Author: Joe

Theater critic based in New York City. This website contains reviews "from my seat" to share my experiences and thoughts to hopefully inspire you to see a play, musical or theater company you may not have known about.
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True West (Roundabout Theatre)

First staged in 1980, True West is considered a classic play of sibling rivalry.  Ghosts of previous productions loom large.  The 1982 Steppenwolf Theatre Company production with Gary Sinise and John Malkovich made the play famous.  With playwright Sam Shepard’s approval, it transferred from Chicago to Off-Broadway.  In 2000, Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly were both nominated for Tony awards in a well-regarded Broadway revival.  This is my first opportunity to see this play so my thoughts are not informed by anything other than its reputation.

True West updates the biblical story of Cain and Abel, two brothers whose tensions famously resulted in murder.  Cain was punished into a life of wandering.  With an unnamed wife, he begat the human race.  Successful film star Paul Dano (A Free Man of Color) takes on the character of Austin, a seemingly mild mannered screenwriter who is house sitting for his mother.  His unnamed wife and family are not with him.  His drifter brother is Lee, played by another successful film and stage star, Ethan Hawke (The Coast of Utopia).  Lee has just wandered in from the desert where he survives off the grid using skills which include stealing.

The differences in these two are stark.  One is clean cut, the other sports a beard.  Lee’s clothing is stained.  It’s fairly easy to conjure images of polar opposite brothers.  One of mine is a guard in a maximum security federal prison and I write a theater blog.  Exploiting inherently oddball scenarios of sibling differences can be a surefire winner.  After seeing this production of True West, I cannot grasp what made this play so highly regarded.

There can be no doubt that this material must be heaven to an actor.  Ethan Hawke is a dynamic Lee, full of bravado and testosterone.  He may be the prodigal son but his eyes register a smoldering intensity of jealousy and self-doubt.  The performance is big, accomplished and entertaining throughout.  Mr. Dano’s Austin is a milquetoast at the beginning of the play.  The brother connection is not believable which may be intentional.  The personality bypass required to carry this story arc into crazy town doesn’t work.  The brothers are Cain and Abel after all and bad things are bound to happen.  Both actors have to be able to levitate this material from passive-aggressive fraternal opposites to drunken enemies.  In my view, this  balance was too one-sided.  Without the riveting fireworks, cracks in the play’s structure, notably its unrealistic timeline, seem irksome.

In addition to the core brother battles, Mr. Shepard added additional colors to his play. Rough Old West frontier survival meets the New West, notably one with the charms of a seductive, vapid and commercialized Hollywood.  As for this playwright, I may not yet have found a production that lives up to his reputation.  The Fool For Love Broadway revival a few years ago was clearly not helpful.  I remain hopeful for an outstanding version of the Pulitzer winning Buried Child or Curse of the Starving Class.

www.roundabouttheatre.org

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Real (The Tank)

Two stories emerge in Real, a terrific and ambitious new play by the Brazilian playwright Rodrigo Nogueira.  One takes place in the present with Dominique, her husband and two friends chatting during a dinner party celebrating an award she received from her law firm.  The other plot concerns Dominic, a young boy at a conservatory who is busy composing a fugue.  In music, a fugue is a composition where a short melody is introduced by one part and is successively taken up by others and developed by interweaving the parts.

Dominique (Rebecca Gibel, outstanding) played the piano when she was young but hasn’t done so in years.  She is now a mother and successful lawyer.  She becomes obsessed with a play she is reading as she also begins to question her sexuality and purpose in life.  A fugue writes itself in her dreams and she begins playing again.  Her conservatively pompous husband believes “realism is the strongest poison against dreams.”  The plotline of the play and the related fugue is the one being written by Dominic.

Both Mexican by descent, Dominic and a maid at the conservatory worry about being deported.  Between 1929 and 1936, the Mexican Repatriation was a mass deportation of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans.  An estimated sixty percent were United States citizens.  As this movement was based on race and not citizenship, the process meets the modern definition of ethnic cleansing.  While this largely untaught historical crime is only a small part of Dominic’s story, it remains apropos now.

A musical genius, Dominic (Darwin Del Fabro, perfect) is beginning to feel trapped in the body of a male.  His sympathetic professor encourages him to finish the fugue which is already so brilliant.  In a bizarre line, he says, “I’m so impressed it’s as if a cherry tree grew from my left nipple.”

Back and forth these scenes flow, intertwining the passions and dreams of Dominic and Dominique while those around them struggle to comprehend what is going on.  The language is highly memorable:  “truth is the antidote for hope” and “artists undermining the pillars of a sane society.”  Here, these two musicians are clearly attempting to get in touch with their inner personas.  Dominique’s reading of the play and dreaming of the music while Dominic is dreaming of the future and becoming Dominique while composing.  All of this meshes together to create a final scene where both stories are combined into a playwriting fugue.

Erin Ortman’s superb direction of this play and a fine cast created a mysterious mood as this story unwrapped.  The Lighting Design by Kia Rodgers perfectly framed this dreamscape’s the two divergent and combining plotlines.  A few jokes felt a bit forced (the repeated sex and riding a bicycle one as an example).  However, the overall quality of the mesmerizing storytelling and the clarity in presentation made this play great theater.

In this particular artistic period, many try to spotlight the internal difficulties for people with gender confusion.  We now know that perhaps the best way to understand them is to realize it’s all a fugue.  After all, the psychiatric definition of a fugue is a loss of awareness of one’s identity.  At off-off-Broadway’s The Tank, Real is sure to be one of the most creatively successful productions I will have the opportunity to witness in 2019.

www.thetanknyc.org

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Mike Birbiglia’s The New One

I was not familiar with the author and star of Mike Birbiglia’s The New One before this show was an off-Broadway hit last year prior to this transfer to Broadway.  On a cold January evening, I decided to check out this comedian and see this performance before it closed.  Spending time with Mike is warming to the soul.  Should you pay Broadway prices?  Debatable.  Will you get to know Mike and feel entertained?  Definitely.

Mr. Birbiglia is a couch potato.  He loves the couch.  It’s his favorite piece of furniture.  You don’t just sit in it.  The couch hugs you unlike the bed which indulgently requires a room to be named after it.  Some of these jokes are simple and sweetly funny.  Others take us to the prostitutes in Amsterdam where we hear about an embarrassing yet hilarious experience.  After getting to know the self-described unremarkable man, we learn what this show is about.  His wife, clearly the much better half, wants to have a baby.  That’s the new one of the title.

Hearing a litany of shortcomings for this potential father and also his proclivity to eat pizza until he loses consciousness, Mike gives us a list of seven reasons why he should not be one.  The comic monologue takes shape as we consider his sperm count and baby paraphernalia.  There are laughs to be had.  Parenting is really the woman’s domain.  Based on personal observation and his own being, Mike’s opinion of the male half of the species is that they are generally useless.

The New One contains amusing material and is a very pleasant, short evening.  When I opened the program, I saw that Beowulf Boritt (Tony winner for the stunning Act One) was the Set Designer.  Mr. Boritt has now designed twenty Broadway shows, many of them quite complex.  The set was cozy for sure (a nice rug and a stool) but why was he called in to do this?  Late in the show, we find out and it’s a treat.  The New One got its Broadway moment.  Hopefully this show will be filmed for audiences to enjoy in the future, sitting on their couches and getting hugs.

www.thenewone.com

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Space Race (Dixon Place)

I love to head downtown to Dixon Place and see a performance with a subject that catches my eye.  This location is home to a great deal of theatrical experimentation at wallet friendly prices.  Gotta love an artistic director who encourages the audience to grab a drink before or after the show as the proceeds help them continue to support artists in development.  This week I saw Space Race by writer and director Nicholas Gentile.

In this broad comedy, the Starship Apollo is traveling in low earth orbit as a vacation cruise liner.  The period is the 1960’s when the United States and Russia were in the midst of their heated quest to be the first one to land on the moon.  Neil Armstrong (David Malinsky) is the captain of this ship and he’s not the brightest.  There is a spy onboard.  His communications person is Olga, a woman with a thick Russian accent, hilariously embodied by Danielle Shimshoni.  She avoids his repeated sexual overtures while he flails about attempting to be a leader.

The promise of Space Race reminded me of silly SNL skits from the 1970’s like Land Shark or the Coneheads.  When everyone is committed, the goofiness can be truly memorable.  Not all of the thruster rockets were fully operating in this piece.  When the Americans accidentally crash land on the Starship Apollo, three iconic astronauts come aboard.  Jaques Duvoisin was a solidly pompous Chuck Yaeger, the man who was first to exceed the speed of sound in flight.  The caricature was dead on serious and very good.  He was accompanied by Buzz (Michael Caizzi) and Collins (Patrick Harvey), one sporting a broque and the other a wide-eyed enthusiastic twinkle toes.  All three were fun to watch.

There is an evil Senator (Terrence Montgomery) on this journey and also a German named Adolf (Victor Hazan) and his “feral South American mistress” Cutinga.  Sarah Galvin was hilarious as this half-animal woman but she did not really have enough to do in the plot other than give us feral realness.  For Space Race to soar higher, the level of these side characters have to be equalled within the main storyline which is lightly amusing but not inspired lunacy.  Americans and Russians up to no good is prime fodder for our entertainment right now, especially in a light comedic package.  A shirtless Russian, the mention of collusion and perhaps a send-up of the Trump/Putin Helsinki press conference might be worth a try.

www.dixonplace.org

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Eddie and Dave (Atlantic Theater)

I walked into the Stage 2 space of the Atlantic Theater Company to see the world premiere production of Eddie and Dave not knowing what the play was about.  The music playing was Van Halen’s classic “Running With the Devil.”  The walls were plastered with rock and roll memorabilia.  I saw a Whisky A Go Go flyer advertising Blondie on February 3, 1977.  The Plasmatics were represented and I recalled the chainsaw flailing of “Butcher Baby” in my mind.  I squinted to see which band was marketed as “Cooler Than Fuck!!!!”  I got up out of my seat to see the ad closer.  I had never heard of Big Bang Babies, a 90’s glam metal act.  As a college radio disc jockey from that period, I am clearly in the theatrical bullseye for this material.

You may already have guessed that the title of this play references Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth.  If these two rock stars are foreign to you – or perhaps an obscure reference from the past like Dinah Shore might be to a millennial – then find something else to do.  Playwright Amy Staats admits in the program: “The only thing real about this play is the author’s love for a certain band.”  As the MTV VJ narrator, a funny Vanessa Aspillaga further informs that Eddie and Dave is a “memory play; brightly lit, sentimental and not at all realistic.”  As a blogger, I’d add: “and not at all good.”

In 1996, Van Halen is presenting an award at the VMAs.  Dave had not been on stage with his bandmates in over a decade.  Shenanigans ensued, depicted as an on-stage fight.  Our VJ guiltily lights a cigarette stating, “such as dirty habit…. nostalgia.”  The laughs seem promising right from the start.  What follows is a tongue-in-cheek biography of the band from their youth to the VMA reunion.  While the description of the play might suggest a fictional story, the tedious detail of their history is far from imaginary.

Over ninety minutes, this amateurishly presented skit covers everything from groupies (“like fruitflies to a ripe banana”) to Eddie’s marriage to Valerie Bertinelli, amusing embodied and roasted by Omer Abbas Salem.  Eddie and Dave are played by Ms. Staats and Megan Hill.  They capture some of the caricaturized essence of these people but there is not enough variation to sustain a whole play.  If you don’t know them beforehand, I presume the mugging will be meaningless.

This production was cast with opposite genders – the women play the men and Mr. Salem is Val – but that potential is not really developed.  There are indeed some funny lines early on but the crickets grew in volume and for long stretches as the play progressed.  Fun could potentially be had if this cartoonish sketch was staged in a bar with musical interludes and cocktails.  As it stands now, dozens more (non-repeated) jokes are desperately needed.  More characters from the period would also help as the two non-band members produce the best and funniest moments.

Toward the end, our VJ tells us that if you “see an aging rock star, remember all things great are inherently ridiculous.”  Eddie and Dave is definitely ridiculous but, unfortunately, not inherently so.

www.atlantictheater.org

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Frankenstein (Manual Cinema)

Manual Cinema’s Frankenstein is presented this year as part of the Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival.  For the last fifteen years, this organization has provided a high-visibility platform to support artists from diverse backgrounds who are redefining the act of making theater.  For me, Manual Cinema is far from under the radar as I have seen two of their previous productions, the extraordinary Ada/Ava and Mementos Mori.  This particular production significantly upsizes the scope of their work.

This company is aptly named Manual Cinema as their work involves creating a movie by hand right in front of an audience.  The cinema is black and white silent movies with music.  The imagery is projected on a screen using puppetry and actors.  In Ada/Ava, for example, the movie was created using four overhead projectors shined onto a screen.  The entertainment is not only watching the finished, well-directed product but also the choreography of the puppeteers using their materials.  The creativity is awesome to behold.

In Frankenstein, they took the four projector format and added three additional and unique sections, including a stationary camera.  The musicians played an original score with numerous instruments including a five octave marimba and various implements to create sound effects.  Frankenstein needs thunder and lightning after all.  The show was presented in ninety minutes with less than a dozen individuals, some playing multiple roles delineated with quick wig and costume changes.  The resulting cinema was detailed, visually arresting storytelling with a gorgeously moody score.  A two dimensional cutout projected on a screen shed a tear and the emotion registers.

The coordination and movement by these artists was jaw-dropping in its complexity.  I found myself watching the screen then focusing on the methods then marveling at the quality of the music underscoring this silent film.  While the visual treats are endless, the storytelling is what makes Manual Cinema’s work so effective.  In Frankenstein, they faithfully combine Mary Shelley’s famous book with a biography of how she came to create the tale.  Add thunder and lightning – and a healthy dash of unspoken witticisms – and violà, a cinematic creature is born.

I follow Manual Cinema and make sure to see their work whenever possible.  This production of Frankenstein opened my eyes to their future possibilities.  The work is evolving on to a grander scale and continues to be very exciting theater.  Ada/Ava was adorable and should not be missed.  Frankenstein is a revelation and, I hope, the launching pad for more greatness and even bigger audiences to come.

www.manualcinema.com

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/mementosmori

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Wendell & Pan (The Tank)

From the title of Katelynn Kenney’s play Wendell & Pan, the reference is clear.  J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, or The Boy Would Wouldn’t Grow Up has provided inspiration for many theatrical productions.  The most recent ones I recall are Bedlam Theatre’s dreadful retelling and the underwhelming Broadway musical Finding Neverland.  At the arts incubator The Tank, this version takes place in “a one level, two bedroom house in some tiny town.”

Wendell (Nick Ong) is a book reading nerd whose best friend is Pan (Shavana Clarke).  Is she imaginary or not?  She certainly is fun and they have adventures such as pretending to play pirates.  He also confides his thoughts and secrets to Pan seeking advice.  His grandfather is very ill and has asked Wendell to kill him.  His parents are visibly going through some marital issues and the family environment is chilly.  His sister Kayla is busy on her cellphone leaving voice mail messages which embarrass her.  From this beginning, a psychologically complex story unfolds.  A question is asked:  “how come saying one thing can change everything?”

There is an interesting story line in Wendell & Pan but at this stage of its development, the tone is wildly inconsistent.  The abrupt shifts from dramatic tension to throwaway comedic one-liners is jarring and undercuts the lurking moodiness which tries to emerge.  As directed, the play is also paced too slowly and feels overlong.  There was a moment when I thought it had ended.  What seemed like a nice finish left some mysteries for the audience to consider.  Unfortunately, the exposition continued on, was rather tedious and somewhat repetitive.

On the very positive side, the set design by Caitlyn Barrett was quite impressive and cleverly laid out.  In the small downstairs space at The Tank, the family and Pan were inside and outside the home, up in a treehouse or on a roof.  I’ve seen plays with enormous budgets unable to produce this level of quality and clarity, not to mention that Wendell & Pan has quite a few fantastical elements stuffed into its plot.  In addition, Nya Noemi’s confident portrayal as sister Kayla was the standout performance for me.

This play wants to embrace the challenges of growing up as in Peter Pan.  As the work develops further and the audience reacts (or does not react) to certain lines and scenes, a better, more focused character study may emerge.  For now, this interesting multi-generational tale of decisions and ramifications needs a sprinkle of pixie dust to fly.

www.thetanknyc.org

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The Prom

When running for Vice President of the United States, Indiana’s Mike Pence was accused of supporting gay conversion therapy.  Sometimes described as a pseudoscientific practice, this particular treatment uses psychology or spiritual interventions to make young people heterosexual instead of gay.  Of course the “medical community” is at odds over the effectiveness or morality of such treatment, much like they were last century with lobotomies and electric shock therapy.  As a so-called intelligent species, however, we all apparently cannot grasp and learn from our historical idiocities and retreat into familiar dogma and cringe-worthy, uninformed religious fervor.  Enter The Prom, a light in the loafers new musical comedy in which a lesbian wants to go to the big dance in her hometown of Edgewater, Indiana.

Rather than create a heavy handed manifesto with this material, the creative team have appropriated #realnews headlines to create a fluffy, good intentioned, often hilarious tale meant to entertain, inspire, teach (a little) and send the crowd home happy.  I enjoyed this very old-fashioned musical safely ensconced in the liberal world of Broadway.  I would definitely pay to see this show on stage in Indiana.  As presented here, the Hoosiers (and Midwesterners in general) are predictably satirized as backward thinkers.  Nicely balancing this nuttiness are the lessons also learned by the well-meaning, self-absorbed gay activists who flock to this conservative small town to plant rainbow flags.

Happily, the do-gooder narcissists are theater people.  Two time Tony winner Dee Dee Allen (Beth Leavel) and the prancing Barry Glickman (Brook Ashmanskas) open The Prom as stars of a new show about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.  The reviews are terrible and the show closes.  Along with their stage pals, they concoct a plan to revive their besmirched reputations as self-absorbed divas.  There’s a high school age lesbian who wants to go to her prom but the PTA feels otherwise.  With a Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney vibe, the thespians hop a bus to save the day (or maybe it’s “save the gay”).  Broad caricatures, chewed scenery, insider jokes and big Broadway swagger are proudly and loudly in full bloom throughout this musical.

Ms. Leavel’s  Dee Dee is a grossly exaggerated homage to Ms. Leavel’s career as a big personality Broadway star, notably her phenomenal turn as Beatrice Stockwell in The Drowsy Chaperone.  Her anthems, particularly “The Lady’s Improving,” are spotlight-grabbing, full-throttle belting showstoppers.  Even better is Mr. Ashmanskas as the gayer than gay Barry.  If you saw him in Something Rotten, his prancing effeminate buffoonery will not be new.  Fortunately, he dials twinkle toes up to MAX and the result is more than a slice of ordinary ham, it’s comic prosciutto.  Unearthing his heart of gold amidst the non-stop strutting elevates the whole show considerably.

Around these two supernovas are a cluster of talented veterans, most notably Angie Schworer who teaches our young lesbian how to add some “Zazz” to her repertoire in a cleverly staged, leggy duet.  Thankfully for this show, the young lady at the center of the controversy is played by Caitlin Kinnunen.  She’s lovable, grounded and completely believable in a beautifully realized characterization.

Directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw, The Prom is a very fun show hovering a few ticks below greatness.  The outstanding choreography of the finale hints at what could have been throughout.  Much of the book and score (Bob Martin, Chad Beguelin and Matthew Sklar) is very funny.  I guffawed aplenty watching this inspired goofiness.  The tunes are pretty good if not Grade A memorable.  If you are in the mood for a musical comedy, The Prom might be a dance worth attending.  If you are from Indiana, have a martini first and laugh with the rest of us.  If you are homophobic, perhaps prayer will be a preferable option.  I doubt it will be as much fun.

www.theprommusical.com

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Blue Ridge (Atlantic Theater Company)

Alison was a teacher in the Blue Ridge school system but has been ordered by a court to live in a church halfway house.  Her romantic involvement with the principal went sour so she bashed his car with an axe.  The play opens with her arrival to this group, her new home for six months.  She carries a truckload of rage, sarcasm, defense mechanisms and an inability to sit still.  As played by the (seemingly always) superb Marin Ireland (Summer and Smoke, Ironbound, reasons to be pretty), she may be off-putting, or even repulsive, but her deeply wrought emotional scars are in full view.

The house is run by Hern (Chris Stack) and Grace (Nicole Lewis) who keep the peace, get their charges part-time employment and run Bible classes where sharing is encouraged.  This story takes place in western North Carolina’s hillbilly country.  The current residents include Cherie (Kristolyn Lloyd) and Wade (Kyle Beltran), both dealing with substance abuse problems.  What makes Blue Ridge compelling theater is its flawed cast of characters, each of whom is struggling with some personal demon.  Directed by Taibi Magar (Underground Railroad Game, The Great Leap), everyone in this stellar cast adds critical layers of personality and feeling to the spoken words.

The play expertly moves time along with simple changes to set decorations (Halloween, Thanksgiving) as we watch relationships develop and evolve.  Cole (Peter Mark Kendall) is the next to arrive after Alison.  He appears to be a variation on the dim white young man.  Playwright Abby Rosebrock has a lot to say about the treatment of women by men, particularly by those in power.  Rather than make this play an easy to swallow, one-sided feminist rager, Ms. Rosebrock writes much deeper levels of anguish in her character’s troubled souls.  As a result, the complexities of unravelling their motivations, desires and dreams continue to surprise and disturb until the very end.

Why Blue Ridge?  I presume that blue is the mood and ridge signifies an edge.  The sharp, dangerous edge on the side of a mountain where these humans are trying to avoid another fall.  As one might imagine, success does not come easily in this psychological group study of individuals searching for meaning, self-worth and personal happiness.  The Bible is used as a means to help analyze and inspire.  Given some of their personal quandaries, I found myself once again convinced that revered book does not have all the answers.

This play is not filled with simple exposition.  There were some older theatergoers vocally complaining that they did not understand what was happening, particularly in the latter stages.  Blue Ridge requires one to pause, to think, to observe, to question, to consider and to feel a wide range of emotions and thoughts.  You will laugh along with this dark comedy.  You will also be moved as to why and how difficult it is for some people to safely escape the Blue Ridge.

www.atlantictheater.org

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December 2018 Podcast

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

The current episode discusses my New York theatergoing experiences from December as well as one from Chicago at the Lookingglass Theater Company.  In this month, I comment on five wildly different holiday themed offerings and two timely plays, The Jungle and What the Constitution Means To Me.

The mission of theaterreviewsfrommyseat is to record my theatergoing experiences in concise summaries without plot spoilers in order to share my love of theater and inspire you to see a play, musical or theater company.

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/December2018Podcast