Cheers!

The illusory brand of theatrical magic is difficult to find—especially in solo shows. Precious few one-man productions can effectively create that beautiful “baseless fabric” of a transportive play, and even then, their illusions are sometimes imperfect. A single body moves across a deserted stage with not much else but light and music and those elemental players for company. It’s easy to falter when carrying the weight of performance alone, but writer/comedian Terri Girvin, the multi-character star of director Michael Leeds' production of Last Call at the IRT Theater, bolsters an otherwise ordinary tale of a long-serving New York bartender with surprising humor and extraordinary moments of intimacy.

Pools of soft, yellowing light accompany Terri Girvin as she moves through her life story. She begins with a series of easy jokes; "Top 10 Ways to Annoy Your Bartender" is a recurring and sometimes quite delightful theme that runs through her monologues. She then proceeds to insert details of her family’s dysfunctional history in momentary, painful snapshots. These scenes are relayed with grim amusement on Girvin’s part, as it is her mother, a divorced, drink-happy ex-party clown who is the source of this dysfunction. Here, Girvin’s practiced, punch-line-delivering style gives way to the emotional drama of her relationship with her mother. Halfway through the play, the audience becomes unsure of its laughs, and seem more comfortable in silence.

But the scenes themselves are transitory. They seem more like floating motes of experiential anecdotes rather than seamless parts of an organic autobiography. Here is where Girvin’s talent for stand-up comedy interferes slightly with theatrical storytelling. The moments in which Girvin’s mother steps onto the stage in the guise of her own daughter are short; Girvin impersonates her mother uneasily, and is keen to relieve her audience’s tension with a joke. It’s easy for the audience to see that Girvin’s mother is an emotionally dependent, paranoid, unstable and completely unfit parent, but somehow her daughter doesn’t realize that this legacy is in her hands until the end. Consequently, Girvin’s mother, only heard and not seen, is never fully redeemed. For most of the production, she is a two-dimensional weight on her daughter’s shoulders. Girvin, by her own reckoning, deeply desires “freedom from the weight of her [mother’s] trauma.”

Regardless of these dips in storytelling, it is apparent that Girvin is the only person from her family who can stand her mother’s antics. She also seems, by her own telling, to be more involved in her mother’s disorganized life than her largely indifferent brothers. Girvin’s brother is especially blunt: “It’s fun when the circus comes to town, but when the circus never leaves!” A particularly hectic night at the bar sees Girvin taking close to 50 orders every 10 minutes. It is perhaps the aural and visual climax of the entire production. Girvin’s silent co-stars put on terrific performances, as evidenced by the unique collaboration between Grammy-nominated sound designer Phil Palazzolo and lighting designer Jason Fok.

With not a single prop in sight, Girvin clinks imaginary shot glasses onto the bar and pours fizzing drafts of beer into empty steins. She chats genially with the disembodied voices of her customers and slams a nonexistent cash register closed before turning to the audience and grinningly inquiring, “What can I getcha?” Every delectable sound, from the dull roar of conversation to the sloshing of a drink, matches in near-perfect synchronicity with Girvin’s expert movements. Every voice has its own extraordinarily ordinary life; Palazzolo and Fok have squeezed alchemical gold from the listless air with their superb intertwining of light and sound.

But the harmony of Girvin’s movements, in perfect beat and cadence to the swing of her bar, quickly devolves into chaos when she receives a call from her mother. Without revealing Girvin’s mother’s shocking escapade, and the proverbial last straw for Girvin herself, the harried and exhausted bartender ends up kicking everyone out of her bar. She listens shamefacedly to her customer’s insults and drunken raging (who only minutes before had flirted, smiled or laughed with her). She then slams her phone onto the bar, looking out teary-eyed and tired at her arrested audience as we wonder: Was that their last call?

It is this explosive scene that discloses the fundamental problem Girvin has with marrying the architecture of her life to that of her mother. We are never sure if she takes up the Sisyphean task of maintaining any semblance of a relationship with her mother after this. But this unmarried, diminutive, middle-aged working woman is still a hopeful, optimistic child at heart. Her ever-cheerful retort to the dull greeting, “How are you?” is a loud, “Living the dream!” The final scene is nostalgically beautiful, and we stitch up her disparate stories of love, loss and emotional pain into a safe blanket we wish we could cover her in. And in perhaps the most moving, and most fitting, end to this darkly humorous tale of a life not yet fully lived, Girvin leaves us with no ending. We only have her memories.

Last Call ran from Oct. 9-Nov. 1 at the IRT Theater (154 Christopher St., #3B) in Manhattan. For more information, visit www.terranovacollective.org.

Losing the Plot

Of the three plays open to critics at the Ice Factory Festival this summer, Losing Tom Pecinka, staged at the New Ohio Theatre by Morgan Gould & Friends, is most given to playfulness. Even with the story’s grey backdrop of Tom's death (an immediately evident plot point), writer and director Morgan Gould is more intent on good-humored self-mockery. But even with the occasional laugh that this meta-humor elicits, Losing Tom Pecinka struggles to elevate its story, and regularly defuses its own comedic fireworks.

The story surrounds the event of the eponymous character’s passing, and the destructive attempts of his friends in coping with it. The character Tom Pecinka (whose ghost and flashback-version is played by Zack Segel) is named after a real-life founder of Morgan Gould & Friends, and we assume that the title is a play on the actual Pecinka’s move to the Yale School of Drama. Janice (Tommy Heleringer, pretty in a dress) is a guilt-ridden ex-girlfriend, constantly at odds with Kai (Christopher Geary), Tom’s bitter best friend. Ryan Pecinka (Amir Wachterman), brother of the deceased and funniest of the lot, suffers silently in his love for Janice.

Wachterman is the undeniable talent of the show, straining laughter from even the most confused situations. His fairly ingenious dress-up as a sweaty tennis player, complete with a white sweater tied around his shoulders, making love-stricken speeches to Heleringer’s Janice makes for an uproarious incongruity. Heleringer himself is a shrill delight, making do with Janice’s oftentimes puzzling situational comedy to great effect. The entire cast bubbles with an underlying humorous energy, but their fractured dialogue and the intractable intent of Gould to exercise her didacticism, crowd out any real comedy. The plot is threadlike at best; Gould focuses more on unveiling her satiric takes on comedic tropes and stereotypes she has found in theater.

Indeed, the point Gould tries to make is that theater, and entertainment in general, has fallen into dreary, acceptable routines. These are routines from which her audiences need to be jolted out of; hence her lackadaisical attitude towards public relations (as evidenced by the production's promo). But the primary fault of Losing Tom Pecinka resides in its stubborn insistence on such satire. A heated discussion between Ryan and Janice, which held some potential for good drama, devolved into a satirical scientific run-on, the kind Christopher Nolan or Steven Spielberg would be proud of.

Even these scenes struggle to take off. We are left wondering whether the ghostly Tom that appears to Kai after his death is a comedic poke at depictions of the afterlife in traditional theater (perhaps Hamlet’s ghost?) or a product of Kai’s dramatic, psychological breakdown. It is only at the very end of Losing Tom Pecinka that we finally understand Gould’s directorial intent. Since the plot is a bare canvas, only present to hold the entire production together, the ending loses its finality and importance. Even after a seeming resolution to the play (all the characters huddle around Tom's grave in nostalgic remembrance), they all abruptly break into song, in an ineffable attempt at satirizing the musical.

There are moments of real hilarity, however. The ending is a particular delight to watch, since we are now certain that they’ve been making fun of our seriousness all along. Pregnant pauses and audience interactions with the cast produce considerable audience laughter, especially towards the end. Abrupt changes in time and place heftily undercut the sometimes-awkward interactions between actors, and keep us curiously waiting for the next scene. The sexual tension between Heleringer’s Janice and Wachterman’s Pecinka is palpable, but never serious. Even the eponymous character’s death is rendered comical, somehow. Yet, a willful need to jerk its audience out of its seated stupor and be “not boring” makes Losing Tom Pecinka a parody of itself: to be new and exciting might not be so interesting after all.

Losing Tom Pecinka ran from July 8-11 at the New Ohio Theatre (154 Christopher St., #1E) in Manhattan. For more information, visit http://www.NewOhioTheatre.org.

Shut Up, Sit Down, and Enjoy!

A mix between stand-up comedy show and play (it’s billed as a “plomedy”), Shut Up, Sit Down and Eat has charm, wit, laugh-out-loud humor, and a few touching, “aw”-worthy moments as well.
Four Italian Americans—three men and a woman—sit in a waiting room for a group therapy session. The only problem is, it becomes clear the shrink isn’t showing up. Instead, these four strangers trade memories and stories in their own hysterical form of therapy.

The comedy is based on a shared Italian-American experience. The three men continually bless themselves at the mention of Sinatra, bicker over the proper terminology for sauce vs. gravy, and make some off-color jokes about zeppoles. Nonetheless, non-Italians are sure to find the show wholly relatable as well, as it touches on universal themes like family, death, marriage, and sex.

The cast of four features comedians Tina Giorgi, Joe Moffa, Chris Monty, and Eric Tartaglione. These talented individuals, along with Tom Ingegno, also wrote the script. Giorgi, Moffa, Monty, and Tartaglione each bring their own style to the show, and none overshadows the others thanks to skillful directing by Eve Brandstein.

Each actor plays a character with the same name, raising the question of just how much truth lies in these vignettes. Tina Giorgi, the lone female, is fascinated by the psychological terminology in her book. Married to a Southerner, she feels utterly trapped between the two different worlds inhabited by her and her husband’s families. Giorgi delivers the most moving monologue of the production, though she is also capable of deadpanning about sperm and turkey basters at another point in the show.

The divorced Moffa recently lost his job and now must contemplate the ways of hanging himself in a basement apartment with six-foot ceilings (taping his ankles to his ass, naturally). He may be able to joke about it, but it becomes evident that he’s truly hurting—especially because of the strained relationship with his daughter, which he is at a loss to salvage.

Monty still lives at home with his parents and grandmother, but is sick of being treated like a child. He has met a girl he cares about, despite the fact that she’s Polish, so what’s stopping him from moving out and moving on with his life? Perhaps it’s the fact that his grandmother makes him great biscotti.

Tartaglione is perhaps the funniest of the four, conjuring thoughts of Danny DeVito. But, as with the rest of his castmates, Tartaglione has an impressive ability to transition seamlessly from vulgar jokes to heartfelt confessions. He is married to a woman who drives him crazy. But who isn’t driven crazy every now and then by a significant other? What really makes his performance memorable is his love for his adopted daughter, who took his last name and decided to keep it when she got engaged.

The production’s lighting subtly distinguishes the play’s action is it moves from the private thoughts of the characters to a series of individual short monologues that range from tear-jerking to gut-busting.

An intimate space lends itself to this type of show, but the sound of other productions could be heard through the Snapple Theater’s thin walls. It was an unfortunate and sometimes frustrating distraction.

Shut Up, Sit Down and Eat offers more than a few cheap mafia jokes. Audiences catch a glimpse into the relatable lives of four complex individuals—with with a countless number of hopes, fears, dreams, regrets and, most important, jokes.

Performances of Shut Up, Sit Down and Eat are Sundays at 5:15 p.m. through the end of December at the Snappple Theater Center, 1627 Broadway. The run is open-ended; tickets may be purchased here.