Joe, Author at TheaterReviewsFromMySeat

About This Reviewer - May 17, 2019May 27, 2019

The Pink Unicorn

Playwright Elise Forier Edie is often asked how much of The Pink Unicorn is true. She answers “all of it” and “none of it.” All of the events depicted happened to someone, including herself. A high school refused to allow the formation of a Gay and Straight Alliance Club. Transgender children and their families are shunned, harassed and threatened for allowing freedom of expression.

Written as a one woman confessional, Trisha Lee takes us through her unexpected journey as a mother. Sparkton, Texas is a small town where everyone hangs the American flag on the fourth of July and goes to church on Sunday. Her daughter decides that she wants to go to her new high school as a person without gender. Jolene becomes Jo and adopts the pronoun “they.”

While this subject matter continues to rise in popularity, rarely does it seem as honest and generous of spirit as it is here. As written, the play creates a believable story arc for this complicated mother/child relationship. Alice Ripley’s heartfelt and earnest performance adds layers and layers of emotional depth. By the end, there is a freedom expressed that is not simply obvious. Trisha Lee is still imperfect but that’s exactly what she should be.

Along the way, Ms. Ripley (Next to Normal, Side Show) gets to wring quite a few laughs out of her observations. Jo owns a pet tarantula that she wears on her shoulder “like a furry epaulet.” On the male/female scale, there is Marilyn Monroe on one end and Charles Bronson on the other. “Where I’m from, talking to the ACLU is the same thing as talking to Satan.”

Jo has been raised without her father who died in an accident. She has an imaginary Pink Unicorn named Star Dancer. She confuses Mom. She’s not hiding that she’s gay. She’s trans. If she were drunk or pregnant, her mother would know what to do.

To Mom’s credit, she holds her pocketbook decorated with butterfly appliques and tries to understand and even learn something. LGBTQ are “all different evidently.” Listening to a woman walking through the uncharted foreign territory of gender neutrality and pansexuals is intended to be comforting, eye opening and, I presume, calmly reassuring and instructive to similarly perplexed parents.

In this play, a priest delivers a sermon in Trisha Lee’s church. The author wrote it “pretty much word for word” as spoken by the pastor in her former church. He invoked the Holocaust and likened supporters of the LGBT community to Nazis. As a Christian woman, both author and her protagonist wrestle with lines from the Bible and the people who conveniently pick and choose which ones they believe. Yes, it remains stunning how the religious community has completely abandoned “do not judge and you shall not be judged.”

Out of the Box Theatrics is a small company founded in 2015 dedicated to producing new and classic works from a fresh perspective in site specific locations. The Pink Unicorn is being staged in The Episcopal Actors’ Guild, upstairs above the Church of the Transfiguration. The guild’s history is one rich in support of the acting community and those in need.

The play would definitely benefit from a few less metaphors (especially those concerning animals). This intimate venue is an ideal way to spend some time with Trisha Lee. The story is timely, important, nicely told and prompts thought. Spending more than an hour and a half enjoying Alice Ripley deliver this monologue in a room with two dozen people is the icing on a joyously hopeful rainbow cake.

www.ootbtheatrics.com

www.actorsguild.org

About This Reviewer - May 14, 2019

All My Sons (Roundabout Theatre)

Arthur Miller’s first successful play was All My Sons which had its Broadway premiere in 1947. Over the next decade he wrote Death of a Salesman, The Crucible and A View From the Bridge. Familial relationships and social responsibility are integral to his works. His criticism of the American dream managed to have him questioned by Congress’ House Un-American Activities Committee. Free speech has always been vaguely conceptual. You just have to agree with who’s in power at the time.

All My Sons takes place in August 1947 after World War II has ended. Chris Keller (Benjamin Walker) has returned with evidence of injury in his gait. His brother Larry has been missing in action for more than three years. Mother Kate (Annette Bening) believes in her soul that her son will come home. Occasional news stories about such miracles fuel her belief.

Kate is a classic believer. She’s convinced “there’s God so certain things have to happen.” One particular line illuminates her character and simultaneously criticizes people like her at the same time. “Don’t be so intelligent – some superstitions are very nice.” Sadly misguided and heartbroken, Kate can also be quite nasty when it suits her.

Father Joe (Tracy Letts) is a recognizable Miller patriarch. A flawed individual who justifies his actions in support of his family. Or is it primarily for himself? During the war, a bad decision at his factory had his partner and next door neighbor sent to prison. Joe was exonerated. One family collapsed, the other thrived financially.

Ann Deever (Francesca Carpanini) was the daughter of the guilty man and has since shunned her imprisoned father. She had a relationship with Larry before the war. Brother Chris has invited her to visit. Wounds will be opened. A storm is brewing at the beginning of this play. A tree planted in honor of Larry snaps. Over three acts, people and dreams will be broken.

Jack O’Brien has staged a truly impressive revival of this play. The play is wildly melodramatic which, in a less assured production, could make this seem preachy and perhaps even naively nostalgic. Not here. The actors are all excellent. Their relationships – whether familial or neighborly – are effortlessly believable. The tension builds and builds and builds, slowly and continually. I did not see a moment that was not perfectly rendered. All My Sons is a time capsule of yesterday and also a hazy reflection into a mirror of our society today.

In the most difficult role, Mr. Walker’s Chris has all the necessary gullibility and goodness embedded in his soul. His slight limp reflects his desire to cover up his emotions and man up. The performance is thrilling for its ability to equal the intense but realistic dramatic levels achieved by Ms. Bening and Mr. Letts. The individualized tragedy of this family swept up inside the American dream has been beautifully and intelligently realized.

All My Sons certainly takes a hard look at the greed of capitalism and war profiteering. In that regard, this seventy year old play remains fascinating and very topical. The characters are from a different era of course. What is the same, however, is the self-preservation mechanisms employed by humans to survive and excel, however that is defined. That’s the dream we wish for all our sons and daughters. It’s the collateral damage that’s so hard to face.

www.roundabouttheatre.org

About This Reviewer - May 13, 2019May 27, 2019

Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations

Jukebox musicals continue to populate Broadway. After the mega-hit Mamma Mia! came the Tony winning Jersey Boys. The dull disco biography Summer: The Donna Summer Musical opened and closed last year. Still running on Broadway, this season’s entertaining (albeit flawed) The Cher Show continues to believe in life after love. Adding to this expanding universe is the surprisingly excellent Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations.

One of the most successful popular music acts of all time, The Temptations had four number one singles. They were the first Motown act to score a Grammy Award for “Cloud Nine” in 1969 (highlighting how notoriously behind the curve these awards always were). The group’s hits are classics including “My Girl” and “Get Ready.” Legendary producer Berry Gordy deftly molded these young men into one of the label’s biggest success stories.

1964’s Meet The Temptations was a compilation of previously released singles including “The Way You Do the Things You Do.” Four years later they recorded Diana Ross & the Supremes Join The Temptations. The two monumental Motown powerhouses combined for a television special. How big was Motown during this time? In one week during December 1969, they had five of the top ten Billboard singles: “Love Child,” “Cloud Nine,” “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” “For Once in My Life,” and from this super group combination, “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me.”

Considering that history, I understand why the Supremes get more than a quick number in Ain’t Too Proud. Dominique Morisseau’s book has to cover a lot of ground so details are predictably rushed. The story will be familiar to anyone who has ever heard how stars are born and how they flame out amidst the trappings and pitfalls of success. This particular one includes nearly all of them including ego clashing, complicated relationships within the group and with women, alcoholism, drugs, music industry politics and an extraordinary cascade of musical excellence.

Admittedly, that last sentence could be applied to many acts from the recording industry. What makes Ain’t Too Proud stand out is the inventive and incredibly interesting staging by Director Des McAnuff. While the story might feel familiar and the presentation of hit after hit might become wearying, the unique way everything evolves is fantastically fluid and, in its own way, artistic. I marveled at the creativity which never ceased throughout the production.

Performances are terrific across the board. As Otis Williams. Derrick Baskin narrates the tale. Noting that there is no progress without sacrifice, he revisits this journey wondering whether it was worth losing his friends. Mr. Baskin effortlessly switches from narrator to group leader and performer then back again. He is excellent.

The diverse personalities and musical stylings of the original four Temps are well played by talented performers. From Detroit, Otis was joined by Paul (James Harkness, heartbreaking), deep voiced Melvin (Jawan M. Jackson), the combative Eddie (Jeremy Pope) and the gorgeously smooth voiced David (Ephraim Sykes). In a frenzy of fast moving storytelling and dozens of songs, each manages to create a fully fleshed out individual.

This show doesn’t soften the hard edges (like the musical Motown did). As a result, this story is more compelling than a silly hagiography. The book effectively considers the ups and downs encountered along the group’s journey. Agonizing decisions are part of The Temptations’ history. As of today, there have been 24 members of this group.

Four women play multiple parts throughout this show and they are all, without exception, terrific. Saint Aubyn as Dennis Edwards (and others) was particularly memorable. I also loved Jarvis B. Manning Jr.’s performance of both Al Bryant and Norman Whitfield.

Otis Williams frequently reminds us that the group as a whole was much bigger than the sum of its parts. The creative team for this production is no different. The technical design aspects, choreography (Sergio Trujillo) and costumes (Paul Tazewill) were all first rate.

The emotional depth of the second act elevated Ain’t Too Proud from a slick jukebox musical entertainment to a richer examination of the human condition. This musical recounts yet another trials and tribulations tale of the destructive nature of show business. In this case, however, the superb quality of the overall production ensures that this story shines brightly. Nearly as dazzling as the talented men brought back to life to be celebrated all over again.

www.ainttooproudmusical.com

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/thechershow

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About This Reviewer - May 11, 2019June 5, 2019

Elisa Monte Dance (Flea Theater)

For their 38th season, Elisa Monte Dance has established a new partnership with the Flea Theater. Itinerant companies receive in house administrative support and access to further their reach. Elisa Monte made her professional debut dancing with Agnes De Mille. Her career propelled her to become a principal dancer for Martha Graham, Lar Lubovitch, Pilobolus and others. Since 1979 she choreographed more than 50 works.

Tiffany Rea-Fisher was a principal dancer in this company beginning in 2004. Three years ago she was named Artistic Director. Four pieces were presented in this season’s program. Ms. Rea-Fischer choreographed three of them and the other was from the company’s repertoire. The dances are all contemporary and highlight the company’s signature style defined as “daring, intense and passionate” while being “classical and highly athletic.”

JoVanna Parks started the evening in a solo piece excerpted from a 2017 work entitled The Best-Self Project. Accompanied by a recorded conversation, societal issues are examined through words while dance is interrupting the theories. The cycles of menstruation and the moon. The Pope announcing that gay marriage is as big a threat to the world as the destruction of the rain forest. Unless we move to a feminine system of government, we don’t stand a chance. Ms. Parks was expressive and engaging in a piece that seemed to embrace conflict. As we were mentally processing the commentary on our social climate, we were also distracted by abstract dance.

Dreamtime premiered in 1986 and was my favorite dance of the evening. David van Tieghem’s score and Ms. Monte’s choreography celebrate Austrialian Aboriginal rituals. The movement consisted of patterns combining and diverging, yet always with a feeling of harmony and balance with the whole team. I purchased an Aboriginal artist painting on a trip down under in 2017. It is similarly filled with patterns which are a visual representation of the storytelling their people used to convey knowledge of land. When I considered the dance and the art together, the spiritual connectivity enriched the experience for me.

Having its world premiere, And Then They Were was the most vigorously athletic work on display. A couple performed standing 180 degree leg splits. The choreography was impressive for showcasing a talented troupe performing much of this dance en pointe. I did not understand how these movements represented “a reaction to the turbulent nature of the world” but the feats were well executed.

The fourth and final piece was a work-in-progress. H.E.R. will have its premiere in 2020 as part of the Harlem Renaissance Centennial. H.E.R. pays homage to three black, queer writers from the 1920’s. These ladies gave voice to the underrepresented and advocated for suffrage and civil rights. The dance was an ebullient celebration using sounds and styles from that era. Even a little Charleston was thrown into the mix. The period costumes and group dance were energetically staged and a crowd pleaser. As the dance develops, it will be interesting to see how the three inspirational women are brought forth.

This spring 2019 program is my first visit to the Elisa Monte Dance company. I am a theater critic who does not pretend to be expert in dance criticism. From my seat as a fan, I found this company and their production enjoyable and nicely varied. Recommended especially for those who might want to experience an accessible and professional introduction to contemporary dance.

www.elisamontedance.org

About This Reviewer - May 9, 2019May 9, 2019

High Button Shoes (Encores!)

In his 1946 book The Sisters Liked Them Handsome, author Stephen Longstreet noted “I can remember when there had been no World Wars, when people still lived in a large world, and the uncles went to places like China and California and Hoboken for their sinning. It is of those times I have written… of the time when I was young and we all lived in a calm era, 1900-1914. It is a world you shall never see again.” From his own source material, Mr. Longstreet wrote the book for the 1947 musical High Button Shoes.

For its 75th anniversary season, City Center has revived this forgotten chestnut as the third and final production of this year’s Encores! series. The show is notable as the first big Broadway hit for composer Jule Styne (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Funny Girl). Super fun fact: Ten years later, Stephen Sondheim would rewrite the lyrics from one of the songs dropped during preproduction. That is how the Gypsy classic “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” was born.

Broadway legend George Abbott directed High Button Shoes and, as rumor has it, substantially rewrote the book. The choreography by Jerome Robbins, however, is what put this musical on the map. He won a Tony Award for his efforts at the second ceremony in 1948.

How to describe the antics of the plot? Think Broadway musical comedy filtered through a vaudeville lens. Slapstick humor given a burlesque styling. Harrison Floy is a fast-talking conman who dupes the Longstreet family, residents of a small-town New Jersey home. Floy and his partner in crime Pontdue flee to Atlantic City with a bag of cash they have swindled. Add in a few romantic subplots (“I Still Get Jealous”) and the Rutgers football team (“On the Banks of the Old Raritan”). Voila, a musical is hatched.

Some of the comedy is silly and dated but I still chuckled. “Are you an authority on birds?” The answer: “I’ve been hawking for twenty years.” Cockatoos mate for life. “They must be exhausted.” Phil Silvers originated the role of Harrison Floy. You can imagine his physicality and hear his line delivery in Michael Urie’s deftly conceived interpretation. He is funny and appropriately the big center of attention in this show.

The humor verges on titillatingly naughty. The lyrics for “On a Sunday by the Sea” gleefully boast “you can misbehave underneath a wave/ and nobody can see.” More controversial at the time was the song “You’re My Boy” which comes after the love ballad “You’re My Girl.” One critic slammed the two male crooks as “guilty of atrocious taste in consenting” to sing it. Others were less rabid, noting that it offered a “funny act of burlesque” which followed “the homosexual comedy pattern of that bygone art.” Let’s just agree that in this version Mr. Urie underlined the lyric “gay” with the largest Sharpie ever.

The big reason to revisit High Button Shoes, however, is for the choreography of the “Bathing Beauty Ballet.” At the seashore the bad guys, the people they swindled, the cops, some lifeguards and bathing beauties plus one gorilla engage in a Mack Sennett-like silent movie Keystone cops “ballet.” Running in and out of cabanas, they pantomime, crash, flip, dance, switch doors and partners with exaggerated whimsy. Even today’s audience eagerly applauded at its conclusion. Sarah O’Gleby recreated Jerome Robbins’ original staging for that playful showstopper and also for the lovely soft-shoe number, “I Still Get Jealous.”

I find it hard to make an argument for High Button Shoes as a great musical. There are some very good songs including the forgotten hit, “Papa, Won’t You Dance With Me?” My favorite performances in this revival were from Marc Koeck and Carla Duren who had nice romantic chemistry as the love-bitten youngsters, Rutgers’ footballer Oggle and the sweetly heroic Fran. He croons her with the appropriately goofy “Next to Texas I Love You.”

If you care to take a swim in musical theater history where football and vaudeville could amusingly coexist on stage, High Button Shoes is worth the plunge. A sneeringly bitter woman behind me loudly and exasperatedly squawked at her husband during intermission, “we should leave, this is awful.” She reluctantly stayed despite her body language which read as amplified disgust. The wrong person for this show made a good decision, however. It’s not everyday that you get to celebrate history and experience what audiences wanted after a decade of the Great Depression and World War II.

www.nycitycenter.org

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/imarriedanangel/encores

About This Reviewer - May 8, 2019

Tootsie

The sixth show on Broadway this year to be adapted from a movie, Tootsie arrives loaded with classic comedy potential. The 1982 Dustin Hoffman film was nominated for ten Academy Awards. This story is about a man impersonating a woman in order to book an acting gig. Along the way, he learns something about women and himself. That message seems perfectly timed for the #metoo movement. As a Broadway musical, the results are mixed.

On the very positive side, Robert Horn’s book is hilarious. There are so many zingers to savor throughout the entire show. When Michael dresses like a woman, he looks like “Faye Dunaway as a gym coach.” The setting is the present day and the updates are inspired. “My phone doesn’t recognize my face I.D. unless I’m crying.” Word play is also employed when a character says “a plague on both your houses.” Dental plague is the errant pronunciation.

A solid cast keeps the fun moving along. As Michael Dorsey/Dorothy Michaels, Santino Fontana (Cinderella, Act One, Billy Eliot) was funny and warmly winning. I found the Michael scenes more entertaining that the Dorothy ones. La Cage Aux Folles and other female impersonation entertainments were occasional novelties forty years ago. Today, men dressing as women seem mainstream. There are more than ten seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race on television. Dorothy may be charming – even empowering – but just putting on a shiny red dress and smiling is fairly basic stuff. (That it mimics the movie and happens twice is too predictable.)

Surrounding Mr. Fontana is a cadre of merry makers. Michael’s roommate is the character who sees the lunacy and relishes the absurdity. Andy Grotelueschen’s performance is a wonderful combination of deadpan line deliveries and comedic pauses. Ex-girlfriend Sandy Lester is played by Sarah Stiles (Hand to God). Hilarious as the neurotic actress who competes with Dorothy for a role, the energy on stage was at full wattage in her every scene. She has the (by far) best number in the show, “What’s Gonna Happen.” Admittedly a very close cousin (doppelganger?) from another David Yazbek musical (Women On the Verge of a Major Breakdown), the song killed for its swift and clever lyrics.

Reg Rogers was devilishly sleazy as the lecherous director Ron Carlisle. As the producer, Julie Halston nailed every laugh written for her all-knowing, been around-the-block and back again character. In the role of an unbelievably dumb reality star with washboard abs and wannabe actor Max Van Horn, John Behlmann (Significant Other) hit a home run with his physical comedy and brilliant buffoonery.

Why then is Tootsie just a fair musical? David Yazbek’s score did not seem to match the show it was in. There are a lot of songs, many of which are one or two character emotional numbers with titles like “Who Are You?” and “I Won’t Let You Down.” In nearly every case, the songs are tuneful but largely uninteresting. They slow the very funny story down considerably. In addition, a few performers noticeably and repeatedly struggled to hit the notes as written.

Director Scott Ellis’ staging is fairly old school. The few ensemble musical numbers and the choreography by Denis Jones were not additive to the fun. Making average jokes about imitating Fosse’s signature movements is not particularly fresh especially when repeated multiple times.

The film Tootsie had Michael/Dorothy hired to be on a soap opera. In this musical, the acting job was understandably changed to one in a Broadway play. Juliet’s Nurse is the sequel to Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. Mr. Horn’s memorable book does wring some laughs out of this scenario. The ending of this show, however, cannot compete with the zaniness of the original.

All things considered, perhaps Tootsie should have been constructed as a play with some music. The pacing would have been much tighter. This musical can be recommended for plenty of laughs and a very good cast. The two dozen songs, however, will remind you that your girdle is too tight and your dogs are barking from those ill-fitting high heels.

www.tootsiemusical.com

About This Reviewer - May 5, 2019

MISEDUCATED: an oral history of sexual (mis)education (The Tank)

Flesh Mob is a performance collective which created this interdisciplinary dance-theater work about sexual education. From their website: “sex is funny, stupid, gross, elevated and base, and we’ll never stop being titillated or uncomfortable about it.” MISEDUCATED: an oral history of sexual (mis)education is based on interviews they conducted. The performance is a combination of documentary theater, movement, humor, nudity and live music.

The show started awkwardly which, given the subject matter, is likely intentional. Co-creator Ben Gorodetsky banters with the audience about youthful experiences learning about sex or misconceptions at the time. With his Russian background, he debunks his own notion that “sex isn’t drinking pee out of a condom in a Soviet way.” (The story is very funny.) He opens up the floor and asks for audience participation.

Eventually the lights dim and a staged work begins. In multiple scenes, movement akin to modern dance is utilized both to celebrate sexuality and also consider its awkwardness and its variety. A dance with Mr. Gorodetsky and his co-creators Peekaboo Pointe and Hilary Preston begins in unison. Their movements are aligned. As the dance progresses, they go out of synch and then back again. The idea of this choreography seems to be the physical manifestation of one’s sexual exploration which morphs and evolves over time.

Chanan Ben Simon composed exceptional original music for MISEDUCATED which elevates the performer’s movements. Quotes and story are often layered over the score and electronically repeated. When the lighting was perfect, the audio and visual components really showcased what these artists were trying to accomplish.

There are many serious moments in this piece. A Greek woman recalls her abstinence class which required her to sign a pledge card. Two especially poignant voice-overs dealt with embarrassment suffered from having a period and a young man’s trying to pray his gay away. As archaic as this sounds to many, many people, religion’s antidote for the “devil’s temptation” is “just don’t have sex.”

Not every minute of this well-conceived blast of creativity was as effectively realized. The idea of sharing quotes from interviews was certainly interesting, even if many felt commonplace and obvious. Being shared from notes while the performers slow tumbled down the stairs was overlong. This part was neither visually as strong as the other sections and the words were too quickly tossed aside.

Early on, when MISEDUCATED begins to probe the unfortunate traps of something so very natural to human beings, a strip tease occurs. In this moment, the giddiness of youthful exploration of the body of the opposite sex is endearingly portrayed. It seemed so very natural and in direct counterpoint to the shame so often hurled at the young.

Flesh Mob attempted “to braid together the threads of absurdity, hilarity, awkwardness, shame and trauma, implicating ourselves, our community and the audience in the process.” Mission accomplished. The idea for this piece is clearly provocative and the execution was nicely constructed. Maintaining the best parts while tightening the interview storytelling might make this creative endeavor soar to orgasmic levels of entertaining performance art.

www.thetanknyc.org

www.fleshmobnyc.com

About This Reviewer - May 4, 2019May 4, 2019

April 2019 Podcast is LIVE

This month’s podcast is now live. You can click the buzzsprout link below or search for theaterreviewsfrommyseat on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher.

This month’s episode covers productions in New York City (from Broadway to Off-Off Broadway). A brand new musical called Atlantis which premiered in Richmond at the Virginia Rep is reviewed. Four Broadway shows are discussed including Glenda Jackson in King Lear, Laurie Metcalf and John Lithgow as Hillary and Clinton, Anais Mitchell’s Hadestown and Taylor Mac’s Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus. From off-Broadway: Mrs. Murray’s Menagerie, The Poor of New York, June is the First Fall and much more.

The mission of theaterreviewsfrommyseat is to record my theatergoing experiences in concise summaries without plot spoilers in order to share my love of theater. I hope to inspire you to see a play, musical or theater company you may not have known about. Free email subscriptions for newly published reviews are available at www.theaterreviewsfrommyseat.com.

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About This Reviewer - May 2, 2019

The Bigot

There are two apartments across the hall from each other in The Bigot. In the messy one on the right, Bill O’Reilly’s book Killing Reagan is perched on the couch. Bottles of pills are sitting on a tray. On the left is a much neater, more modern home. Two young lesbians have just moved in after a brief courtship. They are celebrating their anniversary of two months, two days, six hours and twenty three minutes.

Jim (Stephen Payne) is a cantankerous old grump who is the character of the title. When his son Seth (Dana Watkins) comes by to check in on him, the Fox channel is blaring. Jim is currently going through dialysis and is having a rough time of it. No kidney matches have yet been identified. In the first scene, we learn that his son has not been tested for a match yet. Why not?

How is Jim a bigot? Oh, in the usual ways. “It’s not a conspiracy theory if it’s true?” In a debate about slavery, Jim offers that it was necessity of the time to advance commerce. Later he will touch on the Muslims and the Jews. Most of this character development is fairly generic stuff that we’ve now seen and heard many times before whether on stage or off.

The couple across the hall are health care workers having met in an emergency room. Paula (Jaimi Paige) is the romanticist, effusively optimistic and relentlessly kind. Aysha (Faiven Feshazion) is the practical, opinionated, organized half of this couple. Throughout the play they consult their watches and continue to count the minutes since they first met.

When Seth converses with his Dad’s friendly neighbors, he asks if they might not mind looking in on him once in awhile. With the unrestrained glee of a woman striving for sainthood, Paula throws herself headfirst into the task. The bigot Jim has no time for lesbians and tells Seth, “those two carpet munchers get me so worked up.” The bigotry is neither funny enough to be comedy nor seriously disturbing enough to be dramatically repulsive. Most of the jokes land with a thud.

From this set up, the plot careens from contrivance to contrivance. Can our lesbians crack the hardened shell of this bigot? Will father and son continue to bark at each other rather than heal their openly visible relationship wounds? Will a kidney transplant become available or will Dad die?

Each person in this cast works hard to create believable people with more than one or two dimensions. All of them are successful in that regard. The play’s time period spans one month. The story arc and the character’s progressions are forced and unbelievable. Gabi and Eva Mor have written this play from their personal experiences. They encountered discrimination. Like the character of Paula who is referred to as the “gay Mary Poppins,” they remain hopeful for a better future.

Intolerance is perhaps the defining descriptor of the decade in which we live. The Bigot wants to shed a light on how we might be able to crack the code toward better communication and understanding. The plot twists here are too numerous and far-fetched. As a result, the play just muddles through as a mash up of Archie Bunker and an underwritten Lifetime movie.

www.thebigotplay.com

About This Reviewer - April 30, 2019April 30, 2019

BOUND (Theater for the New City)

Marigold Page is a Tohono O’odham woman. She is also an activist working with her tribe to resist a wall being built across their Nation. She meets John Morales-Rio, a Native land surveyor working in the southern U.S. and Mexico. He is smitten and charms her into a spontaneous picnic. Why this particular career? His family has a history of protecting their lands and ensuring that the most sacred sites are protected for generations to come. John tells Marigold, “I feel BOUND to it.”

Writer and Director Tara Moses is a citizen of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. American Indian Artists, Inc. (AMERINDA) works to foster intercultural understanding of Native culture. Located in New York, this multi-arts organization is the only one of its kind in the United States. Amidst our current political circus regarding our border with Mexico, BOUND makes us contemplate boundaries in a refreshingly interesting way.

The Gadsden Purchase of 1853 was signed by Mexican President Antonio López de Santa Anna and James Gadsden, the U.S. Ambassador to that country. The westward railroads were being built and the land was coveted for such development. No one seemed to care that the new border would split this particular tribe across two different countries.

John has been hired to assist an oil company now looking to develop a pipeline through their long-bequeathed lands. His intentions are well-meaning. By participating in the process, perhaps the most sacred sites can be spared. Both John and Marigold are finding it harder to get to work these days. The additional border security adds significant delays traversing through the boundaries of their Nation.

This play fluidly alternates between the current day struggles of John and Marigold back to the conflicts experienced by White River and Tall Woman in 1853. Both generations are played by Dylan Carusona and Elizabeth Rolston. The characters are not deeply written but both actors manage to imbue them with charm and sense of purpose.

While a good portion of BOUND focuses on the Native American experience, Ms. Moses intersperses her story with historical reenactments. Scenes with key historical figures such as President Franklin Pierce and his Secretary of War Jefferson Davis give historical perspective. The economic hunger of America as a young, aggressive nation hell bent on colonization is dramatized. The oil industry’s encroachment is represented as the same story all over again.

Other scenes from today’s headlines are equally highlighted. Snippets from television reporting are recreated such as the coverage of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s pipeline protests. The Border Patrol repeats what we’ve all heard before: “many of them are drug cartels, murderers and rapists.” As the White Chorus Man, Nicholas Stauffer was especially effective in successfully inhabiting these different characterizations.

“No one is illegal on stolen land” may be the belief (or the dream) but reality seems to suggest otherwise. Centuries of warring native tribes had to come together when a new, better armed and financed tribe came to conquer. Capitalism is represented as an evolutionary step after tribalism. Countries became greater than tribes. Are we now in a period where corporations and money are becoming greater than countries?

BOUND, the play, is full of ideas. The material itself contains fairly average dialogue but it did inspire some thoughtful contemplation. Is the history of white European colonists in North America any different than those who drew imaginary lines and split tribes haphazardly in the Middle East?

For a very small scale play presented in an East Village basement on a shoestring budget, I felt engaged. That is commendable. When a cultural institution is engaged in making the world see their truth through a different lens, that is meaningful theater. BOUND could certainly be a better play than it is today. As a white European second generation descendant from immigrants, I have to agree that America could certainly be more compassionate than it is today.