Next-Door Haters

Clybourne Park , Bruce Norris's new drama, loosely based on the Lorraine Hansberry classic A Raisin in the Sun , is a searing and blisteringly funny look at race relations and the power of property. Enjoying its premiere at Playwrights Horizons, the play is presented by a talented cast of actors -- a few of whom (Christina Kirk, Frank Wood and Chrystal A. Dickenson) raise the bar exponentially on already-excellent writing. It is finely directed by Pam McKinnon.

Clybourne Park , (also the name of the all-white Chicago neighborhood depicted in Raisin , begins Act One in 1959, with neighbors up-in-arms over the sale (in the wake of a tragedy) of a home at 406 Clybourne Street to the community's first African-American family.

Russ and Bev (Kirk/Wood) play a traditional 1950's couple, who - while packing up the house with the help of their maid, Francine (Dickenson) - are confronted by angry neighbors (Jeremy Shamos/Annie Parisse) concerned about the effect of the sale upon local property values.

Kirk and Wood are outstanding in this simmer-to-boil act. Kirk infuses Bev with such energy that she wrings out every drop of the hostility-behind-the-gentility of a 50's-era woman, both in her condescending interactions with Francine, and in the way she summons the community priest (Brendan Griffin) to aid her preoccupied husband and comfort herself. As a deeply depressed father, Wood is achingly funny - and uses some of Norris's shorter lines like lethal tennis volleys.

Racial misconceptions and fears are dredged up as arguments by the intruding neighbors -- ranging from vapid concerns over ethnic food to obscene sociological observations ("So what I have to conclude is that the pasttime of skiing just doesn't appeal to the Negro community.")

The act is washed down with Bev's ostensibly well-meaning but nauseating platitudes thrown in for good measure ("Maybe we should learn what the other person eats...maybe that would be the solution, if someday we could sit down at one big table.")

A Raisin in the Sun was to become the first play written by an African-American woman to be produced on Broadway. It draws its inspiration from the Langston Hughes poem, Harlem, taking its title from the line, "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" For The Youngers, the play's central family, home ownership - in spite of objections from Clybourne Park's Improvement Committee - is held up as a Holy Grail of sorts.

In Act Two of Clybourne Park , set in 2009, we find a young white couple (Parissse/Shamos) thumbing through a contract that would allow them to bulldoze their freshly-purchased house at 406 Clybourne Street to reconstruct it, plus an addition (of the upwardly-mobile variety). As their home would then dwarf other nearby homes, they face objections from the Historical Society of the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, in the form of another couple (Dickinson and Damon Gupton).

The second act starts out civilly, but soon emerges into raw conflict and the artful but brutal use of (racially-inspired) jokes. The second act really belongs to Dickenson (as Lena), as she evolves from benign impatience to increasing frustration with not being heard, to finally showing her teeth. The space in the room that Lena claims once she explodes personifies all the underlying metaphors in question. Kirk also shines as the narcisstic lawyer for the young white couple, langorously sipping iced-coffee Weeds style, and delivering well-placed comic lines.

The racism in this act hurts, it's meant to, but it's also raw and funny. It touches close enough to the nerve to be both unsettling and hilarious. The intra-couple tension that is also present only adds to the building rancor.

The only disappointing thing about Act Two (once it gets revved up) is the tail end of it, which harkens back to events in the house, as it existed in 1959. This attempt to tie the two stories (1959 & 2009) together - joined already by virtue of place - feels manufactured and gratuitous.

The set, engineered by Damiel Ostling and rich in detail, undergoes a stunnning transformation in-between acts. The pale greens and rose purples that contrasted with well-chosen costumes like Bev's dress in Act One, become grafitti-stained walls with off-stage glimpses of overturned paint buckets in Act Two.

There is an acute sense that no easy resolution is possible for still-festering racial tensions over territory and community. ("You can't live in a principle. You live in a home." )

Still, an evening of smart writing and terrific acting where risks like these are taken makes every startling moment completely worth the price of admission. Hurry to Playwright's Horizons to catch Clybourne Park while you can.

Make It Hurt So Good

The Atheist , a solo show written by Irish playwright Roonan Noone, and starring the charismatic Campbell Scott (recently of ABC's Six Degrees ) is the Culture Project's and Circle in the Square Theatre's latest engaging and precocious brainchild, currently running at the Barrow Street Theater. The character of Augustine Early -- a newspaper reporter of Machiavellian sensibilities and a Midwestern trailer park upbringing -- is inhabited so gleefully (and with no little charm) by Campbell Scott that he manages to securely carry the audience over narrative waters that occasionally strain credibility.

Augustine cites his lack of faith in God (and the two broken legs that resulted from an early attempt to fly off of his childhood trailer) as almost a corollary to his rabid ambition. Possessed early on with an appetite for fame, he sets out already willing to walk over bodies to secure headlines (of appropriate size and font) on the front page of the newspaper.

His first slippery steps involve injecting some leading adjectives into his coverage of a rape trial. The heady rush that Augustine embodies physically upon seeing how much history depends on who is telling the story is akin to watching an addict prepare for an even stronger hit. Scott’s skill is most evident in passages like this one, as he somehow manages to present a unlikable personage as a man merely invested in presenting a sort of undeniable human logic.

The next chapters of Augustine’s sordid career involve athletic sex with an aspiring actress and a starring role in pornographic videos filmed via a tiny camera planted in her bathroom by non-other than the Governor himself. While this set-up can stretch the limits of believable convenience, it seems a natural “Aw Shucks” moment in Scott's hands as he recounts Augustine's rise to power.

And the carnage continues with blackmail of the governor, which leads to a full-time job on the paper, and internet leakage of a revealing video from the governor's private collection which ultimately aids the career of Augustine's girlfriend, the actress pejoratively known as Jenny the Jugs. (Women in this piece, and Augustine's view, seem far more one-dimensional than the men).

If all of this sets the stage for a grand-slam expose on the Governor, it also eventually leaves the governor's seemingly innocent wife open and vulnerable to succumbing to the charms of Augustine himself. Or is it the other way around?

Obviously the media's role in cultural presentation is lambasted here, and there is considerable play on the notions of victim and victimizer and image and the image creator/journalist. Perhaps that is what is signified by the film noir backdrop (created by set designer Cristina Todesco) to which the show defaults at alternating moments. It gives Augustine's image a greater life than his own for a few moments, perhaps in a sort of Plato's cave allegory.

Most of all it's fun to watch a good actor be verbally dexterous and relish playing a villain whom he presents as a man with a mission who simply lost his way. In short, The Atheist , offers an entertaining evening for journalism junkies and theatergoers alike, and represents a real acting achievement for Mr. Scott.

Small Mercies

Adam's Rapp new play, Kindness, currently running in a limited engagement at Playwrights Horizons, is suspenseful, funny and tightly written. Under the author's own discreet direction, the members of the small ensemble cast take their time on stage and seem to revel in the quality material. The result is an act of kindness in itself for weary theatergoers. The play centers on Dennis (Christopher Denham), a small-town high school student who has come to New York with his terminally ill mother, Maryanne (Annette O'Toole), ostensibly to have a close-to-the-end bonding weekend attending an uplifting Broadway musical.

The potent opening scene touches on the uneasy sexual tension between mother and teenaged son. In this bland midtown hotel room, impeccably designed by Laurie Helpern, the minutes pass painfully in a chasm of enforced gaiety and impending loss, and in the absence of a father saddled with a chronic gambling problem.

After several rounds with her surly non-Broadway-musical-loving son, Maryanne invites Herman (Ray Anthony Thomas), an attentive cab driver, to attend the show in his place. Left in the hotel to face a lonely evening, Dennis encounters a striking and quite elusive woman named Frances (Katherine Waterston).

While it’s difficult to discuss more of this play without divulging its plot, it’s easy to talk about the elements that make this production so good. Need drives this play, in the best possible sense. There is a palpable chemistry among its characters, as they bang against each other in a desperate push-and-pull attempt to survive. Rapp’s direction is subtle, and his use of the stage (including periodic disappearances into the bathroom) is excellent. There is also an underlying element of suspense that keeps the play constantly in-the-moment.

Denham, who also appeared in Rapp’s Red Light Winter, is a wonderful blend of bravado and longing. There is great humor in his scenes with his mother, which he handles with verbal skill and timing. Quirky and beautiful, Waterston’s performance is also acutely intelligent. While she may have been given one too many Mae West style lines (some are terrific), she executes an offbeat impromptu dance with pluck and vulnerability. Thomas is a completely believable and likeable cab driver, a sort of moral beacon to whom kindness is a way of life, and the focus of much of O’Toole’s rabid second act hunger.

Kindness is a stone-thrown-into-the-pond kind of play, the ripple effects of which expand outwards from the action itself. Equally the play leaves a growing impression on the viewer much after its ending. I strongly recommend that you catch this gem of a play before its limited run is over.

A Tale Fit For a Queen

Timothy Findley's play, Elizabeth Rex , playing now in an Off-Broadway transfer at Center Stage, is an achievement. Presented here in New York by the Playwright's Guild of Canada and the theater ensemble Nicu's Spoon, the innovative yet lengthy production features two standout actors and a somewhat hearty supporting cast. Elizabeth Rex is set in a barn on the evening before Queen Elizabeth I's lover, Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, and his royal compatriot, the Earl of Southampton, are due to be beheaded for treason.

In the barn are William Shakespeare and a group of actors who have just finished a performance of Much Ado About Nothing for the Queen, featuring the best and most seasoned actor of Shakespeare's female roles at the time, Ned Lowenscraft (Michael Digioia), as Beatrice.

Due to public rioting in the streets in anticipation of the upcoming appearences at the guillotine, the male actors are stuck for the evening in the barn. The sole female present is the company's half-blind seamstress (Rebecca Challis).

That is, until a lonely and anguished Queen Elizabeth I (Stephanie Barton-Farcas) appears with two of her ladies-in-waiting (Melanie Horton and Ruth Kulerman), to distract herself with a cup of ale and a probing conversation with Lowenscraft that turns into a profound jousting session on the question of gender.

The Queen, whose position as England's monarch has required her to sublimate her most feminine qualities, says to the womanly Lowenscaft, "If you will teach me how to be a woman, I will teach you how to be a man." And the actor, perhaps because he is slowly dying of the pox, dares to tell the Queen the truth of her situation as well as the truth of his own personal story.

Both Barton-Farcas and Digioia do a terrific job, subtle and animated and heartfelt, and it is the moments in the play when these two powerhouses go head-to-head that are the most interesting. Though the play could easily be clipped by 15 minutes, the scenerio itself and much of its heightened language is extremely clever.

The costumes, particularly those of Queen Elizabeth, as chosen by Rien Schlect, are gorgeous. And the set is very simple and effective, save a jarring teak tray-table that seems oddly modern and misplaced.

The show's only setback is that certain members of the supporting cast tend to overact, and one, in particular, distinctly underplays, which lends a slightly disjointed feel to ensemble moments.

Scott Nogi does a fine job as Shakespeare, as does the charming Bill Galarno playing elderly actor Percy Gower. Horton and Kulerman fare the best among the rest of the supporting cast. In his turn as the Bear, Sammy Mena also deserves recognition.

An Interminable Wait

Anais Nin won't be the only one waiting around for what seems an eternity if you go to see this Fringe Festival play at the Connelly Theater in the East Village. Despite valiant efforts on the part of several actors, and good overall production value, Anais Nin Goes To Hell is ultimately bogged down by its script and its 2-hour long length. Part of the problem with the play is its ambition. The press materials state, "David Stallings’ new comedy... explores the question of whether Sartre was right and hell really is other people, or whether we carry around our potential for damnation or salvation within ourselves."

To this end, like Caryl Churchill's Top Girls , Stallings' puts Queen Victoria, Joan of Arc, Cleopatra, Heloise (a 12th century nun), and Grecian Princess Andromedea together on an purgatorial island, ostensibly to wait for all eternity for their men to arrive.

The endless wait is punctuated by the arrival on the island of 20th century erotica writer and psychoanalyst Anais Nin, and shortly thereafter, by Oscar Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas.

The result is a talky and touchy-feely existential play that traces topics like sex, feminism and "the love that dare not speak its name" over gaps of many centuries. While this is an interesting premise, it does not succeed in execution. There are only rare moments when the audience is brought to care about a character, as is the case with Joan of Arc (a talented Colleen Piquette).

The script, though heavy-handed in psychoanalytic mirror imagery, is not entirely devoid of humor. In particular, Madalyn McKay as Queen Victoria and Jeremy King as Lord Alfred Douglas help to buoy the show and move the plot along. Shelly Feldman delivers as solid turn as Anais Nin.

Anais Nin Goes to Hell is part of the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival.

Out of Nowhere

No wonder TJ Jagodowski and Dave Pasquesi have a cult following among improvisation students across the country. These long-form improv masters, veterans of Chicago's famed Second-City and currently playing in a sporadic but open run at the Barrow Street Theater, are wildly gifted and a joy to watch. Creators of "insta-plays from scratch" according to their press kit, the two actors simply begin an entirely improvised 60-minute long play the moment the curtain goes up. The plays do not come from audience suggestions (as is the case with many improv shows) but instead sprout from nowhere but the actors' vivid imaginations.

And what imaginations! The plots of these mini-plays almost defy explanation, as Jagodowski and Pasquesi switch in-and-out of characters and incorporate each other's tiniest suggestions in the moment of the scene and, equally, into the ever-evolving backstory of the play.

On this particular evening, the show began with Anita, a lonely widow, chatting up Ron, the maitre d' at a French restaurant called the Bon Vivant, by telling him she felt she had one more great love left in her life.

Soon on the scene came Marcel, a singing waiter with a soft spot for "sweet Anita," eager to reveal his recent and surprising discovery that the scallop special was not made with real scallops but with shark fin instead.

In the words of the cook who enlightened Marcel about the culinary switcharoo, "Tell me, from a scallop, how many scallops do think you get? One. And how many do you think you can get from a huge shark tail?"

As far-fetched as some of the situations can become, both actors do in-depth character work on stage. Such serious acting work provides a sense of emotional truth that adds continuity and lends credibility to their performances, and is often quite moving.

"Yes, she's searching for love," says Marcel when Ron warns him that Anita is on the prowl. "But who isn't? I am always searching for love. All day, all the time. Aren't you?"

Both actors are verbally dexterious, with advanced degrees in double-entendre and aural nuance. And while their humour veers more towards the absurd and existential than to the blue (a weakness of much improv), the performance I saw did feature a perfectly timed one-liner about pulled pork, jerked chicken and beef strogonoff.

What makes TJ and Dave such an exceptional experience is not only how quickly and subtly their minds work in the real danger of spontaneous live performance, but also the trust and easy camraderie that is evident between the two actors. I highly recommend that you catch them during one of their Barrow Street Theater stints.

On-Key Comedy

It's the High School Musical of the a capella world mixed with the comic sensibility of Will and Grace . Part unabashed schtick and part schmaltz, Perfect Harmony , the Clurman Theater's latest offering about two high school acapella groups preparing for the national championship, is nonetheless thoroughly entertaining. This is in no small part due to clever writing by Andrew Grosso and to the able timing of most of this young and spirited cast, and in particular, to Sean Patrick Dugan and Kathy Searle in their dual roles.

The premise is fairly simple. There are two a capella groups, the uber-victorious Acafellas and the underappreciated Ladies in Red . Each group is comprised of distinct personalities that rub against each other in a desire to determine the direction of the group and the musical numbers to be presented at the national championships.

In the Acafellas , Senior "Pitch" Lassiter A. Jayson III (an appealing Vayu O'Donnell) has an artistic crisis-of-conscience that prompts him to want to expose the "ugly" underneath the "beautiful" in the music in order for it to be truly artistic. This move pits him directly against Philip Fellows V (Benjamin Huber) who is dead set on maintaining their successful formula and winning the national title at all costs, and by any dubious means.

Rounding out the Acafellas is a hunky former quarterback named JB (Scott Janes) who catches the eye of talent scout Kiki Tune (a hilarious Searle); a mute boy who sings, well named Jasper (Clayton Apgar); and Simon Depardieu (Dugan), a nebbishy freshman with a mouth full of canker sores.

The Ladies in Red are led by perfectionist Melody McDaniels (a crisp Dana Acheson) who must keep the nubile Meghan Beans (Amy Rutberg) from turning her conservative choreography into that of a Britney Spears video and/or stealing her boyfriend. Equally, Russian renegade Michaela (Searle) must be prevented from randomly changing the words to the songs-in-progress. Meanwhile, shy Valerie (in a lovely turn by Margie Stokley) is acutely glance-phobic and needs confidence boosting, while Turret's-striken stage manager Kerri Taylor (Nisi Sturgis) constantly blurts out obsenities at inopportune moments.

Musical numbers are woven into the groups' rehearsals and interspersed with monologues from individual a capella group members as well as members of their greater community, including a School Psychologist (Apgar) and a Vocal Therapist (Stugis). The musical performances themselves are certainly less effective than the irony that accompanies them.

Director Andrew Grosso uses the stage fully. The set design by Eliza Brown is simple but effective; and Becky Lasky's costumes (from naughty schoolgirl to icky talent manager to spacesuit and floor length plaid skirts) are tongue-in-cheek and contribute greatly to Perfect Harmony's overall effect of being well-produced.

Rather like Sour Cream & Onion Pringles or cheerleading movies like Bring It On , this show is a guilty pleasure. Its plot is so predictable at times that it almost shouldn't be as fun as it is to watch. And yet the writing is full of tiny, quick verbal surprises and original moments, and the cast is uniformally high energy. Recommended as an summer outing for a young audience.

Good Earnest Fun

For its latest production, The Pearl Theater Company delivers a tight and charming version of Oscar Wilde’s comedy of manners, The Importance of Being Earnest.Despite a few moments of wobbling British accents and slightly off-the-mark casting, theatergoers are nonetheless sure to have a very pleasurable evening.

Set in late Victorian England, the play is a comedic farce that explores social hypocrisy amongst the upper classes. Its two leading men, Algernon (Sean McNall) and Jack (Bradford Cover), will go to any lengths to avoid social obligations that they would rather skip.

To sneak off to the city and escape his attractive 18-year-old ward Cecily (a dewy Ali Ahn), Jack pretends that he has a troubled brother named Ernest, and actually assumes the name Ernest himself while in London, even wooing a woman under his false name. Meanwhile, to escape tiresome dinners with his Aunt, Algernon is constantly visiting an ailing friend named Bunberry, a move he calls "Bunberry-ing." And as the lies and false identities compound and intermingle, they result in some very funny situations.

Wilde's most popular play The Importance of Being Earnest is full of dry and deft lines, delivered with skill and timing by both McNall (who makes a delightful dandy) and the more rooted but also talented Cover. The two men play well off of each other, and the opening scenes fly by.

When Jack/Ernest's ladylove Lady Gwendolyn Fairfax (Rachel Botchan) arrives on the scene, Jack's newly proposed engagement with her risks being stymied by the imposing and socially conscious Lady Bracknell (a less convincing Carol Schultz), unless Jack can produce proof of suitable lineage.

Botchan adds a unique dimension to Lady Fairfax, portraying an intelligence and an edge not normally attributed to her character. As a result, it is somehow less believable to hear her proclaim herself simply incapable of marrying a man whose name is not Earnest.

McNall's scenes with Ahn, as Cecily, highlight the second act, and Ahn exhibits a comfortable ease with Wilde's language. There are also some nice moments in the competitive tete-a-tete tea scene between Botchan and Ahn.

Director J.R. Sullivan guides his actors well throughout, though there are some scenes that could have benefited from less static staging, especially in the latter half of the play.

Harry Feiner's sets are especially lovely in the third act, when they are tinged with dusky pinks, and Devon Painter's costumes contribute throughout to the period effect.

Joanne Camp and TJ Edwards are charming in their respective roles as Cecily's governess, Miss Prism, and her sweet love interest, the Reverend Canon Chausable. Dominic Cuskern turns in solid work in two minor servant roles.

Overall the play is good fun, with great writing and some very charismatic cast members. It's worth a see!

Check Please!

The Set-Up, a contemporary play about modern relationships featuring writer and director James Lindenberg, and currently playing at The ArcLight Theater, offers some laughs and some recognizable moments of dating angst but ultimately does not distinguish itself. In this new play, Bill and Doris, a happily married couple (Scott Cunningham and Jennifer Danielle) introduce two of their chronically single thirtysomething friends over dinner: Carolyn, a striking but tense Wall Street attorney (Tara Westwood) and Robert, a laid-back teacher (Lindenberg). While the pair do not seem an obvious match, their friends insist that they were made for each other.

The initial double-date is a disaster and touches nicely on some of the potential faux-pas of a set-up. Carolyn becomes annoyed at Robert's flirting with a young waitress (Tracey Weiner), and Robert is intimidated by the $250 bottle of wine that Carolyn orders and insists on paying for. To top it off, serious chinks in the armor of what seemed to be a solid marriage for Doris and Bill are revealed.

Over the course of the rest of the play, Doris and Bill’s marriage slowly unravels, as fate puts Carolyn and Robert in each others' paths again with unexpected results.

The strength of the play comes from the fact that the erstwhile couple exhibit both honesty and vulnerability in their sometimes very well-written monologues about the trials of being single in the city. Westwood in particular does a nice job in displaying a range of emotional colors. The scenes involving four characters are particularly enjoyable as the pace picks up and real tension becomes evident.

The less successful elements of the play are plot twists that are so neat as to be unbelievable, some patches of less-than-interesting dialogue, and an unnecessary scene involving Carolyn and her father.

Danielle turns in a solid performance as a frustrated wife, while Scott Cunningham’s Connecticut yuppie has a slightly forced overeager quality. In contrast to Carolyn and Robert, the characters of Bill and Doris do not seem three-dimensional, but are instead simple foils for the central love story.

Weiler shines in her cameo as the aggressive and oversexed waitress, and the dance sequence between her and lothario Tony (Major Dodge) is one of the highlights of the show. Dodge does fine work in his multiple roles of Tony and Ted, but misses the boat when playing Carolyn's father.

Overall, audience members will find some amusing moments in this uneven new play delivered by an energetic young cast.

Strangled In the Heat

No effort was spared in recreating the tropical feel of the Mexican coast in this current incarnation of Tennessee Williams’ The Night Of The Iguana at T. Schreiber Studios. George Allison’s lush set – which includes a thatched hut, exotic plants and actual rainfall – steamily ushers the audience into a world of lonely people fighting for their psychic lives in the heat of summer at the dilapidated Costa Verde Hotel. As a whole, the cast fares well over the course of this lengthy but well-directed show, which, like many of Williams’ later plays, examines the polarity between man’s bestial desire and his spiritual longing.

The lusty widow Maxine Faulk (a feisty Janet Saia) tends to the Costa Verde and copes with her husband’s recent death with the help of rum-cocos and romps with her hard-bodied houseboys, Pedro and Pancho. Rapacious and practical, it is clear from the start of the play that Maxine is determined to survive.

Perched more precariously on the divide between earthly hunger and spiritual striving is clergyman-on-the-verge Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon (the frenetic Derek Roche). An expelled minister turned travel guide, Shannon shows up at the hotel with a hijacked tour group of Baptist music teachers and a bus key that he refuses to surrender. Among the disgruntled traveling party is an irate church chaperone (Pat Patterson) -- prone to spitting out the word “defrocked” at the Reverend -- and her besotted underage prodigy (Alecia Medley,) whom Shannon has recently deflowered.

At any given lull, the Verde's lazy veranda is punctuated by a swarm of beefy and overbearing (remember the play is set in 1940) German tourists who heartily sing, slap and lift each other. Here as elsewhere, costume design by Karen Ann Ledger is precise and colorful.

Last to arrive are Nantucket spinster and gypsy portrait artist Hannah Jelkes (a touching Denise Fiore) and her distinguished grandfather, a 97-year old poet-on-demand (the lovely Peter Judd). This pair of creative hucksters, with a history of parlaying their artistic gifts into world travel on the pay-as-you-go plan, are at the end of their joint financial rope. With empty coffers, they have no choice but to appeal to the Widow Faulk to house them for the evening on credit.

In contrast to Maxine, the demure Hannah (whose exchanges with Shannon constitute much of the second act) would have Shannon return to his original spiritual leanings. At one point she tells him, “I respect a person that has had to howl and fight for his decency and bit of goodness much more than I respect the lucky ones that had theirs handed out to them at birth.” Fiore steals the show with her quiet understatement and deep sense of stillness, especially in this climatic scene.

Roche also does a soulful job throughout the play, especially in his more intense passages. Yet, while one feels Shannon’s spiritual thirst quite specifically in Roche's portrayal, one never quite feels that white-knuckling alcoholic thirst of the Black-Irish-on-the wagon that is intimated in the first act.

Also worth noting is Peter Aguero's fine and humorous performance as Jake Latta, and the plethora of tropical sounds that are provided by Chris Rummel.

For fans of Williams work, this lovingly presented version of The Night Of The Iguana is a must see.

HELL HATH NO FURY

Arthur Miller's brilliant play The Crucible , as seen with its sizeable cast of nineteen electric (if not equal) performers in a packed house at the ArcLight Theater, is a terrific show that offers its audience what is best about live theater – a palpable experience. From the moment spurned teenager Abigail Williams (Sherry Stregack) is caught in the woods with a gaggle of young friends performing a secret voodoo love ceremony to eliminate her married lover’s wife, Miller’s account of the 17th century witch trials in colonial Massachusetts builds to a natural frenzy.

To avoid punishment by Reverend Parris (a fierce Keith Barber), the young women begin-- in escalating fashion-- to accuse their neighbors of trafficking with the Devil. Outside metaphysical experts are brought in, like Reverend Hale (a nuanced Kevin Albert), to determine whether Black Arts are indeed afoot, until generalized hysteria swells and the misguided search leads many townspeople to needless execution.

Skilled direction from Pamela Moller Kareman aids this spirited cast (in a regional transfer from Croton Falls) to explore the pervasive dynamics of groupthink. A powerful allegory for the Senate Sub-Committee hearings on Un-American Activities, Miller’s small-town Salem residents undergo parallel conflicts of conscience – is it better to stand in truth and avoid devastating consequences (blacklisting?) or to name names and confess to imaginary crimes?

Standouts of the cast include the mesmerizing Sarah Bennett as Elizabeth Proctor, the upright wife of philanderer John Proctor (a hearty Simon McLean), and a wily John Tyrell as Gilles Correy, the lawsuit-bent farmer who famously cries out “more weight” as he is being pressed to death by heavy stones.

Also logging in with impressive work are Cheryl Orsini as Ann Putnam; Jennifer Hildner as Mercy Lewis, one of the young women in the accusatory posse; and Tyne Firmin as the implacable Judge Hawthorne. Kimberly Matela’s period costumes, David Pentz’s lighting and Matt Stine’s sound all add to the evening’s enjoyable effect.

Absent from the show, however, is the necessary sexual chemistry between John Proctor and an (otherwise very credible) Abigail. Also, the Barbadian nurse, Tituba (Walita) who spearheads the inciting voodoo ceremony (and choreographed the lovely opening dance sequence) is rather jarringly portrayed as being the same age as the other young women.

The Crucible is an excellent and still relevant play -- to think, a human rights group is currently appealing to the Saudi King to stop the execution of a woman accused of witchcraft in the town of Quraiyat. The play is currently being presented with committed and energetic acting by its entire cast at The ArcLight. Go see it.

SUBURBAN MESHUGAH (MADNESS)

Mike Leigh’s Two Thousand Years is a household drama about faith and family with a rhythm better suited to a British television serial than to a play. As a result, The New Group’s limited-run US production ultimately drags more than it pops, despite some sterling performances. "To be a free people in our own land is the hope of two thousand years," proclaims the Israeli anthem, Hatikvah . But for overweight and underemployed Josh (Jordan Gelber), a 28-year old still living in his parents’ secular home in suburban London, to be free to practice a more devout Orthodox faith without family ridicule seems a hopeless endeavor indeed.

Josh’s aging Leftist parents, Rachel and Danny (Laura Esterman and David Kale) are squarely hit in the face by their son’s atypical rebellion, symptoms of which include wearing a capple (Jewish skull-cap) around the house, maintaining a restricted diet, and performing a sort of prayer that involves wrapping his arms with plastic rope, making it look suspiciously -- religion as narcotic? -- like he is preparing to shoot heroin.

“It’s my choice,” says Josh, “If it gives me something, why can’t you just accept it?” And yet, Josh’s newfound religious devotion is somehow less pardonable to his parents than seven post-grad years without gainful employment.

“It’s like having a Muslim in the house,” says his father. For Rachel and Danny’s liberal household (presented as a comfy Pier-One style living room by set designer Derek McLane) is one in which Israeli policies (circa 2005) can be comfortably challenged over The Guardian or tea.

Add to the family brood a chain-smoking, steamrolling, former kibbutznik of a grandfather (the delightful Merwin Goldsmith as Dave); and a globetrotting human rights extrovert daughter (a juicy Natasha Lyonne as Tammy); and the cast for the Jewish family sitcom is complete.

Laura Esterman does a yeoman’s work in her role as the family pillar in this first act, carrying many of the more mundane passages with her deft physicality (down to synchronized head nodding).

But it's only in the second act that Two Thousand Years starts really moving, with a family crisis that forces everybody, including Rachel's long estranged sister Michelle (a plum role for the able Cindy Katz) and Tammy's new Israeli boyfriend Tzachi (Yuval Boim) to come together.

The comic relief offered by the narcissist merchant banker Michelle, whose selfish ways inspire an ire that collectively unites the family, is a welcome backdrop for more Middle Eastern debate as spurred by outsider Tzach (and the presence of Israel that he implies.)

Even if Michelle's character seems something of a foil, the heated political discussion in the second act emerges from a believable family in a specific situation rather than being superimposed onto a slow domestic rhythm as is the case in the first act.

The family dynamics of the play have much potential in other mediums, and kvetching about parking is certainly endearing and familiar enough. But while certain family members are fleshed out enough to identify with (even the curmudgeonly grandfather), the potentially sympathetic Josh (whose brooding does not belie enough stifled rage) is harder to discern, and thus harder to care about.

While many interesting topics are touched upon by this British family from Cricklewood, from the Zionist ideal, West Bank/Gaza Strip, Israeli security, Venezualan referendum, and suicide bombs, to the Americans (they do what they want), the play remains curiously disjointed in its bridge between family, religion and politics.

Dirty Old Mastermind

The pursuit of sex, and the humor in the pursuit of sex, seem never to go out of style. The scandalous pleasure that Niccolo Machiavelli’s most famous non-political play, The Mandrake , generated among Italian audiences back in 1518 (it is said even Pope Leo X was “intrigued”) can still be found in sections of this Pearl Theater Company production. The bawdiness of the play, translated here by Peter Constantine, operates as both a strength and a weakness in this particular version of the classical sex farce. At its best moments, the show is a well-directed ensemble comedy with brisk pacing and well-researched movement. But, at its worst, the (blue) humor seems stretched and thin, and the actors come off as infantile caricatures.

Machiavelli’s tribute to ancient Greek and Roman comedy, The Mandrake , tells of a young Florentine named Callimaco (Erik Steele) who will go to any means to justify his lusty ends, and to sleep with the beautiful and married Lucrezia. To do so, he hatches a devious plot with the help of an unemployed matchmaker, Ligurio(Bradford Cover), to convince Lucrezia's plodding husband (Dominic Cuskern) that in order for the couple to conceive a child, Lucrezia must drink a mandrake root potion and sleep with a total stranger (who will die shortly thereafter.)

Dominic Cuskern, who plays the soon-to-be cuckolded husband to the wily team of Callimaco & Ligurio (who do their best work off of each other), is the standout actor of the show. Both likeable and a complete comic putz as Messer Nicia, Cuskern's work is real and measured, never over the top, even in the most schticky scenes that have him feigning deafness while Ligurio bribes a money hungry Friar (TJ Edwards) to further persuade Lucrezia to surrender her virtue in accordance with the new plan.

Scenes involving multiple characters proved most funny and effective, as the actors' timing generally worked when in a group. And there was a welcome sense, from many of the actors (including Steele, Cover and TJ Edwards) that small pieces of stage business had been thoroughly explored for effect.

In period costumes by Barbara Bell, the actors made good use of Harry Feiner's set of the town of Florence. In particular, the long-anticipated evening of lovemaking between Lucrezia and Callimaco was inventively staged.

While not without flaws, this Renaissance comedy revived by The Pearl Theater Company merits a viewing for the timelessness of its humor, and some memorable moments created by its actors.

Brief Beauties

There is a tremendous fusion of talent in this New York Theater Workshop offering of Beckett Shorts. The production, which features four one-act plays by Samuel Beckett (two of which are completely silent), sprouted from a 2006 workshop under the direction of Joanne Aklaitis, and features refined staging and acting. But it is the subtle and inspired choices in set, lighting, sound, video and costume design that transform it into a feast for the senses. Whether, in the made-for television short "Eh Joe," watching split-second thoughts register in the soulful eyes and facial tics of Mikhail Baryshnikov (as Joe) in a video close-up projected onto the curtain (behind which he is visible sitting listlessly on his bed), or listening to the gorgeous voice of actress Karen Kandel, as she narrates Joe’s interior monologue in alternately caressing and accusatory tones, the effect is powerful and minute.

Also eerie but effective are the thin V-shaped rivets of sand that funnel hauntingly over and down from the elevated ridge in “Act Without Words II” to join the beach that is Alexander Brodsky’s stunning set. Lit with implicit bleakness by Jennifer Tipton, it is hemmed in by a sea of surrounding window blinds. All closed, of course.

Who could resist the sly humor of a palm tree descending from the ceiling to open like a beach umbrella? Or the effortless physicality that Baryshnikov displays when falling sideways in the Charlie Chaplin like meditation on thwarted desire that is “Act Without Words I?” There is much left open for individual interpretation in the visual complexity of these silent plays from an author whose view of human nature was so often grim.

What is the meaning, after all, of the ominous Phillip Glass music playing as a giant metal arrow prods two humans pods along the assembly line of time/routine much as an avid spermatazoid would prod an egg? For this reviewer, it seemed an appropriate choice to reflect Beckett's known view of habit and routine as "a cancer of time."

Regardless of what an audience fills into the silences and symbolism of Beckett, one thing about this particular production is certain. Even its smallest design details convey an undercurrent of mortality and claustrophobia that remains consistent throughout the show.

Waning fall foliage is suggested by the earth tones of Kaye Voyce’s spot-on costume design in “Rough For Theater 1,” which first introduces the human voice into the performance. In this play, an old man with one leg who is bound to a wheelchair (a voracious Bill Camp) befriends a blind musician, with questions like, “What befell you? Women? Gambling? God?”

For some, Beckett is an acquired taste, and this production doesn't spare its audience the full impact of arguably depressing themes. Yet the blending together of so many astute and excellent theater elements in doing so, makes it an evening you don't want to miss.

GUESS WHO'S BACK IN TOWN

The curtain opens on a dishevelled Bubba (Travis York) lying on the floor wearing only one orange sock, yards away from a contraption of bottles and gongs he has rigged to periodically go off and force him to pay attention. Pay attention to what, one might ask? And ask again when this play's rather arresting beginning begins to disintegrate into too many scenes with slow pacing and mundane dialogue before tying up all its plot elements neatly in the end.

(Pay attention to his research is the correct answer.)

Bubba's research involves investigating the history of ghosts in the town where he has grown up and still lives, albeit housebound and morose since his former girlfriend D'Lady (a crisp Sarah Kate Jackson) ran off three years ago.

As it turns out, once on the road, D'Lady also abandoned her partner-in-illicit-getaway and Bubba's best friend Jimmy (Mark David Watson). Abruptly ditched in Colorado, Jimmy then fell in love with a mystical woman living in a melon patch named Betsy (Keira Keeley), who has since hitchhiked to town on a mission to find Jimmy.

Other local inhabitants include community pillar and resident kill-joy Gloria (a dogged Marielle Heller) and Roy and Amory, a young married couple trying to conceive. Gloria eventually rescues the homeless waif Betsy (decidely lacking in any discernable skills beyond the melon patch) and showers passive-aggression on her newly dependent boarder.

D'Lady returns to town as the prodigal bad girl, stirring up layers of buried emotion in those who previously knew her. These scenes stood out because the tension during them was real, including an uneasy exchange between D'Lady and the married Roy (Ben Scaccia) and a heartfelt confrontation with Bubba.

However, one gets the impression that the playwright lacked faith that the story of a woman returning to face the wreckage of her past and the commotion she stirs up would be compelling enough without the extracurricular ghost activities. Unfortunately, these forays into the supernatural are confusing and distract from the main plot. The supernatural themes that continue throughout the play (imagined ghost sightings and the endless melon patch monologues) never really work except as a vague metaphor for people who find their way to this small town for resolution of some sort.

Solid direction and moments of honest acting by some of the cast (Travis York and a physically expressive Havilah Brewster as Amory in particular) helped to overcome the more confusing etheral elements. Yet, despite its promising patches, the play did not succeed in commanding my sustained attention.

NOT JUST ANOTHER FACE IN THE CROWD

"They are the exact same color as my eyes. How impressive is that?" says no-nonsense businesswoman Ellen (a skilled and nuanced Esther Barlow) as she delights in a pair of earrings gifted to her by an anonymous suitor. "I am going to marry this person one day - I swear to God." Such is the tenuous conceit on which hinges this sometimes quite funny play executed by a thoroughly likeable cast. Can Jenny, the beautiful and seemingly ditzy lesbian lawyer-to-be (energetically played by Jennifer Laine Williams) win over workaholic Ellen by playing secret admirer? Can she get Ellen to see that she is the right "human" for her and not the right man she expected?

To the cast’s credit, they wring a great deal indeed from this questionable plot with the sheer exuberance of young actors who like to entertain and give themselves over fully to the job. It helps that the script is peppered with good one-liners.

Smitten Jenny is aided in her Cyrano-like pursuit by Ellen’s close confidante and gift-planting officemate Peter (Philip Graeme). Peter’s family seems to weigh heavily on his mind and impinge upon his daily life. Between a dotty cat-loving sister (camped up by playwright and actress Kate Hewlett) engaged to a witheringly shy boyfriend (Dustin Olson), and a lousy relationship with his cold and homophobic father, it’s a wonder Peter has time for his boyfriend of the same name (and numerous name-gags) Peter.

But, as Ellen’s romance in absentia blossoms (devoid of any connection to sparked real-life encounters with dreaded Jenny-of-the-Coffee-Shop), Peter must ask her if she is finally ready to surrender her rigidity and face her fears.

Fear is a topic discussed at length in the play. All of the characters are introduced (and brought back for intermittent monologues) via a 12-step meeting device -- where they confess their deepest fears (dogs, cats, infertility, being alone forever...with cats)to the audience. This technique is partially effective (and even, at one point, quite startling) yet can occasionally feel contrived.

Director Robin A. Paterson uses the stage well, as scenes shift easily from Ellen's office, the local coffee shop, and the 12-step style meeting of which the audience is a part.

For all the perpetual chatter about deep-seated fears, one might expect Humans Anonymous to be heavier and more probing than it actually is. The play is not a serious opus on the fear of homosexuality, and although it touches lightly on that nerve, lightly -- as in lighthearted fun --is the operative word.

Humans Anonymous succeeds mainly on the strength of the chemistry and timing of Williams & Barlow (both fine actresses) and the playwright’s sense of humor, which periodically bubbles over the top. It’s a good choice for a young crowd looking for an enjoyable night out at the theater.