Dirty Pictures

Do What Now Media and a very resourceful writer-director, Frank Cwiklik, have found a way to resurrect a dreadful C-list movie, and what's more, through their alchemy they have managed to make it infinitely more watchable. The film, and now show, is called The Sinister Urge! and is based on a 1961 Ed Wood movie. A serial killer has been stabbing women in Rutherford Park, and as the bumbling Lieutenant Matt Carson (Bob Brader) investigates the murders, he also tries to bring down an underground pornography racket run by Gloria Henderson (Michelle Schlossberg) and Johnny Ride (Josh Mertz).

Urge is less mystery and more madcap comedy, as the audience knows that the insane Dirk Williams (a riotous Bryan Enk) is the murderer. The play's zaniness comes from the twists and turns that ensue: various red herrings and misunderstandings get in the way of the Rutherford Park police and keep them from doing anything right.

These complications come from the show's secondary characters, including Officer Klein (Kevin Orzechoswki), another dim bulb of a cop); Sergeant Randy Stone (Matthew Gray), Carson's partner, who excels at flirtatious double entendres and little else; Jaffe (Mateo Moreno), Ride's cameraman; and the many women whose innocent acting ambitions have led them down the dangerous path to pornography (the sinister urge of the title).

Urge does not really spring to life until more than halfway through its running time, with a movie-within-a-movie—or, in this case, a movie-within-a-show—chronicling the fall of Mary Smith. The beguiling Melissa Nearman is a wonderful discovery as Mary, a perfect young woman from the heartland who doesn't drink or smoke but, in pursuit of fame, ends up trapped in Gloria and Johnny's lair.

Cwiklik expertly weaves this section into the play, making it a showstopper rather than something extraneous that's been shoehorned into the rest of the piece. Throughout the show, in fact, he and his Do What Now Media colleagues impressively incorporate film and video elements into the live action. The rest of the cast helps him out as well. Schlossberg is great as an acidic femme fatale, and Brader and Mertz, in addition to Enk, seem up for anything. All are masters of physical comedy.

What is perhaps most remarkable is that Cwiklik has assembled his show, performed in the confined spaces of the Red Room in the East Village, on a very limited budget. And yet he found no limitations when it came to communicating his unique, devilish style. I congratulate him and his company of fellow imps. This is one Urge that should not be denied.

High School Horror Show

It is a testament to Stephen King how easily his sad, horrific novel Carrie, the high school drama about alienation and revenge, lends itself to humor in the Theater Couture's delightful and campy new production, now playing to sold-out audiences at Performance Space 122. Carefully and lovingly adapted by Erik Jackson, Carrie transfers all the big moments to the stage as it retells the familiar tale of Carrie White. A teenage girl full of naïveté—thanks to the hysterical religious devotion of her mother, Margaret—she has always been an outcast in school. But things take a turn for the worse during her senior year, when she gets her period for the first time.

Oblivious to what menstruation is, Carrie very publicly freaks out in front of several of the school's more popular and influential girls: Sue Snell (Marnye Young), ditzy Norma Watson (Keri Meoni), and bad girl Christine Hargensen (Kathy Searle). They proceed to savagely malign her, much to the consternation of Miss Gardner (Danielle Skraastad), a physical education instructor of ambiguous sexual orientation. But unlike the novel and Brian De Palma's 1976 film adaptation, these scenes are now funny, as when we glimpse the silhouettes of the girls showering to Foreigner's song "Hot Blooded."

And, of course, there is the fact that Carrie herself is played by Sherry Vine, aka Keith Levy, a cross-dressing performer who is the co-artistic director of Theater Couture. Clearly, this Carrie is more fun than the dramatic musical that became one of Broadway's biggest flops two decades ago.

Vine gives a delicious turn as Carrie, who discovers that her telekinetic powers allow her emotions to move objects—which, in this production, includes a bong sitting on the principal's desk. Jackson has made one noticeable change in his adaptation: having Sue narrate the plot's events in front of an unseen investigative committee, making Young as much of a lead as Vine is. Both are terrific, though, with an excellent sense of comic timing. Vine has a particularly great time playing the ignorant-victim aspect of Carrie's personality, but Young's efforts should not be overlooked; the enthusiasm she brings to every scene is invaluable.

When Miss Gardner bans Christine from attending the prom, Christine lures her boyfriend Billy Nolan (a terrific Rafi Silver) into planning a brutal act of revenge against Carrie, one with disastrous consequences that Jackson and director Josh Rosenzweig play for laughs. Jackson also added details that the film, the major blueprint for the show, left out, including how Christine and Billy get their hands on the pig's blood and why Sue's boyfriend, Tommy Ross (Matthew Wilkas), agrees to ask Carrie to the prom. Wilkas, in addition to Meoni, Searle, and Skraastad, all make the most of their roles, and it's clear they are having a ball playing them.

Rosenzweig also makes the best possible use of his small stage, which at various times serves as high school locker room, hallway, and auditorium, as well as the bedrooms of Carrie and Sue. He does not display the same economy, however, with the show's running time, which, at almost two hours and 20 minutes, is a half-hour longer than the film. It might be a wise idea to trim a few early scenes and drop an intermission, as the show moves so fluidly that one hardly needs a break from the action.

Of course, Carrie culminates in its famous prom sequence. I was curious to see how Rosenzweig would be able to revive many of the effects, and he has found ingenious ways to do so in minimalist fashion. But I won't give any of them away. Audiences will have to see for themselves.

If Walls Could Speak

Eighty-five East Fourth Street is a typical early-20th-century East Village building: a brick box with a sprawling set of front steps leading up to a door and a column stack of squarish floors. Inside, the staircases are steep and narrow. One flight of steps, the old marble ones, is worn down in the middle with use, so that they look as if they're melting. The ground-floor lobby is covered with an ornate mosaic of blue-and-white tiles that a real estate agent might call charmingly distressed. Jovially sharing this space are two theaters, the Red Room and the Kraine, as well as the Horse Trade Productions office and the KGB bar.

There is nothing unusual about this place, at least that isn't unusual about the East Village in general. Except for the large number of deadly accidents, murders, and sightings of the paranormal and undead that have taken place on the site since the 1880's.

"Some may call it coincidence," a man sitting behind a music stand intones in Horse Trade and Radiotheatre's co-production of The Haunting of 85 East 4th Street, now playing in the Red Room Theater. "Some may call it the cold hard facts."

In this play, written and directed by Dan Bianchi, Radiotheatre does a remarkable job of exposing both the facts of this site's history and the legends that have risen up around it like so many skyscrapers of whispers.

Radiotheatre has polished up an unusual and effective storytelling technique. Like Orson Welles and company recording their radio horror-show "The War of the Worlds," a quartet of actors (Clyde Baldo, Frank Zilinyi, Karyn Plonsky, and Dan Almekinder), in nondescript clothes, sit behind music stands. Speaking into microphones held close to their faces, they tell us the story of the building, alternating between narration and Ken Burns-style role playing. Sound effects and an occasional puff of sinister, flame-colored smoke from a steam machine illustrate the oral stories.

Some fascinating characters are associated with 85 East Fourth Street. They include its tragic builder—pragmatic, anti-clerical Irish immigrant Frank Conroy; Lucky Luciano crony Gianni "Deep Pockets" Parmigiano; and the bizarre Sullivanian cult. The cast members assume all these roles in a spookily convincing manner and speak confidently in their polyphony of accents and dialects.

Several of the moments that are intended to be frightening are not as scary as they could be. Hearing actors scream isn't viscerally frightening unless the audience gets some sense, themselves, of what frightens the character. One tiny glitch in the generally impressive researching of the piece is the reference to a prowling monster called "Frankenstein." (In Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein is the mad doctor; his creation is a "creature without a name.")

Still, the stories themselves are terrifying, and Radiotheatre's technique of providing voices and sound effects forces the audience to recreate the horror's visual aspects as mental theater.

Much more horrific than any B-movie moment are the true stories of 85 East Fourth that Bianchi has unearthed, such as that of Lazarus, aka Otabenga, an African man who was imprisoned in a New York zoo during the 20th century. Or the cold hard fact that for more than a hundred years, New York City's prison population has been composed overwhelmingly of ethnic minorities, and it changed groups as the demographics of the city changed. In 1918, it was Eastern European Jews. Before that, it was the Irish immigrants who, Bianchi claims, later became the cops and locked up more recent newcomers.

Then there's the Brooklyn Bridge. Buried in its foundations are at least six bodies of workers killed in accidents during its construction—five more bodies than No. 85 has in its walls. Digging into one building's past, Bianchi finds New York haunted most chillingly by the effects of poverty and injustice.

The Haunting of 85 East 4th Street is an innovative piece, crafted out of great love for the city and its history, mixed with bewilderment and outrage at the horrors hidden in our local history. Go see it, and the "permanent occupants" are certain to accompany you out. They like to be remembered, and Radiotheatre gives them their wish.

Dancing With Giants

Because not everything I'm about to write about Bread and Puppet Theater and its new show, The Battle of the Terrorists and the Horrorists, is positive, I want to be sure to say upfront that I think you should go see this company during its brief annual visit to Theater for the New City. In fact, I'm recommending that you see it next year and the year after that, and every year that Peter Schumann's health, Bread and Puppet's solvency, and the seemingly inexhaustible supply of local volunteers allow the company to bring its unique brand of theater to New York. Even after more than 40 years, there is simply no other theater group quite like this. In keeping with its street theater and outdoor circus roots, Bread and Puppet welcomed audience members outside Theater for the New City's First Avenue entrance with a brass band led by what appeared to be a Salvation Army Santa Claus. When the band marched inside, the show was about to begin—a more exuberant approach than just blinking the lights in the lobby.

Once the audience members had taken their seats, a master of ceremonies welcomed us and introduced the premise of the show with the aid of illustrated placards. Recent history has been dominated by a war between the Terrorists and the Horrorists. These two groups look different but are suspiciously similar beneath their costumes. They both believe in good and bad, concepts that are "dialectically meaningless." There is a God of Everything and a God of Nothing, both played by the same actor/dancer (Schumann, the company's director). Their witnesses, their victims, and their enablers are the cardboard citizenry, represented by a dozen or so volunteers in white costumes. They hold up cardboard cutouts, implying that "the people" have been rendered two-dimensional by the reductive rhetoric of good and evil. Other allegorical figures are represented by Schumann's trademark giant puppets.

Much of what ensued was clever. Some of it was breathtakingly beautiful. The overall concept, though, was disappointingly schematic and not illuminating. Three white puppets, apparently functioning as Fate-like sisters, turned the wheel of history. A plane was used as a weapon. A war ensued. The cardboard citizenry read about these events in the news and occasionally stomped its feet or danced in circles at the prompting of Schumann's God of Nothing.

Schumann's great talent is that the rough-hewn aesthetic of his puppet designs doesn't keep the puppets from dancing with extraordinary grace, and he himself remains a nimble and compelling performer. His ability to orchestrate these events in a short period of time, using local talent, is also admirable.

Still, for a show that began by attacking the simplistic ideology of both terrorism and the war on terror, the politics of The Battle of the Terrorists and the Horrorists presents a gratingly simple political vision in its own right. It's also worth noting that, while the lack of a program is meant in part to downplay the contribution of any given individual and emphasize the collective nature of Bread and Puppet's communal approach to art, society, and bread-making, no effort at all is made to de-emphasize Schumann's status as auteurist guru. Publicity materials for this production spend over a page detailing his accomplishments, his influences, and his personal history. Everyone else is just a cardboard citizen doing the work and dancing the dance assigned to them by their leader.

Bread and Puppet has been a major presence in agit-prop theater for decades, and much about its agenda and its operation is genuinely exciting. The whole-grain sourdough bread and pungent garlic-laden aioli, given out in a kind of secular communion after the performance, is delicious. Like all entrenched institutions, though, this company should be held accountable for any whiff of hypocrisy in its power dynamics or its politics, lest it become a reflection of the systems it decries.

Hard-Boiled

It was a gusty New York night, a night for intrigue and murder ... a night for theater. Of all the plays in the world, I had to walk into this one. The press materials for Vermilion Wine describe it as a tribute to the film noir genre, comparing it to classics like The Maltese Falcon. But this nonsensical homage suffers for 90 minutes and then dies without eliciting an ounce of sympathy.

The story goes something like this: It's 1948, and broken-hearted private investigator Ian Sinclair's new case is to track down Mrs. Maureen Monroe's missing (and presumed dead) husband. To complicate matters, a mysterious woman is sending death threats to the sultry socialite, and that anonymous lady might be Sinclair's former lover Rebecca. Sinclair revisits the grimier parts of his past and scrubs the truth out of a dirty situation, where rival P.I.'s, cross-dressing criminals, and a lawman with a grudge are all gunning for him. The show culminates with a four-way Mexican standoff that barely any of the characters survive.

So what did in Vermilion Wine? There are many suspects that could be responsible for this theatrical homicide.

A likely perpetrator is Hunter Tremayne's script, which clumsily skirts the thin line between tribute and satire. Vermilion certainly is a pastiche of film noir elements, like rapid-fire dialogue and stock characters such as a shamus and a femme fatale. But the dialogue is meandering, and its analogies sound more like vocabulary exercises. Irrelevant exchanges like "even a worm can dig too deep," "if you cut a worm in two, you get two worms," and "then I guess you'd have to love me twice as much" are overused to the point of annoyance.

Consistently, Tremayne's language opts for a heavy-handed style over substance. With a little tweaking this might work, yet some portions of the script are totally out of sync with the exaggerated film noir style. A poem written by Sinclair, for example, contains archaic words like "thee" and "thou." Unevenness like this hampers any potential the script might have had. I won't even touch on the ending, except to say that I have never known a noir piece to end with characters in heaven.

Tremayne's direction is also a little fishy. At times the audience is asked to take the play's incongruent world seriously, like the climactic gunfight with plastic guns that are not synchronized with their sound effects. We are supposed to laugh at other moments, as when Sinclair's partner limps around clownishly after being shot. This disparity might have been tolerable, if not for some directorial choices that were downright bizarre. For instance, there are two references to Sinclair being English, even though he is clearly depicted as an American. (Tremayne, who is English, played Sinclair in a previous production.)

Later, Sinclair visits an insane asylum where offstage cast members yell out "crazy talk" that sounds more like a gaggle of gremlins than a ward of disturbed patients. This was obviously intended to add a sense of darkness and danger to the scene, but all it did was make the audience snicker.

The cast members all have strong alibis. Some are required to perform strange material, but all commit fully to their roles. Phil Horton plays the Humphrey Bogart clone Sinclair without shying away from his clichéd character in the slightest. A poor young woman playing a waitress wears, perhaps, the most unflattering costume ever—a skimpy, cigarette-girl outfit that must have been ordered without her measurements on hand—and still makes it work. (The role of the waitress is uncredited, perhaps out of self-defense.) All the ensemble members dig deep into their characters, like a gumshoe trying to crack a case that doesn't have a solution.

With limited resources, technical director Pam Gittlitz creates some effective lighting that evokes the shadowy expressionism of film noir, but several confusing design elements were not vital to the play at all. Even though everyone in the theater could clearly hear when Sinclair dialed a rotary phone, a "dialing" sound effect was used. There are several anachronisms, too. In a story set in the 40's, Sinclair sings along to the Peggy Lee song "Fever," which wouldn't be released until 1958. Overall negligence like this betrays a production team that paid attention to all the wrong details.

In the end, it is sloppiness and inconsistency that undoes this play. The actors do their best, but the material, aside from a few snatches of decent dialogue, is terminally unworkable, even laughable.

A Capitol Idea

America is in a golden age of political satire. All of the stars have aligned to provide stellar opportunities for mockery: a self-serious presidency that's made questionable choices; a free and inquisitive press; and a public that understands that it can object to an administration's course of action without fear of being branded "traitorous." Heeding the call is a unique group of activists called Billionaires for Bush. Like Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert, they have taken on the guise of supporters of our current regime in order to highlight its foibles from within. Their performing troupe, the Billionaire Follies, have taken to the stage at the Ace of Clubs to present Dick Cheney's Holiday Spectacular 2006, a skits-and-song revue that provides an early Christmas present to those who like their holiday carols pretty and their sketch comedy silly and dirty.

The show is hosted by Vice President Dick Cheney, with appearances by George W. Bush, Karl Rove, the Ghost of Ken Lay, and Lynne Cheney. The politicos and their billionaire supporters sing traditional melodies with twisted, big business-themed lyrics and play out parodies of A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life. This special is presented as the warped dream of a holiday shopper knocked out in the rush for the season's "it" toy.

However, in a town where faux celebrity-hosted holiday specials are staged yearly, the framework is unnecessary—not to mention dangerous to those audience members near the shopper's front-row seat. (Several times during the show, she scuffles with a security guard and threatens to injure nearby patrons.) While the shopper is supposed to represent the voice of the common citizen, the crowd at a show like this is hip enough to see that the billionaires' message is a bad one. Besides, politicians often hold events to thank their financial contributors; it would be wickedly delightful to think of the gang in the White House putting on a show, Mickey and Judy style, as a gift to their moneyed friends.

Jamie Jackson lends Dick Cheney an air of theatrical malevolence and a fine baritone, and has the presence to carry off the job as M.C. David Bennett wouldn't win any George W. look-alike competitions, but he has the good ol' boy accent, excitable nature, and befuddled looks down pat. Moreover, his natural comic talents allow him to refer to cocaine as "booger sugar" and get a laugh instead of a groan. The cast of ladies is mostly there for sex appeal and high voices; while they fill that job admirably (especially the lovely soprano Kellie Aiken), it would've been nice for the boys' club to cede a little more stage time to the girls.

An hour goes by fast when in the company of entertaining folks like these. The Billionaire Follies has crafted a show with topical references that even the least politically aware Americans will get, and the repetitive nature of the carols drives home their message. If you find the Rankin/Bass animated specials a little too religious, and the Grinch a little too mushy, then Dick Cheney's got a spectacular he'd like to sell you.

Squaring Off

Subtitled "A Heterosexual Homily," John Patrick Shanley's The Dreamer Examines His Pillow debuted in New York some 20 years before his significantly better-known (and better-written) polemic seared his name into theater history. Doubt, an impassioned examination of child molestation allegations against a Bronx priest, took home a handful of Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize. As in Doubt, Shanley uses a small cast in this earlier work to explore psychological problems. But the resulting personality and ideological clashes, at least as rendered in this tedious production, lack the intensity and urgency of his later effort. As he pushes a cast of three actors through three interconnected scenes, Shanley charts a doleful path in probing the possibilities and trappings of love, sex, and relationships. Mired in his slovenly apartment, the reclusive, brooding, and slightly depressive Tommy (Joe Petcka) alternately talks to himself and to his refrigerator (a somewhat animate object itself, later on) until he is visited by his livid ex-girlfriend Donna (Eleni Tzimas). She immediately begins to berate him—for not taking responsibility for his actions, for not taking ownership of his life, and (certainly not least of which) for sleeping with her younger sister.

Tommy responds by offering up a flimsy remnant of their romance; he initiates physical contact, which she deflects. "Know thyself; then maybe we can talk," she charges, before racing off to seek assistance from her father.

"It's my daughter, come to make me a parent," Dad (David Ditto Tawil) wryly announces upon her return. A moody artist who retired from painting after his wife's death, he speaks candidly with his somewhat estranged daughter about sex and relationships. Donna's fear? That Tommy is a younger incarnation of her father. Desperate to thwart destiny, Donna demands that her father visit Tommy and physically beat him up if he recognizes his own vices in the younger man. She wants to know if he's "curable."

At this point, the implausibility of these events seems largely incurable. But then the characters experience puzzling epiphanies that launch them into even more meandering dialogue. Stagnantly directed by Rusty Owen, the actors frequently square off at one another from opposite sides of the stage, barking across the set with little deviation or motivation.

Moreover, each seems to have uncovered one dominant emotion and fastened onto it. As the caustic Donna, Eleni Tzimas displays a brittle anger with every line. Even the importunate "I miss you; I'm lonely for you" is relatively passionless, lacking shape and commitment. Joe Petcka can't break free of Tommy's despondency, and his overwrought egotism completely usurps his latent charm. Most important, in this production there is no clear indication that Donna and Tommy are still in love with each other, nor is there much reason to think that they should be.

As Donna's itinerant father, David Ditto Tawil turns in the most nuanced performance, but overplays the character's often hazy eccentricity.

Packed with crude language and colorful sexual metaphors, The Dreamer Examines His Pillow is a fascinating, if frustrating, backward glance at a developing playwright's early work. In his 1986 New York Times review, Mel Gussow called the play "an extended, incommunicative conversation in the guise of theater." Unfortunately, this production does little to disrupt that definition, but we can be thankful that, after incessantly batting around words like "love" and "relationship," Shanley's dramatic ramblings eventually led him to write a work of greater theatricality and significance.

Touched by Tragedy

Two one-act plays featured in a double bill at the Kraine Theater view recent terrorist attacks—the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and the March 11, 2004, Madrid train bombings—through the prism of individual lives touched by tragedy. This approach yields rich and complex character studies in the Spanish drama Ana 3/11 and a superficial and poorly crafted play in its American counterpart, A River Apart. In acclaimed Spanish playwright Paloma Pedrero's Ana 3/11, which has been produced in Spain, London, and Cuba and at the 2006 New York International Fringe Festival, three women named Ana await word about the same man, Angel Vera Garcia, who is trapped in the train bombings. His possible death ricochets through their lives, cracking open secrets and prompting searing personal reckonings.

In its examination of the cramped lives of women in a society dominated by men, the play takes its cues from Spanish classical theater works such as Federico Garcia Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba. To echo that theme, scenic designer David Ogel rings the stage with men's suit jackets hanging on coat hooks.

Ana 3/11, tautly directed by Anjali Vashi and translated by Phyllis Zatlin, consists of three linked vignettes, although all three Anas remain onstage at all times. In the first, Angel's lover (Ana de los Riscos) frantically tries to contact him, pouring out her anxiety, anguish, and frustration into the messages she leaves on his cellphone. In the following vignette, Angel's cellphone rings insistently in his bag, which his wife (Catherine Eaton) has with her as she waits at the hospital. In the final scene, which does not interlock with the prior two and never reaches full climax, Angel's aged and partially senile mother (Charlotte Hampden) recalls her own husband's extramarital affairs even as she has premonitions of her son's death.

While each actress delivers strong performances, Eaton is especially affecting as the strong-willed wife who forces herself to deal directly with the betrayal from which she has long averted her eyes.

In A River Apart, television writer Michelle Schiefen sets out to show how Sept. 11 briefly brought the city's residents together. The play, which has the same director and design team as Ana 3/11, depicts six neighbors, neatly divided by class, race, and age, who congregate on the roof of their Brooklyn apartment building after the second tower is hit but before the towers' fall: the building's super, an all-American corporate guy, a young Jewish woman from Connecticut, a college film student of Iranian descent, a middle-aged white mother, and a 75-year-old Mexican woman.

The personal connection to the attacks is much more tenuous than in Ana 3/11. Nevertheless, everyone frets anxiously about the difficulty of contacting family members because the cellphone circuits are overloaded and the phones in the apartment building aren't working. Demonstrating their instant camaraderie, the six lend each other their cellphones.

This new solicitude and self-involvement are grating in contrast to the indifference that the characters show toward the lives cut short across the river. The one exception is the elderly Rosa (Rhoda Pauley), who says, "Oh God, all the mothers with children up there."

The need for verisimilitude is great when your audience has experienced firsthand the events being dramatized onstage. Yet Schiefen gets the details wrong. The snippets of radio reports—when the super (Matt Alford) periodically unplugs his headphones—don't sound like the charged and agitated live coverage of those first hours. No mention is made of the people jumping to their deaths—an unforgettable element of that interval before the towers collapsed. The burning towers themselves—which you'd think would be a transfixing sight—command very little attention. A family member who was in Midtown that morning is said to have reached and crossed the Brooklyn Bridge in less than an hour.

The six cast members struggle valiantly to bring their characters to life, but this shallow play defeats them.

While the personal focus of each work in 11 is a valid choice, it's disappointing that neither playwright saw the need to grapple with the larger meaning of this new age of terrorism at home. All we get are emotional tirades against the terrorists. Any personal reflections, however raw and provisional, about the causes and consequences of these attacks might have helped place these individual lives—and these plays—into the broader flow of history.

Women on Strike

It got off to a slowly paced start, but The Happiest Girl in the World crept up on me. A few scenes into this production by the Medicine Show Theater, I was surprised to suddenly find myself charmed. For one thing, the title song, which is reprised more than once, is so melodic, wistful, and poignant in its context that it is still turning in my head—not surprising, since lyricist E.Y. "Yip" Harburg co-wrote a classic song with those same qualities, "Over the Rainbow." In Happiest Girl, Harburg's lyrics accompany music by the 19th-century composer Jacques Offenbach, a pioneer in the development of operetta. The instrumental score is performed mostly by one piano, so there is an emphasis on choral harmony, and the combination of operetta, show-tune camp and wit, and romantic crooning makes for a pleasant and varied musical evening.

Based on Aristophanes's antiwar play Lysistrata, the musical is receiving a rare revival since its premiere in 1961. Director Barbara Vann has combined two existing drafts—the libretto is by Fred Saidy and Henry Mayers—and added some text from the original Lysistrata as well as some of her own.

At the start of the play, Lysistrata (Sarah Engelke), the wife of the Athenian general Kinesias (Samuel Perwin), is weary of the wars that keep taking her husband away. She is enlisted by the goddess of chastity, Diana (Nique Haggerty), to lead the women of Athens in a "no peace no love" campaign in which they refuse to sleep with their husbands until they forsake war. Meanwhile, the women of Sparta, who are the wives of the opposing warriors, are doing the same.

Trouble ensues (this is a musical comedy) when Diana's Uncle Pluto, ruler of the underworld, balks at the notion of a harmonious world, and when Diana's inexperience with love threatens to thwart the plan—and inspires the comedic number "Never Trust a Virgin." Nique Haggerty as Diana is naïve but well meaning, an adorable nymph with a soprano that particularly brings out the classical quality of Offenbach's music.

Engelke has a lovely voice, too—more in a musical theater style. She's an engaging Lysistrata, radiating grace and resolve. As her husband, Samuel Perwin certainly has a beautiful and strong singing voice and the poise of a soldier, but he doesn't match the intelligent demeanor of his wife—although maybe that's the point. When he tells Lysistrata that her lips are "for a lovelier purpose" than speaking her mind, I had to wonder if he had ever met his wife. Mark J. Dempsey as Pluto is a pleasantly understated and thoughtful incarnation of a roguish devil, as opposed to a mean-spirited one. He's calculating instead of evil.

Where the production has trouble is in its tendency toward disorganization and too many choices. While the cast is quite solid, there was much that was unfocused and unclear. Vann's heavily populated stage, which holds bleachers, a marital bed, Greek columns, and a large cast undergoing multiple costume changes, lends the production a Dionysian chaos that, although fun at times, dilutes the story. When the gods are crowded in a pyramid shape on bleachers, it's a good idea but one that brings the action to the back of the stage for too long.

Then, too, Vann can't resist the temptation to overemphasize parallels that were already obvious. When one character says that the Athenians now have a slingshot that will be the end to all weapons, the line is pointed and hilarious. But when the Athenian women change their costumes to modern-day SWAT T-shirts while on the offensive, it seems to beat the parallel over the head.

But I can't dismiss the crowd and chaos altogether, because they do help to express one of the play's more poignant themes—holding on to peace and happiness when dangerous worldly forces threaten to take them away. As the Greek Marines keep marching in to bring him back to war—and away from his wife—Kinesias laments that he and Lysistrata are the only people on earth who need to be "rescued from the Marines."

Though there is a fair amount of bawdiness to the production, at its heart this is a story about trying to find a peaceful, safe corner of the world, a place to share your life with your loved ones.

In the Spirit

Manhattan Children's Theater's second play of its 2006-2007 season, Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, will come as a welcome surprise for anyone who has heard the classic tale a hundred times and is not looking forward to it again. Adaptor and director Bruce Merrill gives us a nicely abridged version that packs the story's central themes and favorite lines into a quick-paced, hourlong, family-friendly interpretation. The result is a production that Christmas Carol enthusiasts and parents can enjoy while exposing their children to Dickens's complex language. Of course, a young audience cannot be expected to follow every word of the 19th-century English dialogue, and so the MCT artistic team has pooled its members' talents to turn the story into an engaging sensory experience.

Lance Harkins's stage design depicts a dark, shadowy world with an all-black color scheme that extends from the back wall to the curtains, and an abstract picture of a moonlit city skyline that runs along the sides of the stage. The set, when combined with Shane Mongar's dark lighting, instantly takes us into Scrooge's head. We see the world as he does, before the supernatural intervention occurs.

Once the spirits enter to transport the grumpy old man to the long-lost days of his youth, this heaviness is lifted. The first two ghosts appear onstage wearing long silk gowns with thick ropes tied around their waists, joyfully twisting, spinning, and skipping to illustrate happier times. When Scrooge is a nice young man dancing at the Fezziwigs' Christmas party, bright lights accompany the upbeat, toe-tapping instrumental numbers. But as we watch Scrooge grow distant and eventually lose his humanity, the music slows and the lights dim, returning us to the darkness from which we started.

Merrill's adaptation does not focus solely on Scrooge's life; it also pulls back to examine the effects his actions have on the world around him. The actor playing Scrooge, Aaron Rustebakke, is cast as both the embittered old man and a silly narrator, and he's too busy alternating roles to fully lose himself in the character's details. Instead, he acts as an effective device for moving the story along, highlighting the necessary plot points and providing expository descriptions of past events and supporting characters.

The story's emotional core and central themes are embodied in Eric V. Hachikian's original music score and Lauren Gordon's choreographed modern dances. For example, when the Ghost of Christmas Future appears in a cloud of smoke to lead Scrooge to his doom, the dancing ceases and the playful instrumentals stop. They are replaced with the frantic pounding of a deep, ominous note, while a harsh spotlight casts frightening shadows beneath the eyes of the ensemble characters rejoicing over the death of Scrooge.

Because of the darker elements and emotions explored in the story, this production seems best suited to an older age group. Manhattan Children's Theater specifies in its listings that it is most appropriate for children ages 5 and up.

Unlike other versions of A Christmas Carol, this one does not contain carols, songs, or festive holiday decorations. In fact, most of the laughter is provided through Andrea Steiner's props, especially a ridiculously large turkey with its legs sticking straight up in the air, and a miniature Tiny Tim doll that the Cratchit family delights in passing around like a football. This adaptation may not be the complex Victorian morality tale that audiences are used to seeing, but it succeeds in delivering all the sadness and joy we hope to feel when reading this timeless story.

Poor Soldier

Georg Büchner's Woyzeck, required reading for students of Western theater, is widely considered a precursor of both expressionism and Bertolt Brecht's epic drama. A dark and difficult play, it is frequently produced and almost as frequently disappointing in production. Having sat through far too many ambitious but tedious performances of the play, I am pleased to report that the Gate Theater London production, now playing at St. Ann's Warehouse, is highly entertaining, appropriately disturbing, exuberantly theatrical, and occasionally brilliant. Woyzeck's plot is episodic and elliptical, following the titular protagonist (Edward Hogg)—a soldier who must submit to medical experiments in order to provide (barely) enough food for his girlfriend and baby—through a series of indignities and his eventual descent into violence and despair. The play was discovered after Büchner's premature death in 1837 in an apparently unfinished state. The surviving text is a series of separate scenes that were left unnumbered, meaning it is the job of any director to determine the order in which they will be presented. While there is some dark humor inherent in the text, the overall atmosphere is relentlessly dark, and productions often suffer from a one-note gloominess.

Daniel Kramer has certainly not fallen into that trap in adapting and directing his own version of the play. For its first half, this production almost felt like Büchner as filtered through Monty Python and Benny Hill. Woyzeck rode a child's tricycle around the stage while Elvis sang over the theater's sound system. The sexual innuendo was played up in a wink-wink, nudge-nudge manner that initially belied the seriousness of both the issues being explored and Woyzeck's deteriorating mental state. Kramer filtered the text's carnivalesque surrealism through this lighthearted sensibility for perhaps a little too long.

Then, just as the production's self-aware cleverness was starting to grate on me, Kramer pulled the rug out from under the audience by indicting us for our enjoyment. In one of the production's centerpiece scenes, the Drum Major (David Harewood) beat Woyzeck senseless while preening and flirting with the audience. Harewood's winning smile and athletic presence allowed him to charm the audience despite the abhorrent nature of his actions. As the audience laughed and applauded the Drum Major, Woyzeck lay groaning on the ground. In a rebuke to our applause, he moaned, "Yay, violence." The moment brought another laugh, but it was also a recognition of our own culpability in the virulent brand of masculinity that led the Drum Major to batter his victim.

While the production's humor didn't disappear altogether after that, the tone shifted considerably. Fewer moments were played for laughs, and the violence was increasingly alarming. This tonal shift was achieved entirely through pacing and line delivery, while the show's visual and sonic aesthetic remained consistent. David Howe's exquisite lighting, often filtered through an onstage mist, worked to enhance Kramer's painterly staging. The production's visual beauty was juxtaposed with a soundtrack made up mostly of Elvis, Dolly Parton, and Beethoven as well as occasional sound effects that rendered individual moments alternately cartoonish and haunting. A number of moments were so gorgeously staged, they lingered in my memory as works of art unto themselves.

The performances were excellent throughout. Hogg's fragile, tormented Woyzeck and Hare's gleefully sadistic Drum Major were particularly memorable, but Roger Evans, Fred Pearson, Tony Guilfoyle, and Diana Payne-Myers also deserve mention as Andres, Captain, Doctor, and Grandmother, respectively.

Along with its virtuosity and occasional excesses, the production takes pains to underscore the text's thematic concerns. Exchanges of money are highlighted, the poverty and social standing of soldiers decried, and the highly destructive conflation of masculinity with violence is explored from a variety of angles.

This Woyzeck is not intended to be a "definitive" production, but as a provocative take on a canonical yet, paradoxically, unfinished text. As Kramer has noted, "The profundity of this play lies in its ruins." His singular excavation of these "ruins" is one of the season's most memorable evenings of theater.

Teacher Tested

Growing up is never easy. Many a show has documented the complicated emotions endured by teens, addressing such subjects as their topsy-turvy love lives, peer pressure, and unstable home situations. Playwright Dominique Cieri draws from her real-life experiences to provide a harrowing portrait of seven teenage girls' lives in Count Down, produced by Double Play Connections at the Bank Street Theater. "I wanna be a different girl, born on a different day" is the show's big tag line, and one of the first lines uttered by Carmela (Sandi Carroll). She has been hired to lead a 40-day arts program for abused and neglected teens, and the show focuses on the seven students to whom she is assigned. They come from a wide variety of backgrounds and suffer from various afflictions. (According to publicity materials, Carmela's experiences stem from Cieri's 15 years as a teaching artist with at-risk youth.)

As one might expect, none of her students embraces Carmela with open arms at first. She encourages them to express themselves through confessional free-writing exercises, a conceit that allows the audience to see into their minds but never feels gimmicky.

Of course, Carmela's task is not exactly easy; just when she thinks she has made real progress, her students rebel again, causing her to second-guess her ability to reach these girls as they work together to perform a show by the end of the 40 days, to which the title refers. This kind of one-step-forward, two-steps-back cycle dominates much of Count Down's first act and even the beginning of the second, but it never feels redundant. Instead, it helps Cieri root the play in reality and addresses the fact that inner-city children's imaginations get stunted early on. After Carmela loses her students' trust, she must continue re-earning it. Cieri and director Elyse Knight handle these highs and lows with a deft hand.

Carmela also faces the occasional skirmish with Hobbs (Major Dodge), who is in charge of the program. He is a less-developed character, and as Carmela and the girls begin to really gel as a group, he turns out to be even more cryptic. Has he somehow taken advantage of his position? Are his intentions less than kind, or is Cieri aiming for something more surreal? This muddles the final moments of the play, which at two hours and 15 minutes is already packed with the characters' troubles and doesn't deserve any hint of melodrama.

It's Knight's well-rehearsed ensemble that makes Count Down such a worthwhile experience. As Carmela, Carroll strikes the perfect balance of optimism, intimidation, and despair. She called to mind a few teachers I had in public school. Kasey Lockwood and Reina Cedeno stand out as Miriam and Neema, two students who, despite their problems, let Carmela open up their minds before she can do so with the others. Valerie Blazek enters the cast later than her colleagues, but packs a mean punch as Amber, one of the most troubled students in Carmela's care. Megan Ferguson, Adepero Oduye, Dania Ramos, and Victoria L. Turner round out the cast with their acute, sensitive performances.

All do Cieri's important subject matter justice. Her self-proclaimed aim is to shine a light on domestic violence, and to demonstrate the role of art and artists in helping girls recover from such abuse. Everyone at the Bank Street Theater can consider that mission accomplished.

Urban Angst and Auld Lang Syne

After an acclaimed stint at Ars Nova last winter, the band GrooveLily hits New York again with its sensational seasonal offering Striking 12, a contemporary retelling of "The Little Match Girl" set to a bewitching score and performed by three multitalented performers. This year, they have set up shop in the cavernous Daryl Roth Theater, but Ted Sperling's inspired and careful direction has both preserved and enhanced the magic and intimacy of this little-show-that-could. In truth, it would be a herculean task to dim the lights on any of these three actor-musicians. On electric violin, Valerie Vigoda is vivacious and captivating as she portrays the Match Girl and her contemporary alter ego—an eccentric woman hawking strings of light bulbs on New Year's Eve. And behind the keyboard, her husband and collaborator, Brendan Milburn, is still lovably cranky as the grumpy guy who refuses to go out and celebrate with his friends.

Gene Lewin, the third band member and drummer extraordinaire, fills out the show in a variety of smaller roles, and his performance has grown and deepened over the year. Dryly sarcastic and refreshingly witty, Lewin seems even more comfortable as the backbone—and beat—of Striking 12. (He also still gets his trademark tour de force number, "Give the Drummer Some," where he steals the spotlight to show off his formidable percussive prowess.)

The rest of the score is virtually intact, with a few minor changes that include the addition of the soulful "Red and Green (And I'm Feeling Blue)," the rhapsodic "Wonderful," and the air-tight harmonies of "Picture This." The new music blends seamlessly into the rest of the material, which reflects GrooveLily's signature palette of pop, rock, folk, jazz, and blues. This is a group that refuses to be pigeonholed, and its members continue to create an unmistakable, boundless sound that is all their own.

Together with designers David Korins (set), Jennifer Caprio (costumes), Michael Gilliam (lighting), and Robert J. Killenberger (sound), Sperling has nestled Striking 12 comfortably into this larger space. If the costumes are more stylish (and coordinated) and the wacky props look less spontaneously scrounged up, Gilliam's dynamic lighting has only heightened the dramatic tension. Most notably, he throws Vigoda's shadow against the back wall to create a haunting effect during her aggressive and athletic performance of the powerful "Can't Go Home." Gilliam has also subdivided the enormous back wall into panels of color and light, which constantly shift to reveal a matrix of small sparkly orbs, adding dimension while pivoting with the story.

Even with such impressive production values, the strength of Striking 12 still lies in the remarkable synergy of musicianship, acting, and attitude created by Vigoda, Milburn, and Lewin. Vigoda and Milburn co-wrote the show with Tony Award-winner Rachel Sheinkin, and although this story doesn't attempt to move mountains, it does aspire to reach the heart with its exploration of urban isolation and its detrimental effects. Without being preachy, the performers unearth cheer from malaise—a freshly modern holiday message.

Vigoda and Milburn received the 2006 Jonathan Larson Award for their musical theater writing, and Striking 12 continues to advance Larson's intrepid, renegade spirit. They're already at work on a new concert-musical, Wheelhouse, about their experiences in a used RV, and one can only hope they will continue to explore, reinvent, and electrify the genre for years and New Years to come.

Different Slant

The Slant Theater Project, created in 2004 to produce challenging new work in site-specific venues, continues to test itself with The Obstruction Plays, six new works by some of New York's most exciting playwrights. Although the results are mixed, the experiment proves once again that interesting work is going on at the Slant. "Obstructions" are intended to force artists to come up with new and creative ways to solve problems. Well-known obstruction exercises include Lars Von Triers's film The Five Obstructions, in which he challenged director Jorgen Leth to remake parts of his film The Perfect Human in five different ways, each time adhering to a certain rule or limitation.

At the Slant, 30 obstructions (five for each of the six plays) were created—some might say sanctified—by playwrights Lee Blessing, Naomi Izuka, and Sarah Ruhl, and each play had to conform to the obstructions assigned to it. Obstructions range from the benign (the play must have a waffle iron) to the more challenging (there must be a character who speaks entirely in verse). The best obstructions are those that move beyond adding a character or a prop and get to structural problems. Such obstacles force the writers to come up with new and inventive ways of creating drama.

The Dinner Party, written by Dan O'Brien, is ostensibly about dinner with the playwright's family, but the overwrought narrator, who introduces himself as Dan O'Brien, continually interrupts, circumventing the drama and ultimately undermining the performance. Though the piece is funny at first, the trajectory is well established early on—the play must not go on—and by the end the performance has begun to seem stagnant.

Priest in a Pool, a short, abstruse piece by Michele Lowe, explores a moment of truth between a teenaged camper and a priest who attempts to convince the boy to jump into an empty pool, in what appears to be a variation on a trust fall. The premise here is strong, but the characters' motivations become confusing at the bewildering climax.

Caution: Parents May Be Less Insane Than They Appear, by Lisa Kron, satirizes an older couple's apprehensions about technology. When their children visit, they find all the furniture in the house has been moved for fear of upsetting an electronic vacuum. The siblings then discover that their glib disregard for their parents' concerns may not be justified. This funny piece turns dark quickly, but the ending lacks some of the terror it might have mustered.

I See London, I See France is a comic piece written and directed by Evan Cabnet. The premise here, which I won't give away, especially because of the play's brevity, is highly entertaining. The obstruction requires that part of the play must be about Donald Rumsfeld. The representation is, to say the least, unflattering.

Blossoming Andromache, written by Marcus Gardley, takes a sensitive look at an encounter between a young man named Spooky and a drunken derelict. The vagrant is bribed by Spooky's friends into pretending he is the boy's father after the real father fails to show up for a long-awaited reunion. The play starts off slowly and is overly poetic, but the characterizations are superb and the dialogue is highly unexpected.

Unlimited, by Mat Smart, incorporates a large cast of 15 actors. The play consists of very little narrative, especially at first, when it tends to drag. The ending, however, picks up considerably and includes a beautifully orchestrated moving sculpture created out of the actors' bodies.

The Obstruction Plays contains, in total, a cast of more than 20 actors, with standout performances by Robert Karma Robertson, David Carl, Arlando Smith, and Therese Barbato. The performance is a sort of ultimate drama-nerd event. Instead of going to see a "normal" show that's about looking for an answer to a dramatic question, we go to see the questions themselves, and the kinds of problems they raise when given time onstage.

It Can't Happen Here

For writers on the political left, the midterm elections have delivered a mixed blessing. The results may have signaled the waning days of the Bush administration, but they have also created a crisis in source material. Bush has provided an endless wealth of subject matter for works like David Hare's Stuff Happens and Saturday Night Live sketches. For those looking for one more nostalgic exercise in Bush bashing, A.R. Gurney's Post Mortem, a problematic but overall funny farce about the future of American politics, may fit the bill. Gurney's new play explores a Christian dystopia in the not too distant future. In this America, all citizens are required to carry a copy of the Bible, most offices are routinely bugged, and theater classes analyze evangelical comedy. In this political atmosphere, Alice (Tina Benko), a renegade lecturer in the theater department of a backwater Christian university, attempts to thwart the academic and sexual advances of one of her undergraduates, an industrious but not too bright English major named Dexter (Christopher Kromer).

Dexter has recently discovered the "lost" plays of one A.R. Gurney, a "minor dramatist" of the 20th century. He is particularly struck by one of Gurney's plays titled—you guessed it—Post Mortem, a work so profound it has the power to put an end to the theocratic dictatorship as well as solve longstanding social problems ranging from health care to public transportation. But first Dexter has to convince Alice to help him, and to love him.

Like Gurney's recent works O Jerusalem and Screen Play, Post Mortem is receiving its world premiere at the Flea Theater. All three plays are overtly leftist, and both Post Mortem and Screen Play look toward a future where Christian fascism has taken over America. The plays shy away from naturalism to display a sort of self-referential postmodernism where they contemplate their own theatricality.

At one point in Post Mortem, Dexter asks Alice (one may assume he is asking the audience as well), "Are you ready for a recognition scene, Alice? I recognize now I'm a loser." Most of the play's irony comes from its references to the "discovered" play of the same name and the "fate" of the author, A.R. Gurney, who may or may not have been killed by Dick Cheney. While this kind of wink-and-nod trickery is entertaining at first, it becomes overplayed, especially in the second act, where the explanation of a Kennedy-like assassination conspiracy and its subsequent cover-up is painstakingly detailed.

Though the farcical first act is engaging and humorous in its crowd-pleasing and liberal in-jokes and self-irony, the second act presents other major problems. It begins with a tedious lecture on the evils of cellphones (especially in the theater), which may allude to one of the playwright's personal bugbears, perhaps more than he intended.

The spiel is delivered by Betsy (Shannon Burkett), who serves as a kind of interlocutor/hostess for Dexter and Alice in the talk-show format that makes up the second act. This kind of sermonizing illustrates the act's flaws, as the satire on talk shows attempts to create a new dramatic arc. Instead, with the characters talking about what happened in the years between the first and second acts, any dramatic action is circumvented, and what results is characters talking about what they did, which is as unexciting as it sounds.

As Alice, Benko plays the farce at full tilt: she is an overwrought academic desperately looking for the tools to use against an oppressive society. At times, however, the seemingly English accent that she affects can be distracting. Burkett, as the annoying Betsy, is spunky and earnest. As Dexter, Kromer is the least farcical character, playing the eager newcomer somewhat too lightly in comparison with the other characters.

Though this production of Post Mortem is not perfect, credit must be given to Gurney and especially to the Flea. Beginning with Anne Nelson's The Guys (about firefighters lost on Sept. 11), it has demonstrated that it is one of the city's few theater companies to continually challenge and question the consequences of living in a post-9/11 America.

Let Them Entertain You

"Sing out, Louise!" is one of the most identifiable and exciting lines in musical theater. Audience members nod with a knowing smile as it is shouted onstage, happily awaiting the thrill ride that follows over the next three hours. For those less versed in the canon, it should be said that those three words mark the entrance of one of the great theatrical characters of all time: Mama Rose, the mother of all stage mothers, in Gypsy.

St. Jean's Players, one of the city's best-kept secrets, is presenting a must-see production of this legendary show, based on the life of stripteaser Gypsy Rose Lee. Set during the vaudeville era, Gypsy follows Rose (Mary Anne Gruen) as she pushes her favored daughter, June, to show business success in one act after another. (Bridget Clark and Colleen Lis split the role between June's early and later years.)

Meanwhile, Rose's other daughter, Louise (Sonia Brozak and Hannah Fairchild also split the role), finds herself relegated to wallflower status onstage and also-ran at home. Rose will sacrifice everything to achieve vicarious success through her daughter, even marriage to her paramour, road manager Herbie (played by Alex Arruda, who displays an amazing baritone).

As Rose, Gruen is a marvel in a role that has become iconic after performances by such stars as Ethel Merman, Rosalind Russell, and Angela Lansbury. She's pushy as can be, but it comes from a very desperate place. It's almost impossible not to be moved when she laments, "I was born too soon and started too late!" during "Rose's Turn," her bravura number.

But Gypsy isn't just Rose's story; it is her daughter's as well. The show packs a lot of plot development into an overlong first act—this performance clocked in at nearly 100 minutes—and there isn't much that any theater company can do to get around that, as every scene is essential while we watch June and Rose mature. Director Bryan McHaffey boldly soldiers through this material. June, Rose's big hope, tires of being a puppet and runs away with one of the background dancers in her company. Never willing to be a victim, Rose decides to focus her attention on Louise.

As written, the show compresses too many character changes into its second act. Louise rebels in her own way, eventually becoming a world-famous strip artist. One cannot alter Arthur Laurents's book to make this arc more believable; a company can only rely on solid performances to connect the dots. As the older Louise, Fairchild does a great job covering those bases.

She and Lis also both prove to be amazing dancers and singers. The hallmark of any outstanding revival is that it highlights something new in the production, whether it's a scene, a musical number, or a different angle to the story. St. Jean's production does just that with the duet in the often overlooked song "If Momma Was Married," in which the characters long for a different kind of life, singing in beautiful harmony. But then, even the second-tier songs (by Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim) are masterful, in a show that includes the classics "Some People," "Let Me Entertain You," "Together, Wherever We Go," and "Everything's Coming Up Roses."

Additionally, credit must be paid to Diane Collins, Rosalynd Darling, and Jennifer Hoddinott, who nail the naughty second-act showstopper "You Gotta Get a Gimmick" (and Hoddinott looks far different from her last St. Jean's role, as the prim Grace Farrell in Annie). Darling does double duty as clarinetist in the incomparable orchestra, which also includes Razy Jordan, Linda Blacken, and Harriet Levine.

I was curious to see whether St. Jean's could pull off Gypsy, and particularly if it could gear the show to its family-friendly audiences. The company did another sterling job, emphasizing that this is a show about families and how they get along through the best and worst of times. Clearly, I needn't have worried. As always, this company knows exactly what it is doing.

Great Books, Live Onstage

Northanger Abbey, Theater Ten Ten's clever new play, merges the best of Jane Austen—engaging heroines and romantic plots—with the gothic suspense of Ann Radcliffe, an earlier, 18th-century English novelist. But playwright Lynn Marie Macy can't take all the credit: Austin's Northanger Abbey makes many references to Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho. This modern production of Austen's book, directed by David Scott, takes those references off the page and plays them as actual scenes that are woven into Austen's story. The result is a vibrant interpretation of a classic. The stage is set for our journey into books, with richly bound, oversized copies of English literary masterpieces forming a backdrop and filling the stage. The gilded spines open and close to reveal the characters' entrances and exits. All of the staged action happens in front of yet another book. This smaller, illustrated volume takes us from the streets and ballrooms of Bath, England, to the eerie mountain castle of Udolpho, in Italy. Characters come by and turn the pages as each scene changes, transporting the audience back and forth between the two worlds.

Director David Scott ties the two books together even more by doubling the roles. The protagonist from one is also the protagonist in the other. The actors portray the same type of character—the love interest, the cad, the deceitful lady—in both stories. We begin to see the parallels between the "real" scenes (the plot of Northanger Abbey) and the "imaginary" ones (the parts of The Mysteries of Udolpho that are enacted onstage).

Our partner on this journey is Catherine Morland (Tatiana Gomberg), the heroine of Austen's novel. She travels from her country home to the wealthy resort town of Bath with family friends in order to experience the world, but she can't seem to keep her nose out of a book (that book is, of course, The Mysteries of Udolpho). In Bath, she tours the social scene, meeting the charming Henry Tilney (Julian Stetkevych), the coquettish Miss Isabella (Summer Hagen), and Isabella's roguish brother, John Thorpe (Timothy McDonough). With all her new acquaintances, Catherine's real-world romantic adventures start to compete with the exciting stories she's been reading. When she visits Northanger Abbey, she finds herself in a situation nearly as fantastic.

As Catherine, Tatiana Gomberg sparkles in every scene and makes for a vivacious heroine. Her Catherine is refreshingly three-dimensional: smart, clever, and capable. Her bold manner when speaking directly to the audience perhaps makes her not what Austen intended, but she's perfectly suited for modern audiences. She's so enthusiastic that we're happy to follow her wherever her fancies take her.

Gomberg is nicely supported by Summer Hagen as Isabella; the young debutante is delectably bratty and pouty. McDonough seemed to enjoy his role as Isabella's arrogant, blowhard brother, while Stetkevych is so delightful as Catherine's love interest Tilney that he left me wishing Austen had made the character more prominent in the novel.

The costumes, designed by Jeanette Aultz, are lovely period pieces; Aultz paid great attention to detail, even down to Miss Morland's undergarments. In many of the crowd and party scenes, the ensemble functioned as colorful, animated set dressings. The ladies and gentlemen of Bath were so well dressed that it was easy to overlook that some of them sped through their lines, making them almost unintelligible.

The second act dragged a little, though that flaw is more in the source material than in Macy's script. A pantomimed scene of Catherine's midnight encounter with the wild, imaginary horrors lurking in Northanger Abbey was so wonderful that the remainder of the play paled in comparison.

As Catherine discovers, reading a book can't beat live experiences. This energetic production is a perfect example. Theater Ten Ten's adaptation of Northanger Abbey brings new life to what is considered one of Austen's lesser-known works while showcasing a lesser-known writer whose work made this 19th-century classic possible.

Without a Net

One of the most exhilarating workouts in the city isn't to be found in any gym or Spinning class. Instead, it can be found at the Barrow Street Theater, where Tim Crouch's one of a kind production, An Oak Tree, is moving audiences and enlightening acting students all at once. Oak Tree stems from a fascinating conceit. Ostensibly, it is the story of two men: a grief-stricken father who has recently lost his daughter in a car accident and a stage hypnotist (Crouch) who was the car's driver. The twist is that a different guest actor (sometimes a male, sometimes a female) plays the father's role every night. Moreover, he or she meets Crouch only moments before show time and knows nothing about the plot or the character. Right in front of them, the audience members see Crouch instructing the actor about the performance. (Besides writing and starring in the show, he co-directed it with Karl James and a smith.)

This kind of acting without a net is nothing short of thrilling. At the performance I was privileged to see, F. Murray Abraham, the Academy Award-winning star of Amadeus, played the father. Just watching him absorb the task ahead of him, steeling himself and simultaneously tapping into his actorly resources to create a character in no time, was an education in trust—both in his own abilities and in what Crouch had in store.

In addition to the directions given in front of the audience, Crouch whispers directions into earphones so that only the guest performer can hear them. Besides appearing as himself and the father, Abraham portrayed a version of himself commenting on the play. Crouch thus intersperses the action occasionally with several faux interviews, with the actor sometimes speaking candidly and sometimes merely pretending to do so, reading answers off a clipboard.

This is not improvisation, or theater sport; Crouch has actually wound the production of Oak Tree quite tight. He gives his guest performer the freedom to create the character he or she feels is appropriate, but he ultimately controls the direction and tone the evening takes. The show has no cheap tricks or surprises. The emotions that Abraham undergoes as the father and that Crouch has as the hypnotist (whose powers have been impaired since the accident) are always genuine.

There was never a time when Abraham didn't look anguished. At certain moments, when Crouch appeared to successfully hypnotize the father, Abraham looked spellbound, convinced that he had shed his clothing and soiled himself, among the many acts the hypnotist called on him to do. And he did it all without missing a beat. Rehearsed performances are often less fluid than this, which just may be the show's point.

It is important not to downplay the importance of Crouch's role. He is the fulcrum on which the entire performance rests, and while one gets nervous for Abraham or whoever else the guest performer that evening may be, his job is even trickier. Crouch must guide the performance and be prepared for many different reactions from his scene partner. He remains engaging, empathetic, and confident throughout, thus earning the audience's trust that the show will appear polished and professional.

But his piece goes beyond that: it reveals truths about human nature and an actor's nature. One can only guess what other brave actors will jump into the hot seat as the show's run continues, but one thing is for sure: rewards abound for actor and audience alike.

Seeing Through

In the 1940's, psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark conducted their famous "Doll Test," in which young black children were given four baby dolls (identical except for color) and instructed to select the dolls that they preferred. Most of the children favored the white dolls, and the Clarks' astonishing findings were later used as evidence in the landmark 1950 anti-segregation case Brown v. Board of Education. Adapted for the stage with wit and grace by Lydia Diamond, Toni Morrison's classic 1970 novel The Bluest Eye explores a tumultuous and troubling rift between what we are and what we hope to be. The Chicago-based Steppenwolf Theater Company's production of the book, set in Morrison's own hometown of Lorain, Ohio, circa 1941, has been brought to New York by the New Victory Theater, and it resonates with both startling anguish and irrevocable truth. Most important, it bursts with life and an imperative story. Intended for young audiences, this resplendent and compelling play, about 11-year-old Pecola Breedlove's quest for blue eyes, should be required watching for everyone.

The rhetoric of the popular "Dick and Jane" books frames The Bluest Eye, as Pecola totes around a book extolling the untarnished, lily-white lives of a stable family so different from her own. As the play begins, she reads aloud from her book, and the rest of the cast slowly joins in, creating a confusing muddle of undistinguishable words. Clipped sentences—"Father, will you play with Jane? Father is smiling. Smile, Father, smile."—are the basis of this overly simplified, impossibly idealistic story that devolves into ugly noise—a cacophony of voices that drowns out Pecola's plaintive tones.

On Stephanie Nelson's effective, multilevel set, which is strung with clotheslines teeming with laundry in shades of rose and beige, the action springs back and forth in time to flesh out Morrison's complex characters. Frieda and Claudia, two sisters who are Pecola's neighbors and friends, narrate much of the story. They rarely leave the stage, and their presence as young witnesses gives Pecola's experiences added significance.

Pecola, we learn, has become pregnant with her father's baby, but we shouldn't expect to discover why. Instead, "since why is difficult to handle," Claudia warns, "one must take refuge in how."

And so Morrison begins to gently trace the players and events that accumulate to form Pecola's tragedy. Most centrally, there is her father, Cholly, an angry and vicious man who was abandoned as a baby and sexually exploited by white men, and her mother, Pauline, who lavishes loving words on the young white girl where she works but forces her own daughter to refer to her as "Mrs. Breedlove."

Even when Pecola steps out of her chaotic home, she faces the disdainful glare of the drugstore clerk, the chiding of neighborhood gossips, and, most poignantly, the white, blue-eyed visage that reminds her of everything she lacks. Pecola fastens onto this likeness—as embodied by Shirley Temple, pale plastic dolls, and, most animatedly, her well-groomed classmate Maureen Peal—and fervently believes that when God grants her blue eyes, she will be loved and no longer invisible.

Director Hallie Gordon has shaped a haunting and intriguing production, rendering horrific events (particularly incest and rape) without graphic display; instead, characters simply speak Morrison's words to relate these events. The imagination is a powerful thing, Gordon reminds us, and we are left to fill in the gruesome blanks.

The magnificent cast is anchored by the steadfast Alana Arenas, whose sweet, genuine voice is tinged with hope as she reveals Pecola's vulnerability and quiet determination. Monifa M. Days and Libya V. Pugh offer plucky and thoughtful characterizations of Frieda and Claudia, while Chavez Ravine and Victor J. Cole turn in nuanced portrayals of Pecola's sparring parents. TaRon Patton, as Frieda and Claudia's feisty and fussy Mama, nearly steals the show every time she takes the stage. Spouting love and criticism at lightning speed (and with crackling humor), she is the very personification of tough love.

Diamond has wisely kept much of Morrison's poetic language intact to glorious effect, as when Claudia ruminates on the love that thrives in her household, even under the thumb of her gruff Mama: "I could smell it—taste it—sweet, musty, with an edge of wintergreen in its base. It stuck, along with my tongue, to the frosted windowpanes."

And love—of any kind—is what Pecola lacks. Morrison's novels endure in part because she gathers up so much humanity to patch together asymmetrical characters who overflow with heart, soul, and extreme desperation. And although Morrison claims to offer us only the "how" of what happened to Pecola, the "why" hangs over these events, tangled up with the characters' lives and stories, including everything that came before and everything that will follow.

Clueless

Women should be sexy but not have sex, a wife shall be submissive, men like stupid girls, bleach blonde is "in," and if you dress like a slut men will treat you like one. These are just a few of the many mixed messages the media sends to young girls every day. Some roll their eyes and choose to ignore them, while others listen carefully and take them to heart. In Jessica Lynn Johnson's solo show, Oblivious to Everyone, we meet a pretty young woman in her late 20s named Carrie who is completely immersed in the ever-changing world of pop culture. Like its main character, Oblivious to Everyone has a silly, shallow appearance but a surprisingly deep, emotional core. When Carrie first stumbles onstage wearing giant bug-eyed glasses, a tight, low-cut shirt, and pants with the word "Juicy" scrawled across the rear, it seems the play will follow the same winning formula as the popular MTV show Newlyweds, focusing its comedy on the hilariously stupid thoughts and antics of a beautiful girl. However, appearances are deceiving both within the play and in the initial perception of it.

After setting down her shopping bags, Carrie hangs up her cellphone, chirping, "Love ya, mean it, bye," and smiles flirtatiously at the audience members, who collectively assume the role of a psychiatrist. She says she does not know why her friends and family want her to see a doctor, but for some strange reason they are suddenly embarrassed to be seen with her.

This reason is soon revealed. Carrie has a tendency to break into multiple personalities, mainly ones she has seen on various television programs. Sometimes she is an abusive Bible Belt husband from the Jerry Springer show, and other times she is an adult film star who has been waiting all her life to be on the Howard Stern show. But Carrie has no idea that these other personalities exist.

Johnson does an amazing job of abruptly switching from one extreme character to the next. Each new persona completely swallows up her original one, leaving no traces of the Paris Hilton wannabe that was just sitting in the doctor's chair. But even with the believable mannerisms and dialogue of each alter ego, it is Carrie who has the most dimensions. There is a deeply scarred woman beneath her perky, smiling exterior whom we catch only glimpses of throughout the show. Still, these peeks into something more than a culture-junkie airhead are what keep you glued to the unfolding drama.

Carrie's personalities are not so much an illness as they are a symbol of the repressed person who lives inside her. She is so influenced by other people's thoughts and opinions that she can no longer tell where they end and she begins. Her alter egos express the lonely, vulnerable, and insecure aspects of her personality that she is too afraid to acknowledge.

Because of these multiple personalities, Johnson labels her play a serio-comedy, but it is also an important social commentary with a message that should not be taken lightly. After all, popular media icons for young girls currently include Paris Hilton, someone who makes a living out of partying and behaving badly, and Jessica Simpson, who found fame in acting stupid.

Oblivious to Everyone combines all the shows, sound bites and mixed messages young girls receive every day to create a frightening picture of what popular American culture has become. Fortunately, it also provides hope that beneath every Paris Hilton clone is a young girl whose longing for self-expression will one day shine through. After much soul searching, even Carrie comes to realize that although the occasional guilty pleasure is O.K., the real world is more than just a show on MTV.