make one more trip out to the Charlie Pineapple? I told him that I would love to see this show alone, and I meant it. I was actually disappointed when four other people showed up. The Snow Hen was the best thing I saw all season, and the actual process of seeing it put me in the perfect mood to absorb its haunting account of loneliness at the end of the world.

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Les Hunter: The two playwrights whom I was most impressed with this year Off-Off Broadway are Rinne Groff and Mat Smart. Groff's piece, "What Then," at the Ohio Theater was innovative, funny, and disturbing all at once. It seamlessly blended the genres of science fiction and domestic comedy to create a glimpse of a dystopian future whose social decay is mirrored by the breakdown of family structure. These forces work to create something that feels familiar but new.

What Then

Though I did not review it for offoffonline, I was lucky enough to see Smart's piece at the Tank, "Music for a High Ceiling," a very short snippet of a play that is achingly eloquent. The piece took the form of a professorial lecture that used evocative music and pitch-perfect characterization.

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William Cordeiro: Looking back over the year, I find my taste tends toward revivals of classics that take a dark turn and challenging, new experimental shows. Basically, I like my theater smart and grim. How appropriate, then, that two of my favorite playwrights this year were Mat Smart and David Grimm.

Smart's "Music for a High Ceiling," a one-act in an impressive night of new playwriting titled "Couchworks," and his full-length, "The Debate Plays," both displayed a deft humor that demonstrated his sure sense of the hip, downtown zeitgeist. But my favorite scene by Smart may have been one he audaciously wrote without dialogue, in which the actors lip-sync a pop song while performing a slow-motion Old West shootout.

If Smart proved that less is often more, Grimm's sex farce extravaganza, "Measure for Pleasure," proved that more can be more too. Chock-full of bawdy puns and pungent wit, it exulted in its sheer high camp (with a showstopping performance by actor Euan Morton playing dual roles). Kiran Rikhye's verse play, "Stage Kiss," mined a similar vein of camp that likewise played wittily with the conventions of past theatrical traditions. Both plays managed to find some meaningfully new things to say about that age-old topic, love.

Stage Kiss

My favorite revival this year was "The Revenger's Tragedy" by the wonderful Red Bull Theater company. With great performances from the whole cast, fabulous costumes, and bloodcurdling guts and gore, director Jesse Berger did a superb job bringing this grizzly Jacobean masterpiece back to life—and death.

The hardest-working man Off-Off-Broadway, though, has to be theater director Michael Horn of the Michael Chekhov Theater Company, who is attempting to produce all 45 of Sam Shepard's plays at the new Big Little Theater in the span of one year. All of the plays I've seen in the Sam Shepard Festival have minimal but high-quality production values—a testament to Horn's tireless efforts.

My favorite choreography this year was by Lynn Brown and Lynn Marie Ruse in the last act of their dance theater work "Clever Hans." A deliberately awkward dance used rocks, pebbles, and garbage cans to produce an effect that was painful, beautiful, and funny all at once.

As for design elements, the National Theater of the United States of America's maximal set of three different stages, partially constructed during the performance of "ABSN: RJAB," challenged its audiences to consider how theater itself was constructed.

Peter Ksander's set design for the spectacular "The Sewers"—still playing at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater—blew me away: an entire fallout shelter room hovers a few feet off the ground. Lighting designer Miranda K. Hardy also should be give credit too, since every nook and cranny of Ksander's set is illuminated with eerie secrets. "The Sewers," in fact, is probably both the grimmest and smartest play this year.

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Sarah Bolson: This season, I was once again reminded how truly diverse Off-Off Broadway is. The shows I reviewed—a small revival of the Pulitzer-Prize-winning "Proof," an irreverent and raunchy version of "A Christmas Carol," and a sketch comedy about the perils of dating in New York, to name a few—could not have been more different. But each of these productions, as well as the other ones that I saw, captured what makes the Off-Off Broadway experience enriching year after year. You get to bear witness as a group of people who are utterly devoted to the theater—why else work Off-Off Broadway?—create something they are passionate about. As any Off-Off Broadway theatergoer or reviewer can attest, this often comes with mixed results at best. But no matter how many misguided productions I sit through, I still get excited by the honesty and rawness of the work being performed by this community.

Proof

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Amy Krivohlavek: Produced by Visible Theater, Sam Forman's "Krankenhaus Blues" is a surrealist riff on a most unlikely mix: disability, genocide, and show business. Three brilliant actors— Christine Bruno, Bill Green, and especially Joe Sims— offered thrillingly raw and human performances that have stuck with me ever since, and Donna Mitchell's minimalist staging smartly kept our attention focused on them. According to Visible Theater's founder and artistic director, Krista Smith, the show will get a new life this fall when it is staged Oct. 5-Nov. 5 at the Abingdon Theater Arts Complex. So if you missed it last year, don't miss it this time around.

Megan Lawrence gave a thrilling performance of a much different ilk in last fall's "Monica! The Musical," where she showed off impeccable comic timing as the intelligent (and very pissed off) Hillary

Clinton. She brought an exciting edge to this rather lightweight show (an entry in the 2005 New York Musical Theater Festival), and after this strong beginning, she went on to play Gladys in the Broadway revival of "The Pajama Game," a tart, spunky performance that earned her a much-deserved Tony Award nomination.

Monica The Musical

The band GrooveLily could also be defined as spunky, and its members brought their holiday-themed musical "Striking 12" to New York last December. The three musician/actors, Valerie Vigoda (electric violin), Glen Lewin (drums), and Brendan Milburn (keyboards), offered their own unique brand of storytelling, giving Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl" a modern spin with a fresh, contemporary sound in a near-magical staging by Ted Sperling. And there's good news: this captivating show will likely return this holiday season (venue to be announced).

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Doug Strassler: One of the greatest pleasures of the season was the production of "To Nineveh" by Working Man's Clothes, a really thoughtful parable. I'm not the biggest fan of religious allegory, but they managed to pull off that show with such aplomb that it had me thinking for days afterward, without realizing while watching it how much food for thought there really was. I've found that's customary for this production company.

To Nineveh

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Sean Michael O'Donnell: The most intriguing part of the 2005-2006 season was the resurgence and reinvention of Ibsen. Les Freres Corbusier brought Elizabeth Meriwether's divine Ibsen spoof "Heddatron" to the HERE Arts Center. A brilliant and campy send-up of "Hedda Gabler," it featured a fantastic Carolyn Baeumler along with a cast of robots. Equal parts wry observation, social commentary, and literary criticism, "Heddatron" was a delirious adventure and the most original show of the past season.

Heddatron

Wakka Wakka Productions also took on Ibsen with the unique and imaginative "The Death of Little Ibsen," a fascinating and hilarious deconstruction of the famed Norwegian playwright's life. "Little Ibsen" and its cast of puppets took the audience on an insightful journey into the bizarre world of Ibsen's mind. It also showcased the strengths of an exceptionally talented and dedicated theater group. Both shows were brilliant in their conception and fearless in their execution.

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Kimberly Patterson: One memorable show that I had the pleasure of reviewing was Lake Simons and John Dyer’s interpretation of "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland" at HERE. Their production contained music and puppets, and used both in creative ways. Often, puppeteers manipulated the actress portraying Alice as if she were yet another (nonhuman) prop. They certainly made me think about how performers can use objects and the space around them.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

I also enjoyed several different productions of Shakespearean drama this season: Reduxion Theater Company’s "Hamlet" and The American Globe Theater’s "The Merchant of Venice". These two companies put on straightforward versions of these plays, instead of modernizing them or offering any sort of experimental staging. What both productions did very well was internalize the Elizabethan language so that the dialogue was very clear and the characters’ actions well-motivated and plausible. Even though the shows appeared traditional, they still felt fresh and contemporary.

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Lauren Snyder: As a theater critic, one tends to fall into that terrible trap of "expectations." When it comes to Off-Off Broadway, however, this can actually be a good thing. One expects the budget to be low, the sets and costumes to be minimal, and the Shakespearean adaptations to be straightforward - so when any of these elements are particularly strong, the reviewer is pleasantly surprised.

Dead City

This year, two very different shows made a lasting impression by challenging my ideas of what a downtown show looks like, and what a non-Equity Shakespeare production sounds like. Sheila Callaghan's "Dead City" used a combination of moving walls and soft-focus video projections to produce a New York City of startling power and darkness, which complemented the show's lyrical script and intense performances. William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" was transformed by alcohol and a group of bawdy twenty-somethings into "Twelfth Night: The Drinking Game", a hilarious exercise in stimulating the brain cells that weren't being killed off by liquor. Both shows managed to defy my expectations in unique ways, and both renewed my faith in the creativity and passion that exists Off-Off Broadway.

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Antoinette Nwandu: My season was highlighted by something old and something new as two artists at opposite ends of their careers made impressions that will not soon be forgotten. We'll start with the new: In the play "The Mistakes Madeline Made", the promising young playwright, Elizabeth Meriwether, cooked up a love story set in a small basement office that existed solely to run the day-to-day functions of an extremely wealthy couple. Not only was the hyper-banality of the office setting pitch-perfect (the dramatic struggle involved individually wrapped handi-wipes), but the oddball attraction between the main character, an apathetic girl mourning the loss of her brother, and her quirky (to put it mildly) officemate was refreshing and genuine.

The Mistakes Madeline Made

The second great--seeing La MaMa's recent production of "King Lear"--really made me appreciate the years of training that go into the craft of acting. In 1956 Alvin Epstein played the fool to Orson Welles' Lear, and though the production was critically a disaster (by opening night Welles had sprained both ankles and had to reblock the entire show with Lear in a wheelchair), Epstein went on to play Lucky in the premier of Waiting for Godot. And now, exactly forty years later, Epstein, at 81, played Lear as a petulant and pugnacious old fool. His Lear was the result of a lifetime on the stage and a wonderful tribute to one of Shakespeare's most empathetic characters.

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Jill Jichetti: Most Creative Use of Pre-Packaged Snack Foods

Belly

Off the Leesh’s production of Julie Tortorici’s "Belly" featured Tortorici as Frannie, an obsessive-compulsive housewife who, despite her obvious quirks, is not much different from the rest of us. Though fearful of leaving the safety of her own home, Frannie welcomed the audience into her living room and into her confidence. Effectively utilizing audience interaction is no easy feat, even in a small theater, but Tortorici’s warmth was contagious. Once she enlisted the help of another Hostess—cupcakes for everyone!—it seemed that none in the house could refuse her charm. With assistance from director Alicia Arinella, Frannie had us all eating out the palm of her hand—literally and figuratively.

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Marlon Hurt : As funny as it might sound, the most significant moment of my recent time as a critic was also my first true—albeit mildly—negative experience. I had the opportunity to review Michael Smith’s "Trouble" at Theater for the New City this past January. The prospect had me more excited than usual because of Smith’s near iconic stature in the Off-Off-Broadway community; his excellent reviewing for The Village Voice in the 1950’s and ‘60’s single-handedly put Off-Off-Broadway on the cultural map at a time when no other critics would so much as sniff in the direction of such landmark OOB venues as LaMama or Caffe Cino.

"Trouble" is a kind of roman a clef: the adventures of Smith’s protagonist, Tess Byerson, are a thinly veiled retelling of the exploits of Bess Myerson, a Bronx native and the first Jewish Miss America (1945). Smith, however, eschews her glory years in favor of her later, more tabloid-friendly escapades, when she was embroiled in corruption and shoplifting charges, even as she hobnobbed with New York’s artistic and political nobility.

The atmosphere in the theater was positively charged with history. Playwrights, actors, and directors from OOB’s infancy were in attendance, as was Smith himself, whom I had the great pleasure of meeting.

My review was less positively charged. I didn’t find the evening offensively sub par, but neither was it gripping. The play was, in short, forgettably mediocre, and I went to work on my review with the intention of sliding the knife in as gently as possible.

One minor point I made, however, read less gently than I intended, or so Smith informed me in an email exchange after the review was published. His view was not without merit, though I had support for my opinion in the major theme of the play itself. What struck me, however, was that we were having a discussion at all. OOB has always counted as one of its supreme virtues the shared community of its participants. There may be legends but there are no elites. Smith took issue with one of my criticisms and shared it with me, and though I didn’t necessarily agree with his objection, I was moved by the idea that the father of OOB criticism—on whom my job is essentially modeled—didn’t think twice about corresponding with a complete unknown.

Outside of Off-Off-Broadway, how many other fields can boast that their luminaries, no matter how storied, are never less than their peers?

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Adrienne Cea : This season I was most impressed with the work of Manhattan Children's Theatre; a downtown based company whose mission is to provide affordable and high quality performances for children and their families. With their 2005-2006 season featuring, "Sideways Stories At Wayside School", "Brave Irene", "Snow Maiden", "The Last Of The Dragons", and "Jack and The Beanstalk", Artistic director, Bruce Merrill, and Executive Director, Laura Stevens, consistently met their objective. Their clever, unique and intelligent shows proved that when children's theatre is done right it can appeal to more than just children.

Sideways Stories At Wayside School

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Deidre McFadyen: Two serious dramas about family and mental illness left the most lasting impression on me over the past year of reviewing Off-Off Broadway theater.

Playwright Barbara Hammond mined her own parents’ history to create "Norman and Beatrice: A Marriage in Two Acts", which was mounted by Synapse Productions at the Connelly Theater in the East Village in April. In its compelling first act, this modest play shows a wife gamely trying to maintain a veneer of normalcy while managing the erratic behavior of her husband, who suffers from dementia. The New Group’s "Jayson with a Y", staged at the Lion Theater on Theater Row in June, captures the anguish of two sisters as they struggle to deal with their autistic nephew following his mother’s sudden death.

Norman and Beatrice: A Marriage in Two Acts

Giving both plays such deep resonance was their Pointillist depiction of these complex mental disorders and compelling acting by Graeme Malcolm as the elderly Norman and Miles Purinton as 13-year-old Jayson.

Mouse Trap

The magical world of Disney seems a little less magical when you discover that those delightful little cartoons were written by bitter, chain-smoking alcoholics who hated their boss and their miserable jobs. In 1952, employees of the Walt Disney Studios had many reasons to drink their sorrows away while contemplating Mickey's next adventure. The writers were overworked, underpaid, unappreciated, and unable to unionize because this was the McCarthy era, when worker solidarity seemed uncomfortably close to a communist value. In Justin Sherin's riveting social drama, Mickey Mouse Is Dead, playing at 59E59 before moving on to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, we meet two disgruntled Disney writers, Finch (James Lloyd Reynolds) and Harris (Anthony Manna), members of a guild that is trying to unionize. As the nationwide communist hunt gains momentum, the guild grows increasingly worried that Walt will expose unhappy employees as communists to prevent a strike. Harris is especially worried when Walt dismisses one of his scripts, remarking that it is similar to one written by a former strike leader named Elroy. Harris whispers the name as if the very sound could have the FBI kicking down the door.

A deeply paranoid atmosphere is immediately established from the play's opening. We are introduced to the characters as they pace across a small, gray office, their lives unraveling before they can have their morning coffee.

Reynolds and Manna are excellent as Finch and Harris. They converse like two wartime buddies, looking battle-scarred and weary but most of all sad that their lives have come to this. They have endured many hardships in their years at Disney, including the soul-crushing moment when Walt claimed their Oscars as his own. But it is the streetwise Harris who knows the bottom line: "When it's down to you and me, just how sorry are you that you've got a checkbook?"

Though Walt plays a prominent role, the play is not an exposé of his life. The script alludes to real events, such as Walt testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee and his intimidation of union activists in the early 1940's, but the story centers on his writers' perspectives. Not only did a strike once cripple his studio but his beloved Mickey Mouse has an image to maintain. How far will he go to protect this image and his business? the play asks.

The union doesn't know, and it is this unknowing that prompts it to sacrifice one of its own: a cute little rich girl from the paint and ink department named Grace (Marnye Young). She must ask Walt if he thinks there are communists working in his studio. If he says no, the union is safe. If he suggests she look toward the union, it is not. In the worse-case scenario, he will see what Grace is trying to do and arrest her for being a communist. Finch, Grace's boyfriend, is adamantly against this, but if he stops her and the FBI descends on the union, it will point accusing fingers at him.

Harris, Finch, and Grace quickly find themselves caught in a web, with no way out but to sacrifice their own lives or someone else's. Their moral conflicts delve deeply into the dark side of human nature, focusing on a pivotal moment in people's lives when they find out what they are really made of.

We meet Finch, Harris, and Grace at a time when their kindness and goodwill toward others have succumbed to a raw survival instinct. Because everyone is behaving on such a self-serving level, they are not particularly likable, though they are sympathetic. Without a union they have no rights, but if they pursue forming a union, they run the risk of being labeled communists. Either way, it appears they will lose, and for that their anger and resentment is understandable.

Many films, plays, and books have examined the effects the McCarthy era had on the entertainment industry, but Mickey Mouse Is Dead feels different because of its setting. Disney is a place where good is supposed to triumph over evil, not submit to it. Sherin was wise to choose this studio for his setting, because it shows how dangerously out of control this witch hunt became. Many innocent people were unjustly blacklisted and persecuted for being communists, but you do not truly see how sweeping the FBI's net was until you realize that no one was safe—not even Mickey Mouse.

In Memoriam

As any New Yorker knows, the divisions run deep in the fight surrounding the monument to the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The victims' relatives, developers, politicians, and interest groups have clashed over their different visions for a memorial to those who lost their lives at the World Trade Center. Forgoing this battle, local artist Jonathan Zalben has devised his own eloquent monument to 9/11. His, however, is constructed entirely of sound and light. Zalben's homage, WTC, consists of an art instillation of interactive video, which is motion controlled, and a multimedia performance. The performance segment is actually made up of three separate short pieces—Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, and WTC—that tie three separate attacks on Americans into a trilogy. The first two segments serve to remind us of the prolonged global conflicts that the attacks brought, as does the third, ominously.

The first piece responds to the sinking of the Lusitania, the British passenger ship traveling between New York City and England that was torpedoed by a German U-boat during World War I. Nearly 200 Americans were killed, and the sinking is often viewed as the catalyst for America's entry into the war. Zalben, standing in front of a video projection, plays a violin, accompanied by cello and flute, as a string of repeated images are projected onto the screen.

When the music begins, the still images appear. They are photographs of the boat and of the voyage. Each image appears slowly; colorful shapes merge until they become whole, revealing a snapshot from the past where moments before there was digital chaos. Each image blips on and off the screen like a poorly received TV signal. They materialize for a brief moment of lucidity and then dissolve again into flickers, with the elements of abstract shapes and color again taking over. In a way, the images remind us of remembrance itself and the unreliable way in which a memory comes and goes.

As the flutist walks around the room, standing at times behind the audience, she plays in time with the cello and the violin, building to a slow crescendo. As the three come together, the swell creates a cathartic moment of great beauty, the music abating as the images, ever fleeting and always changing, allude to the ephemeral quality of even our greatest marvels of engineering and ingenuity.

The second piece, Pearl Harbor, reflects on that national tragedy and its aftermath. In this piece the projection is footage from World War II. The most poignant of these clips shows a young man, an American soldier, as he lies down in what appears to be the bottom of a boat. Brooding, he stares intently into the camera, straight through the decades that separate him from us. But like the images from the first piece, his visage quickly disintegrates into an abstract, digital blur.

These first two segments offer the best of Zalben's multimedia art. They build quickly, then fade away. They are ephemeral and haunting, and they evoke the past without over-sentimentalizing it. They achieve the opposite effect of what visual media usually do with the past; instead of making it seem closer to us, they make it seem further away.

The last piece, WTC itself, is different from the previous two. The still images of the wreckage of the Trade Center appear in vibrant colors, with sharp contrasts between light and dark. They appear to be superimposed—in an effect that makes it look as if the photos of the WTC are ripped—over an American flag. The suggestion seems to be that despite the attacks on this country, America continues on. During the segment, Zalben's eloquent violin music is projected from tape. This piece, as well, features modern dance: a single dancer under a sheet slowly writhes across the floor, although the dance seems a bit disconnected from the rest of the segment.

It's clear that Zalben's project was immaculately, almost hyper-neurotically, planned out. He researched the archival images, wrote the music, and even created the software that so compellingly picks apart pictures from the past. Obviously, he has spent a good deal of time and effort on this worthy project.

Critic Walter Benjamin reminds us that "every image of the past that is not recognized by the present as one of its own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably." The brilliance of Zalben's WTC is that it not only reminds us not to forget but also reflects on the nature of memory itself in its absolute fragility.

Into the Strata

Inspired by the centennial of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Digging in the Dark is theater troupe Capacitor's attempt to represent the earth's shifting levels through the shifting of human bodies. Under the inspired direction of Jodi Lomask, this dazzling mix of dance, performance art, acrobatics, and clowning takes us on a high-flying trip to the center of the earth and back. On the bare stage of the cavernous American Theater of Actors, with a 25-foot projection screen as a backdrop, the first image is of a man suspended high in the air and diving downward, forcefully swimming as he plunges violently into the earth. The "Terra Itinerary" provided in the program carefully describes a journey through 13 scenes/layers of earth, including the crust, lithosphere, mantle, and core.

Lomask's choreography and design spring believably from a text crammed with geological terms. Bending and folding, colliding and diverging, her performers embody the text and transform it into something wondrous, something human. Although Capacitor has undertaken metaphysical projects like this before (including Within Outer Spaces, a comparison of heavenly bodies and human ones), this one is particularly notable in its fusing of the human with the natural. Within each of us, Digging in the Dark seems to suggest, there are multiple layers that shift both spectacularly and violently.

Six bold and dynamic young dancers (three men and three women) make up the versatile ensemble. Simulating the continental crust, they come to the stage one by one and begin to move together like cogs in a machine—the movement is at once frantic and fluid. As each performer steps out of the group with a haughty expression, the others quickly flip the offending dancer over and back into the mass, suggesting the fracturing of rock as it breaks apart.

Each layer of the earth gets detailed treatment, and the entire piece is underscored by a charged mix of dynamic music and stunning projections. The sounds range from natural (birds singing, thunder, and wind) to electronic (thumping bass and new age arrangements). The multicolored projections are especially effective when juxtaposed with the performers, who come together to mimic their kaleidoscopic shapes in the "Outer Core."

But the show's most breathtaking moment, the "Lithosphere/Magma Rising" section, does not rely heavily on special effects. As two slim sheets of crimson fabric unfurl from the ceiling to the floor, a young woman climbs them, wrapping herself within the cloth to create a complex pattern as she performs daring acrobatics midair. The "Inner Core/Orb" is also a highlight, as the six dancers crawl into a hollow orb suspended from the ceiling. The sphere spins as they move within, through, and around it, creating a captivating blend of object and bodies.

Two clown-like characters (in institutional-looking jackets bound by multiple belts) provide humorous entertainment in short scenes between the dance sections. The man juggles admirably while the woman, wearing an LED headpiece with huge megaphone-shaped cups extending from her ears, pokes fun at him while listening attentively to the ground. (The earpieces change colors based on the angle of her head, an impressive prop.)

While a few of Lomask's inventions feel a bit too lengthy at times, it's hard to complain when a production brims with such energetic staging and fierce, committed performances. Capacitor's Digging in the Dark is a visual treat as well as a fascinating study in aligning the movement of bodies with the movement of natural forces. Resonating from an earthquake that took place 100 years ago, this is a powerful aftershock.

21st-Century Chekhov

Anton Chekhov writes with such urgent simplicity that his plays have proved to be timeless. Their themes are as relevant today as they were a hundred years ago, and his characters speak a truth that is no less pertinent now. It is therefore no surprise that attempts to update and modernize his writings are frequent. The results vary, however, too often sacrificing character and story for mediocre reinvention. Such is not the case with Daniel Reitz's new play, Three Sisters, a fresh look at an established classic that is anything but mediocre. Inspired by the great original, Reitz has written an intriguing and witty update that effortlessly brings Olga, Masha, Irina, and Chekhov himself firmly into the 21st century.

No longer left to toil in the outer provinces of Russia and long for their beloved Moscow, the sisters have been exiled to the outer boroughs of Manhattan, where they long for their beloved Upper West Side duplex. Olga, Masha, and Irina have gathered to celebrate Irina's birthday in an East Village bar, where they drink wine and commiserate about their lives.

Olga teaches Italian and lives quietly, but she is so afraid of life she can't even place a personal ad online. Masha lives with a man she doesn't love but won't leave because they have a great apartment in Brooklyn's Dumbo neighborhood. She's also having an affair with a married man from her yoga class. Irina, an "actress" working three jobs to make ends meet, is slowly becoming a stranger in her own life. Like their turn-of-the-century counterparts, the sisters are unhappy yet helpless to do anything about it.

Reitz cleverly and seamlessly weaves Chekhov's story into his modern tale. The sisters bond over the loss of their Upper West Side home to their brother's horrible wife Natasha, much the same way they do when Natasha takes over their Russian home in the original. Allusions are made to Olga's bouts with melancholia. Irina is lost, swallowed up by work but never fulfilled. Masha stays with a man she doesn't love (Kulygin) yet longs for a mysterious stranger (Vershinnin). The sisters talk of taking a trip, of moving back to Manhattan, of reclaiming their beloved home. But they just talk; nothing tangible will come of their plans.

Daniel Talbott's efficient direction keeps the play focused. He hits every beat, finding the quiet in humor and the truth in adversity. He wisely incorporates the audience, casting them as patrons in the bar. The play unfolds around the audience members as they eavesdrop on the sisters' celebration.

The show benefits greatly from the strong portrayals by its leading ladies. As Olga, Masha, and Irina, Addie Johnson, Samantha Soule, and Julie Kline are wonderful. Each actress perfectly captures her character's center, delivering a fully realized and rich performance that is fascinating, intelligent, and funny.

Johnson makes Olga a woman surprised by the sound of her own voice. Longing to break free from her predictable life but afraid to take action, Olga is the most interesting of the sisters under Johnson's skillful guidance. The actress leaves you with the impression that she has only just begun to tell Olga's story.

Samantha Soule's Masha is a manic whirlwind, a mass of contradictions ready to either explode or collapse. With her rich voice, Soule commands attention, cracking her tough exterior to subtly reveal the fragile little girl beneath. Julie Kline plays Irina as a witness to her life, allowing the action to happen around her. Kline has a wonderful, fresh energy that serves the naïve Irina well.

In the mysterious role of Nicco, Denis Butkus delivers a charming performance as the sisters' ideal, but unattainable, man. For Olga he is Kulygin, the true intellectual who will love her for her mind. For Masha he is Vershinnin, the mysterious visitor who will take her away from her unhappy life. For Irina he is Tuzenbach, the great hope who will take care of her.

Ultimately, these subtle allusions to the original play are what makes Reitz's piece so captivating. He incorporates Chekhov's classic story and his most recognizable heroines effortlessly, leaving the highlighting and exclamation points to lesser writers. Reitz embraces Chekhov's Three Sisters while simultaneously making it his own. And Olga, Masha, and Irina are all the better for it.

Sister Act

If Anton Chekhov were alive today, he would no doubt take great joy in the invention of e-mail. He and his favorite actress (and lover), Olga Knipper, could have then communicated from afar with the protection of user names and passwords. Unfortunately, in the early 1900's Chekhov had no choice but to send his secret letters in envelopes easily pried open by his nosy, overbearing sister, Maria. Playwright Jovanka Bach examines the strong yet unusual bond between these two siblings in her finely tuned, bittersweet family drama, Chekhov and Maria, playing at the Barrow Group Theater. At the same time, there is a story behind the story that is equally important. Before the production begins, director John Stark provides a personal introduction, explaining to the audience that his wife, the play's author, passed away in January after a long battle with cancer. He dedicates this production to her memory.

Stark's personal understanding of the story and devotion to its characters shows in his loving direction of his late wife's play. There is a strong emotional core to Chekhov and Maria, especially considering the heartbreaking similarities between Chekhov and Bach, two playwrights who struggled to complete their work while plagued by a terminal disease.

The play opens with Chekhov (Ron Bottitta) returning to his Yalta country home after a mysteriously long vacation. Maria (Gillian Brashear) greets him like an eager puppy, bombarding him with questions, praise, interrogations, tea, cake, dinner, and mail all at once. Her keen interest in the details of his life feels strangely obsessive for a sibling, but Chekhov seems unperturbed, indulging his sister with silly stories and idle chitchat. The only hint of conflict between them concerns his love for Olga, a Moscow actress starring in a production of The Three Sisters. The brother and sister are clearly very dependent on each another yet seem too close for siblings, with Maria acting like a wife and Chekhov behaving like her domineering husband.

Bottitta takes us inside Chekhov's head, familiarizing us with the mind of one of the world's most celebrated writers, a playwright who saw humor in misfortune and farce in tragedy. This Chekhov has always rejected public notions of himself as a gloomy old man constantly writing about death and hopelessness. Remembering his impoverished childhood, growing up poor in a musty basement with several siblings and a cruel father, he speaks as though he knows tragedy, and it is not the stuff his plays are made of.

His naturalistic interaction with Maria is fascinating to watch but at times hard to bear because of her suffocating presence in his life. Brashear gives a convincing, emotionally involved performance as Maria, finding the perfect balance between a lonely old maid pining for the road not traveled and a fiery, controlling sister determined to protect her brother from himself.

She has the difficult task of caring for Chekhov as a person while catering to his demanding needs as a writer. When The Three Sisters closes, another play must open, and Chekhov is driven to stay up all night composing the new piece by candlelight at the cost of his health. Concerned about his hacking cough, Maria hides the candles so he cannot work at night, effectively halting his work but improving his well-being. Her actions, well intentioned as they might be, are always in question because she makes them without considering her brother's wishes.

Maria manipulates circumstances to keep Chekhov confined to his Yalta home while critics and audience members toast his plays in Moscow. It drives him mad to know that the cast and crew are having fun at parties and discussing the greatness of his work while he sits at home reading about it in papers. He wants badly to be at these parties with his friends, admirers, and Olga.

Though the story takes its time to set up, it eventually builds to a rich and rewarding payoff when Maria goes too far and Chekhov says too much to her, hitting a raw nerve. With their final, climactic fight, many questions are answered regarding a lifetime of difficult circumstances that have brought them so close together. Surprisingly, given the odd nature of their relationship, the answers are convincing.

It is always a great feeling to leave a theater thinking of the play you have just seen and wondering which of its two leads gave a more compelling performance. With its intimate theater setting and subtle, believable acting, Chekhov and Maria will also leave you feeling as if you had just spent an evening sitting in the great playwright's living room.