The Structure of the Unknown

A list of tools we use to try to make sense of the world: 1. facts. 2. definitions. 3. repetition. 4. science. 5. lists. A list of images that leave us searching for meaning: 1. the place where two walls meet. 2. four spoons twisted round each other. 3. faded footsteps on grass. 4. a penny lost in a couch. 5. a child hiding behind an old book chest.

The characters in Hillary Leichter’s new play 7 Stories High try to make sense of their shattered world by making lists and other equally intellectual activities. But the mind is limited when it comes to existential matters. Leichter suggests that the secret to accepting the unknowable nature of life may lie, not with structured thought, but in the world of feeling and flux.

Through a gentle artist’s stroke, Ms. Leichter, assisted by the capable help of director Brendan Wattenberg, has created a rich, complex theatrical structure that moves freely, not only through space and sound, but also back and forth in time. Four distinct characters, who inhabit different floors of the same building, each try to explain what happened to the building, or perhaps to themselves. It seems there was a fire, or a disaster of some sort, but no one, least of all the newspaper clipping, has any answers. “I don’t have to see to know” is an early line in the play that sets the tone for the sweet exploration that will ensue.

The collapse of two large towers six years ago lurks just behind the scenes, but only as a metaphor. The treatment of the collective disaster, handled with warmth and care, is a reflection of the characters' personal questions about life and death. Through their sensitive portrayals, the four excellent actors (Havilah Brewster, Caitlin Duffy, Sharon Halevy and Kelly Miller) lead the audience on a soft journey into the unknown, filled with humor, sadness, and musical dialogue. 7 Stories High is highly recommended for viewers seeking a theater experience that will quietly gratify their hearts and minds.

How Not To Become A Swinger

The unfortunately titled The Mercy Swing (far too easily confused with Neil LaBute’s 2002 hit The Mercy Seat) showcases two powerful female performances. The Mercy Swing is about a young woman named Rachel who tries to negotiate an emotionally paralyzed and debilitating life in the wake of early sexual experiences with an older boy, both of whom were in grammar school at the time. Well-timed flashbacks to these experiences inform the momentum of the play. When we meet Rachel she is twenty-six and sharing an apartment in Williamsburg with her childhood friend, Billy, a gay doctor with whom she has always been in love. The problem with this play is that the audience is charged with believing that everything bad that has happened in Rachel’s life stemmed from her sexual encounters with Josh, a manipulative eighth-grade jock at the exclusive uptown Mercy School. Their secret meeting place is the swing in the playground of the school; thus the title. The play unfortunately brims with clichés and neat causal trajectories. Because of her early sexual encounters, Rachel is now condemned to a life of rooming with Billy, having promiscuous orgies with groups of plumbers and the starting line-up of the Staten Island Yankees, and sabotaging a successful relationship by being unfaithful to her boyfriend, Aaron, an idealistic young man who genuinely loves her. Of course, substance abuse is thrown into the mix: Rachel swigs from a bottle of alcohol stashed under her sofa cushions when things get just a little too unbearable.

Brynee Kraynak gives a strong performance as Rachel and Eva Patton is outstanding as Rachel’s outwardly progressive but interrogative and inwardly conservative mother, who longs to see Rachel in a stable relationship and soon married.

The humor in The Mercy Swing, and there is some, is crisp and witty. The play is riveting at times, particularly when Rachel and her mother engage in knockdown drag out verbal bouts that call out each other’s weaknesses and flaws. The play is unexpectedly successful in its confrontation with society’s views that the single unmarried woman who chooses to live with a friend must be damaged. And it confronts parental unwillingness to deal with childhood trauma. Only when Rachel’s pain comes pouring out does her mom suddenly thinks that therapy might be in order.

Despite its weaknesses, The Mercy Swing is worth seeing. It doesn’t shy away from a difficult topic, and Ms. Patton’s performance alone is worth the price of admission. Playwright Lane Bernes, an MFA candidate at The New School for Drama, is a promising playwright and I have no doubt that we’ll be seeing more of her in the future.

Getting Over Happily Ever After

Lusia Strus’ compelling solo show is modern in most ways, especially her predilection for unflinching personal confessions and ability to make them very funny. Yet it also draws on time-honored principles of oral storytelling. The result is a strikingly well-written and flawlessly performed piece. The show began as a commission from Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater in 2002 when she was about to get married for the first time, but the production has evolved as her life has. Thus, as her biography sheet puts it, there is now “bonus divorce material!” The beginning half of the show remains exactly as it was created, introducing the audience to Strus through her reflections, as she prepared to marry, on what wedding vows really mean. This leads her to relate her Ukrainian immigrant parents’ story: their two-date courtship followed by years of quiet devotion until her father’s relatively young death. The show’s second half brings the audience up to date, since regardless of her best intentions when saying her own vows, Strus and her husband divorced in 2004, in circumstances she describes honestly but briefly, the pain still clear in her voice.

Throughout the show, she frequently repeats certain key lines, lending them a lyrical effect and evoking the ancient bards who incorporated such phrases or descriptive epithets to help them memorize epics. Also, while Strus mostly stands still or perches on a stool on the bare stage, she uses a few simple gestures multiple times, enriching the minimalist setting. She has excellent stage presence, using her gaze to reach to the back of the house and draw everyone in. Most important is her polished yet emotional delivery of her mother Eugenia’s story – as when Eugenia kneels at her husband’s casket screaming at him for leaving her – and her own, as when she recounts details of her simultaneously deteriorating marriage and state of mind and how her rage and confusion were manifested in trips to Home Depot to buy bread.

In spite of the tough situations that comprise the subject matter, the production is often very funny. Strus might still be in pain over some of her problems, but she laughs at herself and her craziness makes the audience laugh with her. While anyone who enjoys autobiographies will love it ain’t no fairytale, even skeptics and those weary of the genre will likely be won over by Strus’ hard-won, skillfully articulated insights.

Hot For Teacher

Just when you’ve seen enough plays about talking hamsters and sat through enough hackneyed plots and gimmicks to contemplate submitting a formal proposal to rename the Fringe Festival the “Cringe Festival” — along comes a complete breath of fresh air like Nanci Richards’ Pedagogy, a hilarious and poignant one-woman show. Taut, spare and direct, the show is nearly perfect. Richards, a stand-up comedian and storyteller by night, is a New York City school teacher by day. She recounts for us, in sometimes side-splitting detail, a year (185 days to be exact—she’s counting!) in the life of an idealistic and well-meaning educator who’s constantly smacked down by an inept and clueless administration, woefully underachieving pupils who think Betty Crocker was at the Alamo, and neurotic parents nursing their own sets of problems. Worn down and frazzled, Richards resigns herself to futility, noting that the rap stars her students hopelessly idolize will never give shout-outs to teachers. At least she gets a $10 co-pay and a week off for winter break.

Then something wholly unexpected happens: after reluctantly accepting an invitation to the Sweet 16 party of one of her students, she realizes that she has made an impact on that young girl’s life. She wisecracks that she feels like Sidney Poitier in To Sir With Love but the audience knows that, under her hardened exterior, she’s delighted and proud.

Around Day 115, her class is chosen to receive a visit from New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein. Suddenly the administration cares! They polish the floors and even install an air conditioner. The ensuing unraveling of best laid plans (“Bring it on Joel Klein!”) is a comic gem. Richards is a comedian with formidable narrative and physical comedy skills. Her imitations are spot-on and her jokes never fall flat — no mean feat when you’re flying solo.

The Center for Architecture turned out to be a terrific setting for Pedagogy. Surrounded by exhibits like “Visions of Governors Island” and “SUNY Buffalo,” you feel like you’re in a classroom. A merciful sense of economy pervades the entire production. Staging and direction by Michael Tennenbaum is sparse but entirely appropriate, lighting is befitting to the content, and the pre- and post-show school-themed background music selections (e.g., The Ramones’ “Rock and Roll High School” and Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher”) make for a fun atmosphere. This is the rare classroom where you’re actually a little bit sad when the bell rings. Attend!

Four Characters In Search of a Laugh

For the past few weeks and months, casts from the small theater companies around the country and world that are taking part in the Fringe have been feverishly memorizing lines and rehearsing blocking. Not the talented actresses of Naked in a Fishbowl, an entertaining improv sketch comedy about the lives of four young female New Yorkers. While these ladies didn’t have to memorize anything, they aren’t totally free to invent. Each night brings a new scenario, but the specific, detailed character histories established over the course of several years and incarnations of the show inform the actresses' reactions. In addition, three of them have been in the show before and have grown familiar with the characters. So instead of working from a blank slate the actresses assume alternate personalities in order to deal with unexpected events – reality theater, in a way. In the show's Fringe opening, for example, the friends are heading to a play that Bonnie (Lauren Seikaly) is producing, which stars the new wife of Sophie’s (Brenna Palughi) ex. The first scene, however, consists entirely of the women chatting as they finish getting ready, in a clear reminder of why the earlier versions of the show were called What Women Talk About. For instance, Sara (Katherine Heller) is dating a Republican, a situation Jean (Lynne Rosenberg) can’t comprehend. Then Sophie drops the bombshell that she is moving to Italy in two weeks. After the play, the other three women try to decide how to break the news to Bonnie that they thought it was horrible.

Thanks to the two seasons of “webisodes” of What Women Talk About and its prior stints onstage in New York, Naked in a Fishbowl already has a fan base that is familiar with the characters’ back stories. But the actresses are skilled at dropping clues about themselves into their comments so that even the uninitiated will quickly feel up to speed. As the women grapple with the night’s designated challenge and the curveballs they throw each other as it goes, there’s naturally a fair amount of spluttering and hesitation and interruption among the actresses. But since they have established characters to fall back on, the show never goes too far out to sea. To the contrary, the actresses’ good cheer and spontaneity encourage viewers to attend future performances in order to find out what happens next.

Bacchus Made Me Do It

Writer and Director Taurie Kinoshita melds The Bacchae by Euripides with the story of Andrea Yates (an anguished Julie Ann McMillan), the mother convicted of first degree murder of her five children in 2002, in an effort to bring order and sympathy to those grieved by mental illness. In it, Andrea's psyche is explored by drawing parallels to Agave, mother to King Pentheus who, in an insane rapture, assists the Theban Maenads in mutilating her own child. Unfortunately, very little transpires in this play to warrant a moral reprieve. Kadmos (Reb Beau Allen), the Voice of Reason, provides a blow-by-blow account of the events that led to the filicide and its aftermath, but his narration of what happened competes too strongly with the re-enactment of the story. Kinoshita's direction has Allen begin with his back to the audience, diffusing the possibility of intimacy from the start. The action that ensues makes a poor case for empathy, and most disastrously, entertainment.

There is a lot of shouting in this production, and both the actors and the technical elements appear to trump each other for attention and importance. Although the actors are loud, the score still manages to be overwhelming in some instances, drowning out the dialogue and distracting from the theatricality. The lighting design by Tamara Green is abrupt in some instances, piercing in others, and the actors sometimes miss their chance to be potent by speaking in the dark rather than within the lighting boundaries. The costume changes occur on stage to the play's detriment, disrupting the illusions and drawing attention instead to practicality.

Several characters weigh in on Andrea's psychosis, most prominently the two Bacchanalian "spirits" that urge her to save her children from her evil, "whore of Babylon" identity by ultimately drowning them. Andrea, presumably persuaded by two traveling evangelical Christians to live a submissive, holy life, is filled with strife that one can only conclude in this play is brought on by self-imposed, religious fervor. The Bacchanalian spirits (Nicolas Logue and Marissa Robello) hiss and groan and attempt to recall a passionate frenzy, but rather than inspire menace and surrender, they only inspire chuckles. These fragments of Andrea's imagination should be distinctly imaginary, but it is not visually evident that this is the case. One can only surmise that they are spirits based on the premise and director's note, but a simple costume choice could have clarified this fact. There is also no difference in their wardrobe from that of Kadmos, Andrea's supernatural sense of order personified.

In this play, Andrea has very little culpability for her actions, even though Kinoshita, by creating the dynamic between good and bad influences, does suggest that she had a choice. Even in the sensitivity shown to her mental illness, it is clear that Andrea made a decision. Instead, everyone from docile husband Russell(Jason Natale), who insists on not using birth control and allowing Andrea time to herself, to the therapist, who lacks patience and a caring nature, seem to bear the responsibility.

One crowning achievement for the show is a scene recreating Andrea's 911 call after the killings. The overlapping of the Bacchanalian spirits' voices with Andrea's own is very effective, demonstrating amazing concentration and commitment on the actors' parts.

As it stands, it wasn't necessary for Kinoshita to use The Bacchae as a backdrop at all for this play, as the portrayal of madness could have been done without the Greek tragedy. Save for the mild creativity, usage of The Bacchae's text could have easily been omitted, and the result would have been the same: the triumph, in this case, of evil spirits over good ones. With so many technical things gone awry, balance needs to be created in this production before balance can be achieved in Andrea's depiction.

A Spoof on Art

A funny send up of the trials and tribulations of two experimental artists, The Rise and Fall of Miles and Milo is well worth seeing. The play is written in rather broad brush strokes, and, consequently, has a relatively simple premise: Miles and Milo are protesting outside the Sunshine Foundation for the Arts. They provide, for whatever random audience who happens by, a history of American capitalism which, according to them, began with an evildoer named Sackville. Their portrayal of Sackville makes him sound like a cartoon character in his complete and thorough evilness. Not satisfied with his already total control over the world, Sackville created the Sunshine Foundation for the Arts as a way to squelch artistic expression. By giving grants only to the mediocre and the unworthy, according to Miles and Milo, Sackville is effectively wiping out genuine artistic expression and real talent. Miles and Milo, meanwhile, have been submitting proposals to the Sunshine Foundation for the Arts for years. The fact that they are so consistently rejected is the sign of their true talent and real artistic worth, in their eyes. So when Sackville’s administrative assistant announces that Miles and Milo have actually won a grant, the pair naturally descend into both moral and aesthetic crisis.

Asselin’s talent as a writer is broadly comic, yet also intelligent and politically astute. The playwright takes a number of jabs at experimental, unfunded artists, and Miles and Milo’s complaint has a vague similarity to experimental artists’ outcry in the 1990s against the politicization of the NEA. But Asselin does not reserve her satire for experimental artists alone. No one, in Asselin’s world, is truly happy, and she gleefully shows the darker truths behind the little white lies and larger ambiguities with which we all live. The fact that the audience winds up laughing at itself is Asselin’s greatest triumph.

Director Melissa Firlit aided the play by matching Asselin’s broad humor with a uniformly broad acting style. All of the performers were both engaging and entertaining. The Rise and Fall of Miles and Milo is recommended to anyone who wants to have a good time and a good laugh in the theater.

A Rose By Any Other Name

The producers of Dirt made a clever point on opening night outside of The Players Theatre Loft Space on MacDougal Street. A young Arabic man was stationed outside, offering roses to folks as they passed on the street—“Roses for the lady?” The young man was likely giving them away, not selling them, but I couldn’t really tell, because virtually everyone who passed by dismissed him with a wave of the hand or an unintelligible grunt. Was it racism? Hard to tell. But unfriendly nonetheless. And that is the point of Dirt , a one-man play by Robert Schneider that premiered in Hamburg in 1993, in the wake of the first Gulf War. The play has been slightly updated to make it more contemporary. It confronts the twin problems of racism and illegal immigration—the immigrant’s need for respite and freedom and the Americans’ often not so secret desire to exclude him, and to crush him.

Christopher Domig gives a stellar performance, as “Sad,” a thirty-year old Iraqi rose peddler who has illegally immigrated to the United States, and has wound up in New York City. When we meet Sad, he hopes that he will be able to sell enough roses and that his lazy roommate, Nabil, can sell enough newspapers to have the electricity turned back on within three days.

The play is redundant and too long; it has been since it was first developed in 1992. It’s a replaying and often tedious loop of self-deprecation and self-degradation. Sad has internalized what he perceives as the West’s hatred for Arabic culture, and his every breath is rife with self-denunciation. He tells us over and over that he “knows” he has no right to use a public toilet or sit on a park bench, to speak with Americans, and that his race is “in a primitive stage of development,” that his head is too flat, his lips too thick, and that the urine of Arabs is more pungent than that of Americans. And that Americans are right for hating him. He recalls how, once, he was called “sir” when he used peroxide to lighten his hair and how he was genuinely moved, but self-disgusted, when a man actually declined his rose offer with a smile, looking directly into his eyes. Domig did an admirable job of projecting over the two blasting air conditioners at the back of the small black-box theater

The play would be far more effective at 30 minutes. Having said that, Domig never disappoints and does a valiant job of keeping the material fresh, despite its drawbacks. Without giving the ending away, let’s just say that it is symbolic and superb. Direction by Seattle-based David Robinson was appropriately restrained, and the spare set was haunting. Christopher Domig is one of the finest actors we’ve seen lately. Watch for big things from him in the future.

Gravity Is the Enemy

Darragh Martin’s script is nothing if not ambitious: celebrity explorer, Caitlin Evans, leaves her faltering marriage for a month to fly across the Antarctic in a hot air balloon and scatter her recently deceased and intellectually curious seven year old son’s ashes there. Fair enough. Unfortunately, for this play and the audience, she for some reason takes along the boy’s talking (yes) pet hamster. An Air Balloon Across America just doesn't try hard enough. The script meanders all over the place and the actors, though talented, don’t really seem to know what their purpose is. Nor do we at times. The hamster, not curiously named “Ham,” played by Jeff Brown, serves as the play’s mascot, introducing scenes by, for some reason, climbing on a step ladder, and then jumping back into the balloon with Caitlin. (A note to the costume designer: make Caitlin at least wear a parka. T-shirts and jeans don’t cut it in the South Pole). When Caitlin and her husband argue about her plans, Ham curls up in the background, alternating winces with cutesy smiles and sentimental eye rolls. To get a sense of how annoying Ham the talking hamster is, just imagine the animated paper clip in Microsoft’s Word for Windows lurking constantly on stage, popping up without provocation. Except here, there’s no handy button allowing you to obliterate it.

The program notes hint at the underlying randomness at the heart of this wandering jumble of a play. Martin explains that when volunteering at the Adelaide Fringe Festival in 2004, “I chanced upon a poster for a hot air balloon ride next to one for an Antarctic tour and with an explorer and a hamster in the air balloon, it seemed like something could come out of it.” Well, not really.

But, if he were to jettison the silly hamster from that balloon, and the ghosts of explorers past that flit across the stage, proffering words of wisdom and advice for Caitlin as she floats over the cold expanses—in fact, if he were to jettison everything that stifles and weighs this play down—Martin just might have a good, short, one-act play here. The central story is the accidental burning death of young Sam in his backyard treehouse, a death that might have been prevented, and for which Caitlin ad her husband, played by Terence MacSweeny (a younger, more buoyant, version of James is played by Josh Breslow), suffer staggering guilt. Their marriage is falling apart and they can no longer communicate; indeed, they are beginning to despise each other. Now, this could be a play! And it would be wonderful to see Martin, a PhD Theater candidate at Columbia, mature into a playwright who gets to the heart of the matter, one who is unafraid to toss the dead weight overboard.

Rapture Woman

Picture this: it's the year 2009, and Hillary Clinton ( Three's Company's earnest, but slightly uncomfortable Priscilla Barnes) is President of the United States. Forget all of the struggles that you'd like to associate with this inauguration such as the novelty of the first female president, the election of a Democrat during the current middle eastern war climate, or the ties to hubby Bill Clinton. Playwright Nick Salamone does. Instead, he gives Hillary a rather ingenious battle to contend with in Hillary Agonistes : the onset of the Biblical rapture, the event that marks Jesus Christ's collection of all Christians, dead and alive alike, from the earth. In it, all whom Jesus has chosen will be transported to meet Him in the air, and will be transformed into immortal beings. But such an event could not occur without controversy, conjecture, and a slew of opinions that drive Mrs. President absolutely batty. And it doesn't help that Bill, whose counsel she could well use, is among the vanished. The fact that Hillary has to deal with this problem gives her the right to the epithet Agonistes (“the combatant”, derived from the Greek).

Because the Clinton administration could not possibly acquiesce to offering an explanation out of Christian doctrine (religious war implications, destabilizing world markets), many theories are presented as alternatives. Among them are alien abductions, a global stunt communicated through text messages, and even a false rapture propagated by Satan's “conscripts.” All theories are handled deliciously, albeit maniacally, by various colorful male characters, all played by Nick Salamone, ranging from generals to cardinals.

As Hillary, Priscilla Barnes is stern, commanding, and prone to pacing. Although she has not quite settled into a comfort zone with this portrayal, her choices are almost all justified. As Scottish Morag, President Clinton's Chief of Staff, Jean Gilpin is everything one would expect a person of her rank to be: poised, loyal, compelling and, due to her Quaker upbringing, reticent in her own religious beliefs. Nick Salamone is a chameleon, following through with each of his diverse characters as he follows through with the play's plot execution. He is passionate, incensed, and offers the array of opinions that are to be expected should an event of such magnitude transpire. As new convert to Islam, Chelsea, Rebecca Metz is a hippie in a burka, but it's difficult to take her seriously because she sounds remotely like comedienne Kathy Griffin. However, like Kathy Griffin, the character Chelsea is more vocal and opinionated than the real Chelsea has ever been in the media, and it was nice to hear her perspective, even if it was fictional.

Although it is a witty and profound piece, Hillary Agonistes is not without flaws. The acoustics in the Flamboyan theater of the CSV Cultural and Educational Center swallow the voices of the actors whenever they turn their back to the audience, which under Jon Lawrence Rivera's direction, they occasionally do. Although the sound effects by Bob Blackburn that conclude each scene are wonderfully eerie, they do give the production the veneer of a Saturday Night Live political skit. The voice-overs denoting dates and times are too loud, as are the voice-overs belonging to the character that I fondly call “Rapture Woman”, a figure with a concealed face and gas mask in a burka. Rapture Woman herself is problematic, identifying herself as Shiva, the Hindu deity that destroys, and other names linked to destruction. As several other characters in the play are present to dissuade further wars and contention, this clearly Middle-Eastern symbol antagonizes that mission.

With a healthy mixture of absurdism, creativity and reason, Salamone asserts himself as an informed and exciting storyteller and performer. Flaws aside, Hillary Agonistes is still a great production that is not to be missed.

Of Pigs and Cows and Monkeys and Men

Humans can build computers and launch rockets and think of themselves as having a privileged place in the universe, but in the end, people are just animals. Or so Ryan O’Nan reminds us in several ways in his funny if uneven Animals. The play is not so much a unified, concrete work as it is a series of vignettes with certain commonalities. The most important continuity is a talented cast of three, each performing a wide variety of parts with irresistible energy. Particular recognition is due to Mortensen’s stand-out performance – her aptitude for animal mimicry proves that she, at least, understands her fellow animals, and she can do a mean Jersey accent. The first act is a loose arrangement of snapshots in a New Jersey diner. It begins inside the diner, where two overworked waiters (Michael Hirstreet and O’Nan), whose uniforms include fake pig snouts and tails, get into a bizarre spat and threaten each other with ketchup bottles. O’Nan’s character subsequently sits alone and reflects on his existential malaise, wondering about life’s purpose. Even this seeming seriousness is lightened by the fact that his comments are directed to a ham sandwich. The segment segues cleverly into a scene between two customers, then to pigeons on a wire above the customers, and finally to a pair of flies, a species that featured prominently in the customers’ earlier discussion (a woman coming off a bad break-up compares men to flies).

In the second act, the pace picks up with three separate vignettes. An alien arrives on Earth and mates with an ape, spawning Adam and Eve, who get together, in spite their father’s warnings, after he returns to the mothership for an audit. Next, we learn the real reason unicorns didn’t make it onto Noah’s Ark. Finally, three fed-up cows plan to escape their Texas dairy farm and make their way to India to be worshiped as gods.

In spite of the animal theme and pseudo-existential remarks that the vignettes have in common, they don’t hang together well, and may disappoint viewers who expect movement towards a conclusion. But for those who are open to seeing a production whose flow may lead to some head-scratching, Animals is great goofy fun. While much of its serious message is obscured, the subtle reminder that humans should exercise humility prevents the play from being just another loopy comedy.

Sheep - Paper - Scissors

Who among us hasn’t wanted to rip their hair out when dealing with seemingly endless bureaucratic red tape? And who among us hasn’t tried to give their coat a hair cut? Oh, you haven’t tried that? In baaahhh!!!, written by Stanislav Stratiev, Ivan Antonov gets tangled in bureaucracy because he has attempted to give the hair on his sheep skin coat a trim.

Being a satire of bureaucracy, the bureaucratic world should be the more absurd, but in baaahhh!!! this is not the case. We recognize the paper-pushing bureaucrat and the bizarre maze of an office building in which he lives, but it is much harder to understand the world Ivan comes from. And this makes for a crooked play.

The scenes in the bureaucratic offices are easily the most enjoyable. Tom Hedlund plays the Bureaucrat with delicious indifference, and Stefano Genovese and Maria Riboli have directed with a sympathy that seems to make the madness logical. But the play looses steam when we are not entrenched in something so painfully familiar.

Oddly, the more heightened reality exists in the world outside bureaucracy where Ivan takes his coat to a barber and where there is a man eternally stuck in an elevator. Credit goes to Genovese and Riboli for not attempting to make this world make sense: they simply allow it to be. But because it cannot be reconciled with itself (recognizable at times but wholly alien at others) it provides little contrast to the bureaucratic world. Without this contrast, when the “real” world is stranger than the world that is being satirized, the satire is less successful than it is confusing.

In the end, the play finds itself in limbo – somewhere between reason and insanity – and when it embraces this it exists most comfortably. In one of the final scenes, the satisfaction of sticking it to the man is palpable as Ivan, aided by Dermendzjieva (a former bureaucrat played by the superb and captivating Maria Riboli), abandons all reasoned thinking in the face of roundabout bureaucratic logic.

baaahhh!!! is not flawless, but FringeNYC is not about finding perfection. Though the script could use some shearing, Hedlund and Riboli’s performances are worth seeing, especially when combined with the fistful of laughs this production offers.

Fly Away Home

The opening night performance of children’s musical Angela’s Flying Bed began with an audience member rushing from his seat into the wings to loudly answer his cell phone as the lights went down, leaving his poor daughter sitting alone in the dark. The beginning of the show itself features neglected little Angela, whose two parents are so busy talking on cell phones that they never spend any quality time with her. If that’s not life imitating art (or the other way around), then what is? Locked up at home without a babysitter and no one to play with, little Angela must rely on her imagination to pass the time. She invents a flying, saucy bed that takes her to magical lands with charming creatures: a beach with a trio of selfish shellfish, a desert with a family of camels, and a mountain where llamas wear pajamas. In Angela’s mind, each of these wisecracking animals sings a similar cut time, upbeat number to entertain her. Can Angela eventually get her parents to do the same?

Angela’s Flying Bed is a charming idea poorly executed. Problems are apparent from the opening number, where the complicated patter structure evades young Maya Gaston, who plays the title character. While critiquing child performers is a precarious situation at best, there’s no denying that Gaston looks unhappy onstage throughout, particularly during her ballad “Again.” No one wants to watch a sad looking youngster. In the show’s penultimate and best number, personality-filled Luke Marcus, the show’s other child actor, blatantly outshines his female co-star. The minor-to-minor face-off creates an awkward tension onstage.

Book writer Karl Greenberg and composer Dave Hall should give Mel Brooks a call. Their show is peppered with the kind of vaudeville word shtick that would have made them a fortune 75 years ago. A huge majority of the show rhymes in an amusing way that never feels forced. Unfortunately, the production lacks the energy and the drive necessary for these puns to be consistently funny. Most just fall by the wayside. The adult character actors try their best to ham up the material, but the results are mixed, and the ending is anticlimactic at best.

Jamaica: What Brews Behind Paradise

Do you know what you want? No, really, do you know what you want? And do you know how far you would go to get it? In this dynamic and engaging solo performance, writer/performer Debra Ehrhardt dramatizes her personal journey to fulfill her lifelong desire. Ms. Ehrhardt, a Jamaican, is drawn to the allure of America. The myths that American streets are paved with gold and that anyone can achieve anything here were commonly held beliefs internationally, especially in the 1970s. The lengths she went to in order to arrive on US soil will leave you questioning whether or not you are using your American status to its fullest potential while simultaneously offering a glimpse into the humor, humanity and spirit that exists in the Jamaica behind paradise. Ms. Ehrhardt’s dreams of America were dashed numerous times despite her efforts. As the political situation grows more tumultuous in Jamaica, she feels more stuck. And then, one day, she meets a man whom she believes will be her ticket out of the country. The roller coaster ride that ensues is better left as a surprise for the audience. But I can tell you it involves running for her life, the CIA, prostitutes, and lots of money. The twists and turns are almost unbelievable, especially as you remind yourself that this is a true story.

As a performer, Ms. Ehrhardt aptly transforms into different characters’ bodies and voices. We are in trustworthy hands as she takes us through moments of deep compassion, heavy fear, and youthful delight. Equally adept as a writer, she knows how to command rapt attention through suspense and jarring juxtapositions. With the assistance of simple, yet effective staging by Monique Lai, Ehrhardt offers an experience that attunes the audience to the power of personal storytelling.

I recommend this piece to all theatergoers who love a great story laden with love and despair, courage and weakness, failure and success. I also recommend this piece to Jamaican New Yorkers (of which I am one) who will revel in hearing names like Roxanne, Debbie Ann & Charmaine, phrases such as “kiss mi neck” and other markers of Jamaican-ness.

At the end of the piece, Ms. Ehrhardt returns to a simple choice that she is trying to make. She opts for grandeur and adventure, which, as you will learn, is deeply rooted in her nature.

Note: This production is part of the 2007 NYC International Fringe Festival.

The Devil Takes Hollywood

Everybody wants to be a star. But is fame worth selling your soul for—literally? Lost in Hollywoodland, or the Slugwoman from Uranus tells the tale of Dex Webster, an aspiring film director who sells his soul to the devil, incarnated as a film producer, in exchange for certain fame and success. His lofty hopes are dimmed, however, by the reality that the giant bug movies he directs are campy schlock whose story lines are stolen from an insect-phobic's diary. While the theme of Hollywood devouring innocent artists is hardly original, the twist of the devil being an actual producer is a new extreme, and Hollywoodland runs with it as far as possible.

The book and lyrics are witty and full of surprising wordplay and entertaining references to popular movies and plays. The upbeat score is fluid and keeps the mood light. The show sets out to remake the traditional Faust story in a manner that is both shamelessly silly and pokes quite a bit of gentle fun at Hollywood and L.A. culture. And just when you think things can't get any zanier, there is an entire song about chicken croquettes.

The cast members possess energy and good voices and generally do credit to the show's composition. Standout performances are given by Molly Alvarez, who deftly manages Daphne's transition from frumpy home economist to sexpot star, and Tamara Zook, who brings a strong stage presence, quirky facial expressions, and perfect comic timing to her role as longtime diva Carlotta.

An effectively diverting experience, Lost in Hollywoodland makes for an entertaining night out, as well as a winning choice to see with visiting relatives.

Note: This production is part of the 2007 New York International Fringe Festival.

Made to Order

There are times when waiting to get served in a restaurant can seem as futile as waiting for Godot. Dozens of worries can pass through your head. Are the other tables receiving more attention than you? Is it because of your race? Your age? Do you look as if you don't belong there? Have you done something to anger the waiters? Or are you even there at all? Kevin Doyle's surrealist comedy Not From Canada exists in this moment of social paranoia. Three friends sit around a table, examining their place settings as if they are strange, foreign objects. They study their reflections in the silverware, fiddle with the corners of their folded napkins, and then just sit there, jiggling their feet.

Finally, the man sitting in the middle, known as Cute Guy (Paul Newport), turns to the Cute Girl (Ishah Janssen-Faith) beside him and asks if he knows her. He must, she decides, since "all cute people know each other." Across from them sits Not-So-Cute Girl (Macha Ross). She self-consciously touches her frizzy blond hair, feeling for loose strands though it is pulled back in a bun and pinned down with several clips. She is not sure how she knows either of them, but acknowledges that figuring it out will make for good dinner conversation.

Ross later steals the show when she sheds her prissy persona long enough to deliver a hilariously ridiculous monologue about the extinction of pandas and her efforts to preserve their memory by purchasing entire shelves of clear liquid pump soap with little plastic pandas inside.

Ross, Newport, and Faith all deliver lively performances that do justice to the playful and funny writing. Doyle keeps each conversational thread fresh and interesting by having his characters explore the kinds of ideas and observations that are often blips on our minds' radar. Could your hand ever get stuck slipping money beneath a slot? Is it better to pump your gas or pay someone else to do it? Is a Taco Bell located inside a Target store still a Taco Bell or just another extension of Target? Cute Guy is particularly distressed because he cannot envision what his forefathers wore before the invention of wrinkle-free khakis.

The longer the diners wait to order their food, the hungrier they get, and the hungrier they get, the more they find their conversations starting to spin out of control. But the play spins with them, and it is an enjoyable, dizzying ride. It may not leave everything clear by the time it stops, but it will certainly give you a new perspective on ordering in a restaurant.

Note: This production is part of the 2007 New York International Fringe Festival.

Put Another Beer on the Fire

How can half-siblings mourn the passing of their father when neither one liked him much? By drinking a lot of beer and hashing up old family history. This is the basic plot of bombs in your mouth , the type of intimate unit set two-hander tailor made for tinier Fringe venues. Despite a familiar concept, this one-act mines fresh emotions thanks to great acting and concise storytelling. Playwright, Rude Mechanicals member, and star Corey Patrick plays Danny, a Minnesota gas station owner caring for his abusive father. Danny hasn’t seen half-sister Lily, an Upper West Side copywriter, in over five years. When she returns for the funeral, their respective frustrations are encapsulated in a silent, animalistic impromptu drinking game. The bingeing establishes an authentic bond between the pair, who genuinely seem like they’ve been pushing each other’s buttons since childhood.

The play finds absurdity in the way people talk when pushed to their limits. Both characters find their behavior growing increasingly irrational, mirroring the demise of their parent. While much of the action is confrontational, there are some tender moments as well to balance out the relationship. There is a very sweet moment about a third of the way through where Lily discovers that Danny has fixed up his bedroom for her. From that instant, his gesture and her gratitude hook you for the rest of the show.

Patrick’s script is chock full of tiny inanities of everyday life, but never dips into shoddy hipster irony. Lily refuses to accept a bereavement phone call from a old friend whose house recently burned down, saying the two will console each other over their losses to the point of extreme awkwardness. Danny discusses the difficulty of eating everything with a spoon when their dad outlawed all forks in the house. Both ponder the wonders of Jello.

The show’s provocative title is the only misleading or disappointing thing about the production. It makes it sound like just another Fringe show with a clever moniker but, otherwise, no real value. There are no bombs here, just honest communication between an actor and an actress, a half-brother and a half-sister, and a playwright and an audience. That’s a far bigger rarity.

A Puppet Show of Biblical Proportions

MIRIAM may be short, but it takes the audience on a journey of Biblical proportions. Diane Allison’s wonderful 35-minute, one-woman puppet show MIRIAM: A Prophetess Who Found Herself on the Wrong Side of God, running at the New York International Fringe Festival, uses sorrow, humor, and memory to tell the story of Miriam, the prophetess of the Bible who saved her baby brother Moses by sending him down the river. This is the part of the story most people know, yet Miriam also spoke out against Moses’ marriage to a Cushite (Cushites being people from an Egyptian province) woman while in the desert, and as punishment God gave her a form of leprosy. The show is surprisingly moving and enlightening, as Allison, the playwright, converses with Miriam in her wounded state. It is here where the audience comes to know Miriam and hear the Exodus story in her own words. Miriam, now older, cannot comprehend why her brother would marry such a woman and why God would punish her for speaking against Moses’ actions. But as she travels through her memory, she finally understands, and the revelation is not just a revelation to her but to the audience as well. Miriam lets go of her anger towards her sister-in-law and to those that caused such misery in her life, a process the audience can recognize in their own lives.

Constructed by Allison, Miriam herself is a puppet of such beautiful design that she looks like a person, even though the face is motionless. The fixed façade, however, says everything. Allison has managed to make Miriam a living being in the few movements she has, distilling emotion down to turns of the head and gestures of the arms.

An example of first-rate storytelling, MIRIAM showcases the power of puppetry, voice, and memory in understanding a character and bringing a character to understanding.

A Southern Fable

Southern Gothic reigns in The Hanging of Razor Brown, a sluggish play about racial prejudice that resifts well-tilled soil. In a program note, dramatist Le Wilhelm tells us that "I really had not a good concept of what race prejudice was" when he grew up. It wasn't until the late 70s and 80s that he got an inkling of it, he adds, from a sign in 1980 that said, "No Coloreds after Sunset," and from an encounter with a paternalistic Southern woman in Florida. "I witnessed it firsthand," he says, but the play feels resolutely secondhand. Death hovers over the characters, who mingle during one afternoon in 1923 in front of a boarded-up crypt and a sarcophagus, shaded by hanging cypress. They have come to a cemetery knoll to see the hanging of the title character, and they are as repressed, morbid, and familiar as their more famous types from sources such as William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Lillian Hellman of The Little Foxes, and the film Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte.

For faded gentility à la Amanda Wingfield, there's a prim schoolmistress, Genevieve Lecompte (Tracy Newirth, in one of the roles that is double cast), who teaches her three teenage students French by reading Racine's Phèdre. A note of genteel, hand-on-the-throat hypocrisy is pretty much all Newirth is given to play, and it quickly turns tiresome.

Two people have their eyes on her. One is the portly, depraved Matthew Devereaux, whose ancestors occupy the crypt and sarcophagus. In the part, Jon Oak does nicely in a toned-down dry run for the corrupt Boss Finley in Sweet Bird of Youth. The other is Robert Price (Nick Giello), a glib and handsome survivor of the Great War whose best friend is a bottle. Unfortunately, in playing someone in an alcoholic stupor Giello doesn't bring enough energy to essentially a one-note part. (It would be nice to see him as Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or as Chance Wayne, the seedy Adonis, in Sweet Bird.) Genevieve, who gives herself airs, scorns both of them as beneath her.

Gradually the town's corruption reveals itself in the history of the community and in the adults' moral lethargy. Devereaux's father was a pedophile who pursued young men. Significantly, Devereaux says, those boys were paid off and have become "the leading citizens of this community," suggesting the depth of the town's tolerance of its leading citizens' depravity.

Genevieve instructs her girls that the queen Phèdre (who loved her stepson) can't be judged "because we are not her equals. We cannot understand her position." Even when evidence is discovered that absolves Razor Brown, a black man who was convicted of stealing a horse and who worked for Genevieve, she forbids her charges to lift a finger. Yet Wilhelm has sympathy for the characters, who are all in some sense trapped by their social and biological roles.

Director Merry Beamer lets some scenes go on too long—reading Racine and a watermelon-spitting contest—but the bigger problem is the characters. Neither Genevieve nor Price is sympathetic, even if they are trapped into "living a lie." It's left to Anastasia Morsucci as Razor's wife, Clara, to jolt the drama to an intensity befitting the life-or-death situation. The actresses playing the young girls are also fine, and Erin Singleton as the youngest brings not only angelic looks but a winsomeness and backbone to the role. The period is superbly evoked by Cynthia Winstead's 20s outfits in summery fabrics with matching hats.

For a dramatist who wants to write about race prejudice because he felt it firsthand, Wilhelm undercuts his own intentions late in the play. One character pointedly announces that the day is Feb. 29, 1923, a leap year day that never existed. The story, then, is a fable, and ultimately it's more exasperating than enlightening.

Farquhar in the Park

It's been a slow day for recruiting officer Kite. The army needs soldiers for an incomprehensible foreign war, or maybe several, but he has managed to sign up only five new soldiers, and one is a lawyer. "Are you mad in the head? Enlist a lawyer? Discharge him!" his superior officer, Captain Plume, shouts. "I will have no man in my army who can write, for he will write ... petitions!" George Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer, smartly produced by the New York Classical Theater, sounds as if it were written yesterday, but it was first produced in the 18th century.

Captain Plume, played by Torsten Hillhouse, is a class A jerk who believes "it is our policy to leave as many recruits in the county as we take out." This has made him a deadbeat dad many times over. Plume is in love with Sylvia Balance, the daughter of a local judge. Plume's best buddy, civilian dilettante Worthy, is in love with Sylvia's cousin Melinda, who has rebuffed him. Both women have money, which makes them even more attractive to the men.

Meanwhile, don't ask how the war is going. When Sylvia's wise father does, Plume replies that, on his last deployment, "we were so intent on victory we paid no attention to the battle."

The principal actors use their comic skills to amp up the silliness. As Plume, Hillhouse struts like a peacock and delivers his most absurd lines with a caustic deadpan. Shad Ramsey's Worthy jumps around in the pain of unrequited love, contorting his body and screwing up his face like Jim Carrey on Turkish coffee.

Sylvia (Katie Sigisimund) spends a large part of the play in drag, aping the perfect recruit. Sigisimund plays these scenes with confidence and a low voice. As the braggart soldier Brazen, Sean Hagerty speaks in a silly, plummy accent and is endearingly obnoxious. Erik Gratton's Kite is at his loopy best as a fake fortune teller.

Director Grant Neale's promenade theater staging is minimal but effective. After every few scenes, a pair of musicians, Ricky Ryerson and James Honderich, perform 18th-century folk music while leading the audience through the park to a new location. (On the night I saw it, they made an unexpected detour around a Parks Service tractor and a garbage van without skipping a beat.) Like recruits, the audience must follow the leaders.

Production designer Amelia Dombrowski's costumes suggest the silhouettes of 18th-century clothes but are not period-play copies. I especially liked the foppish Worthy's pinstriped frock coat, decorated with what appears to be pieces of a necktie.

Farquhar was much better at writing political satire than romance. For most of the play, he keeps the lovers apart, leaving little opportunity for the actors to build chemistry. This makes the romance seem contrived, but that may be Farquhar's cynical intention.

Like the Public Theater's annual Shakespeare in the Park season, The Recruiting Officer is produced outdoors in Central Park, and admission is free. Unlike Shakespeare in the Park, you don't need to wait on long lines to reserve tickets. Simply show up and watch. With that policy, great performances, and Farquhar's funny, timely script, you have no excuse not to enlist.