Cruel to Be Kind

In plays such as Fat Pig and Reasons to be Pretty and similarly dyspeptic films like In the Company of Men, playwright Neil LaBute has spared no mercy in displaying just how cruel man can be, invading the dark corners of the mind people keep hidden from strangers and shining a bright light upon them. bash, one of LaBute’s earlier works of note (it debuted Off-Broadway a decade ago featuring a searing cast that included Ron Eldard and Calista Flockhart), is perhaps one of his most searing. Director Robert Knopf certainly holds nothing back in Chris Chaberski's and Eastcheap Rep’s current production, running at Tom Noonan’s Paradise Factory.

The show is essentially a triptych of three extended monologues. Though the order has changed in various productions, the first of the three scenes I saw was “Medea Redux.” It features a lone woman, matter-of-factly addressing the audience about a sexual relationship she had with her teacher when she was thirteen years old. The unnamed woman ultimately becomes pregnant from this relationship, but keeps the child and defends this teacher, even though the two eventually become estranged.

Chelsea Lagos plays the woman in a performance that’s part endurance test and part act of deception: her character tells us a lot, and does so in very carefully measured amounts, but what is most important is what she doesn’t tell us. LaBute’s most important character attributes lie in what remains unsaid. It isn’t that his narrators in bash are unreliable, but that what we see is not totally what we get. The playwright wants us to dig in between the lines and come up with our own conclusions, forcing us to turn a mirror on our own dark impulses.

Take, for example, the next monologue, “Iphigenia in Orem,” starring Luke Rosen as Young Man. Rosen, in a wonderfully polished performance, recounts to an unseen party (and really to us) how a practical joke between himself and a work colleague escalated severely. As with Lagos’ Young Woman, circumstances eventually escalate to the point where the Young Man makes a shocking decision. This is shocking not just because of the weight of the decision, but also jarring because his assured delivery doesn’t fit that weight appropriately.

More than most of LaBute’s plays, including his later Wrecks, bash reflects the playwright’s dexterous ear for language and imagery. He knows how to make these long scenes more palatable for his less auditory audience members. Throughout the play, he subverts the major events of each monologue. His characters gloss over heavy subjects effortlessly – sometimes Lagos and Rosen display sweetness or fondness when describing difficult certain choices they have made – and speak in a lilting, lyrical way.

Knopf also demonstrates real style for each monologue. Each scene feels perfectly paced, and make the seemingly impossible possible: he finds a way into each character that not only hooks us in, but makes us care regardless of the information we get from them. We feel the pain, shame, foolishness and regret that these characters have experienced at some point in the stories they share.

And it really does feel like sharing. Throughout the performance, we feel as though we are right there witnessing the acts discussed in the play, rather than simply hearing accounts of past incidents. Nowhere is this more paramount than the second act monologue, “A Gaggle of Saints,” in which Lagos and Rosen play Sue and John, a New England couple who recount a disturbing trip to New York in ways that contradict each other while filling in missing blanks.

Lagos and Rosen are perfectly cast in each of their two roles. They both feel completely honest and lend an enormous amount of credibility to their respective pieces of the show. Additionally, Jessica Fialko’s design deserves mention, particularly the lighting, which becomes a character of its own during the performance.

Perhaps the most alarming about bash may be the same thing that makes it the most successful. Knopf’s production shows that, while cruelty can take many different forms and occur in a variety of different situations, it is something that lives in all of us.

Unrealized Potential

Comedy. Farce. Drama. Romance. Although audience members having a night on the town may not consciously classify the genre of a play they're watching, they are nevertheless gathering clues in order to understand its world. John Guare's The House of Blue Leaves, for example, is a black comedy, mining uncomfortable topics for their humor without undermining their gravity. Unfortunately, The Gallery Players' current revival of Guare's 1966 play is so muddled that it has lost both its incisiveness and its sense of humor. The hero of The House of Blue Leaves is one Artie Shaughnessy, a middle-aged zoo-keeper from Queens who dreams of fame as a Hollywood songwriter but sees his chance for a breakthrough diminishing day by day. He's supported in his ambition through his lover, Bunny, who uses her only talent – gourmet cooking – to attach herself to the man she sees as her ticket to Hollywood. Artie's path to fame and fortune is hampered, however, by the need to care for his mentally ill wife, Bananas, whom he plans to commit to the sanitarium of the play's title.

Although an Act Two influx of zany characters – including a bomb-building alter-boy, a deaf starlet, and a trio of nuns – pushes the play towards farce, there is an edge of violence and despair which belies the work's lighter aspects. In the end, Artie recognizes the hopelessness of his situation, and with an agonized cry -- “I'm too old to be a young talent!” -- strikes out at the person he imagines is holding him back. He never understands what the audience grasps: the true obstacle to Artie gaining fame and fortune is his own lack of talent, evidenced by the old-fashioned, lackluster tunes he peddles. This is the bitter pill which firmly establishes The House of Blue Leaves as a true black comedy.

Director Dev Bondarin has failed to find the right tone for her production, mining neither the play's farcical elements nor its darker moments for their humor. Not even Artie's account of his first encounter with Bunny in a steam room, when her prattle about cooking aroused him so much that he immediately ripped off his towel and took her by force, leading to her deadpan observation that “there's a man in here...”, managed to raise a titter.

The lead actors -- Burke Adams (Artie), Stacey Scotte (Bunny), and Victoria Budonis (Bananas) – are all able performers, with Budonis in particular showing a good stage presence and a fine voice, but all three seem disconnected from one another and from the text. The actors in the smaller roles fare better. Alex Herrald's manic Ronnie Shaughnessy, Artie's AWOL son who tries to achieve notoriety by blowing up the Pope, injects some much needed energy into the end of Act One and the beginning of Act Two. Emilie Soffe is charming as a diminutive novice nun who reconsiders her holy calling, while Tom Cleary as Hollywood director Billy Einhorn offers Artie a tantalizing taste of life beyond Sunnyside, Queens.

Although the storytelling aspects of The House of Blue Leaves are wanting, Bondarin's production is handsomely designed. Ann Bartek's cozy box set, with its yellow and red floral wallpaper and cramped Pullman kitchen, suitably evokes New York in the 1960s, while the heavy iron bars on the window hint at the apartment's darker function as Bananas and Artie Shaughnessy's current prison. The only false notes in Bartek's design are the photographs which pepper the walls: the black and white 8 x 10s are so uniform that they appear to have been recently printed on photo paper.

Brad L. Scoggin's costumes suitably express each character's unique situation, from Bananas' grubby robe and nightgown, to Ronnie's outgrown alter-boy outfit, to Billy Einhorn's sophisticated turtleneck-and-tweed ensemble. The sound design by Chris Rummel is solid, with convincing street noise and an excellent facsimile of an explosion. Lighting designer Ryan Bauer creates attractive and occasionally poignant effects, particularly in the final moments of the play, when he gives Artie the spotlight he begged for in the prologue, and it turns out to be a pattern of blue leaves, as if Artie is trapped in the very sanitarium he had intended for his wife. That moment is truly a thing of beauty.

Nevertheless, strong design is not enough to overcome the shortcomings of this House of Blue Leaves. Without a clear sense of its genre and strong connections between the performers, the production flounders, leaving its message about the dangerous pull of celebrity and the soul-killing ache of mediocrity unstated and its humor ultimately unrealized.

Revenge of the Jews

This seems to be the year for Jewish partisans in World War II. First there was Defiance, Edward Zwick’s fascinating film about Jewish refugees holding on to their lives and humanity in the forests of Byelorussia (now Belarus)and trying to avoid the Nazis. Then there was Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, a revenge fantasy in which Jewish partisans club Nazis to death and incinerate Hitler and his high command. Now, inspired by the actual, mysterious poisoning of some 1,900 German prisoners in 1946, Daniel Goldfarb offers his own, darker revenge fantasy. Unfortunately, his misbegotten potboiler leaves a sour taste in one’s mouth. Goldfarb imagines the perpetrators of the mass poisoning to be Polish partisans who lived in the forest during World War II and who now wish to send a message: “The world can’t continue to murder Jews without consequences.” The mastermind of the plot is the tall, lanky Dov Kaplinsky (Adam Driver), a driven vengeance-seeker. His principal accomplices are two women: Anika Stoller (Margareta Levieva) and Dinchka Fried (Cristin Milioti).

Dov’s initial plan is to poison the water in Germany and kill millions of civilians en masse. “The People are the ones who ratted us out of hiding, who named names, who pushed us on the trains, ran the camps, and shoveled our fresh emaciated bald corpses into the crematoriums,” he rants to Dinchka on a train en route to Germany. “It wasn’t Hitler, I’ll tell you that.” (If that sounds dangerously like absolution for the Führer, it’s typical of the muddled notions of the play, which revels in plots and counterplots.)

When Dov is detained by authorities, Anika must put Plan B into action. She has enlisted a yearning, Aryan-looking ex-lover, Jascha (a fine Adam Rothenberg), to agree to get a job in a bakery near the prison camp in Nuremberg and to poison the bread baked for the prisoners. Jascha still carries a torch for Anika, but she wraps him around her little finger—although how she does it with lines like “It’s fascinating that you’re as stupid as you are” may leave one puzzled.

The moral issues of whether the entire German nation is to blame for the Holocaust or whether prisoners of war should be summarily executed are serious ones, but Goldfarb sprinkles them confusingly throughout his melodrama, which features a love triangle, lesbianism and sexual betrayal. “We need to be Maccabees now,” says Dov, referring to the warriors of Biblical times who fought back against oppressors—and echoing a line in Defiance. (Although New Testament beliefs are irrelevant to his Jewish characters, who claim to be atheists anyway, Goldfarb tosses off a gratuitous insult to Christians in the first five minutes.) But the characters so earnestly accept the notion of blood for blood that by the time Dinchka realizes that Dov and Anika’s ideas are warped, one has little sympathy even for her, and the point barely registers.

Leigh Silverman’s production provides a couple moments of suspense. One is a flashback to the war and the forest, nicely lighted by Peter Kaczorowski with a chilly dark blue, and provided with nerve-wracking sounds of tires on gravel and train whistles by Jill BC DuBoff; the other, when Jascha is in the bakery, looking for an opportunity to poison the bread.

In the crucial role of Anika, Levieva exhibits a transparent coyness and a petulance that undermine the ruthless cunning of her character and offset any sense of sexual electricity—she has three people on a string. The character comes off not as intriguing but blatantly repellent, as does Dov.

Neither the playwright nor Silverman has noticed some jarringly modern idioms in the writing: “I’ve moved on,” “I can’t get you out of my system,” “You can’t beat yourself up about that,” and the commonly heard four-letter words that educated people of the era would have considered unthinkable to utter. Goldfarb may have caught a 2009 zeitgeist of Jewish revenge fantasy, but what he’s come up with is a dispiriting hash.

Gays, Grandma, Giant Chicken

MilkMilkLemonade, a smart new comedy from The Management, tells the story of Emory (Andy Phelan), an 11-year-old boy growing up on a poultry farm with his chain-smoking grandmother (Michael Cyril Creighton). She wishes he would stop playing with dolls and learn to throw like a boy; he wishes she would turn the farm into a vegan co-op. Written by Joshua Conkel, The Management's Artistic Director, MilkMilkLemonade is structured like a children's play, complete with a narrator (Lady in a Leotard, played with anxious delight by Nikole Beckwith). "I will attempt to remain as neutral as possible," she tells the audience at the outset of the play, helpfully adding "neutral means boring." Other elements of the play that are evocative of children's theater include the cheery primary colors of Jason Simm's cardboard set, a giant chicken named Linda (Jennifer Harder, whose emotive clucks are translated into English by Lady in a Leotard), and a couple of enthusiastic dance segments.

In the hands of director Isaac Butler, the play's structural childlike qualities permeate every aspect of the production, to terrific results. MilkMilkLemonade is a gay coming of age story that tackles queerness from the perspective of an effeminate 11-year-old. Under Butler's direction, "childlike" never includes a knowing wink and nod from the grown-up artists. Neither does it devolve into cutesy preciousness. Instead, we are given a comedy infused with all the quiet seriousness and whimsy of preadolescence.

"If people didn't play the roles that god gave 'em," Nana asks Emory early in the play, "what would happen?" Yet for a dialogue that begins with a gloss of Leviticus, their exchange is marked more by familial pouting than by religious solemnity. MilkMilkLemonade is noteworthy for its depiction of a young generation of rural queers. Without making light of the challenges Emory will face as he grows up, it suggests those hardships are difficult and complicated, but ultimately surmountable. There is no utopic solution or angry cultural critique.

Anger is largely absent from the play. Linda the chicken is often sad but struggles to accept her chicken farm fate. Although Nana wishes her grandson would butch up, her love for him is as obvious as it is tough. Emory negotiates his desires and social expectations with a hilarious, heartbreaking earnestness. Only Elliot (Jess Barbagallo), a boy who lives down the street and has a penchant for playing with fire, struggles with anger, and he does so directly, imagining, in one of the play's more inventive devices, an evil parasitic twin who compels him to act on his furious impulses and who lives inside his thigh.

As the play unfolds, Emory and Elliot's relationship becomes more complicated than first meets Nana's eye. Their youthful exploration of homoeroticism is, by turns, terrifyingly destructive and adorably sweet. When they play a game of house that's Tennessee Williams by way of Molly Ringwald, MilkMilkLemonade is at its meta-theatrical best. The boys' game of make-believe trades in gendered cultural imaginaries that expose how normative gender has long served as fantasy. Fantasy: both an illusion and a sexy indulgence.

Make no mistake: MilkMilkLemonade, which takes its title from a dirty children's rhyme, explores its overarching themes (sex, bodies, fate) through playful action, not heady analysis or sentimental preaching. That renders its critique especially effective. This is a play with card-board chickens taped to the walls (a fabulous touch).

If it's worth noting that the play includes cross-gendered casting, it's only to emphasize that this is not drag. Each of the characters is played with unwavering integrity by the talented cast. Phelan and Barbagallo deserve special credit for meeting the challenge of portraying young boys without condescending to their roles. Emory and Elliot are smart and funny, neither too immature nor overly sophisticated. Phelan and Barbagallo do 11-year-olds everywhere proud.

It's tough to be an effeminate boy in farm town. When life gives you lemons, campy romps and breakout dance segments are still a lot of fun.

Martial Plans

The plot summary for Bekah Brunstetter’s ambitious new play suggests that Oohrah! could be a timely social document about the difficulties of adjusting to home life for U.S. troops who have spent long stretches of time in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the author, trying to tell several stories at once that are centered at Fort Bragg (although it is not mentioned, the nearby city of Fayetteville, N.C., is), ends up with a disjointed domestic drama. Sara (Jennifer Mudge) is an Army wife with a teenage daughter; her husband, Ron, is a captain who has just returned from Iraq service (played by Darren Goldstein as a laconic pillar of strength). The loving but apprehensive Sara wants Ron to settle down, and he does want to, but she pushes so hard for him to find work that he’s not interested in, or is unsuited to, that she sabotages their hopes.

Ironically, Sara’s sister, Abby, living in the house to keep Sara company, is also doing some emotional demolition work. A flight attendant, Abby is engaged to a civilian, Chris (Lucas Near-Verbrugghe), who has a job in security at the local airport. Surrounded by a warrior class, the laid-back Chris believes his uniform carries the same weight as those of combat troops, but he’s deluded. (Near-Verbrugghe excels at playing this sympathetic patsy, who has a warm and constant heart.) Though Abby continually tells Chris she loves him, she doesn’t, at least not with the physical passion a spouse must have. It seems her real attraction is to testosterone-fueled men wearing uniforms. Set designer Lee Savage nicely delineates the sisters’ differences with a two-level set. Sara’s crisis involves the hearth, or the seat of home life, represented by a modern, blond-wood kitchen; Abby’s yearnings involve the bedroom on the upper level.

On a flight into Fayetteville, Abby latches on to a Marine corporal, Chip (Maximilian Osinski), and maneuvers him into coming to dinner at Sara’s. “I love the Marine uniform,” she tells him. “So regal. So much better than the Army uniform. You look like something from a really good book.” Eventually she gets him to stay overnight, and seduces him, though he’s less willing than she’d prefer.

Director Evan Cabnet hasn’t been able to fuse all the elements, which include two other family members, to create a cohesive whole. Although there’s a linear symmetry to the plotting—combat hero Ron stands at one end, a man who knows himself and his needs, and the clueless civilian Chris at another, while Chip holds an agonizing middle position—Abby and Chris’s story is much stronger than the others.

The homebody Sara, played with a bottled desperation by Mudge, can't match the interest sparked by her lustful sister: Cassie Beck as the duplicitous Abby is as riveting as a snake. Even after Chris sees her making a pass at someone else, he believes her when she says she loves him. The twists of her plotline alone deserve an “Oohrah!” (a call that military men make to each other to honor their status). And, to her credit, Brunstetter has done homework that many playwrights fail to do; she understands the difference in dress and address of officers vs. NCOs.

As a piece of social observation, though, Oohrah! contains no revelations. It’s merely a snapshot of an awkward situation, not a problem for which the author offers a solution. And although the two sisters occupy the ostensibly more important stories, the climax comes when Ron and Chris bond awkwardly. The crux of the women's problems is the men's heartfelt need—whether it’s to serve their country or to fulfill their masculine identity is uncertain, but the urge strikes as deep as the bonds of matrimony.

“It’s not that I don’t love them,” Ron tells Chip. “I love them so much…. It’s just I got other things to give.” Such a sentiment may have no rational explanation, and perhaps that’s the reason why, despite the talent of the performers, the play leaves one unsatisfied.

Dublin Sorrows

Sebastian Barry’s new play blends the Irish gift of poetry with the grimness of hardscrabble lives so familiar from the works of J.M. Synge and Sean O’Casey, not to mention more recent writers like Conor McPherson and Martin McDonagh. The knack Barry showed for lyrical writing in The Steward of Christendom and Our Lady of Sligo are on full display here. Yet The Pride of Parnell Street isn’t a work in which characters interact. It’s two intertwined monologues made exciting by superb performers and Barry’s own gift for poetry. Barry’s play follows the romance, marriage and separation of a working-class Dublin couple, Janet and Joe Brady. There’s a sense of warm reverie in both monologues, delivered in 1999 about happenings in 1990 and later, that contrasts with the subjects: robbery, brutality, drunkenness, murder and drug addiction. Nonetheless, Mary Murray’s smile and gleaming eyes when Janet speaks about the good days long past communicate the joy of their early marriage.

Joe was a Midday Man, explains Janet—a man who woke at midday and walked down the streets checking car doors and stealing from open ones or breaking into them if they weren’t open. Then he’d sell the swag to the Afternoon Man. He never held a job and survived on theft and government handouts. “I may have been a bad bastard but I was very fond of life,” says Joe, telling his side of the story from a hospital bed.

The first shock to their marriage is the accidental death of their firstborn. But the coup de grâce comes in the midst of the 1990 soccer season in which Ireland has a shot at the World Cup. Janet remembers the night of the first win: “he was happy, high happy, like a crazy happy, a big blank happy look on his musher like he was on some bad drug, but he never done that. And that was very queer,” she continues, “and me and the little lads kinda slunk off in a corner and let him—blow up like a balloon—roaring and happy as a king—kinda bursting he was—then in the morning, like a balloon left sitting for a week he was, the sag in his face and the low throttle in his poor voice.” And then the team loses. Quickly and suddenly Joe turns violent and beats her mercilessly. She grabs the children, flees to a women’s shelter, and never returns.

In their monologues, inventively lighted by Mark Galione in warm amber that suggests the harsh memories are mellowing, they fill in the details of a love ruined by that one violent act. Joe, dying in a hospital bed, is quickly revealed by his own words as a liar, but he bears no grudge at Janet’s refusal to answer his letters. He has never seen his two children since, and he’s followed a downward spiral into drug addiction and murder.

Under Jim Culleton’s subtle direction the moods move fluidly from sweet nostalgic to sour disappointment, abetted by Galione’s shoestring effects of shadow and silhouette. Aidan Kelly manages to find remorse, humor and love in Joe. Still, Barry glosses Joe with perhaps too much sympathy: he has always been a thief and layabout; worse, he has robbed and murdered a young Frenchman and served prison time for it, though he’s out after five years for good behavior. It’s really Janet’s feeling about him that one trusts more, but it requires acceptance of the old romantic notion of a bad man redeemed by the love of a good woman. “I knew that in the centre of everything he was brave, like a soldier at the war,” says Janet. “And that it was only life that done him in and made a fool a him, like it does us all.”

But Janet is haunted by another memory. As a child she witnessed the aftermath of an IRA bombing, and saw a woman named Patty Duffy tending to the wounded, despite herself being bloodied. She remembers Duffy as “the Pride of Parnell Street.” Ironically, Joe refers to Janet the same way. The irony is that Janet has never been able to summon the compassion for Joe that her idol, Patty Duffy, had for injured strangers—until a deathbed reconciliation. It’s both the pleasure Joe has in hearing about his children and their future as he’s dying and Janet’s ability to talk to him face-to-face that makes the ending unforgettable.

Something Happened on the Way Home to Ithaca

Can the Odyssey, that 12,000 line epic poem, be successfully translated onto stage without being over long and overly arduous? Judging from Handcart Ensemble's production of Simon Armitage's adaptation, the answer is yes. Homer's Odyssey trims and alters certain bits of the story. What unfolds onstage is then an old, familiar story that nonetheless remains fresh, exciting, and thoroughly engaging. After winning the Trojan War, Odysseus and his men set off to return home to Ithaca. However, they soon find themselves lost at sea and float from strange land to strange land. They run into trouble on the Island of the Cyclops, where they are trapped in the cave of Polyphemus the Cyclops and are at risk of becoming his dinner. Odysseus tricks Polyphemus by getting him drunk, telling him that his name is “Nobody” and then blinding him so that Odysseus and his men can escape. Unfortunately for Odysseus, Polyphemus is Poseidon's son, and Odysseus and his men need to sail on the ocean in order to get home. Odysseus' men bring further strife upon themselves by later eating the sacred cattle of the sun god. Eventually, only Odysseus is left, and he winds up staying on an island with the goddess Calypso, who has fallen in love with him.

Meanwhile, on Ithaca, his wife, Penelope, and now grown son, Telemachus, must deal with the presence of greedy boorish suitors. Since Odysseus has not been formally buried, Penelope cannot agree to marry one of them. Because of guest/host rules in Ancient Greece, she cannot turn them out either. The suitors grow restless and plot to kill Telemachus, who has, on the advice of Athena-in-disguise, sailed to Sparta.

Armitage's adaptation uses beautiful, evocative language. The eye-gouging of Polyphemus occurs mostly off-stage, yet Odysseus' description of his plan is graphic enough to make one feel a little queasy. It is aurally gory and does not need the addition of spurting blood so common in shows today to get its point across.

However, the production is visually thrilling in other ways. Puppets are used quite effectively. Polyphemus is first shown as a giant shadow puppet. When he finally stomps onstage, he is a terrible sight to behold: a puppet on stilts with a large papier-mâché head. Additionally, the ensemble has a great sense of physicality. They bob and weave in fight scenes, embody the waves while out at sea, and tumble over each other.

The acting is, for the most part, spot on. David D'Agonstini brings just the right level of command and strength to the character of Odysseus while Rachael McOwen is bright-eyed as Nausicaä. However, there is doubling and tripling of roles in the show, and some actors felt stiff and flat in some of their roles, as if they were unaccustomed to their characters still.

Homer's Odyssey, with a runtime of over two and a half hours, is not a brief show. However, every minute of it is a joy to watch. The language is fresh and engaging, and the theatrics make the show a treat for the eyes. Homer's Odyssey breathes fresh life into an old tale.

Good Grief

With his latest play, The Bereaved, Thomas Bradshaw has found a natural outlet in farce. Mr. Bradshaw has stripped his set down to the basics, eschewed gimmicks (last year’s Dawn inexplicably featured an LED screen announcing the location of its scenes), and delivered an often uproarious, if mostly shallow, work. The Bereaved’s message, if indeed there is one, seems to be that some American families, despite their appearances, are really, really effed up. We’ve known that for decades—but, with Bradshaw, the effedupness is off the charts. In The Bereaved, rather than attempting to shock us with depravity, he’s simply entertaining us. What we get is South Park on stage. Don’t expect earth-shattering messages and you won’t be disappointed.

The Bereaved’s action really gets going after Carol (McKenna Kerrigan), an attorney, and her adjunct professor husband, Michael (Andrew Garman) celebrate one of Carol’s court victories with some Johnnie Walker Black Label and a few lines of cocaine. She suddenly suffers a heart attack. A stunned Michael calls 911, but not before making sure to hide the drugs and booze. Soon, every component of an already precarious family unit comes unglued.

Those who come for the depravity won’t leave frustrated. It’s not enough that 15-year old kids (Vincent Madero as Michael and Carol’s prep-school son, Teddy, and Jenny Seastone Stern as his pregnant girlfriend, Melissa) snort coke like there’s no tomorrow. Bradshaw has them sell it… at school… for their cash-strapped dad…who’s having kinky sex with Carol’s best friend…while Carol languishes in the hospital, now dying from complications of triple bypass surgery.

Don’t worry. I haven’t given even half of the somewhat meandering plot away. These bereaved do everything but grieve. Teddy makes little secret of the fact that the hospital bores him and whips out his Gameboy when he visits his mom in the intensive care unit. The Brady Bunch this group isn’t (is it merely ironic coincidence that the parents here are named Michael and Carol?), yet they’re oddly endearing, nearly likeable. Lee Savage’s set design is cute and homey and makes a neat contrast to the absurd degeneracy that takes place within its confines.

Thanks to director May Adrales, every actor here nails the necessary deadpan delivery and nonchalant change-ups that keep the laughs coming. Mr. Garman in particular has real comedic chops and range. He’s a one-man whirlwind of neuroses. He and Katy (KK Moggie), in the awkward throes of one of her rape fantasies, provide us with one of the more sidesplitting scenes in recent memory. And Brian D. Coates is droll and convincing as the Harlem drug dealer, Jamal, from whom the kids buy cocaine to replace the stash they’ve stolen from Michael.

It’s difficult to shock people these days. Even cable television shows like Weeds and mainstream movies like American Pie have covered some of Bradshaw’s territory here. Mr. Bradshaw is fond of calling his work “hyper-realism” but, at least here, it’s really just farce without the chase scenes. He was wise to embrace the preposterous humor of the improbable themes he piles atop of each other.

The Bereaved's ending is a bit lazy—it’s almost as if Bradshaw simply decides to stop it at the 70-minute mark. Yet, it’s probably as good a place as any. The wantonness could go on forever. Yet, it’s that absurdity—sad, for sure—at its core, that fuels this play and makes one laugh frequently.

Power Play

Though the powerful can be perverse, those who try to curry favor with the powerful are often even more so. Jean-Paul Sartre considered Jean Genet's Deathwatch to be reiteration of themes explored in the playwright's more famous effort, The Maids. Locked away in a cramped prison cell, two petty criminals vie for the approval of their idol, an illiterate murder by the name of Green Eyes. Genet's poetic thieves and killers conflate power, violence, and masculinity in their battle for dominance, but when one of them finally strikes out to establish his position, he discovers that glory is not so easily obtained. Aaron Sparks' production, currently running in the Fringe Festival, is billed as the US premiere of David Rudkin's translation of the play. Unfortunately, the lackluster production makes it impossible to judge the quality of Rudkin's rendering. Taking his cue from all-male productions of The Maids, Sparks has cast women in Deathwatch. Though interesting in principle, this concept falters because Sparks' company fails to embody the destructive machismo and barely-concealed homoeroticism which are central to Genet's drama.

Sparks' company also seems hesitant to dive into Genet's dingy underworld. Only Carissa Cordes as Green Eyes projects the hardened, guarded aspect of a prisoner. Meanwhile, the whole cast speaks with a drama-school crispness and uniformity which is inconsistent with the world of the play. Rather than tracing the delicate shifts in alliance which are central to characters' journeys, the cast plows through Genet's poetic text, making the production particularly difficult to follow. Consequently, the ninety-minute show crawls, offering neither entertainment or surprise to the audience; this one is worth passing by.

The Scream of Time

Time’s Scream and Hurry, written and directed by Paul Hoan Zeidler and presented as part of this summer’s FringeNYC Festival, is made up of three vignettes unrelated except for the fact that they are about the darker sides of life, including abuse, crime, and sexual perversion. Although the piece succeeds in shocking its spectators, it does little else. It is difficult to understand what the deeper point or larger meaning behind any of these disturbing tales is. All three episodes are presented as solo pieces – monologues giving the audience one perspective, one view of a very complex, very unpleasant occurrence. Because of this single point of view structure, all of the stories feel one-sided, as though there was vital information that the viewers are missing. Each story involves other characters not presented here, and the character we do see does not do enough to make us understand that, while there are other points of view at work, his or her vision is the one with which we should side. Rather, we are forced to side with them because we hear from no one else.

The first piece, “So-So’s Sister,” deals with a young woman with an abusive, gambler father and a mentally disabled sister, and how she negotiates this family structure in light of her first relationship. Although decently performed, the monologue seems empty; it is hard to know what we are supposed to learn or gain from having heard this terrible tale.

“Match Girl,” the next piece – a presentation of one woman’s development from a victim of childhood teasing, which caused her to burn herself, to adult dominatrix – is a strange and uncomfortable one. This woman does not appear sympathetic, yet it is easy to pity her because of the way she presents herself. She seems to be someone in need of help – and someone whom we would want to help – who consistently gets in her own way. The monologue is well-performed with both funny and heart-wrenching moments, but again, the overall meaning and therefore effect is vague at best.

“The Good Boyfriend” is the strongest of the three and is last on the bill; it is also perhaps unnecessarily long. A man tells of his romance with a rape victim. The piece has moments of poignancy and depth, and it is easy to feel something for this man who is attempting to do the right thing and the woman for whom he is making such sacrifices. However, these compelling moments are often overshadowed by graphic and shocking descriptions that do little to add to the story – the suggestion of what has happened is jarring enough.

Is shocking an audience, pushing them to the brink of what they can stand to hear about, justification enough for a play? Perhaps, but it would make for even more interesting drama if there were a common throughline or overarching thematic idea for the audience to grasp. Time’s Scream and Hurry is filled with tales that a spectator will not soon forget, but unfortunately, they also will not know what to do with what they have heard.

License to Chill

The Antarctic Chronicles may take place deep in the frozen environs of the South Pole, but this one-woman show starring Jessica Manuel in a virtuoso performance radiates nothing but warmth. Chronicles is part of the 2009 New York International Fringe Festival. Manuel explains in the piece, which she wrote herself and is running at the Players Loft, about how a need for change drove the Midwestern-born-and-bred spitfire to seek out a change. Once the novelty subsides, however, she finds life on the other side of the planet still has its pitfalls. She has to perform manual labor, including shoveling snow and turning valves, make sure she hydrates enough so that her urine does not discolor, and eventually becomes estranged from the boyfriend she left behind.

Throughout, though, Manuel keeps the pace moving with exquisite energy and perfect comic timing. Her facial expressions, posture and gestures punctuate the way her spirit gradually diminishes as her year continues.

For a Fringe work, the show is also technically impressive. Paul Linke, the director, seamlessly incorporates clever musical cues and real visual images from Manuel’s year into Chronicles. Highlights include Manuel’s breakfast buffet routine, mapped to Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5,” and a glimpse at a snowy slasher movie.

Manuel’s spirited work is triumphant. There’s no better haven from this late-summer heat wave than to catch the wildly diverting Antarctic Chronicles.

I Memed a Meme

OMG!!!!1 Everyone’s favorite little kitties from icanhascheezburger.com transcend their humble http beginnings in this overly derivative, but occasionally amusing musical from Sauce and Co. Inspired by the ubiquitous URL above (also called LOLCats in the popular lexicon), I Can Has Cheezburger – The MusicLOL is the latest off the “[Insert Cultural Phenomenon] – The Musical!” assembly line, but is nowhere near as clever as, say, last year’s Perez Hilton Saves the Universe. The story is simple enough – Lolcat wants cheezburger. Lolcat is uploaded to internet. Lolcat meets various other forwarded email stars. Lolcat must choose between his new friends and cheezburger. Big dance number. LOL. Curtain.

“Lolcat” (played friskily by Seth Grugle) and his anthropomorphic friends sing and seem to have a lot of dumb fun as they pursue their destinies – be they cheezburgers, buckits or excel sums – but eventually a MusicLOL must stand on its own furred feet. Book/Lyric/Music writers Kristyn Pomranz and Katherine Steinberg rely too much on the inherent funniness of the Lolcats, who are projected on a screen behind the action as frequently as possible. Cheezburger’s music and story are as by-the-book as possible, and, even worse, largely structured around which image pops up when. Even though everyone in the packed house laughed when the “Pew Pew Pew” kitty popped up on screen, it had little to do with the rote musical they were seeing. There is a strong potential in this visible connection between what is onstage and its internet inspiration, but, disappointingly, the former only rarely evokes ROFLing.

Despite a few inspired performances (like Liana Jessop as the squealing “Orly Owl” and Vincent Digeronimo as the Eyor-like “Lolrus”), Cheezburger hardly qualifies as an EPIC WIN.

Pro-Mance

Michael Edison Hayden’s The Books wants to be an offbeat love story about a professional dominatrix who falls in love with her agoraphobic client, but despite an intriguing premise, unfortunately it misses its target. When the play opens, Mistress Chimera/Helen, played by Aadya Bedi, has been servicing Scott David Nogi’s Mark O'Connor for several weeks. Her agoraphobic client is a maintenance man living in an Astoria apartment filled with books. While not so unusual perhaps in New York City to find a literate super (or being able to practically trip over a bookstore or library), it just doesn’t ring true that these two characters begin to fall in love after Helen asks him to borrow a book. There is little chemistry between them, not even in the S&M-focused scenes (despite excellent costuming by Shaumyika Sharma and realistic fight choreography by Mike Yahn), and their language sounds so stilted and affected, it’s as if the actors are reciting the given lines instead of simply being able to relate to one another. It’s unclear how dramaturgy by Benjamin Kessler helped or hindered, but something is definitely lost in academics here. It also smacks of (forgive the pun) the arrogant and self-deluded “the hooker wouldn’t take my money” tale, retread as “my dom doesn’t want to hurt me anymore,” which could have actually been interesting, if there was anything believable or redeeming about this pseudo romance. Looking at the script, which is filled with italicized words for the actors to emphasize in almost every speech, it’s as if the writer (and/or director Matt Urban) already had a predetermined performance in mind, instead of letting the actors find their characters. No wonder it sounds false.

There’s supposed to be a lot of pathos for Mark, the self-torturing would-be writer, but there’s really nothing given to his story or demonstrated to make him sympathetic, certainly not enough to show how sex-worker Helen, surely exposed to lots of “sad cases,” could fall in love with him while he shows little emotion. In fact, even the use of “the books” as the supposed vehicle for how these two characters come together feels empty, just another way to indicate literary knowledge, without going into any depth or actually using it to inform the work. The tag line, Love hurts, literally? Yes indeed, and so does this play.

Look Back in Confusion

Lyric, the title character of Michael Puzzo’s Lyric is Waiting, is one of those troublesome women we’ve seen dramatized before: stubborn, feisty, plagued by demons. In the play, currently enjoying a run at the Irish Repertory Theater, Ned (Brit Whittle) tries to make sense of his broken relationship with Lyric, narrating its history by providing Annie Hall-style fragments. Unlike Ms. Hall, however, it’s hard to see what makes a character as aloof and off-putting as Lyric is worth fighting for. To say this show is a tad absurdist is an understatement. The play traces Ned’s struggle to reassemble what went wrong, but it doesn’t take place in his mind. At least, not completely. While some scenes take place in Lyric’s home, the backdrop (beautifully created by Joel Sherry) is that of a forest. Other characters include a librarian, a torch singer and an earlier girlfriend of Ned’s (all played by Kelly McAndrew), and, well, Bigfoot (Joe Masi). Perhaps what is oddest about Lyric is that it doesn’t feel odd at all for Bigfoot to be a character.

Odd is fine, but Lyric is more befuddling than beguiling. Ned looks back on his relationship with Lyric, now that it has ended, though he doesn’t explain exactly why their relationship is over; we have to wait to get answers about that. Director Adam Fitzgerald blocks Ned to pace back and forth between various moments in his past, both with and without Lyric.

As a result, we see when they first meet, under less than romantic circumstances. We also see them a little bit in good times, but mostly through bad. Lyric, as played to bravely unlikeable effect by Lori Prince, is a tumultuous character. She starts fights and causes scenes. Puzzo suggests that these fits are caused by something real, but can never make clear what that is. Why for example, does she continuously start playing the decade-and-a-half old Nirvana song “Rape me?”

Ned, meanwhile, blames himself for Lyric’s self-destructive, volatile shifts. His problem is that he views Lyric as his problem to solve. Whittle does an outstanding job of dramatizing Ned’s inner conflict, of being torn between feelings of responsibility to Lyric but interest in someone else. At times, I thought that Puzzo made Ned too hard on himself, and that Puzzo viewed Lyric in too sympathetic a light.

This is because Lyric remains too ambiguous. Lyric the character can remain a cipher, but the show itself needs to answer more questions than it raises. How much is fantasy, and how much is reality? For example, is Bigfoot a vision? A kind of conscience for Lyric? A concoction of Ned’s own? Or something entirely real? To Masi’s credit, he makes all of these possibilities plausible, with only a smattering of dialogue, but it’s to the show’s discredit that he remains so undefined.

McAndrew is also a strong presence in her litany of roles throughout the show. She helps to lighten the action, if not always providing actual comedic relief from Ned’s wallowing. At times the character feels a little too self-aware of her role in Ned’s narration. She speaks as though she is more informed than he is; she knows she is playing a role in the play, however, the character exhibits no control over the story.

As annoyingly selfish as Lyric is, Prince does a thorough job of playing the prickly woman. She makes it clear that the woman is troubled, even if we never learn what those troubles might be. Whittle also does a great job as the wounded Ned; his performance is searing.

Nonetheless, these four terrific actors can only put so much of a disjointed play together. In Lyric, we intellectually grip that has Ned must say goodbye to Lyric, but our hearts never appreciate just what he has lost.

Late Summer Night's Fun

Hudson Warehouse’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a fantastical romp in Riverside Park. This is a traditional production accented with clever modern touches. The performance makes for a very worthwhile night out, one spent enjoying the summer air rather than the interior of a more traditional theater. The production takes advantage of its outdoor setting. Actors run up and down the Soldiers and Sailors Monument and traverse the park’s scenic grounds encompassed within the playing space. Through the imaginations of performers and spectators alike, the space easily and fluidly becomes whatever location the play’s text dictates it be. The actors interact with the surrounding crowd, keeping viewers engaged and entertained.

One unique aspect of this production is that the actors perform in costumes constructed of a mix of both modern wardrobe pieces and elements indicative of the characters they play. This allows the actors the freedom and comfort to play within the space while still making it obvious who they are portraying at any given moment. It also makes the production seem a logical part of the modern world, rather than a stodgy, dated period piece.

The production is fairly accessible to audiences of all ages. It is designed both to make small children squeal with delight and to provide food for thought for seasoned Shakespeare fans. In some instances, the presentation of the play’s various storylines becomes a bit muddled; there is the sense that an assumption is being made as to the viewers’ familiarity with the tale’s major plot points. In addition, the actors speak quickly and there is often a lot going on onstage at one time. Some of the stage business is a tad over the top and detracts from the play’s natural humor.

All in all, however, this is a charming work of theater. Every actor in the play seems to be enjoying what he or she is doing, adding to the audience’s enjoyment of the work at hand. The energy is high and the spirit of the play is almost infectious in this intimate – albeit outdoor – locale. Peter Quince and his band of players are a particular delight. Their play within the play is a highlight in the evening’s entertainment. It is equal parts laugh-out-loud physical comedy and clear manipulation of the Shakespearean text. It still works as a relevant commentary on theatrical production.

This Midsummer Night’s Dream is a very enjoyable and highly pleasant production. Add to that the natural thrill of an evening spent beside the river as the sun sets and you have a recipe for a truly special New York theater outing.

Think Local, Act

Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant, playing as part of Soho Think Tank's Ice Factory festival, is both a theatrical production and a four course meal. Upon welcoming the audience with song and dance, however, the performers insist theirs is not dinner theater. What, then, is it? For the downtown theater initiated, think of the sexy presentationalism of Joe's Pub retooled with the zaniness of the Neo-Futurists, sparking with the camp of Kiki and Herb and catered by your neighborhood farmer's market. For anyone made uncomfortable by the label "avant garde," go see Conni's for a warm welcome into the fold. The company of stock characters, played with equal parts earnestness and flamboyance by the Brooklyn-based Conni ensemble, sets an atmosphere of camaraderie essential to the evening of boisterous theatricality and really good food. It's hard to imagine anyone not having fun at this convivially irreverent show. From its chandeliers constructed of Christmas lights and plastic-ware to its glitzy proscenium and pastel flats, Conni's burlesques the self-seriousness of avant garde experimentalism and, at the same time, celebrates it.

Perhaps food is the production's most innovative element (which says a lot for a show that intimates women swapping pregnancies and features a costumed dog who glosses Shakespeare). Locally grown and prepared on site, all of the food is fully integrated into the play's storytelling, with each course delineating a performance act. Act 1, for example, entitled Kitchen Sink Soup, sets in motion the production's satirical plot as well as the evening's meal by producing chilled gazpacho with fresh tomatoes. Watermelon and feta salad, sandwiches on locally baked bread, pesto pasta and pound cake all follow suit. Pitchers of sangria are set on each communal audience table; a cash bar is available as well.

In using tasty food so effectively, Conni's makes clear many ways that the local food movement and independent theater are a terrific fit. Both movements aim to cultivate sustainable, self-reliant communities. Both rely on collaboration. Both celebrate delicious creation, be it of plays or tomatoes. In the case of Conni's, it's both.

Mixed Signals, Crossed Wires

Al’s Business Cards starts with a comic situation that spirals quickly into something darker. Playwright Josh Koenigsberg’s work is presented as part of the Old Vic New Voices initiative of London’s Old Vic Theatre, which is under the artistic direction of Kevin Spacey, and it bodes well for the program as a vehicle for fostering young writers. Al Gurvis (Azhar Khan) and his buddy Barry (Bobby Moreno) work together as electricians, although Al has described himself on his recently ordered business cards with a more high-toned term, “gaffing assistant.” But his cards have mistakenly been delivered to Eileen Lee (Lauren Hines), a real estate agent. Worse, they apparently have a misprint: “gassing assistant.” That all this leads to comic misunderstandings is to be expected, but Koenigsberg’s twists lead the story into unexpected places as well.

Although the first scene seems to wander a bit, it establishes that Barry is a good-hearted dimwit given to casual racial profiling. Not only does he think Al’s “gaffing assistant” is pretentious, but to his surprise, he discovers that Al is half Indian, whereas he thought Al was Mexican. “You think they’re not gonna feel misled when they hire ‘Al Gurvis’ and you show up?” he warns Al. “They think they’re hiring a white electrician and instead they get this lying Hispanic?” Meanwhile, Al assumes that Eileen Lee is Asian because of her last name. Moreover, a reference Eileen has made over the phone to “the program” leads Barry to an instant certainty that she’s an alcoholic. (In fact, Eileen is in recovery.)

Eileen turns out not to be Asian. She is a pretty, composed professional, although she is being stalked by her husband, Daniel, an alcoholic who has resisted getting help. As played with feverish desperation by Malcolm Madera, Daniel unbalances the play: he is the most fascinating character, straddling the line between aching romantic and loony stalker; he’s both venal and victimized. Madera runs with the opportunity: he has some nifty physical business trying to swallow pills without water, and he pulls off a big pratfall with aplomb.

Daniel wants to save his marriage, and he can’t accept that Eileen has moved on. He thinks Al, whom she has met for dinner to discuss selling him a house, is her lover (with some justification). And he has the goods on Al, so he thinks. The private eye he has hired (a gimlet-eyed, no-nonsense Gabriel Gutiérrez) has learned that Al is an illegal immigrant, and Eileen risks her career by selling him a home. Unfortunately, Al's attraction to Eileen never matches the comic frenzy of this subplot.

Koenigsberg's theme is that pigeonholing people can do real, unintentional harm. It’s more than the casual racism displayed by Barry, who seems to feel that Al is getting above himself with printed business cards. It’s also Daniel’s false assumptions about Al’s relationship to Eileen. In every case, preconceptions harm innocent people.

With the recent brouhaha between Henry Louis Gates Jr. and police Sgt. Jim Crowley in Cambridge, Mass., the play’s racial sensibilities cut two ways. On the one hand, it feels timely. On the other hand, the casual discussion of race, even among friends like Al and Barry, comes off awkwardly, since the Gates incident demonstrates that race is a subject most people avoid. Though Al becomes touchy when Barry assumes he’s Mexican, it stretches credibility to think that he has had no inkling of Barry’s attitudes. Has he really not noticed after years of working with Barry that his colleague is in the habit of labeling people by race? And since Al takes offense, why would he be socializing with such a person? Of course, Koenigsberg wouldn’t have any dialogue if his characters balked at discussing the subject, but the situation registers as contrived.

If at times the play doesn’t seem fully developed and focused, the characters are fleshed out persuasively by the talented cast under the direction of Lauren Keating. There’s also a brief, 10-minute curtain-raiser called Haircut and a Cocktail, directed by Zack Robidas and starring Stefanie Estes and Sarah Ries as two Southern women gossiping in a beauty parlor; it too shows the playwright’s ability to mingle comedy with angst, though the characters are stereotypes.

But Koenigsberg shows a talent for comedy that goes beyond rat-a-tat gag writing. He sets up jokes carefully. The payoff isn’t immediate, but it comes and it’s more enjoyable for the wait. That alone is something to savor.

Summertime Blues

I have no idea whether the three characters in Michael V. Rudez’s play, On the Way Down, now playing at the Access Theater, are based on people he knows or are complete works of fiction. Either way, he seems to understand each of them intimately. And at the end of this harrowing work, we come much closer to doing the same. Much of this, of course, is to the credit of the three actors assembled in Dan Waldron’s haunting production. Lindsay Wolf is the tightly wound Josie. For years, it seems, she and her friends Browning (Steven Todd Smith) and Stevenson (Rocco Chierichella) have made a tradition of vacationing at a Hamptons timeshare, along with Josie’s husband and children.

Though the presence of these friends is supposed to calm Josie, there is an underlying tension in this visit. Josie ribs Stevenson, a Wall Street analyst, for his wanton ways, and there seems to be some kind of mutual resentment between him and Browning, a man with an ambiguous emotional history. Josie herself seems uneasy about something, though it remains unclear for some time what that may be, and who else may be affected by it.

I said that we come closer to knowing these character's by the play's end. Knowing, however, is a bit different from understanding. Rudez’s script is tricky, since so much is unclear at Down's outset. How does one present a play about secrets? There is a difference between keeping information from a character and keeping it from the audience. When is a development merely a development, and when is it a crucial twist?

I respect Rudez’s structure a lot. He tells his story in a little more than an hour, with three solid scenes providing the classic three-act structure. The first scene introduces us to each character, the second raises the stakes, and the third attempts to make sense of everything. It’s a great template, but one that could benefit from further embellishment.

There is room to expand it further. One way to do that would be for Rudez to further shade in the characters’ early history with each other. All three actors do a magnificent job of creating subtext to move their portions of each scene along, but the audience should only be required to do so much guesswork. And since the action in the present hinges on reveals, some more information about the past would be helpful.

Nonetheless, the performances are strong enough to strip Down of a lot of its guesswork. Wolf, in particular, is outstanding in the central role. Her meticulously crafted performance navigates a tricky tightrope in which she must somehow communicate elements of her character through thoughts that are not entirely reliable.

Chierichella’s role may appear to be a bit more stock, but he fills it completely and injects some necessary humor into the show with a presence that is both commanding and affable. Browning, on the other hand, could use some further development. I liked Smith’s choices for the character, but still felt that we needed to be clearer on Browning by play’s end.

Down moves at a fairly tight pace, though there are a few places where Waldron could usher it along a bit more. But the director is to be commended for his staging – he does a lot of deft blocking; each character is exactly where he or she needs to be for purposes that befit the action and the audience. And Jessie Kressen’s beach house set is rather impressive.

Whether or not Down emerges from a very personal place, Waldron’s production is an effective look at lingering melancholy. It is certainly a trip worth taking.

Ease on Down to Harlem Rep

"Ease on Down the Road," the courageous and determined Brooklyn girl Dorothy sings to the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion in this classic musical variation on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but the journey is anything but easy. As directed and choreographed by Keith Lee Grant for Harlem Repertory Theatre, this Wiz is characterized by synchronized dance routines, a very tricky doubling scene, and the juxtaposition between the reality of life in Dorothy's rough neighborhood and her uncompromising love for the family whom she's inadvertedly left behind there. It begins with a narrative dance piece which is both energetic and clearly told. At school, Dorothy escapes to elsewhere by covertly reading a book at her desk, while her teacher is distracted by the behaviour of more extroverted, less appreciative students. Outside, she walks into an ambush by an aggressive group of kids, and is saved only by the intervention of a kind but tough elderly woman, a double of the good witch Addaperle, whom she will soon encounter as soon as a Christmas Eve blizzard whisks her away to the Land of Oz. Will she find the self-determination and self-confidence to get herself and her newfound friends Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion to the Wiz, who will solve all their problems, allegedly? Will she find the courage to go home, despite the temptations of the Emerald City?

The Wiz was performed in New York a short while ago by a different company, and many theatregoers will also remember the iconic performances of Diana Ross, Michael Jackson and Lena Horne in the film version. Still, Harlem Rep offers a creative interpretation that's worth seeing even if you've memorized all the songs. The yellow brick road runs through the audience, making us all citizens of the weird otherworld of Oz. The dancers representing the snow and wind, who carry Dorothy off to Oz, are entrancing, especially the young man whose duet with her dominates that number. Jimmie Mike, a veteran of the national tour of Miss Saigon, plays the Lion (early in the show) and The Wiz later with tons of charisma and a sharp satire of both egotistical stars and religious leaders who promise more than they can deliver. City College theatre student and Brooklyn High School of the Arts graduate Danyel K. Fulton as Dorothy is a brilliant young performer who makes Dorothy a convincing modern teenager without ever being precious or losing the fairytale sensibility of the piece. Both can sing: Fulton is a fantastic, strong, confident belter. It is clear why both were nominated for AUDELCO Awards for their previous performances at Harlem Rep.

This is why it's disappointing that when The Wiz first appears, Mike is replaced as the Lion by a second, uncredited performer, whose performance is less specific and compelling (and is also quite a bit shorter than Mike, and whose facial hair, noticeably unlike his, is painted on.) It would have really been better for one actor to play the Lion all the way through, unless doubling within roles is used more consistently across the cast, and for a good thematic reason.

Less strong than Mike and Fulton is Roderick Warner's Tin Man, who wasn't always audible over the pit band and didn't move as if he had mechanical joints. The Scarecrow (Eric Myles) is a winsome, exuberant guy whose friendship with Dorothy tugs at the audience to beg her to stay in Oz. Doubling as good and evil witches, Alexandra Bernard shows versatility, but her most memorable moment is her beautiful, full-voiced solo as Auntie Em, "The Feeling We Once Had."

Natalya Peguero's costume design and Kaitlyn Mulligan's set are very hit-or-miss. The Scarecrow's straw mohawk is a great idea, as is putting bad witch Evillene in a business suit and making her lair the boardroom of AIG ("no bad news!" Evillene shrieks at her winged goons.) Less inspired is a plastic lion nose that looks like a store-bought Halloween costume and large painted flats reminiscent of school plays.

All but the youngest spectators will know how the story of The Wiz turns out, but Harlem Rep's production emphasises the reason why this fairy tale matters. Written in the nineteenth-century midwest by Lyman Frank Baum, son-in-law of an early American feminist and Seneca Falls signatory Matilda Jocelyn Gage, the novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz shows an American girl finding courage and principles without losing sight of home, family, and love. As updated in 1975 by Charlie Small (music and lyrics) and William F. Brown (book) to an African-American, urban 1970s context, with Dorothy a Harlem schoolteacher, The Wiz gains new resonance. It is also far truer to Baum's intentions - and his plot - than the saccharine 1939 film version. Here, Dorothy demonstrates the scepticism of fatalist dominant narratives that allows her to overcome Oz's absurdities. When the Tin Man explains - as in Baum's book but not the film - that he turned into a tin man because his axe kept chopping off parts of his body, which he replaced with machines, Dorothy opines that he should have gotten rid of the faulty axe.

When the Gatekeeper of the Emerald City won't let the foursome in the front door to see the Wiz, Oz appears to have its own civil rights issues to overcome, sadly not dissimilar from those which President Obama has recently tried to smooth over with beers in the White House back yard. So head to Harlem Rep for a wonderful escape from America - and a good hard glance, through the looking glass, back home.

Happy Birthday, Cabaret Cataplexy

Last Monday evening was the fifth anniversary of Cabaret Cataplexy, an evening of "performance art, costume design, and music within a community of emerging and evolving artists in order to explore the cutting edge ideas that inform their work," performed on the fourth Monday of every month in the Lower East Side's Slipper Room and curated by performance artists Monstah Black and Ashley Brockington. Having survived for five years, one of them a dangerous pit of recession, Cabaret Cataplexy could reasonably be called a New York performance institution. Monday's line-up consisted of music, comedy and burlesque by an admirably multi-ethnic and often genderqueer group of performers. This reviewer's knowledge of burlesque is rather limited outside of its depiction in narrative theatre and film, but it seemed as if the six acts that performed on Sunday night ranged from the professional and genuinely creative to the opposite of both. For a series which introduces new artists and promises entertainment to loyal patrons, perhaps that is a good thing. No act seemed particularly "cutting edge," but some were entertaining or thought-provoking.

Cabaret Cataplexy is emcee'd by Ms. Brockington, appearing Monday night in a black silk top hat and a sparkly bikini top and skirt, denoting both extremes of straight patriarchal burlesque's voyeur-spectacle spectrum, her electric pink St Marks' tourist stall style wig celebrating artifice. Brockington maintains a great rapport with the audience, chatting with members impromptu between acts and zinging effortlessly between topics you'd expect in a burlesque show and ones you wouldn't. "I need you to concentrate on your negro roots and think of Lucy," she enjoined at one point. When the audience participation wasn't inspiring, she compensated smoothly. When one guest replied to the question "what brought you here tonight?" with the answer "The bartender Malik's friend Johnny," Brockington replied "the bartender Malik's friend Johnny. If that's not six degrees of separation, I don't know what is."

What of the acts themselves? From the back of the room, where this reviewer was, it was often difficult to hear or see anything, which makes this review incomplete, and, as I have said, the lineup was uneven. Least interesting was a lap dance performed onstage, apparently to an audience member, by a woman who sang to said audience member whilst said audience member giggled and the audience echoed the giggles. A band called SupaHero Gogo Star (this reviewer thinks she heard) consisted of amateurish, hollering lead singers in tamely genderqueer costume, beautifully harmonizing backup vocals, and saxophone.

A duo performed a "live cooking show" in which they promised to conjure "a batch of young, cute, brown, effeminate boys" from a picnic basket if the viewers shake their house keys and proffer spare change. This group consisted of the male magician and an assistant performer in an awful Amy Winehouse beehive with a self-consciously-babyish-woman's voice, like the love child of Marilyn Monroe and Jennifer Tilly on helium. If this was a parody of a woman, it was too close to common stereotype to be witty. During the incantatory dance, a banner reading "limp wristed fag" was unfurled and the performers mimed limp wrists and a homophobe's condemnatory scowl and finger wag. One act was absolutely unoriginal, cliched, and idiotic: "Cindy Silent," a man in a Catholic-schoolgirl plaid skirt and "Dirty Girl", a blond woman in a white dress, who performed with, and on, an inflatable sex doll, then paraded it through the audience to their exit.

One of the better performers, whose name this reviewer couldn't hear over the crowd, danced what appeared to be a conventional burlesque performance, like a mermaid, without a tail, but "swimming" in a tangle of blue and green diaphanous material, with seaweed-like string in her hair. Introduced by a pantomiming sailor-suited gawker, she soon divested herself of all her marine features, to the accompaniment of the song "I Just Want to be a Woman." The Little Mermaid of Hans Christian Andersen and Disney "just wanted to be a woman," too, but primarily in order to attract a prince. Conversely, Cataplexy's character appeared to adamantly claim her human dignity in her own right. That is an amazing plot for a burlesque act, one that critiques the ostensible reason for the medium's existence. If Cabaret Cataplexy features more acts like that one, it should go on for at least another five years.