Judge Not?

Carrie Greanlea (Leigh Williams) is a caustic opera critic, brutal with a pen. She is married to Norman (Zac Hoogendyk), yet another opera critic. Unlike Norman, who questions his own competence, Carrie is unwaveringly and remorselessly critical of everything from Norman’s sperm count to the size of performers’ noses. The thing is, when it comes to arts criticism, she’s usually right. Carrie likely would have been quite disappointed with Critical Mass, the play of her own creator. The premise of Joanne Sydney Lessner’s slight work is that Carrie has, with a single review in Opera World, destroyed the career of Stefano Donato (Aaron Davis), an Italian tenor of questionable talent. Stefano, feigning destitution due to the toll that Carrie’s lacerating piece has exacted on his career, takes revenge by finding out where the critical duo lives. Suitcases in hand, Stefano proceeds to hijack their personal and professional lives, hinting at ominous Mafia repercussions should they decline to take him in. Like The Godfather’s Don Vito Corleone, Stefano makes them an offer they can’t refuse.

A major problem with the absurdly themed Critical Mass is that it’s not nearly farcical enough in its execution. Ms. Williams, a major character, is the weak link in the thematic chain; misdirected by Donald Brenner, she plays the shrewish, angry Carrie to the hilt, but her humorlessness torpedoes the part and, with it, the entire play. What we need from Ms. Leigh’s Carrie is a little I Love Lucy; what we get is a lot of Nancy Grace.

And Mr. Davis’ awful accent is almost unbearable. He overacts cravenly; fortunately, his character is somewhat likable. The standout performance here is that of Marc Geller as Cedric West, the editor of Opera World. Mr. Geller does his best with Lessner’s stereotyped writing – he’s gay and effeminate and channels Bette Davis. Chris Menard’s terrific scenic design truly gives the set the feel of a contemporary urban apartment.

It’s not entirely clear to me what Ms. Lessner (who reviews for Opera News) wants to say about critics of the arts. Should they pull punches to spare the feelings of artists about whom they write? Lessner vilifies Carrie for sticking to her guns, and pre-sets her as a miserable, bitter person. Yet, Lessner appears to praise the spineless Norman for letting his feelings (and other people) influence his critical opinions. And, at least through Stefano’s character, Ms. Lessner seems to advance the parental edict, “If you’ve got nothing good to say, don’t say anything.”

Sure, a negative review can dishearten, but so can a disappointing play; one should rightly expect more from the winner of Heiress Productions' year-and-a-half long playwriting competition. To Lessner’s apparent guideline above a critic might counter: “Why bother putting up a very mediocre play in the first place?” Though it’s crisply written, Critical Mass is chock full of stale characters and warmed-over jokes.

The cynical – the Carrie - part of me wonders whether Ms. Lessner, by preemptively hammering at critics, hopes to inoculate this play from the inevitable barbs. In the end, Critical Mass is an overlong one-trick pony. It’s got enough fuel for one act but its three punish the limits of reasonableness.

As Carrie at one point lectures Stefano: “Look, if you’re going to worship at the shrine of art, if you’re going to attempt to make a play for the pantheon of greatness, you have to be prepared to work hard and be prepared to be judged”. Having reiterated that, please don’t tell Ms. Lessner where I live.

A Leopard and His Spots

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Love Lucidity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blood Feast

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

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

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

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

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

Variety is the Spice of Life

167 Tongues refers to the number of different languages that one of the production’s characters, a Rwandan emergency room nurse, credibly claims are spoken in the hospital in Jackson Heights, Queens, the town in which this production is both literally and figuratively set. The borough of Queens is perhaps the most ethnically diverse area in the world; half of its residents are foreign-born. Jackson Heights is said to be the home of families of 100 different nationalities. In unskilled hands a production with 37 characters in 25 ethnic-flavored skits could become an unwieldy, hackneyed disaster. 167 Tongues is anything but, and that’s due primarily to the tight collaboration of 11 talented playwrights and 29 actors, assembled by director Ari Laura Kreith, who also conceived the entire production for Jackson Repertory Theatre. The scenes are not sketches so much as they are a collage of vignettes, many of them quite poetic and touching. Generally, they either avoid cliché or fearlessly embrace it, winkingly knowing.

The opening street scene is a fascinating use of a small space. One by one or pair by pair, characters appear on the stage. They go about their day, bumping into each other or otherwise interacting, singing, and chatting into their cell phones. The ubiquitous Number 7 train roars in the background, until, the stage now full, the assemblage reaches an almost intolerable cacophony of language and city sounds. It’s quite remarkable.

Among the standout characters who populate 167 Tongues are a homeless man who is partial to Little Debbie snack cakes and a graduate student who delivers Chinese food for a living. There’s a humorous dosa chef, a suspicious Korean fruit seller, a Russian bookseller with a poetic side, a cantankerous, housebound Vietnam War veteran, a no nonsense Indian jewelry maker who rejects a footloose suitor, and others far too numerous to mention. Most of them feel entirely real rather than slight, one-dimensional caricatures. Though its “theater” is P.S. 69, this isn't amateur night. And the play doesn’t shy away from adult themes such as homosexuality, teen sex, undocumented immigration, suicide and domestic violence. If there’s any drawback to so many vignettes, it’s that some of the plot threads don’t entirely resolve. Perhaps that’s the point. Life’s colorful pageant simply continues, the good with the bad.

The living residents of Jackson Heights even have a thematic communion with residents long dead. The use of ghosts in a theatrical production can be a disaster. Yet, here, the device is used to great effect, as when a pair of them, one white and one black, haunt a young interracial couple whose lives reflect those of the ghosts’ children, in love in a bigoted society some 40 years earlier. Those were the days of the Princeton Plan, the school-bussing system for racial desegregation, which catapulted many communities into an almost hysterical panic.

Inspired by the production’s depiction of the neighborhood, I took a walk along 37th Avenue after the show and observed its genuine diversity. I ate a late dinner at an Indian restaurant and was served by an Asian waitress. As I walked back to the train station I passed a homeless man sleeping in an alcove, his belongings piled into a shopping cart. I wondered whether he was the inspiration for any of the characters in the production that had just taken place across the street. I also wondered whether he would ever see that production, or whether he was worlds away.

He should know, though, that a creative band of artists at Jackson Repertory care about his life and those of others like him. Due in no small part to consistently first-rate writing, acting, and direction, this production’s tasty concoction, against all odds, manages to work much like the neighborhood it lovingly chronicles.

Don't Fence Me In

Next to an old police precinct, the dilapidated building that houses the American Theatre for Actors (ATA) signals hard-working theater artists occupied with shoestring labors of love. The building’s bathrooms will make you regret having used them; when you leave, you feel that you’ve somehow collected germs. The ceiling panels of the ATA's Sargent Theatre, covered with water stains, appear as if they might peel off during the performance. In short, ATA is the kind of off-off Broadway theater space whose artists you root for. And it’s certainly an ideal setting for prison plays. So, I’m sorry to say that Nutshell Productions’ Spend the Night in Jail, featuring jailhouse-themed plays by William Saroyan and Jean Genet, makes for a generally disappointing evening. In Saroyan’s 1941 one-act, “Hello Out There,” a drifter, simply called The Young Man (Richard Hymes-Esposito), finds himself trapped in a small-town Texas jailhouse, expecting to be lynched on a false charge of rape. He begins a tender conversation with Emily (Kerry Fitzgibbons), the jail’s young, insecure cook and dishwasher, who, intrigued by the man, has stayed past her shift to connect with him somehow.

This is the second off-off Broadway production of “Hello Out There” that I have seen in little more than a year. In both, I have had to wonder why the set designers can’t seem to get the hang of prison bar construction. In the earlier production (by a different company), the bars were wide enough for The Young Man to walk through. In this production, set designer Craig Napoliello completely kills the illusion of fenced in people by making the bars between these worlds-apart characters merely knee-high.

Mr. Hymes-Esposito barely conveys The Young Man’s sense of desperation; he’s just too calm. And he doesn’t even attempt to disguise his strong New York accent, which, oddly, works anyway. Eric Nightengale’s lighting brings portentous shadows that add a level of needed suspense to the production. Kevin McGraw, as the accuser’s husband, is serviceable but impenetrable. He doesn’t let The Young Man get into his head enough when he confronts him with his gang. Despite these problems, Robert Haufrecht’s direction is steady and keeps the play on track. Though it fails to grip as it should, it’s the shorter and better of the two productions.

Jean Genet’s “Deathwatch,” first produced in 1949, uses the same set, so now the characters are confined to only one side of the stage. Green Eyes (Raul Sigmund Julia), the alpha male of a cell of three prisoners, will be executed for murder within a month’s time. His weak and sexually fawning cell mates, Maurice (John Paul Harkins) and Lefranc (Greg Engbrecht) despise each other and fear the upheaval that Green Eyes’ death will bring to the prison’s power hierarchy. At least one of them is already considering throwing his lot in with “Snowball,” an even more powerful alpha male in the prison.

All three characters in “Deathwatch” plot against each other, in sometimes-subtle ways, big and small. However hard they try, though, their respective roles are beyond all three young actors. Though Genet (a recidivist thief who knew his way around prisons) specified keeping the action to a minimum in his own direction of the piece, Harkins and Engbrecht chase each other around the tiny cell like Moe and Curly. Though I won’t give the plot entirely away, the illusion in this production is diminished by all the physicality; a supposedly dead body heaving for breath invites snickers rather than shock. The hysteria is not aided by director Hymes-Esposito and sound designer Nightengale’s inexplicable sound effects, which include the roar of a tiger, the moans of a woman having an orgasm, and the famous Shower Scene screech music from Psycho. One of Genet’s earliest works, “Deathwatch” is a fascinating but not a great play, and this production makes it even less great.

Though the dedication and promise of this small, young troupe are apparent, you won’t want to spend your night in this jail, even as a visitor.

Just the Facts, Ma'am

The Theater for the New City’s website and press claims, troublingly (to me, at least), that Barbara Kahn’s “The Spring and Fall of Eve Adams recounts the true story” of its subject. Yet, as far as I can tell, this much is true: Eve Adams (real name Eva Kotchever) “was a Jewish lesbian from Poland, who was proprietor of ‘Eve’s Hangout’ at 129 Macdougal Street in 1926, a tearoom where local poets, musicians and actors congregated to meet and share their work in salon evenings” (from the web site). We also know that Eve’s Hangout closed after Eve was arrested in a crackdown on gay and lesbian establishments and society. Prior to this, Eve and her salon had been vilified by the bigoted editor of a local paper called The Greenwich Village Quill (called The Parchment in the play). After her arrest, Eve moved to Paris where she lived, by some accounts, hand-to-mouth. She always longed to return to the States. Ms. Kahn’s account takes place in and around Eve’s Hangout and paints Eve in broad, sanitized strokes, so that she comes off as a kindly den mother rather than the avant garde provocateur described by some historians. Carefully offered as a saintly, nurturing matron, this likely well-scrubbed Eve (Steph Van Vlack) more closely resembles Mrs. Garrett from The Facts of Life than a radical lesbian intellectual in 1920s bohemian Greenwich Village.

Eve generously employs a young, searching, poor girl, and then generously welcomes another young, searching, poor girl (both are fictional characters); she offers wholesome dating advice (to fictional characters); she winkingly tolerates a ubiquitous, sharp and universally disliked patron (who is fictional); she heartily encourages the writing careers (of fictional characters), and forgives the lies and slights (of...well, you know) with tea and cheerful hugs. Has a kinder, gentler soul ever existed? Sadly, I doubt that Kahn is giving us anything close to the real Eve. At best, it’s a wild guess.

The production’s program states, more mildly, that the play is “inspired by a true story.” Yet, Ms. Kahn takes sometimes-shocking inspiration with the extant facts of Eve’s life. There’s a central plot twist, but it doesn’t ring true at all, not only because it’s fictionalized but also because it’s implausible, even in the context of the play’s own plot. Another problem is that the play is simply too long. You know you have length issues when you start labeling your scenes “Five-b.” We sometimes have to sit through Eve’s interminable and, frankly, not very good, love stories.

So, to get this straight: The Spring and Fall of Eve Adams is a mostly imagined account of the life of an historical person about whom we know some surprisingly few facts. Since she invents so many fictional characters (and two real characters--in name only--who may or may not have personally known Eve), Ms. Kahn might have been better off had she simply invented, rather than appropriated, a protagonist. Kahn’s Eve is not consistent with what is known of her. Kahn’s Eve would have been much too polite to hang a sign outside her salon (a fact the play uses) stating, “Men are admitted, but not welcome.” Kahn’s Eve is too timid and, frankly, dull, for such action--radical at the time.

There are two standout performances here: Anna Podolak as Amalia “Mika” Frank, a young woman whose mother disinherits her for her lesbianism, and Micha Lazare as Alice Hathaway, a longing young woman from Red Bank, New Jersey, in search of her freedom and identity. Mika and Alice start a tentative, innocent relationship. Ms. Podolak’s specialty is body language, and she can welcome or dismiss someone with a simple twist of her mouth. Ms. Lazare, for her part, brings wonder and joy to her character, free for the first time on the indifferent but nonjudgmental streets of New York City.

Deanna R. Frieman’s vintage costuming is chic and smart, incorporating both the 1920s college look and men’s period styles. And Mark Marcante’s set design really does replicate the look of a café or salon, with warm brick walls, period furniture, and even what looks like a kitchen at the back of the stage.

Well-intentioned as it is, The Spring and Fall of Eve Adams is a disappointing and fatally flawed play. Ms. Kahn is clearly sympathetic to her characters and, at its core, this play is about terrible injustice suffered by gays and lesbians in a particular place and period in our nation’s history. In a document entitled “Historical Background of the Play,” Ms. Kahn states, “I enjoy discovering people and events that have been omitted and distorted in history and popular culture.” Unfortunately, Ms. Kahn’s account may serve ultimately to further distort the life of a figure about whom we already know so little.

State of Chaos

What if Michael Jackson had ruled an empire? What might he have done? Well, he might have spent a large chunk of the national treasury to stock magnificent zoos with exotic animals. Or, he might have hired a group of astrologers and alchemists rather than raise an army. He might have even secluded himself for weeks at a time while ignoring affairs of state. That’s just what Rudolf II did in Renaissance Bohemia and these actions and their consequences contributed to the devastation of the Thirty Years' War. You’ve heard of Edward II, Richard III, and Henrys IV, V and VI. Rudolf II? It turns out Rudolf II, who ruled Bohemia, Hungary, and Croatia from roughly 1572-1608, had quite an interesting story. And playwright Edward Einhorn has imagined and presented it in a manner that is nothing short of dazzling.

Rudolf’s reign was a chaotic one, and Mr. Einhorn sketches some of its basic facts, taking broad imaginative license in many cases. Despite some necessary omissions (the whole story of Rudolf II might take days), Mr. Einhorn gives us a fascinating man loaded with contradictions: formidable, yet highly insecure; unmarried and actively bisexual, yet also the Holy Roman Emperor; Catholic, yet spellbound and influenced by mediums who claim to communicate with spirits in puddles of water. Rudolf was also obsessed with his hated younger brother, Archduke Matthias, and, though he feared losing his crown to Matthias, he knowingly made many decisions which actually sped up that very process.

Director Henry Akona maximizes the generous space of the new and magnificent Renaissance Revival Bohemian National Hall on the Upper East Side. The space has spent the last 15 years under renovation by the Czech government. A royal bed, on and around which much of the action occurs, sits at the head of the hall. A bright red carpet runs down the length of the hall (the audience is seated, lengthwise, two rows deep) and every inch of its space is used at one time or other during the production.

Since he spends much of his time in bed, Rudolf (Timothy McCown Reynolds) is almost always dressed in a sleeping gown. Despite this, he exudes a kingly, if effeminate, demeanor that would make one think twice before crossing him. Mr. Reynolds’ acting is first-rate; he moves effortlessly from charming, to bewildered, to enraged. A small orchestra/chorus sits in the balcony and contributes conservatively, never overbearingly. The king’s headboard at one point features a replica of Guiseppe Arcimboldo’s portrait of Rudolf as Roman god of the seasons, a prize possession of an emperor noted for his patronage of the arts.

Mr. Einhorn is an accomplished playwright who confidently breathes life into a complex and paranoid ruler who was uniquely unqualified to rule. Yet, Mr. Einhorn also captures Rudolf’s eccentricity, humanity, contradictions and humor. The love scenes between Rudolf and his mistress Katerina (Yvonne Roen) are playful and sweet. Ms. Roen expertly plays the apprehensive and long-suffering mistress, loving Rudolf despite his numerous dalliances and his open long-term affair with his chamberlain, Philip Lang (Jack Schaub). Each actor in this production is greatly talented; there are no weak links. Standouts include Eric Oleson as Rumpf, Rudolf’s first and candid chamberlain, and the bearish Joe Gately as the great but haughty Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe. Carla Gant’s costuming can only be described as majestic and Ian W. Hill’s lighting has a touch of the surreal.

It takes chutzpah and no small amount of self-confidence to pen a historical play such as this. Mr. Einhorn surely grasps the magnitude of the undertaking and turns the effort into an unmitigated success. You don’t need to be a scholar of the Austro-Hungarian empire to enjoy this play; all you need is the willingness to be entertained and enlightened.

A Dish Best Served Cold

You have to give the American Globe Theatre a “G” for guts—for taking on Titus Andronicus, which, despite its popularity in its time, is now frequently dismissed as William Shakespeare’s weakest (and it’s certainly his most despised) play. Guts also happen to be a big part of the play—at least in the manner and speed with which they’re spilled. Titus Andronicus is Shakespeare’s bloodiest work and probably his earliest revenge tragedy. Students at the University of Liverpool have dubbed it the bard’s “Quentin Tarantino Play” because so many characters die, or are raped or tortured in barbaric, grotesque and improbable ways. The critic S. Clark Hulse estimates that an atrocity occurs every 97 lines. Much of the story, and its main focus, is far older than Shakespeare, so we can’t blame him for all the brutality. Much of the tragedy is derived from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and its portrayal of the rape of Philomela.

The venerable literary critic Harold Bloom once famously opined that Titus Andronicus could only be played as a farce and vowed that he would only see it again if Mel Brooks directed. Too bad he’s missing this one because, for the most part, John Basil’s American Globe Theatre plays it straight and it goes quite well as a direct, albeit psychotic, drama. Mr. Basil follows the script where it leads and wisely leaves it to the audience to decide whether or not it’s parody.

Titus Andronicus elicits sniggers and eye rolls because the play’s militaristic Roman and Goth characters exact continuous revenge on one another, constantly upping the bloody ante, until the heinous acts turn blackly humorous. Eventually, warring factions greedily and unknowingly consume the cooked remains of family members in pies. Mr. Basil gives the humor its due (i.e., we’re allowed to laugh) but he refuses to let it get out of hand, keeping tight reins on the story and the gore.

Once again, the commanding American Globe Theatre staple Richard Fay steals the show as Titus Andronicus. Powerful, intimidating, convincing, Fay is a consummate Shakespearean actor. You can’t take your eyes off him, and the other actors orbit around him gracefully. Also notable in the 16-member cast are Jon Hoche as a fierce Lucius, Lamont Stephens as the inexplicably and irredeemably evil Aaron, and Nick Vordeman as the whiny, weak-willed and humorous emperor Saturninus.

Once again, the American Globe Theatre maximizes a small space and employs a flexible stage to great benefit. Two projection screens at the top of either side of the two-storey stage frame the action. When the action takes place in a forest, a black and white sketch of a forest scene might appear. It’s a very effective strategy where elaborate stage changes are not practical.

Unlike other productions, and in spite the photo that accompanies this review, the theatrical blood is used quite sparingly. This is a good thing when so many people die horrific deaths. Mr. Basil smartly removes our gaze from the machinations of the horrors and places our concentration on the fact that they do, indeed, occur; the actors dispatch most of the deeds with quick, choreographed and graceful strokes. We are left not with the horror of that graphicness but rather with the horror that one could do such things to another human being - and that one can spend time plotting endless, total revenge. The bard’s derided tale really has enormous significance for our fractured, vengeful age.

I recommend the play to anyone who is curious about this underperformed Shakespearean oddity. The mere existence of Shakespeare in today’s Times Square is remarkable and The American Globe Theatre is still the best theater bargain in the area.

They Rage Against the Dying of the Light

Pat Kinevane’s one-man performance play Forgotten reminds us that behind the walls of every nursing home live real people who once led fascinating, sometimes improbable lives and who, however physically restricted they may appear, and however ravaged by time’s cruel assaults, remain proud. Many still lead vibrant lives of the mind. Forgotten questions the way that society values, or rather devalues, its elderly charges. Forgotten speaks, with great Irish humor, for these residents and those like them, angry at the bodies that betray them, their dignity assailed daily by intrusive nurses, condescending sales clerks, officious bank tellers and ungrateful, greedy offspring. Though Kinevane’s four characters reside in separate nursing homes in Ireland, they share a fascinating interrelated history, which they gradually reveal to us through alternating narratives.

Mr. Kinevane, one of the principals of Ireland’s acclaimed Fishamble Theater Company, marvelously plays all of the endearing characters: two men and two women, each between the ages of 80 and 100. One, a man named Gustus, is physically infirm due to a stroke. Kinevane, in lithe shape and even a bit of a contortionist when necessary, comes up with a fascinating way of portraying Gustus’ infirmity by sitting in a chair with his back to the audience and wearing glasses on the back of his bald head.

Kinevane peppers his narratives with surprisingly fitting Kabuki-style introductions, providing the characters with a physical grace that their advancing age and frailties often eclipse. Among its most moving parts are the opening and closing segments, both of which use recordings and music and neither of which I want to disclose more about because their power must be experienced; they frame the performance perfectly.

Theatergoers should be prepared to listen closely and work hard to follow the meandering plot lines. They should also be prepared to miss some of the dialogue or have some of it go over their heads. Kinevane, from County Cork, sometimes employs a thick Irish brogue, colloquialisms and slang (the program includes a helpful glossary of terms), particularly with the character of Flor, a fiery former laborer with a vivid, agitated imagination that the nurses try to keep medicated, who proudly protects his physical dignity at any cost. The payoff of Kinevane’s authenticity is in the rich originality, deep humor and pathos of these characters.

Lurking in all these narratives is the advancing specter of death for these residents. One, Eucharia, even wonders about the physical position in which she’ll die. Yet, Kinevane’s material avoids becoming bleak or depressing. In fact, it’s often scandalous, randy and uproarious. These characters are still very much concerned with living, with figuring things out for themselves.

Kinevane is a first rate writer and performer who captures the essence of, and utterly inhabits, the souls of these four personalities. Ably directed by Jim Culleton, Kinevane harnesses the power of light, sound and his own physicality to tell the stories of those who find themselves in a death-struggle with their own bodies, senses and minds. His feisty characters still retain unique opinions and important tales to tell. And they’re not going anywhere until they tell them.

The Gassy Knoll

At the start of The Jackie Look, Karen Finley, wearing dark shades and white polyester slacks, takes the stage as an almost robotic Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, while iconic Camelot-era and, then, assassination photos flash on a projection screen. Pacing, Finley/Jackie reaches out in futile attempts to touch her husband’s casket and her (then) very young children, John, Jr. and Caroline. These affecting gestures are unfortunately among The Jackie Look’s few inspired sparks. Soon, Jackie, shrugging off her grief, guides us through an amusing critique/riff of the JFK Presidential Library and Museum’s web site. Snarkily she attacks its online gift store for peddling assassination postcards and picks apart, for their sheer tawdriness, specials on Dealey Plaza holiday ornaments and media products like Oswald’s Ghost and Camelot: The Broadway Cast. The tour is campy and few of her jokes actually land. Finley then falters and begins grasping for material to fill out this ultimately long winded production.

Finley next spends a bit of time on the word "assassination," noting apropos to nothing much that it twice contains the word “ass” (“Onassis” has one but she omits that). She also critiques a photo taken of her prior to the Dallas assassination which shows her holding a bouquet of red roses rather than the obviously more appropriate yellow roses of Texas. When there’s no obvious punch line, Finley might just say, in her shy Jackie voice, “I just thought that was interesting.”

Karen Finley is perhaps best known as a member of the notorious “NEA Four,” a group of controversial performance artists whose funding by the National Endowment for the Arts caused a massive protest among cultural conservatives and led to Congress’ discontinuation of individual artist grants. Some may find it surprising that Finley’s Jackie seems to know quite a bit about one of Finley’s contemporaries — photographer Andres Serrano — whose notorious 1987 photograph, “Piss Christ,” depicting a crucifix submerged in a jar of urine became a lightning rod for the wrath of Senator Jesse Helms. Again, apropos of nothing, Jackie claims that a magnification of a photograph showing the rifle used to kill JFK resembles “Piss Christ.” Other than being yellowish, it has no discernible resemblance. Is this simply filler? Or a way for Finley to inject herself and her legacy into history? Is this an attempt on Finley’s part to remind us of her past as a provocateur?

In The Jackie Look, Finley alternates between Jackie as airhead and Jackie as deconstructionist theorist; yet, Kennedy Onassis was neither. On the one hand, the production is a campy send-up. On the other (and longer) hand, it’s a dreary sermon.

The disjointed The Jackie Look falls most flat in its second segment in which Jackie again returns from the afterlife to deliver a jargon-filled talk on the “gazing of trauma” to the Society of Photographic Education. Finley/Jackie’s claim that she is here to “consider transformation from trauma and to release our national images of trauma,” sounds more like a presentation to the Modern Language Association than a monologue. The piece alternates between a lecture and an interminable, indulgent, free-form poetry slam piece, in which Jackie comments on, among other topics, Mayor Daley of Chicago, Michelle Obama’s bare shoulder dresses and her own son’s plane crash. Jackie begs us to release her from our gaze and coughs up English dissertation gibberish:

“When you held your camera to hide your face to see my face—my face—I became your face. What do we do to claim infant eye attachment?”

Finley delivers occasional moments of poignancy and incisiveness but they are few and very far between. What starts out as a promising, biting comedy morphs into an unremitting Susan Sontag essay.

The venue for this production is all wrong, as well. On the evening I attended, the eating and drinking audience at the Laurie Beechman Theatre’s cabaret setting (recent home to Joan Rivers and upcoming productions with titles like Fat Bitch! and My Queer Youth) was primed to laugh. Then it was patiently waiting to laugh. Soon, it was desperate to laugh. It charitably stretched out its chuckles during the critique segment, and was clearly hoping for a reprise. The audience expected to meet the “Jackie-O” who rubbed elbows with Andy Warhol, the fashion icon Jackie with the outrageous department store bills, the Jackie with the insatiable appetite for wealth. When the lights came on, they seemed disappointed and mystified by Finley’s lumpy gruel.

Way before the end of Finley’s ultimately incoherent monologue, one becomes bored with this fictional Jackie’s whining, and her tired, pretentious content. With last summer’s death of Ted Kennedy and Caroline’s aborted Senate bid, it appears that, more than ever, the Kennedy mystique is weakening. We’re letting go. Karen Finley isn’t.

Old Wives' Tales

Playwright Barbara Wiechmann’s Aunt Leaf takes place in the Hudson River Valley in the early 1900s. Though much is made of that region in the production’s press materials, the setting could be just about anywhere with a forest and a river. Aunt Leaf is the story of a quiet 11-year-old named Annabelle Wood, whose decrepit Great Aunt Leaf (described at one point as “a gassy pile of blinking black rags”) comes to stay for the summer. Young Annabelle, the only person in the large house who has any meaningful contact with the bedridden and unhappy Aunt Leaf, rapidly internalizes her aunt’s hopeful declarations that “people come back” and that “living things are made of stories.” Aunt Leaf explains that she has heard her long-deceased husband whistling one night on the lawn.

Encouraging each others’ fecund imaginations, Annabelle dutifully reports to her aunt the snapping of twigs, the barking of dogs, the rustling of leaves and other assorted natural activity, the two of them imbuing each event with otherworldly significance. Everything that happens becomes a symbol or omen. Soon, Annabelle’s vivid imagination gets the better of her and she begins inventing entirely new activity, nourishing Aunt Leaf’s myth and offering the old woman small glimpses of nostalgic happiness.

Actors Alan Benditt, Pal Bernstein and Rachael Richman do a fine job of storytelling; all three play Aunt Leaf, Annabelle and other assorted minor characters. For effect, they continually repeat and overlap each other’s sometimes breathtakingly poetic sentences; unfortunately, it’s soon overdone and occasionally annoying. At merely 45 minutes, Aunt Leaf is a somewhat sparse ghost story; when filler appears, it’s fairly obvious: “So Annabelle ran--down the hall, past her sisters, past her mother, past her father, down the stairs, around the landing, out the back door, and into the dark of the lawn and the woods.”

Ultimately, Aunt Leaf is about more than the blurring of reality and imagination. It’s about unremitting loneliness, isolation and, though unmentioned, it’s also about what is likely serious depression. Since the production lists an “Education Outreach Coordinator” (Amy Harris) and has received support from the Children’s Theatre Foundation of America, I suspect that it was vetted by educators to determine that the material is appropriate for “children ages 9 and up.”

Nonetheless, Aunt Leaf strikes me as an adult play and I would hesitate to take an average nine year-old to this production. Much as questions have lingered for at least two centuries as to the suitability for children of the material in Grimm’s Fairy Tales, one must question whether Aunt Leaf is really appropriate for very young people, or at least certain very young people. The program suggests several “Things to Talk About On the Way Home,” apparently for parents and educators. One of them is “Do you think it’s ok to lie?” This seems incongruous. Using Aunt Leaf to teach children about the pitfalls of lying is like explaining the deaths of their pet lizards by making them watch The Seventh Seal.

The set is fittingly dark and creepy. Amelia Dombrowski’s costuming evokes a pastoral world a century old and Sarah Edkins’ spare set design is inventive: a grandfather clock doubles at one point as a coffin. Yet, the most astonishing feature of this production, and the one that permits me to recommend this play, at least to adults and perhaps teenagers, is the beautiful—frequently sublime—projection imagery of Robert Flynt. As the actors tell the story of Annabelle and Aunt Leaf, they and the set are often shrouded in transcendent projections of leaves, or willows, or faces, or stars. These projections add a mysterious, profound dimension to an ordinary, if particularly bleak, ghost story; it’s almost as if the pages of an illustrated storybook are being revealed to us, slowly, one by one.

Thanks for the Memories

Should you receive a telephone call asking you to re-tell the plot of Romeo and Juliet, those star-crossed lovers from the ever-warring Montague and Capulet families, what would you say? Could you retrieve the play from the fog of high school or college? Would you be embarrassed at gaps in your recollection? Would you embellish the details, or gloss over those parts you can’t recall? Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper, the dynamic duo behind the Nature Theater of Oklahoma, called people, including both actors in this production, with precisely that question, to gather material for the frequently hilarious and often charmingRomeo and Juliet. The play’s main content consists of eight monologues, recited by “Bobby” (Robert M. Johanson) and “Anne” (Anne Gidley), talented actors who funnel the confusion, colloquialisms, slang, frustrations, vulgarities and naiveté of the telephone interviewees through Shakespearean affect, to produce sidesplitting results. Picture, if you will, an earnest Shakespearean actor (or a purported Shakespearean actor, which is even funnier) in very tight tights reciting the following somewhat damaged recollection of Juliet’s death, as conveyed by one interviewee, and infused as it is with contemporary allusions:

“There was some like – It was – it was in- Like they set it up as this like – It was already in the morgue… Sort of thing. Like she – Went – And – Killed herself in this very… IT’S SORT OF LIKE ANNA NICOLE! You know?”

Even though the conversations may be loaded with material from acquaintances of Liska and Copper (conversations with complete strangers may have added a different, perhaps less candid and bawdy dimension), this particular Romeo and Juliet succeeds in demonstrating the universality of the great tragedy and its impact on our society’s collective memory. Even though the interviewees get it so wrong, somehow, in the end, they get it right. Peter Nigrini’s simple set is clever in its signaling of the dialogue’s lack of sophistication. It’s a simple wooden painted stage—with painted curtains—in front of which the actors stand to recite their monologues.

Romeo and Juliet, consists of three distinct parts. The first part—the longest—is the hilarious recitation of the interviewees’ interpretations of the play. Once that’s over, in my opinion, the play should have ended. The second and third parts, unfortunately, are troubling and don’t really take us anywhere. It’s almost as if Liska and Copper are struggling to find a way to end the piece, and that wrapping it up with the interviewees’ recollections wasn’t quite enough. (Don’t even ask about the giant chicken that comes up from under the stage between some monologues. It’s hilarious, by the way.).

Ultimately, Liska and Copper concoct a somewhat boring exchange between Ms. Gridley and Mr. Johanson about subjects like “neediness.” Strangely, the actors even comment on their views of acting and even on the very enterprise in which they’ve just engaged:

ANNE

…Like I think if – I think if an actor is CONSTANTLY involved in projects that – he is making a sacrifice – himself because he doesn’t believe in the project, he doesn’t –

BOBBY

Or just wants to be loved!

ANNE

- Or thinks – he thinks it’s mediocre! He thinks it’s beneath his talent! But he keeps doing it and doing…

Why would anyone want to include this exchange in the very play in which the actors are performing? This incongruent and dull dialogue continues, nearly unabated, for a full 15 minutes. Once this disaster ends, the production’s creators stillcan’t seem figure out how to end the play, so they turn very serious, going directly to the balcony scene in the real Romeo and Juliet, shrouding the audience in darkness. It almost works, but not quite. It’s too awkwardly juxtaposed to the previous exchange and it ultimately seems like an afterthought.

Why not trust the interviewees to end the play, rather than simply use them as laughingstock? They may not have been sophisticated but they sometimes uttered, perhaps to even their own amazement, something universal and quite profound. Had I been struggling with the play’s ending, I might have simply turned back to the wobbly Bobby in Monologue #6:

“She POISONED herself! And EVERYONE is sad, and they’re like… ‘WHY are we all fighting?!’ It’s all about: WHY ARE WE ALL FIGHTING?! Why can’t we just – LOVE one another?! I think that’s what it’s all about. Yeah.”

Despite the significant problems in its latter parts, the first hour of the play remains ingenious and unlike anything we have seen in recent theater. For that alone, this Romeo and Juliet is well worth the price of admission.

Can't Buy A Thrill

After the 1957 publication of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, generations of dreamy, disenfranchised or just plain bored young men (mostly) and women set out to trace his yearning and debauched path across the heart of America. Many even wrote passionately about their experiences, trying to emulate their Beat idols. Yet, despite valiant attempts, the end results often rang hollow. The moment had, simply, passed. Performer, playwright and college instructor Lián Amaris's hero is a more recent figure but no less worshiped in certain circles: the great monologuist Spalding Gray, who, after years of depression, committed suicide in 2004 by likely leaping from the Staten Island Ferry.

In the frequently insufferable Swimming to Spalding, Amaris loosely follows Gray’s “map of experience” through Thailand as described in his acclaimed 1987 film, Swimming to Cambodia. Exactly why Ms. Amaris undertakes this she never fully explains, but we get the distinct impression that, much as the Beat fans idolized Kerouac, Cassady and Ginsberg, she just really, really digs Spalding Gray.

Because in his exotic travels Gray sought out what he called “perfect moments,” so Ms. Amaris must seek hers, too. Gray witnessed an acrobatic girlie show in Patpong. Amaris and her traveling partner, Erin, must do the same. Amaris visits a brothel and even selects a female prostitute like Gray might have. She states that her “mission” is “to participate in this exchange.” Why, again, one wonders? This time we get an explanation—of sorts: “I had an ex-boyfriend who had spent some time as a self-loathing, woman-hating John, so I felt particularly compelled to put something in the world back in balance.” Um, ok.

Ms. Amaris’s homage includes using the same simple props Gray used: a table with microphone, a spiral notebook and a glass of water. Amaris throws in a bottle of Jack Daniels for effect and sits at the very same table Gray used to perform many of his monologues at P.S. 122. A central launching point of Ms. Amaris’ play, like Gray’s, is the legendary “Thai stick.” In Swimming to Cambodia Gray noted how marijuana disagreed with his innate fear and paranoia. Yet, ever hopeful, he decides one more time to try it, at the suggestion of a trusted friend. This time, he reasons, it may be different, and he might for once experience the bliss others describe.

A substantial and particularly hilarious part of Gray’s monologue details his crushed mind-altering hopes. Predictably — at least to his audience — a tremendous wave of anxiety washes over the charmingly neurotic Gray, resulting in horrifying hallucinations and physical illness. And as if that weren’t bad enough, he is scheduled to film his major scene in The Killing Fields the next morning. This is the reason he has come to Thailand in the first place.

Unfortunately, no similar moments exist in Ms. Amaris’s monologue. Whether based in fact or not, her workmanlike piece sounds invented, contrived and lacks anything like Gray’s formidable imagination, humor or wit. Amaris spends quite a bit of time convincing us how coolly true to Gray she is. Yet, instead of smoking the Thai stick, she fakes it. She doesn’t seem to realize the other hints of experiential and cultural fraudulence she carelessly drops. She goes to a girlie bar and “buys” a girl for the evening. Then, to symbolically right the collective wrong of sexual tourism, she decides to give the girl money to do whatever she wants for the night. Yet, the next evening, she and Erin wallow in the attentions of what she repeatedly calls “boy sushi” at a boy bar. At another bar, the pair make a (typically American) show of their relative affluence by buying beers for the ladyboy performers and delight in their exuberant thanks: “Okay, yes, it was extravagant, but since we weren’t renting any boys, what a show to buy all the boys a beer… the beer was cold, but the boys got hotter and hotter.” Privileged girls gone wild!

What could be an obviously more hip twenty-something story? Let’s see, up through this point we’ve got exotic travel, sex tourism, alcohol, marijuana (even if uninhaled), androgyny, and bisexuality. The only thing missing is a mental breakdown. Oh, wait, that comes later, when we find that Ms. Amaris has been involuntarily—and inexplicably—committed for 72 hours to a psychiatric facility. Yet, dang it, whip smart babe that she is (and frequently reminds us), she manages to get out in only 33 hours by outwitting her shrinks.

The best part of Amaris’s monologue occurs when it’s not all about her. She begins a brief relationship with a very troubled Iraqi War veteran she somehow has time to get to know during those 33 hours of psychotherapy. And, though we’ve heard many recent war-related horror stories (frankly, hers is a bit over-the-top, even by those standards), the last third of Swimming to Spalding finally begins to approach what Gray was trying to do in Swimming to Cambodia; that is, weave disparate personal (but not wholly self-absorbed) stories and life experiences into a cohesive narrative that resonates both politically and universally.

Unfortunately, Ms. Amaris loses that promising thread almost instantly and you realize that that was a lucky moment for her…maybe her play’s “perfect moment.” It’s back to her. She’s off to New Orleans for a conference and then back off to Thailand and you realize that this play really does not cohere—and won’t. More than pretentious, with its implicit condescension of its human material, Swimming to Spalding is, in the end, insulting. Despite competent direction by Richard Schechner, the production simply can’t shrug off the poseur quality of Amaris and her tale.

In parts of Swimming to Cambodia, one wonders if Mr. Gray would ever get out of the scrapes in which he finds himself: bouncing, unbelted, in a helicopter 1000 feet up for a quick scene after being promised that it would only rise ten; nearly drowning in untested waters in the Indian Ocean; or hallucinating on Thai sticks in a misguided search of his perfect moment. Danger, and not just personal danger, lurks all around. Yet, in Swimming to Spalding, we sense that Ms. Amaris is simply slumming for hopelessly derivative material. After her tale wraps up, we have no doubt that she’ll be back at her teaching position, fully in control, perhaps even by the very next morning.

Holier Than Thou

“It’s 1401. They don’t burn women anymore!” That’s the funniest of many funny lines in Heidi Schreck’s otherwise quite serious medieval-period Creature. It’s spoken by John Kempe (Darren Goldstein), whose wife, Margery (Sofia Jean Gomez), claims that, among other things, Jesus has appeared to her wearing purple robes. The actors in Creature pull off a monumental feat by convincing us that their characters are relevant not only to the year 1401, but to our world as well.

Margery Kempe actually existed. She lived in Norfolk, England from 1373-1438 and published what many believe to be the first ghostwritten (she was likely illiterate) autobiography in the English language. Part Shakespeare, part Wayne’s World, Creature is a tour de force, complicated, rich and thought provoking on too many levels to count. Ms. Schreck, the 2009 Page 73 playwriting fellow, utilizing familiar and ancient themes like superstition and sacrilege, has woven together an utterly original play, as communicative to our age as to an earlier one.

When we meet her, Margery is a new mother in the midst of a crisis. Uneducated, yet highly intelligent, brimming with desire and imagination, she becomes convinced that demons have possessed her soul and begins acting appropriately wacky. She’s “cured” after her vision of Jesus, but that’s not the end of her strange behavior; in fact, it’s just beginning. Her husband, John, a levelheaded, pragmatic brewer, adores her for her physical beauty and can’t understand why she won’t be content as a simple housewife. Feeling sinful and convinced that she’s answering God’s call, Margery avoids her husband’s amorous advances and seeks to know her creator, meeting, along the way, two holy men who quickly become enamored with her. One of them is a devil.

Despite weaknesses of the flesh, Margery aspires to join her heroes: women recognized as visionaries and sought after for their holiness. Audacious in her demonstrations, Margery prays loudly in public and boldly wears white (considered heretical for married women). If Margery were alive today, she would have her own reality show. She’s in a competition, trying to outdo others renowned for their saintliness. All the while, the countryside buzzes with talk of witches. Local women use animal bones to cast spells on their enemies. The authorities are burning “lollards:” those who believe that the church is an unnecessary conduit to salvation. Margery skirts dangerously close to accusations of witchcraft.

Yet, Margery is often hilariously naïve, believing that she can simply will herself onto the path of sainthood. Learning that a contemporary, Juliana of Norwich, has followers who bring her food, she states to her advisor, Father Thomas (Jeremy Shamos): “I’d like to live in a little house and have my followers bring me food. Though it depends on what kind of food they bring. I love honey cakes.” Margery even seeks advice from Juliana (Marylouise Burke) herself, an old woman who has lived in one room her entire life, meditating and avoiding temptations of the senses. Juliana has become something of a legend, and basks in her fame, even signing certificates that one can use as protection from accusations of heresy.

Temptations, for Margery, come in many forms, including that of a devilish, stuttering young man (Will Rogers, oddly playing almost the same character he played last year in Edward Bond’s Chair) who follows Margery to her praying spot and strikes up a conversation with her, ultimately attempting, in a roundabout way, to seduce her into hell. Though she (barely) resists his overtures, she is tainted.

All the actors are outstanding, but Mr. Shamos turns in a particularly strong performance as Father Thomas, a repressed middle-aged priest who at first disbelieves Margery and tries to shrug her off. This changes when, appealing directly to his vanity, the manipulative Margery mentions that she has spoken with Jesus about him. Reeling him in like a fish, she tells him that God is pleased with his servitude and that he will die in seven years, a good man.

Ms. Gomez’s performance is utterly convincing as the tortured and possibly mentally ill Margery, moving in the blink of an eye from hysteria to sadness and back again. Through her, Ms. Schreck examines what it means to be “holy,” showing the difficulty of separating the earthly from the otherworldly. Can someone ever truly claim to be “pure?”

Set designer Rachel Hauck and costume designer Theresa Squire work beautifully together to paint a convincing period piece, shrouded in darkness. The Ohio Theater’s almost cathedral-like space, spookily dotted with candles, is the perfect place to house Creature. Veteran director Leigh Silverman wisely moves out of the way of these extremely talented actors—all of whom understand exactly what they’re doing with this complex script— and lends a light but deft touch to the proceedings.

Creature does everything right, managing to be historically fascinating, loaded with depth and entertaining, all at once. I recommend it to anyone who relishes compelling new theater.

(Video) Diary of a Madman

The inelegant, sweating, hyperventilating Franklin Elijah White (Richard Lovejoy) is desperate to tell us something of immense import. The frantic meteorologist employs a slide show of natural disasters and their aftermaths to demonstrate how the weather will some day destroy each of us, one by one. While playwright Stephen Aubrey effectively communicates Franklin’s mania, The Dark Heart of Meteorology ultimately fails to transcend the pitiable Franklin's befuddled fog. Franklin intimately understands the weather’s malevolence: his own father (also a meteorologist) and mother were struck by lightning and injured on their wedding day, and the weather relentlessly stalked them for the rest of their lives. To Franklin, these were shots across his own bow; he’s convinced that he’s doomed. The Dark Heart of Meteorology is a kind of Final Destination with the weather as the stalking, unstoppable predator (“See the sun? It hates us!”). The weather with a capital “W” is Franklin’s breathless obsession and serves as the metaphor for love, isolation and death. The unstated but bathetic realization of the play is that it’s not the weather that’s going to get Franklin; it’s his psychosis.

Mr. Lovejoy frequently overacts Franklin’s neurotic preoccupations and his klutziness. Franklin drops papers like an absent-minded professor and trips over himself, à la Chevy Chase. Yet, he isn’t a clown; he’s mentally ill. And what he finally tells us, as revealed in his late father’s mysterious manuscript, the title of which is that of the play, is disappointingly banal: entropy is our natural state. We’re all going to get it in the end, so enjoy life while you can. And, by the way: good luck with all that.

Stephen Aubrey’s script has hilarious moments of improbable, bizarre humor. In the fifth grade, Franklin’s father took him on a hot air balloon and the two steered at tornadic clouds. White’s great-great grandfather, the “personal meteorologist” for General William Tecumseh Sherman, died when a freak gust of wind blew a cannonball back into his face. Similarly, each in his family’s long line of meteorologists has been victimized by the weather. Unfortunately, Mr. Lovejoy doesn’t quite maximize the punch of these absurd comic gems; they frequently fall a bit flat.

Like the luckless rock band, Spinal Tap, Franklin goes from fame to lame during the course of the play. Fired by his network after an on-air breakdown, he’s soon delivering his apocalyptic slide show in the basement of a place called The Greater Star Apostolic Church. He’s spiraling downward in a funnel cloud all his own and nothing, he believes, can stop that fall.

The best parts of The Dark Heart of Meteorology involve clever visual interludes by Aubrey and video designer Alex Koch that chronicle Franklin’s psychic dismantling; his video blogs become increasingly weird and ominous. Franklin’s last “lecture,” a poignant slide show backed by Kepi Ghoulie’s eerie acoustic version of his song “Stormy Weather,” encapsulates, better than Franklin himself, what Mr. Aubrey is trying to communicate through his faltering, stuttering, and sometimes nonsensical hero: that, for some, life will be short and terrible, but we should never cease trying to help and protect each other, in spite of the potential for horror.

It’s easy to invent a character that’s not quite sane. It’s harder to make his insanity resonate with the rest of us, to unearth brilliance or even community in madness. Mr. Aubrey has done a great job of illustrating Franklin’s psychosis, yet Franklin has little to convey to us other than his pathetic urgency and crippling paranoia. This flaw is not aided by director Jess Chayne’s seeming uncertainty about whether this 60-minute show is a comedy or drama; in the end, it winds up being a bit of neither.

Good Grief

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Betwixt and Be Twain

America’s fascination with Mark Twain never seems to fade. Performers like Hal Holbrook have made entire careers off Twain’s legacy. One Armed Man’s The Report of My Death owes no small debt to Holbrook and his five decades of portraying the wise—and wise cracking—Twain in productions like Mark Twain, Tonight! Yet, despite the proliferation of Twain impersonators, there’s always room for one more. Twain’s shoes are hard to fill. In Adam Klasfeld’s The Report of My Death Michael Graves gives it his best shot. In some ways, I even prefer his portrayal of Twain. Where Holbrook’s Twain is imbued with a somewhat loopy Einsteinian eccentricity, Michael Graves’ Twain is direct and firm. Graves, though, lacks Holbrook’s gifts for the pregnant pause and punch line delivery, particularly with outdated material that still retains only some of its zing. Unlike Holbrook, Graves can’t squeeze improbable laughs from a line like this: “It is always summer in India—particularly in the winter. They say that when Satan comes he must go home to cool off.” Yet, there is still something charming and serious about Mr. Graves. He believes in Twain, and this helps him to carry the show.

For The Report of My Death adaptor and editor Klasfeld has admirably stitched together disparate material, mostly from Twain’s famous world-wide lecture tour of 1895-1896, including much text from letters and Twain’s travelogue, Following the Equator.

Despite his prodigious wisdom and wit, Twain could be gullible. Having naïvely entrusted his literary assets to a swindling publisher and invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in the disastrous Paige typesetting machine (made obsolete almost instantly by a superior machine known as the Linotype), Twain was determined to regain his good name and re-pay his creditors. The tour that is the subject of this production permitted Twain to do so, in full, but took a severe toll on him. He was frequently ill and was away when his beloved daughter, Susy, died in Hartford of spinal meningitis.

The material remains fascinating and The Report of My Death commendably illustrates Twain’s progressive and even radical criticisms of religion, race, nationalism and human nature. Much of the material is remarkably contemporary. He rails, for instance, against the Philippine-American War, which America undertook ostensibly to free a nation. Twain soon laments, “We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem.” (Sound familiar?) He speaks of Americans using the “water-cure” (a.k.a. water boarding) on Filipino insurgents. Twain more than a century ago described its dubious results: “under unendurable pain a man confesses anything that is required of him.”

Twain also noted the hypocrisy of the press; he was perhaps America’s first celebrity and even in his time, the press frequently shaded the truth and fueled rumors in its search for scoops. The production’s title comes from the morbid hope of the New York Journal that rumors of a bankrupt Twain’s death in England were true.

The “theater” for this production is the cleverly employed S.S. Lilac steamship at Pier 40 in the Hudson River Park. This unique marriage came about when Mr. Klasfeld responded to a Craigslist ad that offered the 1933 steamer for productions and other events. Seats are arranged on the deck and it’s quite a treat to listen to Graves recount Twain’s oceanic journeys as the steamer bobs gently in the Hudson. The night I attended, lightning flashed in the far off distance. The Lilac’s house cat, Iggy, a well-behaved but curious tabby, wanders the deck and might even rest for a while in front of Graves. Some occasional drawbacks are competing dins from party boats, airplanes and helicopters, and music from neighboring piers. Klasfeld’s utilization of the Lilac is an innovative way of presenting off-off Broadway summer theater in New York City.

Mr. Graves, as Twain, could use a bit more time with the script of a 90-minute production where all eyes are on him, almost all the time. He flubbed a few lines in the first half of the show I saw, and once awkwardly paused for what must have felt like an eternity to him while he tried to remember his next line. Yet, by channeling Twain’s famous irascibility and mischievous nature, he was able to minimize these slip-ups. With time, I think he will grow quite comfortably into this formidable role.

I recommend The Report of My Death not only to Twain aficionados but also to those seeking a pleasant evening of enduring wit.

Do the Twist

The five short pieces in Rising Sun Performance Company’s Twisted are more akin to long-form comedy sketches than to plays. That’s ok, though, because most of them are quite entertaining, and a few are genuinely hilarious. Two of them are funnier than anything I’ve seen on television in years. Justin Warner’s “Head Games” is an uproarious bit about King Herod bringing the nonchalant and seemingly ungrateful Salome the head of John the Baptist on a plate, as she has demanded. When he notices that her other favorite foods are specialty pastries like ladyfingers and “virgins’ nipples,” Herod realizes he has made a grave error. Chris Enright, who reminds me quite a bit of Will Ferrell, is side-splittingly funny as the hapless Herod, trying to keep Herodias and Salome from seeing what he’s brought home in a basket.

Similarly, Tom Kiesche’s “Nurturing Bond” is a clever sketch that also gives you a little to think about. A Tony Danza-ish Michael McManus plays a twenty-five year old man who is attached to his mother—literally. Joined by an eight-foot long umbilical cord, the severing of which would result in one of their deaths, the man, who is a bartender, and his mother (Melissa Ciesla) spend their lives doing everything together. He keeps her in the shadows as he disastrously tries to pick up women who soon retire to the ladies' room to vomit. He blurts out, incongruously, “I wanted to be an astronaut.” Dejected, he ponders a fateful decision.

Mark Harvey Levine’s “The Kiss” is a light, tender comedy about two young friends—(Jonathan Reed Wexler as Denis and Flor Bromley as Allison)—who just can’t seem to declare or come to terms with their affection for each other. Denis visits Allison to let her know that he is going on a date, but first he would like to practice his kissing skills on her to see if he is any good. What ensues is a cute, lighthearted and thorny romp through young adult longing.

Less successful, though still entertaining, are the two sketches which bookend Twisted. Matt Hanf’s “Teddy Knows Too Much” is about a young boy, jealous of his sister, who plots against his family and confides it all to his teddy bear. If you’re a fan of Family Guy you’ll instantly recognize Billy’s (Peter Aguero) debt to the character of Stewie. The script is frenetic and silly; Mr. Aguero has some comedic chops but only sometimes manages to salvage it.

Kitt Lavoie’s “Party Girl” falters because it doesn’t know whether it wants to be a comedy or drama; ultimately it’s neither. Phillip (Billy Fenderson), a young attorney, visits a strip club to celebrate his cousin’s bachelor party and realizes that his PhD-candidate girlfriend, Lorelei (Becky Sterling) is working as one of the strippers. The script is derivative—Tom Hanks’ early film Bachelor Party comes to mind—Phillip’s unseen father is even involved in the festivities.

Overall, Twisted is a solid comedic offering. A few of the cast members could fit in easily on Saturday Night Live. Despite the confines of their small black box space, the actors are often capable of pulling off some challenging physical comedy. Rising Sun Performance Company is a youthful, enthusiastic company and I look forward to seeing more from them, perhaps with some contributions from female playwrights next time.

If you’re looking for a summer evening of wacky comedy before dinner or drinks, you’ll be in the right place with Twisted.

Dysfunctional Family Feud

Except for the front two or three rows, the black box seats for Ivanov at The Gene Frankel Theatre are roped off. Audience members sit in chairs along the stage walls, as if they were guests in the parlor of the Lebedev family, where much of this classic Anton Chekhov play takes place. Here’s a brief synopsis of the plot, for those unfamiliar with it. Thirty-two-year-old Nicholas Ivanov owns a large estate, a farm, which has yet to turn a profit. He’s in debt to the Lebedevs, a genteel family who put on airs about their wealth. Five years earlier Ivanov had married a young woman, Anna (Emily Robin Fink), a Jew, who converted to Christianity because of her love for him. Abandoned by her parents, and now dying of tuberculosis, Anna is a double victim: Nicholas has lapsed into an unfathomable and mysterious depression, and has lost his love for Anna and even for life itself. Sasha, the Leberdevs’ 20-year old daughter, is secretly in love with Ivanov, who seems indifferent to her overtures.

Anna looks great—for a consumptive, that is—Anya Klepikov does a fine job with her costuming and makeup. And most of the actors are quite skilled and enthusiastic; I have no doubt we’ll be seeing more of them. Standouts are Brad Lee Thomason as the endearing rascal, Borkin; Tim Martin, who perfectly straddles the line between humor and drama as the preoccupied card player Koshyk; the sassy Avdotia (Emily Jon Mitchell); and the jolly Jonathan David Marballi as George, another guest of the Lebedevs’, who keeps the snarky festivities going. When the entire party teases Sasha for her inexplicable defense of Ivanov, her frustration and embarrassment are palpable.

Yet, main cast members are not uniformly suited for their roles. William Bogert as Shabelski, a down-at-the-heels Count, comes across as alternatively mean-spirited and pathetic, and never quite finds his character’s balance. Matthew Scanlon was, at first, self-conscious in the role of the young doctor, Lvov, but his confidence grew noticeably as the play progressed. The biggest problem, though, is Jeff Barry’s portrayal of Ivanov, the melancholic protagonist of this play. Barry’s Ivanov is less morbid than the rest of the cast—he’s angry, workman-like and in control; ultimately, though, he’s simply neutral. He’s competent when he should be hopeless.

Another problem with this adaptation by Barry and Knoll is that they take unnecessary-—sometimes simply ribald but occasionally even disingenuous-—liberties with the text, almost as if they are deliberately reading too much into the 27-year old’s first play, or worse, attempting to change it. In my translation, Shabelski denounces lawyers and doctors “frauds” and “swindlers” (not the “c” word). Barry and Knoll are going for laughs but what we get is bathos.

Another gratuitous bit is where Chekvov’s “fragile” Martha Babakina (Stephanie Bratnick), plants an extended full on kiss on Sasha’s lips for no reason other than to spice up the script. Nonetheless, Ms. Bratnick is the best actress in the bunch, with great range and emotion. And, at the end of Act II, Chevhov’s Sasha and Ivanov simply kiss. They don’t writhe around on the floor, nearly pre-coitus, as the adaptors have them do. These are not harmless tweaks to the text.

A final problem is Knoll’s direction. It’s as if he has instructed the actors to speak their lines hysterically and turn their loudness knobs to "11." So, everyone screams at each other, all the time. This is not particularly pleasant if you’re an audience member cursed with a seat twelve inches from said screaming. Overall, I cannot recommend this play to either those familiar with Chekhov’s work or those looking to become familiar with it.