Keep The Change

A sleepy southern town receives an alarming wake up call the day Fatlinda Paloka moves in. As the self proclaimed matriarch of an Albanian family she has planted roots in Greenville, Georgia, opening a pizza store with food that is so addictive, the townspeople go through shaky, manic withdrawals when they do not have it. The world is changing for the town of Greenville the same way it is changing for veteran ad man Ray Crother (Brendan Wahlers) as he sits on a bench in Central Park contemplating the depths of his unhappiness.

In Marcy Wallabout’s production of The Resistible Rise of Fatlinda Paloka and Timothy Dowd’s Crother Spyglass we meet characters struggling to find acceptance, both for themselves and for the people around them. The two partnering plays have completely different stories but similar morals at their hearts. They also share something else - the same strengths and weaknesses.

The play’s strongest elements are their relatable, relevant themes that audiences can empathize with and attach themselves to. Their shared downfall is that the characters are not yet strong enough to shoulder the full weight of these themes.

Dowd’s play, Crother Spyglass, opens the evening, introducing the audience to Ray Crothers. Ray is an unhappy man and he takes that unhappiness out on Adam (Timothy McDonough) a young boy with the kind of earnest naiveté you will only find in a recent college grad.

Adam is eager to do his best in his new job as an assistant. However, his eagerness wanes when Ray tells him the job involves performing domestic tasks for their sadistic boss. Ray has allowed this boss to humiliate him on many occasions and looks forward to seeing those humiliations passed on to someone else.

Adam and another ambitious graduate student named, Christine (Erin Leigh Schmoyer) deliver a respectable message about confidence and self worth. Though they are young, they are able to see their CEO’s ridiculous demands for what they are – ridiculous. When Ray threatens them, “you gotta do what the boss says or you’ll get fired,” they look shocked at his audacity rather than afraid for their jobs.

Christine and Adam are nicely drawn supporting characters but Ray remains a question mark throughout. He is the story’s centerpiece and yet he never develops to the point where we understand why he allows himself to be subjected to this behavior. Why has it taken several years for him to see what these kids realized in an instant? Why has it taken him so long to accept that things need to change?

In the following piece, Wallabout’s The Resistible Rise of Fatlinda Paloka, the character’s need to accept change is much more overt. A wave of immigrants has washed into a small southern town led by the boisterous Fatlinda Paloka.

Fatlinda hints at a mysterious past, yet we never get more than a vague sense of what that past is. We also do not get a clear sense of who she is: a colorful character or a heartless witch? Does her family love and respect her drive to succeed or fear and hate her strong personality? And what should we, the viewer, feel towards her? Is she putting drugs in her pizza or merely displaying some superior cooking skills to bridge the cultural gap? Without knowing her true intentions it is hard to know if we should root for her success or hope for her failure.

Dowd and Wallabout’s plays feel like they have a lot to say, but they haven’t allocated their time well enough to say it. In Crother Spyglass more time is needed to get a handle on Ray Crothers’s true personality, and in The Resistible Rise of Fatlinda too much time is spent on sight gags and side stories that distract from the central plot.

The two productions have important social messages that they are trying to deliver. The themes are there and they are good themes, they just need stronger, clearer main characters to embody them.

An Angry and Revealing Hedwig

You want to see a play, that friend of yours who hates plays is in town, and wants to go to a concert, and has brought along someone whose only interest is politics. And drag queens. And hates Broadway musicals. The solution? John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s cult rock-drag-politics and decidedly anti-traditional 1998 musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, now directed by Marc Eardley, for 3S Theatre Collective, at the Barrow Mansion in Jersey City. If you haven’t seen this show yet, then you’ve probably been living in the title character’s wig box. Mitchell and Trask’s whimsical allusions and wordplay span the Platonic creation myth to cold war history, playfully revealing connections between topical problems and existential mysteries. Trask’s music competes easily with the rock classics of which Hedwig sings snatches throughout his mid-gig banter. Whitton’s spirited performance will delight the show’s fans while showing the previously uninitiated why Hedwig has become a legend.

In that legend, Hansel Schmitt (played by sonorous cabaret singer and actor Jonathan Whitton) hates life in East Berlin, with his quasi-fascist drone of a mother, and without his sexually abusive father, an American soldier sometime stationed in West Berlin. Like his mother, Hansel is soon seduced by an American “sugar daddy” in uniform, who offers him a new life in Kansas, the part of America famously located on the oppressive, grey side of the Rainbow Curtain. Hence a botched sex change, which turns Hansel into one Mrs. Hedwig Robertson, saddled with an “angry inch” of his natural genitalia, and, soon, reams of abandonment, loss, anger, and artistic inspiration.

The biggest loss of Hedwig’s life, however, is either his American soul mate, army brat and famous rocker Tommy Gnosis, who fled from the indeterminateness of his “angry inch” and own confusion, or Hedwig’s passionately-authored songs, which Tommy stole and presented to the world as his own. While performing a gig in a hideous dive on the night of one of Tommy’s big commercial concerts, Hedwig finally reveals all, and tries to work out how he is incomplete, and whether he can put himself together again.

I say “he” and “his,” in contrast to most authors writing on this play and its film adaptation, because that is the best way to describe Hedwig. Unlike the other iconic East German transgender character, the heroine of Doug Wright’s Pulitzer-winning drama I Am My Own Wife, Hedwig does not become a woman because he has always felt like one, or ever felt like one, but because the laws on both sides of the Iron Curtain will not allow him to marry his GI Joe while remaining a man. Hedwig arguably does not see himself as a woman, but as a mutilated gay man. He describes his “angry inch” as the place “where my vagina never was.” He resists facile identification as a woman, or with either side of the various walls that cut up his world, and ours.

Disturbingly, Hedwig has brought with him more than an inch of baggage from Germany. Throughout the show, he disparages and maltreats his “husband” and roadie Yitzhak (Louise Stewart), an Eastern European Jewish drag king (or is Yitzhak a drag queen, appearing not in drag, simply played by a woman?). “Atrocity, for man, woman… or freak,” Hedwig announces as he liberally spritzes perfume in Yitzhak’s face. As Hedwig’s dissolution increases, Yitzhak rebels, reaching for the human dignity and choices.

As Hedwig, Whitton is vehement, tragicomic, and, yes, extremely angry. Stewart gives a subtler performance as Yitzhak. She shows moments of fatigue, hatred, and subversion, but generally the character remains a device, without a full-fledged self. The band accompany the two actors with great verve and powerful sound, though sometimes it was a bit too powerful, muffling the specific wording of Hedwig’s rage.

Stephen K. Dobray’s set is minimal but effective, consisting only of the instruments and sound equipment of Hedwig and her “Angry Inch” band, some battered luggage, and a wall covered with graffiti. Some of the graffiti seemed to make the time-setting confusing. Hedwig arrived in Kansas in time for the fall of the Berlin Wall, but one graffiti slogan is “Impeach Bush”—imaginable only a decade later, unless it refers to the first president of that name.

Hedwig’s costumes, relatively simple concoctions of hot pink plastic, black leather, and gold lame, look suitably like the detritus of the 1980s. Designed by Laurie Marman, they aren’t as cheekily creative as they might be: the original Off-Broadway Hedwig’s blonde ringlets were shaped by toilet paper tubes. However, they are just ostentatious enough to articulate the character’s media-created glam-trash ideal of American womanhood.

“If there was a fourth wall,” Hedwig warns the audience, “you couldn’t see the actors.” This genre-bending, gender-bending piece, as realized by 3S, is transformatively revealing.

Theater on the Edge

How did theater fail America? In his incisive, entertaining, and often poignant monologue, acclaimed writer and performer Mike Daisey’s answer might surprise you. A pungent mix of raw personal experience and savvy cultural critique, How Theater Failed America is both a sensitive self-reflection and an emphatic call to arms. And, however you think you might answer the central question right now, Daisey will challenge your ideas about what theater is, what it has become, and what it could be. Seated behind a table on a bare stage, with only a stack of notes and a glass of water for company, Daisey admits right away that the title of his show is all wrong. “You should not have come here,” he declares, since most likely we already know (or think we know) what the show will be about: Disney’s homogenization of theater into a gooey tourist commodity; the distractions of iPods and other technology; the ever-dwindling state of arts funding; and the debilitating taste pronouncements of all-powerful theater critics at the New York Times.

But, instead of pointing a finger at those shadowy outside forces, Daisey implicates himself and us, the audience stuck in the “stifling dark”: “You did it, I did it, we did it.” The problem is not so much how theater failed America, he says, but how theater became America (the alternate title an artistic director friend proffered for the show).

This all probably sounds very Michael Moore, and in some ways the similarities are there—like the controversial documentary auteur, Daisey is also a larger-than-life force working to upend and revolutionize his art form. However, Daisey’s approach, although it can be in-your-face and demanding, is gentler. Although he is sharply critical of how theater is breaking down, he holds up and reveres those moments when it has worked and when it has made a difference; in short, why we will always so desperately need it in our culture. He’s from the theater and for the theater, and his project draws on personal anecdotes to create a reverent, yet cautionary, love letter.

Flashing back to his youth in a sparsely populated region of western Maine, Daisey offers vibrant anecdotes about the people and places that enchanted him with the theater: his “madman” college theater director Dick Sewell, who bounded over theater seats to give his cast inspired notes; the summer Daisey and five friends ran their own small theater company at a small resort, playing all of the roles, doing all of the technical work, and subsisting on Ramen; and directing a scrappy group of high-school students in a one-act play competition.

As a teenager, watching plays rotating in repertory one summer, Daisey became obsessed with “the space between the plays,” cherishing the opportunity to see actors change roles and change missions, all within “a small world, constantly transforming.” With his wide eyes, wild gestures, and dramatic intonation, Daisey’s enthusiasm is infectious, but so is his despair; he brackets joyful memories with the deep chasms he has discovered dotting the larger theater scene.

Instead of a vibrant community, Daisey finds a regional landscape peppered with “glorified roadhouses,” where actors are flown in for compact, three-and-a-half-week rehearsal periods. Theater, he discovers, has become something of a machine, more of a corporation than a group of plucky, hard-working people.

I won’t give away much more, even though it’s tempting—indeed, I found myself taking more notes here than at almost any other production I’ve attended. But Daisey’s devotion to theater is never more apparent than when he reveals how theater brought him out of a depressive, suicidal year of his life. And his epiphany while performing at a small theater in Seattle—as an unlikely character doing an unspeakable deed—makes for both sidesplitting comedy and searing commentary.

Daisey made big theater news in April 2007 when, during a performance of his monologue Invincible Summer at the American Repertory Theater, 78 audience members walked out in protest, one of them unceremoniously upturning Daisey's ever-present water glass, soaking his notes. Ostensibly, the conservative school group was offended by the show’s profanity, and while Daisey does throw in the occasional F-bomb, he artfully balances shock value with sincere testimonial.

In How Theater Failed America, Daisey shapes personal experience into a stirring action plan. Theater is about creation, and as he outlines his perspective on the state of the art, Daisey leaves it to us to take the next step. A single ghost light on the stage fades as Daisey begins his monologue, as if his bright, energized voice were poised to beam out for all of us. It glows again as Daisey concludes—a reminder to keep the stage illuminated whenever, wherever, and however we can.

Check out www.mikedaisey.com for information on post-show roundtables with theater professionals that will take place throughout the month of June.

Molding an Image

In his new play, Edward Albee for the first time writes about a real person, sculptor Louise Nevelson. Born in 1899 outside Kiev, Russia, of Jewish parents, Nevelson immigrated with her family at age 6 to join her father in Rockland, Maine, where he had gone before. Eventually she left for New York and became a major American artist. Though Albee’s choice may seem baffling, the artists have a lot in common. Albee’s late partner was a sculptor, and Nevelson was a friend for many years. Albee makes much of Nevelson’s struggle to be accepted as an artist—to “occupy” her space. It’s easy to forget that his own star waned during the 1970s and 1980s, until he stormed back with Three Tall Women in 1992. After a series of flops like The Lady from Dubuque, The Man Who Had Three Arms, and Malcolm, nothing he wrote would have been advertised as “Edward Albee’s ——,” as this play is. (“Occupant” is a sign the dying Nevelson had placed outside her hospital door to stymie streams of visitors.)

There are other parallels. Nevelson battled alcoholism, as Albee did, and both were bedeviled by parental issues. On her own, Nevelson dealt with an unhappy marriage, an unwanted child who later became a sculptor himself, a series of lovers, and a struggle to be recognized as a woman in a man’s world. “With any luck,” says Nevelson, “you turn into whoever you want to be, and with even better luck you turn into whoever you should be. No, you got somebody in you right from the start, and if you’re lucky you figure out who it is and you become it.”

The reinvention of oneself is a significant American preoccupation, and the artist who fights through pain and childhood misery to follow his dream is a theme that echoes throughout American drama, from The Glass Menagerie to A Chorus Line. Albee is free to rework those themes, but he hasn’t done enough to spruce up their overfamiliarity.

In Occupant, Nevelson’s interviewer (Larry Bryggman, playing the Man) knows all about her, and his measured, chronological review of her life has few sparks, unless you count Nevelson’s periodic exasperation at the Man’s assertions, and his occasional fluster at discovering something he didn’t know. Albee supplies a few low-intensity flourishes: Nevelson (Mercedes Ruehl), for instance, is giving the interview post mortem. She is astonished that the Man must explain who she is―it’s only 20 years since she died, after all. “You have to introduce me?” she asks. “People don’t know who I am?” Man: “People who knew you know you.” The point—that she’s vain, that her image as an outrageously clad Artist (with a capital A) is more famous than her work—registers quickly, but the give-and-take goes on and on, as if it were a plot twist on the order of Hedda Gabler’s burning Lovborg’s manuscript.

Director Pam MacKinnon has gotten two outstanding performances from Ruehl and Bryggman. The former creates a fascinating monstre sacré: a vain, assertive, querulous egoist. The flashy clothes are there, down to double-layered sable eyelashes. (Ruehl’s natural contribution is strikingly long fingers, like those of a basketball player, which Nevelson was as a teenager.) Designer Jane Greenwood has dressed Ruehl in wildly colorful clothing, a Nevelson trademark, accessorized with a large metal necklace that looks like an ancient key that Indiana Jones would use to unlock a subterranean chamber. Bryggman’s natty interviewer, for his part, communes with the audience through sly glances and skeptical looks, and he baits Nevelson cunningly.

Even though the actors help offset the dryness of the presentation, MacKinnon has treated the text with excessive deference. For example, early on the Man says, “No offence” and Nevelson responds, “None taken. Is that what they say… none taken?” Later, reaching for a word, she asks, “You know you’ll never fit in; you know you’ll always be a … an exotic, is that the word?”

Now, a woman of 88 who lived in the United States from age 6 would know the simple idioms of a language she's been speaking all that time. She would know what “exotic” means, so Nevelson's uncertainty makes little sense. But it serves to keep the ball rolling, so to speak, because Albee's play has few dramatic thrills or surprises, merely points of interest. As heartfelt as the author's admiration for Nevelson is, Occupant is likely to please only art enthusiasts and his own devotees.

Best-Laid Plans

Michael Frayn is best known for two wildly different plays: the farce Noises Off (1982) and the particle-physics drama Copenhagen (1998). Yet, in all his plays his preoccupation is the same: man’s disastrous attempt to impose order on his surroundings, and the way life resists. In Benefactors, his dark-humored 1985 follow-up to Noises Off, he focuses on two couples. One, David and Jane, live a comfortable middle-class existence in London. David, an architect, has won the job of providing low-cost housing in southwest London (very unfashionable and gritty back then) in a project called Basuto Road. Meanwhile, their friends, Colin and Sheila, are having some marital troubles. Colin belittles his wife and treats her condescendingly. Jane suggests that David hire Sheila part-time to help boost her self-esteem, and from that benevolent impulse comes nearly a decade of disasters.

Frayn is satirizing liberal do-goodism, and his echoes of Ibsen (the architect Solness in The Master Builder, as well as the well-meaning but inept Gregers Werle in The Wild Duck) suggest the depths of his seriousness. Anyone expecting door-slamming farce should be forewarned. The humor here is grim, and the situation is bleak.

David, played with rationalism and openness and a necessary touch of the milquetoast by James Arden, finds himself beset by building codes, underground power cables, open-space advocates, and public opposition, and to each he must cede a part of his vision. “I’m not going to build towers,” he says initially. “No one wants to live in a tower.” But David’s frustration builds as his original concept of homes surrounding a courtyard in the style of Cambridge University eventually becomes two 15-story skyscrapers to accommodate all the outside interests.

As David’s project is undermined, so is his wife’s rehabilitation of their neighbors’ lives. Sheila, played with querulous apprehension by Francine Margolis, who’s a bit too physically sturdy to be completely persuasive as the mousy waif, but is otherwise excellent (though dressed unflatteringly), is secretly in love with David, but she flounders at taking care of all the work that children and home require (she can’t drive). Sheila is continually belittled by Ian Gould’s prickly Colin, a journalist whose skepticism has curdled into contempt.

Meanwhile, Jane, played with a wry forthrightness by Lisa Blankenship, is trying to get herself out of the house. She’s a trained anthropologist and resists being David’s helper: “I hate helping people,” she says. “I want to study them.” As Sheila becomes more entwined in the lives of David and Jane, Colin becomes more isolated. He leaks information about David’s plans to the press, and pretty soon Sheila decides she has to leave him. Jane and David become her reluctant benefactors and take in her and her children.

As is the practice of Folding Chair Classical Theatre, which concentrates on text and actors, there is virtually no scenery—a table and four chairs for David’s architectural study; a small stool with a telephone; and upstage, a bar that holds drinks and a coffeepot. The rest is a black box. The virtue of such a production is that it focuses attention on the text and the playing of the piece, and the skilled cast brings forth Frayn’s psychological complexity pretty well.

“You want everyone to love you,” says Jane to Colin, “or you want everyone to love you in spite of being hateful.” Later, when Colin accuses Jane of hating Basuto Road, Jane’s stunned reaction is superbly revealing. Nevertheless, a play about architecture almost cries out for a visual metaphor or some indication of the class of people who inhabit it, especially as it moves from bourgeois comfort to the dilapidated squat where the disgruntled Colin eventually finds himself.

Apart from that, the particulars of Frayn’s play have dated, certainly; today no one would think of housing the poor in towers, and yet towers are highly desirable as middle- and upper-class residences, at least in New York. And the language of social engineering in England is different from what it is here, so there’s a linguistic barrier that presents an obstacle to one’s understanding. Still, Folding Chair’s resurrection of Benefactors, and the company’s emphasis on the text and the actors, is admirable, and it offers a useful, if limited, revisitation of this overlooked work.

A Dog Eat Dog World

Acting is all about choices. What do the characters want? How do they resolve to get it? When confronted with a number of options, what decision do they make? In improvisation, actors strive to make bold and immediate choices. Consequently, when Dan Safer, artistic director of the avant-garde, improv-heavy theatre troupe Witness Relocation decided to base a new work on Behavioral Choice Theatre, the resulting work, Vicious Dogs on Premises, cuts to the essence of theatre. In this examination of life in a dystopian land of doglike humans, Witness Relocation examines the relationship of choice to oppression, freedom, fear and happiness. An episodic work, Vicious Dogs consists of a number of vignettes and improvs divided by the ringing of a bell, like a horrific combination of boxing match—or perhaps dogfight?—and game show. Scenes scripted by Innovative Theatre Award-winning playwright Saviana Stanescu give the work structure and momentum, while the unscripted parts are closely tied to the scenes’s themes.

The casting of the show's four performers in the various etudes and scenes, and the order in which they are presented, are determined at random at the beginning of each performance. This allows as many combinations of the play's parts as hands dealt from a scrupulously shuffled deck of playing cards. Each night, the actors, devoid of choice, play the hand they are dealt. So too, Witness Relocation suggests, do many people outside the playhouse. In an oppressive state, people have no choices, but are certainly not free and often not happy. The question this juxtaposition raises is broad and frightening: do we want to have a choice, about anything? Does it take courage to demand to have choices, or maturity to make them?

Across the board, the performers an co-choreographers (Heather Christian, Sean Donovan, Mike Mikos and Laura Berlin Stinger—are agile dancers. When playing dogs, they are eerily doglike. In one scene, each of the four mimetically transforms into a different sort of dog, ranging in facial expression and movement from the fanatical rambunctiousness of a retriever to the bared-teeth, leash-straining grimace of a more menacing canine. They work well as an ensemble: no individual performer dominates the piece, and a scene in which a majority of three interrogate the odd one out shows the trio operating as if with one mind.

Kaz Phillips’s video art, on screens set in the upstage wall is somewhat less vital. The image of a bare lightbulb in the interrogation scene is clever but hardly unexpected or shocking. Anatomical drawings of the insides of dogs add nothing to the dialogue and dance, and sometimes distract the viewer from the live performance.

Sometimes the topicality seems a bit strained. According to the press release, the plight of Michael Vicks's abused dogs, “trained to fight” and therefore permanently unsocializable, inspired Safer “to muse on how much people, too, can heal after they are tortured in their own lives.” One of the improv scenes consists of a woman reporting on the latest vapid news gleaned from surveillance of celebrities. Whatever violation of privacy "Amy Winehouse" has endured lately, it seems, is not exactly torture. In the scripted scenes, “torture” ranges from the genuinely horrific (Abu Ghraib) to the “torture” of having loved and lost in a cynical urban dating scene dominated by computers. Stanescu's tongue-in-cheek depiction of the latter situation keeps things in perspective.

In Vicious Dogs, Stanescu and company make trenchant observations about our dog-eat-dog world in sharply visual, kinetic ways.

Born Again

With both tragic and triumphant results, teen pregnancy has pushed its way beyond depressing news statistics and into popular culture: in Broadway’s Spring Awakening, Wendla’s unplanned pregnancy puts her on a catastrophic path, while in the sunnier movie Juno, the title character gamely faces her pregnancy armed with sharp wit and a hipster soundtrack. And it seems that nobody is immune from problematic conception. The 2004 film Saved! threw a pregnant teenager into the least welcoming environment imaginable: a fundamentalist Christian high school. A good-natured spoof on the idiosyncrasies of organized religion, Saved has now been resurrected as an honest-to-goodness, singing, dancing musical. With its flashy design, spirited cast, and kicky choreography, it’s a wonder the title lost its exclamation point somewhere along the way. Unfortunately, it also lost much of the gleeful, goofy spoofiness that made it such a cult favorite.

Many of the characters in Saved have extremely good intentions. When, at the beginning of their senior year, Mary’s longtime boyfriend Dean confides in her that he thinks he’s gay, she decides to consummate their relationship in order to “save” him, taking sage advice from Jesus—of course!—who appears to her in a vision. The shared intimacy doesn’t do the trick, however, as Mary’s pious BFF Hillary Faye catches wind of the secret and alerts the school. Dean is shipped away to a detention center called Mercy House to be cured of his “faggotry"; Mary winds up pregnant, alienated from her straight-and-narrow popular friends and smothered in baggy K-mart clothing.

As far as committed Christians go, and as played by the wistful, plaintive Celia Keenan-Bolger, Mary is as devout as they come—she’s part of a praise-happy vocal trio called the “Christian Jewels” and a regular member of “P-Group” (translation: prayer group). But when she steps outside of her comfort zone, Mary finds acceptance with the school’s outsiders: Cassandra, a rebel Jewish transfer student, and Roland, Hillary Faye’s younger, wheelchair-bound, and avowedly atheist brother. In addition to these and other assorted teenage dramas, the plot folds in a blossoming yet forbidden romance between Mary’s widowed mother, Lillian, and the school’s unhappily married principal, Pastor Skip.

At two and a half hours, Saved attempts to cover a lot of ground, but ultimately loses its focus. Slipping back and forth across the line between spoof and sincerity, it’s sometimes hard to know whether you’re being preached at or performed to.

Still, the comedy, often derived from the exaggerated behavior of the overtly religious, frequently hits its mark. Lines like “We’re psyched for His arrival!” and “Can’t you get with the Lord?” craftily wed Christian rhetoric with trendy teen-speak. And the devious Hillary Faye, played to pert perfection by the charismatic Mary Faber, is a walking fountain of hypocrisy and righteousness—she immediately dubs newcomer Cassandra “a good get for God,” and her blithe, deluded fantasy of “Heaven” is one of the show's strongest musical moments.

But these tart scenarios lose their zing when mired in the rest of the middling material. The music is particularly disappointing. Written by the prodigious Michael Friedman (who pens magnificent, witty material for the renegade theater troupe The Civilians), this score rarely coheres into anything catchy or memorable. Perhaps aiming to fit the material, it settles into the realm of the pseudo, and the resulting songs lack a distinctive personality: we’re stuck with pseudo rock, pseudo rap, and pseudo musical theater. Even the lyrics lack energy: one particular phrase rhymes “screwy” with “life buoy.” Silly? Yes. Spoofy? Maybe. But within this confused show, it’s hard to separate intentional, ironic “bad” writing from just plain bad writing.

Perhaps if it were focused and trimmed to 90 minutes, the show could find a more resonant core. The talent is certainly there: designers Scott Pask (set) and Donald Holder (lights) have created a dazzling back wall covered in a panel of lights, cross-cut into squares to evoke stained-glass windows; Sergio Trujillo (Jersey Boys) has given the girl trio some snappy moves; and the young cast is armed with fistfuls of energy. Veteran performers John Dossett and Julia Murney are wasted in the grown-up roles, but they valiantly struggle to hold up their wispy storyline.

As Mary’s mother, Murney delivers one of the more poignant, “real” messages about religion—in short, that it’s more important to have faith than to follow a strict list of rules. Although Saved often eerily echoes the damaging repression constricting the nineteenth-century teenagers in Spring Awakening, Lillian’s redemptive words would never be offered by Wendla’s unforgiving mother. Repression may always be part of our culture, but here, at least, we are presented with more than one way to be Saved.

Say What?

Stomp and Shout an’ Work it All Out is about one of the strangest cases in FBI history. The story takes place between 1964 and 1966 – the two year span that it took for the FBI to decipher the lyrics to the popular rock ‘n’ roll song "Louie Louie" by The Kingsmen. The lyrics presented a problem to government officials, who suspected that the screechy words might be obscene. Unfortunately, lead singer Jack Ely’s voice is too garbled to know for certain. If the lyrics are obscene, they would violate the Interstate Transportation of Obscene Material act, subjecting the singers, producers and everyone involved with the song’s distribution to severe fines and prosecution. Playwright James Carmichael has created a play with several interesting layers. He has captured the feeling of restless uncertainty in an era when the nation was changing and teenagers were starting to realize that their country was more concerned with censoring their music than protecting them from war. Fortunately, there are also some memorable and relatable characters that elevate this play to something more than a timeline of history.

The acting is so real that at times the story feels more like a documentary. Carmichael has a clear sense of who his characters are and what has happened in their past to make them the way they are now. The production features a large ensemble of actors: parents, political figures, federal agents, hippies, teenagers, and other brief, but pivotal roles where various actors use their brief scenes to make a tremendous impact.

One such actor is Khris Lewin, who plays Marv Schlacter, a self-righteous producer that distributed the record. Lewin is an unmovable force, impossible for the FBI to ruffle. But, despite his obnoxious level of confidence, he is the hero of the scene. The FBI investigation is ridiculous, and he is one of the few people unafraid to say so.

Brian D. Coats also has a brief but story-defining moment portraying a down-on-his-luck songwriter, Richard Berry. Coats walks with a limp and slowly buttons a faded musician’s jacket, his movements telling a story of hard times and difficult circumstances.

At the heart of Stomp and Shout an’ Work it All Out is a quieter drama, a fading bond between a hardened father, Ray (Frank Rodriguez) and his feisty teenage daughter (Katrina Foy). Rodriguez plays Ray, the father torn between his duties to the FBI to investigate this song and his responsibilities at home as a single parent. Ray shows a softer side in the dark, smoke-filled interrogation rooms, suggesting that perhaps there is an empathetic human beneath that steel façade. His partner, Chris, (Jeremy Schwartz) tends to frighten his subjects into silence, whereas Ray’s gentle, understanding tone coaxes the information out of them.

It is hard to say whether Stomp and Shout an' Work It All Out is a comedy or a drama. The same elements of the story that make it humorous also make it horrifying. It is amazing to think that during one of the most politically charged times in history the FBI spent two years investigating the origins of a rock ‘n’ roll song.

The popularity of Louie Louie is often credited to its having a catchy rhythm rather than an important message. Fortunately, the same cannot be said about Stomp and Shout an’ Work It All Out. There is certainly a juicy background, as there always is when dealing with political intrigue, but the characters touch your heart, and, in the end, we are left with much more melody.

In 1966, the FBI officially closed the investigation into Louie Louie’s lyrics, concluding that the song is too unintelligible to interpret as obscene or otherwise. So what are those garbled words Jack Ely was screaming into the microphone the day he recorded the song? The world may never know.

Stephen Burdman: Making Theatre a Walk in the Park

Stephen Burdman serves as Artistic Director of the New York Classical Theater. Every summer, New York Classical presents several productions of free, minimalist promenade, or roving classical theatre in Central Park, near the 103rd Street / Central Park North entrance. This year's repertoire includes Cymbeline, reviewed this month by offoffonline.

Q: Cymbeline is one of Shakespeare's least-often produced plays. Why did you choose it for New York Classical's 2008 production?

Stephen Burdman: Our mission is to present "popular classics and forgotten masterpieces" - and I think that Cymbeline fits very well into the latter part of our mission. I also happen to love the play - I directed it in 2002 at NYU's Tisch School for the Arts. Louis Scheeder, Director/Founder of the Classical Studio and Dean of Faculty at NYU Tisch School for the Arts, is directing the current production. When I approached him to work for us, this was one of the plays that he wanted to do. Our audience has also seen many Shakespeare productions from us - ten, in fact - and I felt that this was an important play to which they should be exposed.

Q: Cymbeline famously occupies an intriguingly ambiguous place in terms of genre. What is it? A comedy? A tragicomedy? A romance? Something else? And does it matter?

Burdman: For me, I really don't think it matters. In fact, much like The Winter's Tale - which one of my board members describes as a "greatest hits" of Shakespeare: Magic, Comedy, Tragedy, et cetera. Since the first great tragic-comedy, Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, I feel audiences are open to the mixing of genres. For me, this makes the piece more interesting.

Q: It is certainly a fascinating piece. This year, Lincoln Center Theatre presented Cymbeline, starring Martha Plimpton, Michael Cerveris, and Phylicia Rashad. How does your Cymbeline differ from that one?

Burdman: Well, first of all, it is outside. Second, it is roving - each scene takes place in a different location and the audience follows the play from place to place as the performance moves from scene to scene within twelve acres of Central Park. Third, there is no scenery. And fourth, all of our rehearsals and performances are free and open to the public. I am not able to tell you the differences in the productions, as I never saw the Lincoln Center production, but ours is very interactive and runs two hours, without an intermission.

Q: Your summer 2007 show, George Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer, is a brilliant comedic classic, but also a disturbing satire of army recruitment for unpopular and unintelligible wars. Contemporary parallels were inescapable. Contrarily, Lincoln Center's Cymbeline has been called an "escapist" play, and even criticized for its supposed lack of modern relevance. How does your Cymbeline speak to contemporary society?

Burdman: Our produciton of Cymbeline is about relationships - father to daughter, father to sons, husbands to wives, brothers to sister, friends to friends and many more. Plays become classics when they are able to reach beyond their contemporary audiences and reveal something essential to the human condition. Cymbeline does this through relationships.

Q: What is up next for you and New York Classical?

Burdman: This summer we are presenting Macbeth throughout Battery Park/Castle Clinton (6/26-7/12) and then George Bernard Shaw's Misalliance - our first Shaw - in Central Park (7/31-8/24). In the summer of 2009, we will be celebrating our 10th Anniversary Season with a production of King Lear in Central Park followed by The Tempest in Battery Park. We will close that season with a Moliere comedy in August 2009 in Central Park. Plans are also underway for 2010, but are not secured yet.

A Magical Journey

Shakespeare’s rarely performed romance Cymbeline is a challenging play, for both actors and audience, but New York Classical Theatre’s new version is a walk in the park—literally. Director Louis Scheeder’s clear blocking and a judiciously edited script make for a delightful, accessible play. While the play’s Roman-era British lovers are constantly tossed between England, Italy, and Wales, the company leads the audience around what passes, in New York City, for a continent divided by water and mountains-the lakeside area of the north entrance. This is Shakespeare as a live road movie. It reveals the experience of the play’s weary travelers without ever making the audience weary. The plot of Cymbeline is romantic fluff with a serious and sinister undercurrent. The ineffectual, always dangerously underinformed King Cymbeline of Britain has a daughter, the princess Imogen, who has just married her lifetime best friend, the court-raised but not royally-born orphan Posthumus Leonatus. This disrupts the machinations of Imogen’s evil stepmother, who had been scheming for a match between the princess and her own stupid, crass son Cloten.

At the Queen’s instigation, Posthumus is banished to Italy, where he meets the scurrilous, stereotypically Italianate Roman courtier Iachimo, who bets Posthumus that he can make Imogen prove herself unfaithful. Posthumus’s acceptance of this bet sets into motion a plot that quickly veers toward tragedy. As the Queen and Cloten steer the royal family toward disaster, only Imogen and Posthumus can save them -- by reaffirming their belief in each other, and helping Cymbeline in spite of his abandonment of both of them.

The cohesive New York Classical company delivers many strong performances, and impressively, everyone’s speech is clearly audible in the noisy park. Most players do a great job of projecting without appearing to be shouting most of their lines. One scene, a secretive attempted seduction, is a rare exception.

As Imogen, Ginny Myers Lee gives a spirited performance that glues the episodic play together and gives the audience someone to root for. As the dangerously clever Iachimo and the dangerously stupid Cloten, respectively, Marc LeVasseur and Erik Gratton steal much of the show. LeVasseur’s haughty demeanor and Gratton’s farcical facial contortions are fantastic.

Once the going gets rough, Patrick Jones’s Posthumus exudes pathos, though he is less cholerically enraged at his apparent betrayal by Imogen than Michael Cerveris in Lincoln Center Theater’s production this past winter. As the Queen, Sherry Skinker plays the villainess with great subtlety. She is not the extreme, scary Machiavellian schemer that the character was as played, at Lincoln Center, by Phylicia Rashad, but a more convincing saboteur of her deceived husband’s kingdom.

Michael Marion's Cymbeline is tragically daft and often visibly bewildered, the unstable nucleus of this nuclear family who sends his children spiralling away. Finally, Michael Bartelle and Stephen Stout, as two forest-raised princes on the edge of adulthood, communicate both childlike wonder and the eloquence that eludes the clumsy Cloten.

Unlike LCT, New York Classical has intelligently cut the script down to a manageable length, removing extraneous characters, muddy political exposition, an entire family of archaic ghost figures, and—given that this is park theatre—all references to walls and furniture. Amelia Dombrowski’s costume design clearly delineates Romans from Britains—the former in haughty red capes, the latter decked with earth-tone Celtic plaid; and follows the English Renaissance theatrical convention of using contemporary costume—meaning, doublets and gowns—even in plays set in earlier periods.

To sum up, this Cymbeline is seamless, familial, and suspenseful, with more profound changes in the characters’ emotional lives than costume changes. Go see it, and let New York Classical take you on a truly magical journey.

An Epic Battle

Don’t Worry, Be Jewish, a musical now playing at the Promise Theater, features nothing less than a battle royale between good and evil for the souls of its young protagonists. Good ultimately triumphs – no surprise there – but the bigger revelation is the amount of talent on display on this show, presented by the Children’s Talent Development Fund. CTDF is a non-profit founded five years ago by Marina Lerner as an outlet and training ground for talented youngsters – specifically, youngsters who were first generation American offspring of former Soviet residents. CTDF provides rehearsal space and brings in professional coaches, directors, designers and choreographers to help these children hone their abilities.

Eventually, Lerner partnered with fellow parent and creative type Mark Kleyner to create “Our Talented Program,” one of the few current Russian children’s television programs. Kleyner has written, along with musicians and lyricists Alexander Butov and Brian Starr and translator Julia Burke, Jewish. The show follows the lives of Chaim (Nathan Kay) and Sherianna (Kristina Biddle), brought together as their siblings wed at a seemingly high-profile wedding (with reporters and stylists on hand).

Jewish takes on fable form as, in a magically realistic way, King Solomon (Tyler Hall and Mitchell Sapoff in alternating performances) and the Devil himself (Tyler Hall and Kaitlin Novak share the role) arrive to tempt the young children down different paths. As a result, the two must discover exactly what it means to be Jewish, and whether or not each wishes to reclaim the faith under which they have been raised.

Kleyner’s script could stand to be more fleshed out; it is not always clear, particularly in the beginning, who is who and whether the appearance of King Solomon and the Devil occur in real time or if they are figments of Chaim and Sherianna’s minds. But more importantly, Jewish is an outstanding vehicle for its cast, who are as richly talented as they are light on years. Kay ably carries the show in his leading role, and Biddle’s gorgeous voice calls out to Broadway.

The entire supporting cast is on par with the two leads. Novak, who portrayed the Devil in the performance I saw, is a natural singer-dancer, and relishes his time in the spotlight. Natalya Chamruk, Elina Rakhlin and Simona Meynekhdrun fully inhabit their small roles of photographers and stylists (particularly Rakhlin, as the dim bulb of the set). Sapoff wisely uses grandiose gestures for his role as the wise king, and Elan David Kvitko, one of the older actors in the show, was also a poised presence as a photographer – I wish he had been utilized more in the show.

Butov’s and Starr’s songs are also credible, including the title song, “Sunshine and Rain,” and “What Would Life Be Without Magic.” All of these songs find a catchy way to appeal to its young audience while still entwining aspects of the Jewish culture. Accordingly, orchestrator Alexander Ratmansky is also to be commended, as is choreographer Jessica Redish and lighting designers Michael and Stanislav Nemoy.

Jewish certainly aims high, requesting its young cast to enact very heavy themes – it does not get much weightier than questioning one’s faith. But Kleyner, who directs this solid show in addition to creating it, does an incredible job with his entire ensemble, instilling exactly what one might expect from the playhouse in which Jewish is performed: the Promise Theater.

Might Have Beens

The script for Conor McPherson’s 2001 play Port Authority seems like a director’s dream: utterly bereft of stage directions, the play invites seemingly endless possibilities. Yet, their absence can also hamstring a director. How much license may one take with a play devoid of stage directions? In the Atlantic Theater Company’s current production of Port Authority, the answer is not much, and this otherwise riveting production suffers for it. Kevin (John Gallagher, Jr.), Dermot (Brian d’Arcy James) and Joe (Jim Norton) are, respectively, young, middle-aged and old, and each has a sometimes-heartbreaking tale of love and loss to tell. Sharing a bare stage and a large bench, the three men alternate their tales, rising and approaching the audience in turn: first Kevin, then Dermot, and then Joe. They repeat this process until each story is fully told.

Kevin is in love with a plucky young female housemate he knows he will never pursue. Dermot, likely an alcoholic, with a wife who married him because she pitied him, relates a humorous yet poignant tale of mistakenly being hired for a coveted job because his employers thought he was someone else. Joe, an adult-home resident, tells perhaps the deepest story of all, about an innocent yet guilt-ridden secret he has kept for decades.

While one character is in full-throated monologue, the other two rest on or around the bench, mostly oblivious to the actor who is speaking. Each has a characteristic waiting mode: Kevin is sullen and frustrated, Dermot is resigned, and Joe is puzzled and searching. Since the monologues of Joe and Dermot are very loosely interconnected, Joe might prick up his ears, almost telepathically, when Dermot mentions something related to him.

Because of their abilities to keep an audience rapt, the actors, particularly Messrs. d’Arcy James and Norton, save this play. Under Mr. Wishcamper’s direction, each actor basically stands there, delivering his monologue. The youthful Kevin moves most onstage, but his gesticulations seem reserved given the material he relates to us.

The gripping d’Arcy James and the affable Norton hold the audience’s attention all on their own, despite Matthew Richards' meager use of lighting and Bart Fasbender’s employment of only the faintest of background sounds to occasionally illuminate the words. Each actor would have benefited, at various times, from a spotlight. Mr. Richards dims the stage lighting, dutifully, only in the closing seconds of each monologue. The result is as predictable as knowing which actor speaks next. The play would have also benefited from, at least occasionally, darkening the inactive characters rather than continuously bathing them in dull florescent overhead lighting.

One wishes that Mr. Wishcamper and his cohorts had made more use of the Atlantic’s Linda Gross Theater’s considerable attributes. As a gothic revival church more than a century old, the space lends itself to the uniquely dramatic. Yet, the gigantic square stage platform is utilized conservatively. Takeshi Kata’s staging replicates a bare bones bus terminal, perhaps in accordance with the curious title of the play, though the only direction the script provides indicates that it is set in the theater.

Mr. McPherson’s monologues, characteristic of about half his plays to date, are composed of poetic and sometimes devastating stand-alone sentences, rarely longer than a few lines. On the page, they read like prose poetry. While the ultimate emphasis is, rightly, on these anguished words, so much more could have been done with this production of Port Authority that its own “might have beens” are almost fitting for the material. One feels that the production adds so little to those words.

Fortunately, the actors, for the most part, masterfully translate that material to the stage, though, ultimately, if I had to recommend one over the other, I would choose the book, particularly for those with imaginations more vivid than fluorescent.

Mark His Words

Some people are a jack of all trades but a master of none, while others, like the cast of BeTwixt, BeTween and BeTWAIN, appear to have seamlessly mastered a dizzying assortment of trades. Take, for example, the production's musical director, Danny Ashkenasi. He is also the writer of the play's book, lyrics and music, and is featured throughout the performance as a piano player and performer. BeTwixt, BeTween and BeTWAIN also has a strong multi-talented ensemble in Aaron Piazza, Jennifer Eden, Alexander Gonzales, Rachel Green, Andrea Pinyan and Michael Satow. There seems to be no end to the number of instruments this troupe can play: piano, flute, violin, accordion, oboe, clarinet, triangle, guitar, harmonica, maracas, wooden frogs – even forks and knives.

The ensemble never loses their zest or energy, an incredible feat considering the demands placed on their abilities in this packed night of music. The evening begins with some of Mark Twain’s lighter tales: The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, A Genuine Mexican Plug, and Blue Jays. Ashkenasi’s musical adaptation of these tales highlights Twain’s humorous eye for life’s small details and people’s unique oddities. He has chosen works with topics that one would never imagine anyone could write a story about, let alone a musical.

The mood turns slightly bleaker in The Californian’s Tale; a mysterious account of a town mad with love over a young woman suspiciously absent from the scene, and Cannibalism in the Cars, a darkly comedic song that Satow delivers with the perfect blend of hilarity and horror. Act one concludes with Life on the Mississippi, a soft, trance-like tribute to the river that has become synonymous with the name Mark Twain.

The second act is a musical adaptation of Twain’s popular travel literature, The Innocents Abroad (or The New Pilgrim’s Progress), chronicling the adventures of tourists as they trek through Europe in search of the Holy Land. Each stop on the tour is told through a series of songs, the most comical being Italy’s Michaelangelo, where the tourists have some fun with their stuffy museum guide asking if everything from Egyptian artifacts to pieces created a million years ago were created by Michaelangelo. Remember Me is another stand-out, addressing the somber moment every bright-eyed tourist encounters when their travels take them to Pompeii.

The length and complexity of each song does give the latter part of the evening a longer, heavier feel, especially given that these are not fluffy commercial jingles, but compact musical stories. But, while some musical interludes may feel weighty and unnecessary, none are uninspired. The actors appear to be having a great deal of fun with their roles. They commit to them without reserve, unafraid to twist their handsome features into ridiculous, ugly expressions.

Rachel Green, in particular, has a funny visual moment where she stands hunched over on a chair, neighing like a lame horse while simultaneously playing a violin, infusing a beautiful classical soundtrack into her own silly scene.

As the backbone of the production, Ashkenasi has an absorbing stage presence. When you have an artist this involved in their work you know you are seeing a fully realized vision that is deeply personal to that artist. There are special moments in beTwixt, beTween, and beTWAIN, outside of the story, where it is fun to watch Ashkenasi close his eyes on the sheet music and play the melody he hears in his head.

Mark Twain may have written the tales, but the collection of tunes belong to Ashkenasi and the six person ensemble of DiPiazza, Eden, Gonzales, Green, Pinyan and Satow, whose combined efforts give this production a fun and energetic life.

War of the Words

For a play that is ostensibly about the unstoppable machine of war, about the moral quandaries and mythologizing of its participants and perpetrators, Irondale Ensemble Project's The Great American All-Star Traveling War Machine is an enjoyable, funny romp through several centuries of human history. Too smart to be a blaring critique, the show is a good dramatization of the magazine that inspired it: Lapham’s Quarterly, the first issue of which was entitled “States of War." The magazine included essays from critics living and deceased, and attempted to approach its subject from an objective and detached perspective. Though the Ensemble's approach is all encompassing, their compilation is clearly intended to criticize war. With such a grand scheme, the show can sometimes be an unfocused critique, but overall it is as complex as the emotions that fuel the war machine. The opening sequence features a song and dance that playfully mocks the ways war influences culture. A narrator (an ironically professorial Damen Scranton) gleefully prances and twists an umbrella, announcing a long list of conflicts. Things become less chipper with the mention of the Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq wars. While it is true that the audience is more likely to have strong emotions and personal connections to these more recent wars, the show is founded on a premise that no war is more “meaningful” than another (or, in the words of Mark Twain, “history may not repeat itself, but it rhymes.”)

From the opener, the play shifts in time—in thematic, rather than chronological leaps—and includes an inspiring speech from General Patton (a fierce, yet playful Patrena Murray, who is astounding in all of her roles), a humorous exchange of telegrams between Kaiser Wilhelm II (Willie) and Tsar Nicholas II (Nicky) on the eve of WWI, Elizabeth I’s speech at Tillary, an AA meeting attended by Kurt Vonnegut, a petulant Nixon and a paternal Kissinger, plus more. Interspersed between the sketches and monologues are American pop songs, highlighting the vast cultural machine of distraction—vital for a nation, but no less disturbing for that.

The emotional jumps in the show require frequent and sudden shifts in tone. From the proud Elizabeth to a young soldier confronting his kill, Patrena Murray embodies these transitions best and thereby demonstrates the layers of man’s reactions to war. The rest of the cast is a multi-talented group of actors who share with their director, Jim Niesen, keen wit, cheekiness, and general ease.

Some sketches are less strong than others, and with such frequent changes in time, place, and perspective, the show can seem disjointed. This style links the show with a cabaret tradition that favors quick laughs over plot and character development. For example, the choppiness and questionable importance of a Rambo sketch and one about Alexander the Great point to some of the problems with covering so much ground. However, because of the skill of the actors, and the director’s trust in their abilities, the production is still compelling.

In addition to their talents as comedians, the cast is quite capable of churning out moving scenes that focus on the tragic losses of war. The most affecting are a piece that integrates the tale of a soldier’s death in WWII with the lyrics of an achingly lovely Australian war song, and an interpretation of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried .

Acknowledging the bravery, and power, required to fuel a war effort does not, however, amount to support, and the ensemble is made up of some conscientious objectors. Yet, the show does a great service to American tradition by exploring various perspectives to interrogate a collective past.

The Great American All-Star Traveling War Machine is a refreshing piece of theater that graciously avoids the easy propaganda of an issue play while still giving serious, if often ironic, consideration to the gravest of topics. Yet, because of the cabaret structure, the play has the unfortunate tendency to rapidly skate over the deep issues it raises. It might not be a wholly saving grace, but the finale is a neat and stunning summary of their ideas: a scene involving no fanfare, no iconography, no idolatry; just some faded jackets representing the emptiness of the endeavor, and a song bitter in its blind hopefulness: “We’ll meet again some day, some sunny day.”

Obies!

The 53rd Annual Village Voice Obie Awards were presented the evening of May 19, 2008 at Webster Hall, and yes, offoffonline was there.

This year's ceremony marks the return of the Obies to Webster Hall after their sojourn to the NYU Skirball Center. Attendees manifested enthusiasm concerning this change, and Webster Hall, with its flickering red fire lanterns, ornate molding and sometimes-scary relief sculptures, does seem like a particularly appropriate venue for an Off- and Off-Off-Broadway theater event.

Co-hosts for the evening were Elizabeth Marvel and Bill Camp. Presenters included Jonathan Groff, Priscilla Lopez, Marisa Tomei, Bradley Whitford, S. Epatha Merkerson, and Julie White. Attendees enjoyed a rousing performance of two songs by the Passing Strange ensemble, leading some to dance along by their seats or even in the aisles.

For the first time, this year's Obies have been webcast, and the complete ceremony can be viewed at www.villagevoice.com/obies.

Congratulations to all those whose achievements were honored this year. We look forward to seeing more of your work.

The Winners:

Playwriting
Horton Foote, Dividing The Estate
David Henry Hwang, Yellow Face

Direction
Krzysztof Warlikowski, Krum
David Cromer, Adding Machine

Performance
LisaGay Hamilton, The Ohio State Murders
Kate Mulgrew, Iphigenia 2.0
Francis Jue, Yellow Face
Rebecca Wisocky, Amazons and Their Men
Joel Hatch, Adding Machine
Heidi Schreck, Drum Of The Waves Of Horikawa
Veanne Cox, Sustained Excellence of Performance
Sean McNall, Sustained Excellence of Performance
Ensemble, Passing Strange:(De'Adre Aziza, Daniel Breaker, Eisa Davis, Colman Domingo, Chad Goodridge, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Stew)

Design
Takeshi Kata, Set - Keith Parham, Lighting Design, Adding Machine
Peter Ksander, Scenic Design, Untitled Mars (This Title May Change)
Ben Katchor, Drawings; John Findlay & Jeff Sugg, Set & Projection; Russell H. Champa, Lighting Design, The Slug Bearers Of Kayrol Island
Jane Greenwood; Sustained Excellence of Costume Design
David Zinn; Sustained Excellence of Costume and Set Design

Special Citations
Nature Theater of Oklahoma, No Dice
David Greenspan, The Argument
Best New Theater Piece: $1,000 Stew, Heidi Rodewald, Annie Dorsen, Passing Strange

The Ross Wetzsteon Award $2,000
Cherry Lane Theatre Mentor Project

Lifetime Achievement Award
Adrienne Kennedy

Obie Grants
Keen Company $5,000
Theater of a Two-Headed Calf $5,000

When the Audience Takes the Stage

Audiences beware: the fourth wall can’t protect you. At least, that seems to be the message behind the T. Schreiber Studio’s charming double billing of works by Christopher Durang and Tom Stoppard. As both contain a play-within-a-play, they thrust spectator characters into the limelight. In Durang’s The Actor’s Nightmare, an accountant takes a wrong turn and finds himself being forced to replace an injured Edwin Booth in a mysterious production. In Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound, two theater critics wind up participating in the show they’ve come to review. Durang’s Nightmare posits what would happen if a man, sans rehearsals (and, in this case, knowledge of his name or prior acting experience), was unexpectedly thrown onstage. The concept is amusing enough and produces a lot of great squirm humor. While you empathize with George Spelvin, the unfortunate and sudden actor, the sheer awkwardness of both the situation and how he handles it are hilarious. As Spelvin, Michael Black is an endearingly pathetic chump. He’s best when Spelvin actually tries to act and gets excited about his temporary triumphs. In these little victories (between many, many disasters), Black grins like a five-year-old who just won the class spelling bee. His surge of ridiculous confidence comes in the form of adding special accents or flourishes to his performance. As the audience knows a fall is inevitable, the fleeting second of success is precious.

The problem with the show is that the time allotted to the plot greatly exceeds the depth of the joke. He’s not supposed to be there, he’s uncomfortable, and he’s panicking. We get it. There’s really no reason to make this go on for longer than 10-15 minutes, but Durang seems to have really wanted to make his poor character suffer. We see a mash-up of words and scenes from Shakespeare, Noel Coward, and Samuel Beckett. The ensuing collage and butchering of assorted lines is entertaining, but could be curtailed. For an actor, perhaps watching this go on and on is cathartic. For an audience member, it’s boring.

In Stoppard’s play, two theater critics have come to watch a murder mystery, but are completely preoccupied with their own concerns. Moon (Julian Elfer), young and overly insecure, is distracted by office politics, while Birdboot (Rick Forstmann), old and overly excitable, is distracted by his libido.

Both actors make their characters equal parts blowhard and fool. Elfer gives Moon just the right amount of bumbling neuroticism as he obsesses over his status as a second-string critic and consistently tries to prove himself through pretentious analysis. As Birdboot, Forstmann nimbly shifts between self-righteous husband and skirt-chaser. Although he talks through the show, the experienced critic is still a stickler for the details: he whips out his binoculars during an onstage kiss to determine whether or not “her mouth is open.”

Modeled in the Agatha Christie mold, the show they’ve come to critique pans out like a comically campy live-action Clue. The satirical touches aren’t exactly original, but they hit the mark thanks to performances completely invested in the farce and jokes (and plot points) that are repeated so often they reach their comical apex the moment they should start to annoy you (this holds true particularly for a maid with a bulging-eye problem).

While both plays’ antics elicit chuckles, there is nothing exceptional, or particularly exciting, about them. With very safe pacing and style, the entire production seems to suffer from a strict dedication to tradition. Perhaps it is the firm footing provided by such experienced playwrights that convinces the director and actors to stay so close to the beaten path. Perhaps it is the fact that tradition can be beautiful (one look at George Allison’s old-school proscenium archway, velvet boxes, and chandeliers would say so). But without a stamp of originality, this two-play production fails to be distinct or memorable. Fourth wall shattering? Yes. Earth shattering? Certainly not.

I'll Trade You an Apple For A. . .

Who'd have thought that a golden apple could cause so much trouble? In the time before the Trojan War, Paris, Prince of Troy, is given an apple which he is to bestow onto the most beautiful goddess. Does he choose Hera, who promises him power; Athena, who promises him fame; or Aphrodite, who promises him the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen? He chooses Aphrodite, and so Company XIV's The Judgment of Paris begins, tracing the course of the Trojan War from its very beginning. A piece of dance theater, baroque stylings and the can-can are featured as prominently as the story of Paris and Helen is.

The set is visible to the audience from the moment they enter Company XIV's space in Brooklyn. Scaffolds line both sides of the stage, under which are dressing and prop areas. The space in between is bare. Performers mill about, pulling on costumes, adjusting their hair, and casually greeting friends who enter. The lights dim, and a rousing can-can dance begins.

The dance is energetic, as is all of the dance in the show. When the war begins, four dancers move across the fog covered stage, two of the dancers lie on the ground and clasp the ankles of the other two, who drag the prostrate bodies over the floor. The strength of the dance makes the weakness of the acting and the much abbreviated story all that much more noticeable. Instead of allowing events to unfold on their own on stage, narration constantly interrupts the story, as if the audience needed to be reminded that it was watching a performance. The same actor portrays the narrator, Paris, and Menelaus, using the same well enunciated but flat tone for each character. It is unclear why Aphrodite, goddess of passion and love, should be the one to help ready the soldiers for war. At the end of the war, with Paris dead and Troy in ruins, Menelaus tells his (former?) wife Helen that she is a whore and a murder. His accusations seem odd and out of place, given that he considered her worth gathering an army and sailing off to war for.

The piece's treatment of Helen is interesting. Is she, as Menelaus says, a whore? Or a victim? Did she want to go off with Paris or was she just a pawn in an elaborate game set up by the gods before time began? The woman portraying her never speaks, yet we hear “Helen” speak, always through the voice of someone else. Her disembodied voice is evidence of the object that she has been made into, simply because she is beautiful. In the traditional Trojan War myth, Helen ultimately ends up returning home with Menelaus. The Judgment of Paris assigns a new, unfortunate fate to Helen. Suddenly, the erotic, alluring dances performed by Aphrodite's collection of cupids no longer seem so erotic or alluring when the completely victimized Helen is forced to perform them, a look of utter distress upon her face.

The Judgment of Paris is largely uneven. The show tackles too much at once in combining dance, theater, and a very large story into a scant 90 minutes. The result is a watered-downed attempt at greatness, evidence of a group of talented performers and a show that needs focus.

You Can't Take It With You

Medieval morality plays, instructive texts intended to convince audiences to lead more pious lives, served as a sort of early prototype for the after-school special. At the outset of the classic morality play Everyman, God sends Death to summon the title character. Unprepared for a reckoning with God, Every asks to bring someone along on the journey, only to discover that friends, family, and material goods – everything Everyman thought important – refuse to come along, and that ultimately, only good deeds can follow man beyond the grave. Fittingly, the current production at Looking Glass Theatre, which purports to produce theater while “exploring a female vision,” features a female Every (Charlotte Purser). That raises the question of how shifting the gender of a character intended as a prototype for all humanity affects a story. Under director Shari Johnson, the answer is: not much. Save its gender-bending casting, this is a production that allows the text to speak for itself, without grafting contemporary choices or questions onto it.

When it works, it does so because the themes of the 500-plus-year-old-play continue to resonate today. Though the play is steeped in the rhetoric and beliefs of Medieval Catholicism, as a parable, it favors universal abstraction over explicit cultural specificities. Each of the characters (Fellowship, Knowledge, Good Deeds, etc) is a personified form of an abstract idea.

The Looking Glass production opens majestically, with several cast members performing the role of God as a choral recitation. Calling down to the audience from above the stage, they appear to the audience as a formless celestial being wrapped in lighting designer Rachelle Beckerman’s awesome gold pinpricks of light. Once the action of the play becomes earthbound, so do the actors. Scenic designer Wheeler Kincaid’s set is covered in brown ropes and sack cloth; costume designer Mark Richard Caswell has outfitted the actors in earth-toned ensembles evocative of the Middle Ages.

Performing a singular quality poses an interesting acting challenge; The Looking Glass production would be stronger if Johnson had the cast meet it more uniformly. At times, the actors nail the personification of the ideas they embody, as when Kimberlee Walker portrays Strength with a buoyant confidence and Anne Gill depicts Discretion by carefully parsing her thoughts. Elsewhere, embodiment of a performative quality takes a backseat to pure enthusiasm performing; Megan Gaffney’s Knowledge is bursting with earnest energy but never comes across as, well, knowledgeable. The production is at its best in scenes that embrace the play’s explicitly instructive nature while remaining mindful of its details. Phillip Chavira and Jonah Dill-D’Ascoli in particular stand out as Kindred and Cousin, achieving a familial rapport while taking real pleasure in the presentationalism of their roles. It would be nice to see that balance of qualities elsewhere in the production.

The power of the morality tale in the Middle Ages surely derived, in part, from the steadfast belief of the performers in the profundity of their message. Yet, a sense of urgency and weighty import is absent from this production. In its place is a faithful presentation of a historic text. History buffs should take note.

Shipwrecked

The subtitle of The Accidental Patriot describes its protagonist, Desmond Connelly, as “Irish by birth, English by blood, and American by inclination.” Such a pedigree is sure to leave even the most well-adjusted expat with an identity crisis. Connelly, however, is remarkably stable. The same cannot be said for this play, which swerves all over the dramatic landscape. Presented as a swashbuckling history lesson on the American Revolution mixed with a father quest and a capella songs, it's not surprising that the show comes off a bit disorganized. The Accidental Patriot is essentially a revenge play. After a cocky British admiral sweeps into Boston and kills Connelly’s close friend in a duel, he vows to take the murderer down and hops on a ship to chase after him. After watching Connelly in action for a bit, it’s clear you shouldn’t do the following around him: bring up his family (a dead mom, an anonymous dad who abandoned him), question his patriotism for any one of the countries where he’s lived, or murder his friends. And throughout the play, people just can’t seem to stop doing these things.

With a bland script and an inconsistent tone, the show lacks cohesion. The cast seems absolutely adrift as they work through their scenes. As the production seesaws between hilariously bad and just plain bad, it’s hard to tell whether or not the comic portions are intentional. The ensemble, for one, shifts between acting distractingly overzealous (lots of grunting and side conversations) and bored as they sit in the background or even perform scene changes. As Connelly’s love interest, Liza Wade White has an American Katherine Hepburn accent that just doesn’t make sense coming from her British character.

The two actors that manage to rise slightly above the mess are Cameron J. Oro as Connelly and David Bengali as the pansy adopted son of his nemesis. Even when the play drags, Oro is quite charming with his big smile and smooth, deep voice. He easily fits the image of a leader men would rally around. An excellent comic foil, Bengali is all scrawny limbs and bad comebacks.

Bengali also designed the show’s sweeping playground of a set. The masts, nets, ropes, and barrels provide a nice springboard for the action-packed fight scenes. Cleanly choreographed by Barbara Charlene, these are the best parts of the show. The swordplay is further enhanced by much swinging, jumping, and climbing.

Unfortunately, the dialogue doesn’t pack the same punch as, well, the punches. When the answer to the play’s central mystery becomes painfully obvious (which happens about ten minutes into the show), the scenes drag.

A consistently campy tone and more jokes would add some much needed pep to the production. As Oro and Bengali so smoothly execute their amusing interactions, and the rest of the cast waits in dire need of comic relief, a stronger tone of parody seems like the best course. Until then, this ship is adrift.

Handle With Care

Substitution, the first offering from Playwrights Realm, a new producing organization, is an honorable if imperfect inaugural show. Artistic directors John Dias and Katherine Kovner have found a playwright, Anton Dudley, with a poetic sensibility and a gift for language, particularly in his monologues, and some skill at creating interesting characters. But no playwright is without flaws, and Dudley’s virtues cannot disguise some implausible plotting. Jan Maxwell plays a woman known only as Calvin’s Mom, and it’s clear from her first monologue that she is deeply bereft and bewildered after her 16-year-old son has been killed, along with many other students, on a school field trip. Maxwell plumbs the agony of Mom, the resentment and anger and loneliness, all of which are exacerbated when she runs into Paul, a substitute teacher who had Calvin in his class. In the impossible role of Paul, Kieran Campion manages to create a character who is both fascinating and frustrating. Jittery and logorrheic and frequently juvenile, but earnest and boyishly charming, Paul is unbelievable as an adult and yet convincing as an impulsive, damaged man-child.

Two additional characters are Jule (Shana Dowdeswell) and Dax (Brandon Espinoza). They appear in a small upper aperture on Tom Gleeson’s minimal but serviceable set, whose only furniture is a desk and chair and whose walls are shades of blue, to suggest the lake that plays a crucial part in the story. Dressed in the costumes of superheroes of their own devising (actually, they’re by Theresa Squire), Jule is Winged Girl and Dax is Merboy, and as Dudley’s play unfolds it becomes clear that they are part of the field trip that Calvin is on, and that one of them just may have engineered the explosion that sank their boat and killed them and Calvin. Dax and Jule never interact with Paul and Mom, however: Dudley is telling parallel stories that only intersect at the explosion.

The title, Substitution, may apply to the personae of the superheroes that Dax and Jule assume, or to Paul’s teaching status, or to his attempt to become an emotional substitute for Calvin in Mom’s life, or to a figurine that Paul treasures because it reminds him of Calvin. Director Kovner keeps all those questions open as she guides the actors through the awkward plotting.

Dudley is writing, in part, about the fragility of life and the acceptance of death. Says Dax to Jule: “That’s the part I hate—that moment of no turning back?—that little sound, so fast you might not’ve even heard it and it’s like—wuh oh!—no more choices, something final happened. A little death.” Their conversation preceding the explosion is in counterpoint to the aftermath that Mom and Paul must deal with.

The world of the characters, however, stretches credibility. In what high school is ethics a semester-long class, like history? How would a teacher of that ethics class be able to justify to parents a boat ride on a lake, with the students dressed up as superheroes—never mind to a school board that presumably would fund the outing? Would school chaperones allow a student to go on the trip bare-chested, as Dax is, and especially on water? Even Jule is concerned about his catching cold—surely school officials would be?

An even more bizarre notion is that a person with Paul’s obvious instability would be hired as a substitute teacher and be promoted within weeks to assistant principal. (Apparently neither Dudley nor Kovner has heard of seniority or teachers’ unions.) "You’re a child yourself,” Mom tells him, and indeed, Paul’s relationship to Calvin is that of a child who forms strong attachments suddenly.

In spite of such flaws, the acting is committed and excellent. Brandon Espinoza as Dax captures youth’s sense of indestructibility, and Shana Dowdeswell is fine as the unsettling Jule, full of adolescent adoration for the unsuspecting Dax. Mom and Paul eventually bond as well, although a scene in which Paul, stripped to his briefs, performs drunken calisthenics for her on their first “date,” is plain preposterous.

Nonetheless, they all manage to create characters that hold one's interest. Whether that is an indication of Dudley’s raw talent or of the supreme skills of the players may not be answered until more of his work is seen. Certainly The Playwrights Realm has given him an auspicious beginning.