Language, Logs & Love

The first production of Soho’ Rep’s 2010-11 season, Orange, Hat & Grace, written by Gregory Moss and directed by Sarah Benson, was originally developed during the organization’s own Writer/Director lab. This world premiere is an excellent rendering of an original new play, and will make for an engaging evening for fans of experimental plays and those who are looking for an alternative to conventional realism. Set in a rural cabin in the woods, Orange, Hat & Grace describes the courtship of Orange by Hat, a younger man, and charts the progression of their relationship. Orange is haunted by Grace, the daughter she abandoned as an infant years earlier.

However, the life of the play does not lie in its plot or characters, but in the language that they speak and the world they construct from it on a moment by moment basis. The characters share and teach each other words as they build the relationships that bind them together. Hat’s favorite word, “hep,” acquires meaning as he “woos” Orange, who gradually becomes accustomed to it as she does to him. Orange teaches Hat the words for various types of trees and their leaves, and tries to teach him to stop using curse words. Eventually, Hat teaches new words to Grace, an activity that in itself generates conflict between him and Orange. The script’s wordplay and rhythms are mesmerizing, and the best way to enjoy the play is to focus on each new line as it emerges, as the characters do.

The only part of Moss’ script that doesn’t really work is the ending, which forces the question of the nature of Grace’s reality (“real” person, ghost, figment of imagination?) into stark focus. This question isn’t relevant in a world that associates itself into existence on a moment by moment basis, and feels like an attempt to impose closure on a work that would have been better left to evolve in a more unexpected direction.

Stephanie Roth Haberle is captivating as Orange, and her nuanced performance as this complex, contradictory character anchors the production. Mathew Maher is similarly excellent as Hat, presenting him as aggressive and vulnerable in turn. The lead characters’ intense need for each other is evident from their first meeting, and the high stakes the actors bring lend their verbal exchanges great energy, and often humor. Grace’s motivations are never clear, but Reyna de Courcy does a credible job portraying the damaged, spectral figure.

The set design, by Rachel Hauck, reads like an elaborate and minutely rendered joke that only becomes funnier as the show progresses. As the characters constantly announce their locations and actions and describe their surroundings, the script’s actual need for a high-budget set is nonexistant. “Whatchu doing? Orange asks in one early scene. “Break off a piece a wood,” Hat responds, as he does so. Or,“Chop chop chop. Wonder what I look like chopping wood,” Hat says later, swinging a highly realistic ax into an almost excessively detailed, large log. Yet, the audience is presented with Orange’s entire one-room cabin, featuring suitably weathered wooden furniture and even a cast-iron stove.

The props, designed by Michelle Davis, are in a vein similar to that of the set, and successful for the same reasons. The costumes, by David Hyman, are simple, yet effectively place the characters in a dreamlike version of pioneer days, complete with buttoned-up long undewear. Matt Frey’s lighting design includes bare bulbs that assist in conveying scene changes as well as atmosphere. Sarah Benson’s staging makes excellent use of the range of playing spaces and possibilities opened by the script and set.

Adventurous theatergoers will enjoy Orange, Hat & Grace, and the unusual opportunity of seeing such a polished production of such an offbeat and entertaining script.

End(less) Game

An explosive and lyrical exploration of familial angst and decadence, One Little Goat Theatre Company's production of Ritter, Dene, Voss by Thomas Bernhard is many things: intriguing, troubling, often funny, and ultimately unsatisfying. Playwright Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989) was a controversial post-war Austrian writer known for his bleak and misanthropic outlook. He has been compared with both Samuel Beckett and Ionesco because of his absurd, grim portrayal of the human condition. Reportedly, Bernhard was so disgusted with his compatriots that he stipulated in his will that none of his plays may be performed in Austria while they remain in copyright. Fortunately, that doesn't prevent Toronto-based One Little Goat Theatre Company from producing the New York premiere of Ritter, Dene, Voss.

Written without punctuation and filled with repetitions and word-play, Ritter, Dene, Voss is a poetic examination of the dysfunctional relationships of three wealthy siblings. The play, named for the actors who originated the three roles, concerns the homecoming of mad philosopher Ludwig (Jordan Pettle) from an asylum to the home of his older and younger sisters (Maev Beaty and Shannon Perreault), both actresses.

Surrounded by faceless and nude portraits of their parents and uncles, the older and the younger sisters argue over their brother's arrival, which the elder engineered and the younger resists. When Ludwig comes down for dinner, the sisters' quotidian existence explodes. Old wounds smart as the siblings talk past each other, the sisters competing for their brother's favor, and their ever-more-unhinged brother tries to force them to send him back to his asylum.

These are the kinds of family struggles which can have no satisfactory end, leading to wounds that never heal. Perhaps this is why the play ends so suddenly, offering no sense of closure.

Ritter, Dene, Voss is elegantly directed by Adam Seelig, who balances the restraint of the older and younger sisters with the frenetic behavior of their brother and creates some beautiful tableaux. Unfortunately, the few moments when the actors slip out of character to address each other, the audience, and the stage manager seem unjustified and out of place.

Beaty and Perreault are completely believable in their roles, and Pettle's Ludwig is at once compellingly charismatic and skin-crawlingly unhinged. His late entry introduces a much-needed, cutting sense of humor to the proceedings as he abuses actors, artists, and contemporary aesthetics at every turn.

Lighting designer Rosie Cruz creates some beautiful silhouettes, while the simple set and costume designs by Jackie Chau are attractive and serviceable.

Strange that a production that is well-designed, well-performed, and well-directed should be so unsatisfying. Not every story can have a pat conclusion, but one would hope for a sense of aesthetic completion. Instead, one leaves Ritter, Dene, Voss wondering why the house lights came up so soon. Nevertheless, One Little Goat Theatre Company's production is a good opportunity to see Thomas Bernhard's work. Those who admire poetic dramas and explorations of the dark side of human relations will find much to enjoy.

Chekhov in Bits and Pieces

It’s easy to see why the Pearl Theatre Company programmed The Sneeze, an umbrella title covering eight one-acts derived from the works of Anton Chekhov. The evening offers a variety of comic and dramatic roles for several of the company’s stalwarts. Everyone has a chance to shine, and yet the whole is less than fulfilling. The shifting tones make for an unsettling experience, and at times in J.R. Sullivan’s production, the comedy plays like a blunt force object. Four plays are one-acts that Chekhov wrote for the theater, and two of those are monologues. The other four are adaptations of short stories, at which the Russian author was prolific. (Jo Winiarski’s carnival-like proscenium of a decrepit old playhouse with plank floors that turn up like skis at the footlights emphasizes the theatrical aspect and camouflages the more prosaic sources of the other pieces). Characters range across classes: peasants and landowners, rich and poor, military hierarchies and civilian masters and servants, actors and professors.

The title piece, one of the four adaptations, is one of the funniest and most successful. Introduced briefly by “storytellers,” the piece has no dialogue. A military officer named Chervyakov (Chris Mixon) and his wife (Lee Stark) are sitting behind a Gen. Brizzhalov (Bradford Cover) and his wife (Rachel Botchan). Chervyakov sneezes, and as he does so he deposits something disgusting on the top of Brizzhalov’s head. As Chervyakov tries to clean up Brizzhalov unobtrusively and not appear a fool or boor, he invokes much comedy involving dirty handkerchiefs and fans. Acted superbly, it’s like a silent movie, and in many respects the broad style of silent film comedy carries over to the dialogue-driven pieces.

For instance, in The Proposal, which closes the evening, a hypochondriacal Lomov (Mixon again) arrives at a neighboring landowner’s home to seek marriage with Natalya Stepanova, the daughter. Left alone with her, he is about to ask for her hand when the conversation turns to a piece of property. He claims it’s his; she claims irately that her family owns it. The discussion degenerates into shouting, and Lomov begins to have palpitations and trembling. The whole is played with abundant slapstick, and although Mixon’s Lomov is often amusing—particularly as he leaps across stage with an apparently numb leg—the shouting becomes tiresome and one wishes for more subtlety.

It may be, of course, that the Russian sense of comedy doesn’t travel westward very well, or that Chekhov’s sense of what’s funny is shaky. Michael Frayn’s introduction to the plays suggests that possibility, since the playwright reworked his monologue, The Evils of Tobacco, over many years, leaching out the comedy until it was a portrait of a miserably henpecked man. Frayn’s adaptation returns to earlier versions and attempts to restore the humor to the long monologue—delivered with painful panache by the redoubtable Mixon.

A similar problem afflicts Swan Song, also one of the original plays. In it, an aged actor (the marvelous Robert Hock) comes into a dark stage after having napped through a theater party. His appearance echoes that of the servant Firs at the end of The Cherry Orchard. An old prompter appears, and the actor begins to lament the way the theater stood between him and happiness. It’s a lugubrious and dark piece, and although both actors are excellent, it feels too long (especially after Chekhov introduces scenes from Shakespeare (Othello and Lear).

Certainly there are more pleasures to be found in the compact adaptation The Inspector General, in which Bradford Cover in the title role lies on a cart taking him to a village for a surprise inspection. The coachman, unaware of the identity of his passenger, begins telling tales about the IG—he’s a drunkard and has had lots of women. Cover’s reactions to the slander are brilliant, and the piece benefits from being snappy and shorter.

But several of the works are more labored, such as the opener, Drama, based on a story that Chekhov told. Mixon again plays a playwright (Chekhov himself, though named otherwise in the script) and Botchan is an admirer who gains entrance to his home and insists on reading her play to him. Mixon’s increasing agonies and thoughts (of stabbing her, for instance) constitute the humor, but the dividends of his comic exasperation decrease sharply as the play goes on and on.

For anyone who is a fan of Chekhov, the evening provides an overview of the author’s work, widely varying in tone and consistency. Some may find that a virtue, and some may find it uncomfortable, but the Pearl at least deserves credit for undertaking the lesser-known efforts of a playwright whom one is likely to find more satisfying in full-length works.

A Sight for Sore Eyes

“…These art lovers, these poor, unsuspecting–rather, rich, unsuspecting–patrons have bought, sight unseen, a painting you have not yet painted?” This revelation about the nature of the commercial art world occurs at a moment of high tension in Sight Unseen, written by Donald Margulies and directed by Dorothy Lyman. This play confronts this issue of the value of modern art in addition to many other significant topics. The play is a deeply moving and relevant work of theater. The narrative begins with Jonathan arriving at the home of his college lover, Patricia, and her husband, Nick, in England. Jonathan has become a successful American artist while Patricia and her husband are struggling archaeologists. Even before this first encounter in the chilly English countryside, Jonathan has haunted this modest home: a painting that he had painted for Patty back during their college days accents their mantle. Their long-defunct relationship haunts her current marriage.

All of the performances are strong. Jonathan Todd Ross, who plays Jonathan, does a superb job of balancing his character's extreme likeability with a level of smarminess that keeps the character at an uncomfortable arms’ length from fellow characters and audience members alike. The slighted husband, played by Brent Vimtrup, is an interesting figure, a compelling mixture of emotional turmoil and comic relief. Laurie Schaefer plays up Patricia’s wounded soul while Bryn Boice makes Grete a confrontational and worthy foe for Jonathan in his artistic playing field.

The set is realistic, down to the most minute detail. It portrays the English country kitchen in the home where Patricia and Nick live, evoking its spirit while depicting its outward appearance. The same set is also always present in the background, even when scenes do not take place in this home. From one perspective, the play would benefit from being able to change setting. On another, the constant presence of this locale reminds us that no matter how much this play attempts to reconnect with the past and reconstruct the future, these characters will permanently be defined by something that has happened in this site.

The story jumps in and out of time, rather than being told in chronological, linear fashion. The true beauty of this play is in its text. The dialogue is a kind of natural speech while still being deep, powerful poetry. The lines are at turns charming, engaging, provocative, and intellectually stimulating.

The most interesting aspect of the play is the fact that it is driven by such a compelling narrative and yet it is a tale that is already about to reach its logical conclusion in the play’s first scene. Because of this, it seems that the work actually intends to explore something else entirely from the plot points it presents. The theme that recurs time and time again, besides the issue of the value of art, is an attempt to come to terms with what it means to be a Jew in America. Jonathan is torn between his desire to assimilate and involve himself with a non-Jewish woman and his determination to be true to the Jewish identity that his mother wished he would assume. His existence and his art are marked by Jewish symbols, ones with which even Jonathan is not sure he is able to come to terms.

Margulies's play is a meaningful work of drama. It tells a compelling tale of the intricacies of the pleasures and pains created by interpersonal relationships. It is also a stimulating exploration of the place of art in the contemporary American landscape as well as an insightful study of the Jewish experience. This play is worth giving a listen to, even sight unseen.

The Gospel According to Busch

Charles Busch’s latest work of rarefied lunacy takes comic aim at Hollywood’s depiction of nuns. The set of St. Veronica’s, cheaply yet inventively designed by B.T. Whitehill, looks like a shoestring high school effort, with sponges standing in for bricks on the pillars of the front gates, and stained-glass windows depicting steaks being grilled and a garden watered. But it’s meant to be a run-down parish—think of The Bells of St. Mary’s. No matter: the action of this canny satire belies its shabby look. It is sublime nonsense whose pleasures outweigh those of many bigger-budget productions. Busch, an expert on Hollywood melodrama (he’s provided authoritative commentary for Warner Brothers DVDs of The Bad Seed and Dead Ringer), slips in references to The Sound of Music, The Trouble with Angels, Agnes of God and even The Da Vinci Code, but there’s also a snappy homage to His Girl Friday in a flashback that lets Busch appear in the regular drag he's famous for. If the more beatific moments of the actor’s performance as Mother Superior of a bizarre convent don’t remind you of Loretta Young, you may connect his occasionally throatier growl to Rosalind Russell (the star of both Trouble and His Girl Friday).

Busch has surrounded himself with equally comic cohorts. Mother Superior’s second in command is Sister Acacius, equipped by Julie Halston with a thick New Yawk accent and simmering Sturm und Drang. Whether she’s on a tirade about the propensity of young postulant Agnes (Amy Rutberg) to see the face of a saint in stained underwear and perform miracles; listening to the sexual exploits of an old friend (the strapping and lively Jonathan Walker, who doubles as a slouching, nefarious monk); or taking exception to an unprintable phrase that she’s misheard from Mother Superior, Halston is a riot.

Mother Superior must contend not only with Agnes and Acacius, but with a visiting nun from the mother house in Berlin. Voiced by Alison Fraser with a thick Germanic accent seemingly filtered through a dying kazoo, the suspicious Sister Walburga, who wears black gloves, radiates menace. Later on Fraser has the opportunity to do an outrageous Irish accent as a slatternly cleaning woman (dressed by Fabio Toblini in a sweater and skirt, with outrageously pendulous breasts; it appears to be the designer’s homage to Agnes Moorehead in Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte, although it makes Moorehead’s costume look elegant). The actress is vocally brilliant at both.

The convoluted plot defies explication. Suffice it to say, it involves saving the convent by getting money from a notoriously stingy atheist, Mrs. Morris Levinson; fending off the plot of an evil albino monk with a secret that could shake the foundations of Christianity; and discovering the real parents of not one, but two, orphans. And, of course, there must be an interlude or two for Mother Superior to pick up a guitar and sing a song. At times the plot seems just a bit overburdened, but under Carl Andress's direction, the cast brings a high level of energy and commitment to the proceedings, and the parody never becomes tiresome.

Busch’s script gives everyone a plateful of comic opportunities: Walker and Levinson have a scene reading a letter from Sister Acacius in which each gets to do an impression of her. Levinson also plays a young convent student, a boy who endures teasing and bullying from students who call him a faggot, and Mother Superior offers him some indulgent solace.

Though Busch has great affection for the subject matter, he also saves a few juicy comic digs at Catholicism for himself. “A new clinic just opened around the corner, devoted to women’s health and reproductive choices,” Mother Superior informs an old flame. “We’ll see what we can do about that!”

Touring Gangland with Julius Caesar

The Queens Players' Julius Caesar offers Shakespeare’s play in a well staged, physically vigorous production. Set in an unspecified urban gang environment, the production makes good use of the Secret Theatre’s space, and nearly pulls off this updated version of the play. Director Richard Mazda, working in one of the more interesting off-off-Broadway spaces I have encountered of late – a former industrial space with a large, flexible theater, a loading dock and a number of ancillary spaces used for this environmental production – tricks Shakespeare’s play out with the combat-booted, ripped-jeans-and-leather-jacket look that has become the expected attire for disaffected youths. An odd mix of machetes, daggers, shot guns and martial arts weapons has everyone in this production ready to go to work on each other. A cast of mostly young actors, with many of the roles played by women, is headed by the very competent Gil Ron as Julius Caesar, Alex Cape as Marcus Brutus and David J. Fink as Mark Antony.

Mazda choreographs and paces his actors well, and creates a credibly excited, physically urgent atmosphere. Making excellent use of a simple lighting setup (no designers are credited in any of the design areas) and adding some well chosen sound effects, this production is almost convincing. Why then did I feel like I was attending a high-school project, intent to make Shakespeare palatable to urban kids who might otherwise skip the class?

The culture clash between Shakespeare’s text of political assassination and fight for succession and the concerns of Street Gangs of Queens never quite works for the play. Even though the actors have mastered Shakespearean Language 101 well enough, they (with Caesar, Mark Antony and Sarah Bonner’s Portia the notable exceptions) rush through the intricate arguments and oratories of the text in a uniform shouting style that renders the text hard to follow. And the issues of the play – assassination as a tool of political idealism versus murder as a stepping stone to power, fear of tyranny versus fear of losing clout -- do not strike me as the concerns of teenage and twenty-something gangbangers. On the other hand, many opportunities are missed where believable imagery might have steeped Shakespeare’s characters much deeper into a contemporary world.

The use of Johnny Cash for pre-show and intermission music is an odd choice in that it suggests the world of the parents of these actors. The environmental staging is slightly irritating, not only for the awkward tour guide role of the soothsayer (“follow me…”) but also because it does not contribute in either lending atmosphere or meaning anything more than the main stage area implies.

Dressing Caesar in a floor-length white gown – vaguely Islamic looking – is a jarring choice, though it does make the blood look prettier than on the black costume of his first appearance. But it also makes him appear the innocent victim, the lamb brought to slaughter, which seems inconsistent with the rest of the gang concept.

Ultimately, in spite of its flaws, this attempt at giving contemporary relevance to a text by dressing it in new duds is still entertaining to watch, perhaps less for the text than for the worthwhile intent and boisterous enthusiasm of the young troupe.

The Reluctant Evangelist

Partial Comfort’s production of A Bright New Boise , running at the Wild Project through October 2nd, achieves the exact goals the company has set out to accomplish. According to their mission statement, Partial Comfort wants to produce work that is immediate and accessible, work that sticks with the viewer “long after the curtain has fallen and the houselights have been raised.” Much to my chagrin, this play has taken root in my gut like a hearty bowl of oatmeal. Boise is a devastating portrait of contemporary American life and the beliefs and fears that sustain and divide us. It is funny, familiar, tragic and exquisitely produced and performed. The play centers on Will, an evangelical Christian whose church has met scandal surrounding the death of one of its young members. Will moves to Boise and takes a job at the local Hobby Lobby in an attempt to connect to his estranged teenage son, Alex. In the Hobby Lobby break room, Will meets and interacts with his various co-workers: his boss, Pauline, (hilariously played by Danielle Slavick), Alex’s older brother, Leroy, an art student whose work consists of t-shirts with slogans like “You will eat your children,” (John Patrick Doherty) and Anna, who, like Will, hides in the store after closing so that she can read in the break room (Sarah Nina Hayon). Will does his best to avoid discussing his past and his faith, but this proves impossible, and tensions escalate quickly.

The characters in A Bright New Boise are all desperately attempting to find meaning in a world of corporate chains and low hopes. The tragedy lies in their inability to reconcile their belief systems with those of their peers.

The play's aesthetic is hyper-realism. Samuel Hunter’s script and Davis McCallum’s direction are nuanced and subtle. Jason Simms’ set is incredibly detailed and fully operational: the appliances work, the florescent lights glow unflatteringly on the steel and plastic furniture. The actors’ performances are equally specific. Their unconscious ticks and gestures pervade the scenes, at times communicating more than the text.

No one is more adept at this than Andrew Garman, who plays the mild-mannered Will. Garman’s portrayal of Will is subtle and quietly tragic: everything, from the way he sits in a chair to the way he sets up his bagged lunch on the break room table communicates his discomfort, vulnerability, and most strongly, deep, deep pain. Will’s pain is so palpable it is difficult to watch him, but we cannot look away.

Will’s attempts to connect with his son are particularly painful. Alex is an awkward but intelligent teen, prone to panic attacks and attention-seeking lies (accurately and poignantly portrayed by Matt Farabee). In one scene, Will nervously mentions to Alex that he listened to a band Alex likes. Alex asks Will what he thought. Will responds, “It was really pretty.

ALEX: Pretty? WILL: Yeah, and – ALEX: (under breath) Jesus Christ WILL: - overwhelming.”

In performance, these last two lines overlap, and Will’s “overwhelming,” which he forces out while rubbing his eye and shifting his feet, is missed by Alex, and only just heard by the audience. It is awkward, difficult, and damn heart wrenching.

McCallum seems intent on making Will difficult to hear and see. For example, Garner plays a couple of scenes with his back to the audience and his face in profile. In another scene, the lights are left dim, making it difficult to see Will’s face. These choices seem to echo Will’s discomfort in his surroundings, his desire to conceal his past and his inner turmoil. It somehow has the opposite effect: the more Will tries to keep his pain private, the more blatant it becomes.

The first act of Boise is markedly different from the second. The first act is an experience: without articulating it in the text, the production hits a nerve, makes apparent a kind of wound that is specific to this country and this moment in time. The audience understands it viscerally, emotionally. The second act attempts to put this wound into words: the characters discuss the beliefs that drive them and we see these same beliefs divide them. Watching the second act, I am more detached, less invested. I wish I had been able to watch both acts in one sitting: had there not been an intermission, I wonder if the play would have maintained the emotional intensity that was so strongly present in the first act.

Still, A Bright New Boise is an excellent production. Though anything but bright, it is undeniably accurate, and absolutely heartfelt: a searing and thorough portrait of the culture wars in America. It left a real impression on me, one I don’t imagine I’ll soon forget.

Vanya on East Fourth Street

The Boomerang Theatre Company presents Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanyat in a straightforward production that aims to let the play speak for itself, with minimal interpretive interference: an important play, well cast, overcomes the shortcomings of a well-meant production. The arrival of Serebryakov (Ed Schultz), a retired art history professor, and his twenty-seven-year-old beautiful wife Yelena (Lauren Kelston) on a country estate managed by Vanya and his niece Sonya upends the balance of their life. Vanya falls hopelessly in love with Yelena, (Yelena: “When you speak to me of love I simply grow numb”). Astrov (Richard Brundage), the district’s doctor, feels that Yelena’s beauty lifts him out of the dull routines of his life and falls in love with her as well. Sonya has long loved Astrov who ignores her. When Vanya surprises Astrov and Yelena in an embrace – and, moments later, the professor proposes to sell the estate to invest the proceeds for a better return, Vanya reaches the end of his tether and attacks the professor.

Serebryakov and Yelena decide to move back into town. In the end the plain, unloved Sonya and the defeated Vanya resume their work, resigned to live with their failures at love and life.

The director, Philip Emeott, has assembled an excellent cast (including the smaller parts of the permanent houseguest Telegin (Bill Weeden), the nurse Marina (Sara Ann Parker) and Voynitskaya, Vanya’s mother (Dorores McDougal). His respect for the text leads to a naturalistic style suggested by the first production. Crickets, birds, sounds of horses trotting in the yard, costumes that approximate the Russia of the 1890s set the atmosphere. But then he encourages his actors to perform in a frantic, overly emotional style, with large gestures and a hurried pace better suited to farce.

The empty picture frames on the walls - a symbolist cliché that I have seen it in several Vanya productions – lack justification in the text; having actors break the fourth wall in several of the soliloquies jars the audience for no dramatic gain.

While the spare unit set works well, lighting and costumes are just serviceable with many missed opportunities. The music choices seem arbitrary – Beethoven’s Ghost trio, a twentieth century guitar piece, a piece of music that, I assume, the sound designer composed present a stylistic mix that is puzzling, while on the other hand, the guitar playing of Telegin is well-conceived and adds life and humor to the production.

However, this rendition Uncle Vanya, in its final moments, distills the meandering, almost plot- and action-less story into the poignant, existentialist contemplation of loneliness, pain, suffering, and the willingness to go on living in the face of a life that has lost all meaning and promise for happiness. And director Philip Emeott has the good sense to leave the actors and the text alone for long enough to allow this essential moment to unfold.

Unafraid of Virginia Woolf

Rebecca Taichman’s production of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, a fantastical tale of sexuality, intrigue and droll social commentary, is the first of planned adaptations of novels that Classic Stage Company’s artistic director, Brian Kulick, has had on his mind for several seasons, according to a program note. Woolf’s model for Orlando was her aristocratic lover Vita Sackville-West, who lived on a medieval estate and was a poet, cross-dresser, and avid gardener in the 1920s. Sarah Ruhl’s model for her adaptation is Paul Sills’ Story Theatre—appropriately, since much of Orlando resembles a fairy tale, and Sills’ 1970 hit was a staged retelling of Grimms’ tales.

Yet Ruhl’s frank love of the prose is her undoing. She culls swaths of the novel and assigns the narration to various characters—apart from Orlando and Sasha, his true love, all the characters are played by a sterling ensemble of three men dressed in white uniforms—Tom Nelis, Howard Overshown and David Greenspan. Lush and lovely, the prose is still inherently undramatic, and the text is the weakest part of the production.

The story begins in the 16th century, when Orlando is invited to the court of Queen Elizabeth I (Greenspan, highly amusing and occasionally brushing up against Miranda Richardson’s QE I from Blackadder). To play the queen (mistakenly called “highness” rather than “majesty”), Greenspan steps into the front half of a bejeweled farthingale lowered from above.

At court Orlando encounters hangers-on and adoring females (each of the ensemble plays one of the hopefuls) and is the beneficiary of a filial relationship with the queen. He also tries to write poetry, but he lacks any imagination. Eventually, to escape a particularly odd admirer, the Archduchess Harriet Griselda of Finster-Aarhorn Scand-op Boom in the Roumanian territory (Greenspan again, doing a hilarious strangulated accent with a burr as he says, “You have the shapeliest legs that any nibbleman has ever stood upon,” and adding “tee-hee” and “ha-ha,” per Woolf’s text), Orlando flees to Constantinople. There, one night after a sexual encounter with a gypsy, the hero falls asleep for a week. When he wakes up, he’s a woman. Moreover, she’s destined to live at least two more centuries, with many more adventures.

Woolf’s overview of love, sexuality and history is enchanting, and probably a wonderful read. And even if one’s patience is often tried by the narration in the CSC production (the scarcity of it in a very late scene with Orlando and Harriet Griselda, who has revealed a great secret, is a refreshing lark), Taichman and her collaborators have staged the piece strikingly. Allen Moyer’s large square of green grass at center stage is reflected above by an enormous mirror with elaborately carved frame hanging at a tilt. Upstage are three golden thrones for the ensemble. And a miniature lighted palace is always present, on the floor or carried about. When winter comes, a large white cloth is drawn over the greenery.

Choreographer Annie-B Parson keeps the ensemble moving in dance as Orlando speaks at length, although Francesca Faridany has superb diction and passionate delivery that keep one’s attention riveted on her (so do all the actors, including Annika Boras as Sasha). Christopher Akerlind’s lights variously underline the story’s clarity or eerieness. Anita Yavich’s costumes of white for the ensemble are occasionally used to set off, for instance, large red ostrich fans wafted over Orlando in the Turkish capital, or a stunning cobalt jacket for Tom Nelis, who plays the heroic Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine, Orlando’s true love, and also shines as a frustrated female admirer.

“They had guessed everything of any importance between each other,” a narrator explains: “You’re so entirely sympathetic and you never take more than 10 minutes to dress,” says Marmaduke in a bit of praise that exemplifies Woolf’s typically sly social satire. Christian Frederickson and Ryan Rumery’s music and sound range from harpsichord, violin and baroque instruments to 20th-century minimalism as the centuries progress.

One’s response to Orlando may well depend on whether one has read the novel. To this reviewer, who hadn’t, the bizarre story is clearly told, but the result is highly theatrical without being a satisfying play. Indeed, when so much of world drama is so rarely produced—Wedekind, Schnitzler, Massinger, Marston, Marivaux, Southerne, Pirandello, just to name a few—one may fairly wonder why CSC feels it necessary to bring a novel to the stage at all. Shouldn’t the company concentrate more on unearthing works created with theater in mind, such as Ostrovsky’s The Forest last season? Orlando has some wonderful moments, but the top-heavy narrative keeps it earthbound. It’s the stunning visuals that outshine what is essentially a live-action version of books on tape.

Hipster Than Thou

As a long-time resident of the Italian-American section of Williamsburg (going on 17 years) and a one-time renter on Frost Street off Graham Avenue (two years), I was excited about seeing Belinda McKeon’s new play, Graham & Frost, at PS 122. Presented by The Sullivan Project in partnership with the Third Annual Festival of Irish Theatre (which runs till October 3), this 45-minute one-act centers on an ramshackle Italian restaurant and the trio of neighborhood residents who come together to bring it back to life. Aside from some fleeting moments by the performers, however, this show from the award-winning Irish playwright and novelist simply does not ring true. Perhaps if I didn’t live in the area I would have another opinion of Graham & Frost. But while there are a few genuine laughs and emotions, the characters are too broadly drawn: Benny, the gruff Italian-American butcher from the neighborhood; Sam, the hipster chef; and Luca, the Euro-Italian who bought the restaurant from his great aunt. All have secrets — some shocking, some ho-hum — that are gradually revealed.

Graham & Frost starts promisingly enough. The set design by Tsubasa Kamei and Jennifer Stimple captures the broken-down Brooklyn aesthetic. Sam (Dan Shaked, a recent NYU Tisch grad) enters the dilapidated establishment, strewn with religious iconography and showing signs of DIY improvement, to answer a Craigslist ad for a chef. He certainly looks like a Williamsburgian in his skinny jeans, Converse sneakers, and cardigan. But his costume begs the question: Would someone really wear that outfit to a job interview, even if they were a 20-something hipster?

When Benny the butcher (Steven Randazzo, a SAG/AFTRA/Equity member whose credits include Law & Order) arrives in a blood-spattered apron with a meat cleaver in his hand, one of those few moments of humor I mentioned also arrives as Benny pretends to be enraged at this upstart’s disrespect. But even Benny’s apparel raises the question of why a chef- and menu-less restaurant weeks away from opening would even have a butcher. What exactly is he chopping in a kitchen that doesn’t yet exist?

As the old and new converge in the characters of Sam and Benny, the playwright is clearly trying to examine the tensions between the old and new residents of the rapidly expanding Williamsburg. Benny comments that newcomers expect old-timers to act like The Sopranos. But instead of offering a complex version of Italian-American life like that seminal HBO drama, Graham & Frost indulges in cardboard caricaturization. Benny, in particular, is a goombah stereotype, clueless and useless. And Sam’s smarminess embodies the worst characteristics of the holier-than-thou bohemian that has come to represent the Billyburg hipster.

When the fresh-from-Italy owner Luca (Enrico Ciotti, a Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater grad) enters, he and Sam strike a rapport due to the budding chef’s knowledge of Italian cuisine and the language itself. As the two young men converse in Italian, Benny becomes enraged that they are mocking him, since he cannot speak the language. This leads to confrontations between the various pairs that highlight the simmering resentments between all three characters. Violence ensues in the most unrealistic ways.

For instance, Luca tells Sam towards the end of the play that Benny is his friend. If so, then why does he not only humiliate the butcher, but also pull a knife on him? And why does Sam seem only to demonstrate arrogance and disrespect when, once again, he’s there to look for a job?

Although the script is problematic, the performers do inject humor in the right moments, especially Mr. Randazzo, who generates the most laughs with the somewhat stale jokes. Mr. Shaked has the hipster looks and attitude, but his character is cliché. At the performance I saw, Mr. Ciotti struggled with his lines. The direction by Thomas G. Waites could use more focus as well with characters many times loitering onstage when the two other actors are otherwise engaged.

In the Author’s Notes to the program, McKeon says that she has lived in the area since 2005 and “even since then, this neighborhood has changed.” The neighborhood has actually been changing over the last 20 years, when artists first moved to North Williamsburg to occupy warehouse loft spaces. That “gentrification” has since spread to surrounding neighborhoods like Bushwick and Greenpoint.

When McKeon asserts “a new community has been making these streets their own,” I think she marginalizes the Italian-American community in East Williamsburg that is still a prominent presence in the neighborhood, including Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church and the Giglio Boys. And ultimately, Graham & Frost oversimplifies the relationship between those residents who have been here for a long time and those who have just arrived.

You’re a Vampire, I’m a Vampire, Too

While attending The Little Foxes at New York Theatre Workshop,, an elderly woman behind me whispered to her companion, “She’s one of the biggest bitches of the theater!” about the lead character in Lillian Hellman’s 1939 drama. In the annals of stage history, few female characters are as evil incarnate at Regina Giddens. The play is a performer’s dream because of its savage dialogue. But although visceral in its physicality, this production of the modern American classic suffers from a lack of any hint of humanity that keeps the action and characters at arm’s length. The powerful performances, however, make the show worth seeing. In a 1939 review of the Broadway premiere, my favorite theater critic, Robert Benchley, called The Little Foxes “a sinister play about sinister people.” The story was based on Hellman’s own Southern family. Set in the spring of 1900, it concerns the psychological and financial warfare of the backstabbing Hubbards. They want to build a cotton mill on their plantation, with the play revolving around the machinations of sister Regina to gain a majority share in the new venture from her venomous brothers, Benjamin and Oscar. She wants to exact revenge for being left out of their father’s will, since only sons were considered legal heirs at that time. Although the siblings each display their own social-climbing ferocity, it is Regina who emerges as the queen bee of avarice.

When The Little Foxes first appeared, Regina was played by the larger-than-life Tallulah Bankhead. The 1941 film version — with a screenplay by Hellman — starred Bette Davis as one of the greatest villains of American cinema, according to the American Film Institute. Subsequent revivals featured Anne Bancroft, Elizabeth Taylor, and, most recently, Stockard Channing.

Acclaimed Flemish director and NYTW go-to guy Ivo van Hove of Toneelgroep Amsterdam once again teams with Obie Award-winning actress Elizabeth Marvel for this radical reworking. Their previous collaborations, Hedda Gabler and A Streetcar Named Desire, were highly praised for their eye-opening new interpretations.

Van Hove strips down a play to its basic elements to get to the core of its meaning. The Little Foxes is stylistically staged. With a plush staircase in the center, the floor-to-ceiling purple-carpeted set has the decadent feel of a nightclub. There are the barest minimum of set pieces and props. No time or place is mentioned in the program in an effort to bring the action into the present day.

In this austere setting, the performances stand alone — and they are worthy of praise, although sometimes bordering on camp. Many times I couldn’t help but think of the cartoon villain who twirls his mustache in delight at the suffering of his victims. The cast alternates between moments of control and rage. Characters are dragged and punched, with hair pulled and faces flush with screaming.

Marvel as Regina has the haughty air of a Southern belle, with a genteel smile that turns on a dime into a viperish snarl. She is manipulative and malicious. New Zealander Marton Csokas (who appeared in The Lord of the Rings) is like a coiled snake as bad-boy bachelor Ben. Csokas plays up Ben’s attachment to his sister as somewhat sexual, which ups the ick factor in his already icky character.

Thomas Jay Ryan, recently of In the Next Room or the Vibrator Play, is the violent family man Oscar, who physically and verbally abuses his wife and son. Nick Westrate (from this year’s revival of Boys in the Band) as Oscar’s offspring Leo shows that the apple never falls far from the tree. And Christopher Evan Welch (currently seen on AMC’s Rubicon) as Regina’s sickly husband Horace spends the last of his strength manhandling his wife, though his intentions are to end the Hubbard family reign of terror.

Even the supposedly innocent characters display hints of malevolence. Regina’s daughter Alexandra, as portrayed by Cristin Milioti (The Lieutenant of Inishmore) and Oscar’s alcoholic wife Birdie, in a standout performance by Tina Benko (Restoration), are not above their own brands of bad behavior.

Which leads to my biggest concern with the play’s direction. Although The Little Foxes has more betrayal and double-crosses in its two hours than an entire season of Dallas, this production completely lacks a humanity that would allow the audience to relate to the characters and understand them beyond their insatiable desire for wealth. There seems to be nothing besides their greed.

Are we suppose to believe these despicable people are continuing a pattern thrust upon them by previous generations? If so, then why the ray of hope at the end as Xan escapes the house of horrors? Van Hove may have stripped the play to its core, but The Little Foxes remains a gripping and unnerving portrait of a family of fiends.

Unstuck!

Trans-Euro Express by Gary Duggan, directed by Chris Henry, is simply a well-structured, well directed, and well acted play. The play, set in Dublin and making its US debut, is so universally appealing it could be set anywhere. I kept saying to myself, sometimes regrettably, “I’ve done that," and “that’s me!” The story revolves around Ballard (Charlie Kevin), a “stuck” Dublin commuter who never pursued his creative film ambitions, and who is now recovering from a failed relationship and regretting the loss of a potential romantic interest. The play starts off with Ballard (Kevin) performing a poetic mouthful to the audience, recounting the mundane routine of his commute and corporate job. Ballard is later joined by the three other actors: Patricia Buckley, Roderick Hill, and Katy Wright- Mead, who all credibly jump in and out of telling the story to the audience and playing the scenes.

The play feels like it’s in two parts. In the first, we meet Gram, (Hill) who has just come into rock music success with a new CD. Both men, recuperating emotionally from ex -girlfriends or ex-potential-girlfriends, decide to go on a journey by train to make a video for Gram’s CD. This journey, filled with partying and promiscuity encompassing Amsterdam, Berlin and Prague, is what gives the play its title. The first stop is at Ballard’s good friend Fleur, (Clarkson) a pregnant woman with whom there has been some unfinished business. One of the most heartbreaking and well-acted moments in the play is this truthful scene in which the two discuss their state of happiness.

Part two begins when attractive Anna (Wright-Mead) meets the duo in Berlin to act in the video. But when Gram and Anna seem to hit it off, Ballard gets ugly. Though you do empathize with Ballard, you are routing for Anna and Gram to get together.

Wright-Meade as Anna is quite convincingly charming. Charlie Kevin deserves special mention for his multi-layered portrayal of the suffering Ballard reaching his breaking point. His decline into drinking and partying is also horrifyingly realistic. Roderick Hill, as rocker Gram, really can sing and play guitar which boosts his rock star credibility up to high notches.

The set and lights by Paul Smithyman and David Bengali work together, combining projections on rotating screens. At times it gives the play a rock concert feel and I could see this play working in a much larger venue. One particularly “cool” projections effect is the moving landscape that really makes it feel as if they are traveling on a train. Costumes by Lena Sands are interesting, though I was a bit startled by the enormous size of the 6 month old pregnant belly on Fleur. Sound by Jeanne Wu and music choices energize the show.

When Ballard finally decides to make a choice and get unstuck, I must admit, I was confused with the ending. I don’t want reveal too much but my friend thought that without a doubt the ending was happy while I was not so sure. Maybe that was our gifted director Chris Henry and talented playwright Gary Duggan’s intention.

Dickens with a Twist

Brevity is not a word customarily used to describe the works of Charles Dickens. Writing in serial form, and essentially paid by the bulk, Dickens’s wealth and celebrity were the result of some of the most sprawling narratives in English literature. And so, condensing the most familiar qualities of the Dickensian formula into a spoof of little more than an hour in length is no small feat. Impressively, Emerging Artists Theatre’s production of Penny Penniworth is able to do just that, with good fun and more than a few laughs. Written by Chris Weikel, Penny Penniworth hews (for the most part) closely the requisite Dickens tale. After Penny’s true love is banished, Penny and mother become destitute. An anonymous benefactor provides for Penny while a relentless villain tries to marry her. Ultimately, secret identities are revealed, heirs are uncovered, villains are vanquished and loved ones return from oblivion. The Dickens recipe is unmistakable, which makes its ingredients ripe for riffing. Just as the Broadway production of The 39 Steps was a romping homage to the Hitchcock brand, so is Penny Penniworth to the Dickens brand.

Mark Finley directs a game ensemble of actors, made up of Christopher Borg, Jamie Heinlein, Lee Kaplan and Ellen Reilly. Each actor takes on an array of characters, from Mr. Pinchnose to Mrs. Havasnort to the Dodgeful Archer. Each actor inhabits these roles with great gusto, flavor, and dialects aplenty. They succeed in playing the buffoonery without cheapening it to the point of tedium. Outside of what’s called for in the text, they do not wink through their roles and the bits they are asked to play. With material like this, such restraint is refreshing.

Some of this credit should go to Finley, who keeps the action moving while maintaining the script’s clarity. He is aided by Tim McMath’s functional set and, in no small part, by G. Benjamin Swope’s lighting design. The play spans a number of years and transitions to countless locations. Swope’s efficient design helps the audience make these transitions along with the play.

The production makes little use of props. Morphing from one character to another, actors rely mostly on vocal and physical changes. The ensemble no doubt pulls this off, making the most of the costume each wears throughout by simply modifying some aspect of it to fit their shifting characterizations. Still, while the play is admirable for its adherence to economy, there are points that crave for more fun to be had with wild wigs or distinctive props that would playfully enhance the outrageous brio in some of Dickens’s archetypes. Such flair and variety may help prevent a flat sparseness that sometimes causes the play to sag. The production is at its best, such as with a splendid sequence involving a costume ball, when it incorporates more of these elements.

Minor quibbles aside, Penny Penniworth makes for a brisk and delightful evening. Even if you are a novice to Dickens, the play should still be accessibly pleasurable. And if you are a Dickens aficionado, be assured that some very juicy, very un-Dickensian surprises await.

Golden Ages

The lyrical sensibility at work in the delicately wrought Exit/Entrance no doubt comes from the poetic instincts of playwright Aidan Mathews, who has published three volumes of verse. There are beautiful passages in this two-act 1988 work about two Irish couples, both named Charles and Helen. Although the language often comes at the expense of dramatic momentum, the piece invites rumination. Each couple inhabits half the play. The first couple is elderly, in their 60s, and taking stock of their lives. They chat about their love of Greece and their time there many years before as part of their honeymoon excursion. But there is a melancholy feeling as well. Helen becomes upset that Charles won’t answer the phone, which rings periodically. She believes it’s their son Philip calling (named for Philip of Macedon). Charles becomes splenetic at her insistence, and lets his guard down momentarily for a slur that suggests his son is gay. Yet there’s something more seriously awry in their relationship. Helen is, perhaps, too overmastered by Charles. Has it always been so?

The act is an extended reverie about the couple’s youth and the promise of a lifetime of happiness, as well as a realization that time has ravaged them and there's probably no contentment ahead. There’s minimal action; the play develops through dialogue, and lighting designer Chris Dallos superbly sets the mood of this elegiac piece with waning winter light and car headlights periodically rolling in the window. The only interruption to their conversation comes from the apartment next door, where a young couple has moved in. Helen has met them in the hallway and spoken to the woman; she thinks the youngsters are nice, and she was struck by the smell of tea from their tea chests. But they’ve been hammering on the wall to hang some of their things, and Charles finally becomes so irritated he hammers back.

In Act II a young couple, also named Charles and Helen, are unpacking tea crates to move into a new apartment. They bang nails into the wall to put up their pictures, and they too rhapsodize over Greece. In addition, Helen fears an interruption to their evening by a third party, Stephen, who seems to be a constant visitor. She beseeches Charles not to let Stephen enter their lives on this night, as they unpack crates smelling of tea, and light candles for a romantic evening.

Although the play moves quietly along, there’s an underlying tension in M. Burke Walker’s production. Unlike the published script, there is no date for the acts, and that adds intrigue. Are we seeing the same couple some 40 years apart, first at the end of their lives and then at the beginning, à la Harold Pinter’s Betrayal? Or is the second couple inhabiting the room next to the first one? Are their names just by chance Charles and Helen, and are they merely a timeless parallel to their unseen neighbors? For instance, younger Helen (a warm, luminous Lara Hillier) mentions a conversation in the hallway with an older woman neighbor, but that might happen at any place or time. Is the universality of youth’s hopes and age’s infirmities what Mathews is showing?

The second half Charles (David L. Townsend) is, unfortunately, annoyingly pretentious, and one wonders why Helen puts up with him (though, indeed, the elder Helen clearly is a mollifier—if she is the same person). Charles II blathers about various Greek places like Epidauros, and he calls Helen “my little Penelope,” to which she responds, “Not Penelope. I don’t want to be Penelope.” Penelope, of course, was Odysseus’s wife, who remained faithful—and asexual—during his absence, and the atmosphere of unconsummated sex is thick in their interaction.

Unfortunately, the younger couple has a childish streak that manifests itself in an awkward scene with puppets. Nor can Townsend make his Charles appealing: he’s a twit, and his personality defies a connection, even over 40 years, to that of the later Charles. Helen’s continual worry that Stephen might come suggests a rival to her affection for Charles and the possibility that he’s homosexual—but older Charles’s anti-gay slur toward Philip seems to undermine the hint that as a young man he would have had any same-sex affections.

Yet Mathews’s point may be that time changes people in unexpected ways, not merely physically—by cruelly afflicting them with illness and a loss of hope and dignity—but perhaps also by bringing two disparate people, who shouldn’t have married, closer together. Though the unions of both couples seem imperfect, they leave a lasting impression.

Post-Colonial Entertainment Entertains but Does Not Grip

The Man Who Ate Michael Rockefeller excellently subverts some well-known stereotypes, but fails to involve the audience on a deeper level. At the top of the show, the ensemble enters, moving slowly like animals on the hunt, wearing wooden masks, war paint and small bits of cloth, surrounding the sleeping Designing Man (played by Daniel Morgan Shelley). Suddenly, Half Moon Terror (David King) wakes Designing Man and together they jump and yell animatedly in a foreign tongue. I feel like I’ve seen this before. The scene freezes, and a spotlight shines on Designing Man. In the tone of a curious scholar, he states, “Half-Moon Terror and I were talking politics at the edge of the swamp when the billionaire’s son first appeared.” The juxtaposition of image and sound is funny and unexpected: I laugh, not just at the actors, but at myself, at my surprise that a ‘savage’ could be articulate, intelligent.

Unfortunately, Designing Man’s initial tone of academic curiosity is the main note in Jeff Cohen’s adaptation of Christopher Stokes’ brilliant short story. Michael Rockefeller is directed by Alfred Preisser and produced by Dog Run Repertory Company at the West End Theater. The play deals with the disappearance of Michael Rockefeller, anthropologist and son of NY governor Nelson Rockefeller. M Rockefeller went missing in 1961 while studying the Asmat tribe in Papa New Guinea, and was never found.

Stokes’ smart and poignant story imagines the tale from the Asmats’ point of view, told by the tribe’s talented, sensitive artist, Designing Man. Cohen’s adaptation, though smart and funny, fails to capture the emotional depth of the piece that made Stokes’ story so powerful.

In the script, Cohen relies too heavily on the original text, giving large chunks of it to Designing Man, who pulls away from the action of the scene to deliver these monologues directly to the audience, as would a narrator. Much of what could be performed is instead described, and in Designing Man’s academic tone. We are again and again pulled away from the action, therefore unable to connect to the characters and deprived of moments of pathos.

An example of this is a scene between Designing Man and his wife, Breezy, (sweetly performed by the spry Shannon A.L. Dorsey). Designing Man has been wrestling with the word “love,” a word unknown (as word and concept) to the Asmats at this point in time. Breezy’s face sparks a revelation for Designing Man, and he says to her, vulnerably, earnestly, “Love. You are love to me.” Breezy stares, unresponsive, for a fraction of a beat. I lean forward, my heart about to break for Designing Man. But the scene freezes, and Designing Man pulls away, describing Breezy's response instead of letting us see it. I sit back, disappointed.

Various strengths of Michael Rockefeller are worth mentioning. I took particular note of the masks, designed by Kimberly Glennon. Worn by a chorus of Asmat spirits and made of a kind of light wood, they are hauntingly simple, portraying gaunt faces with deep empty sockets in place of eyes.

Unfortunately, the other design elements do not aid in turning these masked figures into ethereal beings. The set and lighting are insufficient; the designers do not manage to fully create a unified world. Granted, the specific quirks of the West End Theater, like its colorful, decorated walls, are difficult to hide; they are a constant reminder that we are in a theater, not Papua New Guinea.

In the end, the production’s main strength lies in subverting the audience’s expectations. Two scenes besides the opening are particularly striking in this regard. The first is a montage of sex scenes between Designing Man and his friend’s wife, Plentiful Bliss (the hilarious Tracy Jack), in which Plentiful Bliss attempts to engage Designing Man in serious debate amidst gruntings, thrustings and hair-pulls.

The most satisfying, though, occurs near the play’s end: at a pivotal moment, the ensemble breaks out in a highly energetic and entertaining ‘tribal’ song and dance, the likes of which we’ve yet to see in the play up to this point. At its close, the character Bringing Man (a solid performance by David Brown, Jr.) appears, speaking to us, the audience, as tourists who have just witnessed an ‘authentic’ ritual by ‘authentic’ Asmats. Suddenly we’re implicated as colonial travelers, made to question our enjoyment of the ritual we just witnessed.

Though these moments are entertaining, and momentarily give one pause, they fail to deliver lasting blows. In the end, the staged version of The Man Who Ate Michael Rockefeller does not live up to the richness of its source. Cohen and Pressier fail to fully translate the heart of the text into theatrical language; that is, spectacle, bodies onstage, the power of two people connecting, or failing to connect, in real time. One might as well stay home and read the story.

Double the Trouble

Identity is very likely the theme at the heart of Edward Albee’s muddled new play, which might fairly be described as absurdist comedy that falls terribly flat. If Albee is in a mood to be playful, the pleasure is all his. A woman known as Mother (Elizabeth Ashley), who has identical twins, cannot tell her grown children apart. It’s partly her own fault, as we learn from her companion, Dr. (Brian Murray). At birth she named one twin OTTO and the other otto. Now OTTO, resentful that their father left and also that Dr. has been Mother’s companion for 28 years, wants to do away with his brother. He doesn’t exactly want to kill otto, but just ignore him into non-existence.

But it’s more than the identical names for the identical twins that confuses Mother. (To be fair, she maintains that the names are not identical. There are those capital letters vs. lowercase, and then OTTO, she says, should be read from left to right; otto, however, reads from right to left.) Mother knows that one twin loves her and one doesn’t, but she does not know which is which. “Isn’t that sad?” she says. “I can’t tell them apart, either one of them. I’ve never been able to tell them apart—except maybe that moment when I first saw them.” Perhaps Albee means to comment on the fact that no parents can ever really know their children, but it’s not clear.

Meanwhile, OTTO impulsively wants to become Chinese. “I’m not happy being—what do they call it?—occidental?” he declares. “The future is in the East.” He also has designs on his brother’s girlfriend, Maureen, whose Irish and Cherokee heritage comes in for some borderline racist razzing from Mother.

It’s all just as loopy as it sounds, and Emily Mann’s production gets off to a slow start as Mother belabors her confusion over and over. At other times the action does pick up. One scene echoes Beckett: when Mother and Dr. go for a picnic, Dr. wears a bowler, visually connecting him to the tramps in Waiting for Godot,, who also wear bowlers and engage in dilatory banter. But if Albee’s parallel is meant to lend his work some heft, it only points up the shortcomings. Beckett’s tramps are undeniably, painfully human. Even in absurdist comedy, the characters have to be plausibly so, but apart from Natalia Payne’s worried Maureen and Preston Sadleir’s fine, flummoxed otto, they aren’t.

Nonetheless, Albee uses every theatrical and metatheatrical trick in the book to enliven it. The fourth wall is periodically broken, as OTTO narrates his plan and even engages the audience in a question-and-answer at times. He announces that “in Western theatre, there’s the tradition that if you lean against a proscenium just so, you can watch a scene and the people who are in the scene won’t see you.” And he proceeds to do just that. The confident and personable Zachary Booth does a fine job with the interplay, but his claim to be evil is overstated. He’s just a mischievous prankster.

Albee’s fondness for grammatical wordplay pops up in chatter about ways to pronounce “lama” vs. “llama,” the definition of “strait and narrow,” and the meaning of “ta-ta.” (It matters little that probably no one in his right mind misunderstands what “ta-ta” means; the wordplay becomes tiresome all too quickly.) At times the piece feels like a theatrical version of minimalist music. A theme is repeated and repeated and repeated. Then it’s repeated with a slight variation, and that’s repeated and repeated. Et cetera. (The plank walls and floor of the sparsely furnished set by Thomas Lynch are comparably minimal, as is Kenneth Posner’s subtle lighting, and both are much more satisfying.)

Early in the second act there’s an exchange between Dr. and Mother about why they are carrying a picnic hamper. It’s amusing for a bit, but, like too much of this play, it’s theatrical filler. And Albee pointedly uses a hoary deus ex machina, right out of Tartuffe and Threepenny Opera, for his climax, though it’s splendidly staged.

The actors certainly commit to the nonsensical premise wholeheartedly, particularly the redoubtable Ashley as Mother. She spends much of the first scene sitting in bed, swinging from querulous desperation to supercilious hauteur, but all her talent can’t make her character believable or sympathetic. Murray delivers his lines with requisite dryness and a good deal of his patented facial expressions. His glances and grimaces provide many of the choicest moments in the play, but the actors struggle to raise stakes that just aren't there.

The Scottish Play, Revisited

First things first: “MacBeth,” spelled backwards, is “The B Cam.” Well, almost. Playing on its near palindromic title, TheBcam/MacBeth sets out to pick up, like a filmic B Camera, the secondary shots implied by Shakespeare’s famous play. It does so by condensing the Shakespearan text, juxtaposing it with new work by Don Nigro, splattering live and prerecorded video feeds across the backdrop, and choreographing a few zany, full company movement pieces. Such an approach ought to square neatly with the Inertia Production’s mission, as the company seeks “new ways to synthesize text, physical performance and media.” Unfortunately, this production offers less synthesis than it does incoherence. MacBeth is perhaps the mother of all horror stories, yet under the direction of Kevin Kittle, TheBcam/Macbeth forgoes the original’s fear factor, and with it, its dramatic tension. Maybe because the production focuses so heavily on the ripple effects of the play’s themes, the Macbeth segments here serve more as source material than as dramatic content. It’s not that the Shakespearean performances are uneven -- just the opposite. As Macbeth and Lady MacBeth, Charlie Sandlan and Danielle Liccardo are consistent to the point of predictability, which prevents the cautionary tale of power hunger from achieving a compelling depth. Their most famous lines (“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,” and “Out, out, damned spot!”) come across as mere placeholders, marking the inexorable progression of a familiar plot.

The company fares better with the original material, written by Don Nigro and the ensemble. In particular, a series of exchanges between a pair of young teens (Robert James Walsh and Carrie Watt) sparks with a palpable unease from which the whole production would benefit. The production suggests a relationship between the contemporary teens and a kitschy pair of fifties housewives, yet their oblique connection doesn’t make a lot of sense, and the housewives’ alcoholism is unconvincing as high camp.

Additional contemporary sequences include a diatribe against the perils of being an attractive single woman that is as fresh as a rerun of Sex and the City, though Liccardo delivers it with appropriately self-assured indulgence, and an imagined game show in which a contestant (Michele Slater) identifies YouTube videos by the horrific things YouTube commenters have written about them. The game show scene is an inventive, insightful take on contemporary aggression, yet rather than integrate it into the production as a whole, Kittle relegates it to the intermission, when much of the audience is out of the house, and bound to miss it. That’s a shame, because the YouTube game show, more than any other element of the production, elucidates the Shakespearean themes of power, cruelty and spectacle within new media.

The original video segments, designed by Theo Macabeo, are better integrated into the performance, though for a production that aims to take mediated elements as a central theme, the images do surprisingly little. Projected against the painted white backdrops of Doug Durlacher’s sets, TheBcam/Macbeth’s mediated images compliment the production much as a shifting scenic painting might. They are overpowered by the specter of the YouTube video which closes the intermission and, for those who catch it, creepily haunts the play’s second act.

At two and a half hours, TheBcam/Macbeth is a long production that encompasses a lot of disparate elements. Still, audience members most excited by the production’s promises should stay in their seats for the intermission.

Sight for Sore Eyes

Christian Masciotti’s Vision Disturbance , playing at the Abron Arts Center, is a variation on the doctor-patient relationship with some pleasant surprises. A socially awkward ophthalmologist with a poor bedside manner prescribes classical music for his patient’s eye disorder. It’s true the music can relieve stress, but is it enough? In the midst of her divorce, Mondo, a middle aged Greek Women played by Linda Mancini, awakes one morning to find that her eyesight is impaired. As she describes to Dr. Hull, “I looked up and the chest of drawers, like someone took a hammer. . .The whole room, everything was pieces.” She is suffering from terrible migraines and has lost all sense of depth perception. Add to this the mental stress of discovering that her husband is having an affair and has moved in with the other woman, it is obvious that Mondo is need of medical attention. Dr. Hull’s prescribes symphony tickets, Bach and Tchaikovsky. Mondo, although a lover of classical music, is not impressed by the prescribed therapy but continues to see Dr. Hull, played by Jay Smith.

It seems as if both Mondo and Dr. Hull are suffering from a similar ailment: loneliness. Mondo drives much of this story, never failing to update Dr. Hull on the latest antics of her ex-husband, and Dr. Hull is an eager listener. At one point, Hull suggests that Mondo come in for an extra session, preferably in the afternoon. Mondo says she is only free in the morning. Without even checking his calendar, Hull says “That’s fine. I had a cancellation.”

In Masciotti’s world, all the senses are in fact disturbed. For Mondo, her limited sight affects her hearing and listening to classical music is a form of torture. The inclusion of both live music - Mondo’s attempt at clunky improv on the piano juxtaposed with recordings of classical pieces - offers a lovely contrast. When the piano fails to relive Mondo’s stress, Dr. Hull gives Mondo a drumstick and recommends that she bang on a cymbal until she feels better.

Director Richard Maxwell’s decision to stage Vision Disturbance with a sort of myopic direction is on point with the essence of the play—being limited in sight, in space, in expression. The set, two chairs, a simple wooden floor and matching wall panel obscure the larger theater space, providing a visual limitation for the audience. Mondo’s piano playing prevents us from fully hearing the classical music that she is mimicking. Like Mondo, we cannot see the bigger picture. However, I am not sure if this narrowing served the overall production. In a two-person play with limited design, the performances are central key and Dr. Hull’s clinical monotone performance veered towards the tedious.

The final moment of the play offers a triumphant, symphonic revelation that should not be missed. It would have been interesting to see if there had been more opportunities to reveal some of this depth earlier in the production. Overall, the “big picture” that emerges in the final scene is one worth seeing.

Still A little Hungry

Feed the Monster, a one-woman show with a live rock band that is written, performed and produced by Stephanie Ehrlick, played to a packed high-energy audience Wednesday night. Stephanie Ehrlich played the fictional character Rita Emerson a wannabe rock star who left her Jewish, suppressed, boring parents to pursue a rock career in the mid 60’s and make her mark. This story involves that journey from home to rock goddess and back to present day 1985. Overall, the play is well-crafted structurally. Certain themes or back stories are stated but don't hit you over the head. Early in the play it is revealed that Rita wasn’t encouraged creatively as a child, but, years later, when she returns to ailing parents, she realizes their incredible sacrifices. I loved the uplifting scene when Rita makes it her mission to encourage children, especially women, to be themselves in "I’m Gonna Shout," an original energetic song by Jim Keyes (composer and band member). The perfect ending for this show involves a call-back to an earlier inspiring scene where the traditional "Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho" is celebrated. That song resonated in my head well after the show was over.

Ehrlich has a true rock-voice similar to that of Janis Joplin. It makes sense that she chose to create and portray this character, modeled loosely on types like Janis. Her band, two multi-talented musicians and composers, rocks just enough not to be intrusive. The music is a combination of original rock numbers and traditional rock numbers. Kia Rogers, as lighting designer, does a great job in creating a night club feel with Howard Rappaport, sound designer, supporting with appropriate reverb and echo effects. As a backdrop, a projector screen displays various top-notch graphic styled 60’s artwork by Gregory Nemec and Todd Spenceman, which relates to parts of the play.

Ehrlick as an actress is quite adept at comedy, specifically in playing the broader characters of her mother, her father, and her friends. She has some funny bits as a folk singer and one hysterical moment when she gets a job on a kids show doing vodka shots between singing lyrics. As a narrator, however, Ehrlick/Rita falls short. She doesn't have a compelling reason to tell and sustain a through line. I asked myself a couple times why she was even telling this story. Her vocal energy as Rita is low and her stories have an overlaying feeling of regret, as if she has given up. Rita also refers to herself as a 250 pound overweight woman during the span of this journey. Erlich, an ultra-attractive actress, doesn’t have a weight problem, so I kept waiting to hear the juicy tale of how she lost all that weight.

In Ehrlick’s bio, she expresses that after 20 years of working in the non-profit world, turning 40 with her life was passing before her eyes, she realized she needed to sing, write and perform. In my opinion that’s a story that is quite compelling. I suggest she write about that in her next show; I’d come to see it.

Hiding Out

Protected, written and directed by Timothy Scott Harris, is about the sacrifices people choose to make for their loved ones, and the new directions these lives take as a result. We meet Langley Peterson (Jeff Paul) just as he has begun a new life, transplanted from New York to Albuquerque as part of the Witness Protection Program. Mourning the life he left behind (for reasons audience members can discover on their own) and fearing new connections he might have to make, Peterson keeps himself at a distance from others. But those pesky others just won’t leave him alone! His neighbor Mirna (Cam Kornman) snoops on him and then tries to play yenta with her OCD daughter Debra (Dee Dee Friedman), who has also rejected a life in New York to come to her mother’s aid. Langley’s new colleague, Matt (Matt Walker) is anxious to find a friend and thinks he might be able to win one over in the new arrival. Langley, meanwhile, is still trying to reconcile himself to this new life.

Harris shows a nimble hand as director, guiding the show along at a laconic pace and letting his actors be. But what he has written is more situation than story. Protected feels more like the pilot episode of a television series – Lost in the Southwest, perhaps? – than a complete work. We’re watching a group of quirky characters come together, setting the stage for future hijinks and misunderstandings (a major thread involving Langley unwittingly inviting Dee Dee to a gay bar gets way too much attention here). Still, the cast makes these off-kilter characters likable, especially Paul, who makes Langley appear as though he could come unhinged at any second. It’s a group that makes life in Albuquerque seem pretty darn tolerable.

Protected is part of the 2010 New York International Fringe Festival.