Prime Stoppard

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead put Tom Stoppard on the map in 1968, earning him a Tony for best play. He continued with much success: Travesties (1976 winner), The Real Thing (1984 winner), Arcadia (1995 nominee), and The Invention of Love (2001 nominee). Stoppard even won the 1998 Academy Award for his screenplay for Shakespeare in Love. All this without ever attending a university! Artist Descending a Staircase is one of Stoppard's early plays (1972) and was specifically designed for a BBC radio broadcast. A whodunit murder mystery centering around three octogenarians and an audio recording, the play proves problematic when mounted onstage. Reviewing the 1989 Broadway production, The New York Times wrote, "The precision of [Stoppard's] wit is not consistently equaled by Tim Luscombe's staging

A Joan Crawford Musical

In 1997 the Turner Classic Movie channel aired The Unknown, a rediscovered 1927 silent film by Tod Browning, who later directed the more controversial Freaks. Employing real circus freaks and Hollywood film stars, such as a young Joan Crawford, Browning walked a fine line between exploiting and celebrating the oddities of the entertainment business. New York Musical Theatre Festival and Page 73 Productions have attempted to bring the film to the musical stage, cleverly titling it The Unknown: A Silent Musical. Although numerous musicals have spotlighted the desperate lives of carny folk (Side Show, Applause, and Wild Party, to name a few), The Unknown offers something the others can't

Flying Human Puppets

Taking puppetry, music, and storytelling to new heights, Red Beads at the Skirball Center sends its audience Combine the morbidity of Edgar Allan Poe, the childish seduction of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, the wonder of a Tim Burton film, and the showmanship of Cirque du Soleil, and you can begin to imagine a genre for Red Beads. No stranger to defying genres (and remaking them), Mabou Mines avant-garde artist Lee Breuer heads the mammoth artistic team that brings us Red Beads. Since 1970, when the group, named after a town in Nova Scotia, was formed, Breuer has written and directed a number of shows. In both Shaggy Dog Animation, which won an Obie for best new play, and a series of other shows, Breuer depicted zoomorphic characters (in a Kafka-like manner) using various forms of puppetry. Inspired by Bunraku, the highly stylized 17th-century Japanese puppetry that uses three black-clad puppeteers to operate one rod-puppet, Breuer was striving for an American theater that employed unconventional methods to address modern-day issues, such as feminism and sexuality.

Frank Rich of The New York Times once said Mabou Mines is "experimental theater at its most incendiary." But Red Beads is less an incendiary show than a sanitized form of entertainment. Departing from his usual affinity for political immediacy, Breuer stages a children's story.

The simplistic yet cryptic tale is adapted from Polina Klimovitskaya's original story, which is about a girl who is to receive her ailing mother's red bead necklace upon her 13th birthday, which is also Halloween. The text of this multimedia spectacle-poem is projected above the stage as opera subtitles. Sung arias and spoken word are used contrastingly to convey the dark tale.

Utterances from the primary actors (Clove Galilee, Gob Besserer, and Ruth Maleczech) alternate with operatic solos (Wonjung Kim, Alexandra Montano, and Alexander Tall). A chorus of 24 New York University students synchronously dance and act out the story's narration, which is spoken in a raspy female whisper over the sound system. The effect is an epic, grand-scale rite of feminine passage beautifully unraveled before us in light (an amazingly versatile design by Jennifer Tipton and Mary Louise Geiger), fabric (by Basil Twist), and music.

Ushio Torikai, who composed the show's innovative music, synthesizes Asian musical traditions with Western tonalities and instruments, including violin (Tom Chiu), harp (June Han), oboe (Jacqueline Leclair), flute (Erin Lesser), cello (Stephanie Winters), keyboard (Rob Schwimmer), and various percussion instruments, such as the xylophone (Eric Phinney and Greg Beyer). Her postmodern pastiche waxes and wanes in relation to the action onstage, even offering occasional improvisational duets, as with the violin solo and the flight of the canary.

The visual embodiment of the canary (a wind-spirited yellow strip of silk) is the puppet creation of the extraordinary fabric connoisseur Basil Twist (of Symphonie Fantastique fame). Using wind instead of water this time, Twist paints an airscape with admirable effort but limited success. Big swaths of silk blanket the stage and impressively billow up to make hills, or are sucked under the stage to turn a grave into a black hole. But the sounds of working fans and the appearance of assistance wires and fabric snags interrupt an otherwise smooth flow.

Nonetheless, Twist does not fail to inspire awe. A basement scene where a number of black scarves devour a white one, representing a cat attacked by rats, is perhaps creepier than seeing the real thing. Twist's design and Julie Archer's costume scheme cleverly exploit the vertical plane that much of the show functions on (wire-suspended actors scaling walls, perpendicular beds). The show's pleasurably surrealist design evokes a sensual mutability of space and gravity.

Extending this effect are the show's puppets

Echoes of Protest

In "Subterranean Homesick Blues" Bob Dylan sings, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" as a metaphor for impending cultural change. Taking their name from the song, the revolutionary Weathermen felt true change came from direct action. In 1969 and the early 70's they set up underground cells, declared war on the U.S., armed themselves with guns, and bombed their targets with improvised explosive devices. In Tom Peterson's timely and promising play, Peace Now, currently at the Midtown International Theater Festival, a Weatherman plans to wreak havoc after secretly infiltrating a group of students who take over a university's administration building. The play spans May 3-5, 1970, and includes a radio report on the infamous Kent State shootings on May 4, when four unarmed people were killed and nine injured.

Despite being one of the "members of a group of protesters who took over our university's administration building," Peterson shies away from labeling his show, which he also directed, a documentary. Indeed, it might be better considered a historical fiction: Peterson weaves personal experience, historical events, and dramatic situations into an intriguing composite of a 70's protest.

Unlike docudramas such as Execution of Justice and Gross Indecency that use discursive approaches, Peace Now is static and linear. The show focuses on the group dynamics among the protesters (and one injured veteran) who find themselves at a crossroads between patriotism and revolution. Peterson draws a convincing set of characters, among which we know there is a Weatherman hiding in wait for the right moment to push the protest into violent extremism.

In an attempt to convey the play's underpinnings and context, Peterson uses certain characters as messenger devices. Joel, a theater major (capably played by Michael C Maronna), gives a speech about the Weathermen and their history. Liberti, a quick-mouthed protester (passionately portrayed by Adrianne Rae-Rodgers), makes a compelling argument citing various wars and how she hates war but still loves the solider.

In some cases, too much information outweighs the dramatic situation, and Peterson's style slips into a prescription for an apathetic generation that faces similar issues but does nothing. Where he excels, however, is in the point-counterpoint arguments between characters. The former soldier Petrovich (a stoic Matthew Decapua) debates flag burning with protest leader Elaine (beautifully played by Cameron Blair), resulting in a richly written and well-acted conflict, one that is playing itself out again in today's courts.

In fact, Peace Now offers a wide range of clashing ideologies that have modern-day echoes. Each character brandishes his or her own form of patriotism, and the bonds or infighting this creates effectively drive the play (and the country) forward. The cast is very talented, with standouts including the impressively understated Frank Harts (as Alan, who supports the Black Panthers) and fresh-faced Kim Shaw (Susan, the doe-eyed freshman).

The set is simple: a desk and a chair and a back wall of windows that the cast uses to egg on the protest and the National Guardsmen accumulating outside. This figuratively places the audience in the administration building with the play's dissidents (a wishful choice perhaps?). One suggestion: If that wall functioned instead as a fourth wall and the actors faced out, it would allow audience to shift from perspective to perspective: from a protester to a National Guardsman, or from a student to an administrator.

With their unresolved dualism, Peterson's crafted dialogues paint an evocative portrait of 1970 and recall a time when dissent and patriotism were not mutually exclusive, as many believe today. With more development, Peace Now could become not only a distant voice from the past but surely an important beacon of the future.

See Peace Now's Web site for the performance schedule at www.peacenowplay.com.

A Dish of the Gay Pimp

It was 2003 when Johnny McGovern's techno ditty "Soccer Practice" became the "YMCA" for a new gay generation. It blazed itself into the computer hard drives of gay boys everywhere, boasting lyrics like "I like to do manly things, but I like maybe to do them with you

Jerry Springer Theater

A comedy that fails to be funny is often artistically flawed, but a comedy that fails to be funny and insults Jews, Catholics, gays, and women without any sense of irony is morally repugnant. According to the press release for the Theatre-Studio's Playtime Series play I'm Not Gay!, the show originally premiered in Iceland, where a woman in the audience reportedly needed CPR after a choking fit of laughter. After seeing the opening-night performance of the English version, I can't help but speculate that the woman wasn't laughing at all and instead was aghast with shock and horror. After hearing such lines as "I killed my wife tonight...She's so fat...for four months I was [expletive] her belly button," one can imagine the woman wanting relief from the show's tactless vulgarity, if not an excuse to stop the play in mid-performance.

Granted, I'm Not Gay! is listed as a dark farce, "similar in style to South Park." But unlike South Park, which is a social satire disguised as a kids' cartoon, I'm Not Gay! has as its dominant feature the mere enjoyment of its own naughtiness.

Saying the show is collegiate would be an understatement. The fat jokes, the cursing, and the horrendously reified and unchallenged stereotypes are reminiscent of middle-schoolers gone wild. Who, one wonders, gave Daniel Guyton, the writer and director of I'm Not Gay!, the impression his Jerry Springer-inspired play was funny? Even the audience on opening night showed reserve, politely laughing at first but only tittering uncomfortably toward the end.

The show follows Gary, a homophobic Jewish businessman who turns out to be a cross-dressing, self-hating closet case. After confessing to a child-molesting Catholic priest, he murders his obese wife. Gary then makes a pass at Michael, a gay cop who has been left by his heroin-addict lover. Michael rejects him, and Gary subsequently shoots himself.

Dark comedies are difficult. A story isn't dark because it simply has curse words or political incorrectness, but because, like Todd Solondz's movies, it taps into unpleasant truths about human society in quirky ways. I'm Not Gay! only reveals the unpleasant and misguided artistry of its creators.

Despite a possibly able cast of actors, the heavily flawed writing and direction obscure any signs of talent. The pace of the actors, as well as the script, is unbearably slow. The story's unsurprising plot consistently lags behind the audience's expectations. The show's blocking and set changes are distracting and sloppy, to the point of collisions. And the perfunctory miming of opening doors, combined with the over-the-top dramatic delivery of lines, puts I'm Not Gay! into a category of its own

War Profits

Despite temporal and spatial distances, Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, Vietnam, and most recently Ground Zero share something unique. In addition to being sites of pivotal conflicts and horrendous losses of life, they are places that enter history through a peculiar practice perhaps best labeled "battlefield tourism." In a tangled web of commerce, nationalism, and mourning, former battlefields are transformed into sanitized, consumable tourist locales. The destruction and murder of the past become a showpiece and presumed lesson for the present.

The Wreckio Ensemble's impressive production of Gravediggers takes on battlefield tourism, and the wars that precede it, in the most satirical of ways. Collaboratively developed by the ensemble and written and directed by Karly Maurer, Gravediggers offers an enjoyable, if sometimes ranting, riff on the commerce of war.

In a land not unlike Iraq, two women gravediggers (Michelle Diaz and Dechelle Damien), dressed head to foot in black and sporting mouth-contorting headgear, dump body after body into a pit. The profoundly bleak set (also by Damien) is scattered with white building blocks that ooze the body parts of fallen soldiers. The personless appendages are painted an eerily vibrant green, like fresh grass.

But that's not the only fresh thing in this land of death. An entrancingly lush, red object is growing from a tree over the pit, and later hatches into Phoenix, played by Tara Grieco. The starving gravediggers thirst for the object's richness, but it is soon stolen away by an opulently maniacal woman, Mother (a hilarious Randi Berry), in a feather boa-lined coat. Oana Botez-Ban's creative costumes are both enigmatic and a treat for the eyes.

Mother's effete son, petulantly played by Nicholas Bixby, is a draft dodger who falls in love with a corpse (Dimitra Bixby) that he manipulates like a puppet. Son's monologue, on how the "unthinkable" nature of war fosters blind spots of inhumanity, is admirable, but this is also where Gravediggers begins to go awry: the surrealism becomes literal, and ridiculous satire slips into pedantic theatrics.

"Don't be absurd!" one gravedigger screams to the other. "That's the only way I know how to be!" the other responds. The show's self-referencing is clever. If only it were true and consistent. Gravediggers' slippage from the abstract to the obvious is no more apparent than in the character of Rep, the capitalist war entrepreneur ably played by Benjamin Spradley.

Here, Rep, a tie-and-suit embodiment of war profiteering, bombastically preaches about his conquests, including a barely veiled allegory about two escaped chickens. Little room is left for the viewer to make his or her own connections to today's geopolitical climate. Gravediggers does not leave much work for the audience. Rather than staying in the realm of surrealist ridiculousness and undermining accepted beliefs, the show gets in its own way and points to its own immediacy. Without this, an otherwise brilliant production would stand on its own.

More baffling is the ensemble's self-branded actor-babble concept of "Physical Realism" outlined in the program. Employing contradictory clich

Butch/Femme Reign Again

The packed audience at La MaMa bubbled with excitement on opening night for Split Britches' Dress Suits to Hire. New York's most renowned lesbians

Dissonance and Loss

One might expect Beacon Productions's There's the Story to be a musical, judging by composer Randy Redd's credits, which include Parade, By Jeeves, and Lucky Stiff. But this cryptic work is a play, impressively written by actor-playwright Timothy McCracken, that marries Redd's compositions, with their unresolved dissonance, to a painful theme of unexplained loss. There's the Story is set in the Hell's Kitchen apartment of Henry (Timothy McCracken) and his irritatingly predictable friend Curtis (Sean Dougherty). The two graduated from music school together and now barely subsist on music writing grants. Curtis works on an electric piano while Henry favors his Steinway. Curtis is prolific but uninspired, while Henry, despite previous triumphs, has become catatonically blocked.

Shadows from Henry's past have crippled his artistic process and confined him to a hermetic life on the couch. He can play the piano only up to a certain point, where he then screams and trembles with frustration.

When Curtis's new girlfriend, Alexandra (Tara Falk), enters the scene, Henry is forced to confront some painful memories. Step by step, note by note, he nears a long-awaited conclusion.

At one point, Henry describes a recital where he once played an improvised piece while on mushrooms: "Messy, but it kind of worked too." In many ways, this also captures McCracken's writing style. There are occasional stretches of drawn-out dialogue, overstated details, and half-baked humor, but in the end, the play's discursive elements combine well into a strangely satisfying whole.

Much of this is owed to director Christopher Grabowski, who skillfully guides McCracken's writing (and acting). Grabowski introduces the audience to Henry through a series of short tableaus depicting Henry's stagnated relationship with his piano: distantly staring at the instrument, caressing it, etc. The show's unlikely mixture of dramatic expressionism and psychological realism justifiably frames Henry's soul-searching struggle.

Grabowski's mastery also lies in the tempo. The play's pace is weighted by slow tension, and each scene is propelled by pivotal revelations or chilling snippets of a developing musical theme. (The music Henry composes on the piano, as well as the play's prerecorded interlude music, was written by Redd.)

McCracken's transforming performance as Henry is compelling to watch, if painful at times. He carefully avoids the clich

Slammin' Monologues

Some of New York's best one-person shows are never seen. Every day, hundreds of hard-working actors are rigorously rehearsing monologues, isolated in their apartments. Now the time has come for these actors to bring their work to the stage, face an eager audience, and maybe even advance their careers. The Manhattan Monologue Slam is a monthly event held at the Bowery Poetry Club, a downtown haven for spoken-word performance.

This is the American Idol of monologue performance. Ten performers have three minutes to impress industry judges and the packed-to-capacity crowd, which cheers or jeers the judges' tallies.

The crowd buzzes with energy. It's an eclectic mix of friends and family (including children), industry people, downtown enthusiasts, and, of course, a slew of fellow actors

F. Scott's First Love

"Hip hip tiger tiger tiger!" cheers the Princeton fraternity in The Pursuit of Persephone, a musical inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Prospect Theater's production is an admirable composite of the writer's life and work. It cleverly combines Fitzgerald's youthful antics and a crucial failed romance with thinly veiled autobiographical selections from his fiction, making for a charming night of theater. Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and This Side of Paradise are indisputable classics in the American literary canon, and his work helped shape our conceptions of the "lost generation" of the Roaring '20's. The premise of Persephone is that Fitzgerald's fiction all springs from the pain and loss of his first love, Ginevra King.

The show is effectively framed as a memory. After many years, Older Scott (Daniel Yates) is about to reunite with his college flame, Ginevra (Jessica Grov

Pope's in Town!

New York has always loved John Guare. His tragic approach to comedy

House of Horrors

Haunted houses aren't what they used to be. With the popularity of scary-movie satires and shock TV at its worst, pop culture has lost its taste for traditional horror, or at least horror without a wink. That said, Brad Fraser's Snake in Fridge, which was inspired by Shirley Jackson's 1959 classic thriller The Haunting of Hill House, attempts the impossible