Last Years

You have to admire Pierre van der Spuy. Imagine leaving a successful medical career to pursue theater, a courageous act in itself, only to become playwright, director, and star of one of your very first projects. As anyone in theater can attest, to do any one of those three things well is a challenge; to do them simultaneously is nearly impossible. Albeit with dogged effort, van der Spuy falls far short of success with Anton, his four-act investigation of the last four years of Anton Chekhov's life. While densely researched and thoughtfully presented, the script—intended to represent a Chekhovian authorial style—lacks a dramatic arc, and the action flits around, but never fully addresses, van der Spuy's overarching intention.

His purpose, noted in Epilogue II, is to raise awareness and concern for how children are treated in their first five years of life. Referring to a tree's development (as mentioned in the play), he asks, "What are we as a society doing to support those parents with undetected defective inner growth rings to prevent them from passing on their loneliness, their melancholy, their self-destructive behavior, and their fear of intimacy from generation to generation?"

But while the Chekhov represented in Anton is melancholic, regretful, and often emotionally impenetrable, the four episodes offer little evidence to link his emotional state directly to the first five years of his life. His tense relationships with his family do fray and tear apart as his health deteriorates. But just as his consumptive cough never really worsens (even near the end, it's difficult to believe he is close to death), the pace of this lugubrious, bland production, instead of ebbing and flowing, plods steadily and flatly along, offering few epiphanies or transformations.

Chekhov spent most of his last years in Moscow and at his home in Yalta, where the play is set. There he keeps company with his widowed mother, Eugenia (Loyita Chapel); his sister, Masha (Shelley Phillips); and the actress Olga Knipper (Ana Kearin Genske), who starred in many of his plays and later becomes his wife. He certainly has many reasons to be gloomy: his mother is fiercely overprotective and needy, Masha longs for independence but continues to lean on him, Olga openly has affairs and struggles with pregnancy, and Chekhov himself still struggles with his brother Kolia's death from consumption, which occurred when Chekhov was 29.

As a playwright, Chekhov valued the use of subtext and metaphor, and wrote scripts that prioritized character over plot. While van der Spuy's script does, at times, embrace these conventions, his characters lack the depth and poignancy to carry the production forward. Olga, in particular, is so static that Genske herself seems bored by her own performance at times.

Fortunately, Chapel and Phillips bring welcome light to the production. As Chekhov's unlikable mother, Chapel purses her lips with severity, but also allows us to see her irrevocable love for her son. She is particularly remarkable in a beautiful moment when she tells Anton what she remembers about Kolia.

Phillips is luminous as Masha, expertly locating the complicated subtext in what could be a forgettable role. When Olga chides her, "Your lips are smiling, but not your eyes," she's telling the truth—Phillips often wears her smile as a deceptive mask, and reveals subtle layers of character throughout the production.

Rounding out the cast are Kent Langloss, who does a fine job as the omnipresent Dr. Altshuller; Lee Kaplan, who overplays the annoying qualities of visiting author Bunin; Jamison Vaughn, who is too young but still endearing as the elderly servant Mariushka; and Jim Heaphy, who plays the other fictionalized servant, Sergei.

The domestic tension is beguilingly captured by Sarah Phykitt's set, in which ornate rugs and furniture are juxtaposed with family photos to create a believable familial atmosphere. Katie Stults produced a very pleasant collection of costumes, and Jessica Lynn Hinkle's lighting design convincingly evokes the changing seasons. Unfortunately, the direction works to undermine these excellent technical elements—characters enter and exit from inconsistent locations, and in the absence of a coat rack, one character simply throws his coat on the floor.

Anton laments, "Life should be beautiful if you live in a house like this," but looks can be deceiving, and Chekhov's life, as presented here, is far from bucolic. Chekhov longed for theater that was "just as complex and yet as simple" as life itself; people may be simply having a meal, "but at the same time their happiness is being created, or their lives are smashed up."

Unfortunately, we aren't privy to enough creation or destruction to justify this journey, and, like Joe Brooks, who produced, directed, and wrote the now-defunct Broadway musical In My Life earlier this season, van der Spuy falls victim to the lack of perspective that results from being too immersed in one's own project. Still, you can't blame him for trying; as he's probably already discovered, producing theater is often about, if nothing else, dreaming the impossible dream.

The Oddest Couple

While theatergoers flock by the thousands to see the limp Nathan Lane-Matthew Broderick revival of a Neil Simon play, the truly inspired "odd couple" is taking place just a few blocks away on West 43rd Street at Theater Three, where Candy & Dorothy Productions is premiering Candy & Dorothy. In David Johnston's flawless new work, two women who could not have been more different in life, Candy Darling (an Andy Warhol protégée) and Dorothy Day (the Catholic activist), find themselves trapped together in death. In the afterlife, they begin a journey that transcends time and space, soaring well beyond the heavens to create a story that is equal parts funny and poignant.

An occasional actress and "partial transsexual," Candy (Vince Gatton) lived life to the extreme as one of Warhol's many sidekicks. A sometimes Communist and Mao sympathizer, Dorothy (Sloane Shelton) gave her life to helping the less fortunate by working as the compassionate co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement. In death, Candy and Dorothy squabble over the present and the hereafter while reflecting upon the past.

Under the guidance of a disembodied voice (the pitch-perfect Brian Fuqua), Candy quickly takes to the afterlife, working her way up heaven's ladder as she becomes a caseworker for the newly arrived. Her first client is Dorothy. On a mission to earn her "wings," Candy attempts to teach Dorothy a lesson about her life on Earth. But her efforts are thwarted as Dorothy stubbornly helps a troubled young woman in New York City.

On Earth, 33-year-old Tamara (Nell Gwynn) is at a crossroads—literally—as she stands on the corner of First Avenue and First Street. Flat broke, stuck in a dull job, and having just had an abortion, Tamara is a mess. Her life is complicated even further when she stumbles into a relationship with a wise bartender named Sid (the very funny Amir Arison). On the verge of consummating her relationship with him, Tamara finds herself the focus of the two very unlikely guardian angels.

The heavenly duo quickly make themselves at home in Tamara's apartment, cleaning up the place, offering advice, and helping Tamara stage a protest rally. Realizing she is seeing dead people, Tamara fears she is losing her mind. Ultimately, Dorothy's otherworldly preoccupation with the living Tamara turns out to be both women's salvation. (Interestingly, Dorothy's real-life daughter was named Tamar.)

Johnston's crisp dialogue crackles with wit. He creates situations of laugh-out-loud hilarity, yet they're mingled with quiet moments of honesty. He also has a profound understanding of what makes human beings tick. Whether we watch his characters share a cup of coffee or are allowed to eavesdrop on the intimate conversation between lovers, Johnston's masterful dialogue resonates with truth.

Kevin Newbury's seamless direction is the ideal complement to Johnston's script. Newbury uses the tight space to full advantage, expertly creating a sense of claustrophobia as Tamara's life implodes. The small stage accommodates nearly a dozen settings with the addition of a simple set piece or well-placed prop.

Newbury also guides his five-person cast to polished, inspired performances. As the tortured Tamara, Gwynn delivers a thoroughly intense and raw portrayal. Brimming with excitement and honesty, she expertly finds comedy in tragedy as she displays her hilarious neuroses. As the humble Day, Shelton gives the character a dry wit and an incredulous smirk. Her deadpan delivery makes even the subtlest jokes crackle, and her natural performance never falters or hits a false note.

But even with a great script, outstanding direction, and magnificent acting, Gatton manages to run away with the show as drag queen Candy Darling. He never resorts to typical drag histrionics—no shrieking, no mincing, no letting his albeit fabulous costumes do the acting. Gatton fully inhabits Darling, disappearing into the role with such conviction and determination that you forget a man is playing a woman. It's the ultimate compliment to Darling, who wanted nothing more than to be accepted as a woman. Gatton honors that wish and Darling's memory with his brilliant rendering.

Candy & Dorothy is a hidden gem. With its combination of subtle emotion and uproarious humor, the play accomplishes the rarest of feats: it transforms you. As it leaves you with smiles and laughter, it also reminds you that a simple act of kindness can truly change one person's life. This production deserves to have a long life, and with the producers trying to move it Off-Broadway, here's hoping it does.

Medical Miracle

Is there anything left worth believing in? With biting humor at a breakneck pace, Word Monger Productions presents Brian Parks's snarky play Goner, an expertly produced delight guaranteed to make you question your allegiances, whether they be medical, governmental, or cinematic. It's easy enough to poke fun at government these days, but Parks's clever script puts an inept president into the hands of three even more inept surgeons at a hospital. Even if you don't believe in government, you might still have some faith in medicine. But if you pay attention to Goner, you won't for long.

Dr. Hoyt Schermerhorn (Jody Lambert) is the new guy at the hospital, and he struggles to get to know his colleagues. The wiry Dr. Ecorse Southgate (Matt Oberg) is a glockenspiel master who has recently designed Chemotherapy Barbie (yes, she vomits and her hair falls out). And Dr. Warren Wyandotte (David Calvitto), the head of surgery, gazes into his daughter Wixom's mouth to determine if she is pregnant, proclaiming, "What's a father doctor for, if not free gynecology?"

When President Waterford Novi (Bill Coelius) is shot in an assassination attempt, he is transported to the hospital, where the doctors wait until he is stable enough for an operation. The comic buildup to the operation grows in manic intensity, punctuated by the exploits of two FBI agents (Leslie Farrell and Patrick Frederic).

A clever subplot charts the budding romance between newcomer Hoyt and Wixom (Jona Tuck), who works as a lab technician. Pushed by her father to become a doctor, Wixom instead dons a beret and becomes an "artist." She decides to make a documentary about black people (whose oppression she has newly discovered), and her wide-eyed enthusiasm and blatant lack of knowledge indict the warped sense of righteousness taken on by many a filmmaker.

It is to Parks's credit that he manages to extend his critique from medicine and government to the realm of film as well. After all, why dismiss President Bush only to blindly follow Michael Moore? Goner ably questions unqualified loyalty to any one thing, medical or otherwise.

John Clancy has directed a superbly well-oiled production, and the actors move through the show with astonishing vocal dexterity. The high-speed pace calls for veritable linguistic gymnastics, and the actors don't miss a beat, thanks also to the impeccable precision of Eric Southern's lighting. My only complaint was that the hourlong show sometimes skimmed through its substantial material so quickly that several high-quality jokes were either unintelligible or barely touched upon.

As the surgical trio, Calvitto, Lambert, and Oberg make a thrilling comic team, whether they are attempting to operate or harmonizing to a heart monitor. Tuck is very engaging as Wixom, and she offers a surprisingly winning monologue about analyzing stool samples (as a "chef in reverse"). Coelius's unshakable deadpan as the president makes us love to distrust him, and Farrell and Frederic are splendid as the FBI agents and in assorted other roles.

A zippy, absurdist comedy in the tradition of Christopher Durang and Urinetown, Goner played to positive notices at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival, and New Yorkers are now lucky to find it stateside. Apparently there are idiots everywhere, whether you believe in them or not. But wherever you choose to pledge your allegiance, Goner suggests it's much safer to laugh at the idiots than to take them too seriously.

Flow of LAVA

(W)hole, currently playing at the Flea Theater, is a full-length movement piece from the creative minds of the LAVA girls: an all-woman, six-person dance troupe known for its ability to draw on geological themes and phenomena as an inspiration for its dazzling aerobics. LAVA was founded by director and performer Sarah East Johnson, who later recruited Natalie Agee, Diana Greiner, Molly Chanoff, Rebecca Stronger, and Adrienne Truscott to complete the group. They are the cast of (W)hole, a show that shines with astonishing athletic performances and stunning trapeze feats, but dims in trying to convey the weighty ideas and symbolism that lie beneath the stunts. The LAVA girls are not, literally, jumping through hoops merely to jump through hoops. On the contrary, there is a purpose to everything they do. In the (W)hole press release they explain that such stunts as their "handstand duets and balancing acts" are used to represent "magnetic polarity reversal." However, those witnessing the handstand duet onstage without reading this beforehand (there are no explanations within the pages of the playbill) are not likely to understand the handstand's significance to magnetic polarity, let alone its reversal.

Midway through the show, the LAVA girls bring (W)hole to a screeching halt to play interactive games with the audience. One grabs a clipboard and says, "Anyone who has been upside down in the past five days please stand up." Those who stand (a surprising handful) are asked to come onstage. They are then given 17 seconds to join hands and form two circles moving in opposite directions. When this is accomplished, they return to their seats, and more questions of this nature are asked, encouraging those who answered affirmatively to come onstage and form various molecular patterns with others. This game is enjoyable for those who want to participate, and entertaining for those who don't.

The fun wanes when the LAVA girls give everyone in the crowd approximately two minutes to frantically gather their things and find a new seat in another section of the square-shaped theater. Some audience members gamely participated, while others looked reluctant to find another seat when they were comfortable in the one they had. In some cases, those with good seats who didn't move were not-so-playfully pressured to by those in bad seats, who saw this as an opportunity to acquire better ones.

Before the interactive games, the audience is given a quick, short, and complicated tutorial on how lava is formed beneath the earth, and is told that the point of the games is to show how "alike minerals find one another." But these connections, especially for those who are not science-minded, are hazy at best. Also hazy is the reason behind ushers forcing all audience members to remove their shoes and wrap them in plastic bags prior to entering the theater. Was this a prank or did it represent a scientific theory? There is never an explanation.

Without knowing or understanding the message behind the movements and tricks being performed by the LAVA girls, (W)hole can be appreciated only on its purely physical level. Mixing science and circus to create a comprehensive, full-length movement piece is a difficult endeavor, but with some trial and error, these six talented gymnasts should find the perfect balance.

Parent Trapped

The most effective moments of Dutch playwright Alex van Warmerdam's The Northern Quarter, now making its New York premiere at the Sanford Meisner Theater, are the two stage images that bookend the evening. Minutes after lights' rise, the 41-year-old protagonist, Faas, uses a flashlight to follow the winding tendril of a long, red knit scarf—like a man slowly collecting the thread sewn for him by the Fates—until he comes face to face with his personal Klotho, the goddess of spinning: his disturbingly cheerful mother, still blithely crocheting. All roads, we're seemingly told, lead to Mom. The rest of the evening doesn't so much advance from this image as circle its significance, like a dog sniffing around its master. Faas (the excellent Dave Geuriera), under the aegis of both his mother (Heather Hollingsworth) and his rigidly decorous father (Vincent van der Valk), has been held the long years of his life under what amounts to house arrest. He is not allowed outside; he is barred from reading books (when his father relents and gives his son a dictionary, Faas discovers that all but a few paternally approved words have been scratched out); he is even denied a shrimp sandwich on the grounds that wanting one means he is not entirely content at the present moment. Trouble starts when Faas begins to assert to his parents the truth of that accusation.

The uneven charm of van Warmerdam's script, as translated from the original Dutch by director Erwin Maas, is in its particular type of absurdity. It's not a pure blend. Where the absurd argues that the world and those who people it are threatening for being entirely inscrutable, van Warmerdam seems to suggest that the true threat to our well-being is not attempting to go out and crack the code.

It's no surprise, then, that once he lets Faas into the world—where he finds his beloved books and experiments with painting, among other things—the mood noticeably lightens. A warm breath of common sense begins to creep into the dialogue (a duel of philosophy with three quirky construction workers is the high point of this shift in tone), as opposed to simple logic, which, in keeping with the absurd tradition, the parents show time and again to be easily perverted.

Maas's attractive visual sense generally accentuates these various dips and rises (with strong support from costume designer Oana Botez-Ban and light designers Lucrecia Briceno and Tim Cryan). This is a double-edged sword. Where sometimes Maas's staging serves to adeptly underscore a moment's subtext—as he does with the red scarf image—he bludgeons others with obviousness. (I'm thinking particularly of several scenes in which mother and father use their son as a sitting stool, needlessly emphasizing his subjection.)

The cast members bear up well, though. They know the work is, at bottom, a clown show—as pointed up by the many inventive costumes as well as through makeup (the parents, for instance, are powdered and lavishly rouged)—and the actors ratchet up the energy accordingly. Particularly fine work is done by van der Valk and Hollingsworth. However, it's Geuriera's imperturbable Faas who anchors the evening. He wisely refuses to play his unwilling shut-in as a child trapped in a man's body. Instead, he aims at the more interesting challenge of playing a man trapped in a child's life.

That van Warmerdam lacks the teeth for the viciousness of the unadulterated absurd makes his inclusion of a gun and its eventual use all the stranger. Yet from this misstep comes a crowning touch. With his father looking on, Faas steps off the stage and passes through the audience, out into the brisk air beyond the theater doors, from which we can hear real life humming on 11th Avenue. After a long, pained moment, the father offers a simple endorsement: "Goodbye, son."

Theme and Variations

You shouldn't judge a book by its cover, and you also shouldn't judge theater by its artwork. But judging by the cover of its program, Woman Seeking...'s production of The Birds and the Bees or the Birds and the Birds promises to be extremely provocative. A naked woman twists her body in extension on the floor; with elbows on the ground, she stares downward in a posture that could indicate a state of arousal, fatigue, despair, or meditation. Her body glistens with a metallic sweat, and the overall effect suggests sex, passion, and conflict. Unfortunately, this collection of nine short plays fails to deliver, with a few exceptions, on its provocative promise. (One of the nine, "Figure of a Father," had its opening postponed until next week.) Grouped loosely around the topic of sex—its repercussions, incarnations, and resulting relationships—The Birds and the Bees is a mixed bag. A lack of satisfying conflict deflates most of the scripts, which often rely on overly simplistic dialogue and relationships. Still, Women Seeking... has assembled a richly talented ensemble and production team that transforms rather pallid material into an enjoyable production.

Rich Orloff's "Last-Minute Adjustments" energetically kicks off the evening, channeling Christopher Durang in a slightly absurdist take on the assembling of a baby (played by an adult man) before he enters the world. Three technicians move through a checklist of materials to ascertain that the baby is ready to be born. When they decide to add a soul, however, the baby balks, because a soul will make him both capable of love and vulnerable to pain. Orloff leaves us wondering, Is the pain worth the love?

"The Scent of Coconuts Had Haunted Her for Days" follows, and Tara Meddaugh's finely wrought script is one of the production's highlights. A quiet meditation on the life of young newlyweds, the short piece examines the fear, dissonance, and lack of communication that can plague a marriage. A woman's fear of having a baby poignantly inverts as she finds herself nurturing a backyard weed garden. Kel Haney's delicate direction moves the action along seamlessly while emphasizing the rich subtext, and Jeff Wise and Nicole Winston are superb as they deliver compelling, complex performances.

Barb Wolfe's "Chef Salad" and Laurie Marvald's "The Phone Call" both focus on mother-daughter relationships. In the first, a daughter reprimands her late-blooming mother for being so publicly outspoken about her sexuality. Christine Mosere and Wynne Anders find the humor in their characters (and look remarkably alike), but their dialogue lacks a clear, dramatic through line. "The Phone Call" is essentially a commercial for the orgasm how-to classes of Dr. Betsy Dodson (who will be giving, perhaps not coincidentally, post-show talkbacks Jan. 11 and 18). The play shamelessly promotes Dodson as the daughter frankly tells her mother about her experiences in Dodson's class.

The next three pieces are largely unremarkable, laden with platitudes and bogged down by exposition as two young girls explore a nascent lesbian relationship ("Breathe"); two cats figure out how to exploit a dog for their own sexual pleasure while the owners are away ("Felicity"); and a young, pregnant girl confides in an elderly high school custodian ("One More Knot").

It's not until the final piece, artistic director Mosere's "Femme," that the production seems to ground itself. The longest play of the evening, "Femme" innovatively explores a young girl's quest to make sense of a kiss she receives from a woman. Through sketches, songs, and confessional dialogue, five actresses function as a Greek chorus of sorts, as the girl struggles to determine her own sexual identity—"who I am versus who I should be." Here, at last, we have the passion promised by the program cover: "Femme" is fiery, provocative, and alive, making the other plays appear relatively bland by comparison.

Although The Birds and the Bees provides uneven entertainment, Woman Seeking... is nonetheless a production company to keep your eye on. As they work to cast a variety of actors (regardless of age or physical type) in their shows, they are pioneering in a healthy direction. But while we shouldn't judge a book by its cover, we almost always do. The Birds and the Bees may not always live up to its promise, but Woman Seeking... will undoubtedly find creative ways to work toward and challenge the ambitious expectations it sets for itself.

Separate Lives, Common Affliction

In response to the cheeky list "123 Reasons to Love New York Right Now" that New York magazine published on Dec. 26, Gawker.com, a media blog popular with the Google generation, published its own snarkier, hipper version. No. 81 on the Gawker list made me gasp; it read, "Because nobody uses condoms anymore." After Rent and the AIDS quilt, Magic Johnson and those ubiquitous red ribbons, has the generation weaned on sex education classes lost its collective concern about HIV and AIDS so thoroughly that we no longer care to take even the most basic sexual precaution?

Sadly, the numbers continue to paint a grim picture. Young people between 15 and 24 account for half of all new HIV infections worldwide, with more than 6,000 in this age bracket getting the disease every day. In the United States, the rate of AIDS diagnosis for African-American women is a staggering 25 times the rate for white women; HIV/AIDS is the No. 1 cause of death for African-American women between 25 and 34. And all this after more than a decade of AIDS awareness.

These are some of the facts I was compelled to seek out after seeing Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter in their two-woman play, In the Continuum. The production, minimally staged and beautifully acted, tells the story of two women, one African and one African-American, who, though they live on opposite sides of the planet, are fighting remarkably similar struggles.

Abigail, a Zimbabwean, is seemingly a success story. She is an on-air reporter for the local news station and has a young child by her equally successful and desirable husband, Stanford. Abigail knows that Stanford is cheating on her, but hopes that the child she carries will bring him back to her arms. When she goes to the crowded clinic for a checkup, Abigail is told by an unsympathetic and distracted nurse that she has the disease. What's worse, though he may beat her and send her back to her village a shamed woman, Abigail must break the news to Stanford and convince him to come in for testing.

Meanwhile, Nia, a Los Angeles teenager who is in and out of foster homes, has snuck out to a club with her best friend. She waits there for her boyfriend, Darnell, a local basketball hero, with several people hoping to ride his coattails out of the ghetto. After shots are fired at the club, Nia finds herself in a clinic, only to learn that she is pregnant with Darnell's child and HIV-positive.

From here, both Abigail and Nia must interact with the women who surround them, including a former high school friend turned sex worker and a social-climbing acquaintance for Abigail, and a painfully out-of-touch social worker and a gold-digging cousin for Nia. Each of these meetings propels Abigail and Nia closer to the play's dramatic climax: the moment of confrontation and exposure. Abigail and Nia must decide whether to face public shame and "out" the men who gave them this disease or continue to submit to the weight of secrecy.

It is then, at that moment of choosing, that the fictional wall dividing Abigail's world from Nia's breaks down and the two women momentarily acknowledge each other onstage. Their cultural particulars fall away and they know a moment of solidarity and understanding that, though strictly expressionist, represents so much of what they do not have access to. Neither woman ends up telling her secret, and in not doing so, both reveal to us how much more solidarity and understanding these characters need—from each other, from the people they know, from us.

That Gurira and Salter play every character in this 90-minute piece, often simultaneously onstage and deftly transitioning among them, is a theatrical triumph that must be seen to be believed. Watching them weave together the stories of these wildly different yet tragically similar women is akin to watching expertly trained and obviously gifted dancers, each moving independently, both moving as one.

Despite the lax attitudes that have prompted some to declare this a post-AIDS cultural moment, the numbers do not lie. And plays like In the Continuum succeed not only as art but as reminders that, in terms of this disease and its effect on specific communities, the worst of times are not behind us.

Flower of Comedy, Root of Evil

When one hears of Machiavelli, the usual image that's conjured is the narrow-eyed portrait of the backroom backstabber, the Renaissance's harbinger of 20th-century spin-doctoring and realpolitik. A cold, clever, nasty genius akin to, say, Henry Kissinger or Karl Rove. What many people don't realize, however, is that during Niccolò Machiavelli's own lifetime he was most renowned for his farcical comedic touch in screwball sex romps like The Mandrake, now revived in a titillating new production at the Manhattan Theater Source. A senile, grumbling old lawyer, Nicia, keeps a beautiful wife, Lucrezia. His one desire is to have a son, but he just isn't up to the job. Callimaco, a gallivanting ne'er-do-well, has eyes for Lucrezia, but she is impossibly virtuous. So he enlists the help of Nicia's henpecking mother-in-law, an avaricious friar, his faithful, sloe-eyed servant, and a faithless fellow traveler who helps him concoct a scheme, which is this: Pretending to be a doctor, he convinces Nicia the only way to solve his problem is to get Lucrezia to eat a mandrake root.

However, there's a caveat, the first person to sleep with Lucrezia will die (a point-blank metaphor of the Renaissance superstition that the sin of adultery leads directly to murder). Delighted, Nicia agrees to capture a passer-by,Callimaco in disguise, of course,with the gang of co-conspirators and willingly arranges his own cuckoldry.

While the characters are the stock figures of commedia dell'arte, they are realized with such panache and precision as to render them into human cartoons. Like good cartoons, they display an exaggerated animation that real people too often lack. Michael Shattner as the dimwitted Nicia is especially hilarious, shouting expletives and shuffling around bent-backed as the play's impotent, crotchety laughingstock.

The production is chock-full of sight gags, little gestural asides, and even physical interactions with the audience, thanks to director Daryl Boling's well-timed blocking and marvelous use of a narrow, unadorned stage. The stage's layout resembles a high school football stadium in miniature, with small rows of bleachers flanking either side so that we watch not only the play itself but a mirroring audience as well. And, judging from the audience members' reactions, the buffoons and rapscallions plodding and plotting before them are recognizable character types we still have with us today.

Vinnie Marano's punchy new translation is completely contemporary and colloquial, with pun-a-minute double entendres, while Ollie Rasini's serviceable folk songs strummed by a troubadour break up the fast-paced scenes of this antic sex farce. One memorable scene has Callimaco (Jeffrey Plunkett), in the guise of the doctor, spouting possible causes of Nicia's erectile dysfunction, first in the Latin of the Vulgate, then in a transparently vulgar Latin, slipping into pig Latin, and then descending into complete nonsense. Meanwhile, Nicia absentmindedly splashes the bottle of urine that the doctor asked to examine, from which Siro, the bumbling servant (Ridley Parson), nearly takes a swig by accident.

Oddly, Machiavelli's send-up of all-consuming cynicism results in a genial outcome for everyone involved: the friar gets paid off, Nicia has a son, Lucrezia realizes her sexual coming of age, Callimaco pulls off the bed trick, and the others get to be in on a good practical joke. In some ways, Machiavelli's vision is like a comedic perversion of Adam Smith's providential "invisible hand" of free-market capitalism, which makes all turn out for the best in a world of cutthroat bankers and butchers bloodymindedly pursuing their own self-interests.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in fact, thought that Machiavelli's famous treatise on the ruthless machinations of statecraft, The Prince, was a satire. But, regardless of whether Machiavelli intended his works to endorse, exploit, or examine the godless pragmatism he witnessed surrounding him, it is clear that this delightfully lighthearted production of The Mandrake aims to gently mock the pretensions and follies of the eternal human comedy.

Capra-esque

For many of us, watching It's a Wonderful Life is like slipping into a favorite pair of flannel pajamas

Pulling Strings

Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol has been staged in a variety of different ways: childishly funny, humbly poignant, brightly extravagant, and maddeningly musical, to name just a few. The Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theater has broken the mold here, shedding a refreshingly original light on this tired tale through a bilingual puppet show called A Christmas Carol, Oy! Hanukkah, Merry Kwanzaa, Happy Ramadan, playing at the Jan Hus Playhouse. Vit Horejs, puppet master and founder of the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theater, has performed all over the world, finally emigrating from his native Prague to Manhattan, where, he says, his weary puppets are looking for a home. Jan Hus Playhouse is the perfect place for them to rest their strings; the intimate little theater is located in the heart of a multi-cultural, predominantly Czech neighborhood between First and Second Avenues. Though the play is told in English, the melodies are sung in Czech, Hebrew, and Swahili. Horejs asks you to imagine that this story is being told to you "not by an English serial novelist but by your Czech grandmother."

Imagining this is difficult, given the sarcastic, wry sense of humor Horejs injects into his story with a precision you sense only he could perfect. His Scrooge is not the grimacing, evil man in need of a change that other shows portray him as, which is just as well, considering this comical little Scrooge puppet is too cute to be visually menacing. In this version he is more of a modern-day Seinfeld; sarcastic and self-assured, not given to common niceties or social graces. His transformation here seems to be less about a conflicted man overcoming his wicked ways than a jaded New Yorker unlocking his inner tourist.

Horejs uses the adorable, colorful puppets to spellbind the children while shocking the adults with jokes aimed way over the little ones' heads. At a Christmas party, a bearded puppet becomes so drunk that he literally falls off the stage. Another uses his strings to flirt with a female, grinding his wooden body against hers before dragging her off to watch dirty videos behind the curtain. The best jokes were those that played to all ages, most notably one where Bob Cratchit passionately throws his wife onto the kitchen table to make out next to their pathetic excuse for a Christmas goose. The children in the audience squealed, "Eeew, kissing," while their parents chuckled at the other implications.

The Cratchit Christmas scene, usually aimed at giving the audience a somber look at an impoverished family making the best of their meager surroundings, garners the biggest laughs in Horejs's retelling. The younger children are obnoxious, the eldest daughter plays embarrassingly juvenile jokes, a kitten picks inopportune moments to mew its thoughts, and Mrs. Cratchit goes on a rant that would make a sailor blush when describing their "benefactor" Scrooge. Tiny Tim, of course, declares it the best Christmas he's ever had before hobbling off on his crutches.

Needless to say, Christmas Carol, Oy! Hanukkah, Merry Kwanzaa, Happy Ramadan is not your typical Christmas show, but those planning to attend a Czechoslovakian puppet show with bilingual holiday songs are most likely expecting something different. Aside from Horejs's unconventional take on the plot, he infuses into the mix a bilingual soundtrack of holiday songs and icons from other religious celebrations

Exposed

Through a Naked Lens is a fictionalized account of the unrequited gay-love story involving Herbert Howe, an acerbic Hollywood journalist, and Ramon Novarro, a Mexican immigrant who became a successful Hollywood leading man in the waning days of silent film. Herbert, whose gossip columns and brutally honest expos

Strung-Out Knockout

"They haven't built a mental institution that can hold me," Christopher John Campion declares, standing atop a series of stepped blocks upstage, like an Olympic marathon runner receiving the gold medal. Campion's defiant, drug-riddled words reverberate off the walls of the Paradise Theater on East Fourth Street. Suddenly, you realize that the walls aren't padded for soundproofing. Escape From Bellevue and Other Stories takes us into the infamous hospital's psychiatric ward as it follows Campion, the front man for the New York-based band Knockout Drops, through an autobiographical odyssey of drug abuse, rock 'n' roll, and rehabilitation. The play alternates between selections from Knockout Drops' latest album and an off-the-cuff recounting of the highs and lows of Campion's personal battle to get sober.

His life story is familiar to anyone who has seen an episode of VH1's Behind the Music. There is an unwritten and tragic rite of passage for many in the music industry, one that takes an artist to the brink of self-destruction, and Campion is no exception. The difference is that he has courageously decided to relate his story onstage. In four years, Campion managed to land himself in Bellevue three times, and he also became the first person since 1963 to escape.

His presentation skips among the more interesting anecdotes, with Campion playing himself and effectively evoking all the other characters. We learn of his drug problems as he recreates a trip to North Carolina, where, after a wedding, he finds himself in a men's room doing cocaine with a rodeo clown. The fallout from being caught by his girlfriend leads Campion deeper into addiction, alcoholism, and eventually homelessness.

After he announces he will kill himself, Campion's friends have him forcibly taken to Bellevue to detox for the first time. A struggle with the orderlies leads to a Thorazine injection, which leaves him incapacitated. When he awakens, he describes a cuckoo's nest of inmates and counselors worthy of the institution's reputation. After a few days of detox, Campion is released, only to begin the same vicious cycle again.

The second time he finds himself in Bellevue, Campion behaves himself to avoid the Thorazine, and through a happenstance of mistaken identity, he performs his career-marking escape. Though free from Bellevue, Campion remains a prisoner of his own demons until an intervention from his estranged brother sends him to Bellevue for a final time.

Director Horton Foote Jr. deserves a lot of credit for the piece's breakneck momentum. The incorporation of videographer Chris Cassidy's video interludes, which are sometimes more relevant to Campion's sense of humor than his story, adds a stimulating variety to the proceedings. Light designer Harry Rosenblum creates an interesting combination of lighting suitable for both concerts and a dreary institution like Bellevue, using very little equipment.

But the real star of the show is the music of Knockout Drops, which consists of Tom Licameli, guitar/vocals; Phil Mastrangelo, bass/vocals; Vinny Cimino, drums; Paul Giannini, percussion; and Campion, lead vocals. Standout numbers include "Vicious Freaks," a power anthem to burnouts and rejects everywhere, and "Wrong Turn," a quieter meditation on the cyclical nature of recovery and relapse.

It is fitting that Campion attires himself in a striped jacket, which is more appropriate for Barnum & Bailey than a rock concert: he is an able ringleader for this multimedia circus. With charisma and whimsy, he endears and distances himself in relation to the audience, capturing the mystique of an underground rocker without bypassing the heart of his story.

Escape From Bellevue will appeal to more audiences than those it puts off. Those already familiar with Knockout Drops will be pleasantly surprised to find added meaning in the music through Campion's self-deprecating monologues. Theater buffs will discover an ingeniously effective approach, which gives the work an edge lacking in most modern musicals.

Bellevue might not have been able to hold Christopher John Campion, but the Paradise Theater is a suitable lodging for his charisma, his music, and his story of redemption.

The Winter's Tale

How does one critique a children's show? Should the reviewer attempt to look at things from a child's perspective? (Adults often underestimate the intelligence of youth.) Should the reviewer bring a young person along? (Kids aren't always easy to come by, and don't necessarily make the best company at evening shows.) Or should the critic try to keep an open mind, gauging the reactions of those nearby while ultimately feeling certain that a good production is easily spotted, no matter what its intended age group? Urban Stages is presenting holiday fare in the form of a modern, multi-culti version of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen. Adapted (or, really, mostly rewritten) by Stanton Wood, the story still centers on best friends Kay and Gerda. But instead of being neighbors playing in a rose garden in a European ghetto, they are neighbors engaging in playful rap battles in a New York City ghetto.

Kay's parents fight a lot, which makes him sad and angry, and vulnerable to a magical glass shard that falls out of the sky and into his eye. The shard makes him see only the negative side of things, so, frustrated because Gerda doesn't understand his pain, he runs away with the equally troubled Snow Queen. When Gerda notices that Kay is missing, she starts a long southward journey to find him. Along the way, she meets a mischievous, anthropomorphic river; a samba-dancing beach goddess; a robber maiden; and a reindeer, all of whom help her reach the Snow Queen's domicile at the South Pole.

The costumes are colorful, the puppets are inventive, and the actors are competent enough, so why did this production seem lacking? The original story was a quirky tale about a little girl's quiet faith in a Christian God, which gives her the power to cross the globe to find her best friend. Wood's version replaces this faith with a vague notion about the power of love; strange, then, that this show doesn't have much heart. The bits of story and character kept from Andersen's tale don't mesh with the new parts, and there was no consistency of tone. It came across like a puzzle completed with two different sets of pieces.

And yet, the highlight of the evening (based on audience reaction) was a new scene about Gerda bumping into the Giant Squid in the Lake. Designer Eric Wright has crafted an endearingly goofy, mobile squid puppet, which puppeteer/actor Ned Massey endows with a crusty, lovably offbeat personality. Adults and children laughed at this surprising character, which didn't perform in that kids' theater declamatory style, and certainly didn't try to teach tolerance or any other message. Granted, this encounter was supposed to be a bit of comic relief to break up an otherwise earnest evening, but why does "earnest" have to exclude "fun"?

At $30 per ticket, this is certainly a wallet-friendlier alternative to the traditional "Radio City Christmas Spectacular"

Telling Tall Tales

It is just minutes before Walking in Memphis: The Life of a Southern Jew is fixin' to start, and Jonathan Adam Ross, the show's creator, writer, and only performer, is out in the audience schmoozing with the crowd. If you didn't know him, you'd think he was just another spectator in his casual but fitted white T-shirt and jeans. In a transition as smooth as silk, Ross is standing before us introducing his show and thanking us for coming out on this cold, wintry New York evening. And then his story begins. At no time do you feel as if you are watching a performance or a stand-up routine. Instead, it as if you are gathered around a living room listening to stories about being Jewish in the South, much in the same way that Ross describes his family sitting around his dining room table sharing stories about his deceased mother.

Storytelling has been a longstanding tradition of both Southerners and Jews. One can imagine two elderly Georgians in rocking chairs on a stoop on a sweltering summer day, shooting the breeze about days gone by. Similarly, Judaism's history contains loads of unwritten tales passed down orally through the generations. Ross alludes to these traditions, particularly to the practice of telling stories several times over, enhancing and improving upon them each time. Indeed, both cultures are guilty of this sort of exaggeration for effect. It is what makes the stories themselves so endearing.

Ross portrays a host of characters, some Jewish, some not; some Southern, some not. Most notable are his father, known for his disregard for consonants; his non-Jewish neighbor Jim Griggs, who collected yarmulkes (prayer skullcaps) as a hobby; and his buddy E.Y., named so because his family uses letters for names, and by the time he was born, "all the good ones were taken."

But the standout character is Ross's brain-damaged sister, Julie. With precision and utmost respect and love, Ross portrays her silly antics (such as believing as a teenager that when her brother "got her nose," she might never get it back) as both humorous and deeply saddening.

You don't have to be Jewish or from the South to enjoy the show, but it helps. References to Waffle House, that ubiquitous, Southern late-night dining establishment Ross describes as "a dirty, redneck IHOP," got chortles from the Southerners in the audience, but flew over the heads of others. Similarly, the notion that "Adon Olam," the prayer that ends most Jewish services, is the Jewish "Hi Ho" (from Disney's Snow White) made waves in this mostly Jewish audience, but might have eluded those who weren't Jewish. Still, you don't have to be Jewish to find yourself cackling uncontrollably during Ross's hilarious renditions of Broadway musicals sung in Hebrew at the Jewish summer camp where he serves as drama director.

The camp is the same setting where Ross's narrative takes a more serious tone. His description of the impact he has made on a young jock-turned-performer, coming from the very proud father, is a poignant portrait of acceptance. Ross turns somber at other points as well, particularly in his stories about his mother's struggle with, and death from, breast cancer, which was added to the show several years into its run and just five weeks after her death.

Echoing the show's varying tones, Ross played portions from the titular Marc Cohn song on a piano in the corner. Following a burst of laughter at the end of a story, Ross's playing tended to be fast and energetic. Between more sorrowful bits, his playing was more melodic and graceful. (The aptness of this song, of course, lies in the lyrics: "And she said, 'Tell me, are you a Christian child?' / And I said, 'Ma'am, I am tonight,' " a reference to Cohn's being Jewish.)

In this delightful production, Ross places himself in the league of talented storytellers like Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg. One audience member, who is familiar with most of Ross's stories, having heard them throughout their friendship, told me it seemed that he was "always acting," even during one-on-one story sharing, because of his theatrical nature. I suggested that perhaps it was the other way around, that Ross was not "acting" during conversations but instead was "having a conversation" while acting onstage.

In either case, you would be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn't enjoy hearing these stories. Director Chantal Pavageaux notes in the program, "It's a superhuman feat to recreate the past, enliven the dead, recall the tiniest nuances of someone's voice, their face, the idiosyncrasies that made them unique." Perhaps Ross is indeed Superman

'Tis the Season

Midtown is brimming with tourists. The tree is lit, the Rockettes are kicking, and your wallet is empty. Ah, Christmas in New York City. But this time of year not only ushers in a wave of doe-eyed sightseers eager to see the famous Rockefeller Center spruce. It also brings new theatrical productions, each dedicated to this most celebrated of seasons. With so many shows to choose from, deciding what to see is as daunting a task as navigating along Fifth Avenue. Search no more. If you are going to see one show during the holidays, let it be A Broken Christmas Carol, produced by the Broken Watch Theater Company at the Michael Weller Theater. It is a perfectly updated take on that classic Christmas tale: Ebenezer Scrooge is an evil CEO, the Cratchit family has entered a reality-TV contest to win money for Tiny Tim's leg surgery, and two Jewish kids look for the season's meaning at the mall. A Broken Christmas Carol gives the audience a shot of Christmas spirit spiked with 21st-century cynicism and irreverence.

The play is actually the combination of three separate stories written by playwrights James Christy, J. Holtham, and Kendra Levin and seamlessly woven together into one unified tale. "Yet to Come," by Holtham, is the story of a lapsed homeboy, Shawn (Keith Arthur Bolden), who is forced to remember the life he left behind when he is visited by the ghost of his friend DeWayne (William Jackson Harper).

Like Scrooge and Marley, Shawn and DeWayne were once friends and business partners. DeWayne died on a Christmas Eve years earlier when the two were on a drug run. Bolden, as the withdrawn Shawn, and Harper, as the loudmouth, wisecracking DeWayne (it is hard not to compare him to Chris Rock), play off each other with ease. As a result, hidden underneath the barrage of politically incorrect jokes

Good Grief

They say comic strips are a four-color funhouse mirror of reality. With Peanuts, Charles Schulz used four panels to reflect on universal childhood traumas. In Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead, playwright Bert V. Royal returns the favor by holding up a mirror to Schulz's creation and giving the Peanuts kids teenage problems. His play finds the high school-aged CB lamenting the loss of his beloved beagle, who has been put down after falling victim to rabies. It seems the entire gang here has mutated into rabid versions of themselves. Matt, who grew up under a perpetual dust cloud, is now a violent germaphobe who will not tolerate being referred to by his childhood moniker, Pigpen. Tricia (Peppermint Patty) and Marcy are Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie types, though Marcy still calls Tricia "sir" every once in a while. CB's sister continues her search for identity, as a Wiccan; Van has turned to marijuana and Buddhism after being robbed of his blanket; and Van's sister is locked away in a mental institution for pyromania, and it doesn't look as if any number of 5-cent therapy sessions will provide her a way out. Finally, Beethoven finds himself the object of the ridicule and social misunderstanding that so often come with being a musical prodigy.

The subtlety of Trip Cullman's direction keeps these characters from being pigeonholed as mere stereotypes and effectively lets us discover each of their Peanuts counterparts, with a few hints from Jenny Mannis's Gap-inspired costuming. Issues of sexuality, substance abuse and self-discovery, common to adolescence, are deftly made more profound by our familiarity with these characters.

Off-Broadway could hardly hope for a cast better suited to depict the teenage experience. Eddie Kay Thomas endows his CB with the same frustrations, albeit more sexual than football related, that endeared his illustrated counterpart to generations of readers. America Ferrera, as CB's sister, gives a touching salute to the plight of younger siblings everywhere. As Van, Keith Nobbs engagingly captures the need for meaning beyond materialism. Though Matt's need for cleanliness and his homophobia may seem a little forced at first, Ian Somerhalder skillfully uses his character's obsession to drive the play's darker scenes.

Likewise, Logan Marshall-Green's sexually confused Beethoven provides an empathic center for the play. As Tricia, Kelli Garner vibrantly channels Anna Nicole Smith with a hint of Peppermint Patty without falling into caricature. Marcy remains a bespectacled, multifaceted enigma in the hands of Ari Graynor, and she is equally at home recounting the history of the spork and free-styling hip-hop beats. Van's committed sister appears in only three scenes, and Eliza Dushku doesn't waste them. She revels in the unpredictability of her character and avoids becoming a "you love to hate her" clich

Sex and Politics

In Kirk Wood Bromley's three new one-acts, Three Dollar Bill, produced by Inverse Theater, the ideological tensions between gay values and conservative values tango in a tangled dialectic. Bromley's verse plays sound like linguistic Chinese finger traps: the more the characters attempt to reason out of their self-contradictions, the further they tend to be trapped by their own dubious assumptions. The first, and least successful, play, "What Are You Thinking, Mary Cheney?," is essentially a one-woman monologue in which the vice president's lesbian daughter tries to justify her existence. Skewered by the likes of the Moral Majority on the right for her sexual preferences, she is equally lambasted by the left for betraying the ACLU, Lambda, and others who try to defend her lifestyle choices.

We meet Mary in her idyllic "log cabin" in the woods�as if in a kind of demented Mister Rogers' neighborhood�where she greets us, reads us "fan" letters, and smashes cellphones when she gets calls from the irate public. While the premise is promising, the result comes off as a screed of self-justifying self-hatred. Director Howard Thoresen utilizes a wide array of blocking

Religious Phallusy

The art of making people laugh at what they would otherwise find offensive is, at bottom, a balancing act. On the one side, you have mean-spiritedness; on the other, impishness. Veer too far into the former, and you end up in the off-putting mire of misanthropy; too far into the latter, and you're left with the empty satisfaction of the prankster (or the forced smile of the pranked). As it stands, look not for a mischievous twinkle in the dead eyes of Thomas Bradshaw's Prophet, the bad joke now playing downstairs at PS 122: the pointless toxicity of the religious, gender, and racial stereotypes on display sinks the thing deep into the mephitic muck.

At light's rise, a middle-aged suburbanite named Alex (Peter McCabe) plants himself center stage, announces that his habitual kowtowing to his wife has made him unworthy of his penis, strangles her to death, then takes off to the ghetto in search of an unschooled, easily dominated "negress" as a replacement, but not before he is commanded by a cartoonish God to re-subjugate women, on pain of eternal damnation.

What follows is a hodgepodge of action and consequence: Alex begins his ministry, with his new wife Shaniqua (Detra Payne) as the proving ground; the ministry falls apart as the wives form a frothing mob bent on mass castration; and inevitably, several characters go to their goofy-voiced maker.

I would say the piece is offensive, but that would imply that it elicits some kind of excitement

After the Riot

Producing a historical piece has its advantages and its disadvantages. The work has elements of a plot already created, and it often has a readymade audience. It also has a tendency to be weighed down by the facts, with the event itself often ill suited to the mechanics of theatrical presentation. Some of the advantages are apparent in the Alchemy Theater Company's fictionalized historical piece Haymarket, but nearly all of the disadvantages are present as well. The play is loosely based on events surrounding the Haymarket Riot in Chicago in the late 1800's, when anarchists and socialists squared off with police during a march in support of the eight-hour workday. In the confusion of the confrontation, an unknown instigator detonated a bomb, killing several policemen. Police then opened fire, and several workers were killed. In the aftermath, four anarchist leaders were hanged, among them Albert Parsons (Dennis McNitt), who, along with his family, is fictionalized here.

In the first scene, we are introduced to his daughter, Lucy. Her mother, also named Lucy (both are played by Squeaky Moore), has put her in an insane asylum because the events of her father's past haunt her

Cruel and Unusual Pleasures

As soon as the curtains part in the Red Bull Theater's production of The Revenger's Tragedy, the audience is hurled headlong into an atmosphere of theatrical extravagance: a dance macabre at the Duke's court morphs from a stylized tableaux set to opera music into a lascivious discoth