Rest and Reconciliation

David Harrower’s elliptical two-character drama Good With People takes place in 24 hours in the Scottish town of Helensburgh (seemingly pronounced “Hillsborough”), a destination known for its tourism—it sits on a firth—and for local protests years before against Britain’s nuclear outfitting of a naval base there. The protagonists, innkeeper Helen and returning native Evan, embody both political and personal differences. Helen (Blythe Duff) has lived all her life in Helensburgh, and she recognizes Evan (Andrew Scott-Ramsay) as he checks into the hotel where she works; in childhood, Evan was among a group of bullies who humiliated her son Jack in an embarrassing, cruel  incident. That wound has not healed, in spite of Evan’s apology at the time, partly because of social tensions between the families at the nuclear base, where Evan’s father worked, and the resident families. The townspeople looked down on the base families, in Evan’s estimation, and Helen resented the fact that Evan’s mother never said a word to her to indicate remorse over the bullying.

Now Evan has come back for the remarriage of his mother and father—they divorced and then got back together, a situation that somewhat parallels Evan’s departure for Pakistan, where he worked as a nurse for the Red Cross in Quetta, and his return to where he has roots.

The play touches on class issues and nuclear protests unique to British history that surely carry more weight with its native audience (references to Oddbins and the nuclear protests may be opaque to anyone who doesn’t know Britain and followed its politics). Harrower, in 55 minutes, delineates two lives in stark contrast. Evan’s rootlessness is a result of his parents’ moving around, and is reflected by their divorce and remarriage. As they flounder, so does he. In contrast, Helen is a fount of stability. Her son has benefited from her fierce loyalty; he has grown up, moved on and settled down with a girlfriend, and he carries no psychological scars. Although Helen is stern, she is not altogether unbending, and ultimate she finds sympathy for the young man she has resented for so long.

As slim as the story is, George Perrin’s staging turns it into a striking visual and aural experience. Using minimal scenery (by Ben Stones), he has created many memorable flourishes—there’s dancing, and at one point the strapping Scott-Ramsay upturns a bottle over his head, and sand pours out.

Harrower uses a cinematic structure, jump-cutting from scene to scene, as Helen and Evan meet at check-in and run into each other during the day and evening of the wedding.  At one moment Evan is heading to the wedding; in the next scene he has returned. Tim Deiling has contributed stark film noir lighting, and Scott Twynholm, an intricate sound design (although the ever-present background drone of a bagpipe can become irritating to unaccustomed ears).

Gradually the ice thaws between the pair. Helen seems at times to become a surrogate mother, disapproving at first of Evan’s old behavior, but then slowly relating to him as an adult. Duff charts Helen’s attitudes from accusatory and condescending to motherly (she ties his tie for him before he leaves for the wedding), to curious and caring as a friend.

Scott-Ramsay is well-cast for his physique—one can believe the strapping actor would have had the stature as a teenager to bully a smaller child—but the actor also suggests a temperament held in check. Yet he also reveals the damage of his life. The Taliban captured him and made him eat earth—echoing the symbolism of the bottle of dirt, and his wanderings reflect a man who has not found himself.

The play specifically rebukes the British class system, which may not resonate with a foreign audience, but it carries enough weight for one to extrapolate the lesson that people are individuals and not cemented into the roles that popular attitudes may hold toward them. Harrower ultimately delivers an optimistic message: two people, separated by age, sex, political beliefs, personal prejudices, can still learn to become friends by talking together and trying to understand each other.

I Want a Cool Fist Pump

For most people, the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons does not summon images of people who commit armed robbery. Yet Lynn Rosen’s new play, Goldor $ Mythyka: A Hero is Born, is based on the case of Roger Dillon and Nicole Boyd, “a nice young couple enamored of fantasy role-playing games,” who an armored car of $7.4 million dollars. This is the second play to be produced by the New Georges special initiative known as The Germ Project, which basically asked writers to make plays of “scope and imagination.” G$M certainly qualifies, and the creative visual style of the play makes for an exciting audience experience of an odd story to be sure. Upon entering the New Ohio Theatre, the DJ -- who will be our dungeon master on this journey -- is already on stage spinning some tracks. Bobby Moreno’s DJ is not a bad concept, but it is unfortunate that this is the way that the piece begins, as it is the weakest aspect of the structure in a lot of ways. Director and co-developer Shana Gold seems unsure of what to do with this figure, a DJ/rapper who seems out of place in the world of the play.

Luckily, the other characters, including our “heroes,” Garrett Neergaard’s Bart/Goldor and Jenny Seastone Stern’s Holly/Mythyka, are particularly well cast and utilized. We watch as these two overlooked individuals come alive through the world of Dungeons & Dragons, and their mutual passion for the game becomes a passion for each other. This eventually culminates in their idea of robbing the money transport company for which they both work. The play also projects into the future to imagine what might become of this “Goth Bonnie and Clyde” and their son.

In the midst of this, our dungeon master DJ cuts, spins, and mixes the stories together with the media elements to create a story that not only resembles D&D, but also mimics the experience of being on the internet. I believe that Moreno’s DJ is supposed to invite us into the play, but his persona seemed forced in a way none of the other characters did.

The characters move with ease through the various locations created on Nick Francone’s minimalistic set, which brings to mind a basement, though it also transforms into homes, restaurants, and other places through various moving set pieces. Lenore Doxsee’s lighting design and Tristan Raines’s costume design also continue this aspect of less-is-more conceptualization, and though there are a lot of design elements in the show, they never seem overwhelming.

The show's multimedia structure is impressive; there is an interesting device of projection and live action that reminds me of having many windows open on a single screen at the same time. This engaged approach to the media, designed by Piama Habibullah and Jared Mezzochi, is closely linked to the sound design by Shane Rettig, both of which add to this idea of making the Internet experience a theatrical one. It is a very successful and interesting concept.

Of course, like any new piece, there are a few aspects of this piece that need a bit more attention. Melissa Riker’s choreography was interesting for actors like Stern who clearly have had movement training. Unfortunately, when dealing with actors who look like they can play D&D and who sit in front of their computers a lot, it is quite a challenge to find people who can move gracefully. This made the dance moments less successful than they could have been.

I also had a few questions about the play in general. The most important is this: what are we supposed to think of our heroes? The play vacillates between casting them as glorious underdogs who get revenge and the frightening loners who spend too much time in a fantasy world and eventually snap. I think it’s great that the play doesn’t shirk this complicated balance, but if you’re looking for a play with easy answers, this isn’t it. I do think that this is a very creative piece and one worth watching, especially if you have any knowledge of D&D, LARP, or any other kind of role-playing game. As the Federal Agent says at one point in the show, “I want a cool fist pump,” and if that describes you, then this is one not to miss.

Photo: Garrett Neergaard Jenny Seastone Stern and Bobby Moreno Photo Credit: Jim-Baldassare

Sweet and Lowdown

F#%king Up Everything, an indie-rock musical with a split personality, has a lot of energy and talented performers giving their all in a plot that’s old hat. The complication of lovers pining for the wrong people was familiar when Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and As You Like It premiered. Sam Forman and David Eric Davis's book addresses the trite situations with a mix of genuine wit and unexpected vulgarity. The overall impression is of young talents who just haven't harnessed their abilities quite yet, and director Jen Wineman hasn’t found a consistent tone for the show. The hero, a nerdy puppeteer “at an alternative preschool,” meets and falls for a sweet young woman, who is pursued by a rakish frontman for an indie rock band. A secondary plot involves a bespectacled young woman who yearns to be noticed by the band’s bleach-blond, pot-puffing guitarist, though she is best friends with the frontman.

Still, what matters in a musical is the score, and Davis’s music and lyrics deliver pleasing melodies in a variety of genres—from torch song to love ballad to a Cole Porterish list song. (One notable exception is the opening number, which, in line with the title, sets a crass tone that belies much of the warmth and sweetness that follows). The book spans both high- and lowbrow humor, often winningly. Typical of the show’s split personality is that Christian’s puppets are all intellectuals: Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader, Cornel West. There’s an amusing joke about the puppet versions of Susan Sontag and Annie Liebovitz that manages to be both high-falutin’ and hilariously lewd, and a ballad about Arielle's anatomy that revels in tastelessness.

FUE’s biggest asset is a young cast of talented newcomers, though some, like Max Crumm, who plays the hero, Christian Mohamed Schwarzelberg, and was in the revival of Grease, are better known than others.

Crumm makes for an oddball leading man. As the lovelorn puppeteer, he has charm aplenty, and yet the character’s goofiness and insecurity are odd for a leading role. Of pretty girls who go after lead singers, he laments, “Why don’t they want a sweet, neurotic guy who makes his living doing puppet shows for small children?” Christian's comic persona is reinforced by the color and style combination in his clownish costumes (by Melissa Trn): one is hospital green slacks, a checked shirt, and blue pullover T. Although Crumm's role feels like that of a hapless sidekick, it's a pleasant surprise that he's the top banana, and he gives a performance that is physically agile and comically precise. He also sings well, notably in the love ballad “Juliana.”

That song is directed to a pretty young woman, Juliana (Katherine Cozumel), a new housemate to Ivy, who’s in a sort of relationship with the diffident Tony, a member of the rock band Ironic Maiden. Juliana and Christian bond over the fact that both were straights majoring in queer theory at their colleges—Sarah Lawrence and Bard, respectively—and the cute, puppy-dog intellectualism in their opening scene sets the predominant tone for their relationship. Crumm and Cozumel have a genuine chemistry, and their mutual attraction is believable if unusual. And Cozumel exhibits a nice, relaxed quality as Juliana; she also plays the ukulele and has a lovely singing voice.

The "cool" rebel who gives off the classic leading man air, however, is Jason Gotay as Jake, the Ironic Maiden frontman. Gotay finds the right balance of arrogance and egotism without ever being despicable. And then there’s Ivy, the bespectacled girlfriend of Tony, the drummer. She keeps trying to hook up with him, but he keeps putting her off with slacker aplomb. Douglas Widick makes the most of the hoary role of a drug-addled stoner, and George Salazar matches him as an even goofier presence in the band. Rounding out the cast is Lisa Birnbaum as Arielle, a tall vamp with an outsize libido and the power to make the band famous.

Wineman, who also choreographed, keeps the pace moving along smoothly, and in "Juliana" cleverly stages the attractive Cozumel as if she were a manipulated Barbie doll. Still, most of the surprises come in the melodically inventive score and the skillfully wrought lyrics. The cast makes the most of them and, with the occasional exception of Birnbaum, whose delivery is sometimes unclear, does them justice.

Deb O's set—a “hipster dive bar with wasted liberal arts grads,” as Christian calls it, is decorated with colored Christmas lights, hubcaps and various license plates. It's an inviting place, and a visit there will boost your spirits.

Canadian Gold

The notes for Canadian playwright Michael Healey in the program of The Drawer Boy state that his play was “the fourth most-produced play in the United States during the first decade of the 21^st century.” That may make the play sound like it’s straining foolishly for some kind of record, but its merits are so solid that the factoid doesn’t do it justice. The excellent production by the Oberon Theatre Ensemble demonstrates that Healey has written an affecting drama with plenty of surprises and dry as well as rollicking humor. Directed by Alexander Dinelaris, the story builds carefully as it follows a young actor who volunteers to work on a farm because his thespian consortium is putting together a drama about farmers. In the manner of the actors who interviewed and assembled The Laramie Project, he is supposed to live among farmers, collect data, and create a piece to contribute to their finished work.

The actor, Miles (Alex Fast), stumbles into the home of two bachelor farmers, Morgan (Brad Fryman) and Angus (William Laney). Though it’s not certain initially that they will permit his presence in their home (the first scene ends in a comic limbo), they do. Miles learns that Angus is mentally handicapped as a result of an incident in London in World War II, when he and Miles served together. Rather like the situation in the film Memento, Angus cannot remember anything for more than a few minutes at a time. He needs to be reintroduced each morning to Miles, and sometimes more often than that.

As Miles records the daily lives of the two men and tries his hand ineptly at milking cows and driving a tractor, he learns about the hard lives of those who provide food for the table: the cost to produce milk, beef and eggs and the slim profit that comes from them. Still, when Miles begins to spout communist rhetoric, the laconic Morgan halts him curtly. One of the virtues Healey’s play celebrates, and Fryman’s performance underlines, is the stoicism of farmers, and, by extension, the working class: Morgan, though beset with financial worries, is at ease with himself and the choices he has made.

But then Miles overhears Morgan tell Angus a story about two men who went off to war. It is a ritual tale about two friends, and one was a drawer of buildings—an architect. They met and married two British women and brought them back to the States. Unfortunately, Miles, desperate for inspiration for his theater project, decides he can use the material for a playlet, without Morgan’s permission.

Miles invites Morgan and Angus to the dress rehearsal, and the event, in a nifty tribute to the power of theater, transforms Angus. Morgan is furious at seeing his story made public and wants Miles to leave, but Angus suddenly knows who Miles is when he sees the young man. Moreover, Angus recognizes that the theater piece is the story of his and Morgan’s lives. Without revealing more, the story takes unexpected turns from there.

Dinelaris directs with skill and little flash, but it’s unnecessary anyway, because Healey has a strong story to tell and has furnished it with comedy, surprise and sadness. Rebecca Lord-Surratt has provided an evocative rural kitchen, with a grassy area outside; the only questionable element is a high wooden privacy fence that seems out of place on a farm where the owners would be more concerned to have a clear view of their property.  The most interesting element is uncredited: the smell of baking bread during Morgan’s first-act monologue, a tour de force for Fryman. (Another in the second act is almost as arresting.) The baking bread is a smell that Angus cherishes and that rises into the audience to astonish the nostrils.

Though the play relies on a tried-and-true structure of “big secrets” that have to be revealed, some twists are unexpected. And there's warmth in the comedy. One scene has Miles telling his life story to Angus—except it’s the story of Hamlet, as if Miles were the Danish prince. “You yelled at your mother?” asks an incredulous Angus. (One of the few quibbles is that Angus doesn’t bother to ask what an “arras” is when Miles describes killing Polonius; still, the scene is delightful.) William Laney is  powerful as the gentle Angus, who's akin to the gentle giant Lenny in Of Mice and Men, but Angus is given to outbursts of fury because of a metal plate in his head. His frenzy is usually calmed by Morgan’s giving him teaspoons of tap water. In such moments of kindness Healey underlines their affection.

The Drawer Boy is an impressive calling card for a playwright whose future work, one hopes, will be equally as good and better known.

The Lunacy of Racism

Honky, in spite of its almost quaint name, is a fizzy new comedy of rare perception: witty, sharp and troubling. Playwright Greg Kalleres has a keen eye for the niceties of language and the nature of prejudice. Although the play is primarily about blacks and whites, mentally and physically disabled people also prove apt targets, with the occasional nod to Asians and Hispanics.

The central conceit is that a popular shoe among “urban” (i.e. black) youth has been the source of a young black man’s killing. From that event emerge several characters  drawn together by their connection to the sneaker company, whose latest model, the Sky Max 16, is the lethally fashionable footwear. All the connections come close to seeming overly contrived; on the other hand, you might as easily say that Kalleres has plotted his play as tightly as Ibsen.

Davis Tallison, a white marketing executive (Philip Callen), is skeptical that the newest prototype, the 18, a multicolored sneaker designed by Thomas Hodge (Anthony Gaskins), who is black, will be a hit with urban youth. (The basketball sneaker, presumably designed by costumer Sarah Thea Swafford, is like a brightly colored map on one’s feet.) Meanwhile, though, Davis wants to market the Sky Max 16 to white suburban youth who identify with black urban youth because it’s cool—and because they are steeped in white guilt. The shooting is a setback that he needs to overcome.

Kalleres then shifts focus to Thomas’s sister Emilia (Arie Bianca Thompson), a psychotherapist who is treating Peter Trammell, the creator of the ad for the sneakers. In Dave Droxler’s masterful performance, Trammell is a bundle of frayed nerves whose emotions rise and fall with tsunami force from guilt at the killing, because he invented the company’s catch phrase for the sneaker, “’Sup?”: the byword was allegedly spoken by the shooter. Peter slices and dices meanings in every word someone utters, and anguishes over perceived or possible traces of prejudice in himself and others.

Kalleres’ sense of nonsense is sublime. In a session with his shrink, Peter tries to impress Emilia with an intellectual quotation. “‘The most monstrous monster is the monster with noble feelings,’” says Peter. “Faulkner.” “Dostoevsky,” says Emilia, correcting him. “I was close,” says Peter. “I knew it was someone I’d never read.” Peter’s constant straining to show his racial bona fides leads him into ridiculous situations. He claims that his mother marched with Dr. King, though in fact she overslept and missed the event. Meanwhile, his fiancée Andie puts up with to his hilariously self-flagellatory tirades, and Danielle Faitelson makes her character an ideal foil for them.

Kalleres doesn’t shy away from the “N” word or any other uncomfortable observations about race, including the stereotyping of black teenagers, the touchiness of interracial personal relations, and the absurdity of white guilt. “You want to talk about stereotypes?” Davis asks a mealy-mouthed psychotherapist (Scott Barrow). “We pay a premium for them. They’re called demographics.”

Barrow plays a variety of roles from a gun-toting Abraham Lincoln to one Dr. Driscoll, who has, crucially, invented a cure for all the rampant racism and prejudice on both sides of the color line. It’s a pill called Driscotol, and it numbs the racist part of the brain. “I don’t think I’m a racist,” Davis tells Driscoll in an exchange that might be from Joseph Heller. “Of course you don’t,” says Driscoll. “That’s precisely why you are one.” It’s a catch-22, of course, but it’s also symptomatic of the way both races often talk about the issue. Actors Chris Myers and Reynaldo Piniella take on various young black male characters, whose encounters with, variously, Peter and Davis, yield differing results.

As problems escalate, so does Kalleres’ wry satire. A group of white youths shoot a Greenwich, Conn., teenager to get his Sky Max 16s, and a news anchor notes that all of them “were wearing crooked baseball caps, extra large shirts, and baggy jeans. Some of the clothes were actually being worn backwards.”

Director Luke Harlan keeps the pace up (though scene changes are sometimes a bit awkward), but the play feels just a little long. And the inclusion of parallel plots involving interracial love seems overly schematic. It’s also too bad that Kalleres doesn’t offer any solution, but he sends up so many stereotypes so adroitly that the play sets one to thinking, at least, about this crucial hot topic. That easily makes it worthwhile.

Math Accident

It’s never a good sign when a production makes you wonder why a Pulitzer Prize-winning play won any award, but that’s the effect of the awkward mounting of David Auburn's Proof at the Gene Frankel Theatre. At least the set displays the invention that a good shoestring production needs. The back yard of a Chicago home has obviously been decorated by George Hoffman and Greg Kozatek on a tight budget, yet it looks just right, with a porch and steps to a yard area, and a white trellis to the side.

The title of Auburn’s play derives from mathematics. Catherine (Leonarda Bosch), the daughter of a brilliant math professor at the university, has followed him into the field, but without achieving his success. Indeed, she has stalled her career deliberately to take care of him as a ravaging mental illness took its toll. Apart from nine lucid months in the midst of an affliction that lasted several years, Robert, her father, wrote gibberish. But in those lucid months, did he come up with a brilliant solution to a famous and thorny math problem?

After his death, Robert (Andre J. Langton) appears to Catherine as a ghost (the play also includes a flashback scene to his lucid period), and he urges her to pull herself together—she has been drinking heavily and loafing in bed. Her recuperation is sparked by the arrival of Hal (Reid Prebenda), a former student and admirer of her father’s who urges Catherine to let him sort the professor’s papers in case something valuable lies there, especially from the lucid period. The fourth character is Claire, Catherine’s sister, who lives in New York but arrives for the funeral with some unwelcome news.

Auburn is especially good at conveying the sexism underlying the mathematics discipline, and the sacrifices a caretaker in a family makes when looking after an ill parent, and the resulting resentments it can spark with other family members. Unfortunately, S. Quincy Beard’s production suffers from a slackness, with pockets of air. There's a sporadic hesitancy in the delivery, as if the actors are unsure of their lines, and sometimes how to physicalize them. Hal at one point says he was “this close” to quitting, but provides no accompanying gesture. Other lapses are baffling. When Hal leaves immediately after Catherine has caught him with a purloined notebook of her father’s, he says, “I can let myself out,” then walks up the steps and enters the house, presumably to exit through the front door. Later, however, he arrives in the back yard simply by coming around the side of the house. Why would he have needed to go through the house rather than around it in the earlier scene?

Among the actors, the more seasoned Langton fares best. He displays an energy that his colleagues often lack. He manages to imbue his dialogue with gravitas and uses his voice well. The varying pitch, volume, and pacing, one suspects, come more from greater acting experience than from directorial help, since the younger actors generally have less nuance in their delivery. (It’s noteworthy that when he talks about “touching the old jackets,” he finds an appropriate gesture.)

His three colleagues have their moments, but their disparate emotions never seem to belong to a single person. As Catherine, Bosch veers from whiny and annoying to sympathetic, but the elements don’t add up to the feeling of a real person. Her best scene is near the end, as she reads her father’s latest work, realizes it’s gibberish, and slowly tears up.

In their scenes together, the actresses seem to be in a race to be more unsympathetic. Natasha R. Brown plays Claire as a clueless bully rather than a meddling sibling whose overbearing nature may hold some consideration for her sister's feelings. She has one brief success, conveying the amusing effects of a hangover, but she is crude in every sentient moment, literally rubbing her chin to convey thinking.

Prebenda displays a gaucheness and charm in Hal that work for the character of a math geek; he also looks more athletic than most nerds, and he comes across as a young man with a physical life as well as an intellectual one. He has a nice reaction to his older teacher’s jokes, but there’s no real chemistry between Hal and Catherine, making Auburn’s last scene feel bogus. In fact, too much of this production does no service to the playwright.

Big-Top Horror

Don’t be fooled by the title: The Pilo Family Circus is by no means a show for children. It’s based on a novel of horror fiction by Australian Will Elliott. Whether Matt Pelfrey’s stage adaptation is faithful, only those who’ve read the book can judge. But if you think of “family” in the title as referring to a mob organization, and you throw in comic-book characters—not those featuring Donald or Daffy Duck, but the dark, sinister kind, with distorted visages and evil cackling—you’ll have an approximation of the tone of the Godlight Theatre Company production. The story might be lifted from—and belongs in—a comic book, in spite of higher-brow references to Tod Browning’s Freaks and Robert Louis Stevenson. An earnest and likable Nick Paglino as Jamie, a meek and aimless guy in his 20s, begins the tale, relating that he was found wandering the streets in a clown costume. Pretty quickly his adventures are seen in flashback. Jamie, along with his roommate, the overbearing Steve (Craig Peterson), was kidnapped in a home invasion by circus clowns (in distinctive, differentiating costumes, by Orli Nativ, and masks, by Brendan Yi-Fu Tay).

The ringleader of the clowns is the green-haired Gonko, played by Lawrence Jansen with a voice that starts as Ed Wynn and modulates to Jimmy Durante and then adds a layer of thug. Gonko and his cohorts (Chris Cipriano, Jarrod Zayas, and Michael Shimkin) are only minions to the Pilo brothers, who own the circus. The Pilos are George, suited but menacing, and played by a marionette (skillfully operated and voiced by Brett Glass), and Kurt, played by Gregory Kondow on stilts in a black cassock that apparently comes from Big and Tall, Taller, Tallest. He holds a very high wooden cross.

But even the Pilos aren’t in charge. “Spooky powers” are the ones who really run things, and “they live in a very hot place.” And what do the circus acts get for their obedience? The use of “wish powder,” which grants almost anything they want, if it’s OK with the spooky powers.

Jamie hopes to escape, but can’t, according to fortune teller Shalice, because he’s “in another dimension.” Or, as Steve puts it, “It’s like Alice in Wonderland, bro, only way more twisted.” Jamie is slowly pulled into a nightmare. Trapped in the circus, he attends a clown wedding, discovers a splinter rebellion against the Pilos, and, most important, battles himself. When greasepaint is applied to half his face, his personality splits à la Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: half of him becomes the evil clown JJ.

Directed with verve by Joe Tantalo, the show is designed within an inch of its life—and frequently several yards beyond. Maruti Evans creates some spectacular lighting, especially with backlights and bulbs on four strings descending from the flies. Using primarily white and red, he achieves the garishness of film noir with ease, from the opening moments when Paglino stands in a pool of light amid smoke and silhouette, throughout the wearying story. (To be sure, there are a few glimmers of humor, as when Gonko declares that the resistant Jamie is a clown. Jamie protests, “That’s just it. I’m not! I’m a concierge. I have a BA in theater.”)

Neither the script nor the sound design, however, helps the actors. Broadly played, the characters growl, snarl, whoop, guffaw, shriek, and shout at one another. When, at the last, Paglino stands and recites his prelude a second time, it’s a relief to hear a normal voice. One longs to see Paglino as a real character rather than a cartoon. It’s possible the other actors playing clowns hold as much promise—at least they manage to distinguish their characters vocally—but it’s impossible to know.

Ien Denio’s sound design starts well enough, incorporating such appropriate sources as a midway pinball machine, calliope, and even a brief passage from Franz von Suppé’s “Poet and Peasant Overture,” de rigueur for a circus show. But as the evening barrels on, it becomes relentless. It seems every line is punctuated by a percussive bang, zing, clang, or dong, or some other noise. When Shalice holds up an imaginary crystal ball for Jamie to see his grim future, in an echo of It’s a Wonderful Life, we hear the sound of a balloon squeaking. The sum effect is of being trapped inside a funhouse, with precious little fun.

Photos by Sean Dooley

Facing the Great Beyond

The actor Hamish Linklater, perhaps best known for playing the brother of Julia Louis-Dreyfus on the CBS series The New Adventures of Old Christine, makes an impressive debut as a playwright with The Vandal. In a mere 70 minutes he makes a persuasive case that he has a promising career to fall back on if acting fails him. The play opens at a bus stop in Kingston, N.Y., on a frigid night. A middle-aged woman (Deirdre O’Connell), huddling in layers of clothing and looking weary, sits on an exposed bench. A teenager (Noah Robbins) approaches her and tries to engage her in conversation, explaining that he’s been in the nearby cemetery cleaning the grave of a friend who died. There’s something not quite right about him—is he a robber? A molester? Eventually, he wheedles her into going to a nearby liquor store and buying him some beer. But that’s not all he’s hoping for.

Inside the liquor store one learns the woman’s identity as she attempts to make the purchase. She is Margaret Cotter, and the owner, Dan, gives her an inordinate amount of difficulty, but with reasons that are slowly revealed. In an explosive scene, we learn Margaret’s story, and O’Connell gets to cover a lot of emotional bases—fear, desperation, pain and sadness among them.

The boy’s identity, Robert, is also known to Dan. He has been sending people in on a regular basis to buy beer for him. Though Dan has occasionally gone out to look for him, he has failed repeatedly. Oonce Margaret delivers the beer to the boy, they open up to each other. The final scene takes place in the cemetery, after Robert and Margaret have left the bus stop to go drinking there and have become separated. As a drunken Margaret searches and yells for Robert among the gravestones, she runs once again into Dan.

Those are the bare bones of the plot, and you don’t want to know more, because there are nifty surprises all along the way, handled with both daring and assurance. The Vandal is about grief and the ways in which people cope with it, and how it can seize you and immobilize you until you become deadened to life.

The Flea Theater production, directed by Jim Simpson, is beautifully judged and splendidly cast. Linklater provides vivid, poetic imagery for his actors, and they all rise to the occasion. Even so, O’Connell is riveting in her silence, reacting minimally as Robbins natters on, yet she conveys volumes with a sidelong glance. Claudia Brown’s costume for her incorporates layers of fabric, from a T-shirt to pullovers and a scarf; they are both appropriate for the weather and serve as visual parallels to the many layers of defense Margaret has in her misery. And when Margaret lets loose emotionally, she’s frightening and pathetic.

Meanwhile, Robbins tries to find out why Margaret isn’t using her car; he describes his love of French and his teacher’s obsession with another student; and he guesses that she has been to the hospital across the street (represented in David M. Barber’s spare set simply by an Emergency sign on the wall). Noah Robbins is engaging, irritating, and fascinating in the part, as well as a bit snarky at times, providing welcome humor.

As the liquor store owner, Zach Grenier is an irritating foil for Margaret, provoking her with his questions and asides and a demand for identification, though she is clearly past the threshold age for a purchase of alcohol. Although he knows Robert has sent her in, his reluctance to make it an easy buy for her goes beyond safe business practices. He’s weary, too, and beset by personal trauma, which he gradually reveals.

Occasionally a question arises: Do teenagers really clean off their friends’ graves? Why does Robert lounge with his jacket and shirt open, seemingly unaffected by the cold that had made him shiver minutes earlier? But Linklater ties up those loose ends nimbly. The Vandal isn’t a “big” play, in spite of its themes and the listing of the characters as Man, Woman, Boy to indicate intentions of universality. It’s better to think of it as a sterling novella, a harbinger of bigger things to come.

Photos by Joan Marcus

A Stendhal Misstep

Adaptations of great novels for the theater have a pretty spotty record. Among big-budget, nonmusical successes, only Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Steppenwolf’s The Grapes of Wrath come easily to mind. However, in the last decade Moby-Dick and The Turn of the Screw had imaginative, shoestring productions Off-Off-Broadway, and director Deloss Brown, in staging Stendhal’s great novel, The Red and the Black, has chosen the bare-bones approach for his own script, using only several chairs, a cloth backdrop, and a minimum of props. The unwieldy result suggests that Stendhal's novel isn't a natural for the stage. The story follows Julien Sorel, a young man of 19 who worships Napoleon, but in secret. In 1826 France, with the royalists back in power under conservative King Charles X, any mention of Napoleon may mean arrest and imprisonment. “Under the Emperor, a man could make his way by his talents,” explains Julien ardently. “Napoleon—poor—with no friends—made himself master of the world with his sword. But nowadays the army’s for the rich, and a priest makes three times as much money as one of Napoleon’s generals.” Thus Julien, whose father and brothers beat him for his love of learning, has determined that becoming a cleric will give him the means to escape his horrid family. Before Julien takes his vows, though, his mentor, Father Chélan (Jeremy Johnson), arranges for him to become a tutor to the de Rênal family.

M. de Rênal (Brian Linden) has little interest in whether Julien can educate his child, but he hires the young man because of a bitter social rivalry with M. Valenod (Keith Herron). Valenod, a crass lecher, has some fancy horses that give him cachet among the aristocracy, but, exults de Rênal, “His new Norman horses won’t matter. His children don’t have a tutor!”

Once installed as a trophy instructor, the 19-year-old Julien soon discovers that de Rênal’s wife, Louise, who is ten years older than he, is attracted to him. Eventually, Julien decides he should have experience of a worldly kind, namely an affair with Louise. Happily, the strikingly youthful Lucas Wells conveys Julien’s confidence, apprehension, and philosophical observations, along with a sly rakishness, in a measured and well-spoken performance, and one follows the hero eagerly when he is on stage.

Unfortunately, most of the other performers seem to struggle with their parts. Brown relies on the actors to narrate large chunks of the story in an abundance of monologues. Two or three characters in succession will have a monologue, then a scene will follow, often brief, sometimes not. At times actors enter to deliver a single line, or swerve in and out of a scene to speak to the audience. The dizzying staging adds an air of desperation: it's no wonder many of the actors veer toward Dickensian caricature, particularly Linden and Krista Adams Santilli as the cuckolded husband and neglected wife.

As the peremptory, snippy de Rênal, Linden is, according to the situation, appalled or comically grateful that Julien, “a servant,” has his way. (The vaguely Edwardian costumes of Lux Haac manage to convey the social backgrounds of the characters effectively, though the maid’s above-the-knee outfit seems ill-judged.) Santilli as Louise displays little sense of period movement or grace. She might have stepped out of Sex and the City, and she makes Louise so whiny and mercurial that you wonder why Julien doesn’t just take a vow of celibacy on the spot.

When the play works best, as in a garden scene with Louise, Julien, and Louise’s cousin Marie (embodied by Jessica Myhr with poise and intelligence), it allows some breathing space and a build-up of dramatic momentum. But then the rapid-fire pace resumes.

In spite of the haste, the show exceeds the posted running time by at least ten minutes. One suspects that the chief problem is that Brown is loath to cut his own script. Hypocrisy, Voltaire, wealth, aristocracy, and politics—in spite of assurances by Stendhal and his editor (Herron and Linden, respectively) at the outset that politics will be kept to a minimum—are  touched on rather more frequently than seems necessary. An amusing remark de Rênal makes about women as machines is quite funny the first time; the second time, not so much; the fourth time, it thuds. A different director might have done a better job in helping Brown condense the novel. In this case, however, The Red and the Black more aptly applies to a checkered production.

Photo by Hunter Canning

The Bard and the Bible

Shakespeare's plays have always been open to myriad interpretations: in what they are meant to say, in how they should rightly be performed, and even as to who their true author might have been. The Dark Lady Players’ new environmental work, entitled Shakespeare’s Gospel Parodies, is one possible take on the meaning of the oeuvre. This production highlights some subtle (and other not-so-obscure) Biblical and Christian references within the works of the Bard. Although the explanations for various elements are at times difficult to follow, the overall piece sheds some new light on the plays. In addition, the "living museum" performance, set as a walkthrough in West Park Church, is a delight to take in. This is a performance worth going on a journey both to and with. The performance is composed of nine scenes from disparate Shakespearean plays. These include both the comic and the tragic, ranging from Bottom's ridiculous performance in the Pyramus and Thisbe play to Shylock's conviction in the Venetian court to Desdemona's murder at the hands of her husband, Othello. In each scene, a specific Biblical allusion or reference is pointed out. Docents lead the patrons to each of the "paintings" and then give lengthy descriptions of what the viewers are about to see and what they should take away from it. The scenes themselves are played out in order to elucidate the theory that has just been expounded. At times, certain episodes are frozen in the middle to continue the explication and then resumed.

Although interesting and clearly extensively researched, the explanations of the Christian references in the plays feel at times too much like an academic lecture and not enough like a night's entertainment. When there is too much information to take in at once, it is easy to lose track of the meaning of the scenes being displayed. Also, some of these scenes, because taken out of context, might be difficult to place in terms of the original dramatic narratives from which they are derived, especially if one is not already familiar with Shakespeare's plays. In addition, some excerpts seem longer than necessary to prove the point that has been set out.

Some of the connections drawn here seem a tad far-fetched. Although an interesting contention to explore, the scene in which a human is eaten in the forest of As You Like It may be a little too ridiculous in this performance to be believed as a legitimate interpretation of the play. Despite this, there are a lot of compelling details that one can learn both about the plays and about the development of Christian myth from this performance. Much of the information is worth investigating further, as it could open up new angles from which to analyze these oft-performed and -studied texts.

The performances of each scene are delightful and the actors come to this material with enthusiasm and understanding. They vary each character that they play well (each performer being part of three scenes from three different plays) and make them all seem to be full-fledged people and not just symbols or metaphors.

The biggest thrill in this production is the clever usage of the fabulous performance location. The convention of making this performance into an art museum tour adds a fun flair to what might otherwise feel too much like an instructional lecture. West Park Church is a gem of New York architecture, worth visiting in its own right. The scenes are well-suited to the rooms in which they are placed. The Woodshed Collective has done a brilliant job of turning this environmental setting into a logical locale for these Shakespearean scenes. Each of these chambers is charming, filled with fascinating odds and ends of objects as well as embracing the overall decor of seemingly intentional decay.

All in all, this is a fun and unique theatre outing. There is something here for the uninitiated Shakespeare audience as well as for the Elizabethan aficionado. Each scene is like discovering a little hidden gem; it may be a tad rough around the edges, but what is discovered within has great beauty and value.

Dreams Plus Action

A unicorn made of glass catches the light. Laura is holding it, but this is not The Glass Menagerie . Gone are Laura’s limp, Tom’s struggle with his identity, and several of the other tragic details that color Tennessee Williams’ touching dream play. In its place is The Pretty Trap . The streamlined one-act, penned prior to its better known cousin, replaces the melancholy with the comedic. Cause Célèbre’s production does a nice job of bringing this piece to life. We quickly locate ourselves in the Wingfield’s household through Ray Klausen’s realistic set. Tennessee Williams spends a great deal of time intricately explaining the physical locations of his plays, and though I value the creativity of scenic designers, I am always happy to see that someone has taken the time to respect the playwright’s wishes. David Toser’s costume design and Bernie Dove’s lighting and sound are also well tuned to the realistic and naturalistic demands of the script. The design supports this world, and the characters seem to belong to a pre-war New Orleans.

However, there is one obvious choice that Director Antony Marsellis has made that gives me pause. Though Katharine Houghton has the charm and the vivacity to play Amanda, she is unfortunately a bit too advanced in age to be undertaking this part. Amanda is an aging southern belle, but in order for us to understand how overbearing Amanda is, we need to be bowled over by her energy. Though Houghton does a fine job, I wish I had been able to see her play this role ten or fifteen years ago.

Whereas The Glass Menagerie is Tom’s play, told from his memory, The Pretty Trap is certainly Amanda’s play. She is the ultimate manipulator, the “witch,” which is something that Houghton cannot quite pull off, as her presence is too gentle. This is more a fault of casting than of anything else, and her performance is still strong.

But it is the scene between The Gentleman Caller (Robert Eli) and Laura (Nisi Sturgis) that stands out in this production. As Sturgis overcomes her shy ways, drawn out of her shell by Eli’s friendly optimism, we watch as Laura has the first real emotionally intimate encounter of her life. But unlike the bittersweet conclusion that normally follows this scene, The Pretty Trap allows us to imagine a happier version of events.

Yet this aspect of The Pretty Trap is also, in my opinion, why the play has not had the lasting impact on audiences that The Glass Menagerie has. The happy version of events is nice to watch, but it does not have the emotional impact of the dramatic version. The arc of The Glass Menagerie tells the story of a family full of people who have convinced themselves that getting a suitor for Laura will solve all of their problems. By the time The Gentleman Caller comes, we are invested in this dream right along with the Wingfields. In The Pretty Trap we do not have time to get attached to Laura or Amanda, to know their hopes and dreams, to understand the stakes; not to mention the fact that Tom (Loren Dunn) is barely given a role in this family event.

We are happy at the end of this Williams play, something that cannot often be said. Perhaps this is because we like to see ending full of potentiality, or perhaps because we like to think of what it could have been like if things had been different from the Wingfield story in our heads. The play looks very much like dreams plus actions, just as The Gentleman Caller and then Amanda herself say. Whichever it is, this is a great chance to see a rarely seen Tennessee Williams work in a good production.

What a Piece of Work is Hamlet

In the Drilling Company’s Hamlet, staged as their Shakespeare in the Park(ing) Lot offering this summer, there is great drama being presented. Not only are there the conflicts between Hamlet and the rest of the Danish court, but there is also the real world drama of the conflict between an actor’s voice and a car rushing by or a helicopter overhead. Watching this play from the comfort of a lawn chair in a municipal parking lot on the Lower East Side is a unique experience, to be sure. For those looking for a definitive production of the Bard’s text, this is probably not the production to see. It is at times difficult to understand (both to hear and to follow) and there are many odd choices made here. If, however, what you are after is an opportunity to experience the play and to enjoy the New York City summer night, then this production is well worth your time. It is very pleasurable to be confronted with Shakespeare as you watch the city move by around you. The classic revenge drama is staged in such a manner as to cleverly incorporate its parking lot surroundings. A street lamp is placed in the center of the action, both to illuminate the stage action once the sun has set and as a platform on which the actors may climb. The brief moment in which an actor takes advantage of this lamppost is one of the highlights of the production. In a piece with such a special setting, it is hard not to wish that director Hamilton Clancy had incorporated the surrounding environment more. What would it mean if Hamlet were taking place in a literal parking lot? What might that setting do to the meaning of the plot(s) unfolding?

Instead of attempting to answer these questions, the company seems to be using their locale as a forum for presenting Shakespeare at no cost to whoever wishes to stop by and hear it, which in and of itself is a very noble cause. Hamlet is one of the greatest plays in the English language and for those who may have no other chance to hear it performed live, this production is entirely worth taking advantage of. There is real heart in what the performers do here; it is clear that much effort has been put into this production and the actors perform the lengthy play with much zeal and zest.

There are many alterations to the text that are hard to justify. For instance, instead of opening the play with guards on watch, the play opens with a famous speech by Hamlet. By having the play start with Hamlet, the director is entirely reframing the context of the action. Although this is an acceptable choice–and similar to what many other contemporary directors have done with the play–these cuts and rearrangements detract from the overall impact of the play’s meaning. Rather than being a larger rumination on certain human issues, this production seemed much more concerned with the unfolding of the basic revenge plot.

In addition, many production choices are distracting. It is hard to place whether this production is meant to be a contemporary rendering of the play or a period piece; some actors wear what appears to be mid-twentieth century apparel while others are more casually attired in modern dress. There are also many unnecessary props on stage. Yet, at moments in which a prop would be useful, an actor would mime an object.

That being said, the stage design is fine overall, and the configuration of benches and sheet that create the grave is ingenious. The actors utilize the space well, making an effort to be seen on all sides of the audience. Unfortunately, I found the performers were often quite difficult to hear over the ambient noise of the city surrounding them. Some actors chose to shout over the sounds; this often took away from the larger impact of their performances. Hamlet, for example, played by Alessandro Colla, often seemed angry, as there was extensive effort put into projecting the voice above the din of city life. That being said, the Hamlet that he created was overall interesting to watch and sympathetic. The supporting cast, too, gave a laudable presentation of these oft-performed lines.

All in all, the joy of watching Shakespeare come to life in the unlikely location of a pay-to-park lot off of Delancey Street outweighs any possible flaws with this production. Witnessing this performance in this unlikely locale is a special occurrence and one worth taking advantage of before the transformative magic of the theater vanishes and the city goes back to its regularly scheduled business.

Wall Street Scavenger Hunt

My interactive experience with RED CLOUD RISING began the day before the performance was scheduled to start. I received an email from Charlotte, Bydder Financial’s Director of Recruitment, preparing me for my upcoming recruitment session. “Oh God,” I thought, “I’m being recruited? I’m going to be tested?” I cursed myself for leaving The Inside Job off my Netflix queue. Luckily, no one asked me to crunch numbers or define “derivative.” Instead, my teammates and I were sent on an entertaining yet ultimately anti-climactic scavenger hunt through the financial district. Though it explored the relationship between technology and performance in some exciting ways, the creators of RED CLOUD RISING should perhaps also rent The Inside Job: I was underwhelmed by their attempts to thrill us. On the day of the performance, I find myself in an office building near Wall Street, sitting in a cushy swivel chair, chatting awkwardly with Charlotte about “the job” and watching a humorously vague and upbeat video about the joys of working for Bydder Financial. After taking our phone numbers, Charlotte sends us out into the streets, to be ‘tested.’ Our task is to deliver an envelope to another Bydder employee. To find the employee, we are sent on a scavenger hunt, led by text messages and phone calls. Things start to get interesting when an underground group, Red Cloud, contacts us, promising to divulge Bydder’s seedy underbelly. They start getting less interesting when Bydder’s dastardly plan (to privatize all the world’s resources) is revealed. “Hasn’t that already happened?” asked one of my teammates.

Despite the lack of intrigue and suspense, I had a great time running around lower Manhattan, problem solving and cracking jokes with a bunch of strangers I might never have met otherwise. And I see a ton of potential in what The Fifth Wall is trying to do, both in their attempt to imbue the game with real issues, and in their use of technology to extend the game beyond the event. The next day, I received an email from Charlotte, thanking me for my time and informing me that I did not get the job at Bydder. if I had been ‘hired,’ I wonder what would have happened next? The possibilities are many and thrilling. Though I wish The Fifth Wall had found a way to raise the stakes for its players, I applaud their exploration of the intersections between theater, gaming and technology, and hope they continue in this vein.

The Weather Is Nice Here

The road to hell is paved with the best of intentions… Or the road to heaven is littered with landmines… Certainly, for the Weather Underground, the truth lies somewhere in between the fuzzy, yellow lines. home/sick by The Assembly, now playing at The Collapsable Hole in Williamsburg, examines that rugged terrain through their thought-provoking production. The audience walks into a converted industrial space greeted by a man in a black suit and sunglasses. He politely offers us a beer and a button that reads, “My brain is a bomb.” As we take our seats- on chairs or benches or pillows- the lights shift, whirling us deep into a subversive world of young American idealists fighting for what they believe is the equality of all mankind. They are angry. They are fearless. They are brilliant. And they believe pacifism is a dead-end road.

Jess Chayes’s direction is daring and engrossing. The lines between actor and audience, play and reality, right and wrong, become so blurred it is hard not to get caught up in the fervor and passion of these romantics- even if you whole-heartedly disagree with their actions. Chayes intricately blends movement, dance, lighting and sound to capture not only the counterculture of the 70s but also the complex struggles and political questions these very real people were grappling with.

The talented ensemble delivers their performances with such empathy and honesty it is hard not to feel moments of compassion for a group of people who just blew up a building or robbed a truck. One of the most powerful moments for me was watching Edward Bauer fight back this child-like vulnerability when called out in front of the collective for confiding secrets and intimacy in one member over the others. And the rest of the cast is equally terrific! Their connection with one another, both as actors and characters, is palpable and powerful.

The Assembly does an impeccable job of presenting a fair, honest, and unapologetic look at who these people really were. I never once felt like I was watching a political play, but rather an honest depiction of real lives asking big questions about the nature of humanity. This is a group of brilliant artists who will, without question, make their mark in the world of theater for a long time to come.

It is hard to really understand the nature of a revolution when one has never suffered from oppression. Sure, there are plenty of battles worth fighting in this country. There is an abundance of greed and destruction and corruption worth questioning every waking moment of our lives.

But how does one really ignite a revolution when drugs, sex, food, and entertainment are so plentiful? When one has never watched his family starve or had his house burned to ash by ruthless armies? When one’s freedom of expression- the very freedom that allows us to put on theater in such abundance- has never been censored? Not that these are the only roots for a revolution, per se, but it has often been the case throughout history that society as a whole must hit rock bottom, people must truly have nothing left to lose, before they are willing to sacrifice their existence and beliefs to rise up against their own country.

The Weather Underground, in their haze of drugs, sex, and egos, seems to lose sight of this reality. Fortunately, The Assembly has retained the insight to question their actions… and ours.

Summer of Lust

One of William Shakespeare’s most popular and frequently produced plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is also one of the Bard’s most flexible. The four lovers, amateur acting troupe, and supernatural fairies that make up the bulk of its cast are fine fodder for creative teams to stretch their artistic muscles in interpretations far and wide. As part of their Summer of Lust programming, The Hive Theatre Company teams with the cell (a self-described 21st century salon) for a gender-bending Midsummer that gleefully explores the idea of equality in marriage — a timely topic indeed.

Although trimmed and abridged, this version is still a bit too long at almost two hours and forty-five minutes and a bit too reliant on style over substance. But as minimally staged in the elegant Chelsea townhouse that acts as home base for the cell, there is still plenty to recommend in this lively and lusty variation on the classic tale.

Gender and power are at the forefront of Midsummer and as directed by Matthew A.J. Gregory, this Dream is no different. This time, however, Hermia and Lysander are lesbian lovers and Demetrius and Helena are a gay couple. Add to that, the husband and wife duo of Theseus (Duke of Athens) and Hippolyta (Queen of the Amazons) take on the roles of the King and Queen of the Fairies, in reverse, with the man playing Titania and the woman playing Oberon.

If all this sounds confusing, it makes perfect sense on-stage. Credit the enthusiastic cast and inventive director for keeping things moving at a smart clip, although the last thirty minutes (especially the play-within-the-play, Pyramus and Thisbe) would definitely benefit from faster pacing. Hint: Don’t wait for the laughs — keep moving!

Starting off at the posh and proper wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta, things get progressively sexier and more sinister when Titania's fairy servants, played as hard-bodied club kids, enter as if staging an all-night rave. Oberon as a Russell Brand-esque dandy and Titania as a glamorous drag queen up the ante even higher. Samuel T. Gaines and Meghan Grace O’Leary are excellent as both royal couples.

Chris Critelli is also a standout in the production, wholeheartedly embracing his characterization of Oberon’s mischievous jester Puck. Not all of his choices are completely successful, but Critelli is nonetheless compelling as the Cupid-like Robin Goodfellow. Michael Raver is superb as well, bringing multiple shades to the love-struck Helena and exhibiting the most believable chemistry of all the couples with Alan Winner as Demetrius.

While mostly enjoyable and at times quite funny with delightful modern touches and a thoroughly contemporary soundtrack and sound design by Justin Stasiw, this Midsummer tends to rely too much on tricks. Many of the characterizations seem born out of uncorralled improv with a “watch me!” mentality overshadowing the proceedings in a needless hodge-podge.

The members of the acting troupe, in particular, fall prey to much idiosyncrasy instead of meaningful elucidation. Just because something gets a laugh doesn’t necessarily mean it belongs. And the cell’s high-ceilinged interior has terrible acoustics. At times the cast members’ shouts were piercing and almost ear-shattering. Consistent volume of the actors’ voices was also a problem. Some players boomed while others whimpered.

Regardless, this Midsummer Night’s Dream is a sprightly and sensual bit of bare bones theater. As Lysander says to Hermia, “The course of true love never did run smooth.” With an attractive young cast and some intriguing explications of the text, it is easy to at least enjoy the bumpy ride with this clever production.

A Severed Head, A Stepdaughter, and Slides

Black Moon Theatre Company’s adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s Salome brings the character, Salome, to the center of the production as the victim of a morally corrupt society. Presented as a multi-media, poetic allegory for our times, the production, directed by René Migliaccio, plays like a slow moving reality show filled with temper tantrums, manipulation, and petty displays of power. Wilde’s tragic, one act play tells the Biblical story of Salome, performed by Karina Fernicola-Ikezoe, who requests the head of Iokanaan/John the Baptist, performed by Chris Ryan, on a silver platter as a reward for dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils for her lustful step father, King Herod Antipas, by Alessio Bordoni. The request is made much to the delight of her mother Herodias, by Tatyana Kot, who has been enraged by the prophet’s slights against herself.

The production applies Migliaccio’s performance technique “Expressionistic Realism,” which according to their site <a href= http://www.blackmoontheatrecompany.org/aboutUs/expressionisticRealism.html “uses gesture, mask and movement to physically express emotions and thoughts” to find and express the emotional cores of the characters. At the same time, it attempts to shift the focus of the story away from the Judeo-Christian interpretation of women as evil seductresses to Salome as a victim and by-product of a decadent and sick society.

What emerges, however, is a stilted presentation of the rich and spoiled – Herod, Herodias, and Salome – who are contrasted to and obsessed with Iokanaan/John the Baptist, who seems to embody icon Jim Morrison from the Doors in his dress and physicality. The emotional pathos is lost in the frozen facial expressions and gestures and the very slow pacing of the production.

The costumes, by Hope Governali, are modern with clean lines and symbolic uses of color. The Chorus, clothed in uniforms of black suits and ties, contrasts with the rich dress of Herod, Herodias, and Salome, as well as the dirt colored rag worn by Iokanaan/John the Baptist. The Chorus is performed by Marc Thomas Engberg as Cappadocian, A Slave, Second Soldier, and Another Jew; John Graham as The Page of Herodias; Olgierd Minkiewicz as The Young Syrian and A Jew; and Kevin Whittinghill as The First Soldier and Nazareen. For those actors playing multiple roles, the character signifier – their tie changes – is not always clear, thus their characters are not always sufficiently distinct.

Billed as a multi-media adaptation with collages and set design by India Evans, the production, however, makes minimal use of slide projections as backdrops. The imagery projected on an upstage scrim and often interrupted by the performer’s bodies reads as a mix of symbolic ritualistic imagery and pulp novel book covers that mirror rather then illuminate each scene.

Although a dominant element in the design, the images offer little more than a lit upstage wall that divides the space between the primary playing area in the foreground and an upstage space revealed by backlighting the scrim. This upstage space alternately functions as a passageway for entrances and exits and as a window into the cistern where Iokanaan/John the Baptist is imprisoned. It is the effective use of lighting, designed by Jason Sturm, to define and create spaces as well as bring out different psychic locations that carries us through this story, not the slide show.

The make up design, by Satoko –Ichinose, contributes a Japanese Noh mask design element. The choreography, by Natasa Trifan and nicely performed by Fernicola-Ikezoe, references modern as well as traditional Indian and Persian traditions. The music, by Amaury Groc, only occasionally intrudes into the environment. It is used either as a dramatic element to foreshadow or build tension, or as a backdrop for the Salome’s Dance of the Seven Veils.

Despite the commitment of the performers and some visually interesting stage moments resulting from Migliaccio’s performance technique, rather then a stylized production leading to an emotional truth, the production plods along. The tragedy and emotional tension is lost in static moments and juvenile tantrums. Neither the technique nor the visual elements is quite able to move Wilde’s play from its Biblical roots to something more pertinent to our times.