Pushing Comic Revenge to the Brink

It is very difficult for a critic to express one’s full appreciation of a performance without addressing the complexities of the experience. Even if a show does not satisfy, a production requires so much labor from a diversity of voices that define the theatrical event that it would be unfair for a critic to raze over a work without acknowledging the moments of brilliance. The Deer Players’ production of The Brink of Us is not a successful play, yet some elements make it a unique work.

The play opens with a short prologue delivered by the character of Elliot, played by Tom Kelsey, explaining his close relationship with his sister. He is very emphatic about how they shared certain experiences that others would not have understood. Many years later, after his sister committed suicide, Elliot has invited his group of friends to spend a weekend at his cabin in the woods. Yet as they drink and consume every drug with which they experimented in their youth, civility starts peeling away and the audience discovers Elliot’s real motive for inviting them over: he believes that one of them killed his sister.

The people at the cabin are basically divided into four couples. There is the egotistical Alex, played by Julia Piker, a published writer who does not worry about revealing the most embarrassing secrets about herself. She arrives together with Max, played by Zachary J. Smith, who seems to faithfully follow all of Alex’s whims. Then there is Sean, played by Daniel Cuff, and Liz, played by Annelise Nielsen. They appear to be a very normal young couple, when in reality both are dealing with her nervous breakdown, whose ripples are still felt from time to time. After the audience is given a chance to meet the first two couples, Sebastian, played by Peter Staley, bursts in with an energetic indifference stereotypical of a young corporate lawyer. His girlfriend, Ellen, played by Linda Tardif, arrives separately already demonstrating that she will be the complete opposite of Sebastian. Finally, there is the host’s girlfriend, Sally, played by Starr Kirkland, a childish presence whose innocence shines among this group of apparently broken individuals.

The cast does a great job with what they are given, yet suffers from the script’s confusion in how it wants to tell its story. The playwright, Delaney Britt Brewer, takes the traditional yarn of older friends coming together and noticing how each one has changed, yet pushes it down a much darker path. This darkness involves death, revenge, the loss of innocence, betrayal, and coming to grips with an obscure past. Nevertheless, when the story initiates this much more interesting journey, the play becomes an almost farcical comedy. The combination of drama, comedy and horror is very difficult to achieve and I admire the bravery of the artists to do so, yet it bogs down a play that shows so much promise. The characters go from dealing with a seriously dark secret to enthusiastically eating a tablecloth due to extreme hunger. Later one comes out clownishly drenched in blood while another one gives a sweet rendition of Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer” in the middle of the play’s most chaotic build-up. Kara-Lynn Vaeni’s direction does not add cohesion to these moments and so the audience is lost in its midst. The whole world that is contained within Elliot’s cabin and which shows moments of Hitchcockian humor and gloom, sadly crumbles at the end. Yet there is enough flair in the turns taken by the story and in the way that it is acted to ultimately demonstrate the talent behind the work, even if it suffers from a loss of focus.

The Brink of Us is presented at South Oxford Space (138 South Oxford Street between Atlantic Avenue and Hanson Place in Brooklyn) through May 17. Performances are Fridays through Sundays at 8 p.m. with an extra performance on Thursday, May 15 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 for the general public and $18 for students. These can be purchased online at http://brinkofus.brownpapertickets.com or by calling 1-800-836-3006.

A Biblical Medley: 50 Plays

The Mysteries is a theatrical and musical journey through most of the love, violence, power struggles, betrayals, and miracles from the Bible. The show is a compilation of short plays from 48 different playwrights that rework themes and stories chosen from both the Old and New Testaments. Every element of the performance works to take the audience through a closer experience of the Bible. Spectators sit in two rows of chairs on two sides of a long passageway, where most of the action takes place. The relatively small area is surrounded by transparent vinyl strip curtains, just as those used in meat lockers, stained with blood. These curtains work as walls to confine the audience within a space of religious myth and give an ingenious visual clue about the bloody events that they will witness. Yet Jason Sherwood’s scenic design does not only emphasize the violence since it also opens the possibilities for beautiful moments, as when performers's heads holding apples in their mouths come through the vinyl curtains tempting Adam and Eve with the forbidden fruit. Seth Reiser’s lighting design works harmoniously alongside Sherwood's designs. Reiser’s effects range from the intense red light that drowns the performing space in blood to the softer lighting that engulfs in shadows the more intimate moments.

Some of the plays are more directly linked to the source material, such as that of Noah, Abraham, and the life of Jesus, among others. That is not to say that these were performed in a traditional way. For example, in Mallery Avidon’s The Flood, humanity reacts in unison to the coming of the deluge with a resounding “fuck!,” while in Nick Jones’s Fruitful and Begettin’, the characters in Abraham’s story come from the deep South and seem to be directly related to the Duck Dynasty family. Most of the plays included in the second act, such as those by José Rivera, Jeff Whitty, and Gabriel Jason Dean, depict various moments in Jesus’s life. Most of the plays portray Jesus as a polyamorous and pansexual leader who is seriously conflicted about the decisions he must make, which will lead him to his ultimate sacrifice. Nevertheless, Whitty’s The Last Supper also underscores Judas Iscariot’s secret sacrifice since he was not only Jesus’s most loved disciple, but he is also persuaded by Jesus himself to betray him thereby laying the foundations for the new church. These playwrights throw new light on these familiar stories.

Other playwrights, such as Max Posner, Bill Cain, and Lloyd Suh, anchor their plays on certain themes; yet depart from the source material. Posner’s The Woman Taken in Adultery focuses on the hypocrisy of those who judge others when a man discovers his neighbor’s adulterous secret as he was coming to ask for some butter. While Cain’s Resurrection proposes that Jesus resurrected as a homeless person in Brooklyn, Suh’s The Next Supper explores the meeting between Jesus and his father, Joseph/God, after he died in the cross. These plays illustrate the smaller moments that escape the epic proportions of the more familiar stories.

The Mysteries has a cast of 54 great actors who are able to muster very energetic performances throughout a show that lasts five hours and a half. All performances shine as part of the ensemble. Matthew Jeffers’s tyrannical God works marvelously together with Asia Kate Dillon’s defiant yet tender Lucifer. At the same time, Rory Kulz’s nosy neighbor is fun to watch as he squirms when accused of being a hypocrite by Janice Amaya’s strong woman. The director, Ed Sylvanus Iskandar, does a great job of weaving together the different short plays into one mostly cohesive show. Yet this is also one of its main downfalls since some of the pieces do not quite come together and the audience is confused when going from one play to the next. The director must pay closer attention to those transitions. Nevertheless, in the end, the audience is made part of a truly communal experience that is not religious, but human at heart.

The Mysteries is playing at The Flea Theater until May 25. The performance has two intermissions and includes nudity. Tickets range from $15 to $125 and include dinner and dessert.

Lady Macbeth in Love

The Everyday Inferno Theatre Company’s production of Something Wicked aims at a deeper exploration of Lady Macbeth, the protagonist’s wife in William Shakespeare’s tragedy. In the original play, Macbeth encounters three witches, the Weird Sisters, as he returns from battle. The witches reveal that he will become the King of Scotland. Therefore, Lady Macbeth persuades her husband to kill the king.

Macbeth’s acts are not only moved by his ambition, but also by Lady Macbeth’s insistence that he must fulfill the witches’ prophecies. When the protagonist hesitates, Lady Macbeth persuades him to do the deed. Lady Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s greatest villains. She is cunning, ambitious, and will stop at nothing to reach her goals. Yet she is not simply a villainous caricature since her insanity and final suicide demonstrate the effects of a guilty conscience. Something Wicked, which was directed and adapted by Anaïs Koivisto, explores the character’s humanity, an aspect that is overlooked in Macbeth.

The action begins right after Lady Macbeth’s death. The Weird Sisters now become her guides through a purgatory-like space in which she will confront her deeds and their consequences. Therefore, Something Wicked is structured around key scenes from the original play. Lady Macbeth’s new outsider perspective will force her to rediscover the horror of her actions and reveal the real motor behind her decisions and profound love for her husband. It may seem that this revelation places Lady Macbeth in the conventional female role of dutiful wife, yet the performance dissipates this notion by having three different women playing the role. The multiple Lady Macbeths affirm the complex nature of the character and challenge the exclusive focus on her villainy. Kathryn Connors plays the dead Lady Macbeth with a subtle vulnerability as she observes the action like a ghost. Ali Stoner performs the Lady Macbeth who mercilessly pushes her husband to kill the king. Finally, Lila Newman plays both Lady Macbeth and Lady Macduff, who is killed along with her son under Macbeth’s orders, suggesting a connection between the murderous temptress and the motherly victim. Koivisto avoids trapping Lady Macbeth into only one role, thereby underscoring the multiple dimensions that define her humanity. In the play, Macbeth is also superbly performed by Zachary Libresco, Samuel Platizky and Jay William Thomas, who also act additional key characters from the play, but this effect is not as forceful as with Lady Macbeth.

The cast successfully fills the performance space with songs, movement and dance to the point where scenery would only hinder their work. The witches, played by Laura Epperson, Sam Bruce and Paul Gregg, are omnipresent and they serve as perfect guides to the ghostly Lady Macbeth. These spooky characters are a welcomed expansion on the original since they only appear twice in Macbeth, even though their prophecies are central to the story.

Nevertheless, the play itself suffers from moments that lessen the impact of Koivisto’s work. There is a new text that surrounds the scenes taken from Macbeth, yet it needs to be fleshed out more. There should be more dialogue between the witches and Lady Macbeth that could comment more on the scenes from the original play and emphasize the Weird Sisters' playful perversity and the villainess’s vulnerability. This interaction is crucial to build the context through which the audience re-encounters Shakespeare’s original work. Furthermore, there is a moment in which the actors suddenly transform into critics who theorize about Lady Macbeth’s real motivations in the original text. The scene, which was well performed by the actors, is an unwelcomed break that bogs down the action. Koivisto must trust her interesting work more and permit her Lady Macbeths to reveal their complexity for themselves. Regardless of its shortcomings, the play is a needed expansion to Shakespeare’s original. As the title suggests, there is indeed “something wicked” in Lady Macbeth, just as there is something loving in her too.

Something Wicked is running until March 9 at The Kraine Theater (85 East 4th St.) as part of the 8^th Annual FRIGID New York Festival. Tickets cost $16 and can be purchased at www.smarttix.com and www.frigidnewyork.info, or by calling 212-868-4444.  

A Winter's Tale Ends in Spring

The WorkShop Theater Company’s production of The Winter’s Tale is a very traditional staging of William Shakespeare’s play, which emphasizes the beauty of the words and the great characters that define the Elizabethan bard. In the play, Polixenes, the ruler of Bohemia, has been a guest for nine months at the court of Leontes, the king of Sicilia. He is about to leave, yet Leontes’s wife, Hermione, lovingly persuades Polixenes to postpone his departure. That is the moment when jealousy blinds the Sicilian king. He subsequently accuses his pregnant wife of being unfaithful and imprisons her. Notwithstanding Paulina’s (a noblewoman loyal to the queen) defense of his wife’s innocence, Hermione gives birth to a girl in prison. Only after their young son and Hermione die of grief and the newborn has been abandoned in the dangerous Bohemian woods under his own orders, does Leontes realize the error of his ways. This is only the first half of a play whose surprising turns include a confirmation of innocence by the Oracle at Delphi, a fatal bear attack, and a statue that suddenly comes to life.

In the staging, the action is divided between two countries, Sicilia and Bohemia. Sicilia is portrayed as a barren and cold space. The walls are covered by curtains of black plastic bags and the nobility is dressed in dark suits. Leontes himself wears a black military uniform, which brings to mind the fascist dictators of the mid-20th century. Ethan Cadoff does a great job of portraying the frigidity of the character, whose only humanity is exposed with his jealous outbursts. Laurie Schroeder’s performance as Hermione exudes a flirtatious candor that somewhat explains her husband’s reaction. The production does a great job in staging the tragic first half of the play, the winter part of the tale referenced in the title.

In the second half of the play, the action moves to Bohemia 16 years after the incidents in Sicilia. At this point, the play is taken over by the light, humor and festivities of spring, whose overt sexuality follows the spirit of the pagan fertility rituals. The plastic bags slide open to uncover the mountains and blue skies of Bohemia. Michael Minahan’s set design marks in a simple and effective way the change in space and tone from the first half. Autolycus, the comic rogue, further establishes the merriment that distinguishes Bohemia. Robert Meksin plays the character with delicious abandon, singing and picking the pockets of the bumpkin clown.

Ryan Lee’s direction successfully portrays the Sicilian barrenness that opposes Bohemia’s chaotic innocence.

Angela Harner’s costumes also distinguish each space. The Sicilian dark suits are discarded for the colorful Bohemian garbs that allude to 1960s trends. On one hand, Polixenes’s attire brings to mind the Eastern influence on Western fashion, while on the other hand Autolycus’s clothes represent the errant hippie. Although some of the Bohemian costumes are too ridiculous and lack a general cohesiveness, they create an interesting effect since the same actors who wore the repressive and uniform suits during the first half, now appear as Bohemian revelers wearing neon colored see-throughs, heavy makeup and shiny pants.    

The whole cast does a marvelous job of juggling the two opposites of Sicilia and Bohemia. While Annalisa Loeffler’s Paulina fervently defends Hermione’s virtue while constrained in a gray skirt suit in Sicilia, her Bohemian Dorcas dons a feathered boa and red sunglasses. Along the same lines, Jacob Callie Moore plays the Clown with comedic energy and hence is almost unrecognizable as the much more serious Sicilian Dion. This production of The Winter’s Tale turns the bleakness of a tragic winter into the vibrant sensuality of spring.

The Winter’s Tale runs through March 15 at the WorkShop Theater Company's Main Stage (312 West 36th St., 4th Fl.). General tickets are $18; $15 for students and seniors. For tickets, call 866-811-4111 or visit www.workshoptheater.org.

Voices from the Depths

Stories about illegal crossings reveal the bravery of those who confront innumerable dangers to escape terrible living conditions. Their goal is to ultimately achieve a better life for their families and themselves. Each immigrant has a deeply emotional story to tell about persecution, extreme poverty, sickness, the perils of the crossing, and the discovery that their destination is as filled with problems as their countries of origin. These are the stories that make up Rumore di acque (Noise in the Waters), a melologue, which is a short work created for voice and music, produced by Teatro delle Albe and written and directed by Marco Martinelli. The piece is a collection of all those migrant voices that can be heard along the Strait of Sicily, the 90-mile wide portion of the Mediterranean Sea that divides North Africa and Sicily. Some of their tales are being told for audiences at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club by a solitary demon on a volcanic island in the Mediterranean Sea.

In the melologue, a bureaucrat working for the Ministro dell’ Inferno (Minister of Hell), a clear reference to the Italian Ministro dell’ Interno (Minister of the Interior), is appointed to a deserted volcanic islet located in the middle of the Sicilian strait. The island is suggested in the bare theatrical space by a spiral of stones on the floor. The narrator stands at the center of the spiral, symbolizing his location within the bowels of the watery and volcanic hell. This figure wears dark sunglasses and a blue military uniform adorned with medals, establishing a physical reference to the now defunct Muammar Qaddafi. The General, magnificently performed by Alessandro Renda, explains in a gravelly voice that his job is to count and record all the African immigrants who have perished on their voyage to Europe. Nevertheless, the narrator never expresses any emotion towards the subjects and only shows outrage for the fish, which make his job harder by eating the flesh of the dead at sea. He is only interested in the numbers, a clear indictment of how Italian and North African governments are indifferent to the plight of immigrants.

Among his deliberations about numbers, his anger with the fish, and a discussion about how inferior bureaucrats should address him, the general tells us the sad stories of four African refugees. The character and his delivery never really lead the audience into an emotional involvement with his stories. The listener rejects everything that the narrator stands for. In this way, Martinelli resists manipulating the audience’s emotions and forces us to think critically about what the character really represents and where we are located in his narrative. Although the general is a representative of power, the refugees are still heard through the painfully beautiful music and vocals of Enzo and Lorenzo Mancuso. While the general is at center stage, the Mancuso brothers play and sing from stage right. They occupy a dreamlike space outside the volcanic islet from where their vocals act out the desperation and pathos of those who have sacrificed themselves for a better life.

Rumore di acque presents stories of refugees from Libya and many communities throughout the Sahara that are as relevant to Europe and Africa as to the United States and Latin America. The writing, direction, performance and music blend harmoniously to make audiences see the plight of immigrants and the indifference of those in power.

Rumore di acque is performed in Italian with supertitles in English. It runs until Feb. 16 at La MaMa's First Floor Theatre (74A East 4th St.). Evening performances are 7:30 p.m. on Thursday through Saturday; matinee performances are 2:30 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are $18 and $13 for students and seniors. For tickets, call 212-475-7710 or visit www.lamama.org.       

Human Contact in Internet Age

In the age of Facebook, texting, and Skype, everyone has heard a variation of the following expression at least once: “I prefer to speak to someone face to face rather than through a device.” This statement directly points to the problems of establishing human connections through the use of technology and media. Nevertheless, it is also very common to hear that technology brings the world closer together so that two friends can remain in contact regardless of their years of separation. We Were Nothing!, which was written by Will Arbery (in collaboration with Shelley Fort, Elly Smokler, Emilie Soffe, and Lisa Szolovits) and directed by Lisa Szolovits, avoids a simplistic answer to these judgments. Is that impossibility to communicate or achieve intimacy due to our dependence on technology or to a much deeper human limitation? The play’s references to communication technologies go back to the mid-twentieth century and the use of the telegram, which indicated the end of each sentence with a resounding "stop," and so refuses to accept that this failure to connect is a problem only limited to the Internet age. 

Despite the fact that the separation of the two main characters is at the center of the show, it takes place in a private apartment, managed for the production by Deidre Works (the exact location is confidential until tickets are purchased). The apartment’s living room has a capacity for approximately 30 audience members. This successfully recreates a cozy and intimate space from which to explore the distance between Shelley (Emilie Soffe) and Kelly (Elly Smokler). The comfortable and informal costumes by Clara Fath make the characters belong to that living room, even when they are communicating through technology from distant places. Isabella Byrd's lighting adds to the warmth of the location and at times transforms the living room into a virtual space, such as a switching on of a light which makes an opening on a wall become a computer screen through which the characters are able to Skype. Although the area is small, the actresses’ energetic performance is never restricted by spatial limitations. They jump through a partition opening, reveal a space hidden by curtains, and, one time, leave the performance area for a few seconds. At this point, even if the audience cannot see them, members remain riveted to their vocal presence, a proof of great theater acting.

In the play, Shelley and Kelly are twenty-something women with distinct and truthful personalities, a result of a strong artistic collaboration topped by Arbery’s writing, Szolovits’s direction, and the actresses’ performances.

While Shelley is somewhat insecure, needy, and a bit more open to share her emotions; Kelly is supportive and rather emotionally inexpressive, even when she appears to be outgoing. Both women reveal breakups, discuss a father’s illness, or make fun of past acquaintances by speaking to each other on their cellphones, e-mailing, texting, and Skyping. Yet no matter how many times they “like” one of their photos or comments on Facebook or reveal their fear of growing up through Gchat, each is incapable of effectively responding to the other’s personal questions or observations.  This idea is carried throughout the play and the action leads to their climactic face-to-face meeting. At this point, the play may provide an answer or raise more questions about intimacy and closeness in our world.

Is the inability to connect with each other in the twenty-first century due to the dominating role of technology or because of our human condition? By staging this distance in such a close environment, We Were Nothing! reveals in an entertaining way that the answer to this question may be elusive, yet crucial to each person present in that living room. 

We Were Nothing! will play a four-week engagement from January 17 to February 9, on Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 5:00 p.m. The show will be performed inside a private residence near Union Square. The exact address and directions to the venue will be released only to ticket holders. Tickets are $20.00 and available online at www.artful.ly/store/events/2099.