Going Postal

Ah, spring. When a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of sending dead lizards through the mail. Such is one of the many exchanges between the couple in Hate Mail by Bill Corbett and Kira Obolensky, now playing at the Independent Theater. And you think your love life has problems. Hate Mail chronicles the bizarre relationship of Preston (Jason Cicci) and Dahlia (Danielle Ferland) through a series of letters, notes, telegrams, Internet chats, and the occasional posted reptile (Interfauna?). A.R. Gurney's Love Letters this ain't. Preston and Dahlia start the play out as strangers, but over time they become adversaries, friends, lovers, and back to enemies—all without delivering a single line of dialogue face to face.

The story starts when uptight Midwesterner Preston writes a letter of complaint, requesting a refund from a souvenir shop he had visited while on vacation. The reply, sent from assistant manager Dahlia, succinctly states that the store gives no refunds. Preston tries again but is met with a similar response. Frustrated, he escalates the argument with threats of litigation.

But as the attacks grow more heated, they also become more personal. Imagine Preston's chagrin when Dahlia reveals herself to be a bohemian photographer, working in the shop to support her art. Before long, the plot gets ridiculously complex. Preston gets medicated and joins a commune, while Dahlia swears off art to become a traveling saleswoman. Over the course of the play, they constantly reinvent themselves, turning their lives upside down again and again. Through all this, inexplicably, they find themselves writing to each other on a regular basis.

Corbett and Obolensky have honed their comic writing over the years on some quite impressive projects. He was a staff writer and performer on the cult-classic TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000. She is perhaps most famous for her award-winning play Lobster Alice. Their collaboration here has produced a script that's funny enough but ultimately unremarkable. It would be beside the point to bemoan the plot's contrivances (each character undergoes several personality about-faces; why they maintain their correspondence at times is a bit of a mystery). The big crime here is that while the script provides chuckles throughout, truly big laughs are few and far between.

Director Catherine Zambri has fortunately crafted a fine production, keeping the action taut and lively. How much action is there in a script that consists entirely of correspondence between two people who never share the same stage space at the same time? Surprisingly a lot, thanks to Zambri. Of course, a good portion of credit goes to the almost perfectly cast Cicci and Ferland for accomplishing the superhuman task of engaging an audience in this epistolary format.

Chris Dallos's lighting does wonders to help the audience keep track of time and space, while Maruti Evans's set is simplicity in itself. As you can probably imagine, desks play an important role, but the stunner here is the giant sheet that covers both the back wall and floor with a design of envelopes, stamps, and postcards. Chelsea White's costumes (easily disposable tie for him, bright tops and optional sunglasses for her) suit the characters to a tee, and Andrew Bellware's choice of music features the usual suspects ("Please Mr. Postman," "The Letter").

Ultimately, this production of Hate Mail is stronger than the play itself. No matter how well a talented cast tries to sell a groaner of a joke, it's still a groaner. The script is not nearly as clever as it thinks it is, but for a while, the cast and crew might make you forgive that.

Dark Shadows

The meeting of historical giants has long been a favorite topic of drama. Whether it's a virtual documentary (Frost/Nixon), a more stylized imagining (Copenhagen), or complete balderdash (Travesties, Picasso at the Lapin Agile), something fascinates us about the dramatic tension that occurs when literary, philosophical, or political geniuses collide. Can you imagine, then, the meeting of Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne, two masters at the dark heart of American literature? That is the question posed by Kraken, Len Jenkin's alternately fascinating and frustrating play, currently at Walkerspace. Based on the pair's true-life friendship, Kraken is a mélange of history, metaphor, and death.

In fact, Death, in the person of a young woman (Heidi Niedermeyer), literally stalks the characters throughout this play. When Melville (Tom Escovar), depressed by his artistic and personal failings, embarks on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, she is there. On the way, he visits his old friend Hawthorne (Augustus Truhn), who is serving as American consul in Southport, England. The introduction of Hawthorne prompts Death to leave Melville's side, but she is never very far away. Both authors, who produced such classics as Moby-Dick, "Benito Cereno," The Scarlet Letter, and "Young Goodman Brown," were well acquainted with evil, madness, despair, and other dark matters.

Indeed, for good chunks of Kraken, the darkness is gripping. As Melville grapples with feelings of despair and worthlessness, he longs for the release of a suicide he cannot commit. Hawthorne is wracked with illness, facing the last years of his life watching his artistic output ebb. All this is witnessed by Hawthorne's wife, Sophia (Tracy Liz Miller), who longs to help but is powerless to do anything.

Even more compelling are the characters the men meet in Southport. A phony Russian huckster named Malkovsky (Marc Geller) and his "tattooed princess"/prostitute/wife (Eva Patton) have too many secrets to be merely comic relief. Then there is Father Jeremy (Richardson Jones), a priest devastated by the cruelty he has witnessed, and whose faith is as tenuous as any character in one of Hawthorne's or Melville's works.

In moments like these, Jenkin's writing is top-notch, with some scenes making for remarkable short plays in and of themselves. The trouble, though, is a lack of cohesion among all these threads. One is never quite sure exactly what story is being told. Is it one man's struggle with irrelevance and depression? Or two writers coming to terms with a world that simultaneously influences and disgusts them? Or one woman helpless against death's hold on the two men in her life?

Exacerbating this problem is a series of needlessly complex framing devices: the play begins with a prologue by Death, who reads from Melville's Moby-Dick; then it moves to Southport, November 1856, where Sophia is forced to do some expository heavy lifting. Next, it flashes-forward to Melville in Palestine in December of the same year, reflecting on the voyage he has just finished. Finally, it comes to rest in October at the start of his trip, where the narrative begins in earnest. Hawthorne isn't even onstage yet, and already one's head is spinning.

Director Michael Kimmel has done a remarkable job of trying to make all this come together. For the most part, his staging is crisp, with many quite lovely juxtapositions and stage pictures. The way Sophia sings near-angelic music downstage from Malkovsky's ugly business is a particularly nice counterpoint. Escovar brings a slow-burning intensity to Melville, which is sometimes weighed down by being a little too slow in its burning. Truhn, as Hawthorne, has crafted a subtle and compelling performance that is hard not to watch.

The technical elements, including Ben Kato's sets and lights and Scott O'Brien's original music and sound design, create an almost impressionistic setting. A murky haze, crashing waves, and a relentlessly ticking clock provide a heightened realism that is lovely to be in the midst of. Unfortunately, though, it also reminds one of the script's amorphous shortcomings.

One thing that provides some unity to the play is repeated reference to the titular sea monster. Although the sheer number of allusions to the Kraken becomes a little heavy-handed, it nonetheless remains an impressive image. Like all good metaphors, it is open-ended and could refer to any number of things. Is the Kraken death? Despair? Or is it perhaps the cross of literary fortune that these two giants had to bear, each in his own way?

Sticks and Stones...

Mel Gibson. Michael Richards. Isaiah Washington. Don Imus (how's that for topical?). These celebrities have all made headlines within the last year for their scandalous use of language. They are all in varying degrees of hot water for their various expressions of anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia, sexism, etc. Most of us probably shrug them off as either idiotic or pathetic and take comfort in the fact that none of it affects us personally. But what if it did? What if an act of speech were so ugly, so offensive, so potentially harmful that legal action might be necessary? That is the question posed by Peter Sagal's play Denial, making its New York debut at Metropolitan Playhouse.

Denial follows attorney Abigail Gersten (Suzanne Toren), whose dedication to the law is so strong that she decides to defend one Bernard Cooper (H. Clark Kee), a noted Holocaust denier. Of course, denying the Holocaust is not against the law in this country. (In Europe it is a different matter, as promotional materials for the play remind us that David Irving was imprisoned last year in Austria for just such a claim.)

In a potentially illegal search and seizure, authorities have attained evidence they claim links Cooper to hate crimes and organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. This could very well be an actionable offense. Gersten, however, sees an egregious violation of Cooper's First and Fourth Amendment rights. Despite his repellent views, she takes his case, albeit very reluctantly. Oh, and Gersten is Jewish herself, which exponentially complicates matters.

Sagal, a minor celebrity as host of NPR's "Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!," chose quite an explosive subject matter for his 1995 play, which, if anything, is only more relevant today. This topic is simply bursting with potential for intellectual and dramatic power.

It is a pity, then, that Denial takes so long to get going. Most of the first act is awash in endless exposition, a few clichés, and a lot of unnecessary explanation of Just. How. Important. And. Thorny. This. Issue. Is. Especially indicative of the play's dramaturgical infelicities is a clunky sequence of scenelets that cut between various locales and characters for only a line or two at a time. It quite tries (no pun intended) the patience.

The poorness of the script's first half also weighs down the earnest production. Alex Roe's direction lacks a certain tautness, and the actors seem no more than their characters' types (e.g., the devoted assistant, the self-righteous adversary). The notable exception is Toren, whose attorney so commands every scene she is in that one has no doubt she does the same in court.

Fortunately, things change in the second half. The play and production pick up steam, getting to the conflict that we've been waiting for. As things heat up, so do the actors. Kee's Cooper presents his anti-Holocaust arguments in such an ingeniously insidious manner that Gersten's (and possibly the audience's) faith in orthodox history is shaken for a moment. Further showdowns and complications make a case for this play as great drama. Particularly memorable is a gripping scene between noted Holocaust survivor/author Noah Gomrowitz (Martin Novemsky) and the mysterious Nathan (John Tobias). Novemsky awakens a powerful stage presence, previously dormant, and Tobias is profoundly affecting. To give away any more, though, would be criminal.

Melissa Estro's costumes and the set design (uncredited) offer an effective grounding in realism that does not get in the way of Roe's occasional theatrical flourishes. Maryvel Bergen's lights make this switch between naturalism and a very red expressionism with nary a hitch.

It is not spoiling anything, though, to say that with the ending, the play goes off course again. Immediately after scenes of highly effective drama, the playwright gives us a resolution so pat that it betrays the complicated nature of the story at hand. And while Toren and the others struggle valiantly to make us care, the finale leaves one wondering what all the fuss was for.

After Happily Ever After

It's a good time to be a Stephen Sondheim fan. Recent years have seen a surge of interest in his work, including Broadway revivals of Assassins, Pacific Overtures, Sweeney Todd, and Company, which is still running. The highly acclaimed City Center Encores! version of Follies has spurred talk of a full-fledged revival, while a London production of Sunday in the Park With George is about to make its way across the pond. Even more highly anticipated is the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp film version of Todd, which will be released later this year. Sondheim even appeared on The Simpsons this season. Yes, it's a good time to be a Sondheim fan, but then again, isn't it always?

It should really come as no surprise, then, that I am writing about a Sondheim musical: Center Stage Community Playhouse's Into the Woods. The prospect of seeing another version of this venerable staple of high school and amateur theaters might not sound like the most promising night out, but Center Stage's version breathes enough fresh life into this 20-year-old chestnut to make it worth revisiting.

Under the revelatory direction of George Croom, Into the Woods crackles with the frenzied chaos that one expects might happen if you combine a dozen or so fairy tales and mix well. James Lapine's book takes the stories of Cinderella, Jack (of beanstalk fame), and the apocryphal Baker and his Wife and scrambles them, overlapping characters, sharing plot points, and the like. Also along for the ride are Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, and a host of others. The first act ends with the story resolved as we know it: the Giant dead, the Witch defeated, Cinderella married to her prince, etc. The second act, however, shows what happens after happily ever after.

While this sounds like the perfect show to take the kids to (and it is), there is plenty of sex and violence for the grown-ups. The play retains some of the Grimm Brothers' gruesome details (just how desperate were the ugly stepsisters to make the shoe fit?), and the final body count is surprisingly high. The lascivious Prince (the hysterically louche Nick Sattinger) is double-cast with the Wolf, highlighting their similarly voracious appetites. In a classic line, the bed-hopping Prince confesses that he was raised to be charming, not sincere.

Morality in these fairy tales is at the heart of Into the Woods. Sondheim's lyrics contain such quotable aphorisms as "nice is different than good" and "wishes come true, not free." Nothing is black and white, though, as the characters become far more complex than either the Grimms or Walt Disney ever imagined. In the song "Moments in the Woods," the Baker's Wife (the heartbreaking Lara Buck) comes to terms with the way the forest has brought her pleasure and pain, happiness and hypocrisy, love and infidelity. She learns all too well what Shakespeare and countless others have told us: crazy things happen when characters go into those woods.

There are indeed very dark places in that forest, but this is countered by a generous helping of Sondheim's trademark bounce and wit. Fortunately, Center Stage's production is fittingly bouncy and witty. Despite the modest space at Foster Hall (originally a detached chapel on the grounds of St. Peter's Episcopal Church), Croom's staging is full of zip. The pace rarely lags, and the fairy tale fantasy creates opportunities for ingenious meta-theatrical flourishes. These are mostly found in the person of Robert "Ben" Tylka, a true standout in the double role of the Narrator and Mysterious Man. Tylka's Narrator is one part Our Town's Stage Manager, one part Cabaret's Emcee, bringing both authority and mischief to the role.

Peter Mussared's costumes are dazzling, and Jason Bolen's set creates magic, allowing for a dizzying range of entrances and exits, and a few surprising hiding places. A small number of spectators are seated on the stage, which the actors have plenty of fun with. One is never quite sure where a character will pop up next.

Musical director Kurt Kelley has crafted a tight ensemble out of a large cast of mostly nonprofessionals, featuring a number of capable soloists. At the preview I attended, the wireless microphones were temperamental, as they often are. Even though Foster Hall is small, one does not envy the singers in their task of conquering the space's awkward acoustics. The cast certainly does the best with what it has.

In the end, Center Stage has created something it should be proud of. Over the years, I have seen umpteen productions of Into the Woods, and was even in one once upon a time. That the play can still become fresh and alive to me is quite an accomplishment.

Faux Shakespeare in Love

In William Goldman's novel The Princess Bride, the author claims not to have written the book. Instead, he maintains that he has merely abridged the work of another author into what he calls the "good parts" version. In his editorial wisdom, he leaves out the serious parts and focuses only on the action stuff. If one were to decide to write a "good parts" version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, it might come out looking something like Ryan J-W Smith's Sweet Love Adieu. Except that no one dies. And there is a wacky mistaken-identity scene involving cross-dressing.

Now playing at Theater Row's Lion Theater, Sweet Love Adieu is a new comedy written in rhyming verse. Like Shakespeare, Smith knows a good story line when he hears it, borrows liberally, and makes it his own. The language is modern, but elements of the plot are as old as Elizabethan England, Renaissance Italy, even ancient Greece.

In this story is William, a lovestruck youth, whose friends chide him for his devotion to Hannah, who promptly dumps him. He is immediately back in love again when he catches the eye of the lovely Anne. Unfortunately, Anne is also being pursued by the powerful but undesirable…

Is any of this sounding familiar? I hope so. It's all there, from a masquerade to a balcony scene to a potion provided by a friar. This is a comedy, though, so we do not have all those messy deaths and sad endings. Smith does add a few flourishes (mostly comedic touches, like the cross-dressing and the bombastic comic relief of Lord Edmund), and many of them can also be seen in, say, Twelfth Night or The Merry Wives of Windsor. (The Oberon Theater Ensemble is running Sweet Love Adieu in repertory with <a href= http://offoffonline.com/reviews.php?id=975 Merry Wives. )

As Anne, Amanda McCroskery is pleasant enough, but Marcel Simoneau's William is utterly captivating. Kenneth Cavett's Lord Edmund is humorously diabolical and diabolically humorous. Amanda Nichols, Eve Udesky, Tom Lapke, and Walter Brandes (watch for him in drag!) provide delightful support as the young lovers' respective entourages.

Ashley Springer's Sidney is droll as the beleaguered servant, and Dyanne Court has too small a role as Anne's mother. Charlie Moss, however, threatens to steal the whole play every time he appears either as a surprisingly self-aware Chorus, scheming Magistrate, or Friar with a propensity to take the Lord's name in vain. Director Don Harvey has brought together the 10-person cast into such a strong ensemble that one just has to mention them all by name. Harvey also finds the right tone for the piece, neither too joking nor too sincere.

Smith is no Shakespeare, but that cannot be held against him, for who is? His verse conveys the story in clear language, updating everything from poetic imagery about fate to bawdy jokes and scatological references. Using a modern vocabulary (the average person uses a fraction of the number of words that Shakespeare did), he avoids the pitfalls of embarrassing colloquialisms and groan-worthy topical references that plague many such plays. What he has done is to create a cute little love story out of bits and pieces with which we are already familiar. His ambitions are perhaps a bit modest, but he is correspondingly successful in his achievements.

Sharon Huizinga's lights help create more diverse worlds than what the Lion's small stage allows. The dominant feature of Ace Eure's set is a large red bench center stage, which functions as everything from balcony to bier. Smaller benches line either side of the stage, where actors sit and watch when not in the scene. The cast brings all this out at the top of the first act. The whole design is certainly an attempt to recreate the simple stagecraft of Shakespeare's day, also with the sense of traveling players who perform wherever they stop. It also suggests, however, a very modern minimalism and carries with it a strong whiff of what we today call meta-theater.

All the technical aspects add to this feeling of modern/Elizabethan conflation. Of particular note is the extraordinary costume design by Carrmen Wrenn, which uses everyday clothing to create a sort of stylized Elizabethan look. A creatively torn sweater and jeans can stand in for doublet and hose. Yes, even jockstraps function as codpieces. Also, the sound design by Gennaro Marletta III mixes period-style instrumentals with cheesy pop love songs.

The choice of music at intermission is indicative of the production's feel as a whole. Indeed, any show that features Barry Manilow's "Can't Smile Without You" definitely earns my seal of approval.

Boys Will Be Girls Will Be Boys

I suppose there is a goodly amount of academic ink to be spilt on the topic of Shakespearean performance by an all-male cast in the 21st century. You could bandy about words like "postmodern" and "deconstruction" or approach it from a gender studies/queer-theory angle to examine patriarchal hegemony. Good Lord, As You Like It is a treasure trove of self-reflexive homoeroticism! But after seeing poortom productions's staging of one of Shakespeare's best-loved comedies, all such speculation can be resolved with one overarching theme: men in dresses are funny.

The young company's inaugural season is now officially under way at HERE Arts Center with this, its first production. Just like Edward Hall's Propeller troupe (which currently can be seen at the Brooklyn Academy of Music), poortom has taken a novel approach by doing Shakespeare the way Shakespeare did, with no girls allowed. In doing so, it has become New York's only all-male Shakespeare company, drawing the attention of high-profile Tony winners and Royal Shakespeare Company members, who sit on the company's artistic advisory board.

The intent of poortom Artistic Director Joe Plummer and As You Like It director Moritz von Stuelpnagel is, however, more than just going all Monty Python on us. For this production, their vision includes moving past lowbrow thrills and exploring the fantasticality and absurdity inherent in the play.

As You Like It certainly offers plenty of opportunities for those explorations. This gender-confusing classic concerns Rosalind (Erik Gratton), daughter of the good, banished duke, and her cousin Celia (the aforementioned Plummer), daughter of the bad, usurping duke. Rosalind, in a short space of time, enjoys the bliss of love at first sight with noble Orlando (Dan Amboyer) and endures the pains of banishment by her tempestuous uncle. With good-hearted Celia tagging along, Rosalind goes off in search of her father in the Forest of Arden. The forest, of course, is where the fun begins.

In order to survive in the wilderness, Rosalind disguises herself as a young man. Chaos ensues not only because she courts an unsuspecting Orlando in this costume but because, in this production (as in the Elizabethan original), the girl plays a boy while in reality being played by a boy. Such logic can make the head spin, but Gratton's performance also makes the heart leap. Every time he (she?) and Plummer take the stage, magic happens—a magic not only due to the sheer theatricality of the casting conceit. These two have crafted performances that rely on stereotypical hallmarks of feminine (or femme-y) acting (hand-wringing, giggling) but also are founded upon truth and heart.

It does not hurt that under the dresses are accomplished actors who masterfully navigate prose and blank verse with nuance, clarity, and speed. Such a wonder is so effervescent and contagious that by the end of the play, with not one but four weddings, the sublime silliness wins one over to the joy of the situation.

If the romantic comedy comes across well, the rest of von Stuelpnagel's production could use a little more depth. Rarely does one feel the evil of oppression, the pain of banishment, and the cold of the wild that lie at the dark heart of this play. The exception, of course, is that classic melancholic, Jaques (Greg Hildreth). He ends the play's first half with a solitary moment not found in Shakespeare's original. If only there were more such instances of pain throughout this production.

On the technical side, Wilson Chin and Kanae Heike's set achieves a marvelous coup de théâtre in switching from court to forest: a little change of carpet goes a long way. Additionally, Lauren Phillips's lights and Amy C. Bradshaw's costumes help delineate space and character in simple but effective ways. The songs by Malcolm Gets manage to be emotionally evocative while pulling off Shakespeare's rhyme scheme smoothly.

In the end, if the production sacrifices any of Shakespeare's poignancy, it makes up for it with its crowd-pleasing buoyancy. Four men wear dresses in the show. All will make you laugh, but any production of As You Like It lives or dies by its Rosalind. Fortunately, with a performance that explores all the joys, fears, and foibles of love, Gratton rises to the occasion.