Wand Music

At its best, the New York International Fringe Festival showcases daring, original, exciting productions deserving of further stage lives. The Blue Cake Theater Company's intelligent, intriguing, heartfelt performance-art piece Theremin: Music From the Wave of a Hand, written by and starring Ben Lewis and Duke Doyle, exemplifies the Fringe at its best. The title refers to the first electronic musical instrument and its tragic Russian inventor, Leon Sergeevich Teremin. The theremin, its inventor, and its first virtuoso, New York University music student Clara Rockmore, captivated America in the 1920s. Then, Leon Theremin mysteriously disappeared. His instrument followed his vanishing before making a resurgence in the 1950s in the soundtracks to The Day the Earth Stood Still and other sci-fi films. A retro signifier of weirdness, kitsch, and alienation, its haunting electronic trills are featured in the Beach Boys's "Good Vibrations."

Brian Wilson, the possibly schizophrenic Beach Boys songwriter, is the play's protagonist. As played by Lewis, Wilson talks to a theremin and to his ghostly idol Theremin (Doyle) while holed up in his home, straitjacketed. Society destroys genius, Wilson insists. Observe Theremin, who spent many of his lost years in the dreadful Kolyma Gulag. But, as Wilson explores Theremin's life, work, dreams, and delusions, he destroys treasured myths about genius, music, and alienation.

Doyle and Lewis competently act the characters they wrote, even though they both look a little young for the roles. Lewis's Wilson exudes the naïve energy of the garage-band Mozart, modulating his madness with moments of piercing clarity. Doyle's Theremin is socially awkward but diplomatic and charming. He plays Theremin's fear of the KGB and other, more personal demons quietly but clearly. As Theremin's muse Rockmore, the versatile Elizabeth Palin is stoical and equally convincing as Theremin's wide-eyed 22-year-old protégé and weary, elderly traveling disciple. Gabe Levey maintains a stiff upper lip and nebbishy demeanor as Theremin's Soviet manager Alexander.

A fragmented, nonlinear, and often stylized performance style makes Theremin much more than a docu-play about a pair of creative eccentrics. One section, in which scenes from Theremin's life are frantically replayed in the style of a sci-fi B movie, is a riot. Wilson's selective memory and runaway imagination also make for some surprising narrative twists. Finally, thereminist John Hoge plays live onstage. There is a lot of "multimedia" performance in this city, where the "multimedia" is the icing on the cake. Here, it's an essential ingredient.

Putting Away the Hater-ade: BASH’D Keeps it Real

On August 12, I hit the Village Theatre for a performance of Chris Craddock and Nathan Cuckow’s Bash’d: A Gay Rap Opera. I must admit, the title is what attracted me to this production, because the words Gay, Rap, and Opera don’t appear in the same sentence very often. In this case they go together brilliantly. Craddock and Cuckow (with help from music coordinator, Aaron Macri) have constructed a smart, funny and affecting piece of theater told entirely through the rap medium. Their rhymes are tight, clever, refreshingly out of the closet and above all, successful in conveying the tragic story that is the foundation for Bash’d. The show opens with Craddock (a.k.a. T-Bag) and Cuckow (a.k.a. Feminem) donning angel wings and encouraging all the “real faggots” to “limp their wrists in the air.” After this in-your-face introduction, the pair go on to narrate a story about two “star-crossed lovers” named Dylan and Jack who meet in a gay club, fall in love, get married (the show takes place in Canada, right after gay marriage was legalized) and seem primed to live happily every after, until, one night, Jack is gay-bashed by a gang of straights. Angered and frustrated by the police and the community’s failure to do anything about it, Dylan seeks revenge on his own terms.

Throughout the show, these two performers play every character from the lovers to their parents to the various faces that occupy the gay club scene. Both actors give an intensely energetic and convincing performance in every role they assume, eliciting both laughs and tears from the audience sometimes within the same line. Utilizing humor and their incredible “gift of gab” they put across an anti-hate message that is poignant without being preachy. The most effective moment in the entire show comes at the conclusion, when Craddock and Cuckow step forward and offer up shout outs of “Rest in Peace” to those who have been killed as a result of being gay-bashed. Overall, I left the theater thoroughly entertained and affected by this piece and would recommend it to not only gays, rap fans, or theater aficionados, but anyone who enjoys a great piece of storytelling.

A Musical Political Adventure

Terry Baum gets more than she bargains for when she volunteers with the Green Party. Fed up with the Patriot Act and the way the Democrats are responding, she soon finds herself running for Congress with no political experience. With fellow member Ilsa (played by pianist and composer Scrumbly Koldewyn in a lovely wig and leopard-print dress) as her manager, she becomes a write-in candidate on the 2004 ballot in San Francisco and journeys from stammering, apologetic neophyte to eloquent, confident politician. Baum portrays this transformation well, but BAUM FOR PEACE: The True Adventures of the Slightly World-Renowned Lesbian Playwright Who Ran for Congress, written and performed by Baum, ultimately suffers from inconsistent style and form. The songs, with music by Koldewyn and lyrics by David Hyman, are reminiscent of the 1960s/1970s political revues and vaudeville. With fun, silly rhymes like "arrow" and "Clarence Darrow" and “don’t have time to spare-o,” this musical style is fighting the straight-forward style of the rest of the show. Every time a song starts, the audience needs time to adjust. When the songs ends, Baum abruptly switches back to her more serious narrative (although there are a handful of jokes in the dialogue). One wishes that she would pick one of the storytelling forms, creating either a frothy yet smart political revue or a tighter narrative. Baum sells the songs, but going back and forth between the two styles throws her off at times, creating a shaky and uneven performance.

There are some nice elements despite the consistency problems. Baum’s character is engaging and inspires empathy, and the political process she navigates is fascinating and enlightening. The best moment of the piece occurs when the results of the voting come in. Baum has gotten 2.9% of the vote and is dismayed at the tiny percentage. Ilsa, however, is overjoyed. This is the largest percentage any small-party write-in candidate has gotten in United States history. It is then Baum realizes that with all her optimism, she never really had a chance. Her face falls as though she’s known this fact inside all along but ignored it with all the campaign excitement. She accepts her small success with a smile and moves on.

In spite of its weak points, BAUM FOR PEACE’s story lingers after the performers have left the stage, perhaps because the audience is much like Baum-- outraged citizens who want to be heard.

Showstoppers

An explosion of silver sequins and jazz hands, the first act of Show Choir! The Musical is an effervescent, high-kicking delight. The story of the rise and fall (and rise?) of a nationally renowned show choir, the Symphonic Sensations, this joyous production is an affectionate send-up of that staple of so many American high schools: a hormonal ensemble of singing, dancing, and over-emoting teenagers. With snappy and jubilant choreography from director Gary Slavin, the material is also an ingenious premise for a theatergoing crowd, in which so many viewers are automatically in on the joke. Many future thespians willingly participate in or are subjected to "the art of show choir." (Full disclosure: my Nebraska group was called the Choraleers. And yes, I loved the show.)

Creators Mark McDaniels and Donald Garverick penned the book, music, and lyrics, and they have cleverly parroted the high-octane melodies and rhythms of show choirs into winning production numbers and engaging solos. They skillfully capture the simplistic sheen of lightweight four-part harmonies, as well as the American Idol-inspired trend toward pseudo power ballads.

They also deftly dramatize the dynamics of quirky teenage personalities. In a sense, Show Choir! works like A Chorus Line in reverse. When Jake wakes up from a silver-spangled dream, he is determined to make this line of dancing bodies a reality. And one by one, an initial group of shimmering performers separates into distinct personalities. The excellent cast turns in pitch-perfect performances—each ensemble member creates a memorable character, and they are well supported by Brian Michael Flanagan, as the enterprising Jake, and Dena Cubbin, as the sweetly ambitious composer, Monica. Michelle Millerick and Marcos Sanchez also provide exceptional comic work in a grab bag of character roles.

Jammed with too much emotional weight, the second act fumbles a bit, and the action kinks when it becomes overly (and overtly) earnest. Watching the downward spiral isn't as satisfying as the upward climb, and one wishes the writers would also extend their pithy energy into the more sobering material.

Framed by a Behind the Music-esque documentary that takes place in 2012, the group staggers to fame in chronological scenes, interspersed with quirky interviews and reflections. That a show choir could ever capture the cultural imagination of the American public seems preposterous, at best, but I wouldn't call this show a "spoof"—given the amazingly enthusiastic audience response, this is clearly (cue jazz hands) a celebration of the lovable geek in all of us.

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

A Dismal Camp Fairytale

Princess Mimi, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Frog is further subtitled (A Play for Someone Else’s Children). If someone else’s children are little monsters, the nightmare of every babysitter in town, and long overdue for a good talking to, then by all means take them to see this play. Those kids deserve to suffer through this bottom of the barrel melding of The Frog Prince and Beauty and the Beast. Anyone else should stay far, far away. The title princess is a spoiled brat whose only companion is a golden iPod nicknamed Poddy. When she drops her beloved device in a well, she strikes a deal with a frog to fish it out in exchange for letting him stay at the palace. What follows is exactly what you’d expect.

The show, judging from the bios in the program, is almost entirely a product of NYU Tisch BFAs, both in front of and behind the scenes. The humor is low-rent college irony. Scraps of it could be amusing if cut into an Internet series of 45-second fragments, but no amount of bright scenery or energetic acting can disguise the fact that most of playwright Patrick Flynn’s script just isn’t funny. It’s too safe to be kitsch, too bland to be camp, and too often adult to be children’s theater. Society is past the point where merely dressing a man or woman in drag and having them walk around in fabulous outfits is worthy of laughs.

The fabulous outfits, however, really are just that. Everyone gets some great costume choices from designer Laura Helmer. Most characters sport a ridiculously oversized hat for comic effect. Princess Mimi’s headdress contains empty Tab cans that bang together when she makes any sudden movements. Scenic designers Andrew Scoville and Harry John Shephard find charming and simple ways to create the magical land of New Jersey, where the story is set.

But nearly everything else is off. Throughout the show, the two narrators constantly ask the Princess (in the kind of meta-theater talk only recent drama school graduates find amusing) to move the scene along for the sake of the audience. It’s as if the storytellers themselves know they’re telling a dud.

A Poetic Tribute to Juliet

Juliet awakens to find herself among the dead. She sits within what looks like a tomb and stares at the constraining gossamer walls that enclose her insular space. A candle flickers beside her. She is not Shakespeare’s heroine however, and the setting is not the Capulets’ catacombs. This Juliet is a mother, a mother of seven to be exact, and she has been imprisoned in Romania after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. She speaks in words penned by her youngest son, to a God she fears has abandoned her. This is the premise of Andras Visky’s play Juliet, which has recently been translated into English from Romanian. The story chronicles Visky’s mother’s internal struggles during the time she spent in a prison camp and the play is structured as one long monologue directed toward God. The strikingly gorgeous and talented actress, Melissa Hawkins, plays the leading lady. Hawkins’ devotion to the text and Christopher Markle’s astute direction bring Juliet’s fragmented memories to life. Her remembrances of events seem to ebb and flow from bliss to devastation as her personal biography takes shape on stage. The Independent Theater’s tiny playing space and Terrence McClellan’s scenic design heighten the poetic realism of the piece. The lighting scheme, however, sometimes brings us out of Juliet’s reality when it flickers from light to dark at seemingly random times.

Juliet’s only major deterrent is its length. The play’s running time is 1 hour and 30 minutes, which is a long time to listen to one person speak, however, Hawkins does a great job of keeping the dialogue moving at a rapid pace. Potential viewers are encouraged to sharpen their attention spans, as Hawkins' performance is well worth the effort.

Ring in the New

The cast members of End's Eve: The Feast of 2012 congregate to ring in the new year, but they do so on Dec. 21, a few days earlier than tradition dictates. Why? Because, according to ancient Mayan prophecy, on that date in 2012 the world will end and be reborn. And so Leo (Nic Few) and his partner, Davis (Ethan Matthews), have decided to throw a costume party commemorating this passage. Written by Jennifer Gnisci and Hilary Park, the play follows the lives of these characters as midnight nears. Tuly (Marnye Young) is an eccentric Southern belle who relies on the comfort of Jack Daniels and special mushrooms, and has a habit of taking her beloved Mick (Tony Naumovsky) for granted. Xi (Devon Berkshire), hints that the personal demons she expelled when giving birth to daughter, Pi (Lauren Orkus), may indeed be returning.

Unfortunately, with a cast this size, it is difficult to familiarize the audience with all characters equally. I found that some important details explaining their backgrounds and histories with one another were missing.

Still, Young does an exceptional job conveying the play's theme of freedom and fear with a bold performance that's dynamic enough to draw viewers in but warm enough to show why the other characters are drawn to her. Orkus is also worth noting for effortlessly playing a young child quite younger than her actual age. And Timothy Smallwood hits the appropriate enigmatic notes as the mysterious guest Bardo.

As is the case with many shows at the New York International Fringe Festival, the play sometimes suffers from a kind of slapdash mayhem. For example, at certain times various party guests retreat to what is supposed to be a rooftop, but it appears as though they are merely walking to another part of Tania Bijlani's apartment set. Director Erik Bryan Slavin has a difficult task, always having to stage his full cast and move them around in various groups before the audience gets bored with the positioning in front of them. And when they're in the background, some actors appear to break character, simply watching the action, to which they should be indifferent.

Ultimately, what End's Eve portrays best is the mood. Slavin and the writers suggest an atmosphere of insecurity, where the world the characters know and the rules that govern it are coming to an end. It's both exciting and scary, just like real life.

Game Over

Helmet is a play composed of two incongruous parts. The first half is intense physical theater at its finest, but has a mostly unintelligible storyline. The second half features a terrific monologue and some interesting interaction between the two characters, but it loses the corporal specificity of the first section. If the two halves were properly combined, they would create a highly compelling experience. As it stands now, Helmet is an intriguing but ultimately frustrating hour in the dark. Sal is a video game storeowner facing bankruptcy and living in the shadow of his more successful brother. Despite Sal’s financial and personal troubles, teenage gamer Roddy thinks he has a dream job. Roddy (aka Helmet) comes into Sal’s store every day to talk shop and buy the latest diversion. As the lines between game and reality blur, will either be able to survive the store’s imminent closure?

Playwright Douglas Maxwell, who formerly worked at a video game shop in Glasgow, shows his gaming knowledge in his dialogue. His play is peppered with terminology that might confuse audiences who grew up with the original Nintendo, an Atari, or nothing at all.

As Sal laments in one scene, his industry is so obsessed with the next best thing that three years ago is an unthinkable eternity for most gamers and manufacturers. Sal asks why graphics need to be continually improved to please consumers. A good game is a good game, no matter how old it is. Observations like this are more likely to hit home for players who follow the industry.

Maxwell repeats many of the scenes in his play as if each character had multiple lives, as do the characters in typical video games. The idea is cool, but it clouds his intent. Is Maxwell’s point that given the ability to relive moments in their own lives people might choose to make things easier for themselves rather than facing the grim nature of reality? This seems to be what the play is trying to communicate, but it is difficult to know for certain.

Both Michael Evans Lopez as Sal and Troy David Mercier as Roddy/Helmet fully commit to their Viewpoints grid physical score in the tiny Players Loft space. With the limited rehearsal time generally available for Fringe productions, it’s great to see two actors genuinely working together. Now if only the two sections of the play could do the same.

When Topical Humor Goes Right

Making what may very well be every pop culture reference since late 2005 is a fast way to avoid any real substance, but when done with wit, as in I DIG DOUG, it is also a quick route to laughs. The play, written and performed by Karen DiConcetto and Rochelle Zimmerman, engulfs its audience in a hyper-current whirlwind from the first sound cue. DiConcetto and Zimmerman (in one of her numerous characters) are college application essay-writing high school seniors who casually profess their social superiority to young female celebrities of the one-name variety (Paris, Lindsay, Hillary, et al). But when Paris’ post-prison morals become insufferable and a reality show is exposed as a work of fiction, DiConcetto’s “Girl” adopts democratic presidential nominee, Douglas Ward (a caricature of Howard Dean), as her new celebrity kindred spirit.

Girl embarks on a pilgrimage with her friend (Zimmerman) to Iowa to help Doug win the election. Along the way, the girls encounter everything from gun-toting animal rights activists to a waitress whose son has been sent to tour Iraq … in Cats.

Girl learns something about herself and about the world from each outlandish situation and the audience gets the chance to laugh at her US Weekly-induced naïveté. Witnessing a commercially-courted communist hippie named Echo teach Girl about the science and marketing behind trends like skinny jeans and the iPhone is at once pitiful and joyous (not to mention an absolute riot).

I DIG DOUG is a hysterical parody of modern society. Though it will be an obsolete relic two years from now, it is fresh in the meantime. The play thrives on its snappy, witty writing and nimble direction (by Bert V. Royal of Dog Sees God). While neither of the two actresses are fully believable as their superficial, vapid characters, that is the production’s intention. Zimmerman admirably accomplishes chameleon-like character shifts in only seconds, and DiConcetto skillfully finds the soul beneath her character’s shallow exterior.

A clever revelation at the end ties up a play that otherwise has had no ending in sight. Up to that point, the audience laughs along with blind faith that the plot is going somewhere. It is a testament to the play’s exuberant frivolity that this doesn’t occur to anyone sooner.

Saturday Night Live-esque topicality is nothing new, but it has not been done so well since Anna Nicole kicked the bucket. The brief moments that pass for substance in I DIG DOUG, despite being smartly constructed, are not the main point. In the end, fluff is just fun.

Passing Go Has Never Been So Dangerous

Echoes of playwright Richard Foreman's sensibilities ring through Richard Fulco's Get Out of Jail Free , but it's to be expected. With two former Ontological Hysteric Theater (Foreman's theater) alum (actress Sarah Politis as Chorus and director Anthony Cerrato) on board and Fulco's abstract material, it is easy to see the relationship. As former stage manager and assistant director to Foreman, Cerrato creates histrionics that are in his mentor's fantastical vein, but unfortunately does not demonstrate Foreman's panache with the existential. Somewhere in a distant realm, a totalitarian government has declared love and its associate emotions, such as lust and passion, to be illegal. Toiling in this society is a young couple, Buttock (Matt Cosper) and Half-Way (Jessie Paddock), who dare not touch and dare not desire for fear of incarceration. They rant and rave, and yearn, without admission of course, for an illustrious Get Out of Jail Free card that will allow them to love and have sex with a pardon. Keeping close watch on their interactions is Agent 3931254 (Sara Kamin), a federal bulldog in bondage gear that the promotional for the show says is striving for a promotion with the couple's arrest. There are two things wrong with this preview. Firstly, Kamin has created a character with a propensity for violence and torture, and this ambition, although mentioned briefly in dialog, is never at the forefront because her glee with inflicting pain supersedes it. Secondly, the reason why the arrest of this particular couple will win her a promotion is never qualified. Of course, the lack of substantiation could be chalked up to the fact that this play does not follow a linear, narrative thread, but because there are dueling conceptual and material elements, the lack of consistency and focus is brought to the surface.

The characters are very talkative and energetic, but everything they say and do enters the realm of the nonsensical. Unlike Foreman's work, there is very little intellectual meat to chew on here, but Fulco seems to be wrestling with the uniqueness of love in that it's the only yearning that can satisfy itself. For example, food satisfies hunger, sleep satisfies fatigue, but only love satisfies the need for love. Of course, this is one of the many declarations that are flung into the air, but it is the one that bears the most weight. The play also concedes that the removal of emotion from actions that are sexual in nature is impossible, which could be construed as support for the love-satisfies-love thesis.

None of the actors distinguish themselves because they all operate at the same frenzied tempo. There is no contrasting, straight character, and as a result, Cerrato has created a frigid vacuum. As the chorus, Sarah Politis and Ian Campbell Dunn are amusing because they are not anchored to anything, but they only contribute to the artless chaos. There are overused catch phrases, pop and classical literature references, and even a shout-out to Saturday Night Live's Sally O'Malley character. Unfortunately, none of it creates a fantasy that should be endured for more than fifteen minutes.

Visually, Kaitlyn Mulligan's set is a wonderful playground setting meant only for adults. She creates pieces that look like torture contraptions out of pieces that are meant for childhood revelry. Apart from the set, the costumes by Annie Simon are busy and mismatched, but perfect for this anarchic world.

Despite the relentless movement, I couldn't help but think that Get Out of Jail Free would work best as a radio drama because of its kooky sound effects and amplified drama. And if this is what a loveless world would look like, let us all beg Congress for its preservation.

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

All Talk No Action

Len and Ernest chronicles the inability of two men to solve a conflict. The play begins in a dilapidated Brooklyn bar where Len and Ernest are waiting for a phone call. They sit on opposite sides of the room, consumed by their own thoughts, and speak candidly with one another about their insecurities. When the phone rings both men seem non-plussed, yet it is clear that this call is meant to change the course of events. They seem to know who is on the other line but the audience does not, nor does it ever learn. The call essentially serves as a catalyst for the men to argue over who should leave. But rather than leave right away, they question who should go, when they should go, how they should get to wherever they are going, and so on - perhaps a small nod to Mr. Beckett’s Godot. These seemingly mundane and often ambiguous conversations build to physical altercations, verbal spats and deadly silences but the relationship between the two men never escalates or develops. The conflict is drawn out in such a way that for 50 minutes no one actually does anything or goes anywhere. Finally, at the end, one man leaves. The actors who play Len and Ernest, Francesco Saviano and Mauricio Bustamante, are like two lost electrons that bounce around the wide empty set in slow motion. Their intentions are earnest but the dialogue doesn’t allow them to make any choices.

Characters need to make choices in any story, whether it takes the form of a play, a television show or a fairy tale. A character's decision to act pushes the plot forward. When there are no choices, there is no action, and if there is no action, there is no plot, and if there is no plot, the only result can be a very boring play.

Bumming in the 'Burg

The saucy hipsters of Brooklyn take the stage in Williamsburg! The Musical, a raucous spoof of the thrumming young neighborhood. Writers Nicola Barber, Will Brumley, Brooke Fox, and Kurt Gellersted have slathered a formulaic story with the irony and zest of this fashion-forward, overly intellectual crowd, replete with sarcasm and skinny jeans. The story centers around Piper Paris, a newcomer on the block. She moves into a crumbling apartment building and discovers that her Polish landlady is being threatened by carnivorous real estate scavenger Amina Snatch, a Cruella DeVil with a perky black bob. Despondent on her 30th birthday, Piper decides to end her life by leaping off the Williamsburg Bridge. Shlomo, a cheerful dry cleaner (and Hassidic Jew), talks her down, and the two begin an unlikely, clunky, yet endearing courtship. As Shlomo and Piper fall in love, Snatch continues to circle the neighborhood, turning unsuspecting hipsters into zombies to peddle the accoutrements of her slick company.

Any New Yorker who's in the know will appreciate jokes about the L train's inefficiency, the changing demographics and gentrification of the city's neighborhoods, and the exhausting quest for cool. Although a few of the winks are conveyed a bit too broadly, Gellersted and Fox have created an infectious, catchy score that frequently hits its emotional mark. One example is "Craigslist Hook-Up/Missed Connections," which pokes fun at the desperate language of personal ads while also capturing the loneliness of living in a city where casual encounters are plenty but intimate relationships are few.

Director and choreographer Deborah Wolfson keeps the action charging across the stage, but the tone often diverges wildly between earnestness and irony. It's often unclear whether this is a celebration, critique, or loving spoof (which I suspect it is) of this neighborhood. Thankfully, Alison Guinn (as the petulant Piper) and Evan Shyer (as the charming Shlomo) make their roles and relationship crystal clear. Without poking fun at themselves, they embody their characters with pluck and sincerity. Their supercharged power duet, "We Can't Look (And We Can't Touch)," is one of the production's most electric moments.

It's a messy life in Williamsburg, and the opening number begins with the silhouette of a frenetically dancing hipster—soon, another joins in, until there is a thrashing mob of hipsters, moving in rhythm. This assimilative movement betrays a culture in which its members don't (but clearly do!) care what other people think, and this cutthroat race to be the hippest of them all creates a visibly homogeneous human landscape. An entertaining trip to a nifty neighborhood (no subway ride required), Williamsburg! is a production struggling to figure out what it wants to say.

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

Hamlet Lives Again

Given all the bloodshed that brings Shakespeare’s Hamlet to a close, there would seem to be limited opportunities for a sequel. However, as the box office success of countless horror movie sequels, and the artistic success of Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead have shown, there is no reason to let a pile of corpses get in the way of spinning off a new story. In her ingenious but difficult new play, Isabelle Assante took that lesson and extended the life of Hamlet past the title character’s death. She did so using Shakespeare’s text: cut up and rearranged, the original play’s lines, plus a few incidental additions, have become Horatio. The new production is born from a verse spoken by the dying Danish prince to his friend Horatio, in which he implores him to tell the world the story of what has happened. This scene is reproduced by a group of five actors who form a sort of chorus for the play and whom Horatio (Richard Gallagher, in an outstanding performance) has engaged to fulfill his dead lord’s request. Horatio plays his own part, but it is visibly hard on him. Afterwards, he decides he can bear the pain no longer, and before long he and the chorus are in the cemetery. When Hamlet (John Pasha) enters he’s crazier than ever, and not happy to see Horatio; Pasha, wild-eyed, terrifies those on stage as well as everyone in the audience.

Although the lines and characters are familiar to anyone who has read Hamlet, Horatio can be hard to follow. Elizabethan theater conventions are challenging anew, and the Shakespearean diction is as puzzling as the first time a viewer sees one of his plays. Hamlet is a part of the English-speaking world’s cultural consciousness, but Horatio doesn’t have that familiarity to aid comprehension. The lines are not totally reshuffled – a few scenes appear nearly whole, like the play-within-a-play The Murder of Gonzaga, the apparition of the king’s ghost, and Hamlet’s soliloquy. But in new contexts and on different lips, the words are utterly changed in meaning.

This is exciting, but challenging. Shakespeare scholars and anyone who enjoys parsing difficult plays should plan to attend at least twice in order get the most from the experience that is Horatio. Others who don’t have such interest or patience for a production that doesn’t reveal everything upon first viewing will be frustrated. Assante’s bold experiment with the hallowed Hamlet will linger in the mind long after its much less bloody conclusion.

Act of Faith

The Gospel According to Matthew, written and performed by Matthew Francis, probes fundamentalist Christianity’s approach to homosexuality on both a philosophical and a personal level.Francis melds autobiographical storytelling with documentary theater to produce a compassionate examination of the topic –- and a compelling theatrical work.

In an hour and 40 minutes, this impressive production, adeptly directed by David Drake, distills eight years of Francis’ interviews with prominent religious and intellectual figures (Rev. Fred Phelps, founder of www.GodHatesFags.com; Rev. Mel White ; Rene Girard ), gays, evangelicals, gay people who once identified as fundamentalist, fundamentalist who once identified as gay, and more. Francis’ quiet ease embodying each character belies the ambitiousness of such an undertaking.

Francis studied extensively under Anna Deavere Smith, whose ground-breaking solo shows blurred the lines between theater and journalism, and it shows. His portrayals are expertly executed, never veering toward broad caricature or vague abstraction. Like Smith, Francis uses simple costume pieces (a sports jacket, eyeglasses, a do-rag) to visually denote each character and seamlessly transition between them.

Francis proves equally deft at relaying his personal history as a gay man who once aspired to become a leader of fundamentalism. Sharing his own stories – and they are heart-achingly good – allows space for Francis to develop a rapport with his audience and humanizes what might otherwise be a stark presentation of frequently unpalatable opinions.

A recurring theme in the production holds that in Christianity, speaking is an act of faith. By giving voice to diverse –- and divisive –- ideas, The Gospel According to Matthew embodies that ideal. Speaking as an act of faith also describes Francis’ style of performance, in which listening likewise functions as an act of faith. Audiences of Francis’ storytelling will find their faith aptly placed.

Sexuality Abused

The best moment of To Be Loved is walking in and seeing the interesting arrangement of space at the provocative Lafayette theater. Little stages hang to the sides and back, and a big deep space in front is inhabited by two actors on a ladder. Actor Deena Jiles moves about seductively, like an African princess, on a platform to the left. Shadows hang about the walls of the theater, and people fill the rows of the theatre. The first scene is interesting to watch. A monk and his young lover move about together in a sweet flying motion as they make their way off their ladder. Beyond this scene, there are interesting stage configurations, ominous mood lighting by Chris Ghaffoor, and attractive costumes designed by Mark Richard Caswell and Kate Pinner. But the play unfortunately meanders into meaninglessness within minutes.

Inspired in part by Japanese Kabuki,To Be Loved, written by Alex Defazio and directed by Jody P. Person, tells the story of a monk confronting the reincarnated soul of his dead lover, a young male prostitute. The story, although unclear and overly acted, is relieved by moments of interesting physical movement and shadows cast on different parts of the stage. This long show (2h 15m) does pick up somewhat in the second act. Nevertheless, To Be Loved is an exploration of sexuality, gay and straight, that leaves everyone but its creators out of the loop. The ongoing sexual action and innuendos, including actors gyrating on each other, young boys seducing older men, women seducing monks with twenty dollar bills, ultimately left this spectator decidedly dis-aroused, sexually and otherwise.

Greek tragedy as performance art

Walking into Third Child: Orestes Revisited, which is playing as part of the Fringe Festival through August 20, you get the impression that the action is occurring regardless of your presence. A man lies center stage as four women sit encircling him. One by one, the women get up and, with slow, fluid movements, form a tableau around the collapsed figure. Each woman’s eyes stare out in an intense, fixed gaze at something only she can see. Thus begins the intriguing and a little unnerving Third Child, which was conceived and directed by Maria Porter. What follows is what one might expect from a piece labeled performance art and based upon ancient Greek mythology. The story of Orestes’ murder of his mother, aided by his sister Electra, and his subsequent mental deterioration is more suggested than told. In a series of often aesthetically pleasing tableaus, Orestes (Morgan Hooper) is repeatedly encircled by the four women who both plague and shape his life: Clytemnestra (Yesenia Tromp), Iphigenia (Maria Barcia), Electra (Athena Colón), and a fury (Lesley Scheiber).

The women, who are clad in overlapping fabrics in cool earth tones, are wrapped in various places in bits of netting to symbolize the prevalent theme of entrapment in the original mythology of Orestes. The four are all strong performers, delivering lines accompanied by a series of sometimes graceful, sometimes spasmodic gestures that seem part modern dance, part yoga, and part charades (it is performance art, after all). All also have lovely voices, opening and closing the piece in song, just as any ancient Greek chorus would in the days of the work’s original author, Euripides.

Orestes is often nothing more than a puppet for these four women to manipulate; at one point almost literally a puppet, as he mindlessly responds to the commands “jump!” and “fall!” on cue. Unfortunately, Hooper never fully embodies the rage, grief, and guilt that should wrack Orestes; towards the end of the show, he begins to tap into some of that extreme emotion, only to pull away.

The piece closes with the four women, with eyes both haunted and haunting, staring into the audience. They are bathed in a bloody light and sing the second of two intentionally anachronistic spirituals that touch upon the theme of water (the first is “Wade in the Water”). As they are unable to stop Orestes from exiting through the audience, they stand both powerful and powerless and sing both an invitation and a plea: “Oh sisters, let’s go down/Let’s go down to the river to pray.”

Though Third Child may not appeal to everyone, those to whom it appeals will find this work very appealing indeed.

Herd Mentality

When a writer chooses to adapt a classic work, the purpose is to bring the piece's characters and theme to a modern audience using language and locations to which they can more easily relate. At first, this seems to be the idea that writer/director (and Tony winner) Dan Fogler had in mind when writing Elephant in the Room!, now playing as part of the New York International Fringe Festival. Using as a model Eugene Ionesco's treatise on the iconoclast as the last sane man in an insane world, Fogler swaps rhinoceroses for elephants and 20th-century France for 21st-century New York. The opening scene, in which the slovenly, unemployed pothead Bern is berated by clean-cut worker bee John in the particular vernacular of twenty-something males is funny and fresh while also hewing fairly closely to the original text.

But as the play unfolds, Ionesco acolytes realize that they have been bamboozled. Instead of extolling the virtues of being nonconformist, this show portrays the people who resist the transformation from man to elephant as stubborn and blind to the realities of current events. Why else would one of the last people to change be a certain Republican elected official who lives in the White House?

While this switcheroo is an interesting twist to the proceedings, especially for those familiar with Rhinoceros, it doesn't entirely fit in with the production. Once the last doppelganger scene of the source material is over, there are strange interchanges tacked on at the end, and an absurd (not in the good way) world threat that comes out of left field and is far too moralistic for what once was a subtle work.

According to Fogler's program bio, this adaptation was a reaction to the re-election of George W. Bush. But turning the play's protagonist into a misguided antihero does no justice to the purported message, or to the original show's intent.

Adrift at Sea

Married to the Sea, Irish playwright Shona McCarthy’s first full-length play, both compels the audience and leaves them adrift. Jo, an eight-year-old girl in Galway, Ireland’s Old Claddagh sea-faring community, longs to join her father at sea. She is left at home, where she struggles to understand family secrets and her father’s disappearance. When the secrets are revealed, however, they leave the audience bewildered and uncertain of their meaning. Siobhan Donnellan (Jo), has the difficult task of pushing the story along, as she is onstage throughout the entire play and has several long narrative monologues. She not only succeeds in her mission but is a fascinating actress to watch. Her face twists as she tries to comprehend her mother’s lunacy and widens into a grin when she’s telling a joke. McCarthy also brings depth to her role as Jo’s mother Mam, with haunting, vacant eyes that gaze out somewhere beyond the water.

The father’s character is a crucial missing piece of the story. His scenes never have the emotional weight they need to account for his strong effect on Jo. This might be due to the fact that Fiachra Ó Dubhghaill, the actor playing him, also plays six other characters (all seamlessly). The father’s character needs to anchor the story, yet he floats in and out.

The appearance of a woman named Queen of Sheba (Agnes Carlon) could be put to better use. When her name is mentioned, she emerges from behind the curtain, moves exotically and then disappears. Since she is the one who lures Jo’s father away, she demands a stronger presence, even if it is just a longer dance, so that her and Jo’s father’s actions are not as fleeting and insignificant as they currently seem to be.

In spite of its flaws, the play is imaginative and features enjoyable, lyrical language. The sea’s mystical quality permeates the story, almost suspending time, as the characters look out at the water with longing. The stage, bare save for a low table, a clothing rack, and a curtain, perfectly evokes the sea-faring town and the emptiness that both inhabits the characters and surrounds them. It would be nice to stay in this real yet magical land longer once the story elements are worked out because Married to the Sea has the potential to be an emotional and transcendent theatrical experience. As it stands now, see it for an original and compelling premise but be prepared for a wave of confusion.

Going Out With A Whimper

Larke Schuldberg has a powerful subject to work with in BANG/whimper, her brief two-character suspense play. Tensions in the former Yugoslavia haven’t faded with the end of war in the 1990s and the death of Milosevich. As a result, the stakes are bound to be high when Goran (Drew Bruck), a Serbian working as a painter in Berlin, brings Sabina (Risa Sarachan) back to his apartment with the intention of painting her and maybe getting some play, and instead she confronts him about what he did in the war. Unfortunately, neither actor seems fully invested in the conflicts (the immediate one between the characters or the distant ethnic one that provoked the other). As a result, the play mostly falls flat, in spite of all the threats and shouting that erupt. As the show begins, Sabina refuses to tell Goran her name. She has good reason beyond coyness for being evasive, the audience finds out later, but to reveal that here would ruin much of the nervous energy that the play possesses. As Sabina poses in an armchair, she asks pointed questions about Goran’s past and mentions that she is searching for her beloved older brother, who disappeared some time ago. Both these fixations point toward the eventual revelations about her own history, but when those come they are nonetheless surprising for the audience.

Though Schuldberg’s writing at times lacks nuance, the surprise is caused more by Sarachan’s utterly nonchalant, indifferent presentation of the character. At the outset, Sabina is supposed to be acting normal, so there such casualness is warranted to some extent. But even when Sabina shows all her cards, Sarachan seems detached, which makes it difficult for an audience to feel engaged by and concerned about the character she portrays. Bruck brings more urgency to his role, but still fails to effectively and consistently communicate his haunted, lonely persona.

It’s admittedly hard for most people outside the region to comprehend the conflict in Yugoslavia on more than a news-based, intellectual level; it has been going on for centuries. However, it is an actor’s job to feel foreign emotions personally and to cause audiences feel them in turn. This doesn’t happen in BANG/whimper, so its potentially provocative ending does not reach its potential, and neither does the show as a whole.

One Order of Music, Hold the Talking

If there were such a thing as a jukebox musical in the early 20th Century, The Consuming Passions of Lydia Pinkham and Rev. Sylvester Graham would be it, replete with catchy tunes and a thin, contrived plot. The Consuming Passions… is not the torture that some jukebox musicals of more recent years have been. The cast of Margery Cohen (also credited for the conception and script) and Joseph Neal are clearly enjoying themselves and, to the great benefit of the play, their humor is contagious. Still, it cannot save a script whose author fails to deliver, or even apparently decide upon, a coherent concept. Cohen's product falls somewhere between foody-friendly musical romp and middle-aged romance.

The foody-friendly bits are decidedly more palatable.

The characters are based on the real life Lydia E. Pinkham (Cohen), who, during the 19th Century, developed an alcohol-heavy vegetable compound to keep women healthy, and Rev. Sylvester Graham (Neal) who, around the same time, lectured on the importance of whole grains and the need to curb sexual cravings. In The Consuming Passions... the two meet on a train as they travel the Northeast selling and preaching, respectively. Somehow (and this is where the story starts to fade away) the independent Pinkham and the sex-shunning Graham fall for each other and as their simpering flirtation begins the dialogue devolves into hackneyed innuendo.

Cohen and Neal both have wonderful voices and that, coupled with the uninspired book, makes it all the more relieving when they break into the musical's songs, which range from traditional Irish folk tunes to vaudevillian duets. And although a few selections disappoint, there are still some entertaining nuggets. One in particular about the hot dog-making process comes to mind.

My suggestion: skip the show. If you are truly hungry for food-themed music, go to Amazon.com and buy the recording instead (although since the asking price is $40, I have to most heartily recommend skipping this, too).