Offoffonline — Off Off Online

Chloe Edmonson

,

Unmaking Toulouse-Lautrec

,
Unmaking Toulouse-Lautrec

Although the Parisian cabaret the Moulin Rouge was most recently popularized by Baz Luhrmann’s fantastical 2001 film musical, it was French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s posters that brought fame to the venue during its original heyday in the late 19th century. Colorful and grotesque, his works depicted the excess, revelry, and bohemian lifestyles that defined the neighborhood of Montmartre at that time. In Unmaking Toulouse-Lautrec, Bated Breath Theatre Company delivers a quick and dirty look at the man behind the paintings in NoHo’s sexy, velvet-saturated bar Madame X (a venue that befits the bordello stylings of the production’s historical time period).

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
,

Say Something Bunny!

,
Say Something Bunny!

Old photographs, dusty VHS tapes, and newspaper clippings: though these objects might seem like mundane clutter, there is some truth to the old adage that “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Indeed, there is a distinct thrill that accompanies the discovery of a particularly poignant piece of nostalgia, and it is this curious excitement upon which Say Something Bunny!, an innovative piece of theater by Alison S.M. Kobayashi and UnionDocs, thrives.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
,

Cleopatra

,
Cleopatra

If you think a mega-famous pop star like Beyoncé and an ancient Egyptian queen like Cleopatra have nothing in common, think again. They are both worshipped religiously by their followers, both have expensive taste in clothes and jewelry, and both have a penchant for dating famous bad boys. Or at least those are the parallels teased out by the new immersive pop musical Cleopatra, now playing at the Chelsea Music Hall venue. In this production, historical accuracy goes out the window in favor of flashy dance numbers, sultry love ballads, and audience involvement. Cleopatra is equal parts drag show, pop concert, and Broadway musical, and, though it has some rough edges, it is surely a good time.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
,

The Hidden Ones

,
The Hidden Ones

During the Holocaust, the atrocities of the Nazi regime forced countless Jewish families and individuals into hiding. Though they were not interned in concentration camps, these stowaways were subjected to another, silent, reign of terror—in which every creak and cough could result in discovery, detainment, and almost certain death. Thus, the scene is set for The Hidden Ones, an immersive theater production that brings audiences into the secret hiding place of two families at the end of World War II

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
, ,

This Is When We Rest

, ,

An asteroid collides with Earth in just over an hour. You are at an apartment party in New York City with eight people whom you know from various stages of your life. What do you discuss with them? What is going through your mind? Do you have any regrets? These are the large, existential questions brought forth by Part Two of Live In Theatre’s This Is When We Rest, an apocalyptic theater experience designed by Leland Masek that combines Live Action Role Play (LARP) gaming and participatory theater.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
,

Scraps

,

Scraps, a new work by award-winning playwright Geraldine Inoa, begins like an ancient Greek play would—with a prologue that sets the stage for the drama. In Scraps, however, a character, Jean-Baptiste (Roland Lane) raps the prologue from the stoop of an apartment building in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. “Allow me to be your Greek chorus,” he says to the audience, and his rhymes paint a portrait of the neighborhood in 2014, where the injustices of police violence are keenly felt. Indeed, a police officer has just shot neighborhood local Forest Winthrop, who was on the way home with diapers for his son.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
,

The Trial of Typhoid Mary 1915

,

Since 2009, Live In Theater has reimagined the murder mystery genre by staging historic events within various nontraditional theatre spaces throughout New York City. The group specializes in interactive, true crime stories, putting some audience members at the center of the action. In The Trial of Typhoid Mary 1915, viewers are faced with the case of Mary Mallon, a domestic cook for affluent New York families during the early 1900s. As a silent carrier of the contagious bacteria that causes typhoid fever, Mallon infected more than 50 New Yorkers, resulting in at least three deaths. However, while Mallon was certainly not the only carrier of the disease, her status as an immigrant woman may have disadvantaged her in the justice system. It is up to the audience to decide whether Typhoid Mary should remain in quarantine for the rest of her natural life or be set free.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
, ,

KPOP

, ,
KPOP

Ars Nova’s KPOP begins with a chorus of glittering young Korean pop performers belting the lyrics “the future’s standing right in front of you.” Indeed, the purported mission of the play’s fictional management enterprise, JTM Entertainment, is to bring K-Pop to American audiences, and the production delivers K-Pop-styled numbers in droves. 

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
, ,

3/Fifths

, ,
3/Fifths

The “whites only” and “colored only” entrances to the immersive portion of 3/Fifths at 3LD Art & Technology Center in lower Manhattan are visible not only to wary ticket-holders, but to everyday pedestrians who happen to pass by the glass façade. Indeed, 3/Fifths holds a funhouse mirror to systemic racism in America by uniting the reality of everyday injustice with immersive theatrical experience.  

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
,

Pool Play 2.0

,

Plenty of New Yorkers are familiar with plays performed in parks, bars, or museums. But a play in a pool? This is Not a Theatre Company’s Pool Play 2.0 is just that, taking place in an indoor swimming pool at Waterside Plaza Swim and Health Club (it should be noted that This is Not a Theatre Company is known for its experimental approaches to performance space).  Each audience member receives a poncho upon entering the warm, chlorine-infused pool space, and is invited to pick any bath mat as a seat; at the pool’s edge, the audience's feet dangle into the water. The uniqueness of Pool Play 2.0 does not end with its nontraditional performance space, however. The play's text, its staging, and the committed actors collaborate to provide a fun yet thought-provoking treatment of something nearly everyone has experienced: a day at the pool. 

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
,

Beneath the Gavel

,
Beneath the Gavel

The project of Connecticut-based Bated Breath Theatre Company is to devise theatrical productions in partnership with museums. For its Off-Broadway debut, the troupe has collaborated with the New Britain Museum of American Art to create Beneath the Gavel, which offers a mêlée of perspectives on the visual art world: the fast-paced realm of auctions, the struggle of young artists to make a living, and the larger picture of art history and its various historical movements. While each one of these approaches to the art world would makes for an interesting and meaty show, Beneath the Gavel tries to treat them all, and suffers because of it.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
,

The Strangest

,
The Strangest

The Fourth Street Theater is currently unrecognizable, as the theater company known as Semiotic Root has transformed the space into an intimate storytelling café—the sort found in North Africa. A patchwork of Persian carpets covers every inch of the floor, and hanging lanterns cast a warm glow across the carved wooden tables and plush floor cushions. The scent of strong coffee wafts through the air, and audience members are invited to help themselves to a cup. The setting is for playwright Betty Shamieh’s The Strangest, an absurdist murder mystery inspired by the unnamed Arab killed in Albert Camus’ classic novel, The Stranger, which is an emblem of mid-20th-century French existentialism.

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post
,

Home/Sick

,
Home/Sick

The Weather Underground Organization, also know as the Weathermen, was a grassroots collective of white radical leftists who subscribed to a militant, anti-capitalist ideology. Splintering off from a larger organization called Students for Democratic Society (SDS) in the late 1960s, the Weather Underground believed in violence as a form of protest. Home/Sick is The Assembly’s theatrical reimagining of the Weather Underground’s founding, development, and eventual disbandment.  Written collectively by members of The Assembly, Home/Sick is a dynamic and thorough piece of devised theater that highlights the complex philosophies, political struggles, and practical idiosyncrasies behind the Weather Underground’s bygone revolution. 

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post

Rule of 7x7

Rule of 7x7

With a whole host of traditional plays and musicals available to choose from, it is sometimes refreshing when theater artists in New York City experiment with form. Creator and producer Brett Epstein’s Rule of 7x7 is just that: an experiment in playwriting wherein seven playwrights each declare a “rule” that must be incorporated into each play. These rules range from a word, a line, or a specific stage direction. To intensify the process, the artists involved have just one month to mount these short plays from conception to performance. 

Click for print friendly PDF version of this blog post