Recent Backstage Reviews

Blue Coyote's Happy Endings
February 15, 2008
By Christopher Murray

Blue Coyote Theater Group asked nine playwrights "for their take on the sex-worker industry." The entertaining result, Blue Coyote's Happy Endings, presents nine short pieces of great variety, all of which in some measure wittily explore questions of how we see each other in the context of our desires.

A tatty red velvet curtain frames the performing space for a succession of vignettes featuring go-go boys, peep show habitués, lonely hearts, and lovers. Theatrical serial Burning Habits author Blair Fell's piece, Beauty, begins the evening with a voyeur in a black raincoat (David Johnson) waxing eloquent on the charms of an exotic dancer (Joe Curnutte).

The usual dynamic of the watcher and watched is flipped, however, in Christine Whitley's strangely tender and moving Peep Show, in which a woman (a beautifully vulnerable Laura Desmond) pays for the privilege to be ogled and objectified by a brusque but oddly tender man (Robert Buckwalter).

Various kinks that help people grow closer to or stay distant from their erotic fascination are explored in John Yearley's Whenever You're Ready, about an artist's nude model (Tracey Gilbert), and in Matthew Freeman's The White Swallow, about a radio announcer-voiced husband (Matthew Trumbull) with a strange predilection picked up from watching snakes swallow their prey on Wild Kingdom.

But the most successful pieces, appearing last in the evening, poke gentle fun at our yearning for connection. Boo Killebrew's winsome Pulling Teeth imagines a suburban coffee klatch at which a fey Easter Bunny (the talented comedian Phillip Taratula) tries to convince his pal the Tooth Fairy (R. Jane Casserly) to stop turning tricks to earn money and assuage her loneliness. In David Johnston's Yes Yes Yes, a nerdy reader of James Joyce (Jim Ireland) finds surprising shared interests with a literate go-go boy (again, tow-headed Joe Curnutte, providing pitch-perfect irony in his portrayal).

Presented by Blue Coyote Theater Group and Access Theater at Access Theater, 380 Broadway, 4th floor, NYC. Feb. 12-March 1. Tue., 9 p.m.; Wed.-Sat.., 8 p.m. (212) 868-4444 or www.smarttix.com.


The Wild Party
February 12, 2008
By Christopher Murray

"Queenie was a blonde/And if looks could kill/She'd kill twice a day/In vaudeville." So begins the opening song in Andrew Lippa's musical version of the literally banned in Boston 1928 poem by Joseph Moncure March.

The jazzy, sung-through score concerns a crisis in the troubled relationship of Queenie (a platinum blond-wigged Nicole Sterling) and her comedian boyfriend Burrs (the cherry-cheeked Jonathan Hack). Queenie has decided that "I'll raise my skirt and make him hurt" by publicly humiliating Burrs when they throw a bathtub-gin party for all their eccentric friends, including a love-weary lesbian (the delightful Tauren Hagans), a pugilist and his moll (Theis Weckesser and K.C. Leiber), and two flamboyant piano-playing brothers (Justin Birdsong and Zak Edwards). Things get violent when Queenie's attentions are caught for real after their friend Kate (Julia Cardia) brings a dapper newcomer, Mr. Black (Michael Jones), to the wild party.

The Gallery Players revival of this 2000 Off-Broadway musical (not to be confused with George C. Wolfe and Michael John LaChuisa's Broadway version from the same season) features what has become standard for this group, a distinct and committed ensemble cast that seems to be having a terrific time. The leads are the workhorses in this piece, driving the slight plot forward while the mayhem swirls around them.

The company's vocal talents aren't quite up to the demanding score, but their enthusiasm in evoking a cartoon of Roaring '20s debauchery is infectious, especially in Summer Lee Jack's sexy and stylish if somewhat overaccessorized period costumes. Director Neal J. Freeman and choreographer Brian Swasey provide clarity, a sense of mischief, and clockwork precision in moving the 18-member cast around a postage stamp-sized stage.

Presented by and at the Gallery Players, 199 14th St., Brooklyn, NYC. Feb. 2-24. Thu. and Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m. (212) 352-3101 or (866) 811-4111 or www.theatermania.com or wwwgalleryplayers.com.

Recent Backstage Reviews

War
February 11, 2008
By Christopher Murray
Rattlestick Playwrights Theater's powerful American premiere production of acclaimed Swedish playwright Lars Norén's War, sensitively directed by the capable Anders Cato, explores the impact of ethnic cleansing on an individual family in an unnamed conflict. Nontraditional casting of a multiethnic company increases the resonance of the portrait as a global parable of destruction.

With her husband presumed dead, a mother and two daughters have done what is necessary to survive as the fabric of life has unwound around them. Suffering the horrors of poverty, hunger, rape, and torture, they live in a delicately balanced unit, alternating between indulging in fantasies of romance and leaking excoriation and despair that reveal how the violence of war seeps remorselessly into the domestic sphere.

At one moment, the daughters, Beenina (Ngozi Anyanwu) and Semira (Flora Diaz), can be playing like children, full of giggles and shared secrets; the next they are threatening each other in language of startling brutality. "Remember, she's a child," the mother (Rosalyn Coleman) cautions, to which Beenina chillingly replies, "There are no children here."

The family's fragile stability, with Beenina prostituting herself for money to keep food on the table and her mother keeping her soul alive through the companionship of her missing husband's brother (Alok Tewari), threatens to fall apart when the father (Laith Nakli) returns, disabled and embittered by his time in a forced labor camp.

Nakli gives a devastating performance as a haunted yet still furiously hopeful man who doesn't realize that his family has already been destroyed. The other four actors are equally excellent in this intermissionless 90-minute play that can seem relentless in its depiction of the collision between the quotidian poetry of family life and the horrors of war. The characters' faces seem drained of emotion, as if exhaustion and hopelessness have blunted their ability to express the tumultuous feelings inside them.


Presented by and at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater,
224 Waverly Place, NYC.
Feb. 11-March 2. Tue.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.

Under Milk Wood
January 28, 2008
By Christopher Murray
"From where you are you can see their dreams," recites one of the two narrators in Dylan Thomas' lyric paean to small-town life. Originally created as a radio play and performed at the 92nd Street Y two months before his death in 1953, Under Milk Wood is a loving evocation of a fictional small Welsh town called Llareggub, which is "bugger all" spelled backwards.

Following the reminiscences, daydreams, and petty foibles that make up the "salty individuality" of the town's characters, the piece begins before dawn one day and has the flavor of Our Town in its gentle humor. Captain Cat (John Mervini) falls into reveries about his seafaring days; Mrs. Ogmore-Pritchard (Amanda Kay Schill), twice widowed, doesn't let death stop her from bossing around the spirits of her two husbands; and Reverend Eli Jenkins (Owen Panettieri) recites his original poems to the rising and setting sun.

The narrators (Lyle Blaker and Elizabeth Bove) move among the townspeople reading the lyrical language that binds the piece. In Intimation Theatre Company's production, directed by Michelle Dean, the absence of Welsh accents flattens the poetry. The actors, each playing several of the townspeople, rely instead on funny voices and silly walks to draw out the humor. Despite their obvious affection for the humanist portraits, the company members lack the ability to get under the skins of the various townsfolk, and the result is caricature.

Presented by Intimation Theatre Company at Theater 3, 311 W. 43rd St., 3rd floor, NYC. Jan. 25-Feb. 10. Wed.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.

Save the World
January 22, 2008
By Christopher Murray
Accurately described in press materials as "a superhero adventure play," Save the World by Marvel comic-book author and playwright Chris Kipiniak is slavishly loyal to its genre, following the crackup of a self-appointed cadre of heroes called the Protectorate and replete with nifty electronic sound effects.

Formed in response to an extraterrestrial threat to the city of Denver (shown in flashbacks), the group finds itself in danger of self-destruction, plagued by betrayals, petty squabbles, and character flaws that match its superpowers in magnitude. A series of attacks on international cities proves to be a setup to eliminate the group's leader and deliver a fatal blow to the team's hubris in appointing themselves overseers of Jerusalem and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Irony is not entirely absent in the comic-book universe, nor is it in Save the World. Musing on the potential of a coordinated attack, the group's administrator, Stagger (the mannered but likable Stephen Bel Davies in a candy-apple-red suit), says, "Great. That means a super villain. Of all the days. I better put on a pot of coffee."

But the theatre is perhaps less well-suited to a literal translation of the superhero sensibility than the movies. The intricate but still somehow mundane backstories and gee-whiz intensity of the characters is wearying and instigated some titters in the audience. That being said, the company makes its way through the plot's machinations and manipulates the silly plastic prop weapons without winking and with considerable energy. Kelli Hutchinson stands out in dual roles as a disaffected member of the team and a cynical television reporter.

Ultimately, this study of the breakdown of a team hews too closely to the conventions of the comic-book form even as its ultimate resolution hints at dissatisfaction with any artificially superimposed ethos.

Presented by the Roundtable Ensemble at the American Theatre of Actors, 314 W. 54th St., NYC. Jan. 19-Feb. 9. Thu. and Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 3 and 8 p.m.

Havana Pics

1. Capitalo
2. Airles Perez and me
3. Me with the old Presidential Palace, now the Museum of Bella Artes in the background
4. Nice building in Vedado, the neighborhood I stayed in
5. Me in front of a cool car in Guanabo, a little beach town east of Havana
6. Airles and Jamie Rauchman, the artist and documentarian

Recent Backstage Reviews

Pinocchio
January 14, 2008
By Christopher Murray

In its United States premiere, Italy's Teatro Del Carretto brings a revelatory theatricality to the tale of an innocent beset by scoundrels who survives by dint of his capacity for whimsy and wonder.

Never mind that the production is entirely in Italian. Carlo Collodi's fable of a puppet turned into a boy and then turned out into a terrifying world is the stuff of mythology, and director Maria Grazia Cipriani creates a unique and somehow familiar dream world of great intensity and beauty with the help of inspired scene and costume designer Graziano Gregori. On a half-circle stage, a small troupe of commedia dell'arte performers in black, white, and red costumes and masks use simple, repetitive, almost palsied movements to convey not only specifics of character but also the impact of surviving through traumatic experiences.

Giandomenico Cupaiuolo, who almost never leaves the stage during the 75-minute piece, presents Pinocchio as a classic clown in a tour de force physical performance. He mewls and cowers before his tormentors at one moment and then the very next is playing with abandon and glee, his skinny legs splayed out at crazy angles. He brays when turned into a donkey under the whip; tumbles out torrents of excited words to his protector, the Blue Fairy (or Fata, as she is known in Italian, played by Elsa Bossi); and puffs with exasperation in a wonderful Chaplinesque scene in which he is caught between two tasks: polishing shoes and delivering glasses of milk to his offstage father.

What makes this production so amazing is the expert use of ancient theatrical tools such as color, gesture, lighting, and sound. For many audiences, the performances of Cirque du Soleil are perhaps their only exposure to a heightened theatricality of undeniably great emotional power. Pinocchio brilliantly presents such techniques in the service of an exploration of what it means to be fully human and of the mystifying impact of swinging from one adventure and mood state to another with dizzying if often exhilarating speed.

Presented by Watson Arts and La MaMa E.T.C.
at La MaMa E.T.C., 74A E. Fourth St., NYC.
Jan. 13-27. Thu.-Sun., 7:30 p.m.
(212) 352-3101 or (866) 811-4111 or www.theatermania.com or www.lamama.org.


Journey to the End of the Night
January 14, 2008
By Christopher Murray

Director Joshua Carlebach and adaptor Jason Lindner have ably transformed the best-known novel and life story of controversial mid-20th-century existential writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline into a compelling one-person show featuring the talented actor Richard Crawford. This idiosyncratic and often lyrical monologue, spoken from behind a book-cluttered desk, alternates between the deceptively chatty reminisces and recriminations of Céline and the tall tales of the writer's anti-hero, Ferdinand Bardamu.

At once a timely warning of the constrictions of knee-jerk political correctness and an exploration of the dangers of distorting personal or cultural histories, Journey to the End of the Night makes good use of first-rate work from set designer Anna Kiraly and lighting designer Anjeanette Stokes. Laurels, though, go to Zach Williamson for a brilliant soundscape that begins with scratchy emanations from speakers around the audience and includes evocations of atmosphere such as a bicycle bell or the sound of bedsprings straining under the weight of bodies pressed together in sex.

Crawford, all tweedy joviality and bushy eyebrows, is wonderful as Céline as he chortles and leers in a plummy British accent, cracking dirty jokes and working up to rehearsals of his pet prejudices and standard apologies for his presumed anti-Semitism during World War II. The detail and intelligence of the swirling worlds created around the seated actor allow Crawford to fully and confidently embody the convoluted contradictions of a man who likely was both a self-deluded cad who blamed others for his limitations and a writer who understood the essential self-interest of humankind that often leads us to behave as if we were vermin.

Presented by the Flying Machine Theater
at the Gene Frankel Theater, 24 Bond St., NYC.
Jan. 13-26. Tue.-Thu., 7:30 p.m.; Fri. and Sat., 7:30 and 10 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. (No performance Tue., Jan. 15.)
(212) 352-3101 or 866 811-4111 or www.theatermania.com.