Naturalism with a Southern Twang

One of August Strindberg’s most famous plays, Miss Julie, has been widely produced and adapted around the world.  Recently, August Strindberg Repertory Theatre has kept the play in the year 1888, but relocated it from a farmhouse in Sweden to a plantation house in antebellum Louisiana.  Also, this version of Miss Julie takes place on the bacchanalian occasion of Mardis Gras.  Edgar Chisholm’s adaptation of language in the script makes this production’s geographical relocation work well, as does the costume design by Marisa Ferrara.  On the other hand, some of the confusing directorial and acting decisions pull this production in another, more discordant, direction.

There are several key visual moments emblematic of Strindberg’s Miss Julie, and this production’s greatest strength lies in the fact that it highlights them all without being fussy or contrived.  In fact, director Robert Greer subtly seems to slow down time with the boot-kissing scene; the image of John (played by Reginald L. Wilson) slowly pressing his lips to the extended boot of Julie (played by Ivette Dumeng) is both erotic and disturbing.  Other well-done iconic moments are the placement of the master’s boots and coat prominently so that they oppressively loom with his presence from slightly upstage, and John’s beheading of Julie’s bird at the end of the play.  With these moments in mind, it is clear that both director and production team have done their homework, and they succeed in capturing Strindberg’s quintessential staging moments without overdoing them.

On the other hand, there is one moment that is less popular in the production history of Miss Julie: the interim ballet.  According to Strinberg’s original stage directions, this strange interlude involves a parade of peasants that pours into the kitchen while John and Julie abscond into his room to have sex.  Meant to evoke and eclipse the main characters’ illicit sex act, this weird sequence is often eschewed by contemporary directors who seek to maintain the play’s naturalistic core.  Strindberg Rep has decided to stage the ballet, but in a contemporary fashion in a sequence choreographed by Ja’ Malik.  Rather than have a whole troupe of peasants invade the kitchen, Malik has choreographed a sexually-charged dance for two.  While dancers Alison MacDonald and Brian Binion are strong, beautiful, and talented, their choreography is much too literal.  Their sequence eventually culminates in faux-fornication atop the kitchen table. Awkward and clearly fake, this choreographic choice mostly defeats the suggestive potential of dance and robs the sequence of its mystery and eroticism.

In his preface to the play, Strindberg described the titular character in his preface to Miss Julie as a “a victim of the errors of an age, of circumstances, and of her own deficient constitution.”  While Dumeng certainly victimizes Julie as deficient and tortured, I wish that Greer had encouraged Dumeng to harness more of an internal power and tension – a tension that must be present for Julie to believably “snap” in the end.  Furthermore, the lack of tangible passion between Julie and John makes their night of passion seem contrived.  With the exception of a few too contemporary sleights of speech, Wilson nails his southern accent, but Dumeng’s accent distracts by sounding affected and inconsistent.  Eboni Flowers stands out in the small but powerful part of Christine: her physical poise and vocal conviction make Strindberg’s character truly shine.

Overall, this is a clean production in the sense that it honors and perfects Miss Julie’s classic moments.  The interim ballet is commendable in its experimental spirit, but its literalness falls short of real eroticism.  The acting is strong in moments, but the developmental arc of John and Julie’s romance needs more detailing.  For those interested in Miss Julie, its adaptations, and its history, this production is definitely worth seeing.

Miss Julie runs to November 8, 2014 at the Gene Frankel Theatre on 24 Bond Street (between Bowery and Lafayette in the East Village).  Shows are Tuesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 1:30 p.m. Tickets are $18 general admission; seniors and students $12; student groups $9. You can buy tickets by calling SMARTTIX at 212-868-4444 or at www.smarttix.com.

Surrounded by Aching Hearts

Dating in New York City has often been represented in situation and romantic comedies, from On the Town to First Date the Musical, and on TV shows like Sex and the City. In fact, the neuroses and eccentricities of New York singles have provided inexhaustible fodder for playwrights and screenwriters.

Add to this mix director Michael Counts’s immersive theater experience, Play/Date, a collection of 22 one-act plays about the dating scene in the Big Apple. The plays—which stage hookups, breakups, and everything in between—take place simultaneously in an actual nightclub, Fat Baby, on the Lower East Side. This production’s greatest strengths lie in its design: the stimulating lighting by Ryan O'Gara and Marcello Añez’s sexy soundtrack, along with Counts’s staging, create an experience that surrounds the audience. The production’s weakness, however, is an overall inability to convey many honest or original messages about the trials and tribulations of dating in New York City.

Just as any other night at Fat Baby, audience members must wait behind velvet ropes before entering Play/Date. Though the interior of the club is emptier than it would be on a regular night, the rave lights are on, and the bar is open. But the bar is only one of the spaces where these solo and small-cast one-acts take place: various concurrent scenes take place at the tables upstairs, on the dance floor, and in dark enclaves around the club. There is even a series of projections, in which the texts of a character on a cellphone are displayed on the wall behind them.

For the most part, the simultaneity and technique of the short plays are managed impressively well, though there are some moments when it is hard to hear performers. As with many immersive productions, audience members are generally able to roam about and watch any scenario they like; these free-form periods are interspersed with moments when the action comes together in choreographed spectacle. As the plays progress, characters and audience become progressively drunker—for the performers, this means the usual fights, along with regrettable phone calls and lurid meet-ups in bathroom stalls. Because of these simultaneous storylines, one will find it impossible to see everything that Play/Date has to offer in just one visit.

While the physical space of the nightclub is thrilling to explore, and the ensemble is talented and committed, the plays that I encountered do not really say anything new or different about New York City dating. Overall, they mostly redistribute the tired narratives that are already prevalent in television, movies, and theater. Many of the plays overreach in their commentary on technology and its insipid ubiquity through dating websites, social media, and smartphones.  

Although there are some unexpected moments involving hand puppets, alien conspiracy, and a random shirtless woman, they are overshadowed by the production's sexiness, reading ultimately as trite rather than meaningful. Overall, there is something more generous to be said about dating in this crazy city, something that these plays are too short and too scattered to capture. Play/Date is worth seeing for its production elements and site-specific location, but do not expect to walk away with an especially nuanced understanding of the New York City dating experience.

Show times for Play/Date are Sunday through Wednesday at 8 p.m. at Fat Baby (112 Rivington St., between Essex and Ludlow streets, on the Lower East Side). Tickets start at $55 for general admission; reserved tables are $75. The new $95 "Friends with Benefits" ticket option includes reserved priority table seating with waiter service, plus an opportunity to fully interact with the performers in specially created scenes that take place at the table. Tickets are available by calling Ovationtix at 866-811-4111 or visiting www.playdateny.com.

Invest In Your Theater Experience

If you thought Governors Island was only for bicycling, picnics and electronic music concerts — think again! Because theater visionaries David Evans Morris and Kristin Marting have transformed the island's historic Pershing Hall into a "living market" for their latest immersive theater creation entitled Trade Practices, which kicks off the 2014-15 season at HERE Arts Center. Like our nation's economy, Trade Practices is intricately structured and impossible to wrap your head around. The rooms of Pershing Hall have been transformed into departments of a fictional currency-printing corporation, Tender, Inc. Each audience member receives a roll of cash and, accordingly, the power to invest their time and "money" into whichever storyline they choose. Part of the fun and frustration of Trade Practices (and immersive theater in general) is knowing that every audience member's experience must be different, and that one can't possibly see or experience everything.

By dividing the threads of action into separate spaces, Marting and Morris have created for themselves an unprecedented freedom to play with style and form. Within each plot line, the collaborators dive enthusiastically into genres such as satire, participatory theater, dance, melodrama, musical theater, and so much more. More emphasis is placed on unity of theme or thought than stylistic or aesthetic unity (as in Punchdrunk's cinematic behemoth of immersive theatre, Sleep No More). Yet this schizophrenia of style works wonderfully for the piece, ensuring that audience members are never, ever bored and never, ever sure what is going to come next. 

A particularly charming stylistic tangent is the musical numbers performed in the "Owners" story line, as well as every incident of full-ensemble choreography that takes place on the trade floor, where the entire audience convenes between each plot episode. These dance numbers smack of the virtuosic yet amateurish choreography of Elevator Repair Service productions, as well as the quirkily empowered dance moments in the work of Young Jean Lee (no surprise since Trade Practices incorporates actors and collaborators from both). Fully committed to the song and dance, the brilliant ensemble cast is present at every moment — be it wacky, heartfelt or politically charged.  

The complexity and thought behind the text of Trade Practices (written by Eisa Davis, Robert Lyons, Erin Courtney, Qui Nguyen, KJ Sanchez, and Chris Wells) indicates some serious dramaturgy and research, and the program indicates a bevy of bankers and financial workers that lent their knowledge to the project. There are times, however, that the finance-speak becomes overwhelming for those of us without a banking background. Rather than weighing down the piece, however, these moments only serve to enhance the feeling of intricacy and insurmountability of the economy — a formidable beast of our own creation. For audience members who are finance-savvy, the moments of intense economic debate are likely to be stimulating. Regardless, Trade Practices manages to unmask the relationship between money, power and the human condition. The results are messy, but undoubtedly thought-provoking (and worth the ferry ride to Governors Island).

Trade Practices ran until Sept. 21 at HERE Arts Center (145 Avenue of the Americas). For more information, please visit www.here.org. 

Boxing Meets Broadway

Boxing. Broadway. Sound like uncommon bedfellows? Think again, because the current production of Rocky on Broadway — recently imported from its debut in Germany — successfully marries sports and big-budget theater.  Storytelling is not the goal of this musical, since most of the audience members are familiar with the underdog plot line of Sylvester Stallone's 1976 sports drama flick. Instead, Rocky is all about spectacle; in fact, the best thing about this musical is that it is unapologetically popular: loud, obvious and for the masses. Like any proper sporting event, Rocky is above all meant to be fun —  and in spite of its tired and uncomplicated storyline — it is quite possibly the most fun production on Broadway right now.

Rocky's strengths lie in its visual attractions. Supplying plenty of eye candy, Andy Karl (as Rocky Balboa) and Terence Archie (as Apollo Creed) lead a ripped ensemble of boxers, who spend most of their stage time half-clothed. On the design side, Dan Scully and Pablo N. Molina's cinematic montages of Rocky training flicker onto towering concrete facades of South Philly — a beautiful link to the musical's filmic heritage. The awe-inspiring sets designed by Christopher Barreca transition fluidly between Rocky's gritty apartment, a meat locker and a floating boxing ring. Visually citing famous scenes from the movie, part of the fun of Rocky is recognizing these iconic cinematic moments on stage. Even David Zinn's costume design is citational, skillfully duplicating Rocky's famous leather jacket and fedora hat.

With all this visual splendor, Rocky succeeds in delivering high-volume, in-your-face action in droves (especially in the second act). As mentioned before, however, this musical relies heavily on audience knowledge of the film's plot to "fill in the blanks" of its rather stupefying script. Adrian's abrupt disappointment in Rocky's decision to fight Apollo Creed, for example, is less contrived in the film. No bones about it, though: this musical is wholly unconcerned with plot development. Rather, its primary concern is to reproduce and spectacularize the relics of Stallone's filmic legacy. In a more serious genre, this would be a problem; but again, Rocky only presents itself at face value. It's a sports film musical — what more do you want?

Musically, however, Rocky falls somewhat flat. While dynamic songwriting team Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens' music and lyrics are enjoyable, they are not catchy upon first listen. Do not expect Rocky to deliver an exceptionally innovative musical score that will have you humming all the way home to Brooklyn. Similarly, do not expect performers with unmatchable vocal gravitas. This is not to say that the vocal performances are sub par: the chorus is certainly powerful as one, and Karl and Margo Seibert (as Adrian) match each others' tones quite well. Simply put, Rocky's production value depends far more on adrenaline-inducing spectacle than musical ingenuity.

The moral of Rocky's story is to come for the spectacle and stay for the boxing match. If you're looking for mindless summer fun and are sick of bumming around the movie theater, give Rocky a go.

Tickets for Rocky can be purchased at the Winter Garden Theatre (1634 Broadway between 50 and 51st Sts.) by visiting Telecharge.com or by calling 212-239-6200. Performances run Monday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. A limited number of day-of-show rush tickets will be available at the box office on a first-come, first-served basis. Rush tickets are $35 (Tuesday through Friday) and $45 (Saturday and Sunday). Rush tickets will be become available at 10 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and noon on Sunday for performances on the same day. Rush tickets are subject to availability and limited to two per person.

Central Park or the Forest of Arden

Often, when New Yorkers think of theatre in Central Park, they think of the Public's Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte Theatre. Flying under the radar of the Delacorte, however, are other theatrical happenings taking place in the nooks and crannies of Central Park.  One of these lesser-known jewels is the New York Classical Theatre, who have been performing their signature "panoramic theatre" in public outdoor spaces such as Central Park, Prospect Park and Battery Park since 2000.  Under the artistic direction of Founder Stephen Burdman, the New York Classical Theatre has most recently applied their panoramic style (a roving, interactive experience that adapts each script to its location) to Shakespeare's As You Like It.  While staging moveable theatre in a park has its obvious difficulties -- such as lighting, sound, and seat comfort -- the overall experience of As You Like It is a delightful summer treat for all ages.

The performances in this play deserve special applause.  While some of the movement is a bit grandiose, this is probably an attempt to fill the unique and sprawling space of Central Park-as-stage.  The cast works together to keep energy high and the pace clipping.  Rin Allen breathes new life into the cross-dressing Rosalind, delivering her lines with vocal color and physical playfulness.  Clay Storseth delivers Jaques' beloved "All The World's a Stage" monologue with insightful nuance.  Also notable is Antoinette Robinson's sassy Phoebe.  Overall, the ensemble has an excellent command of Shakespearean language, making the plotline accessible to even the most inexperienced Shakespeare audiences.

New York Classical Theatre employs crafty design techniques to overcome the obstacles of staging As You Like It outdoors.  Once the sun goes down, company interns whip out an arsenal of flashlights to light the action.  While only partially effective in illuminating the faces of the actors, this makeshift lighting technique creates a magical, "summer camp" type of atmosphere that trumps any expensive lighting system in town.  Similarly, without amplification, the actors must use extra projection to compete with the rich soundscape of the park:  birds, crowds of tourists, people on cell phones, passing ambulances, etc.  These moments of aural interference, however, only enhance the excitement created by the re-articulation of a public space like Central Park.  As you move from scene to scene, be sure to sit close to the action so you can catch most of the lines spoken by the talented performers.  Also, since you will be sitting on the ground, bringing a picnic blanket might not be a bad idea. 

Unlike the Shakespeare in the Park series at the Delacorte, audiences need not wait in long lines to get tickets.  New York Classical Theatre productions are completely free and you can show up at any time to join.  For anyone who enjoys both serious theatre and summer fun, As You Like It is an enchanting summer treat.

Performances of As You Like It runs at Central Park (West 103rd Street and Central Park West) on Thursdays through Sundays until June 22. Performances in Prospect Park (Long Meadow near the Picnic House - 5th Street and Prospect Park West) run every night, June 24–29. Performances in Battery Park (meet in front of Castle Clinton) run Tuesday through Sunday, July 1– 27. All performances are free, begin promptly at 7 p.m., and last two hours. For more information, call 212-252-4531 or visit www.newyorkclassical.org.

A Pirate Quagmire

Exiled dissident Edward Snowden shivers in a cramped cabin in Siberia. William Kidd is hung for piracy charges that he didn’t commit. A young Bobby Culliford is both a victim of bullying and bully himself. What do these scenarios have in common? Pretty much nothing and Nolan Kennedy’s original play Bully Me Down does little to convince us otherwise. While the enthusiasm of Letter of Marque Theater Company’s gung-ho ensemble is admirable at the very least, their performance chops are overwhelmed by Bully Me Down’s baffling quagmire of a script. 

It would be one thing if Bully Me Down’s chief flaw were the discordance of its three outrageous plotlines, but there’s something even more disturbing about the tone and content of this script. While it’s somewhat socially acceptable to crack jokes about a whistleblower like Edward Snowden, and even more appropriate to lampoon a several-hundred year-old seaman like William Kidd, the theme of bullying seems to be in an entirely different (and more serious) realm. The bullied teenager Bobby (played by Scarlet Rivera) delivers a school speech about “bullycide,” which is the unfortunate neologism for bully-related suicide. Instead of driving home any real message about this real-world problem, Bobby’s subplot smacks of a bad after-school special, dreadfully eclipsing the actual gravity of the actual issue of bullying. It’s worse than off-color, it's insensitive; and this play would be better off without it.

Despite it's dramaturgical sufferings, Bully Me Down does have certain points of charm.  Worth the trip to Brooklyn itself is a puppet version of Barbara Walters from the bust up, designed and constructed by Serra Hirsch. Especially agile at Barbara-handling is Welland H. Scripps, who manages to coyly flash the puppet’s red-lacquered fingernails as she conducts her interviews with various characters throughout the play. All of the performer’s accents, especially Scripps’ and Kennedy’s, are delightfully overdone and consistent. Also of note is the company’s original and re-imagined musical score: the tune of the song, “Bully Me Down,” is sure to stick in your head, and the musical fun continues during a wacky dumbshow during intermission. Best of all, the performances are free and take place in various bars around Brooklyn, so you can have a beer with locals and enjoy the community vibe.

Overall, Letter of Marque Theater Company’s Bully Me Down suffers from some pretty serious dramaturgical tangles, as well as some unfortunate staging decisions (like word association during improv scene transitions). The script could use renovation, and the cast another week of rehearsals. That being said, you could do worse on a weeknight than hang out in a bar watching some weird (and free) community theater. So if you’re in for a silly and irreverent time: grab a beer, turn off your inner critic, and give Bully Me Down a try.

Bully Me Down runs through May 21 at various bars around Brooklyn. Performances are Sunday through Wednesday at 8 p.m., except for Sunday, May 18, when the performance starts at 3 p.m. Tickets are free. To reserve, call Letter of Marque Theater Company at 718-246-2211. For specific venue locations, visit http://www.lomtheater.org/bmd-performance-schedule.html.

O'Neill, Completely Condensed

The stalwart Irish American playwright Eugene O'Neill is well known by theater practitioners for his neurotic stage directions, which are meticulously detailed and famously ignored by contemporary directors of his plays. The New York Neo-Futurists, experimental darlings of the East Village, have seized upon this absurder side of O'Neill by again staging only his stage directions in their latest project,The Complete & Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O'Neill, Volume 2. In this second installment of the Complete & Condensed project, four actors from The Neo-Futurists enact the stage directions from five of O'Neill's lesser known plays: Recklessness (1913), Warnings (1913), Fog (1914), Abortion (1914), and The Sniper (1915). Unapologetic in its literalness, Complete & Condensed is a theatrical exercise that deftly illuminates the constructs and fallacies of theater and performance, though not without moments of long-windedness.

Known by New Yorkers for their long-running signature show, Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind (in which the actors attempt to present 30 plays in 60 minutes), The Neo-Futurists are a mainstay in New York City's downtown theater scene. The manifesto of Neo-Futurism promotes an anti-illusory brand of theater in which performers can only play themselves, generating dramatic material from their actual lived histories; furthermore, performers' actions must be honest and complete (no fake-sleeping, no prop weapons, and only real alcohol is drunk onstage). Though Complete & Condensed does not adhere strictly to these Neo-Futuristic performance criteria, it shares the same goal of calling attention to the presentational strategies used in traditional stagings of theatrical realism.

Like most Neo-Futurist productions, the ensemble of Complete & Condensed is majorly in-tune. Reading the stage directions from a lectern on the side of the stage, the solid and recognizable voice of Cecil Baldwin (of podcast "Welcome to Night Vale" fame) is a constant reminder of the tomes of language often rendered invisible by the staging and directorial process. The elasticity of Cara Francis' face is awe-inspring, as is the physical humor of Dylan Marron. At times, the actors' choices are obvious, while they are delightfully surprising at other moments. Like Volume One, the experience of watching staged stage directions is mercurial: at times hilarious, and at others a bit lackluster. When stripped of their dialogue, O'Neill's plays disengage viewers' focus from the play's plot and characters, and focus them instead on a present moment of interpretive action.  

While Complete & Condensed certainly manages to blow the dust off of O'Neill's elaborate and largely ignored stage directions, it may leave you wondering: so what? Less than homage, but more than an acting exercise, the meta-theatrical construct of Complete & Condensed is not inexhaustible. Viewers who are returning for a second helping of Complete & Condensed after seeing Volume One should expect a very similar performance to the first volume. The production is recommended especially for viewers who have yet to experience Complete & Condensed.

The Complete & Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O'Neill, Volume 2 runs at Theater for the New City (155 First Avenue at East 10th Street) through May 11. Performances are Wednesday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets are $25. For tickets, call OvationTix at 1-866-811-4111 or visit www.nynf.org.

Hades by Design

Clusters of cloudy mirrors crowd the exposed-brick walls of The Club at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, which The Nerve Tank has transformed into Hades' euro-trashy underworld for their latest production, The Maiden. Although it is an experimental reboot of the Persephone myth, The Maiden does not narrate this classic mythological tale in a traditional sense. Rather, Nerve Tank has abstracted the myth's latent poetry, its signature characters, and the motif of lightness and darkness and remixed these elements into a sexy multimedia spectacle. The result is a visually and aurally stimulating experience supported by the infrastructure of a familiar myth. While the audiovisual design is most certainly resplendent, The Maiden is not hollow; Chance D. Muehleck's script concept and Melanie S. Armer's choreography bring up basic questions around the potential of performance and the politics of gender and power, providing just enough thematic weight to give the production some (albeit abstract) meaning.

Grasping a mason jar of blood-red wine in his slender fingers, a dark and dazzling Hades (Mark William Lindberg) surveys the audience from his perch atop an golden tricycle-cum-chariot. Designed by Greg Henderson and Melanie S. Armer, this curious and towering contraption nods to Victorian-era "penny-farthing" bicycles, with their huge front wheels and intricate steering mechanisms. Pedaling and steering his chariot contraption with intimidating control and grace, Lindberg floats past the audience towards a bound and blindfolded Persephone (Robin Kurtz), who awaits his approach in obscurity. The whole scene is teeming with sexuality and underscored by an indulgent score expertly written by the production's lead Chorus member, Admiral Grey. Like Grey, the other two members of the chorus -- James "Face" Yu and Brandt Adams -- are wholly committed to their choreography. Instead of being "too-cool," the intense dedication and well-trained movements of the chorus makes their presence an element of power, rather than a silly device.

While the performances were fantastic, major kudos for this dark gem of a production should also go to its designers. Apparently working closely in collaboration, all design elements synthesized beautifully. Miodrag Guberinic's costumes, notably Hades' sumptuous leather cloak and bullet-studded patent leather hat and Demeter's full-body black veil, looked delightful on the performers' bodies. Solomon Weisbard's lighting was on cue, changing tones just in time to maintain the viewer's interest. 

Equal parts performance art, dance, and theatre, this multimedia production is a wild bricolage of found text, poetry and visual splendor. While for some of us it might seem a bit gratuitous in its reliance on the visual, this production is nonetheless "design porn" at its very best. For audience members seeking a play-by-play narration of the Persephone myth, this show will probably disappoint with its non-narrative conceit. For the more adventurous viewers -- those willing to be consumed by the experience of a performance and those unafraid to not "get it" -- The Maiden is a one-hour downtown adventure worth taking.

The Nerve Tank’s The Maiden runs until April. 13 at The Club at La MaMa E.T.C. (74A East 4th Street). Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 10 p.m. and Sundays at 5:30 p.m. Tickets are $18 and $13 students and seniors. Tickets can be purchased by visiting www.lamama.org, calling 212-475-7710, or visiting the La MaMa box office.

Nora Today

When staging plays from the theatrical canon, contemporary directors are confronted with the question: why should audiences care now? While Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House is undeniably a classic, its relevance always demands redefinition. Although Ibsen claimed the play was humanist rather than feminist in its politics, his protagonist Nora has been touted as a theatrical harbinger of feminism; theater critics have long been denoting the parallels between Nora’s struggles as a wife and mother and those of contemporary women. In the Young Vic’s latest production of Simon Stephens's adaptation of the play, however, A Doll’s House takes on a fresh relevance for audiences at the BAM Harvey Theater. Director Carrie Cracknell resists taking any particular stance on capitalism, gender roles, marriage, or other institutions – but instead focuses on hitting and maintaining a shrill note of anxiety produced by such oppressive institutions. In an economical and political climate that seems more precarious than ever, this mood of institutionalized anxiety is certainly something most of us can relate to right now.

In an endeavor to mimic reality, a traditional box set for a 19^th Century piece of realism consisted largely of a drawing room (or kitchen, as in August Strindberg’s Miss Julie), with doors leading to other rooms in the house or to the outside. While intricately decorated, this one-room design emphasized the claustrophobia felt by the characters, who are often entrapped within the oppressive structures of society. For the Young Vic's production, Ian MacNeil’s rotating set defies traditional realism’s claustrophobic designs in favor of a cinematic view of Nora and Torvald’s middle class flat. To watch the characters move inside this dizzying and fascinating carousel is a true marvel to behold. It gives the audience an unfolding panoramic view into the daily lives and private moments of the characters, allowing us to see Nora’s face when she drops the façade – a privilege not afforded by box sets.

Though MacNeil’s set offers a cinematic peek into the characters’ personal spaces, the acting is not cinematic at all. While Hattie Morahan’s bravura performance as Nora certainly stood out as breathtakingly original and honest, Cracknell clearly encouraged the entire cast to be unafraid of bold choices. When eliciting money or favors from Torvald (played compellingly by Dominic Rowan), Morahan’s Nora became as cute, shivery, and saucer-eyed as a baby Disney animal. In a room by herself, however, and left alone to her own inner demons, we can watch Morahan melt into an inner world of anxiety and tension that we begin to understand belies her cuteness.

Audiences of A Doll’s House have come to expect the play’s final note: Ibsen’s famous slamming door. As Nora leaves her home, her family, and the only world she’s ever known, we hear her slam the door behind her. In the Young Vic’s production, Nora does slam her door, but it makes more of a clatter or click than a slam. While possibly disappointing for those of us who want a nice loud slam!, the more subtle departing sound of Morahan’s Nora concludes the production on an ambiguous note. A loud door slam might suggest that Nora is liberated and on to bigger and better things, but Cracknell does not give us this satisfaction. Indeed, Nora steps forward with the same anxiety-ridden-confidence that a college graduate steps forward into today’s precarious job market. It is this raw, situational anxiety that makes Cracknell's production a timely rendition for today.

A Doll's House is playing at the BAM Harvey Theatre (651 Fulton St. in Brooklyn) and has been extended to run through March 23. Performances are Sunday at 3 p.m., Tuesday-Friday at 7:30 p.m., and Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Tickets start at $25 and can be purchased by calling 718-636-4100 or by visiting bam.org.

Heavy on the Ham

The cast and crew of Untitled Theatre Company #61 have gone to great lengths to create a festive, Czech-culture infused atmosphere around their production of The Pig, or Václav Havel’s Hunt for a Pig. Upon entering the space at the 3-Legged Dog Art & Technology Center, the first thing to greet audience members is a bar serving Czech Pilsner-Urquell beer as the scent of delicious Langos wraps by Brooklyn eatery Korzo wafts through the air. A traditionally-dressed maiden weaves among the spectators peddling fresh pretzels as the New York-based Cabaret Metropol sets the tone with their pre-show music. Indeed, music proves to be the central element to this production of The Pig, a play that was originally written by Václav Havel and Vladimír Morávek. While this production certainly succeeds in showcasing Czech traditions and the vocal talents of the cast, its ultimate downfall is that Havel's political message gets lost in the noise — buried beneath a heavily-produced evening of food, drink, elaborate technology, and hammed-up song and dance.

Written in 2010, The Pig is Havel's only work in which the playwright himself appears on stage as one of the characters. As a playwright, dissident, revolutionary, and eventual president of Czechoslovakia, many of Havel's plays conceal acrid critiques of the Communism party. While Edward Einhorn's English adaptation of The Pig seeks to make Havel's play accessible to an American audience, it feels like too much has been lost in translation. This adaptation follows Havel (Robert Honeywell) as he tries to obtain a pig for a zabíjačkais (a rural Czech tradition in which a pig is slaughtered and eaten as part of a feast) for a group of dissident friends. Havel's quest is narrated through interviews with a ditzy American news reporter (Katherine Boynton), footage of which is live-fed through a "news" camera and projected on screens surrounding the audience. The camerawork and technology is impressive, thanks to the brainpower and resources of 3-Legged Dog, who specialize in digital technologies for performance. There is also an array of projected images accompanying the show, and while these projections are visually interesting — evoking things like setting, weather, history, or emotionally evocative images — one wonders what this technological element actually adds to the production.

As if this wasn't enough for an audience to handle, Havel's journey and his interviews with the journalist are further peppered with a sequence of cabarets from the famous Czech operetta, Bedřich Smetana's The Bartered Bride. While the musical talent and voices of the cast are impressive and well-trained, it is unclear why the production takes the musical subplot of The Bartered Bride so far as to obstruct (aurally and thematically) the play's deeper meaning.  

In a relatively small performance space, the over-the-top characterizations, cheesy gags, and overdone facial expressions in this production read way too large for a small venue. While the overdone stylization evades subtlety, it is also not sharp enough to be parody. Overall, the stylistic choices guided by director Henry Akona do the talented cast a disservice. 

The Pig, or Václav Havel’s Hunt for a Pig, is playing at the 3LD Art & Technology Center (80 Greenwich St.) until March 29. Performances are Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 7:00 p.m. Tickets including dinner are $45 and $20 without dinner. Patrons who wish to order dinner must book 24 hours in advance. For tickets, call Ovationtix at 866-811-4111 or visit www.3ldnyc.org. 

Expressionism Lightly

In 1922, New York City was in a thrust of urbanization. Women manned the desks of the American workplace for the first time, and the click-clack of their typewriters beat the heart of an emergent labor force. This is the urban landscape of playwright Sophie Treadwell’s expressionistic play, Machinal, which Roundabout Theatre Company has brought back to Broadway's American Airlines Theatre for the first time since its 1928 debut. Based on events in the life of Ruth Snyder, Machinal follows the character of the Young Woman from her tedious stenographer job, to a loveless marriage with her boss, to the birth of an unwanted child, to an illicit love affair, and finally to the trial for her husband's murder.

First, an introduction to the play and its relation to expressionism. Just as a dollhouse mimics a human house, realistic theater mimics reality. Alternatively, expressionism distorts reality from a subjective viewpoint of experience. Though Treadwell may not have intended Machinal to play as straight expressionism, she was one of several American playwrights importing the genre in the 1920s, including Elmer Rice and Eugene O'Neill.  Machinal includes significant trademarks of expressionism, such as monologues expressing heightened intensity and a soundscape that blends human speech with mechanical sounds such as the typewriter. Experienced from the Young Woman’s perspective, Machinal nightmarishly depicts her internal struggle to separate her own desires from societal demands in the realms of labor, marriage and childbirth.

Focusing on the acting in the Roundabout production, it seems as if director Lyndsey Turner has dialed the expressionism way down. While clearly a directorial choice, this may have been at the expense of the production’s effectiveness. Though there were moments when the actors’ vocal rhythms invoked the same industrial throbbing evoked by Matt Tierney’s innovative sound design, their rhythms mostly remained natural and human. While vibrant characterizations such as Suzanne Bertish’s memorable Mother and Ashley Bell’s sassy Telephone Girl demonstrate the actresses' fine chops, they confused the production’s overall style and mood. As the Young Woman, Rebecca Hall’s delivery read as exceptionally realistic. Under Turner’s direction, unfortunately, Hall's character arc is indeterminable; though we see her suffer at several crisis points — a panic attack in the subway, followed by breakdowns in her mother’s apartment, on her honeymoon, and in the hospital after childbirth — each of these instances plays at an equal magnitude, conveyed by a good deal of high-pitched angst. These moments are the play’s sorest loss; in favor of realism, Turner’s direction misses Treadwell’s moments of intensely alienating and telegraphic rhythm.

The one actor refreshingly committed to an expressionistic stylization was Michael Cumpsty, whose caricature of the Husband is delightfully automated. Certain moments of choreography favored expressionism, too, such as one vignette in the hospital in which nurses, doctors, patients and visitors robotically repeat mundane gestures; without the rest of the play supporting it, however, this brief moment fell short of evoking anything more than an interesting transition.

Expressionism heavily influenced many elements of the production's design. The magnificent rotating stage designed by Es Devlin revealed scene after striking scene; its visible machination an obvious yet powerful nod to the play’s title and its expressionistic roots. Lighting designer Jane Cox's innovative technique incorporated hard, bright horizontal lines of light that scanned the set, sometimes lingering on a face, an embrace or an expression. Overall, the design team provided the visual and aural landscape of industrialization that the ensemble largely lacked in stylization.

If you’re looking for a production that really honors the vein of expressionism coursing through Machinal, the stylistically noncommittal performances in Roundabout Theatre Company’s latest production may disappoint you.  Though earnest and well-rehearsed, these deliveries clash with a production design meant to evoke a historical moment when New York City was developing vertically at breakneck speed. Machinal captures a human soul whose body is caught in the cogs of an emerging industrial landscape; while this production's design skillfully evokes the sights and sounds of this phenomenon, the performances fail to evoke a larger emotional experience.

Machinal runs until March 2 at the American Airlines Theatre (227 West 42nd St.). Evening performances are at 8 p.m. on Tuesday through Saturday; matinee performances are at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. Tickets range from $52-$127 and are available for purchase at 212-719-1300 or www.roundabouttheatre.org.

Politics with a Side of Queso

Gold, chandeliers and, yes, queso saturate the set (designed by Mimi Lien) for The Rude Mechanicals’ latest piece, Stop Hitting Yourself. Playing at Lincoln Center’s Claire Tow Theater, Stop Hitting Yourself wildly amalgamates participatory theater, performance art, early musicals and bourgeoisie comedy. In form, it defies genre and is entirely unafraid of going on a tangent. Still, Stop Hitting Yourself does manage to follow a plot line. Its strengths, however, lie not in the storyline, but in the talents of the ensemble.

A group of self-obsessed socialites gathers at the Queen’s Palace for the annual Charity Ball, where one charity case is selected as the Queen’s beneficiary. This year, one socialite (Lana Lesley) discovers a tree-hugging Wildman (Thomas Graves) in the forest, and tries to mold him into a member of the upper crust to win the Queen’s favor. 

If you’re reminded of Eliza Doolittle, you’re spot-on. Songs and monologues about society, wealth, privilege, individualism and charity make the production’s big ideas abundantly clear. As a representative of peace and nature, Graves’ Wildman clearly stands for a cleaner, greener way of life — one that clashes with the socialites’ outrageous opulence. Though there are tiny moments of surprise in the script, for the most part, each character reinforces a binary. The rich are so blinded and isolated by their wealth that they are difficult to like. On the other hand, the Wildman’s final renunciation of all material belongings took things to the opposite extreme. This of course, is all part of the fun and irony, but the social and political message hashed out in Stop Hitting Yourself repeats itself tirelessly. 

One strength in Graves’ final renunciation, however, is when he begins listing the prices of the physical objects around the set — not only their purchase cost, but the cost of shipping them to New York City for this premiere. This encourages some interesting thoughts about the labor, time and skill invested in every object on the stage. Self-referential moments of meta-theatre such as this one could have well replaced some of the heavier-handed social commentary.

Though the political conversation behind the piece felt, at times, a little too black-and-white, the production’s real strength lies in the charm and innovation of the ensemble. As the theater-making darlings of Austin, Texas, The Rude Mechanicals have been creating original, ensemble-based theater since 1995. They are no strangers to New York, however; among the shows they’ve toured here include their acclaimed Method Gun and a more recent re-imagining of The Performance Group’s legendary 1968 downtown performance, Dionysus in 69. In Stop Hitting Yourself, The Rude Mechanicals exceed the usual gimmicks in destroying the fourth wall. Bringing the house lights up to reveal us all in the theater together, their relationship with the audience is playful and present. One recurring “game” requires the audience to close their eyes. Though it’s obviously your choice to participate, the game provides some delightful and hilarious visual surprises. And yes, these surprises involve lots of queso.  

The dazzling ensemble of veracious actors definitely makes Stop Hitting Yourself a show worth seeing. Graves’ Wildman seduces with his trademark coolness and his headful of glorious hair while Lesley’s Socialite is brimming with an untapped wildness herself. As the Maid, Heather Hanna slyly panders to Paul Soileau’s Queen, whose tiara and pink lipstick are so grotesque that it's hard to look away. Joey Hood’s Unknown Prince is sleazy yet somehow persuasive; similarly, as the Magnate, E. Jason Liebrecht mesmerizes with his skillful and exaggerated cigar smoking. As the Trust Fund Sister, Hannah Kenah’s verbal delivery and physical comedy left the audience in laughter. While political and social commentaries are a dime a dozen, this ensemble is one in a million.

Stop Hitting Yourself plays at Lincoln Center’s Claire Tow Theater, which is located on the roof of the Vivian Beaumont Theater (150 West 65th St. between Broadway and Amsterdam Ave.) through February 23. Evening performances are at 7 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday; matinees are Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $20 and available at Telecharge.com or www.lct3.org.