A Science of Love

Sue Rees's white, Orwellian set sits in pristine stillness before The Dispute begins, an engineered paradise unspoiled by the folly of man. In Neil Bartlett's new adaptation of Pierre Marivaux's 1744 play, the National Asian-American Theater Company and director Jean Randich show us a connection between this artificial Eden and reality TV. This unique perspective propels an acrobatic production into the upper echelon of high-style reinterpretations of classic texts. The Dispute concerns the fruition of an 18-year experiment dealing with the mechanics of love and original sin. The Prince decides to woo Hermiane by settling a longstanding debate over which sex is the first to falter in love. Conveniently, the Prince's father had had the same dispute with his lover years before, so he constructed an isolated environment where four orphans, two men and two women, were each raised alone in separate areas. The Prince releases the childlike foundlings, now grown, into his manufactured Eden so that he and his lady can witness both the purest form of love and the original romantic betrayal, as the four interact with other humans for the first time.

Randich and her first-rate designers present Marivaux's text convincingly as a work of science fiction. The costumes, shrewdly crafted by Kirian Lanseth-Schmidt, suggest a carefully constructed, sterile environment. The notion of using the scientific method to explore the highly irrational behavior people display while in love is both humorous and profound. In keeping with this, Rees has devised a set that equally captures the energetic design of a playground jungle gym and the austere ambience of a hospital. Robert Murphy's sound design punctuates the institutional mood with some effectively shrill alarms and whistles.

It is the gymnastic staging and the streamlined concept that give the production its life. The characters are seen hanging up and down, climbing, and, most important, playing. Randich has invigorated the centuries-old text with a stylish simplicity that captures the characters' youthfulness as they play their way through their first love affairs. The voyeuristic nature of an experiment like this validates her assessment in the production notes that this is an "18th-century reality show." Stephen Pertrilli intensifies the vitality of Randich's staging with pleasant contrasts of colors and funky MTV lighting.

Thankfully, the cast matches the concept with intensity and vigor. As the four romantic leads, Jennifer Chang, Alexis Camins, Olivia Oguma, and Lanny Joon exhibit copious amounts of energy and commitment to their roles as innocents. As they discover things as obvious as their reflections and the anatomical differences between them, all exhibit a believable, and endearing, naïveté. Jennifer Ikeda and Alfredo Narciso, as Hermiane and the Prince, both display their characters' higher-class status well and even throw in a touch of humanity here and there. Ikeda's initial facial reaction to the Prince's project seems to be the one time anyone ever questions the morality of raising four children in isolation. Mia Katigbak and Mel Duane Gionson play the children's caretakers and provide a strong, logical center in the form of wry comic relief.

The only misstep occurs at the end, when Meslis and Dina (played well, albeit briefly, by Claro de los Reyes and Annabel La Londe) suddenly emerge and seemingly refute the entire premise—that betrayal in love is inevitable. These two new characters love each other unconditionally, but whether they were raised together or separately isn't fully explained. Soon after their arrival, a quick wrap-up from Hermiane and the Prince suggests that the whole experiment was inconclusive, and the lights go down. All of this is presented to the audience in what felt like less than three minutes. Such an abrupt conclusion may leave some audience members cold or asking, "Wait ... what happened?"

But the all too brief ending is forgivable in light of the other merits of this wonderfully conceived production. The Dispute speaks to the voyeur in all of us, cynically concluding that both men and women are destined to fail in love at times. Conversely, it presents an optimistic story about the pure, scientific origins of affection and truthfully captures the enthusiasm of newfound love.

The Glutton and the Narcissist

If Shakespeare imagined what future productions of Romeo and Juliet might look like, chances are he never envisioned Romeo as a garbage can. And yet, director and writer Neal Freeman and puppet designer Michael C. Malbrough have turned the Bard's best-known lover into a tubby puppet constructed from a stout trash bin. This Romeo doesn't make a peep during Fatboy Romeo, an awkwardly abridged pop-culture reinvention of his story; instead, he flips open his hinged jaw and eats everything in sight. Freeman's concept is solid—a mission to expose America's cultural gluttony through an archetypal tale. Here, Juliet is a trashy-looking narcissist, her cousin Tybalt is a "sword lover," and her fiancé Paris is a self-obsessed bodybuilder. A series of media images—including air-brushed advertisements and celebrity photos (Michael Jackson and Britney Spears make appearances)—projected on a small screen provide a backdrop, while bouncy synthesized music underscores each scene.

After setting up these showy components, however, Freeman never brings them into meaningful dialogue. In his program notes, he admits that he never really liked Romeo and Juliet much, citing the broadly drawn characters and lack of subtlety. But in Fatboy Romeo he only recycles and reinforces this stereotypical, overblown behavior. He seems to want to teach us something about the dangers of overconsumption and cultural greed, yet the show's intended satire never coheres. While individually well defined, the puppets and projections never achieve revelatory interaction.

The narration is gamely performed by Danielle Thorpe and Patrick Toon, who voice the characters. Three puppeteers animate Malbrough's designs, which range from hand puppets to what looks like a coagulation of Barbie dolls glued on a stick. The Romeo puppet is particularly inventive, and the infamous Montague wears sneakers as well as a heavy set of jowls that age him well beyond what we expect. (To cement the discrepancy, Leonardo DiCaprio, who played Romeo on film, appears onscreen during Romeo's entrance.) Eleven-year-old Emma Park-Hazel introduces the scenes and skips around the set. She's certainly pert and playful, if purposeless.

Much of the problem comes from Romeo's silence. Impassive and unblinking, he is the ultimate ugly American consumer, impervious to feeling on his single-minded quest to feed himself. Without a voice, however, he becomes like the hundreds of people we see on the street every day, silently cramming things into open mouths. Freeman might want to consider pulling a bit of humanity from the rubbish.

Couplets in Crime

In New York, one sees Shakespeare done every which way, from strictly faithful to ultramodern to "What were they thinking?" Corleone: The Shakespearean Godfather adds another twist: turning a contemporary piece classical. Playwright/director David Mann has adapted the shooting script of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, replacing curses with couplets and silencers with swords. Not surprisingly, to those familiar with both Shakespeare and Mario Puzo's story, this tale of power, vengeance, and family covers familiar bloody ground found in Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and other works by the Bard, making it a perfect fit. After some initial titters at the eloquent language coming out of the mouths of characters like Sonny Corleone and the Don, the audience settled into the conceit and the show, which is a drama, after all. The killing of Sollozzo and McCluskey in the restaurant turns from a shocking character turning point to a steel-on-steel battle for survival. (It's best not to dwell on how Clemenza could hide a sword in a toilet.) Those who haven't seen the movie may be a little confused, since some scenes (like the horse's head in Woltz's bed and the death of Appolonia) are merely touched on in narration. The film's fans will be amused by the changes and then surprised at how they are drawn into the story again, even though this isn't the cast they're used to.

Drew Cortese may not be Al Pacino, but he makes a quiet, compelling Michael. Morgan Spector has a hint of Marlon Brando's marble-mouthiness in his delivery as Don Vito Corleone, but steers clear of a full-on impression. He's a bit young to be the father of the actors playing his progeny, but he has a boss's calm presence. Greg Derelian flexes both acting and bicep muscles in his portrayals of the hothead Sonny Corleone and the airhead Luca Brasi. The other cast members do equally well with iambic pentameter and playing multiple characters.

The program says the play has already earned a spot at a Houston theater next year. Mann's creation is not a show to go on Broadway or to win Tonys; it's a show to entertain, and to give smaller theaters the chance to do something more fun than another production of Romeo and Juliet. Of course, Shakespeare and Puzo were writing for the common man, so what better audience can their fictional love child hope to get?

Driven Crazy

What self-destructive urges drive males to engage in addictive and deadly behaviors while, often, those who want to help them end up hurt? Is it the failure of love to solace, or is it something deeper than that: the way anything in life, if pursued single-mindedly, can become an addictive ritual to escape life's disappointments? Jerrod Bogard's powerful new play, Hugging the Shoulder, now at the New York International Fringe Festival, explores these ideas through a love triangle involving two brothers and a girlfriend. The younger, yet seemingly more mature, gay brother drives his older brother cross-country so the latter can detox both from heroin and his recent breakup: he literally must try to puke out all the anger and grief that's in his system before overdosing. Alternating between these scenes are flashbacks of the characters' domestic conflicts, which include abuse, drug addiction, cheating, and the whole gamut of adult sorrows.

The play's intensity can be overwhelming at first, especially as its verisimilitude so exactingly captures the yearnings and dysfunctions of those at a dead end: the way, dog-like, they crawl back to the hand that beats them because it's also the hand that feeds them. Yet Bogard's script displays the subtlety of a mature Sam Shepard play with scenes that can seem merely real or like fantastical, metaphorical nightmares. The difference between the two is painfully thin.

Brian Floyd, playing the older brother, Jeremy, gives a richly textured portrayal of a man who has been damaged by life. Sean Dingman, as the younger brother, Derrick, likewise gives an emotionally convincing depiction of a conflicted do-gooder who begins to realize that his need to save others may, in fact, only hide his own helplessness.

The set, designed by Sean Boat, quickly transforms from dashboard and car seats to coffee-table spread with porno magazines and Budweisers next to a beat-up couch, conveying both the painful realism and the dream-like quality of the play.

By the end, the audience itself feels the ruptures between well-meaning longings and the hallucinations one creates when they are frustrated.

School Days

Besides death and taxes, the other "inevitable" event in most people's lives is the high school reunion. Those who weren't voted most popular or involved in sports tend to deliberate on their attendance, weighing the thought of seeing people they want to see against the thought of seeing people they never want to see again. Writer/actor Chris Harcum has turned his ambivalence into a one-man show, Some Kind of Pink Breakfast. He takes the audience back to the 1980's, where memories of his bizarre high school experience get muddled with the names of the characters from the movies and bands of the era. Using only a wooden folding chair as a prop and backed by sound effects, he creates various locations, from school to the family dinner table to his girlfriend's car at a make-out spot.

Harcum embodies his teenage self as well as the kids, relatives, and authority figures in his world, switching between personas by using a different accent and body posture. He gets the essence of these people across without the manic antics or slavery to perfection that mark lesser solo performers. Moreover, there's something so natural and honest about his acting; he puts up no emotional barriers between himself and his audience, which makes his storytelling all the more affecting and effective.

In the chorus to the theme from The Breakfast Club, the band Simple Minds sings, "Don't you forget about me." It is unlikely that anyone in attendance at Some Kind of Pink Breakfast will forget the events of Chris Harcum's past. Here's hoping that when his 20th reunion rolls around in 2008, he's already made other plans.

Evasions

The truth may set you free, but not in Roadside, Maryland. Having its world premiere at the New York International Fringe Festival, Forrest Simmons's play is an insightful exploration of a truth so crippling to two characters' relationship that it transforms denial and sidestepping into art forms. George and Austin meet in a diner where the latter works as a waitress. Under false pretenses, Austin ends up taking George back to her apartment. Several cellphone calls from George's mother suggest that he has come looking for Austin for a reason. This plot point makes itself evident in the subtext fairly early in the show, though it's never plainly stated. The real strength of the play is watching two wonderful actors talk around it.

Director David Thigpen has whittled Simmons's script down to its barest essentials. Only a few bits of set dressing successfully signal each scene change. Despite the skillful staging, this is not a "high-concept" piece, and Thigpen wisely relies on the cast to communicate the text's subtleties.

George is an overgrown momma's boy—emotional and prone to tantrums when he doesn't get his way. He carries around a stuffed monkey that he hugs when anxious. He treads the razor-thin line between clownish and sympathetic; thankfully, Paul Whitty makes him a real person, pathetically funny and desperately lonely.

Austin, played by Dana Berger, wistfully conjures up a failed adolescence. She lives in a trailer paid for by her social worker and listens to a busted radio every night. Austin is a prisoner in her own town, and the experience has made her bitter, suspicious, and ballsy. She gives the character a wonderful potential energy—every action and reaction is different from the last.

Roadside, Maryland isn't a play about action—it is about the consequences of inaction. Both characters are trapped by their inability to see the truth about themselves. This self-denial allows them to connect on a genuine level, and the exemplary production suggests that change and redemption are possible, even in a small town such as this.

All in the Genes

Perfect, a new play written and directed by Tanya Klein, is billed as "a 21st-century farce," but it is largely missing the humor and fast-paced plot normally associated with farce. The play presents a dystopian future where genetically modified humans have an upper hand over the so-called "normals": they attend elite institutions, win grants and awards, and earn higher incomes. In short, they are "perfect." But in the case of Sarah (Laurie Ann Orr), there appears to be a glitch in the genetic coding. Her mother, Mary (Ali Baynes), has noticed that she has received her first two B's on assignments, even though she's been accepted at Harvard. Sarah's interest in tutoring a "normal" named Jack (Karen Green) deeply troubles Mary as well. On top of that, Mary's niece, Jean (Natasha Graf), another genetically engineered whiz kid, is visiting and might notice the change in Sarah.

Little does Mary know that Jean is having her own problems with a new gene therapy that supposedly re-establishes the drive to succeed. And Sarah's secret lover, a "normal" named Charlie (Mateo Moreno), wants to free her from the endless task of being the best. Meanwhile, Mary attempts to lure a gene therapy doctor (Michael Jalbert) into giving Sarah a potentially dangerous treatment to make her strive even harder.

Normally in a farce, an unlikely situation changes quickly and often, becoming ever more wacky and unpredictable. The problem with Perfect is that very little happens. The "obstacle" facing Sarah is continually the same one: her gene therapy prevents her from doing what she really wants, which is to become a rock 'n' roll star. The stasis that this creates makes the production flaccid and slow instead of fast-moving and unexpected, as a farce should be.

There are a few good moments. As Mary tries to convince the doctor to give Sarah the gene therapy, the increasingly depraved sexual antics she resorts to are funny. Baynes's performance as Mary points toward an overtly ridiculous direction that the production should have engaged in more.

Predictably, the play ends with a kind of didactic moral, a lesson Sarah gives her mother about how we are all "really human"—"normals" and genetically altered alike. It seems safe to say that what this production needs is another set of eyes.

Modern Orthodox

In order to create a one-person show, a performer must have had either a colorful job, a reversal of fortune (intentional or accidental), or a crazy family. Sandy Wolshin, the author and star of The Rabbi and the Cheerleader, was clearly destined to go solo, having achieved the trifecta. The daughter of an agnostic Jew and a religious Gypsy, Sandy describes the trials, tribulations, and talent shows that made up her childhood. She then moves on to her career as a "Raiderette," and to the emptiness in her life that she gradually defined as a spiritual vacancy. The last part focuses on her transformation from bubbly, unhappy cheerleader to shomer negiah Orthodox Jew, and how even converts can snare a handsome rabbi for a husband.

Wolshin is a singing, dancing, cheering, castanet-playing powerhouse, funneling her energy and need to be liked into every moment of her show. However, this desire to perform overshadowed the story, needlessly stretching out bits and overdecorating a tale that was interesting enough to go without embellishment. Though she is clearly multitalented, she would've been more interesting to watch with less non-integrated song and dance and more connection to her material. For a life that affected her so deeply, Wolshin hasn't yet found the words or the strength to let herself be vulnerable onstage.

The Rabbi and the Cheerleader has a lot of commercial potential; it's a modern-day fairy tale about how fame and good looks aren't anything without family and a faith in G-d. If Wolshin were to explore the piece even further, focusing a little less on entertaining and more on enlightening, she might find that the production could become both catharsis and calling card.

¿Te Gusta Gefilte Fish?

How many stereotypes can you fit into an hour and a half? Hermanas, a new comedy by Monica Yudovich, readily answers that question by methodically playing out every possible association with Jewish mothers and Latin men, though it is clearly done out of love. The play centers around two sisters, Lisette and Angie, who share everything, from an apartment, to avoidance of their mother, to boyfriends. Unfortunately, Hermanas comes across more as a loosely written pilot for an ethnic sitcom than a stage play. Much of the humor is predicated on the seemingly unlikely juxtaposition of Hispanic and Jewish cultures, presenting, for example, a doting mother just as likely to mash a tamale as a matzo ball. This is funny to a point, but it becomes redundant.

Still, there are some superbly funny moments where the shtick Latino works as a cross-cultural wonder. The mother, Telma (Kathryn Kates), adeptly plays the zealous busybody: reminding her children to share, she explains that when she was a younger sister, "everything was passed down to me…toys, clothes, toothbrushes." Her monologues on the phone to her daughter, unhinged from the encumbrance of plot progression, are the show's best moments. Also a standout is Paulo Andino as Eduardo, who plays up Lisette's hilariously vain former boyfriend with gusto, flexing his muscles in leopard-skin boxers while belting out "Besame Mucho."

As Lisette, Yudovich is overall a bit too uptight to be convincing, while Bridget Moloney's Angie is sweet if lacking in the sluttiness her character would seemingly require. A major problem is how facile the narrative is: a new, potential suitor for Lisette is introduced when he simply knocks on the family's door and announces that he is a new neighbor. Don't look here for plot innovation. But if you want a show that searches out the permutations of humor at the limited nexus of Jewish and Latin stereotypes, you are in luck.

Joking With Cancer

Two-Mur Humor, a Dramedy About Cancer is a well-intentioned project. Written and acted by cancer survivors, it is being staged as part of the 2007 New York International Fringe Festival as a benefit for the Two-Mur Humor Fund. This foundation pays medical bills and provides "laughter and hope" through "arts and entertainment" to children who are cancer patients and survivors. Unfortunately, Two-Mur Humor is not a very good play. Jim Tooey and Valerie David's plodding script about two thinly sketched survivors who meet in a waiting room begins with a rap number. This is played on a none too clear recording, over which actors (and Two-Mur Humor's Fund president and vice president) Kelly Chippendale and Tooey vocalize. Performed this way, the lyrics are almost unintelligible, except for the ending, in which Chippendale and Tooey chant, "She's malignant, I'm benign/I'm malignant, she's benign" repeatedly. This demonstrates that the phrase "ad nauseam" can accurately describe experiences other than undergoing chemotherapy.

After the rap, Two-mur Humor drags on for an intermissionless two hours. The characters share experiences with which cancer survivors and their loved ones will certainly identify. The dramatic question is absolutely minimal: will they survive? Both characters are essentially passive, no matter what platitudes about positive thinking, learning, and life changes they declare to the audience.

The "humor" is predictable at best and, at worst, embarrassingly ignorant. There is a drawn-out joke about a "stool in the shower" of Chippendale's character's hospital suite. Her Rabbi, a Lubavitcher look-alike, offers her spiritual help in the form of a Hebrew for Dummies Book—for $35, marked down from $37.50.

In another scene, a Chinese-American physician, Dr. Lee, is played by Caucasian actress Chippendale in opaque glasses—with bizarre holograph photos of "oriental" eyes covering the lenses. More Fu Manchu than Patch Adams, Dr. Lee has some trouble pronouncing l's, so when trying to explain that during his MRI test, his patient (Tooey) will see "white lights," Lee stutters "white rice," then "white rights," before Tooey finally corrects him. To check the clarity of his speech, Lee asks, "I making myself queer?" Hilarious.

The celebrated Dr. Adams believed that humor can be used to treat all kinds of diseases. Two-mur Humor tries to fill Adams's prescription but succumbs to complications of mediocrity and racism.

Dark Side

Rabbit Hole Ensemble applies a minimalist approach to theater. The focus is on the performer, with particular emphasis on physicality and voice. The company brings this unique style to The Transformation of Dr. Jekyll, a curious rendering of Robert Louis Stevenson's timeless horror classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Created by Rabbit Hole, the stripped-down production reimagines the story of Dr. Henry Jekyll as he explores a world of rough sex and violence. His transformation from mild-mannered philanthropist to out-of-control murderer is chronicled in his visits to prostitutes, which quickly escalate from violent to deadly. As the police close in on him, Jekyll grows increasingly desperate and reckless.

Paul Daily captures Jekyll's inner turmoil, perfectly embodying his tortured journey into madness. Daily contorts his body, shades his voice, and displays the physical and emotional pain of the character's transformation. Amanda Broomell and Emily Hartford are excellent as Jekyll's many foils. Broomell camps it up as the inspector hot on Jekyll's murderous trail, going for over-the-top, PBS-style mystery sleuthing. Hartford is perfect as the clueless ingénue hopelessly devoted to Jekyll despite his disposition toward things most unsavory. Both actresses are also dizzyingly funny as society matrons whom Jekyll encounters throughout the show.

With minimal props and no set, Edward Elefterion's direction remains true to the company's "theater of essence" approach. Under his guidance, the actors are the sole focus, and Broomell and Hartford voice the production's many sound effects with great success. Elefterion wisely spotlights the humor amid the pathos, creating a particularly hilarious scene involving shadow puppets.

Ultimately, the story never takes off, despite the strong performances and direction. Like the group's recent offering, The Siblings, at the Midtown International Theater Festival last month, Dr. Jekyll is too much a concept. It would be interesting to see the company apply its stylings to an established play. Rabbit Hole Ensemble is clearly worth keeping an eye on; one just hopes for better material that it can sink its teeth into.

Boys Will Be Boys...And, Sometimes, Girls

When the main character in a play is named "Gayly Gay," you can rightly expect a kooky, campy cabaret, and Giant Squid Productions's presentation of Bertolt Brecht's A Man's a Man at the New York International Fringe Festival delivers. Gayly Gay is recruited into the British army in India against his better judgment by a pack of soldiers eager to take advantage of his affable gullibility. To do so, they sell him a fake elephant, which later leads to his court-martial when he attempts to unload it on someone else. In order to escape his death, the pusillanimous Gay changes his persona to a self-righteous, rifle-toting "tool" of realpolitik.

Brecht's early Lehrstück, or learning plays, have been relatively neglected, compared with his later, mature work, known as "epic theater." The learning plays have, somewhat unfairly, been characterized as too overt in their didacticism; audiences may simply want to be entertained, but Brecht wanted to "alienate" them so they'd think, and be changed by his social messages.

This version of A Man is pure fun, however, because the very serious themes of colonialism and the socialization of war through the military-industrial complex have been tempered with catchy pop anthems, sexy costumes, and lots of outrageous, if low-budget, theatricality. Director Leah Bonvissuto has interpreted Brecht's formalized style of acting—known as gestus, where the actor is supposed to present the "gist" of a character only through a series of rigid gestures—as kabuki-like slapstick. In this mode, the actors universally stand out, notably Timothy McDonough as he presents Gay's transformation and John Gray as the drill sergeant, Bloody Five, who possesses all the comic, overblown machismo of a professional wrestler.

While the devices of Brechtian dramaturgy have been amply garnished (with placards, breaking down the fourth wall, and actors representing objects as well as people), these become, in the deft hands of Bonvissuto and her talented cast, additional sources of camp extravagance instead of heavy-handed propaganda. This production of A Man demonstrates that one may contemplate politics while also bouncing one's head along to the band.

Little Big Man

Height really doesn't matter much when you have a heart as large as Danny's. A twenty-something, four-foot-tall dwarf making his way in New York City, he is looking for love and acceptance, not only from a girl but also from himself. In Marc Goldsmith's play Danny Boy, playing at Classic Stage Company as part of the New York International Fringe Festival, we are invited along for his mostly humorous but sometimes heartbreaking search. The plot is like a delicious stew in which each character contributes his or her own unique ingredient. Danny and his friends have a natural, sizzling chemistry onstage as they sit around his messy bachelor-pad living room exchanging dialogue that is rich with sarcasm, wit, and a deep affection that's always evident, even in their bickering.

Danny's hilarious childhood buddy, Gabe (Troy Hall), a lovable loser who can't manage to keep a job as Santa's helper, becomes fiercely protective when he feels his friend's personal integrity is being threatened. As Danny's life unfolds, we begin to understand why he inspires such deep loyalty from those around him.

Stephan Jutras brings a beautiful inner life to Danny, showing us a genuinely kind man with a magnetic personality who struggles to come to terms with the stereotypes that are always attached to people of his size. Jutras adds many layers to his character, expressing worry and pain with his eyes while fighting to keep his voice from cracking when admitting his anxieties to his seductive dream girlfriend, Allison, played wonderfully by Sarah Schoenberg.

But the person Danny needs the most protection from is himself. Often uncomfortable in his own skin, his insecurity is best demonstrated by a fishbowl full of dollars that he keeps on a nightstand. Every time he unnecessarily apologizes for himself or his feelings, he must add another dollar to the bowl. Eventually, his life unravels to the point where he is dropping napkins into the bowl with IOU scribbled across the front.

Danny Boy focuses on a character who often falls through the cracks in mainstream theater, and so this is not the type of play we see often. But Goldsmith's delightfully comedic and deeply moving production makes it a story that we will want to hear many times again.

Chamber Poe

"Could a madman have been as wise as this?" demands the protagonist of Edgar Allan Poe's chilling story The Tell-Tale Heart. Fed up with his neighbor's "vulture eye," he assiduously murders him, only to be haunted by the ghostly beating of the dead man's heart. As the presumed lunatic, performer and composer Danny Ashkenasi is certainly wise, and he has adapted Poe's suspenseful yarn into a brief but intense "musicabre," a well-honed and deliciously creepy chamber piece. Accompanied by three cellists (Ella Toovy, Tara Chambers, and Maria Bella Jeffers), who surround him as they anchor the right, left, and back edges of the bare stage, Ashkenasi, wearing a silky red bathrobe, turns Poe's text into a sort of sadistic form of Masterpiece Theatre. With just a chair as set and prop, he paces and flails, only to return to a seated position, legs properly crossed. Smug in his repose, his genteel appearance makes his reported activities only more horrifying. He alternately speaks and sings the story, and his voice, which has moments of considerable power, is a bit raw around the edges, a sandpapery effect that further betrays his unease.

Contributing to the New York International Fringe Festival for the third year in a row, Ashkenasi has written a dense score for his three proficient instrumentalists, and the songs percolate with atonal arpeggios and screechy scales. In "True, Nervous," the opening song, he jumbles Poe's words to create a lyric pattern that pops with impending doom. The cellists feverishly pluck and saw at their instruments to match his emotional state, later creating the ominous pulse of the dead man's heart. The final searing notes evoke the sound of frantic scribbling, the scrambling of a doomed man trying to escape from a trap.

The protagonist claims his perceived madness is only an "overacuteness of the senses," and Ashkenasi's adaptation—along with David L. Carson's sharp direction—keenly illustrates the heightened sensory state of a man on the edge. Wise or mad (and maybe both), The Tell-Tale Heart is a spooky glimpse into a darkly tinted world.

Bad Hair Day

"Every story has a beginning" is both the opening song and premise of the bubbly Fringe Jr. musical Rapunzel, playing at Manhattan Children's Theater as part of the New York International Fringe Festival. When a cynical boy named Jamie and his angelic pigtailed sister Lee (played by child actors Raum-Aron and Katy Apostolico) are given a choice by their lovably upbeat Babysitter (Jenn Wehrung) about what fairy tale to read before bedtime, they are torn, having already heard them all several times. With a knowing smirk, the Babysitter selects "Rapunzel" despite the children's protests that they have heard "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, throw down your hair" a hundred times. The Babysitter asks if they know what came before that famous line, and after a moment's thought they are forced to admit they do not. They, as well as the audience, will find there are many surprises in store for those who have forgotten the beginning details.

From here we enter the world of make-believe, though the Babysitter is still onstage with the children, now acting as the Storyteller. The characters occasionally interact with her, either asking for a line or requesting that she stop interfering with theirs. Jamie and Lee occasionally offer their ideas for changes in the story, one example being when the Prince (Michael Pagett) makes his first appearance. The children decide princes are too overused in fairy tales and change his status to "artist."

The animated performances and tight plot help keep the central story strong, as the book and lyric writers, Karen Rousso, Judy Dulberg, and Kerry Wolf, supply us with a winning stream of lively songs. The standout numbers are "Why Is the Witch So Bad?" and "Snip," thanks to the amazing charisma and stage presence of the singer, D'Jamin Bartlett, who plays the Witch. Although she is clearly the show's antagonist, taking young Rapunzel from her parents and locking her in a high tower with no way out, her sassy, fun demeanor prevents her from ever being seen as truly wicked.

Rapunzel is a fun, family-friendly show appropriate for infants, toddlers, and grade-schoolers, though it is mostly intended for ages 5 to 12. As the play unfolds and builds toward its climax, it is startling to realize how many of the story's original details have been lost over time, making it the perfect tale to retell for contemporary audiences.

C'est Magnifique

Flatulence has never been quite so variegated—or dignified—as in the days of Joseph Pujol. In The Fartiste, an entertaining yet bizarre new musical, Michael Roberts (music and lyrics) and Charlie Schulman (book) tell the true story of a simple baker who became a Moulin Rouge star thanks to the dexterity of his posterior. John Gould Rubin's efficient, colorful direction brings the debauchery of 1890's Paris vividly to life while giving us reason to sympathize with Pujol, a man who wants his farting to mean much more than, well, the passing of gas. Surrounded by a mélange of artists and cancan dancers, Pujol (Kevin Kraft) is the earnest straight man, quite determined to turn his odd talent into a respected art form. In a self-possessed and winning performance, Kraft barely cracks a smile as he contorts his body to summon an extraordinary array of sounds, including explosive trumpeting and high-pitched squeaks. This combination of highbrow attitude with lowbrow physicality makes the show hilarious and endearing.

As played by the jaunty band, Roberts's bistro-infused songs are pleasant and straightforward. In a silky duet, "Listen With Your Eyes Closed," Pujol begs his wife Elizabeth (Rebecca Kupka) to see his talent as more than grotesque flatulence. Toulouse-Lautrec (played on bended knee by Mark Baker) and the narrator, Aristide Bruant (the superb Nick Wyman), charm in "We Live for Art," a celebration of decadent pleasures. And Jim Corti, as producer Charles Zidler, scores with "Give 'Em What They Want," a perky vaudevillian number intended to convince Pujol to give up his ideals and fart for the masses.

With a simple, shimmering red curtain, a handful of lacy black garments, and a cluster of red chairs, designers Clint Ramos (set) and Melinda C. Basaca (costumes) capture the seedy atmosphere of Montmartre more resourcefully than Schulman and Roberts' interminable opening sequences. Richard Move provides expert choreography for the high-energy dances.

With incredible flair, rubber-mouthed sound effects man Steven Scott stands at a microphone at the edge of the stage, voicing Pujol's expulsions with perfect timing. "Make your body bleat," commands Zidler, but Pujol, determined to compose his own symphony, wants his body to make music, not ribald reverberations. His audience, however, demands sensational noise, not sensitive arpeggios. Thus, although raunchy double entendre invariably abounds, The Fartiste also becomes a somewhat sophisticated look at the ennui that can result from selling out.

Take a Solo

A staple of the Fringe-going experience is the low-concept musical. Included in this year's crop is Air Guitar, the story of how one man had to put down his guitar to find his music. Written by Sean Williams, Mac Rogers, and Jordana Williams (creators of Fleet Week, which enjoyed a strong buzz at last year's Fringe), the show revolves around Drew (Stephen Graybill), a solo guitarist with dreams of glory that are bigger than his talent. When his best friend Steve (Michael Poignand) and his wife Celeste (Becca Ayers) discover the air guitar phenomenon, they inexplicably push Drew toward competing in the New York championship. Drew, however, feels that this insults his artistry and dismisses air guitar as a fad. His scorn is augmented by invisible pal/devil's advocate/world-famous air guitarist Ulrich (Jeff Hiller), who keeps popping up to berate Drew and tells him not to compete. Ultimately, Drew's undeniable talent for guitar-less strumming leads him on a path to adulthood and acceptance.

Backed by an overpowering backup band playing generic hard rock, the singers had a difficult time getting the lyrics across to the audience. Those that were understood were either entertaining in their real speech origins (like slangy recitative), clever in their mockery of college band poetry (like the hilarious "I'm a Busy Man"), or just boring in their clichéd take on human suffering. (It might have been better had the lyricist stuck to the first two styles, even if it meant sacrificing some pathos for wit.) The plot was driven ably by the simplicity of the scenes; clearly, the book writer knew that the gold was in the well-choreographed performance pieces and not in the apartment scenes.

After all, the money shot in a show called Air Guitar is, well, air guitar. There were many fine examples on display, as Drew and Ulrich committed fiercely both to their performances and to their musical simulation. Hey, once their Fringe run ends, perhaps Graybill and Hiller will make a trip to the finals in Finland?

No Exit

Not much happens in the The Prostitute of Reverie Valley. A confusing mishmash of philosophical nonsense, Adam Klasfeld's new play purports to ask questions about the nature of our desires and dreams, and the ways in which we escape the humdrum of our daily lives with promises of answers that will disturb. If only. Instead, the audience is subjected to an hourlong exercise in tedium, highlighted by inaudible performances, messy blocking, and a preposterous script. An unnamed prostitute (Sameerah Luqmaan-Harris) packs up her life, preparing to leave her home and the town that has held her captive for so long. As she is about to flee the mysterious confines of Reverie Valley, a john (Robert Kya-Hill) arrives to stop her. The evening passes, and the two engage in a battle for the prostitute's soul. Secrets are revealed, and truths are proselytized.

Sherri Kronfeld's weak direction muddies the already confusing plot. Her arbitrary staging fails to tell a story. Basic rules of blocking are ignored, with the actors left to flail about the space in a mess of aimless crossing about the stage. Key moments are squandered, and dramatic beats are rendered silly. Kronfeld fails her actors, providing them with no guidance.

Luqmaan-Harris is far too passive as the fiery prostitute. She quietly plays the determined woman with a resignation that runs counter to the character's passionate resolve. Kya-Hill raises his voice to an angry level in all the wrong places and spends the rest of the show acting with his hands, gesticulating to the point of distraction. His character and motivations remain a mystery throughout. Both actors speak so softly that much of the dialogue is lost in whispers.

But the problems begin and end with Klasfeld's script. It simply makes no sense. The characters are ambiguous, and the plot is incidental, secondary to the playwright's self-indulgent notions about the human condition. With little to offer, The Prostitute of Reverie Valley rings hollow.

Oh, That's Sketchy

Penn Station isn't the only place in west Midtown witnessing a flurry of activity. Consider the People's Improv Theater, just a few blocks south. This upstart has risen very quickly to rival the Upright Citizens Brigade as a major source of edgy sketch comedy. Take, for example, Dances With Wolfshirts, the fifth show from sketch group A Week of Kindness. Week consists of the well-oiled team of Dan Hopper, Nate Kushner, and Mike Still, performing live and in several previously filmed skits as they mock consumerism, a subject ripe for teasing.

In fact, the group itself bills the show as a "multimedia blend of high-energy, high-wit live performance and innovative, often demented short films" exploring "the lifecycle of trends, immersing the audience in a world of soup addicts, frivolous surgery, and, of course, lots of awesome T-shirts with huge wolves on them." (They do all this with a little help from some friends and fellow comedians, such as Chris O'Connor and Becky Yamamoto.) The source of the show's title is a made-up trend—shirts featuring the faces of wolves—that the trio pretends is the latest fad.

The humor, as anyone knows who has seen them perform, is quite irreverent. For instance, there's the aforementioned soup sketch, played as though it were an afterthought that became a sketch in itself. The subject is one sketch member's addiction to soup and his attempts to wean himself off it. Like the Seinfeld cast, Hopper, Kushner, and Still know how to carry off a scene, turning nothing into something.

Their timing is also impeccable. They can pace a scene so that they take the joke out just far enough, without it dying on them and the audience. (Hopper, in particular, offers some priceless double takes and line readings.) Given that the sketches are written and rehearsed in advance, the show is quite well paced; it's a shame they couldn't have added another 10 or 15 minutes' worth of material.

One funny scene has a member of the group bringing home a girlfriend to meet his father. The girlfriend turns out to be Helen Keller, who, disabilities aside, is quite the chatterbox, inviting "herself" to feast on a rather disgusting glazed doughnut. Another highlight finds the members of Kindness and some additional cast members in a video sending up the montage in the film Magnolia where the characters sing Aimee Mann's song "Wise Up." Each of the three performers has an amazing presence, with the perfect combination of disciplined rehearsal and agility on one's feet.

The jokes in Wolfshirts meander; they are not predictable and do not follow any standard setup. Occasionally, there isn't even a punch line; the scene just goes black, and then the audience laughs. It takes a few seconds for the sketch's humor to register, but when it does, the audience laughs. And oh, how they laugh.

Wolfshirts plays at the People's Improv Theater on Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m. through the end of August.

Dream Play

Accents are important to me. I've cringed at Ibsen performed in western Pennsylvania with "Pittsburghese"-tainted vowels. I can aurally spot every mispronounced syllable when a Brit goes Southern belle. I'd rather Shakespeare be done with a standard Midwestern accent than a lousy pseudo-Cockney one (as it often is). So when the Texas twang started to flow at the beginning of the 78th Street Theater Lab's The Horton Foote Project, I braced myself for vocal disappointment. To my delight, the actors displayed a strong command of the sound of the local vernacular—in fact, it was the first of many delights in this moving dream play.

Culled from Horton Foote's The Orphans' Home Cycle, this 75-minute work centers on one regular guy (Horace Robedeaux) and his histrionic family. Horace catches the influenza that is sweeping his town and the country in 1918 and fights for his life on the living room couch. During his illness, he has vivid fever dreams of his past: as a child dealing with the separation of his mother and alcoholic father, as a teen bristling under the strictness of his unloving stepfather, and, as an adult, courting his wife and trying to create a stable home for her and their baby daughter.

The best elements of Foote's writing are on display here. The dialogue is colloquial but not pandering, and it's full of surprisingly honest comments about the characters' inner selves and their feelings for others. It is the dialogue, in fact, that draws the audience into the play, keeping a firm, warm grip on them. Although during the first time shift there isn't much in the way of visual or lighting cues to suggest that we are in Horace's flashback, in later episodes there is a subtle shift in the light's intensity, often followed by background noise, to suggest the new location.

Three actors portray Horace and the men and women in his life. As Horace, Stephen Plunkett wears his worn-down kindness on his face as he wearily accepts the flashing of his life before his eyes. Still, there's enjoyment sometimes in those eyes, especially when he relives the day he won his wife. The porch seduction scene, with Amelia McClain playing Horace's sweetheart Elizabeth, is about as perfect as a scene can get. The way that Plunkett and McClain move around each other, sussing out the other's feelings and drawing closer to confirm them, was beautifully staged (by director Wes Grantom) and played out by the actors.

In addition to playing Elizabeth, McClain gave memorable turns as Horace's petulant younger sister Lily Dale, and as the middle-aged Mrs. Coons, a Bible-thumping busybody whom Horace meets on the train to Houston. Chris Grant does a fine job filling out the male roles, most notably as the menacing stepfather Pete Davenport and Sam the gravedigger.

The question posed by The Horton Foote Project is, How can human beings stand all that comes to them? The answer that the show comes up with is, They can stand it with the support of a loving family. As Horace breaks away from his toxic early years and strives to own his own business and his own life, he finds the strength to do so in Elizabeth—just as this production finds its strength in its cast and crew.