Fear and Trembling in Copenhagen

"Oh, this is awful," Abraham, dressed in faded robe and turban, tells his young son Isaac in Ellen Margolis's provocative and thoughtful play When It Stands Still. "Your mother will have my head for this." Later in the play, Sarah discovers the myth of Iphigenia, in which the father who sacrifices his child in compliance with divine demand is indeed murdered by the grieving mother. Why does Sarah tolerate Abraham in the Biblical version, and take revenge in the Greek? Why would people ever think fear useful or sacrifice necessary? Was Abraham crazy? Was his god? And what important details are left out of this traditional story? All these questions bothered the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. His attempt to answer them was his greatest work, the 1843 treatise "Fear and Trembling." In the New Testament, humanity is advised to "work out your sorrow with fear and trembling." In Margolis's play, produced by Toy Box Theatre Company at the Gene Frankel Theater, Abraham tries to put this advice into practice. At the same time, in another universe, so does the young Soren Kierkegaard. The result is not grace, but more suffering, radiating outward from Abraham and Kierkegaard into the lives of the people they claim to love.

Margolis's take on this subject is never preachy. Often, it's comedic. A scene in which Soren compels Regine to play Abraham to his Isaac, pulling his hair torturously before raising the sword, is funny in a squirm-humour way. "And so on," the ancient Sarah says, "chapter and verse" -- ages before the chapters and verses of the Jewish and Christian sacred texts were written. Margolis also has a way of stating a seemingly bland fact about the life of her beloved Kierkegaard, then turning it in a few words into a provocative insight. "The Danish philosopher loved to experiment with fear and obsession," we are told. "In that, he was like God."

Nuanced, emotionally hyperrealistic acting makes this idea-heavy script move quickly to the zenith of both Abraham's mountain and Kierkegaard's tragedy. As Kierkegaard, Toy Box co-Artistic Director David Michael Holmes screws up his face in comedic agony during a drive with Regine and rolls his eyes in annoyance at his crass, boorish patrician father. Lindsay Tanner competently portrays Regine. This character is somewhat under-written, conforming to the stereotype of the down-to-earth "sentimental" (Kierkegaard's word) woman with no interest in the realm of ideas, who just wants to be a perfect bourgeois wife with the angry genius as her equally conventional husband. Of course, it seems that the real Regine was like that. Tanner is great at seemingly silently, broodingly hurt.

As Abraham, Kierkegaard's father, and Mr. Olsen, Rich Zahn proves himself a versatile character actor. He keeps those three roles clearly differentiated, physically and vocally. A scene in which Zahn appears in a fake Medieval chronicle play of the Sacrifice of Isaac, complete with bad, stiff, acting, derives its humor from the contrast with the good, realistic acting of the whole cast throughout the rest of the play.

The set, designed by director Jason Shuler, is a dreamscape of sharp, geometric grey, black, and white hills, and Medieval pageantry: gold cloth, a pair of fluffy, puffy white wings suspended from the flies, a proscenium-within-a-proscenium and even a deliberately unconvincing wooden ram on wheels. Jennifer Paar's costumes perfectly evoke the play's two cultures -- nineteenth-century upper-class Copenhagen society and the imagined culture of the Old Testament world.

Lastly, live violin accompaniment composed and beautifully played by Leanne Darling, who is seated in a choir loft-like space above the actors, increases When It Stands Still's natural tension and poignancy. How often can you hear live incidental music Off-Broadway?

Go spend some time with Soren Kierkegaard, trapped in the moment when Abraham leads Isaac up that mountain. Trust me, it's far from a torturous experience. Except if you really think about it, as did Kierkegaard -- and Margolis and company.

Outside the Lines

The Chalk Boy, written and directed by Joshua Conkel, is a sharply funny and energetic foray, sprawling forth from the high school caste system of present-day America, whose typical roles never completely contain his interesting and evolving characters. Centered around four young women, who at first glance could be cast into general archetypes like “The Slut,” “The Freak,” “The Prom Queen,” or “The Jock,” the play follows the developments surrounding the mysterious disappearance of their classmate (whose popularity only seems to grow with his absence), Jeffery Chalk. We’re first introduced to the small Washington state community as voyeurs, watching the town being illustrated before us on chalkboards, then as participants when addressed as part of a school assembly, class, or pep rally (of sorts). This indoctrination works; it’s a familiar world to which everyone can relate, yet it still manages to be fresh, funny, and even surprising.

Here the usual teenage woes of school, dating, and parents are mostly backdrop. Life and limb may now be at risk, battle lines are drawn and redrawn, and the social rules are constantly changing. Even the non-satisfying pop soundtrack that punctuates their lives falls sorrowfully short for them—and Britney’s three-minute chirp doesn’t begin to cut it.

The girls’ underlying search for identity and meaning, whether through chugging cough syrup, spouting religious doctrines, exploring sexual identity, or performing Wiccan rituals, continues throughout, heightened by genuinely eerie bits and a certain sense of ongoing dread, if not exactly impending doom. Threats may loom, as does the character of the missing boy, yet their own self-explorations seem to be where the most is at stake. They are compelled to define themselves in relation to their missing classmate as well as to each other - not to mention trying to find out what has actually happened to him.

It’s no coincidence that the missing boy is named Chalk. Like the narrative blackboards before us, will all of the characters just blow away or be erased at the end of the day? They struggle to answer the questions: Who matters? Who doesn’t? But maybe also: What remains? Or: What lasts? Beyond the characters’ longing for clear identity, what ultimately does carry meaning in their (and our) world?

It’s refreshing in a dark comedy to see characters who seem to be self-searching rather than the predictable self-loathing, as they find themselves unable to be contained within their own drawn circles (or pentagrams as the case may be), demonstrated by their changing allegiances and willingness to experiment beyond them. This optimism satisfies, somehow making it a “feel-good” darkened Black-as-Death world. If nothing else, it’s certainly more fun.

The actors’ performances are deft and dynamic, both as the four classmates and their lively sketches of other Clear Creek inhabitants. Penny’s inner and outer conflicts are portrayed with sullen perfection by Jennifer Harder, who makes Penny’s dissatisfaction with life enjoyably palpable. Mary Catherine Donnelly’s Lauren is single-mindedly earnest, and her full-on embodiment of Penny’s mother and others is skillful and engaging. Marguerite French, who plays the quirky Trisha, also brings to life multiple colorful characters with aplomb. Kate Huisentruit’s Breanna is honest and sweet, while the character seems almost too naïve for the world she inhabits.

The transitions between roles (and scenes) were directed and executed well, sometimes via simple onstage costume changes, which allowed for seamless transformations right before our eyes. The intimate space was also well utilized, with minimalist yet evocative props, corresponding lighting shifts, and double- or triple-duty set pieces, all of which served to bring the audience directly and believably into each scene.

Again, the world Conkel presents is familiar, although by no means predictable. Along these lines, the epilogue might have been slightly more open-ended and questioning rather than (almost too) neatly tied up. Sure, the stories are fairly true to expectation, but it might have been fun to engage the imagination of the audience even further with other possible endings for the characters, whether toward harsher cynicism, or hope for eventual liberation from the usual chalk outlines. In the meantime, though, it’s definitely worth hitching a ride.

Past Imperfect

Edith Freni’s new play clocks in at 55 minutes, but it’s more substantial than some shows twice as long. Eve (Sarah Nina Hayon) is trying to sell her late mother’s jewelry when she runs into Chet (Justin Blanchard), a boyfriend she had back in high school who dumped her for a fellow student. Their meeting is the catalyst for Eve, now well into her 20s, to recall the pain she felt—and has never really gotten over—from that childhood trauma. Freni presents the details of the trauma, however, in a unique way. Eve has been attending therapy, in which she has to watch others act out her life using the information she has provided. As the meeting with Chet leads to spending time together and a sudden rekindling of their feelings for each other, the bizarre therapy sessions arise in her memory and reveal not only Eve’s story but some extraordinary dysfunction among the participants.

The sessions, which are both humorous and harrowing, are supervised by the earnest Lou (a superb Peter O’Connor), a velvet-gloved martinet who alternately challenges and mollifies his band of misfits. “What is Tenet Number One, Eve?” he asks her. Poor Eve has to check her pamphlet to the scorn of her fellows, but she answers: “Don’t be afraid to step outside your comfort zone.”

Lou is gradually and skillfully revealed as a self-important monster, and the damaged attendees as noxious, though funny, accomplices. They include Sarah (Sharon Freedman), a young woman with low self-esteem addicted to the cake that Eve bakes for the meetings; Jemma (Cynthia Silver), an abrasive impersonator of Eve; and Dave (Vincent Madero), an overeager young man and the only male in the group. “I’m the man,” says Dave brashly, as he winks at the director, Lou, who encourages him with a subtle nod. Yet it’s all surface; Madero’s bluster is a permeable mask for us to see that Dave is deeply insecure but kind-hearted. (Madero also plays the brief role of Eve’s layabout brother, and does it with a risible selfishness.)

But this is Eve’s story, and in telling it, director Erica Gould and Hayon navigate the shifting tones beautifully: the scenes of Chet and Eve tentatively exploring their touchy past, bewildered at the prospect of being thrown together again, have a stillness and depth and melancholy to them. Blanchard brings a warmth and confusion to Chet that win sympathy for his character's predicament.

Yet the tone can switch quickly to the freewheeling egoism of the therapy sessions. It’s a tribute to the fine ensemble that the shifts are seldom jarring. The only drawback is that anyone who hasn’t experienced group therapy of this kind may not latch on right away to the fact that those scenes, with their immature participants, are not actual flashbacks to high school but rather reenactments of Eve's history. (Nobody entering the theater would want to have had the experience of Lou’s therapy sessions anyway.)

Freni’s theme is that sometimes a particular event in one’s life can halt growth and prevent one from achieving happiness. “Father,” Eve asks a priest, “is it possible that one stupid, small thing can happen, that makes something else happen, that leads to something else…so that my life is what it is because of one small event, years ago, that I thought was unimportant?” It’s a notion borrowed from Back to the Future and, of course, It’s a Wonderful Life, but Freni’s treatment is original. Her answer, much more psychologically based, is that only when accepts the past can one move on. In meeting Chet, Eve has a chance to revisit the past, and ironically, to relive it with a different emotional outcome, though some of the particulars stay the same.

Freni also employs symbols skillfully, as two rings play crucial parts in the plot, particularly in the last minutes. The touching, slightly mysterious ending of the play indicates that one cannot discard one's past but must own it before the hope of moving on from it can be fulfilled. If this play were jewelry, it would be a small, exquisite gem.

Are You In or Out?

Anti-social behavior reaches new heights – or is it lows – in Larry Kunofsky’s new comedy, What to Do When You Hate All Your Friends, directed by Jacob Krueger at Theatre Row’s Lion Theatre Hate is an intriguing serio-comic offering about the perils and pluses of the people we allow into our lives. It stars new discovery Todd D’Amour as Matt, a ruffian who – you guessed it – hates all of his friends. Violently, in fact: if anyone ever makes the mistake of touching him, he responds by punching something. Matt is not the only character in Hate with some rather odd peccadilloes. He encounters Celia (Carrie Keranen), a snob who utters Tourette’s-similar outbursts when sexually aroused. Celia heads a very elite organization called the Friends, an elaborate social network that ranks its own members and constantly shuffles them up and down the spectrum. In one of several roles, the marvelous Susan Louise O’Connor plays Holly, another dominant member of the Friends (although the entire cast is uniformly wonderful, Kunofsky undercuts the effectiveness of the Friends by not having a larger ensemble to fill it out – the group appears too elite for its own good).

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Enid (Amy Staats), a non-Friend who narrates Hate. Kunofsky has constructed a meta sensibility for his play: as Enid speaks to the audience, the other characters (Josh Lefkowitz rounds out the quintet as Matt’s nerdy friend Garrett) can hear her and sometimes even interrupt. Unfortunately, this conceit never quite takes off. It is one thing to break the fourth wall and address the audience, but for asides to never truly land aside of the characters seems like a fruitless gimmick. Additionally, Niluka Hotaling’s set pieces feel a tad crammed into the Lion stage. At times it is difficult to discern exactly where a scene is supposed to take place, and whether different scenes are meant to appear within earshot of one another.

On the other hand, there is plenty that does pay off in Hate, chief among them the odd – and oddly endearing – lengths to which both Celia and Matt go to push others away. D’Amour demonstrates a terrific penchant for comedic physicality, but it is his vocal delivery, from pipes that sound deep but never hollow, that sells the role the most. A lengthy scene in the play’s second act puts these actors to the test in a scene that marries slapstick humor with sentimentality.

The other three actors work overtime. In addition to playing Garrett, Lefkowitz fills in several other small roles, as does O’Connor. But nothing compares to the latter performer, who turns Hate into a one-woman textbook class not only in creating multiple characters, but also in how to switch back and forth between them with no confusion. This is a skill that requires major concentration and discipline, but O’Connor is such a pro that she seems completely at ease in doing so.

Staats dazzles as Enid, converting a role that could have been merely a device into a three-dimensional performance. Where Matt and Celia channel their inner problems into conflict with others, Enid is a sweeter soul. She’s a character that may in fact strike the closest to home for many audience members, for Enid is one of those people on the periphery, someone who never really belongs but is always eager to help out, only to get shot down with no adequate explanation. It’s during her delivery of narration late in the show that Staats’ performance crystallizes into something greater than the sum of its parts, turning Hate from relationship comedy into a more sensible observation about human behavior.

Kunofsky provides many examples to buttress Enid’s narration, but Hate does not quite make this final leap. The show is quirky but unbalanced; the playwright never separates the difference between trivial friendships and meaningful ones. “Friend” is a label that gets tossed around but has many different meanings, all of which get conflated into one for dramatic purpose here.

And yet there remains very little to hate about Hate. Kunofsky may not get everything just right, but he certainly puts forth great effort. And that’s what really counts in a friend, right?

All American

It’s an idea that could have gone either way – Voltaire’s eternal optimist desperately tries to apply his upbeat philosophy to the misfortunes of modern -day America. Thankfully, the expertly staged, solidly entertaining FringeNYC entry Candide Americana represents the best of all possible adaptations. Kind of. As presented by the Rabbit Hole Ensemble in their characteristic minimalist mode, Candide, his philosophy teacher Dr. Pangloss, and his lady love Miss Cinnbunsa ruminate on contemporary tragedies as they experience them firsthand – Bosnia, 9/11, Katrina, The Staten Island Ferry Crash – with each event slashing a new hole in Pangloss’s cheerful worldview. Voltaire’s original novel played the naïve Candide’s dreadful journey for laughs, and Stanton Wood’s modern version doesn’t stray from the satiric tone. Almost eight years later, it’s still a delicate thing to fool around with 9/11, especially in New York, but by including it Wood drives Voltaire’s point home in a relatable way – sometimes tragedy happens randomly and it is foolish to try to see a silver lining.

Edward Elefterion’s crafty staging utilizes the performers to the maximum extent possible by relying on them to communicate place through blocking and ambient sound. Josh Sauerman is vigilantly wide-eyed as Candide, and the other six performers tackle multiple roles with plenty of charm.

If there is any fault in this artfully composed retelling, it’s that the contemporary setting doesn’t necessarily add anything to Voltaire’s original. This is not to say that our modern tragedies are in any way similar to the travails of Enlightenment Europe – only that the journey from youthful optimism to adolescent cynicism to a refined sense of cautious pragmatism will always resonate, regardless of the time and place.

Into the Fire

One of the less familiar facets of the black experience to beexamined by playwrights is the hierarchy of skin color among blacks themselves. Although Dael Orlandersmith tackled the subject brilliantly in her Yellowman in 2002, intraracial prejudice is fresh enough to be the focus of Cassandra Medley’s melodrama about human beings warped by the systems that govern them, whether racism, sexism, or the destructive aspects of capitalism.

Zena (an elegant and well-spoken Gin Hammond) is a light-skinned black woman who, traveling on a train in the car for Negroes in 1947, is “rescued” by a white conductor, who miscontrues her race and escorts her to the car for whites. Thus Zena leaves not only her life as a black person in segregated Mississippi, but also the disdain of dark-skinned blacks for “high yellow” ones, people whose mixed race gives them a high percentage of Caucasian features, including light skin. Renaming herself Wendy, she passes for white and eventually marries Brian Syms (Michael McGlone), a working-class lug of Irish descent. Together, with the help of night school, they have pulled themselves up in society—or pushed their way into it.

A decade later, as Zena and Brian attend a Detroit auto show from their home in Fort Wayne, Ind., the socially astute wife encounters Reuben, whom she last saw as a hopeless drunk—and with whom she had twin baby girls who died of typhus. Reuben is now off the sauce and in a relationship with Pearl, a devout churchgoer whose dark skin leaves no doubt about her race.

Trapped between her two lives, one represented by a membership in a country club, and the other by a conjure woman reading bones, the discomfited Zena reflects on her journey, and flashbacks alternate with present reality (not always seamlessly). If, as Thomas Wolfe once wrote, “You can’t go home again,” neither can you leave it behind. Or, as Sister Nicodemous, a seer whom Zena consults, says, “You can’t just scoop out what’s been bred in the bone, honey.”

Medley’s exploration of the effects of racism and miscegenation veers frequently, perhaps unavoidably, into the melodrama of Fannie Hurst’s classic novel Imitation of Life, also about “passing” for white; the playwright also touches on other injustices that limit human potential as well. There’s a strong dose of the anti-business fervor of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross in the way Lloyd attempts to warp Brian’s sense of right and wrong and bribe him into silence about an automobile defect. And Brian shows a class bias that conveniently dovetails with racism. He refuses to allow Zena to polish his shoes, insisting that it’s the job of hotel employees, who, naturally, are black.

Director Victor Lirio gets very good performances from a talented cast. Ron Cephas Jones plays Reuben with alternating deep contrition and struggling decency, and Hammond shows the distress just underneath Zena’s apparent confidence, and her budding sense of sexual inequality. And he gets a go-for-broke performance from Melanie Nicholls-King as the fervent and anguished Pearl, who doubts Reuben’s attraction toward her because of her dark skin and sabotages her own chances for happiness. Indeed, Pearl has the more deeply tragic story, and that throws off the balance a bit, although finally the character’s self-loathing becomes just a tad too annoying for the play’s good.

David Newer tries to restrain the overly melodramatic aspects of Lloyd but can’t really, and it’s not entirely his fault. Medley gives him a dialogue with Brian that refers to “niggers, Mexican wetbacks, Jew boys, probably some gypsies, all working together”—and it rings false, because in 1957 people in a country-club set wouldn’t use that language while talking with a relative stranger. If Newer’s mustache were longer, he could twirl it easily to fit the character’s cardboard villainy.

Lirio stages the action simply, though occasionally sluggishly, on a large elevated white disc surrounded by a semicircular white curtain that serves as backdrop to all the scenes, but looks most accurate as a fixture at the auto show, as does a huge crystal chandelier that hovers over the stage.

Medley clearly wants to write about pressing social issues, and Diverse City Theatre Company is committed to nurturing her gifts. This is a good effort, with virtues that surpass any flaws.

A Tale Fit For a Queen

Timothy Findley's play, Elizabeth Rex , playing now in an Off-Broadway transfer at Center Stage, is an achievement. Presented here in New York by the Playwright's Guild of Canada and the theater ensemble Nicu's Spoon, the innovative yet lengthy production features two standout actors and a somewhat hearty supporting cast. Elizabeth Rex is set in a barn on the evening before Queen Elizabeth I's lover, Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, and his royal compatriot, the Earl of Southampton, are due to be beheaded for treason.

In the barn are William Shakespeare and a group of actors who have just finished a performance of Much Ado About Nothing for the Queen, featuring the best and most seasoned actor of Shakespeare's female roles at the time, Ned Lowenscraft (Michael Digioia), as Beatrice.

Due to public rioting in the streets in anticipation of the upcoming appearences at the guillotine, the male actors are stuck for the evening in the barn. The sole female present is the company's half-blind seamstress (Rebecca Challis).

That is, until a lonely and anguished Queen Elizabeth I (Stephanie Barton-Farcas) appears with two of her ladies-in-waiting (Melanie Horton and Ruth Kulerman), to distract herself with a cup of ale and a probing conversation with Lowenscraft that turns into a profound jousting session on the question of gender.

The Queen, whose position as England's monarch has required her to sublimate her most feminine qualities, says to the womanly Lowenscaft, "If you will teach me how to be a woman, I will teach you how to be a man." And the actor, perhaps because he is slowly dying of the pox, dares to tell the Queen the truth of her situation as well as the truth of his own personal story.

Both Barton-Farcas and Digioia do a terrific job, subtle and animated and heartfelt, and it is the moments in the play when these two powerhouses go head-to-head that are the most interesting. Though the play could easily be clipped by 15 minutes, the scenerio itself and much of its heightened language is extremely clever.

The costumes, particularly those of Queen Elizabeth, as chosen by Rien Schlect, are gorgeous. And the set is very simple and effective, save a jarring teak tray-table that seems oddly modern and misplaced.

The show's only setback is that certain members of the supporting cast tend to overact, and one, in particular, distinctly underplays, which lends a slightly disjointed feel to ensemble moments.

Scott Nogi does a fine job as Shakespeare, as does the charming Bill Galarno playing elderly actor Percy Gower. Horton and Kulerman fare the best among the rest of the supporting cast. In his turn as the Bear, Sammy Mena also deserves recognition.

Joe Litigator

The music that blasts through the theater before the beginning of Johnny Law: Courtroom Crusader is funky, soulful, and . . . distinctly unlawyerly. In this spirited solo show, actor Tim Ryan Meinelschmidt grabs this musical energy and runs with it, riffing amiably through an entertaining and fascinating look at the life of one lawyer—yes, his name is Johnny Law—as he attempts to put some personality on a persnickety profession. But this loquacious lawyer doesn’t stop at unearthing the cool from the courtroom. Meinelschmidt and his cowriter, attorney Thomas L. Fox, use the fictional Law to explore the ethical dilemmas and crises that confront any lawyer, from defending belligerent (and clearly guilty) prisoners to darting through pesky objections and insufferable judges to get a point across to a jury. (He even offers practical-sounding advice on how to respond if you’re ever pulled over on the road for a field sobriety test—who knows if it really works, but how often do you come away from theater with free legal advice?)

Briskly directed by Christopher Fessenden, Johnny Law snaps to life through the tireless tenacity of Meinelschmidt, who brings a refreshingly direct (eye contact!) and gregarious (funny jokes!) approach to the material. Stuck in a hotel room the night before a big trial—defending a student accused of drug possession—Law fields calls from the district attorney and the boy’s mother while reminiscing about his colorful career, which includes stints in the U.S. Attorney’s office, public defender’s office, and private practice.

Although a few of these anecdotes ramble on a bit (the shedding of 10 minutes or so would help), they provide the best bits of material. Meinelschmidt is an impressive vocal chameleon and plies his booming baritone into various cadences and octaves—he morphs seamlessly into the thunderous, James Earl Jones-like tones of a regal judge, doing a quick reverse to send up an adenoidal, embittered law professor.

Lawyers are (in)famously dramatic, and while Johnny Law harnesses the best of this theatricality, it stops short at becoming flip. By sprinkling in a liberal dose of sobering stories (the frightening effect of drugs and alcohol on crime) and devastating descriptions (the realities of life behind bars), it ultimately makes a convincing case for the need for committed, courageous lawyers. And as the music portends, those litigators might just have some soul after all.

Johnny Law: Courtroom Crusader is part of the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival.

The Write Stuff

On the surface Tom has the kind of problems many writers might wish they had. He has a nice-sized fan base, critical acclaim and a wife so supportive of his talent that she volunteers to pay all the bills so he can spend his days typing. Tom (Kyle Knauf) seems to have the perfect life, but his muse, Norman (Jake Suffian) thinks otherwise. Norman haunts Tom incessantly, voicing all the worries, concerns and crippling doubts that Tom tries to suppress. Timothy Nolan’s play, Not Dark Yet, has more complexities than its blurb and comical portrayal of a cross-dressing muse would have you believe. Like its main character, Tom, the real story lies beneath the surface.

Tom’s doting wife Anne (Elizabeth Bell) is also his pushy publicist and even something of a fiction writer groupie. She wants her husband to be the Next Big Thing – the guy on everyone’s front page who goes on talk shows impressing the world with his literary soul. The central question in the story is whether Tom wants that as well. He is plagued by Norman, who represents his inner torments and deepest fears - the biggest one being that his wife may only love him for his talent.

Knauf plays Tom with a deep, thoughtful center, as someone who likes writing about the truth, but not facing it. Bell is also very convincing as a woman falling out of love with her husband without officially saying so. Instead, Tom tries to pretend they’re both on the same page while Anne reacts coldly to his overtures, trying to shame him back to the keyboard.

Nolan has crafted a story without a clear hero and no obvious answers. He also offers an interesting perspective on writing, particularly in regards to people like Tom who enjoy doing it but not for a career.

The play ends on an open-ended note, though it does not bode well for Tom that Anne recoils at his declaration, “I love you more than words can say.” Without the words you wonder how long Tom will be able to retain that love.

Not Dark Yet is part of the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival.

Discovering Jonah

Because of the limitations of the Fringe Festival (a mere 30-minute window between shows and lack of storage space for sets), the most successful productions tend to be ones that thrive from a sense of minimalism. That the viewers of The Disappearance of Jonah may just forget about its limited production values is, in itself, an indication of the production's success. Blending driven young talent with Darragh Martin's lyrical script, the production is festival theater at its most enjoyable. The setting of The Disappearance of Jonah transforms from Jonah's family's kitchen to his fiancé Natalie's (Lydia Brunner) apartment and to a Lower Manhattan coffee shop, but each location change is accomplished by a simple shuffling of chairs and tables. Allowing the audience to imagine walls, doors and windows serves the play's intentions, as an invisible Jonah (Jeff Brown) often enters and exits scenes at his own pace, addressing other characters within his reality.

Jonah has already disappeared as the story begins, but the audience is introduced to him almost immediately. As Jonah discusses his choice of college with his mother in a flashback (he has chosen NYU in order to be with Natalie), his character becomes at once familiar and fascinating: a high school star adored by his family and teachers, his confidence is fragile in the face of an impending transition into adult life. Even though Jonah speaks like a writer--he suggests to Natalie that the two travel by hot air balloon and scuba dive in Central Park's lake--his mother (Lori Kee) is pushing him towards a doctor's career. His imaginative rambling reveals an intelligence nurtured by his surroundings, but also an uneasiness, a brewing rebellion against structured expectations. Jonah appears to be a boy whose thoughts keep him awake at night.

The story presents several intersecting narratives, the weightiest of which shows Jonah's brother Finn (Jake Green) searching for Jonah. Green has a tough role to carry, as he has to both establish a self-conscious contrast to his charismatic brother and take charge of the forward motion of the narrative. He handles the challenge with grace, however, showing an honest vulnerability that ultimately helps him emerge as the stronger of the two brothers. Asher Grodman is also excellent as the distracted, ego-driven writer, whose storyline offers a genuinely fascinating turn to the story.

This Fringe entry is the brainchild of Aporia Repertory Company, a group consisting mostly of past and present Columbia University students. From the performances he has encouraged out of his actors, it's tough to believe that co-director Dan Blank is still collegiate--and majoring in political science.

The Disappearance of Jonah is part of the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival.

L.A. Story

I can happily state that 50% of Perez Hilton Saves the Universe (or at least the greater Los Angeles area): The Musical is quite funny. Unfortunately, I can’t speak for the other half of the show because it was inaudible. Too often, the instruments drown out the singers, detracting from the jokes and, at some points, the plot. From what I heard, the musical was an amusing blend of sass, melodrama, and ridiculousness. Don’t expect depth or realistic scenarios here. The show is like Hilton’s trademark pink hair: it’s tacky fluff, but it’s fun. This is quite appropriate considering the focus on celebrity culture. For those who aren’t familiar with the real Hilton: he’s a blogger who covers the juiciest tidbits of Hollywood.

As Hilton, Randy Blair is a delightfully catty diva, wringing humor out of every biting quip. While drawing hearts on picures of Zac Efron’s abs and bashing Amy Winehouse is a full-time job, the show adds a new target for Hilton to tackle: terrorism. Since the world avidly reads “what Perez sez,” two terrorists have decided to hijack his site in order to lure a large crowd to one place and bomb them. A bit far out? Did I mention it’s the day of Britney Spears’s funeral, the terrorists intend to use an explosive made of plutonium and kitty litter, and Hilton has fallen for one of them?

Fortunately, the actors have a knack for treating ridiculous plotlines with sincerity. One of the best moments is when Hilton receives anti-terrorism training and realizes he must defeat his new crush. In the song that follows, he repeatedly cries out “you want me to shoot my lover all over his face.”

You might be asking: what’s a play about celebrities without any? Well, the musical includes “visits” from Winehouse, Efron, and Paris Hilton. However, in cramming as many celeb cameos as possible, some of these scenes verge on being pointless and could’ve been cut (the show is 2 hours, after all). When the cast nails it, though, it’s fabulous. Laura Jordan’s Kathy Griffin and Andrew Keenan-Bolger’s Tom Cruise are alone worth the price of admission.

In the finale, the cast sings “whenever you’re down…rag on someone else, you’ll feel really great.” This seems quite true for the performers, who appear to be having a ball.

Perez Hilton Saves the Universe is part of the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival.

Really Hot for Teacher

I don’t think Peter Howard actually exists, but I have sat through enough awkward lectures to know that the bumbling science professor portrayed by Mitch Montgomery is certainly a lived-in specimen. Howard is the protagonist and, more importantly, hero, of FringeNYC entry Triumph of the Underdog, co-created and –written by Montgomery with Morgan Allen and directed by Barbara Williams. The audience assembled for Underdog at Pace University’s Schaeberle Studio Theatre also doubles as the guest audience for a presentation by Howard on science fiction. Howard is apparently a has-been whose two novels and numerous warnings about cosmic dangers have gone unheeded. And Montgomery’s performance is rife with the uneasy tics of a man uncomfortable with others and himself. Howard, recently let go from his job as an NYU professor, stutters, laughs at his own unfunny jokes, condescends to his audience and gets increasingly miffed at his projectionist over some rather minor grievances.

Then, all of a sudden, his prophecy about the sun comes true and it falls on Howard to save the day, redeem himself and save the world. Montgomery taps into a deep reservoir of energy to keep Howard a man in manic motion, running back and forth across the stage, chugging Red Bulls and communicating with his ex-colleague via radio and cell phone. It is no small feat to command the stage for an hour and a half by one’s self, but the star also manages to keep his audience drawn in throughout as well.

Knowledge of science and science fiction is not necessary to enjoy Underdog, but it sure helps. Montgomery drops a lot of references to the sci-fi canon, but doesn’t always exercise restraint – why name-check Battlestar Galactica or Star Trek once when he can do it multiple times? The result is that the material can, at times, feel derivative. But leave it to Montgomery also to rein his audience back in with a performance so creative, so comical, and so consistent that it can truly be called out of this world.

Triumph of the Underdog is part of the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival.

Britney's Name in Lights

What if Britney Spears, the most poignant example of disintegrated teenstardom in recent history, was turned into the Ariel or Elphaba of her own musical? And in pairing the fallen Britney with the strategically building chord structures and self-examining lyrics that characterize the modern musical, what would we discover about the art form itself?

Molly Bell's and Daya Curley's California import, a meta-musical entitled Becoming Britney, aims to explore both of these questions. The time frame is just short of 90 minutes, and the pace is frantic. Becoming Britney both plots out the star's much-documented life and offers satirical observations about the nature of musical theater itself. Many of the lyrical choices are clever, and the six-member cast demonstrates polished talent, but the overtly ambitious paradigm of 'Becoming Britney' ultimately weakens the end product.

The show opens shortly after the starlet's head-shaving incident that has placed her in the custody of a celebrity rehab center. She is soon asked to recount her story in song, as the clinic's other inhabitants have already done with gleefully ringing harmonies, and the audience is made aware that these characters are, very consciously, inside a musical.

Mocking Britney Spears through song may not initially seem like a challenge--after all, a writer isn't likely to run out of material--but the pervasive sense of heartbreak associated with each of her antics also provides a moral conundrum. More than just laugh at Britney's bizarre childrearing methods and schizophrenic escapades around Los Angeles, we want, almost desperately, to understand what drives her. It's this expectation that also inevitably raises the stakes for Becoming Britney.

As the title character, Molly Bell is convincing. While her Britney offers too many wide-eyed stares and not enough of the starlet's now-famous fits of rage, Bell has undoubtedly studied her subject carefully. She slurps Red Bulls, picks at her teeth, chews gum and, during the show's lip-synched numbers, nails Britney's characteristic finger-wagging and seductive smirk. In these pre-recorded pop tracks, her moans and nasally delivered choruses sound exactly like the real Britney. 'Push it Out,' a number that opens with K-Fed (Keith Pinto) dancing to a hospital heart monitor and includes plenty of panting and grinding by twice-pregnant Britney, is bluntly hilarious--and surprisingly catchy. When Bell sings live, her self-assured and versatile voice is a joy to listen to.

Although many of the musical numbers offer smart comedy ("I need an "I Want"- Song to describe internal strife," sings Bell in a showstopper that seems to mock every self-discovery song from The Sound of Music to Wicked), they seem to be in frequent discord with the show's spoken scenes. This Britney is simplistic and chronically void of self-awareness, but when she breaks into song, her lyrics and vocabulary suddenly turn snarky. This conflict may very well have been intentional, but still leaves us in the dark on who really is behind the wig.

Becoming Britney is part of the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival.

Lofty Dreams

One of the American poet Randall Jarrell’s (1914-1965) fears was that he would only be remembered for his famous five-line poem, “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner.” The world has proved him prophetic. Anna Moench has even written an entire play, with five scenes, corresponding to those haunting lines: “From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.”

A ball turret gunner was a crewmember of a B-17 or B-24 bomber who was literally encased, upside down, for up to 12 hours at a time, in a plexiglas shell, and charged with defending the bomber from fighters attacking below.

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner centers around a character named...Randall! (Mike James) who actually volunteers to serve as a ball turret gunner. Major characters include his mother (Raquel Cion), who wants young Randall to comprehend the futility and hypocrisy of war, and decline to fight; his sister, Susan, who, penniless, rides in boxcars to escape life at home; and Gene, a fellow crew member from Kansas with a good heart and weak stomach. Azhar Khan, who doubles as Gene and Randall’s deadbeat Dad, is the standout actor among this group, with impressive range and conviction.

The 50-minute play may have too-lofty ambitions. The promotional materials for The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner boast that the play transcends “realism and history.” And, according to Ms. Moench’s statement, the play will “further problematize the ongoing conflicts that continue to define our world” and “deconstruct a war narrative.” While the play (once again, in its own promotional material) attempts to draw a parallel with the current war in Iraq, that correspondence is not at all apparent.

It is arguable whether those goals have been, or can be, met, but suffice it to say that The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner is a solid, often dream-like, experimental performance piece.

The play explores the reasons why a person--but, in particular, why Randall -- decides to go to war. The imaginative staging includes an extremely talented seven piece “orchestral/rock hybrid ensemble” and interesting choreography that, among other things, attempts to simulate—not always successfully—battle.

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner is an entertaining work that needn’t pretend to be more than it is: a story about a young man’s untimely death and the personal forces and dreams that brought it to bear.

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner is part of the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC).

Pills and Thrills

Kaboom is a far-fetched rollercoaster of crazy, unbridled Fringe Festival fun. But be warned; it tries its hardest to be offensive and would likely be disappointed if you weren’t. Written by Michael Small, who based much of his premise on the fifteen years he spent working for PEOPLE magazine, Kaboom is both a raunchy comedy and a pop culture commentary with the obligatory jabs at Hollywood’s most jabbable celebrities.

But at the heart of this madcap production is a more straightforward story about a barely competent scam artist named Rodney (Ray Wills) and his thoroughly incompetent stooge, Bobo (Jim Barry). Rodney’s latest ploy is to scam people into buying an extremely potent sex pill that may or may not deliver the advertised effects. His plans are foiled when Bobo accidentally sets fire to their secret warehouse destroying all but six of the pills. In order to recoup his losses before a loan repayment is due, Rodney must recruit an array of gullible individuals to help him build a pyramid scam that will generate $300,000 in one day.

These individuals include a bicycle delivery girl desperately seeking instant Idol like fame (Laura Daniel), a world famous Lithuanian kazoo player (John Di Domenico) a closeted gay television host (Tyler Hollinger), and a new-age yoga teacher (Kristen Cerelli) who spends her days meditating on finding a more endowed husband.

In Act One, a series of mishaps, misunderstandings and mistaken identities set the stage for an explosive confrontation in Act Two. Four characters that Rodney has been scamming in four different ways are all about to confront him at exactly the same time. Chaos and farce ensues. Rodney attempts to sooth one individual’s hysteria while hiding two others under the bed and beneath a pile of laundry.

Kaboom is supplied with a wonderfully animated cast, all of whom seem practiced and comfortable in the art of comedy. They have perfect timing for delivering a punchline and waiting patiently for the hilarity to ripple through the audience.

But most importantly, the actors seem to be having a good time with their roles. The production has an infectious energy, and feels very much at home in the New York Fringe Festival.

Kaboom is part of the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival.

Scrambled Hamlet

Bound in a Nutshell, named after the famous line in Shakespeare’s Hamlet is one of the clear early hits of this year’s Fringe Festival. A one-act adaptation of Hamlet, every word is Shakespeare’s own, but those words are juggled in distinctive ways to fuel this new tale, an adaptation by Gregory Wolfe and Moonwork, Inc. Some familiar characters—Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Laertes—are missing here, but others are given their words. It’s as if Hamlet were a textual Rubik’s Cube that can be re-organized in new fascinating, ways; Wolfe and his cohorts do so ingeniously. For instance, Hamlet’s famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy comes at the end of the play rather than the middle; yet, in this exciting modification, it does not seem at all out of place.

Mr. Wolfe and co-adaptor Gregory Sherman (who also plays the part of Horatio) re-imagine the tragedy of Hamlet in a modern-day dungeon, replete with orange jumpsuits, interrogation rooms, electroshock torture, security cameras and closed circuit television. Hamlet, abused by Claudius’ guards, is being compelled to confess for the murder of Polonius and defend himself against charges of madness.

All of the leading characters have a wealth of Shakespearean credits under their belts and infuse the bard’s words with modern day inflections and nuances which make them easy to understand. Someone wholly unfamiliar with the play could still follow the action and comprehend most of what is happening onstage. Chris Haas, as Hamlet, seemed to have trouble projecting in the first production, but grew quickly comfortable in his role. His athleticism and agility made his confrontations with his captors all the more realistic.

Andrew Sherman’s musical composition and James Wolfe's technical displays are, quite fittingly, ominous and loud. Brant Thomas Murray’s lighting is fierce at times, blinding the characters with appropriately intimidating spotlights.

Mr. Wolfe and his Moonwork production company certainly know their Shakespeare. To have mastered it well enough to selectively craft a separate yet related tale such that it stands on its own demonstrates an impressive command and delight in the text.

This is not the Hamlet you will recall from high school and college; yet, you will remember much of the dialogue, because it’s all here, re-arranged in a new but nonetheless useful and entertaining way.

Bound in a Nutshell is part of the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC).

Good Grief

Waiting: A Play in Phases is the sort of production audiences have come to expect from the New York International Fringe Festival: a short show by a group of thoughtful young artists who want to say something important and have fun while they’re at it. In Waiting, the important subject is grief, and Gia Marotta’s script tackles the weighty topic with welcome whimsy. The project involves three thematically linked segments, the first of which, Vigil, features Erin Maya Darke as Clara, a quirky girl in a funeral home, reading aloud amusing facts about death. Darke’s Clara feels familiar, the kind of teenage girl who draws vampires in the margins of her papers and still get’s A’s on them; her pretense of pained dejection does little to hide her earnestness. That balance is a pleasure to watch, although under the direction of Chloe Bass, the monologue tends toward inappropriate preciousness. Marotta’s script is strong enough for audiences to pick up on the tenderness beneath Clara’s quirky, dispassionate recitation of morbid anecdotes; slowing the pace of her smart thoughts turns them into sugary sanctimony.

Similar preciousness gets in the way of The Vist, the play’s final, most complex phase. It tells the story of Elizabeth, a young woman in deep mourning played by a grounded Jennifer Lauren Brown, as she encounters An Unflappable Bureaucratic Woman, played by an energetically stylized if one-note Jamie Klassel, and the Easter Bunny (Joe Kolbow who, dressed in a full bunny suit and converse sneakers, lends the scene its whimsical warmth). The Bunny and the Bureaucrat hope to sell the bereaved woman her grief in an egg (“there is no shame in commodifying the unfathomable”), but the production’s precious tendencies (tearful inward monologues and dramatically pointed references to mourning) interfere with the script’s whimsy while failing to clearly render its interesting conceit.

The well-placed middle phase, Memorial, is the simplest and strongest of the production: Alexandria LaPorte stands in a spotlight, posed in a black and white polka dot dress, while her prerecorded voice recites a long, bubbly MySpace profile. Partway through the recitation, the light dims and LaPorte exits; her disembodied voice continues its exuberant list of interests. The sharp dramatic realization of seeing a dead friend’s social networking page best embodies the production’s aim of understanding grief in the digital age. It will resonate with audiences who have had that eerie, strangely friendly experience.

Waiting is part of the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival.

Life with Pop

With plotlines culled from the animated Popeye cartoon, Sailor Man depicts the curious love triangle between the Sailor Man (Ryan Iverson), the Brute (Scott Peterman), and Olive (Lauren Blumfeld). Yet as conceived by Iverson and Peterman, the scrappy sailor signifies a darker hold on the American psyche than Saturday morning escapism. A live action performance drained of Popeye’s musical score and whimsical sensibility, Sailor Man grapples with the violence at the heart of the sailor’s story. Although publicity materials stress that the project executes would-be cartoon violence through realism and liken the violence and womanizing that form the crux of the story to a Sam Shepard play, under the smooth direction of Peter James Cook, Sailor Man maintains much of the cartoonish style of its source material. Speaking in thirties-esque staccato and dressed in costume designer Arija Weddle’s fat suits and sailor hats, the actors are effectively reminiscent of their cartoon prototypes.

The play differs from the cartoon in its gleefully brutal depiction of the violence at the story’s core. Jacob Grigolia-Rosenbaum’s extensive fight choreography draws squeals of horror from the audience; fake blood abounds. Fans of Popeye, and anyone who delights in twisted portrayals of childhood icons, will be tickled.

When we first meet the characters, the Sailor Man and the Brute vie for Olive’s hand in marriage – by beating each other senseless. “To the victor go the spoils,” grunts the Brute to Olive, who acquiesces with a bat of her eyelashes. The second segment of the play has the men compete in a formal boxing competition – though their strategies for success defy the rules of organized athletic events.

If the play’s first segment comments on the degradation of courtship rituals and the second on the base aggression behind competitive sports, the third and final segment renders the creators’ intentions most clear: a game to see which man can execute the most amusing “trick” for Olive quickly dissolves into everyone thrashing everyone else. The joke, always, comes when a seemingly cute amusement (a magic trick with a vase of flowers; a coin behind Olive’s ear) ends up a thinly veiled ruse for an expression of violence. The implications are apt.

Sailor Man is part of the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival.

Another Antigone

“What you’re about to see is an adaptation of an adaptation of a translation,” says a character at the beginning of Rising Phoenix Rep’s terrific new Fringe play Too Much Memory, although arguably he could go still further and call it an adaptation of a translation of an adaptation of a translation: the script, by Keith Reddin and Meg Gibson, who also directs, is based on French playwright Jean Anouih’s Antigone, itself an adaptation of the Sophocles classic. Reddin and Gibson have condensed the epic drama into a taught hour and ten minutes, incorporating texts from an array of literary and political sources (Richard Nixon, Tom Hayden, Peter Brook, Anne Carson, Pablo Neruda, Susan Sontag, and Hannah Arendt). Yet the production is not a collage; they’ve sewn the diverse source material into a tightly packed, seamlessly cohesive plot.

Though the play is set in the present, the one-man chorus (professorial Martin Moran) notes that differences exist between “the present” and “contemporary.” The production’s tendency to dig at such compellingly perplexing ideas without dwelling on them for more than half a second is among its strongest assets, and perhaps relates to its perpetual present tense (to say nothing if its contemporary sensibility).

The focused cast lends vulnerability and compassion to each of the tragedy’s furious players, but the real show-down occurs in the scenes that pit Antigone (Laura Heisler) and against Creon (Peter Jay Fernandez). She’s a young, passionate rebel, he’s a distinguished, passionate statesman; both have the courage of their convictions in extraordinary doses. Their scenes are at once intelligent and breathless.

Given that the greatest differences between the two opposed characters are their worldviews and generations, it's interesting that Rising Pheonix chose to present Too Much Memory during a summer in which mainstream media is marveling at youth activism as though it's just discovered it. How far inside or outside a political system must young people go in order to have their passions acknowledged? Antigone’s temperate sister Ismene (Aria Alpert) becomes, in this production, a sort of storyteller in its sole, pointed use of mixed media.

At the outset of the production, the Chorus comments that, budgetary restraints not withstanding, contemporary directors have a host of media available to them in their depictions of classics. “We have that freedom, but” he says, “I think we also have an obligation. To speak up.” Too Much Memory uses a multitude of sources speak up in a voice all its own: adaptation at its richest.

Too Much Memory is part of the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival.

A Lot of Nerve

Susan Bernfield is scared of everything. She fears both the uncertainty of life and the unpredictability of the people in it. In her one-woman show, Tiny Feats of Cowardice, she explains the depth of these fears through a musical collage of thematically arranged monologues. A three-person band accompanies Bernfield onstage playing a soundtrack composed by Rachel Peters. Peters' music underscores the moments in Bernfield’s life that are barely noteworthy to us, but deeply paralyzing to her.

In her opening, Bernfield remarks that the themes have been organized in a very specific, purposeful manner. Unfortunately, the topic of the next piece tends to get lost when the transition becomes too frenzied. This is the type of play where the line between reality and fiction is easily blurred, and though Bernfield is playing a timid character, the actress herself appears to be legitimately nervous. She hurries through many of her sentences and at times can not be heard above the band.

But a one-person show could scare even the bravest of souls, and it is evident that Bernfield is proud of herself just for daring to command that spotlight

She plays a twelve-, twenty-, and thirty-year-old version of herself, switching from one personality to the next in a matter of minutes. Her demeanor does not change dramatically as she moves from child to adulthood, but the actress emotes such a youthful energy that it feels right for her character.

This piece has a fast, friendly energy and Bernfield nicely establishes an intimate, informal rapport with her audience. She does apologize beforehand for a 9-11 monologue, and is right to be uncertain. The monologue feels out of place and derails the spunky, upbeat mood that is the heart of her work.

Though Bernfield admits she is excessive in her fears, she touches on little things that have at one time or another plagued us all, from riding a horse (how does it know where it’s going?), to the finality of sealing an envelope. But Bernfield says it best in one of her final monologues: out of all her many fears, the most daunting one of all is exposing her soul on a stage.

Tiny Feats of Cowardice is part of the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival.