Sword Play

With Soul Samurai, Vampire Cowboys have, once again, proven themselves masters of action-adventure theater. Having conquered sci-fi with last year’s hit, Fight Girl Battle World, writer-director team Qui Nguyen and Robert Ross Parker have joined forces with the Ma-Yi Theater Company to move into more badass territory: a bloody story of vengeance with elements of Blaxploitation, hip hop, and The Warriors mixed in. Set in an apocalyptic New York City overrun by rival gangs (worse news: some of them even have special powers!), Samurai tells the story of Dewdrop (Maureen Sebastian), a librarian-turned-warrior on a mission to take revenge on the gang that killed her lover (Bonnie Sherman). Ever the go-getter, Dewdrop takes on the gang – and anyone else that gets in her way – with just a sword, an attitude (she’s got some serious trash talk skills), and an adorable sidekick, Cert (Paco Tolson).

Even with such a dark premise, the show is infused with geeky glee. From the impromptu breakdancing to the witty battle banter and pop culture references, Samurai is ultimately a very playful presentation. Complementing the violent saga, there are puppets with Avenue Q-style attitude and other multimedia touches, such as a great stop-motion film about a forbidden love between a ninja and a samurai starring, naturally, pieces of fruit.

All playing multiple roles, the five-person ensemble nails the goofy-yet-hip style of Nguyen’s script. If high-flying faceoffs weren’t enough, Samurai’s got solid characters to back it up. For every perfect swordfight or sexy quip, there’s a hilarious moment of vulnerability (Cert’s wannabe bad-boy act never gets old) or self-awareness (a villain commenting on her own “kinkalicious” costume). Particularly successful are the scene-stealing Tolson and Jon Hoche, who adds hilarious swagger to his roles (his pimp-like gang leader and one-eyed preacher shouldn’t be missed). The show seems just as much fun for the actors as the audience. You can’t even fault them when they break into an accidental chuckle.

As with other Vampire Cowboys fare, Samurai is action-packed with fight scenes galore. While it sometimes seems on the verge of being too much, Nguyen’s choreography varies the moves and weapons enough (a knife to the eye was a personal favorite of mine) to keep things fresh. A cleverly-rendered car chase is also impressive. Whether hanging onto the hood of a swerving vehicle or slicing an enemy in two, Sebastian slides through her physically demanding performance with finesse.

The design team perfectly visualizes the show’s themes. The set, a gritty, graffiti-covered NYC, also serves as a prop. A storefront grate, for example, is not just a particularly inspired choice for a curtain, but is also used for surprise attacks and getaways. The costumes, too, match each character well: Cert, the comic relief, dons a hilariously tacky T-shirt and overalls, while our sexy heroine wears biker-chick battlegear that shows some skin.

There are some weak spots in the show. A villain’s origin story, for example, ends on a vague, confusing note. However, small inconsistencies do not ruin what is overall an extremely exciting piece of theater. See Samurai before it’s too late.

Baby, It's Cold (and Deadly) Outside

While multiple deaths on frozen tundra might not be everyone’s idea of holiday cheer, the Brick Theater’s dark comedy, The Granduncle Quadrilogy: Tales from the Land of Ice, makes for good morbid fun. Much to the chagrin of any characters in his vicinity, the aging Granduncle (played at various ages by Richard Harrington) has decided to share the stories of his past – stories that manage to incorporate stabbing, drowning, slave labor, and a rather inappropriate use of a mammoth trunk. For the most part, the cast tackles the twisted plot with such whimsical innocence that tragic moments rarely seem so. This is particularly the case with Harrington’s warm, yet tone-deaf narration as Granduncle, which provides a hilarious counterpoint to the grim content.

It’s no surprise that Granduncle’s memories are a tad depressing: his home is a frigid, barren landscape (simply rendered by a draped white backdrop) plagued by war. As a result, he and his fellow Land of Ice inhabitants cling as tightly to their religion – centered on a belief that they will join their child-messiah beneath the ice in the afterlife – as they do their furs.

Jeff Lewonczyk’s script so extensively crafts entire cultures with their own lexicons, traditions, and histories that it feels like fictional anthropology. Whether it’s the mating rituals (do a little dance, choose a mate, go to war, and if she doesn’t get pregnant, she joins you) and recreational drugs (huffing albatross eggs) of the Ice folk or the surprisingly expressive hiss-based language of the foreigners who capture Granduncle, the play nicely pulls you into its own world.

In the cast’s capable hands, even the most peculiar traditions or phrasings (describing smell as “taste for nose” was a favorite of mine) seem natural. Playing multiple roles, they make convincing natives of these societies. A particular standout is Fred Backus, who plays both a goofy child and sociopathic foreman with equal conviction.

With such inventive storytelling, it’s unfortunate that the play grows boring by the end, due to its length. Sure, we’ve all had to sit through a long-winded tale from an old relative, but I don’t think grandpa would ever be so cruel as to subject us to a quadruple-header. If anything could be trimmed, it would be the third segment about the construction of a giant ice wall by citizens-turned-slaves. While the kooky, fairy tale plots of the other stories make their fatalities digestible, this one mirrors our world too much.

Still, Granduncle largely succeeds in telling a good story well—a simple goal, but one too often overlooked or unnecessarily complicated by aggressively experimental or ironic productions. Such a uniquely imaginative show as this is enough to put you in the holiday spirit – no matter how many bodies pile up.

Poetic Justice

When his ship set off in 1875, the captain of the Catalpa had a pretty demanding schedule ahead of him: sail from Massachusetts to Australia, rescue six Irish rebels from a prison there, and do some whaling along the way. Donal O'Kelly's approach to telling the story of this voyage seems equally daunting: conveying the entire epic by himself. Well, not entirely by himself. He has Trevor Knight, the composer and performer of the show's score, offering occasional backup. But for the most part, it's just O'Kelly and his firm grasp of imagery and language, guiding us through the journey in his one-man play, Catalpa. In a largely engaging two hours, he spins the fantastic and the mundane into a kind of poetry that is rarely seen on stage.

History gives him some fabulous material. The play introduces us to figures like John Devoy, the Irish patriot exiled to America who hatched the plot; John Breslin, another Irishman who went first to Australia to set everything up; and George Anthony, the American captain of the Catalpa. Judging by their plan, these men were quite the optimists: rendezvous in Australia, grab the prisoners, throw them in the boat, and pray for wind.

O'Kelly frames the adventure as a movie his narrator is pitching to executives. This format allows for easy transitions. Instead of long descriptions (or pesky set changes), O'Kelly settles for declarations ("Backwater dock.") or camera directions ("cut to") when switching scenes.

Presenting the story as a movie pitch also lets O'Kelly insert self-aware asides. The commentary is used to humorous effect, like suggesting that one particular scene should have "sinister music to suit." It also allows him to package character descriptions as spoken stage directions: one man's laugh, for example, is rendered as "Ah-ha ha laugh laugh grin cough/grimace swallow phlegm and stroke mustache."

With so many people to introduce, these quick snapshots are what often suffice for character development. It seems O'Kelly settled on just enough features to distinguish between speakers during their conversations. Breslin, for example, is the sum of his raspy voice, giant build, and "walrus" mustache. O'Kelly's female impersonations are his weakest, as they tend to err on the side of creepy - even when the context doesn't call for it.

To be fair, the playwright and performer has a lot on his plate besides portraying characters. He is the set: crafting giant ships and rising waves out of the air. He is the special effects: echoing the sounds of a drill works or steamboat. And at one point, he's even a convincing bird.

The script's rhythm and onomatopoetic touches also propel the story and pull the audience into this world. The musicality of words is crucial to how O'Kelly draws each scene. His only prop, after all, is a sheet. Imagining his characters inside a stagecoach, for example, he incorporates intermittent "clippa-cloppa clippa-cloppa's" into the dialogue that give the scene a clipped pace and make it quite easy to picture. In fact, the cadence of almost every scene is well suited to its content.

In addition to the aural quality of his writing, O'Kelly brings poetry to the stage in a way that is beautiful in its simplicity. He has a Hemingway-like ability to select descriptions so precise that few words often do the job of many. His minimalist portrayal of the prisoners is perfectly succinct: "scorched Australian bush./Six pairs of leaden legs in busted boots."

In organizing the monologue into a series of camera shots, O'Kelly zooms in and out of particular scenes, carefully selecting the images he thinks best tell the story. When he chooses correctly, it is crisply evocative. While the audience is treated to many of these close-ups in the first act, the second half of the show tends to settle on more generic, wide shots. This is the case for the pivotal prison scene. Depicted in a rushed way, it seems almost like an afterthought to O'Kelly, ranked behind stunning scenes of flying birds and surfacing whales.

But these flaws should not overshadow what O'Kelly has accomplished with Catalpa. Brilliant lyricism, an adventurous history lesson, and enough imagination to get you to Australia and back are reason enough to hop aboard.

Exploring a Modern Tragedy with Opera

“Tipped over. Such a gentle word for what happened,” sings the mother character as she remembers the Twin Towers. Creating an opera about 9/11 may also sound like a strangely refined approach to depicting such a horrific event, but Calling: An Opera of Forgiveness makes for a thoughtful version of the familiar story. Here, silence and darkness convey the first plane’s crash. In the immediate aftermath, screams are mimed and the fears and concerns of New Yorkers are sung in a smooth baritone or a melodious soprano.

Based on the book, A Mother’s Essays From Ground Zero, by Wickham Boyle (directing and writing the libretto here), Calling follows one Lower Manhattan family on the day of the attacks and the month after. Things start out normally enough when the “Mother” (soprano Nicole Tori) drops her child off at school. The actors bustle through a morning commute nicely rendered by choreographer Edisa Weeks, singing of the “blue sky” as they move in front of a blue backdrop.

The early parts of the production do a good job of pitting these routine visuals against the ominous music composed by Douglas Geers and supplied by the onstage orchestra. The minor notes and pressing rhythm create an unsettling ambience. This builds until the volume of the instruments and pitch of the singers reach their climax and then stop for the critical moment.

Afterward, the orchestra sustains the same urgency and uneasiness by both playing classic instruments in unique ways and integrating electronic touches into the score. At one point, the cellist makes a rough, scraping sound by moving his bow across the high part of the neck, and throughout much of the show, the computer supplies a pervasive buzzing sound that’s downright eerie (and a bit reminiscent of the Clockwork Orange soundtrack).

Eventually, the mother decides to retrieve her daughter from school near the Towers before they fall. Tracing her path, Calling shows various angles of the event, from watching the burning building through an apartment window, to witnessing their collapse from the street, to reflecting and recovering at yoga class a month later. Throughout, Tori balances well between performing tough vocal passages and capturing genuine concern and confusion.

The lyrics range from insightful to verbose. Some of Boyle’s details are powerful in their simplicity, such as a parent making children turn away from the collapse or a worker staging fake rescues to cheer up frustrated Ground Zero search dogs. But other descriptions seem like they would be more at home on paper than on the stage. In scenes reflecting on the ash-covered streets, for instance, the actors stumble over some lines that aim for poetic effect, but end up sounding unnatural.

Still, the words and music frequently complement each other. In “The Clean Up,” the rescue effort looks and sounds like a funeral. A fireman (baritone James Rollins) sings the refrain “we work the pile,” in a rich, solemn tone, while the workers shuffle about with their heads down. It even seems like the singing trails off a bit on the last word, making it ambiguously linger between sounding like “pile” or “pyre.” But the most evocative moment comes at the end of the song: as it layers more instruments and vocal registers, listeners may feel trapped beneath the weight of the music.

While Boyle infuses the show with a few distinguishing details of her own experience, some of the elements in the show are a bit hackneyed. It would have been nice to see more unique specifics (such as the husband, played by Roland Burks, placing flowers throughout his devastated neighborhood) incorporated into the script, rather than some generalized experiences that anyone who watched news coverage remembers. However, Calling should be commended for its overall refreshing approach. It’s the type of tribute that should be seen and discussed.

Overexposure

If a woman blushed after her underwear fell down in public, Freud might say that it meant, deep down, that she actually enjoyed it. Take the housewife in Carl Sternheim’s early 20th century play, The Underpants: although she’s embarrassed after losing her bloomers while watching a royal parade, the experience ultimately unleashes her dormant passions. Filter this through the mind of Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin, who penned an adaptation in 2002) and you have the current production by The Gallery Players. Overall, the play comes off as quite charming, but this has more to do with the delightful cast than the script. With dialogue that often veers into shallow sitcom territory, some of the jokes are exhausting (if I listed every time a euphemism like “sausage” or “wiener” was used, I’d have no room to write a review). The ensemble, however, has a knack for infusing both their archetypal characters and the jokes with great timing and facial expressions.

The central couple, for instance, fits the classic blowhard-and-bored-damsel dynamic. Set in 1910 Germany, the show begins as Theo (Justin Herfel) is yelling at his wife, Louise (Catia Ojeda), about her wardrobe malfunction. He thinks it can only lead to ruin, starting with what he expects will be his immediate dismissal from his precious bureaucratic position. Herfel’s cranky beast act is a bit much at the outset, but he settles into it well, and even makes the entirely unsympathetic character enjoyable to watch.

Theo’s monetary concerns are assuaged when two men show up to rent their spare bedroom. While the guests are stark opposites – one, a romantic poet, the other, a mousy hypochondriac – they both witnessed Louise’s involuntary striptease and have developed a secret crush on her - so great a crush that they agree to share the small room.

Due to her husband’s complete lack of respect and passion, Louise welcomes the idea of an affair. As a result, the writer, Versati (Nat Cassidy), easily seduces her with his slick talk. Cassidy makes for a hilariously self-obsessed dreamer. His Versati is like the arrogant kid in your creative writing class that read all his work with a Shakespearean accent and flirted with whoever sat next to him. The pompous delivery never gets old (one favorite: when he doesn’t have a pen to write down a good line, he shrugs it off as “society’s loss”).

As Louise gradually starts to surrender to Versati’s ways, it’s enjoyable to watch Ojeda slide from reserved, polite housekeeper to passionate temptress (albeit an amusingly awkward one). The transition is realistically slow – a scene in which she attempts to be seductive is particularly funny – and Ojeda trades off well between serving as the straight man or comic relief.

The show works best when focusing on its own plot, rather than trying to attach it to the cultural moment. While the script is peppered with references to philosophy, poetry, and history, it doesn’t stay long enough on one subject to explore it in depth. As a result, the play becomes the sum of its one-liners.

L.A. Story

I can happily state that 50% of Perez Hilton Saves the Universe (or at least the greater Los Angeles area): The Musical is quite funny. Unfortunately, I can’t speak for the other half of the show because it was inaudible. Too often, the instruments drown out the singers, detracting from the jokes and, at some points, the plot. From what I heard, the musical was an amusing blend of sass, melodrama, and ridiculousness. Don’t expect depth or realistic scenarios here. The show is like Hilton’s trademark pink hair: it’s tacky fluff, but it’s fun. This is quite appropriate considering the focus on celebrity culture. For those who aren’t familiar with the real Hilton: he’s a blogger who covers the juiciest tidbits of Hollywood.

As Hilton, Randy Blair is a delightfully catty diva, wringing humor out of every biting quip. While drawing hearts on picures of Zac Efron’s abs and bashing Amy Winehouse is a full-time job, the show adds a new target for Hilton to tackle: terrorism. Since the world avidly reads “what Perez sez,” two terrorists have decided to hijack his site in order to lure a large crowd to one place and bomb them. A bit far out? Did I mention it’s the day of Britney Spears’s funeral, the terrorists intend to use an explosive made of plutonium and kitty litter, and Hilton has fallen for one of them?

Fortunately, the actors have a knack for treating ridiculous plotlines with sincerity. One of the best moments is when Hilton receives anti-terrorism training and realizes he must defeat his new crush. In the song that follows, he repeatedly cries out “you want me to shoot my lover all over his face.”

You might be asking: what’s a play about celebrities without any? Well, the musical includes “visits” from Winehouse, Efron, and Paris Hilton. However, in cramming as many celeb cameos as possible, some of these scenes verge on being pointless and could’ve been cut (the show is 2 hours, after all). When the cast nails it, though, it’s fabulous. Laura Jordan’s Kathy Griffin and Andrew Keenan-Bolger’s Tom Cruise are alone worth the price of admission.

In the finale, the cast sings “whenever you’re down…rag on someone else, you’ll feel really great.” This seems quite true for the performers, who appear to be having a ball.

Perez Hilton Saves the Universe is part of the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival.

My Big Fat Freak Wedding

The Wedding Play is a lot like the gigantic cake that occupies a chunk of the stage during the first act: impossible to ignore, very sweet, and a bit too much. There are slices of great laughs and good performances, but digesting the whole course is a lengthy and sometimes tedious endeavor. During the two-hour play, you’re constantly reminded that a.) weddings make people crazy and b.) it’s hard to tell twins apart. By the time intermission rolls around, it’s a bit jarring to realize you’re only halfway done.

The plot centers on the Desario family on the day of daughter Sarah’s wedding. Mom and Dad seem on the verge of either insanity or homicide, while twins/maids-of-honor Clara and Zoe (both Lindsay Wolf) work through budding romances. Murphy’s law ensues with an absent groom, the wrong cake, and a “quintet” that’s actually a punk rock band (offering an amusingly lowbrow original song in the second act by Ryan Dowd).

Amid the chaos, Clara's date, Daniel (Joseph Mathers), has arrived early. It’s their first meeting, as the “couple” has shared an Internet courtship over the last 11 months. Daniel’s sex-crazed friend, Nick (Michael Mraz, bearing a strong resemblance to Sean William Scott of several sex-crazed teen flicks) has tagged along and quickly heats things up with Zoe.

Zoe despises Daniel and tries to derail his relationship with Clara at every turn. This particular conflict drags on and on until a fairly unsurprising twist comes in the second act. It doesn’t help that Zoe’s unabashed wickedness and Clara’s cavity-inducing sweetness are so exaggerated, they grow a bit stale by the end of the show.

With its predictable characters, the only way the play can shock you is by piling on irrational twists and coincidences. By the end, many characters make decisions that betray their established personalities.

The cast acts so hyper (the first act contains lots of running and yelling), it seems like they’ve mainlined Red Bull. Fortunately, both Mathers and Corey Ann Haydu as the bride ground the show with performances that balance comic prowess with restraint. As just about everything has hit the fan, Haydu has a believable breakdown and a scowl that completely deserves the frozen reaction it elicits. And when Daniel faces Clara’s bizarre attempts at seduction – think lots of writhing and a squeaky Marilyn Monroe impression – his contorted face and confused exclamation (“I mean this as kindly, and sweetly as possible. What the [expletive] is wrong with you?”) is like a breath of fresh air.

Mark Souza is also in good form as the narrator and several other roles. With a voice made for action movie trailers, almost everything out of his mouth is hilarious. Unfortunately, quoting a few gems would spoil some of the show’s twists.

Playwright Brian MacInnis Smallwood, who penned last year’s very funny 12th Night of the Living Dead, has a knack for snappy one-liners and quirky comedy. In this sense, The Wedding Play pans out like a sitcom. But most sitcoms wrap in 30 minutes for a reason: there’s only so much quirkiness and perkiness a person can take.

Tortured Souls

You pretty much can’t throw a rock in New York without hitting a marquis advertising an Iraq-themed film or play. While Judith Thompson’s Palace of the End echoes a few notes we’ve heard before, it achieves a level of grace and beauty that is rare among current artistic efforts. It is refreshing to have a show that is poetic without being preachy. Three absolutely enthralling actors deliver one roughly 30-minute monologue apiece and their words paint an exceptionally vivid picture of the far reaches of the war. The characters are Lynndie England, the American soldier photographed next to tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib, David Kelly, the British weapons inspector who allegedly killed himself after revealing that his government exaggerated the threat of WMDs, and Nerhjas Al Saffarh, a Communist who was tortured along with her children by Saddam Hussein’s secret police. In the play notes, Thompson admits that news accounts of these figures were merely a springboard for her fictionalized imaginings of them.

This format doesn’t work so well with the portrait of England. Perhaps it is because this scandal is so well known and Thompson goes for the easy explanation. Her sketch of England is extremely similar to the popularized caricature of the American soldier: ignorant white trash whose violent impulses are suddenly given free reign.

Although this character may lack a third dimension, actress Teri Lamm smoothly conveys all sides to the Private: cocky soldier, defensive scapegoat, senseless hick, and even scorned lover. On its own, the monologue is an interesting exploration of a person who is just a devilish face and a thumbs-up to many of us. But after being wowed by the other exceptional stories in the play, it pales by comparison.

The play shifts into higher gear with David Kelly. He’s already dying when we meet him. Rocco Sisto offers a wonderfully reserved performance as a soft-spoken scientist. The playwright depicts Kelly as a wise, yet self-consciously cowardly man. He offers poignant deathbed observations (“When we are young, our death is impossible... Part of the... salve of aging, is that our death starts to make a sort of sense”) and equal amounts of justification and condemnation of the lies he agreed to tell. When he speaks of how soldiers murdered an Iraqi family he’d befriended, Sisto makes Kelly so full of shame that he can’t reach an adequate volume. It ends up sounding like he’s telling a bedtime story, which makes his tale all the more horrifying.

The lyricism of Thompson’s work is best showcased in the final monologue, delivered by a phenomenal Heather Raffo. She is a charm-machine with a motherly grin and playful demeanor (her jabs at linguistic differences between English and Arabic are adorable).

However, there is a weathered quality to Raffo’s delivery that hints at something darker. We find the root of this is Al Saffarh’s visit to the eponymous Palace of the End, a former castle transformed into a torture compound by Hussein. Her explanation of the ordeal she endured with her young sons is saturated with pride and pain, but never fear. She smiles as she recalls how her oldest was forced to watch her rape: “His eyes looked into my eyes only. So wise for fifteen.”

Thompson frames Al Saffarh’s entire account through a maternal lens. She makes for a fine domestic counterpoint to the belligerent England, who, in spite of her fatigue-covered baby bump, has no qualms singing out, “Flyin low and feeling mean. Find a family by the stream. Pick ‘em off and hear ‘em scream, Napalm sticks to kids.”

Al Saffarh remembers being pregnant when she was captured. She admits initially thinking that her captors would spare her because their culture would not permit the killing of a pregnant woman or a child. This is not the case. Kelly and England similarly expect for their people to protect them, but receive a harsh awakening as they are destroyed by their own sides. England is portrayed as a scapegoat for the Army and as an unfortunate product of a violent culture, while Kelly is bullied and threatened (and possibly killed, according to some theories) by the British government. It is a fitting touch for a play that demands that you look inward and question your own culpability.

When the Audience Takes the Stage

Audiences beware: the fourth wall can’t protect you. At least, that seems to be the message behind the T. Schreiber Studio’s charming double billing of works by Christopher Durang and Tom Stoppard. As both contain a play-within-a-play, they thrust spectator characters into the limelight. In Durang’s The Actor’s Nightmare, an accountant takes a wrong turn and finds himself being forced to replace an injured Edwin Booth in a mysterious production. In Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound, two theater critics wind up participating in the show they’ve come to review. Durang’s Nightmare posits what would happen if a man, sans rehearsals (and, in this case, knowledge of his name or prior acting experience), was unexpectedly thrown onstage. The concept is amusing enough and produces a lot of great squirm humor. While you empathize with George Spelvin, the unfortunate and sudden actor, the sheer awkwardness of both the situation and how he handles it are hilarious. As Spelvin, Michael Black is an endearingly pathetic chump. He’s best when Spelvin actually tries to act and gets excited about his temporary triumphs. In these little victories (between many, many disasters), Black grins like a five-year-old who just won the class spelling bee. His surge of ridiculous confidence comes in the form of adding special accents or flourishes to his performance. As the audience knows a fall is inevitable, the fleeting second of success is precious.

The problem with the show is that the time allotted to the plot greatly exceeds the depth of the joke. He’s not supposed to be there, he’s uncomfortable, and he’s panicking. We get it. There’s really no reason to make this go on for longer than 10-15 minutes, but Durang seems to have really wanted to make his poor character suffer. We see a mash-up of words and scenes from Shakespeare, Noel Coward, and Samuel Beckett. The ensuing collage and butchering of assorted lines is entertaining, but could be curtailed. For an actor, perhaps watching this go on and on is cathartic. For an audience member, it’s boring.

In Stoppard’s play, two theater critics have come to watch a murder mystery, but are completely preoccupied with their own concerns. Moon (Julian Elfer), young and overly insecure, is distracted by office politics, while Birdboot (Rick Forstmann), old and overly excitable, is distracted by his libido.

Both actors make their characters equal parts blowhard and fool. Elfer gives Moon just the right amount of bumbling neuroticism as he obsesses over his status as a second-string critic and consistently tries to prove himself through pretentious analysis. As Birdboot, Forstmann nimbly shifts between self-righteous husband and skirt-chaser. Although he talks through the show, the experienced critic is still a stickler for the details: he whips out his binoculars during an onstage kiss to determine whether or not “her mouth is open.”

Modeled in the Agatha Christie mold, the show they’ve come to critique pans out like a comically campy live-action Clue. The satirical touches aren’t exactly original, but they hit the mark thanks to performances completely invested in the farce and jokes (and plot points) that are repeated so often they reach their comical apex the moment they should start to annoy you (this holds true particularly for a maid with a bulging-eye problem).

While both plays’ antics elicit chuckles, there is nothing exceptional, or particularly exciting, about them. With very safe pacing and style, the entire production seems to suffer from a strict dedication to tradition. Perhaps it is the firm footing provided by such experienced playwrights that convinces the director and actors to stay so close to the beaten path. Perhaps it is the fact that tradition can be beautiful (one look at George Allison’s old-school proscenium archway, velvet boxes, and chandeliers would say so). But without a stamp of originality, this two-play production fails to be distinct or memorable. Fourth wall shattering? Yes. Earth shattering? Certainly not.

Shipwrecked

The subtitle of The Accidental Patriot describes its protagonist, Desmond Connelly, as “Irish by birth, English by blood, and American by inclination.” Such a pedigree is sure to leave even the most well-adjusted expat with an identity crisis. Connelly, however, is remarkably stable. The same cannot be said for this play, which swerves all over the dramatic landscape. Presented as a swashbuckling history lesson on the American Revolution mixed with a father quest and a capella songs, it's not surprising that the show comes off a bit disorganized. The Accidental Patriot is essentially a revenge play. After a cocky British admiral sweeps into Boston and kills Connelly’s close friend in a duel, he vows to take the murderer down and hops on a ship to chase after him. After watching Connelly in action for a bit, it’s clear you shouldn’t do the following around him: bring up his family (a dead mom, an anonymous dad who abandoned him), question his patriotism for any one of the countries where he’s lived, or murder his friends. And throughout the play, people just can’t seem to stop doing these things.

With a bland script and an inconsistent tone, the show lacks cohesion. The cast seems absolutely adrift as they work through their scenes. As the production seesaws between hilariously bad and just plain bad, it’s hard to tell whether or not the comic portions are intentional. The ensemble, for one, shifts between acting distractingly overzealous (lots of grunting and side conversations) and bored as they sit in the background or even perform scene changes. As Connelly’s love interest, Liza Wade White has an American Katherine Hepburn accent that just doesn’t make sense coming from her British character.

The two actors that manage to rise slightly above the mess are Cameron J. Oro as Connelly and David Bengali as the pansy adopted son of his nemesis. Even when the play drags, Oro is quite charming with his big smile and smooth, deep voice. He easily fits the image of a leader men would rally around. An excellent comic foil, Bengali is all scrawny limbs and bad comebacks.

Bengali also designed the show’s sweeping playground of a set. The masts, nets, ropes, and barrels provide a nice springboard for the action-packed fight scenes. Cleanly choreographed by Barbara Charlene, these are the best parts of the show. The swordplay is further enhanced by much swinging, jumping, and climbing.

Unfortunately, the dialogue doesn’t pack the same punch as, well, the punches. When the answer to the play’s central mystery becomes painfully obvious (which happens about ten minutes into the show), the scenes drag.

A consistently campy tone and more jokes would add some much needed pep to the production. As Oro and Bengali so smoothly execute their amusing interactions, and the rest of the cast waits in dire need of comic relief, a stronger tone of parody seems like the best course. Until then, this ship is adrift.

Captivating

Writing a rock musical that focuses on being kidnapped in a war-torn country is just about as daring as breaking into song at gunpoint. The creators of Hostage Song use an appealingly fresh approach. To counter the trembling pleas we see on television, they give the show's captives a voice that is both comic and a little rock n' roll, while presenting most of the action as role-playing and dreaming, rather than suffering. This leads to several touching and unexpectedly humorous moments. It's an impressive achievement based on concept alone. But the show doesn’t venture beyond the conceptual. Stale character development and hit-and-miss writing hold this production back, leaving generic stories and the shell of a good show where an inventive portrait could have been.

Emphasizing transcendence, the show applies a light tone to the dark situation. In the first scene, the captives – Jennifer (Hanna Cheek) and Jim (Paul Thureen) – are playing “I Spy” in their cell. They’re also blindfolded. They pass the time through games, memories, and imagining various scenarios. Clay McLeod Chapman, who wrote the spoken portions of the play, shows real skill here, offering convincing snippets of marriage, parenthood, and budding romance in very short sequences. A scene in which Jim imagines talking to his son (a wonderfully versatile Abe Goldfarb) about girls is funny, warm, and probably five minutes long.

However, give Chapman an extended timeframe and melodramatic flourishes rise up to quash the beautifully simple prose (the old adage of "show, don't tell" comes to mind). When Jennifer remarks how her dead translator's blood remains on her face, the description is grounded in the sensual: "His blood's become brittle. Crackles across my cheeks, my forehead. Whenever I open my mouth, I can feel it crumble along the lining of my lips." Yet, when she slips into talking about what it represents, the metaphorical commentary distances us from a moment that had been so powerfully immediate.

The overdramatic portions are awkward because most of the play relies on restrained emotions. Instead of hammering away at fear or dread, Kyle Jarrow's song lyrics, for instance, tend to focus on staying strong and wishing for the happiness of loved ones. This hopeful tone blends well with Jarrow’s percussive and energetic music. The four-man band – cleverly located behind sliding black panels that reveal and conceal them at the right moments– bounces to the beats. In one fist-pumping anthem, Jennifer sings about her resilience:

"She'd find a way to show the world the Last thing that she needs at night are Lullabies with silly words like Don't be scared now Jenny baby"

Even when addressing the hostages' tragic situation with the music, Jarrow makes the language so nonchalant that it's almost comical. Jim sings about getting beaten and threatened with death, saying "Well, that's at least the gist of it," adding, "it sure doesn't look good." Really, Jim?

By forgoing the natural reactions of fear or anger, the creators face an uphill battle in making Jim and Jennifer seem real. Instead of unique personas that might show us the humanity behind the blindfolds, the characters are more like Jarrow and Chapman's playthings – pieces in a game. Not to say that Cheek and Thureen don’t give it their all: limited by blindfolds, ropes around their hands, and an incredibly restrained approach, they still offer touching performances.

But this does little to add the dimensions and depth that the script lacks. Their backgrounds seemed culled from a warehouse of familiar motifs (a lover coming to your window; eating ice cream as a kid) never telling a truly unique story. Yes, it's good for them to have memories to which the audience can relate, but if Chapman and Jarrow want to show that hostages have something to say other than “help me,” it would’ve been nice to meet people rather than archetypes.

When it hits the mark, however, Hostage Song dredges up perspectives that should prove historically interesting long after our current war has ended. Take, for instance, the issue of terrorism in the YouTube era. In the same monologue, Jim's son talks about being able to watch both porn and his father's decapitation on the Internet. He describes the latter scene with scientific detail: "You can see the flesh separate into little dots. The bleeding seems to seep into the computer screen...A million pixels channel his blood down the front of his jumpsuit."

This is the show's greatest strength: presenting gruesome scenarios in a plain yet poetic style. If only the characters were drawn this well, perhaps appearing to actually be made of flesh and blood, rather than just a series of methodically assembled dots.

Galactic Battlestar

Are you anxiously awaiting the return of Battlestar Galactica? Do you consider Joss Whedon a personal hero? Do you ever find yourself wishing plays had more fight scenes, bigger guns, and killer montages? If so, drop your comic book/Guitar Hero controller/X-wing model and run over to Vampire Cowboys' latest production, Fight Girl Battle World. Actually, even if you're not into the sci-fi or fantasy scene – if you simply enjoy a good adventure with smart writing – Fight Girl is probably the most fun show you'll watch this year.

The play focuses on E-V (a sassy Melissa Paladino), a sort of futuristic gladiator on a planet called Battle World who believes she is the last human in the universe. That is, until she receives a surprise visit from General Dan'h (Temar Underwood), the former "Alliance" army leader responsible for annihilating nearly all of her species. Feeling a bit guilty about the genocide, Dan'h has decided to inform E-V that “there is another” (Star Wars references abound here) and wants to help her find the last human male to start procreating ASAP.

The "other" is Adon-Ra (Noshir Dalal), a mass-murderer who's slowly avenging the death of his species. With their names as a dead giveaway, the play cleverly uses Genesis as a springboard. Although I'm pretty sure that lasers, hamster-like aliens with German accents, and giant spaceships aren't included in the Bible, the theme runs throughout the play with a cute tie-in at the end.

Rounding out the gang that's hunting for the other half of humanity is Dan’h’s sexy – yet sexually mysterious – pilot, J'an Jah (Maureen Sebastian) and LC-4 (Paco Tolson), a sarcastic robot with a blue, Peter Brady-style mop. The entire team is delightful, with particularly hilarious turns from Underwood and Tolson.

In a funky pink wig that looks more club kid than space invader, Underwood has the appropriately exaggerated expressions of a comic book character. He also gives Dan'h an over-the-top unplaceable accent that's fantastically campy.

As LC-4, Tolson portrays the ‘bot like a dorky teenage version of Star Wars’s C-3PO. Always quick with a retort or a kazoo-like giggle, his LC-4 is an amusing blend of loveable and annoying.

As with most sci-fi stories, there has to be an omnipotent, generically-named government set out to destroy our heroes. In Fight Girl, this is the United Galactic Alliance. Its leader is literally a puppet monarch: created by puppeteer David Valentine, the Alliance's president looks and moves just like a Muppet (voiced by Jon Hoche). His underlings include Commander G'Bril (Andrea Marie Smith) and Mikah Monoch (a deliciously malicious Elena Chang).

Director Robert Ross Parker and playwright Qui Nguyen infuse every aspect of the show with the rock 'em, sock 'em action associated with comics. While we've seen countless films tackle the genre lately, Parker and Nguyen forego the pricey special effects of blockbusters with some amazingly creative choreography. Stunning scenes convey slow-motion chase sequences, zero gravity, and a particularly clever presentation of a shootout between three spaceships.

The set, developed by Nick Francone, serves as the perfect playground for the athletic ensemble. While one half of the stage contains the interior of a spaceship, the other side contains a sort of puppet theater box that covers the actors from the waist down, allowing for the choreography's many tricks.

Parker and Nguyen's commitment to comics is perfectly depicted in the final battle. In this scene, only two fighters are left to duke it out. To mimic multiple angles and frames at once, several different actors (all clad in the same costume and a glittery ninja mask) portray each character.

The show is indeed part homage to and part parody of sci-fi. Whether it's a training montage set to a Rocky tune or a groovy interpretation of “warp speed,” it never takes itself too seriously. However, beneath all the zaniness, Nguyen gives us a smart critique of our culture's obsession with violence. While satisfying our need to see fancy weaponry and some awesome take-downs, his universe reviles humanity for this very thing.

The Haunting

The faces may change, but the expressions stay the same. Watching Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts and Governor Spitzer’s press conferences this week, it’s become clear that sometimes forced stoicism and suppressed emotions are a more tragic sight than tears. In Ghosts, it’s the face of Mrs. Alving, the widow of a secretly immoral, but publicly respected man, and on Monday, it was the face of Silda Wall Spitzer as she listened to her husband address his connection to a prostitution ring. The obvious parallels between theater and current events point to the timelessness of Ibsen’s work. Regge Life, the director of Ghosts now at the Pearl Theater, highlights this trait in his notes to the play and presents his production in a simple, stripped down manner that allows the raw emotions and humanity of the 19th century text to shine through its age. Yes, people can actually say the word “syphilis” out loud now. Yes, women sometimes leave the jerks they’ve married (almost hourly if you watch Lifetime). Yet even though the work has lost its shock value, the words and behaviors of the characters still ring true.

As Mrs. Alving, Joanne Camp wears a sunken expression that shows slight hints of mourning and exhaustion. Mrs. Alving’s life of enduring her husband’s adultery, alcoholism, and hypocrisy has taken its toll. Though Camp speaks in a controlled deadpan that suggests fortitude, she’s almost always propping herself up – clutching the top of a chair while she stands, digging each fist into the couch as she sits – as if needing constant support to simply stay upright.

The trickle-down effects of scandal can be devastating. While Mrs. Alving has tried to manage her husband’s mistakes, they still threaten to wreck several lives after his death. The victims include their son, Osvald (John Behlmann), who has inherited insanity-inducing syphilis from his father, and the household’s maid, Regina (Keiana Richard), whose true parentage has been kept hidden from her.

The cast is at its finest when the characters seem as though they’re trying to behave contrary to their thoughts. Whether it’s Mrs. Alving trying to hold herself together as she comes apart or the gradual decay of Osvald’s sunny façade, the actors make the slightest glance or tone revealing.

As Ghosts heavily focuses on keeping up appearances, this approach is appropriate. Although Mrs. Alving hates her husband, she’s erecting an orphanage in his honor (though a hidden agenda accompanies this). For this task, she’s enlisted the help of Pastor Manders, who acts as an advisor on finances, legal matters, and anything else he deems in need of advising (which, it becomes evident, is everything). In one of his many didactic speeches, Pastor Manders says, “there are many occasions in life when one must rely upon the opinions of others.” He then asks, “How else would society continue?”

Manders (Tom Galantich) and Jakob Engstrand (TJ Edwards), the bum whom we initially believe to be Regina’s father, are likely the characters most concerned with social mores, but for different reasons. While the Pastor endlessly preaches the importance of public opinion, Engstrand endlessly exploits it.

As conservatism has become a favorite punching bag for the arts community, the Manders character is ripe for a few jabs. Galantich, however, delivers his indignant declarations with an earnestness that allows them to be amusing to a modern audience, while still being faithful to their historical context. Whether he’s in complete preacher mode, making a fiery case against “illicit relationships” or flabbergasted that Engstrand tricked him into putting falsehoods into the church register (he gives a good gasp or two), his pompous pastor is dead-on.

Although Manders is slow to respect or trust women, he allows Engstrand to manipulate him at every turn, with debilitating results. As Engstrand, Edwards speaks in monologues that, though full of stutters and deferential nods to the ground, are as slick as his greasy hair. He so deftly plays the hustler that he even seems a bit innocent at the play’s beginning. While Regina berates him for his foolishness, her anger doesn’t seem to match the harmless man we first meet. Only as the play progresses does Edwards allow an occasional smile or gleeful aside to show Engstrand’s true self.

When this production treats the theme of the past haunting the present as a subtle, lingering presence, the tension is discomforting and heartbreaking. The mood set by Camp’s slow actions and speech is enhanced by Harry Feiner’s gloomy set and Stephen Petrilli’s foggy lighting of the backdrop. As Mrs. Alving slowly reveals each of her husband’s sins, the fog around the rear stage even seems to spread.

In the second act, everyone’s ghosts come to the forefront. While the consequential raising of volume and tempers isn’t quite as chilling as the whispered secrets and deceitful interactions, the earlier scenes make the climax’s departure from politeness all the more powerful.

After Mrs. Alving and Osvald fiercely argue over a dramatic request, the play returns to its previous hushed tones. The final scene – a mother silently weeping at her son’s side – resonates far more loudly than any shout that came before. It is truly haunting.

Get it while it's hot

Now that The L Word has become so predictable that audiences can create their own bingo or drinking games to accompany the characters’ repetitive behaviors (e.g. take a sip when Bette has control problems, notch off B4 when Jenny goes psycho), it’s clear that the plots have grown somewhat tiresome. For fans in need of a jolt, there’s a good chance you’ll find it at the coffee house in Room for Cream, the live lesbian serial now playing at La MaMa. While Showtime’s Sapphic mainstay suffers from a case of taking itself too seriously even when veering into trashy territory, Room for Cream is the kind of self-aware juicy pulp in which a wink seems to chase every line. In the pilot episode, “Welcome to Sappho," which premiered last Saturday, the characters’ problems range from tenderly familiar to comically over-the-top.

With its soap opera style, the show isn’t exactly groundbreaking material, but its light tone and firm grasp on comedy makes for a highly entertaining 40 minutes. Picture Cheers with lesbians and coffee. Everybody knows everybody’s name – and personal business. Inside the café, we have a few archetypes: the gender studies professor, the punky sprite, the voice-of-reason mother figure, the butch, and the lone, shoulder-shrugging straight woman. Unlike most pilots that try to cover too much ground, Jess Barbagallo’s script introduces everyone smoothly and sets up multiple promising plotlines.

However, as with any soap, a recap is bound to sound ridiculously complicated and overdramatic. I’ll try to keep it simple: things open with a forbidden love and end in hot pursuit of kidnappers, with some peeping toms, supply-room trysts, and muffins in between. Who knew the Berkshires could be so action-packed?

Director Brooke O’Harra smartly limits movement when the characters are inside the café. The scenes are propelled by the snappy dialogue and would probably be disrupted by unnecessary action. It doesn’t matter that the actors sit for much of the time: the fantastic one-liners (“Call it ‘youth outreach,’" one character says of her interest in the high school volleyball team) and spot-on references (wondering if someone is straight, or if “she locks herself in her room at night listening to ‘Come to My Window’ on repeat") are legs enough for the scenes to stand on.

The entire cast shares a knack for comic timing, particularly O’Harra as the scholar, Dr. O’Boyle, and Tina Shepard as the middle-aged patron, Beatrice. O’Harra’s professor timidly shifts in her seat, offering a pipsqueak-pitched analysis of every situation. Her spacey, delayed delivery perfectly offsets the character’s academic façade.

While O’Boyle and the rest of the characters are more affectionately drawn – with love interests and cute quirks – Beatrice (so far) just has complaints and a colonoscopy appointment. Still, Shepard peppers her lines with just the right amount of huffy tones and acid-tinged punctuations that she makes Beatrice’s behavior a refreshingly bitter counterpoint to the others’ playful banter.

The live presentation enhances the fun vibe of the show. It’s interesting that both audience and cast should grow more familiar with each other as the series continues (there will be 10 more episodes on a biweekly basis between now and June), rather than the one-way conversation of television. The set furthers this interaction by placing the audience among the actors, seating people at or around the coffee shop where the action takes place. Sometimes, the occasional in-the-way spectator forced the actors to break the fourth wall, which made for unexpected humor.

Mishaps like these, though amusing, also point to one downside of the light nature of the show. It’s a little messy and could stand to be tightened up a bit. Perhaps this will come as the cast and crew settle into the show as it continues. Either way, I’m excited to see what future episodes will bring. It should be noted that the first show was packed. I’d tell you to go see Room for Cream, but with such a strong chance that will happen again, I don’t want to lose my seat.

No Winners Here

“It’s so cutting edge it’s practically illegal,” one character says of the play they’re working on in Bingo With the Indians. “It’s like diamond-edged, Mom. That’s about as close as you can get to naming it.” Bingo, written and directed by Adam Rapp, indeed deserves credit for its bold style. The problem with plays that have edge, however, is that they can occasionally leap off them. With all its unbridled electricity, Bingo runs in many directions without ultimately choosing one.

The play is powerfully aggressive in every way. Its language revolves around cruel fighting or chilling manipulation, its movement is explosively violent, and its characters are malicious to the core. In fact, Bingo has such a confrontational tone that it occasionally feels like a direct assault on the audience. This is not unintentional. As the plot centers on three members of a struggling East Village theater company, the line between reality and drama is consistently blurred.

The “company” – director Dee, actor Stash, and stage manager Wilson – are trying to scrounge some funds for their latest production. Their solution: steal the cash from a small-town New England bingo game. The New Yorkers don’t take kindly to the local atmosphere and despise the theatrically impaired townies.

The unfortunate outsider who comes into their motel room is Steve, a sheepish 19-year-old whose parents own the place. He, it turns out, is “secretly interested” in theater and dreams of living in the big city like his visitors. Stash is merciless toward Steve, taunting him, roughing him up, and eventually stealing his watch.

The poor teen is so lonely that he still craves his bullies’ friendship. As Steve, Evan Enderle is absolutely fantastic. Thanks to Enderle’s perfect body language (hunched shoulders, anxious bouncing) and tone (every statement comes out like a hesitant question), Steve practically sweats a palpable blend of desperation and vulnerability. Watching him get bullied is tragic and emotionally draining. Most, it seems, for Enderle: at curtain call, the actor looked absolutely exhausted.

The play really hits its stride when Stash and Dee go to pull off the heist, leaving Steve and Wilson in the room. Wilson gets the amateur actor to read a script with him – one that happens to include nudity. Thanks to Rob Yang’s restrained performance, Wilson’s sexual manipulation of Steve is at once deeply disturbing and freakishly academic. Enhancing the interaction, Yang speaks in the kind of deadpan voice that’s usually reserved for psychiatrists or conscience-lacking serial killers (think Kevin Spacey in Se7en).

The other characters lack this depth, and the play’s poignancy (and point) seems to wither away after they return. They trade barbs that might make Mamet blush, but their dialogue and personalities become grating when they don’t go any further from there.

Since the only compassionate character is someone who works outside the theater community, it would seem that Rapp is making a point about how a life spent playing pretend might detach someone from reality. The three company members in Bingo assume new identities with names such as “Big Daddy” and hide in their new characters, betraying previous promises with disclaimers like, “I was acting. That’s what we do in the theater.”

However, it’s hard to imagine that working in theater would make anyone as ruthless as Bingo’s thugs. A bloody attack (a “company fight call”) that comes toward the end is inexplicably brutal – even by the angry standards established by earlier scenes.

Things spiral out of control from there, thanks to a bizarre Native American song and dance, and a rambling monologue.

The final lines, directed at the audience (returning to the play’s exploration of reality vs. theater), are a clever reprisal of earlier dialogue between Wilson and Steve. The latter commands, “Smile…Unsmile.” With its seesawing between dark comedy and all-out nihilism, it’s never quite clear which expression Bingo With the Indians wants us to make.

Romero & Juliet

The Bard had it coming. All of the elements of Twelfth Night are perfectly suited for a zombie horror interpretation: morbid language, contagious insanity, and near-comical ignorance. The most enjoyable aspect of the Impetuous Theater Group's adaptation, 12th Night of the Living Dead, is that they not only take this unique approach, but pull it off with a stunning degree of commitment to the original work. Unlike the bloodbath that unfolds onstage, playwright Brian MacInnis Smallwood's adaptation is more like careful surgery than wild hacking, as he extracts only absolutely essential and appropriate parts. The synopsis generally remains the same: Viola disguises herself as a male, Cesario, creating a bizarre love triangle between herself, the lovelorn Orsino, and the mourning Lady Olivia. All the while, the show's pranksters, Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and Maria, down some wine and taunt the stiff steward, Malvolio.

Though Smallwood cuts many lines (nearly all of Viola's: as the first zombie, she's reduced to grunts and squeals for the entire show), what remains is strikingly smooth. He occasionally adds fresh updates to fit his subject (when Feste, the fool, exclaims "as if thy eldest son should be a fool; whose skull Jove cram with brains!" a nearby zombie echoes, "braaiiins!") and assigns some lines to different characters, but his version impressively uses most of Shakespeare's own words to tell a completely different tale.

In this interpretation, a giant green meteor has struck Viola and Sebastian's ship, pulling the vessel down and dragging the siblings apart. Viola washes up on the shores of Illyria, looking a bit pale and, well, different. She walks with a heavy limp and carries herself in a sort of post-lobotomy fashion. Apparently, the meteor has infused her with an insatiable appetite for human flesh – a hunger that is passed onto each of her victims.

One of the most amusing things about watching a Shakespearean comedy is feeling privy to an issue that the characters keep missing. In Twelfth Night, it is their failure to see beyond the gender disguises. This inability to notice unusual realities is also what made the recent zombie comedy, Shaun of the Dead, so amusing. Like the people in that film, the untouched (that is, still human) characters in 12th Night… start out dangerously blind to the plague that's overtaking those around them.

As Sirs Toby and Andrew, Timothy J. Cox and Benjamin Ellis Fine are fantastic aloof fools, giggling and gamboling amidst the bloody scene. Fine portrays Andrew as an amusing kind of man-child with a nice blend of cockiness and cowardice. One moment he’s declaring a duel, the next he’s crying and rocking himself as he’s cradled in a friend’s arms.

Much of the show's hilarity surfaces when Shakespearean eloquence collides with the grit and gore of cult horror. As our Viola snarls and growls at the gate to Olivia's estate, and even bites Malvolio, Olivia's response (lifted directly from the original) becomes absurdly understated: "you began rudely."

The entire cast superbly navigates the unusual territory of spilled intestines and iambic pentameter. Tom Knutson makes Malvolio's transformation into a zombie a particular treat, as the conservative servant gradually loses his rigidity with progressively slumping posture and increasingly breathy, broken speech.

Special effects help the show blend dialogue fit for a production at The Globe with visuals fit for a zombie film by George A. Romero. Increased levels of gore are seamlessly woven into the story. The creepily comical flirting between Olivia and Viola-as-Cesario is a good example. Unaware of the present danger, Olivia takes the zombie Viola's aggression for passion and becomes quite attracted to her attacker.

Even when the zombie bites off her finger, Olivia is not deterred. In a clever spin on Shakespeare's original – which has Olivia sending Cesario a ring as a token of affection – this version has her sending the entire severed appendage.

The production's only weakness is its complete devotion to creating chaos. Often, the zombie groans completely drown out the dialogue. At other points, the action is so widely distributed across the stage that it's impossible to focus. The house, for example, actually has a bar to the side of the main stage. While it's a fitting setting for Toby and Andrew, the bar is located so far from the center that most of the audience cannot see it.

Although the plot centers on disorder, the success of this mash-up rides on its tight organization and nice balance between different genres. In one of show's best scenes, for example, zombie characters pause to have a "chat." While they groan at each other, they hold their lines on cards. The scene is funny and unique, as zombies are traditionally uncommunicative. Leave it to Shakespeare fans to find a way to give pop culture's most ineloquent monsters a method of articulating their thoughts.

Splatter-Fest

It might be the goriest interpretation of Aristotle yet. As the narrator, Brother Blood, explains the healing power of performance through catharsis (“When done properly, art can be used like surgery to extract the cancer from our collective psyches”), he demonstrates his theory on a poor, seemingly lobotomized victim, pulling out organs and entrails in a flash of blood and wild smiles. The problem with The Blood Brothers Present: PULP, a series of three short plays interwoven with several vignettes, is that there are just too many surgeons around the operating table. With five directors and five playwrights who seem to have differing visions, the show is inconsistent and disorganized. Though it pays homage to 50’s horror comics, its vibe is more thrown-together than throwback.

The series’ flaw is that it fails to devote itself completely to this genre. It’s a shame because when it does dive headfirst into the pulp world, and brings the comic book pages to life, the effect is quite thrilling. The first and last plays, Mac Rogers’s Best Served Cold and James Comtois’s Listening to Reason do a good job, crafting interesting back stories so that there’s suspenseful drama mixed with the gory payoffs. In language, pace, and tone, each feels like a tale from an earlier time. Both, for instance, have a derisive narrator (Brother Blood) whose all-knowing background commentary gives the plays an old-fashioned radio hour feel.

Both stories focus on plausible horrors: a jilted lover who’s come to gun down a homewrecker in Best Served Cold and the inner monologue of a serial killer in Listening to Reason. They also contain the strongest performances, including Anna Kull’s furiously heartbroken avenger in the former and Jessi Gotta’s superbly subtle turn as a disabled victim in the latter.

In a recent interview on NYTHEATRECAST, the show’s creators said that these two pieces were actually adapted from pulp horror comics, while the middle play, Qui Nguyen’s Dead Things Kill Nicely, is an original work. This changeup is quite obvious, as it disrupts the tone and pace set so well by the story that precedes it. Dead Things not only skips the effective narration, but also has a far goofier quality that detracts from any semblance of scary.

Nguyen’s piece has some of the evening’s funniest lines (a debate about the existence of zombies is amusing, thanks to the Grandma Addams-esque Stephanie Cox-Williams) and a fantastically gruesome finish (multiple decapitations! Evil Dead-style chainsaw hands!). However, the play’s refusal to take itself seriously as a story leads to an inability to take itself seriously as a production: with British accents that are distractingly bad and dialogue that often feels like it’s merely filler between jokes or violence, the play is too sloppy to be successful.

On the other hand, PULP’s production team has obviously put a lot of effort into special effects, which they execute exquisitely. All of the stories share a common love of gore, and while the splatter-fest is not quite at the bring-a-poncho level, severed limbs and slit throats abound. Even the most ridiculous cases of slit bowels or skinned backs look impressively realistic.

Another enjoyable aspect of the production is its soundtrack, which includes wonderful original music by Larry Lees as well as surprising offerings from familiar names. From the evil carnival-sounding suite that opens the show, to two wordless vignettes set to perfectly appropriate songs, the music is a delight. One short piece, about a camper who transforms himself into an insect, is told through the comically creepy song “Bugs” by, as I was later amused to learn, Pearl Jam.

With Halloween around the corner, PULP is written for those who crave a good bloodbath each October. But if such audiences are really looking to satisfy their fright fix, they might have better luck finding catharsis at the nearest haunted house.

Friends & Neighbors

The neighbors have just dropped by. They've brought Shiraz. And brownies. Sound good? It's not. They've also come with a mission to destroy your childhood and completely upend your entire life. They have a creepy demeanor that borrows equally from Mister Rogers and David Lynch. They know everything about you—even about your old imaginary friends. Such is the case when Hank Mountain and his pal Vera arrive to torment Kathleen Clarkson, a teenager whose family lives in a Midwestern "McMansion." Unfortunately for Kathleen, her parents are too distracted playing host to their friends, talking about paninis from Panera and projectors from Sony, to be concerned about these mysterious visitors. As a result, the guests place the entire household under their spell, until only Kathleen and two fellow teens are left in a transformed world to figure out just what happened.

While audiences might also find themselves scratching their heads after Have You Seen Steve Steven?, the play's sharp writing and natural flow make it a pretty enjoyable mystery to tackle. With subtle nuances and complex characters, it's one of those rare shows that manages to be surreal without being ridiculous, and it deserves an additional viewing to explore its every intricacy.

Ann Marie Healy's script has a firm grasp on familiar subjects, which keeps it from spiraling into experimental theater no-man's-land. Too often, a surreal play expends so much energy on creating a wacky world that it neglects to convincingly capture human emotion. Healy succeeds here by crafting a splendidly bland setting for her bizarre ideas. Before Hank and Vera arrive to shake things up, the play initially unfolds as an interesting rumination on generation gaps.

Frank and Mary Clarkson are throwing a dinner party to catch up with their friends the Dudleys, who've brought along their slacker son and a foreign exchange student whom they've "ordered." With vocabularies lifted from store catalogs and owner's manuals, as well as a complete inability to listen to their children and some of the worst sweaters since The Cosby Show, the adults come off as tacky, ignorant, and materialistic.

So it's no surprise that when they discuss the future with the kids (romance, college), the youngsters recoil. Kathleen and the Dudleys' son, Thomas, would much rather reminisce about their childhood days spent searching for their imaginary dog, Steve Steven. Kathleen repeatedly states that she is "not ready" and doesn't want to grow up and become her mother. Perhaps this is what Peter Pan would've sounded like had J.M. Barrie lived in franchise-conquered suburbia.

With deftly controlled pacing, the gap between the grown-up and the growing is further distinguished. Unlike their parents, who speak in rushed, definitive statements (even their questions seem to contain answers) and frequently talk over each other, the teens speak slowly and suspiciously, as if doubting everything they're hearing—and perhaps a bit of what they're saying too.

The best examples of this juxtaposition are Kathleen and her mother. As Kathleen, Stephanie Wright Thompson speaks in a sort of slow, questioning drone—always the deep, dry counterpoint to the adults' bubbly sopranos. Alissa Ford's Mary, on the other hand, has the bright eyes and chipper voice of a Disney cartoon character constantly on the brink of breaking into song.

It's the parents' oblivious nature that allows them to be so easily entranced when Hank and Vera crash the party. Kathleen and Thomas, however, sense something's up. Thomas even thinks he first saw Hank in a nightmare. The visitors show a real eerie interest in the teens, and confess that they've come to set their imaginary childhood pooch free.

As Hank, Matthew Maher is a restrained breed of creepy: a soft voice, an unsettlingly delayed sense of timing, and a personality that switches from charmer to bully in a blink. In addition to chilling, Hank's odd behavior makes for some of the play's funnier moments. When the scrawny Thomas (Brandon Bales) attempts heroics, his awkward commands, and even more awkward efforts at self-defense, are hilarious. In one fabulous scene, he discovers that hurling vodka at an intruder and shouting "Begone!" doesn't help the situation—it just causes someone to cry over stained flannel.

As time goes on, the visitors' origins grow only murkier. Are they real neighbors? Demons of doom? Mere metaphorical devices disguised in knit caps and snow boots?

These aren't the only questions that linger ambiguously at the play's conclusion, and audiences might leave feeling at once intrigued and frustrated, with only a handful of clues pointing to what may have occurred. Yes, it puts us in the same position as the bewildered teens, but it's important to remember that the characters aren't smiling as the lights go out.

Down Home Magic

If only life were more like a music video, where success is amplified to the max. For the Sturgess family, things couldn't be more different. One son lives in a car propped up on blocks, the other has mental breakdowns that are cured only by liquor, and Dad has Social Services breathing down his neck. Their sole escape: a steady supply of heavy metal and punk music. In fact, in ...and we all wore leather pants the only thing more magical than rock 'n' roll is magic itself. The plot is peppered with mystical events, ranging from a mysterious visitor plucked from the sky to an immaculate conception.

Robert Attenweiler's imaginative script is set in a rather unimaginative place: Ashtabula, Ohio (read: Anytown, USA). The contrast makes for poignant and comical moments, which the talented cast aptly captures. The first three scenes contain some fabulous repartee that is aided by quick dialogue and a snappy pace set by director John Patrick Hayden.

Most at home among the witticisms is Joe Stipek. As Krank, the loner, car-dwelling son, he has a perfect deadpan tone that makes even the wildest notions sound inappropriately (and hilariously) matter-of-fact. When his date expresses concerns over his makeshift hot plate in the backseat, he explains, "No, it's fine. People tell ya shouldn't have fires inside a' cars, but they mean when you don't think n' crack a window." His complete sincerity makes dangerous ignorance seem adorable.

As his brother, Danny Bruckert's Jagger is Krank's boisterous and self-assured foil. He struts around the stage, mostly without pants, and revels in the play's more absurd moments. For poor Jagger, things are pretty absurd: he may or may not be a mechanic, and he may or may not be the former star of a heavy metal group. While he keeps having strange and increasingly aggressive flashbacks–a guitar solo here, a wild motorcycle ride there–his wife, Mary (Becky Benhayon), remains determined to stamp them out with alcohol. As a result, Jagger has no idea who he is, and Bruckert captures his confusion and mounting frustration well.

Thanks in part to an inexplicable combination of a meteor shower and an earthquake, the characters' problems and innermost needs and fears are hurtled to the surface. However, the play stumbles a little when everyone collides in the family den. While the shorter, two-actor scenes earlier in the play offer some real zingers, the lines don't have the same bite when the entire ensemble shares the stage.

The appearance of a mysterious visitor, who speaks like a prophet and dresses like a jogger, also trips up the story slightly. Here, the simple lyricism of magic layered over the mundane is replaced with lengthy speeches that tip almost too far in favor of the former.

But when the play maintains this balance, it's a delight. Take, for instance, the show's depiction of the so-called meteor shower. Jagger and Mary have just brought out some glow-sticks (they couldn't find a flashlight) to look for their missing child when a loud rumble and flickering lights overtake the stage. As the characters stumble through the chaos, Mary goes to the door at the back and struggles to hold herself up with the frame. Her shaking hands wave the stick up and down until its glow flashes like green lightning.

Despite its modest technology, the clever production team creates a dazzling special effect. Now here's a group that knows more than a few things about crafting magical scenes from ordinary ingredients.

The Play's The Thing...

Shakespeare himself was big fan of the old play-within-a-play bit, so it makes sense that many people use his works with this intention. The key, however, is making your approach unique. Kiss Me, Kate added songs, Shakespeare in Love added a cross-dressing romantic interest, and now Sergei Burbank's The Danish Mediations/Slots adds something for the MTV generation: an omnipresent camera that gives way to Real World-style confessionals on the trials and tribulations of working actors. The result is a raw take on the theater industry that feels as if an appropriate alternate title might be "Broadway, Uncut." This approach has its rewards and drawbacks. The tension builds naturally and uncomfortably, leading to electrifying releases. However, the main challenge with this style is making scripted scenes seem voyeuristic. Sometimes the camera monologues grate and the play slowly trudges on, but when it clicks, the exhilaration is infectious.

Kiah (Jason Updike) is putting on a production of Hamlet, in which he and the five other cast members will pick their roles out of a jar for each performance. One caveat for Bard fans: the choice of Hamlet goes largely without qualification, aside from sparse quotations and an overarching emphasis on self-analysis and brooding.

If learning every part of the work weren't stressful enough, the cast members' patience wears thin when one actor-cum-aspiring filmmaker, Sam (Gary Patent), creates a blog about their rehearsals—complete with videos and commentary.

All the action is divided between the stage and the white screen hanging against the backdrop. Onscreen, we see another apartment, where the team rehearses and shares heart-to-heart confessions with Sam's camera. The obvious theme behind The Danish Mediations/Slots is that the unscripted drama backstage can be just as, if not more, intense than the production in front of the curtain. Among petulant divas, intimidating showoffs, and former flames, tempers flare, and nearly everyone beds a co-star. Sure, it's a somewhat stereotypical take on the acting profession, but the performances are so strong that they transcend the occasional formulaic nature of the character development.

The ensemble plays the mounting tension very well (no need to ruminate on where they might be drawing inspiration from), as their characters' rapidly thinning veils of professionalism give way to sniping, secret crushes, and taunting. When released, the pent-up feelings or frustrations flood the stage with exciting energy.

When Charles (Jason Altman), the cocky TV star who's sluggishly attempting to get some stage cred, finally breaks down, it's a particularly stunning scene. While the case against the "celebutard" has been repeated again and again by his cast mates (always late, missing rehearsals, teasing the scrawny Sam), Altman's self-defense is a touching surprise that shows the fragility beneath the frat boy facade.

Such charged moments are fueled by the way director Adam Karsten consistently keeps the actors in motion. At any given moment, someone always seems to be dashing offstage (to other commitments), dashing onstage (late again), choreographing a fight scene, shuffling through props, or whirling around another actor as they argue. The absence of idle moments keeps the pace sharp and appropriately rushed—after all, they have an opening that's quickly approaching.

This physical approach is most powerful in the conclusion to Act One. After a fight breaks out, Kiah pulls the team together to recite a soliloquy. As the actors each perform a section, trying to spin their frustration into motivation, they move in and out of each other's spaces as if dancing through a shared electric current. The energy builds as the group members realize that they're finally clicking and peaks when Kiah delivers the final couplet.

The same cannot be said for the camera monologues. At one point, Sam contemplates the pros and cons of soliloquies: "But how do they help the story?" he asks. "You don't think characters gain more through active opposition?" While the discussion makes Burbank's script impressively self-aware, it also highlights its weak spot. The characters' camera monologues are indeed important, but by video, say, No. 11, their revelations aren't that revealing and become a little boring.

Perhaps this is because Act Two is more focused on actual performances rather than rehearsals, so those same shots at the apartment don't mesh as well with the polished stage sets of the dressing rooms and squeaky-clean floors of a theater as they did with the tarp-covered, paint-strewn practice space. Thankfully, the confessions start to fade away.

Whether they're delivering a wordy soliloquy on-camera or spouting Shakespeare, the cast smoothly navigates the varied terrain (and media) with poise. Fayna Sanchez is, by turns, comedic and ferocious as the boisterous Liz, and Noelle Holly, as Ryn, approaches what is by far the most modest part with an engaging and graceful performance.

With solid acting from everyone and a script that flows quite naturally, this is a well-oiled production. But you have to wonder if the rehearsals went so smoothly.