A Leopard and His Spots

In Randy Cohen’s sometimes disturbing monologue, The Punishing Blow: An Illustrated Lecture Delivered By Order of the Orange County Criminal Court, a pompous and unlikable professor named Leslie White (Seth Duerr) is inconsolably irked that an Irish judge has forced him to atone for an anti-Semitic rant following a drunken automobile accident. His sentence: to deliver a community lecture at the Orange County Public Library. Leslie must choose to speak about one figure from a list of the “100 Most Influential Jews of All Time.” (If you’re curious, Jesus is # 2 on that list and Moses comes in at # 1). Leslie picks # 82, an 18th century Sephardic bare-knuckle boxer named Daniel Mendoza, who became a tough-as-nails ethnic hero at a time when “Jew baiting” was a popular pastime on London’s streets. Our lecturer, though, in this highly recommended production, has little intention of atoning for anything. Ascribing ulterior, mercenary or selfish motives to Mendoza’s every act (e.g., his agreement to proceed with a bout scheduled on Shabat is seen by Leslie as particularly loathsome) and positing dubious theories based on his research and “brilliant” conjecture (of course, Leslie declares, despite scant evidence, that Mendoza and his mentor were gay lovers), Leslie hijacks the judge’s well intentioned but naïve sentence and systematically contorts Mendoza’s virtues into stereotypical vices. Thus, the pugilist’s strategic thinking becomes deceit in Leslie’s description. Leslie rationalizes, fully aware of his own deficiencies: “Mendoza always discovered a justifiable motive. People do.” When Mendoza progresses from street brawls to money contests, Leslie snorts, “Does anything convey reality more powerfully than money? You know: to certain people.”

Leslie makes half-hearted denials of his anti-Semitism. He purports to direct his diatribe against the brutality of the sport of boxing. We don’t believe him because he doesn’t believe himself. “It’s self-deception that we need,” he even declares, approvingly, at one point. When he recounts how Mendoza took a job as a traveling salesman, Leslie betrays his seeming admiration: “How Arthur Miller. How Jewy. Sorry: Jewish.” Perhaps the key to understanding Leslie’s dangerous bigotry comes in a line he utters about two-thirds through the play: “It takes sophistication to hate properly." He knows more than you do. He’s thought out his racism, and since it’s not a kneejerk reaction, he’s ok with it.

Smug, sardonic and condescending, Leslie also is often bitingly funny. Mr. Cohen, who once wrote for both Rosie O’Donnell and David Letterman, has a lacerating wit; Leslie peppers his lecture with mean-spirited jabs at the audience and at his wife (he continuously refers to her, sarcastically, as the “Beloved Spouse”), who, behind the scenes, is incompetently running the overhead projector.

The young Mr. Duerr, who also directs the play, is surprisingly convincing as a middle-aged professor. He never falters during the 85-minute production and he completely nails Leslie’s superior and haughty personality, so much so that you may fight the urge to jump the stage and wring his neck.

The play slowly reveals the true extent of Leslie’s unhappy existence. If there’s a drawback to the script, though, it’s that Mr. Cohen never explains exactly why Leslie hates Jews so much; there’s no history that helps us understand why an otherwise intelligent and capable person who, in his heart, knows better, bears such irrational vitriol for an entire race of people.

The Punishing Blow presents an irreconcilable scenario that may be difficult for some in the audience to accept. To his credit, Mr. Cohen declines to moralize. Court-ordered community service will not likely rehabilitate this hardened anti-Semite; and one of The Punishing Blow’s virtues is that Cohen refuses to wrap everything up in a tidy package for us. Having said that, I recommend this play without reservation. Just don’t expect to go home feeling all warm and fuzzy.

MISS KIM

Miss Kim, a play by Gina Kim and Ryan Tofil in the NY Fringe Festival, centers on Gina Kim’s true life story thus far. Kim is a Korean American woman whose past childhood trauma of incest and later rape deeply affected her and caused her to engage in self destructive patterns. Kim’s repressed Korean upbringing discouraged her from acknowledging or dealing with this pain and the tragedies in her youth. Revealing her story in play form certainly lets all these gritty secrets out of the bag, and Kim bravely doesn’t shy away from them. The show goes back and forth from narrative to flashbacks in which four other non-Asian actors, Tessa Faye, Justin Gentry, Mathew McCurdy, and Ryan Tofil, play numerous characters in scenes with Kim. Kim, along with Cristy Candler, a very American-looking redhead, share the title character of Miss Kim. At times this convention of two actresses in the same role energizes and adds humor to the scenes, but, on occasion, I found myself wondering why there needs to be two actresses playing the same part. Kim, a very likable actress, at times fails to capture the emotional rawness the role requires. Perhaps Kim's multiple roles as playwright, producer and lead actress are too much for one plate.

The play, by Kim and Tofil, could benefit from some trimming, especially when the same information or stories are being retold with no new information. However, it is lightened up nicely with quirky, contemporary dialogue.

One highlight is that all of the talented actors give solid, performances and work as a cohesive ensemble. They are responsible for a surprising amount of comic moments in a drama of this subject, and are equally skilled in presenting the harrowing re-enactment scenes of Kim’s gritty and harsh traumas. Director Mathew Corozine deserves high recognition for orchestrating such a seamless show. Stand-out performances go to Mathew McCurdy as the incestuous uncle and rejected date,Vladimir, and Ryan Tofil, whose overall physical and vocal variety in his characterizations impressed. Tofil also was quite endearing as Justin, a love interest.

Lighting designer Kia Rogers manages well with a limited light plot. I did sympathize with Rogers when, at times, the actors' blocking and their light focus were out of sync, which can happen in festivals when multiple shows share the same light plot. The set, which consists of stage boxes, serves the physical actors well.

Overall, Miss Kim is an enjoyable show and I left the theater uplifted in the knowledge that this woman has and still is overcoming these painful traumas. She even started an organization on the subject: ARAI-Awareness of Rape and Incest through Art: http://www.ariany.org. The final cathartic moment, when Kim thanks and hugs the actors in a goodbye scene referencing the Wizard of Oz, is a nice touch.

Gay Life Lessons

Though shows focusing on homosexuals have been unusually frequent this past year, Jonathan Tolins’ ambitious, bittersweet new play about gay men has a depth and subtlety that few dramas can muster in any season. Secrets of the Trade examines the coming-of-age of a young gay artist: it touches on the rocky relationships of parents and children; the coming-out process; finding a mentor; and pursuing one’s dreams (and sometimes failing), yet its various concerns cohere into a satisfying whole. It’s a smart, richly woven tapestry whose meanings and patterns may not emerge fully by the end. As a really good play should, it sends one away with questions and a desire to talk about it. The central relationship in Secrets of the Trade is between a mentor and his protégé: at 16, young Andy (Noah Robbins), a bright theater aficionado and would-be artist, writes a fan letter to Martin Kerner, one of the leading directors and writers in the medium. As the play moves through the next decade, they connect, and Kerner becomes a strangely passionate yet volatile adviser to Andy, who expects a chance to work on a Kerner show, even in the smallest capacity, but never gets it.

As the play marches through the 1980s—John Gromada provides a sound bite that places it right at the start of the Reagan era, and he contributes the tuneful music as well—Andy goes to Harvard, becomes involved with the Hasty Pudding theatricals, and waits and hopes for Kerner’s calls and letters. They keep in touch, occasionally speaking by phone or meeting for lunch. Amid the minimal but effective sets by Mark Worthington, Robbins shows a slowly maturing Andy, alternately confident and uncertain, who is not without doubts, but who hangs his hopes on his idol. The slightly built Robbins often sounds like a teenage Woody Allen, but he's superb both as a precocious teenager and a confident, resentful adult who finally challenges his icon.

John Glover tears into the role of Kerner, a monstre sacré who is by turns encouraging, temperamental, engaging, rebuking, and sympathetic. It’s a grand part that allows an actor a multiplicity of emotions, and Glover seizes it wholeheartedly.

Director Matt Shakman skillfully keeps questions hanging as long as possible. Is Andy gay? Does Kerner have a sexual interest in him? Does Kerner himself know it? And what is Kerner’s relationship to his assistant, the ever-watchful Bradley, played with cool, sphinx-like observation by Bill Brochtrup? Bradley is a constant in Kerner’s life, and his big revelation scene packs a punch, but the play is rife with surprises.

Shakman also stages the comic scenes beautifully. In one imaginative dream sequence, Andy is Charlie and Glover plays Willie Wonka—in Andy’s words “this magnificent, exasperating older man who was giving him the keys to his kingdom…”

Despite his gay mentor, Andy’s parents are a crucial part of his life. His mother Joanne, whom Amy Aquino invests with a heavy dose of skepticism and regret, was a would-be dancer who once auditioned for Kerner but wasn’t hired. She knows the risk Andy runs in setting his hopes too high.

Mark Nelson brings heart, encouragement, and paternal pride to Peter Lipman, who wants his son to succeed, as any parent would. But Peter, an architect who once met his own idol, still smarts from the disastrous and hurtful results of that encounter. Indeed, if architecture is the most public of arts, then all the characters are artists with different experiences of success and failure—and ironically Peter is, with Kerner, the one who has succeeded at his chosen profession, but with a decidedly more humane disposition. Yet it’s impossible for him to fill the role that Kerner does.

Tolins suggests that a parent can’t really mentor a gay child the way an outsider can, and that only a gay mentor can assist a gay protégé like Andy with accepting his sexuality. “Andy came to me,” Kerner tells Joanne, “because I can give him what you can’t…. Permission to become himself, as fully as possible.”

But Secrets of the Trade also suggests that no artist can chart another’s path to success or tell him what he should do. It’s a lesson that Andy ultimately recognizes in the rueful moment that closes this deeply honest play. “Nobody helps anybody,” he tells his mother. “Nobody can. Not the way you think.”

I Love Lucidity

One-act plays need not be throwaways. The format can be memorable and powerful. The five short plays that comprise Encounters (in a non-lucid state) are, regrettably, neither. And that’s a shame because the young Rising Sun Performance Company has been forging a reputation for solid, albeit low-budget work, such as this summer’s The Last Supper. I’m not even sure I would credit any of the works in the present collection as plays so much as I would label them sketches. Stacey Lane’s too-long “Residue” frames the set and then continues with interstitial reprisals, like an irritating MC. Lane’s writing is breathless but dull. Despite the flatness of the material, Anastasia Peterson does a terrific job as Eleanor, a frenetic and confused young woman, reliving archetypal dream states: cheating on one's spouse, failing high school, dying, and public speaking. Eleanor wishes to learn the skill of “lucid dreaming," in which the dreamer can control her dreams' outcomes.

John Patrick Bray’s “Cookies,” an ostensible comedy about mean kids, is a weak skit that goes nowhere. Grownups who talk and act like children are always creepy, and it’s much worse when they have nothing interesting to say. Mark Harvey Levine’s “Shakespeare Lives!” in which he imagines the bard as an undead zombie, is corny, silly and, hopefully, bad on purpose.

In Rebecca Jane Stokes’ “Binge Honeymoon,” a newly married couple (Anthony Mead as Ted and Becky Sterling Rygg as Luanne) returns to their hotel after a 24-hour post-wedding drinking binge. Luanne fears that she’s a suddenly changed person because of her new status. Ms. Stokes’ script has a moment or two but mostly serves up warmed over jokes:

LUANNE: (head in hands). I don’t believe this. Am I going crazy? TED: You’re not crazy. You’re drunk. LUANNE: I’m Irish!

Thomas J. Misuraca’s “Meet Up,” a sketch alluding to the ubiquitous social networking phenomenon, is the most well-written and acted of the bunch. Ms. Rygg plays Cyndee, an intrusive exaggerator whose obnoxious behavior masks insecurities and loneliness. At a tapas bar get together she encounters Jane (Mariana Guillen), a new Meet Up organizer who doesn’t yet know enough to avoid Cyndee like the plague. Revealing their various problems in an overwrought Oprah moment, they form a kind of bond. Ms. Rygg, who can play vapid extremely well, has comedic chops of the absurd variety (when she catches the waiter looking at her, she bellows, hilariously, “Men are raping me with their minds all the time!”) and Ms. Guillen admirably plays Cyndee's slightly repressed foil.

It’s obvious that much if not all of the work here comes from very new writers. In and of itself, that’s not a bad thing. Yet, the unoriginal and uninspired majority of these five sketches come across like sitcom pilot rejects rather than thoughtful, measured works. I would recommend that the playwrights read more classic short plays and try not to bowl the audience over with cleverness.

Having said that, it’s difficult to believe that these were the best submissions to come across the desk of Akia, Rising Sun’s Artistic Director. Hopefully, Encounters (in a non-lucid state) is an aberration on an upward climb for this promising group.

I sat through this so you don’t have to. In the end, this mishmash might best be summarized as, well, non-lucid.

Passion Plays

For its seventh season, Redd Tale Theatre Company, in residency at Nicu’s Spoon Theater in Midtown West, has taken on two classics in repertory. Each runs about two hours, with William Shakespeare’s Macbeth a little bit over at 130 minutes and Pierre Carlet de Marivaux’s Triumph of Love a little under at 110 minutes. Seeing two shows in rep allows for interesting contrasts, as sets are used twice, themes reoccur, and many of the actors perform in both plays. While tightly directed by the company’s artistic director Will Le Vasseur, Macbeth and Triumph succeed only intermittently in being completely compelling evenings of theater. There are, however, strong performances in each and some innovative directorial choices in “the Scottish play” in particular. Redd Tale’s “tightly edited version” of Macbeth is the more enjoyable, more engaging of the two. The weird sisters open the play with their supernatural mojo, standing on a black-lit rune resembling the symbol on the cover of the fourth Led Zeppelin album. As the play progresses, the witches retreat to three different corners of the stage where they stand motionless — observing. They also occasionally become minor characters, adding an interesting twist to their manipulation of the action.

But the most important ingredient in Shakespeare’s tragedy of politics and ambition is two lead actors who can inhabit the guile and guilt, might and madness of the characters of Macbeth and his social-climbing wife. While Redd Tale co-artistic director James Stewart, as the doomed regicide, is technically proficient, his performance is unfortunately emotionally deficient. His Macbeth never truly connects to the audience as a man who morphs from an unwilling murderer to a tyrant willing to do anything for the crown. Founding company member Virginia Bartholomew, in contrast, as Lady Macbeth, is like the bloodthirsty star of The Real Housewives of Scotland, egging on her recalcitrant husband and plunging into insanity as her indiscretion gets the best of her. Bartholomew is both devious and delicate, formidable and fragile. Her interpretation of the role is the highlight of both shows.

The remaining characters in Macbeth are fleshed out by actors of varying degrees of skill, with Morgan Auld as Ross/Porter, Brad Lewandowski as Malcolm, and Collin McConnell as Banquo/Menteith faring best with Shakespeare’s poetry. Outfitted in fetching kilts and tartan sashes, the cast moves briskly through this pared down version of the story, which never loses sight of the main narrative thrust and retains most of Shakespeare’s rhythm. It is praiseworthy that Le Vasseur’s cuts seem seamless.

His adaptation of Triumph of Love, however, suffers from an overeager attempt to “throw in a healthy dose of RTTC’s signature sci-fi twist,” according to the company’s press release. While Redd Tale’s previous season’s Maddy: A Modern Day Medea earned acclaim for its audacious reworking of the classic Greek tale, the changes made to Triumph seem like square pegs forced into round holes.

Landing in between Molière and Beaumarchais in the French dramatist timeline, Marivaux wrote some 30 comedies about love, of which Le triomphe de l’amour is the most famous. Working from a new translation by Virginie Maries, Le Vasseur keeps the plot essentially intact. But the play now begins with our cross-dressing heroine Leonide subservient to a sorceress who turns back time so that the disguised princess can bring back her love from an untimely death. It is a device that adds nothing to the charms of the play — and also tacks on an unfortunate and nonsensical ending.

Adaptation aside, this production also suffers from what seems like a concerted attempt at cohesion with its repertory partner, Macbeth. Much like the witches in that play, the cast of Triumph surrounds the stage motionless until their time in the spotlight. But while this blocking makes sense in the context of the previous tragedy, where all eyes are watching, it makes much less sense in this comedy, as the statue-like actors have their eyes closed most of the time. They are neither observers nor manipulators of the story, as the weird sisters are in Macbeth.

In addition, Triumph has the misfortune of having odd costume choices, as everyone but the lead actress is bedecked in grey jersey-cotton togas. Is this meant to be a nod to the Greeks and/or the rationalist views of the holier-than-thou philosopher, Hermocrate, who is one of the main characters of the play? And why is Corine, princess Leonide’s handmaid, dressed in an obviously femininized toga when her character is supposed to be in disguise as a man throughout the play?

Unfortunately, these directorial choices distract from what is overall a well-acted and tightly constructed version of Triumph of Love that shares with Macbeth themes of royal succession, politics, and deception. Founding company member Lynn Kenny is utterly charming as Leonide/Phocion/Aspasie — a true feat since the motives of her character’s deceitfulness are specious to say the least. Brad Lewandowski is also winning as the object of her affection, the young and naïve Agis.

Virginia Bartholomew proves once again that she is a force to be reckoned with in her spot-on performance as the old maid Leontine, seduced by the princess in disguise as a young, beautiful man. Tom Cleary is equally as delightful as the self-righteous thinker Hermocrate, caught off guard by the wiles of Leonide masquerading as the young maiden Aspasie. And James Stewart as the scheming gardener Dimas fares much better in Triumph, in which his Kiwi accent works well with his character instead of against it as in Macbeth. (Stewart hails from New Zealand.)

Redd Tale should be applauded for its courage in doing shows in rep — particularly challenging shows by the likes of Shakespeare, Chekhov, and Marivaux — and for attempting new adaptations of classic works. Their motto is “to provide enlightening, entertaining theatrical experiences that contribute to humanity’s next step forward.” Both Macbeth and Triumph of Love can be considered entertaining and both include a number of charismatic and captivating performers. But a little more enlightenment next time around regarding the original source material would be greatly appreciated, too. Macbeth is the more successful of the two, while sadly Triumph does not live up to its title. I do, however, look forward to seeing Redd Tale’s “next step forward.”

A Source of Power

We are all capable of changing the world. Or at least our little corner of it. So says Gone Fission, or Alternative Power, a high-spirited performance of street theater presented by Theater for the New City. The play uses its exuberant score to remind its audiences -- young and old -- that if people want change, then they must stand up and make that change for themselves. The play centers on a young man in search of employment, having just quit his position as a mechanic, which itself was a replacement job for his initial career in finance. He realizes that he cannot do a job in which he feels he is taking advantage of people or being taken advantage of himself. Rather, he wishes to be able to do some good in the world. His friend suggests he apply for a job as a census-taker. Upon acquiring this new occupation, however, our hero receives more than just a paycheck. Rather, he is taken on a journey through New York City and the rest of the east coast, confronting a great deal of this nation's problems as well as plenty of its goodness.

The piece is punctuated with catchy, if at times kitschy, musical numbers. The players all assume a myriad of zany roles, from assorted immigrants, to celebrities, to sea life. The play uses these figures to tackle serious political and environmental issues through humor and charm. There is an episodic quality to the work, but the lessons learned by our census employee tie all of the episodes together. He needs to meet all of these people in order to learn something from them and, eventually, to be affected by his experiences.

The work is uneven. Some sequences are cleverer than others and the story is often so extreme that it becomes difficult to follow. Without the more entertaining aspects, this play could seem preachy or overly didactic. Luckily, there are plenty of laughs to be had and the protagonist is a very likable individual. The performers are all to be commended for keeping their energy high throughout. Their message is easier to swallow because of all the fun to be had throughout the show.

Overall, Gone Fission is a unique and enjoyable work of theater. It touches on important subjects while ultimately being able to entertain. This play makes for a fine summer hour spent outside watching a play. Anyone can find an aspect of this play to enjoy. In addition, he or she may also learn something in the process.

Conspiracy Theory

Free Shakespeare productions are a familiar, and welcome, mainstay of the summer months in New York City. Most famous, of course, is the Public Theater’s annual Shakespeare in the Park. If one searches, however, one will discover a myriad of other outdoor Shakespearean traditions that are worth checking out, such as Shakespeare in the Parking Lot. This summer’s offering is Julius Caesar, the classic tale of behind-closed-doors conspiracies, political intrigues, and assassinations in Ancient Rome. Unfortunately, this particular production does not quite live up to the charm that should accompany hearing the words of the Bard from the comfort of a lawn chair in a municipal parking lot in the Lower East Side. The production starts off quite promisingly, with the players all in contemporary, business-casual dress, walking amongst and directly interacting with the audience. Each performer either carries a sign or a petition, some promoting Caesar and some condemning him. It seems from this opening that the production as a whole will play up the modern resonances of this classic text, suggesting that our own political structures often mirror those of the Roman Empire. Particularly noteworthy is a sign that one player holds that calls for “No third term” for Caesar. The expectation was for a political allegory for our own day encapsulated in a retelling of those fateful Ides of March so long ago.

From this point forward, however, when the play proper begins, there is little reference to any of these ideas again. Yes, the characters are all clothed in modern dress and regularly tote modern props, like iPhones and leather briefcases, but it is unclear in what era we find ourselves. After the opening sequence, in which the “Beware the Ides of March” line is cleverly shouted from a lamppost by someone attired as though homeless, the actors also rarely, if ever, point to their unique stage setting or utilize any of the bizarre locales it creates for them. There are high concept techniques employed – like red ribbon to symbolize blood and catchy tunes to underscore or punctuate the action - but their meanings are obscured. After the climactic murder of Caesar, many of the characters clothe themselves in red attire. Although one level of meaning for this – that they are unable to wash the blood from their hands – is clear, it also feels a tad arbitrary who wears red, when they wear it, and how much of it they don.

Mark Jeter’s performance as Brutus is the highlight of the production. The other performances are inconsistent amongst each other and even within themselves. It is frequently difficult to establish when an actor who is doubling roles has switched from one character to another, making the story vague for those who are not already familiar with it. Also, the production lacks an emotional build; at the moments of highest tension, there is nothing to glue the viewer’s eyes to the stage and at the times of relief, therefore, there is no real cathartic sigh possible.

All in all, the opportunity to hear Shakespeare’s famous text performed outweighs many of the flaws of this production. Shakespeare in the Parking Lot is a clever and community-minded way to expose people to these plays. Julius Caesar is certainly an ambitious production, even if it falls a little short. If you need a Shakespeare fix this summer, this is an easy way to get it.

The Truth Will Out

Tall, with a mop of overgrown hair and terrible posture, Jamie (Trip Langley) is awkwardness incarnate. Fortunately, Trip Langley, the actor who plays this uncomfortable teen with secrets in the Nicu’s Spoon production of Jonathan Harvey’s Beautiful Thing, knows exactly what he’s doing. And he isn’t alone. While the play shows signs of age and Harvey’s script contains some holes that still need some filling, director Michele Kuchuk has assembled a top-notch ensemble to tell this sensitive and amusing tale.

Beautiful, which debuted in the early 1990s, looks at the lives of several neighboring families in working class South London. Jamie lives with his mother, Sandra (Julie Campbell), a bartender looking to expand the options for her career and her life, which also includes boyfriend du jour Tony (Tim Romero).

Jamie spends most of his days with his friend, Leah (Rebecca Lee Lerman), an attention-seeking rebel who has been expelled from school and harbors an unhealthy worship of Mama Cass, and Ste (Michael Abourizk), a classmate who lives to his other side with an abusive father and brother (occasionally seen but never heard). Eventually, Ste seeks asylum under Sandra’s roof, and literally finds himself sharing a bed with Jamie, who is coming to terms with his homosexuality.

Eventually, Jamie and Ste realize that they are more than just friends, though Harvey never fully explores Ste’s journey. Has he always wrestled with uneasy feelings regarding his sexuality? His decision to embark on a clandestine relationship with Jamie seems to happen in too quick, and too easy, a fashion, although both Abourizk and Langley go a long way toward suggesting their characters’ inner torment. They provide the tentativeness where Harvey’s play provides only forward motion.

The play also lacks narrative focus. Is it about Jamie’s journey of self-discovery, his burgeoning relationship with Ste, or the way Sandra must reconcile what she learns about her young son? The idea that she might have a problem with Jamie being gay is introduced late in the play. And a potentially important scene, in which Jamie and Ste sneak into a local gay bar, is mentioned instead of shown.

Leah is also a red herring. As played at least in Kuchuk’s production, she is there to provide comic relief and distraction. Lerman does a great job with her madcappery, delivering sharp dialogue with a highly enjoyable dose of venom, but her subplot becomes a distraction when it should entwine more naturally with that of Jamie and Ste’s – will her jealousy turn her into a viable threat to their secret? Or will her choice to support them put her in a dangerous position? Neither happens, and her character’s ultimate journey feels somehow lesser as a result (it should be said, though, she can do a wicked imitation of Mama Cass).

Langley gives a heartbreakingly nuanced performance, full of the anguish attendant with anyone’s uncertain teen years. I wouldn’t say that he and Abourizk share great chemistry with one another, but the two work very well together, sharing a naivete and the feeling of what it means to be ostracized. Their scenes together provide the heart of the show, which is why it can be so frustrating when the action moves away from them.

Campbell is also magnificent, and adept at adding subtext to fuse Harvey’s narrative disconnects. She channels the character’s earthiness as well as her frustration at not being able to balance everything. It’s a marvelously layered performance. Lerman and Romero deliver sympathetic turns, though their roles do not afford them as many opportunities to explore their characters. And Stephanie Barton-Farcas, too, deserves applause for choreographing a realistic second act fight scene within the limited space allowed by the Spoon. (John Trevellini designed the minimalist set.)

Harvey’s play gives us characters that we come to care about, but he has put them in situations that feel too canned. If he were to have upped the stakes, then Kuchuk’s cast would have a play worthy of their skills.

Absurdist Tragedy

Alan Turing, the British scientist and mathematician who helped break Germany’s Enigma code in World War II, is the subject of Hugh Whitemore’s 1986 play, Breaking the Code. Thanks partly to Derek Jacobi’s masterly performance, Turing’s story became well publicized as a result—his discovery allowed the Allies to know German maneuvers in advance, yet when he was found to be a homosexual a few years later, he was sentenced to chemical castration. Snoo Wilson’s Lovesong of the Electric Bear, first produced in 2003, also takes Turing as its subject, but it features Wilson’s preferred, anti-naturalistic style, with liberal helpings of surrealism and absurdism. Like Breaking the Code, which is far better known, Lovesong is concerned with the double-edged sword of society’s acclaim for its subject as a war hero and the private disdain for his homosexuality.

An important British dramatist since the 1970s, Wilson has encumbered his play with a great deal of fanciful froufrou and a pop culture sensibility. The work begins with Turing’s death by his own hand, poisoned with cyanide, and is structured as a trip back through his life. Turing’s companion/guide is his teddy bear, aka Porgy Bear, played by Tara Giordano in a big brown bear costume with half of her face bearing a strange tattoo that may be part of the Enigma code or just advanced mathematics equations. Bear and master jump on a bicycle and travel back in time.

If Wilson’s trademark use of fantasy is an attempt to leaven the grim story, it backfires. The episodes of Turing’s life often feel assembled from bits and pieces, like verbal bricolage. A sharp-eared theatergoer can pick out anachronisms that would not have been part of Turing’s life (1912-54). There’s “Here come da judge,” from the 1960s TV show Laugh-In, “orgasmatron,” a term coined in Woody Allen’s Sleeper (1973), and a drag gathering that seems a nod both to Cabaret and John Osborne’s A Patriot for Me. There’s also a discussion of J. Edgar Hoover’s cross-dressing life, although it’s unlikely Turing would have known of it, since it came to light decades later.

The play hurtles from scene to scene in Turing’s life: his miserable childhood, a mother (Nina Silver) who doesn’t understand him and is casually cruel (when he tells her he’s received an OBE, she asks, “They gave you an OBE? Why?”); and his unhappy romantic life. One Norwegian boyfriend is denied entry into England; another steals from him, and it is Turing’s complaint about the theft to authorities that sets him up for ruin. “I went to the police and the case stopped being about theft and started being about something else,” he tells a female associate. “And now my life is going to go down like a house of cards.”

Turing is throughout an innocent victim, dealing with bullying at his school and in the military from Blimpish, arrogant superiors, as well as parental neglect, all of which contribute to his desire to end his life. Indeed, as his friend Greenbaum (Peter B. Schmitz, very good in a variety of roles) notes, “the underlying problem with our grubby Peter Pan is, he has never grown up, never admitted defeat, never embraced ... resignation.” His assessment of Turing’s childish aura is echoed by Turing’s favorite movie, Snow White.

Director Cheryl Faraone’s production gives full rein to the bizarre elements, and sound designer Jimmy Wong kicks it up a notch or two with an eclectic selection of music, from Anglican hymns and carols to the Andrews Sisters’ “Beer Barrel Polka” to The Pink Panther theme and “The Colonel Bogey March.” In the last moments, Faraone plays off the apple in the Snow White story, using the Apple Computer logo as the final projection, but her embrace of Wilson’s style is no help. The device of the talking bear and the often frivolous tone quickly become tiresome.

All the gimmickry, however, doesn’t impair the cast, who give excellent performances (though it’s hard to judge how a giant teddy bear would behave), even when they smack of cartoonishness. The chief asset is Alex Draper as Turing. He has an open-faced charm, and his misery is moving; he is both heroic and vulnerable. Late in the play, in an encounter between Turing and Greenbaum, with Porgy offstage, a dose of real feeling comes through, and it’s like a breath of fresh air. But overall, despite their ambitions in staging this difficult play, one wishes that the fine actors at PTP/Potomac Theater Project were engaged in something more rewarding.

Poetry of Violence

PTP, previously known as the Potomac Theatre Project, is presenting what is labeled a world première of two plays by noted British playwright Howard Barker. They are, in fact, two poems by Barker, who has been a leading playwright since the 1970s but whose work is seldom staged here; they have become “plays” because they are delivered as monologues by two accomplished actors. The first is called Gary the Thief and involves an Irish brute. The second is narrated by a voluble and charming fellow and concerns violence in the Balkans. The adaptation of the poems to the stage isn’t altogether successful. Though the intention is ambitious, the result is something that’s neither fish nor fowl, as if one were hearing a Robert Browning poem—“My Last Duchess” or “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed’s Church”—spoken as a dramatic entity. Those, in fact, might be more effective, because they are self-contained speeches, while parts of Gary the Thief swivel between the third person and the first, with both segments spoken by the actor, Robert Emmet Lunney: “My defence lies in your opulence/Says Gary the Thief/Your greed dwarfs my offence/Your violence staggers the ropes of the glove/The very sandwich which the warder bites/Was yanked from in between the jaws of children thin as kites.”

If at times the estimable Lunney cannot make the spill of words intelligible to a listener, it’s because they need to be savored and pored over at leisure, not heard swiftly. Despite a narrative line to the poem (Gary goes to jail, where he eventually rises to a supervisor of other inmates), they feel as if they are meant to be read on a page. That they are lyrical and vivid is not in question, and Lunney, stern and forbidding in a shiny gray suit and tie, makes plenty of other moments—the ones that a reader must puzzle through in print—come alive with quasi-sneering aplomb.

Thematically the two pieces are joined by the theme of violence. But, as the quotation above indicates, Gary the Thief also trades in the British and Irish obsession of class inequity and the trappings of socialist rhetoric that don’t carry as much weight over here. “Let us recognize in Gary/The party theorist says/An ally of the revolution/Whose misplaced zeal/Demonstrates the squandered/Initiative of the oppressed/Reclaim him/How preferable he is to/Intellectuals or priests.”

The second piece, Plevna: Meditations on Hatred, works somewhat better, perhaps because the Balkan conflict touched Americans more closely and for an extended period. The marvelous Alex Draper benefits from a jauntier, more casual approach to the frequently horrific material, infusing it with irony and nonchalance, and designer Christina Galvez has provided some chairs of chrome tubing and black vinyl, and a couple tables.

His shirt open at the throat, with a black bow tie hanging loosely, Draper’s character sips on a scotch and talks about the savagery of Balkan warfare: “All these were killed/Not by the army/But by neighbours/Who in later years/To satisfy the curiosity of children/Talked of the peculiar speed/At which relations deteriorated.” The piece evokes the barbarism that engulfed the Balkans vividly and poetically, although Barker in this case was prescient. Plevna was written in 1988, before the genocidal upheavals of the early 1990s. Clearer and more effective than in Gary the Thief, Barker’s words describe horrors in the manner of a litany at times: “Troy’s bleeding monuments/Massada’s intoxicating leaps/Syracuse’s innovative deaths, Acre’s carpet of disfigured women/Wexford’s mounds of the unchosen/Vienna’s woods of castration…”

Director Richard Romagnoli does a nice job of investing the poem/plays with movements, many of them small gestures. But each is so telling that, for instance, when Lunney cringes on the floor or steps off the front of the stage at one point, the effect of those larger moments is intensified. Together the plays add up to 45 minutes: For all the lushness of the words and imagery, the monologues serve as mere settings to show off superbly talented actors.

Shaving the Gorilla

The cross-disciplinary performance company known as anna&meredith state that their work “unites the most compelling elements of dance, theater, and devised performance.” Composed of playwright Anna Moench (a member of the 2010 Emerging Writers Group at the Public Theater) and director Meredith Steinberg (a Brooklyn-based choreographer and dance educator about to enter the MFA Dance program at Temple), their Death of the Ball Turret Gunner was a Time Out New York Critic’s Pick of the 2008 FringeNYC. Anna&meredith were also in residency at Spoke the Hub as the First Place Winner of the 2009 Winter Follies. Blending movement and music into performance in interesting ways, their new show, Gormanzee & Other Stories, now playing in the intimate basement The Flea Theater in Tribeca through July 25, is three distinct one-acts strung together. Running about an hour and forty-five minutes, the evening starts strong with “Bill It,” wanes slightly in the middle with “The House on the Shore,” and ends with a creative bang with “Gormanzee.”

“Bill It,” the first and longest of the one acts, is a look at the patrons and staff of an upscale restaurant. The entire cast enters together and breaks into a delightful dance. A stylized pas de deux of the two hostesses, as enacted by Jean Ann Douglass and Sarah Elmaleh, follows. Their mirror-image duet contrasts with their soon-to-be-divulged personalities — vainglorious veteran and unenthusiastic newcomer, respectively. With overlapping dialogue and frenetic interruptions, this opening sequence deftly encapsulates not only the difficulty of scoring a reservation at a trendy restaurant, but also the frustration of being able to take advantage of it.

Once the hostesses have greeted and kept at arm’s length the evening’s guests, the action begins. The arch interaction between gossipy girlfriends Claire Gresham and Elisa Matula reveals a deliciously dark edge, while earnest toy designer Dave Edson is raked over the coals by a buffoonish toy manufacturer (Nathan Richard Wagner) and his hilariously cartoonish yes-man (Edward Bauer). A few couples on dates and a jaded server (Molly Gaebe) with a history with one of the patrons complete the cast of characters. An animated piece that produces both giggles and guffaws (especially Molly’s profane malbec recommendation), the scene transitions are carefully choreographed as characters “spin” in and out of the forefront. “Bill It” is the strongest and most compelling of the three one acts, nimbly incorporating movement and music into both the action and the characters and whetting the audience’s appetite for more to come.

Two shorter pieces follow a brief intermission. The two-character “House on the Shore” raised a lot of questions for me. Is it simply a memory play about the sole remaining resident of a closed-down beach town reminiscing about his lost love? The most dramatic of the three one acts, “The House on the Shore” is also the most perplexing. Why is Gart (touchingly portrayed by Nathan Richard Wagner) constantly sopping up water spills? Why are there towels everywhere? Is the ocean slowly encroaching on his residence? Are we supposed to believe that global warming has caused water levels to rise so high that this once coastal town is now being flooded? Although I found the dances between Gart and his ex-lover/therapist/friend Tess (Elisa Matula) tinged with poignancy and the original music by David Moench beguiling, I’m not sure I understood what this particular piece was about. What is happening to this house, this town, and this couple? And, even more importantly, why is this dour one-act sandwiched in between two much more playful pieces?

The title of the final piece, “Gormanzee,” is an amalgam of three characters: a gorilla (brought to life by a trio of puppeteers), a human (Edward Bauer), and a chimpanzee (Sarah Elmaleh). As a chef (Claire Gresham) enters the stage and nonchalantly examines her cooking and cutting utensils, one gets the feeling that this one act, billed as “a macabre puppet comedy exploring ritualistic primate slaughter,” will be a gory story. One by one the “gor,” “man,” and “zee” enter. An incredible variety of red props spew around the stage in an effort to recreate spurting blood and disemboweled organs. I won’t give away the somewhat unexpected ending, but the giddy mayhem of this theatrical evisceration is hampered by a punch line that simply doesn’t deliver. What should be a revelatory moment turns out to elicit no more than perfunctory shrug.

But all in all, this “evening with anna&meredith” has a lot to recommend it, including a uniformly superb and committed cast and an abundance of amusing theatricality. Gormanzee & Other Stories, despite its flaws, is still an exuberant show that bursts with creativity.

Blood Feast

The young grad students who populate Dan Rosen’s delightfully absurd The Last Supper are left leaning, sometimes shallowly, and often overbearingly sanctimonious. For entertainment, they tune in to an extremist conservative commentator who makes Bill O’Reilly look like a bleeding heart. Mr. Rosen, who wrote the screenplay for the 1995 film of the same title (Ron Perlman and a young, painfully unskilled Cameron Diaz were notable cast members), now brings his tale to off-off Broadway. Whereas the film is filled with dark psychopathic tension, the stage play is wackier and more balanced, and the actors reveal depth that is notably absent in the movie version. An Arsenic and Old Lace for a new generation, The Last Supper first pits the grad students against Zach (played by a convincing Joe Beaudin) who assists one of them when his car fails during a storm. The grateful students invite Zach to dinner and, fatefully, Zach accepts. The menacing and racist Zach, a gung ho Iraq War veteran, promptly insists on saying grace, pays homage to George W. Bush and spits out the tofu turkey in disgust.

Worse, Zach is a rabid history denier who scoffs at the Holocaust. He mimics Jews in a clueless voice that resembles that of Roseanne Roseannadanna. Insults fly around the table and Zach, illustrating his point that these entitled brats couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag, suddenly pulls a knife on Mark (Michael Bernardi) who, when Zach attacks another student, grabs the knife and plunges it into Zach’s back. This invites recriminations, and some fairly funny dead guy jokes. The students even fret about how a murder conviction will look on their resumes. Guilt soon morphs into rationalization and self-satisfied zeal; soon, these nascent killers are off to the races, welcoming new Sunday dinner guests—an otherwise endearing minister (played perfectly by Larry Gutman) who happens to be a vicious homophobe, a misogynistic author, and a woman who believes J.K. Rowling is satanic.

Mr. Rosen, for the most part, tracks his screenplay, updating it to the time of the Bush II administration. The material is still fresh because little has changed in the decade or so between the film and the time of the play: rabid pundits rule the airwaves, the Hillsboro Baptist Church rails hatefully against homosexuals, and in many communities the term “family values” remains code for odious intolerance.

Set designer Jak Prince does a great job of replicating a grad house dining room, and lighting designer Dan Jobbins expands the set parameters considerably with his clever work. Cast standouts are J.L. Reed as Luke, a roommate with ice water in his veins, who steers the others down the path of murder, and Mr. Bernardi, who commands the set as the group’s liberal thought leader. Fight Director Turner Smith has trained the actors well; the several physical scenes are realistic and even chilling.

Because the talented cast rotates (I saw Cast # 1), you may catch another capable troupe, but I certainly recommend The Last Supper. It’s funny, lighthearted, absurd and perfect for a summer evening in the city.

A Woman's Work

Tina Modotti is certainly a colorful public figure whose life, on paper, makes for a compelling story. Unfortunately, Wendy Beckett’s play Modotti, now playing at Theatre Row’s Acorn Theatre, turns out to be a misguided attempt at dramatizing such a colorful life. Modotti (portrayed by Alysia Reiner), nee Assunta Adelaide Luigia Modotti Mondini in Italy, immigrated to the San Francisco area as a teenager. She flirted with acting and modeling after getting involved with a bohemian crowd. Soon she embarked on a more successful career as a photographer.

However, Beckett, who directed as well, emphasizes the more dramatic events in Modotti’s romantic life, notably her tempestuous relationship with fellow photographer Edward Weston (Jack Gwaltney). Eventually, Modotti ends up in Mexico, where she begins rallying for political causes, and gets entangled with Communists like muralist Diego Rivera (Marco Greco) as well as writers Bertram (Mark Zeisler) and Ella Wolfe (Dee Pelletier).

The play becomes little more than a chronological catalog of events in Modotti’s life – the men that came and went, her stint in jail due to her activism. Modotti’s scenes provide a sketch of the facts (some, at least) of her life, but it doesn’t dig particularly deep into her personality. Beckett appears to have a lot of respect for the woman, but gives her little personality to demonstrate. Where does her fire come from? Does she ever feel a sense of loss for anything of the ideas or people on whom she turns her back?

Part of the problem with Beckett’s structure is that, by now, it feels tired; the linear narrative no longer possesses much dramatic power. There are a couple of options that would make Modotti stand more on its own. For one thing, she could focus on a specific period in the artist-activist’s life. The specific drama would provide a more contained dramatic structure as well as provide ways to elucidate Modotti’s personality.

Another choice would be to create a more subjective show instead of sheer biography. Does Beckett have her own theories as to what motivated the woman, why she treated men the way she did, or what really happened during her ambiguous final years? Giving this show more of a thesis would also give it more personality.

And yet Modotti should in no way be written off entirely, if for no other reason than the skilled performance of its leading lady. Reiner holds the stage for the play’s entirety, and even when the script doesn’t do justice to the character, the actress certainly does, showing how her insatiable appetite for life made her magnetic to anyone who came near her. One hopes she rebounds with a stronger theatrical vehicle soon. The other actors in the ensemble turn in serviceable work – Gwaltney, in particular, is a very charismatic presence.

I hold out hope for Modotti. It’s an imperfect look at an important woman, but it is not too late to bring this look into focus.

Couples Retreat

Remember how Bernard Slade’s play Same Time, Next Year caught up with its characters every several years to depict changing morals – and mores – over the course of time? (For those in need of a more recent example, I recommend the movie When Harry Met Sally, in which the titular couple met every five years until they were finally ready to fall in love). Alan Ayckbourn’s Joking Apart attempts a similar feat by having its four central couples meet over the course of a dozen years, shown in four-year intervals. His goal is to show how these various characters come to terms with their love lives, what’s attainable and what’s merely a pipe dream, and while it is similar terrain to that which has covered in better-known works like Bedroom Farce and The Norman Conquests, the playwright stumbles quite a bit in finding his footing here. Nonetheless, T. Schreiber Studio’s current production, directed by Peter Jensen – the New York premiere of this play – does an admirable job bringing this work to a new generation of audiences.

Richard (Michael Murray) and Anthea (Aleksandra Stattin) Clarke are a fairly modern couple. He’s a successful businessman and father, and she is a loving mother; the two, though unmarried, appear to be perfect partners. They are great cooks and hosts and love convening with their friends, old and new. But the more they interact with these friends, the more the cracks in everyone’s relationships begin to show.

For starters, there are the neighboring Emersons. Hugh (Michael J. Connolly) is a vicar who never knows quite what to say, and Louise, his worried wife (Alison Blair), feels resentment every time Hugh dines with the Clarkes, because she feels inferior about her own cooking prowess. Sven Holmenson (James Liebman) is the antithesis of Hugh; as Richard’s business partner, he’s an insufferably arrogant blowhard, but his wife, Olive (Stephanie Seward), too feels jealous of Anthea.

Then there’s Brian (Sebastian Montoya), who works with both Richard and Sven. His character feels like Ayckbourn’s most calculated creation in Joking. Each scene finds him visiting with a different girlfriend (always played well by Anisa Dema), but even though the program credits Dema as playing multiple roles, it takes a while to realize that each of her characters is indeed a distinct one from scene to scene. No matter, though, since Brian secretly pines for Anthea. And, as it turns out, so does Hugh.

But it is hard to imagine that this grass-is-greener story – purportedly Ayckbourn’s personal favorite of his works – was ever truly fresh. Joking is a fairly idle work; it is hard to feel a sense of urgency for these characters as the years go by. The play faces physical hurdles in addition to emotional ones. Despite Matt Brogan’s top-notch scenic design and Eric Cope’s lighting effects, several climactic tennis matches occur partially offstage, making it difficult for one to fully invest in the obscured action.

And yet Jensen’s cast respects the people they portray so much that ultimately, so do we. Stattin is a luminous presence, projecting both beauty and depth; it’s easy to see why she might be the object of such intense male affection as well as female derision. Blair and Seward both excel at projecting insecurity with comic finesse, and Connolly outdoes Ayckbourn’s own script to connect all the dots needed to justify some of Hugh’s incongruous actions.

All together, though, something feels absent from Joking. Slade’s show entwined comedy, drama, reflection on changing times and charming chemistry; the passage of years meant something had both been lost and gained for its two characters every time they reunited for another twist.

The four scenes in Ayckbourn’s work lack the same richness. There isn’t a dramatically compelling reason – or even a comedically diverting one – to substantiate a reason for each time these characters commune. While one would understandably want to watch these actors in a different piece, in this case, one also wants to run up and tell them that the party’s over.

Brawl in the Family

In the last few years, The Amoralists – a passionate group of players that includes founding members Derek Ahonen, James Kautz, and Matthew Pilieci – have created quite a name for themselves on the downtown scene with their blend of traditional storytelling structure and in-your-face comedy. Those who have missed their previous works are in luck, though: their 2010 season includes revivals of such recent works as The Pied Pipers of the Lower East Side and Amerissiah, which just opened at Theater 80. Amerissiah, written and directed by Ahonen, falls slightly beneath the benchmark set by such shining lights as Pipers and the recent Happy in the Poorhouse. The play, still steeped in over-the-top yuks, probes fairly deeply, but Ahonen isn’t able to answer all of his questions as satisfyingly as one might hope. And yet a nearly perfect cast makes the experience a worthwhile one.

George Walsh is Johnny Ricewater, a used car salesman cum mini-celebrity whose questionable finances have gotten himself and business partner daughter Holly (the typically outstanding Sarah Lemp) into some trouble with the law. But Holly has even more pressing matters to deal with, including her estranged lawyer husband Bernie “the Attorney” (Kautz) and the impending demise of eldest brother Barry (Pilieci).

Barry has returned to the Ricewaters’ childhood home on Long Island in anticipation of his death as cancer gets the best of him. He’s comforted by the fact that he thinks he is the Second Coming (Ahonen’s title is an amalgam of the words “American” and “messiah”), a notion shared by an interracial couple (Nick Lawson and Jennifer Fouche) who arrive from the Midwest convinced that Barry can save their souls. Meanwhile, third Ricewater child Ricky (William Apps), a recovering addict, has come home with his new girlfriend Loni (Selene Beretta), also feeling the ache of rehabilitation.

Ahonen has assembled a team in the truest sense of the word. His ensemble is a group of talents that work incredibly well together, and their intimacy easily translates into a warts-and-all look at one seriously dysfunctional family. Amerissiah runs the gamut of humor to pathos, from scatology to spirituality, and these actors fulfill all of Ahonen’s demands with vivid brushstrokes.

But the show is also a little too dyspeptic for its own good. Ahonen’s works start out at a higher decibel than most shows and only continue to get louder and more hyper. This has worked in other shows but has a bit of a diluting effect on the material in Amerissiah; it is easy to gloss right over the show’s more inward, reflective moments because the play isn’t slow and silent enough in pockets. It is a two-tone show that should feel more blended together.

That is not to say that this dedicated cast eschews realism. On the contrary, the performances in Amerissiah provide plenty of gravitas in addition to mere entertainment (and they certainly entertain, with aplomb). Apps and Beretta navigate through thick subtext to shed extra light on their troubled characters. Pilieci and Walsh both convincingly portray men looking for more meaning, more connection, than their lives have provided to them, regardless of their accomplishments. And Fouche is a marvel as Carrie, the quintessence of devotion.

Additionally, Kautz and Lemp share a special chemistry as the exes who cannot untangle from their bond. The two are comic delights, with Kautz playing the milquetoast and Lemp engaging in full-throttle hysteria throughout the show. Lawson, too, as a closed-minded, epithet-spewing yokel, is a laugh riot. Only Aysha Quinn, as Barry’s ethereal wife, Margie, feels a little too meek and disengaged for this gang.

Still, despite stumbling through some of Amerissiah’s heavier tropes, Ahonen has excelled in another area. He has created another unorthodox family of chaotic characters. And in loving them even more than they love each other, he has managed to make them unforgettable.

Light Blue

Buddy Cop 2 sounds similar to the recent box office bomb MacGruber, like a spoof of 1980s action genre tropes. And it’s true that the play, written by co-stars Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen and developed by director Oliver Butler, takes place in the 1980s. But beneath the polyester pants and Aquanet hair, there are a lot of smart, unexpected, and even dramatic surprises to be found. Buddy, presented by the Debate Society with the Ontological-Hysteric Incubator, takes place in the local police station of Shandon, Indiana. Though it’s currently August, Officers Novak and Olsen (Bos and Thureen, respectively) are making sure things are beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Local girl Skylar (Monique Vukovic) is suffering from cancer and might not live to see the actual holiday, so the townspeople are singing and parading in her honor; the governor even makes plans to visit.

Meanwhile, the officers go on with their daily routine. Novak practices for a physical ability test that her male colleagues have never had to take. Olsen bides his time by playing bingo along with the radio. And fellow Officer McMurchie (Michael Cyril Creighton) stews at being passed over to work security for the governor’s visit.

Everything about Buddy seems to shriek “comedy!” And in the beginning, it seems to be playing along those lines. Novak gallops toward the front door every time a delivery arrives. The officers dig at each other and their quotidian routines engender knowing laughter from anyone who’s whittled time away behind a desk. An early scene in which Novak knocks down a shelf had me laughing harder than I had at a show in weeks.

But eventually, Buddy moves in a different direction. This isn’t at all a play about people acting funny, this is a play about a community coming together and how easy it is for people to understand one another without words even being said. Novak, for instance, appreciates McMurchie’s feeling slighted, and also makes some keen observations about Olsen.

Buddy, shrewdly paced by Butler, is also a play where the devil lies in the details, and boy do the talented actors in this show have those details down pat. Bos, Creighton and Thureen are able to fold the funny bits of the story into characterizations that carry real dimension. The outrage Thureen brings to losing at bingo is both humorous and scary at the same time; the forthright manner in which Bos has Novak describe her short-lived marriage is simultaneously endearing and heartbreaking. And the way the officers take turns lowering the volume on the radio when a phone call comes in is the kind of deft touch that shows respect and familiarity not found in a more run-of-the-mill slapstick comedy. And Creighton wields a mean slow burn.

Furthermore, Laura Jellinek’s design is also spot-on, recreating a claustrophobic office environment. (The actual Shandon police station has flooded, so the action takes place in a converted recreation center that comes complete with a functional racquetball court.) Mike Rigg’s lighting design also contributes to the realistic effect.

The one place where Buddy seems to falter is in the monologues that break up the scenes depicting the officers’ monotony, delivered by Vukovic as Skylar and another character, Brandi. The way these are interwoven with the police station scenes never fully gels, and sometimes it creates an eerie effect. These speeches confuse rather than clarify the show's ultimate tone.

Still, the overall effect of the play is a very tender one. I went to this play to watch several strangers, and I left it feeling as though I had made several friends.

Hard Times, No Hope

In the early years of the Great Depression, Hallie Flanagan, who would later lead the Federal Theater Project, wrote a play with a student of hers at Vassar, Margaret Ellen Clifford, based on a short story by Whittaker Chambers—the same Whittaker Chambers who later exposed Alger Hiss as a Communist spy to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Chambers as a young man had been an avowed Communist, and his story, published in March 1931 in the left-wing New Masses, was adapted and expanded by Flanagan and Clifford into a scathing indictment of inaction by the government and moneyed classes in the face not only of the Depression, but of a record drought in the Midwest and South. Can You Hear Their Voices? is being revived by the Peculiar Works Project in a space taken over specifically for the production. Sometimes riveting, sometimes awkward, the play is more than a historical curiosity, but not as dramatically polished as one would like. The original premiered at Vassar, and at times it feels a bit too collegiate in spirit. A projection assures us that “every episode in the play is factual,” and indeed, the chief incident in Chambers’s story occurred in England, Ark., in January 1931, when starving farmers looted a Red Cross distribution center. The resulting play, staged in May, was about as immediate as theater can be, and Voices may be the first agitprop play in American history.

To the farmers’ potent story Flanagan and Clifford added scenes of high society. Based on fact or not, their contributions are loaded with ham-fisted irony, though it sometimes hits home. “Congress is a body of wise, elder men who have the country’s good primarily at heart,” says a phlegmatic congressman (Ken Glickfeld, channeling one of those great ’30s character actors, like Lewis Stone or William Frawley). “It’s true we’re in the grip of a severe crisis, but just for that reason we have to proceed with caution.”

Flanagan and Clifford’s sections focus on the congressman and his daughter, Harriet, a young debutante (Tonya Canada) who feels for the people affected by the devastating drought, and tries to persuade him to do something for them. But he’s more absorbed in his newspaper and his plan to give her a smashing coming-out party.

Played like broad sketch comedy, the scenes of toffs and dowagers with foot-long cigarette holders are meant to serve as counterpoint to the debates among the farmers about whether to seize Red Cross stores of food and milk, and whether to use firearms. The production doesn’t encompass both styles effectively, however. “Come out of the fog, old dear,” Harriet says to her father, in a speech that sounds like a promotion for Vassar. “I’m one of the country’s educated women. I go to college. I take a course in government and one in charities and corrections.”

The play is given a committed—if unevenly acted—performance by its cast. Among the standouts are Christopher Hurt as Wardell, a desperate, left-leaning farmer, and Rebecca Servon and Mick Hilgers as a Russian immigrant couple. There’s also nice work from Ben Kopit and Sarah Elizondo as Frank and Hilda Francis, a young couple with a baby for whom they cannot find enough milk. Yet even in the scenes drawn from Chambers’ story the irony is laid on pretty thickly: “We’ve got the government in back of us,” says Wardell’s wife, Ann, but, of course, they don’t.

Under the direction of Ralph Lewis and Barry Rowell, most of the cast double and triple in roles, frequently with gender- and age-blind abandon. In some scenes there are women in suits as well as men in gowns. It’s a bizarre misjudgment that produces a sort of alienation effect, distancing the viewer from the proceedings just when one longs to be pulled in by the forceful sincerity inherent in the piece.

In fact, Voices is at its most powerful when at its simplest: projections (used by Flanagan in the original production) of dusty plains, cracked earth, and abandoned tires evoke the misery of the drought and the sense of despair, as well as the champagne high life of dancers throwing themselves into the Charleston. Superb musical accompaniment, written by Seth Bedford, intimates the emotional tone, whether apprehension or frivolity. Ultimately Flanagan and Clifford come down on the side of democracy, but the play is a warning that armed violence remains a possibility, even a right, if a government ignores and abandons its citizens in times of crisis.

Crooks in the Piney Wood

Lillian Hellman’s prequel to The Little Foxes continues her indictment of unrestrained capitalism, showing the rise of a ruthless, post-Civil War mercantile class built on the exploitation of impoverished fellow Southerners and emancipated blacks. But the script for Another Part of the Forest is so laden with greed, snobbery, betrayal, madness, and incest that its serious intent is often masked. If Dan Wackerman’s production for Peccadillo Theater Company isn’t always convincing, much of the problem lies with the writer. At least Hellman was smart enough not to just rehash Foxes. Even if audiences wanted to see more of the cold, grasping Regina Giddens and her brothers, the wily Ben and the manipulated, doltish Oscar, Hellman’s focus here has changed. Another Part of the Forest is about the rise of Ben, Regina’s archrival in Foxes, though for long stretches the center of attention is their parents, Marcus Hubbard, and his wife, Lavinia, a religious woman determined to go on a mission. (Their names are a nod to Titus Andronicus, another potboiler by a writer who did better work elsewhere.)

Marcus (Sherman Howard) is a distant parent, a self-made tycoon happy to squeeze anyone for money—and he’s made his on the blood and sweat of others. He’s a tyrant to his family and disdains his sons, as many self-made men do, while emotionally abusing Lavinia and exhibiting an unhealthy attraction to Regina.

Marcus controls his family's purse strings tightly; that allows him to summon Ben to work on a Sunday and claim he can’t remember why Ben was called. Capricious and cruel, Marcus also refuses Ben money to make a shrewd investment and Oscar the funds to get married. Played with a mix of petulance and comic exasperation by Ben Curtis, the blundering Oscar is the only one of the men who is emotionally open to loving. Unfortunately his sweetheart has been a prostitute, and Oscar gives voice to some pre-feminist ideas about a woman having to do what she must to survive, declaring that society ought not to judge her harshly for that.

Through most of the play Marcus blusters and bullies his family and others. He is also obsessed with Regina, who secretly plans to flee her Alabama home with John Bagtry, a young ex-Confederate soldier (the time is 1880), and live in Chicago. “Your people deserved to lose their war and their world,” Marcus tells Bagtry. “It was a backward world, getting in the way of history. Appalling that you still don’t realize it.”

Although it’s as inevitable as Greek tragedy that Marcus will be thwarted, the character becomes tiresome long before it happens. In the meantime it’s satisfying to hear Ryah Nixon’s bumptious Laurette, Oscar’s ex-hooker, take him down a peg. “I’m not better than anybody, but I’m as good as piney wood crooks,” she declares after he’s belittled Oscar and her.

Happily, though, Matthew Floyd Miller gives a sly, nuanced performance as the louche Ben, complete with mustache and soul patch. One sympathizes with his frustration: he can outsmart anyone, including his sister. Their rivalry ought to be stronger than it is, but Stephanie Wright Thompson’s Regina isn't really his equal—she'll marry the man he chooses before she gets the upper hand.

Though Amy C. Bradshaw provides smart costumes, Joseph Spirito’s set is disorienting. Characters exit the house via French doors onto a patio, then walk up steps at the side of the patio back into an inside room. Though the back wall of the set is broken in half, as if the indoor and outdoor parts were separate, some scenes flow uninterrupted from one area to the other, so that the viewer is periodically distracted by the bewildering architecture of the house.

Wackerman has made a couple of crucial changes to the script, turning Regina’s goodnight kiss to her father into a full-blown incestuous response, which is dramatically dubious. But his changing the stage direction at the final moment of pouring coffee, so that Regina more forcefully abandons her father and throws her lot in with Ben, is much cannier—it is now the moment of transformation for the Regina we will come to know in The Little Foxes.

Peccadillo’s mission is to reexamine American classics, and Another Part of the Forest has certainly languished. But whether the play deserves renewed attention remains an open question.

A Women's War

“This is how men are,” repeatedly remark the cast of Hudson Warehouse’s current production of Trojan Women. The play relates a relevant and piercing narrative of war, both between the sexes and on the international scale. This is a strong adaptation of the work of Euripides, reflecting an important theme in a meaningful dramatic manner. Nicholas Martin-Smith’s play is based on the original Euripides text, but he updates it with contemporary motifs. We meet the women of Troy, who have already been wrecked and ravaged by the invasion of the Greeks. Their men have all been slaughtered save one, and they are without recourse to protect themselves from being thrown into slavery or worse. Talthybius, a Greek political figure, has come to inform the women of their fate. They try to share the horrors of what they have experienced while also attempting to fight back against their circumstances.

Despite the classical tale, the piece feels very twenty-first century. Its costumes are predominantly reflective of current styles and the narrative is sprinkled with modern references, from popular music to current events. Although the performance’s strongest moments are those that are deeply connected to the original Greek text, the details that are included which refer to contemporary society keep the piece feeling relevant. This play is not meant as a museum piece or a historical document. It is a clear reflection of this particular moment in time.

The chorus of women, led by Hecuba, is pitted against the Greek men. The players all give powerful renderings of their characters and Ruth Nightengale’s Hecuba is exceptionally heart-wrenching in her performance, particularly in the play’s final moments. All of the actors bring an intense amount of believability to their performances and engage the audience in the narrative arc. The men are rough, even when they are smooth politicians, which brings a complexity to the work. There is great conflict created between the groupings of characters. We can feel the anxiety of these two groups being forced to come face-to-face with one another. The sexes cannot find common ground and neither can the Greeks and Trojans. They are on separate sides and will not find a way to make peace.

The play uses its outdoor setting well. There is the sense of witnessing an ancient Greek tragedy in the manner in which it was originally designed to be presented: in the open-air, lit by the waning hours of daylight. The stone stage space is littered with the detritus left behind after the attack; there is trash everywhere, especially the remnants of devices once used to make contact, such as telephones and a computer. The women (and men) are also marked by the war’s devastations – their bodies are covered in blood and dirt, their clothes are torn, and their general appearance is disheveled. No one has been left untouched by this war.

This production is a work of political theater, but one that operates in a manner that is neither didactic nor heavy-handed. It uses the form of drama to convey a theme about the dangerous consequences of warfare. At its heart, however, this work is about human beings and what they are capable of doing to one another. They can kill one another brutally, but they can also love one another deeply. It is a choice which force wins out over the other.

Date of the Undead

Love never dies... sometimes, it is undead. In My Boyfriend is a Zombie, a teenaged girl falls for the unique charms of a local zombie boy. The events of this bizarre romance lead to an exuberant, if at times overly silly and kitschy, 1950's-style rock musical. The story begins with four schoolgirls hanging out at a sleepover party. The girlish festivities are interrupted when a zombie comes knocking outside. At first, the girls are frightened; they believe the zombie intends to eat them. However, after running into him again at school and the local soda shoppe, Paula is faced with an odd realization. This zombie, by the name of Grrr, may wish to eat other humans, but in her case, he only desires to take her to the Halloween Hop high school dance.

The piece rolls along with a charming exuberance. The fairly ridiculous tale, somewhat reminiscent of the campy style of The Toxic Avenger musical, is punctuated with many humorous bits and gimmicks. Many of the jokes are built upon clichés; some hit as comic gems while others are perhaps less effective. The overall mood of the play is light and fun, so it is easy to get swept up in this tale of first love and zombie fear.

The music is catchy and is all well-suited to the 1950s motif. As a viewer, it is easy to think of yourself as witnessing an off-beat Grease, one where the young people are both charming and somewhat idiotic simultaneously. There is a particularly fantastic zombie tap dance, which is a highlight amongst the well-sung and excellently danced collection of musical numbers. These are the kinds of tunes you can find yourself still humming hours after the play is done.

The production aesthetics are slight: just three downstage microphones, walls full of records, and an on-stage band. Locations are suggested by iconic set pieces and the descriptive dialogue. This show may have benefited from a more over-the-top theatrical setting. The piece feels about to explode with its playful energy, but this is not mirrored in the on-stage space. The use of the microphones is hard to justify: they were not incorporated into the scenic world of the various moments nor were any of the characters, with the exception of Zombette, who acts a narrator, addressing this fourth-wall breaking practice. Singing out loud and doing large-scale dance numbers are just what these kids do, no further explanation necessary.

Despite its oddities, My Boyfriend is a Zombie makes for a very enjoyable night in the theater. It gives its audiences the opportunity to have some good laughs and listen to some fine music. It is not hard to be charmed by this zombie. It may be a little rough around the edges, but it is lovable nonetheless.