Category: Off-Off Broadway Reviews

Reverend Rhonda Akanke McLean-Nur kicks off this second poetry jam entitled She Speaks, He Speaks, Generations Speak, Black Words Matter.  She notes this is a year containing COVID, more murdering of black people, incompetent leadership and the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment.  She praised the recently deceased John Lewis and Ruth Bader Ginsburg who “lived their lives to empower ours.”  The Reverend’s brief introduction was attention grabbing.

“In this consequential year, we pause to celebrate and reflect,” she concluded.  This is also the 50th season of the New Federal Theatre.  The one hour event began with an exciting outdoor tap dance called “Love, Power, Grace” by Cartier Williams.  With a title like the one for this poetry jam, you know serious is right around the corner.  And it is, powerfully so.

Margaret Walker wrote For My People in 1942.  This work won a Yale writing award making her the first black woman to receive a national writing prize.  A dozen readers shared sections of this great piece.  Lots of different voices underscored the universality of the message.  All of the work done by her people “never gaining, never reaping, never knowing and never understanding.”

Haki Madhubuti’s gorgeous Art shares his philosophy that art is “food for a people’s soul.”  He shared how art saved him with a personal reflection about his mother dying at the age of 34.  His message is hopeful and exquisitely written.  “Children of all cultures inherit their creative capacity to originate from the bone of their imagination the closest manifestation of purity, perfection and beauty.”

Jessica Care Moore followed with her Vertical Woman for Sonia Sanchez as a powerful homage to her 80th birthday.  Excitingly, Ms. Sanchez followed with a reading of her own Morning Song and Evening Walk For Martin Luther King, Jr.  Plainly and clearly she stated, “we have to hold up our freedom banners / we have to hold them up until we die.”

Rewarding words and storytelling followed about black fathers, their daughters, Malcolm X and other observations.  Yusef Komunyakaa concluded his Blue Dementia with this line:  “I know something about the toiling of ghosts.”  Reflecting the events of today, Mahogany L. Browne read Ain’t Got Much Place for Wallowing.  Her viewpoint has no time for “bipartisan cupcake promises” from a “government that pretends America is heaven.”

For me, the emotional core of this presentation was Shadenia Sivad’s rendering of Coffee.   This story was about the father of her children dating outside his race and his “obsession with competing with Master.”  Her delivery was intense and emotional on many levels.  “Only you and I know the effects of abandonment” as we “grew from the same damn tree.”

There were many ideas to ponder, injustices to consider and life-affirming glimpses to the future.  Reverend Rhonda summed it up by concluding that we need to be “using our own words wisely, creatively and constructively.”  This poetry jam succeeded in that mission.  Were that we could be a nation capable of listening with empathy, these words are an easy bridge to understanding the darkness lurking within.

Getting an “A” in history class growing up meant you could memorize dates and names of things.  We don’t teach children reality.  We cut funding for arts.  How can we keep moving forward?  How can we get more listeners?  I am hopeful when I watch the generation coming up expressing their discontent.

This one hour production, nicely directed by Petronia Paley, was a heady combination of depressing, joyful, angry and thought provoking.  I just watched the abominable Presidential debate this week.  I have to sum up that experience by quoting lyrics from Genovis Abright’s performance of his song “Mississippi Goddam.”  Watching the television, you have to agree that “this whole country is full of lies.”

The New Federal Theatre has a series of play readings in October as part of their NFT:  Retrospective Reading Series.

www.newfederaltheatre.com

the american vicarious in collaboration with The Invisible Dog Art Center are presenting a socially distanced performance installation in Brooklyn.  A quick subway ride – yes I’ve finally plunged back in big toe first – and you arrive at the hosting table.  In the middle of the block on an open lot is a forty foot shipping container with a door.  Static Apnea takes place one person at a time in there.

Static Apnea is a discipline in which a person holds their breath underwater for as long as possible.  After serious COVID preparations by the hosts, I entered into a world I was told would be dark.  I fumbled around.  I saw light and went toward it.  I was advised to get as close as possible and I did.  You know there is an actor in there and there was (safely).

In the performance I saw, Isabella Pinheiro is standing behind a microphone.  I learn that 9:02 seconds is the record set by a woman holding her breath.  A relatively obvious question is then asked.  What happens if you try to go longer and fail?  All of this time, lighting enhances the mood, enveloping the mystery.

For such a short performance, I do not want to say much more except that the dialogue is very meditative and thought provoking.  I stood in a claustrophobic box in the middle of a pandemic.  One which causes respiratory failure.  Breathing is the focus of the piece.  Your experience is to listen and absorb.  The rest is how your mind processes that brief period of time.

At the end, I was disoriented and it took me a bit to find my way.  The next visitor was ready to go.  After some air purging and sanitizing, she went in.  I walked down the block to the subway pondering the experience and admiring its uniqueness.  And also how it set me off kilter just enough.

Our current times are allowing artists to emerge, create and challenge us in new ways.  I just heard Claws is coming back in October.  That one took place on a telephone call.  Static Apnea is free.  Why not give it a try?  It is under ten minutes long, something new to experience in a live format and quite absorbing for this particular moment.

Static Apnea is scheduled to run until October 17, 2020. Tickets are free and reservations are recommended.

www.theinvisibledog.org

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/claws

With all of the theaters closed, more and more websites and theater companies are taking their works online.  Some are free and some have paid subscriptions.  I frequently attend productions at The Tank, an Off-Off Broadway arts incubator.  They have just started a weekly series called CyberTank.  The first episode is appropriately themed How Do We Choose Community Over Despair?

Christian Roberson is the host.  He also submitted a documentary style hip hop video about art and racism.  The mood is very casual and apologetic as the team fumbles through the early stages of this venture.  I found myself inspired by each contributors’ passion to share feelings and art during this time of isolation.  The experiment in process is to create an e-home for e-merging artists.  Like The Tank itself, the range covers many disciplines.

Kev Berry just lost his job in a restaurant.  He has begun writing a document called “For the Sake of Heaven.”  The plan is to “capture this thing” on a day-to-day basis.  He then reads his entry from Day 2 called “Adjustments and Curry.”  Iveth Otero filmed a short belly dancing video.  The mood was dreamlike and gauzily lit.

Suzelle Palacios, who I recently saw in Birthday in the Bronx, followed with a sonnet.  She also implored artists to find ways to express their art.  She suggests trying something you haven’t done before.  The encouragement of expression drives the feeling of community evident throughout this episode.

Emery Schaffer presented a taped segment from his play A My Name is Allison.  Three friends have a game night and Allison comes to one of them.  She’s a doozy.  On a monthly basis, Ayun-Halliday hosts Necromancers of the Public Domain.  This program takes an old book from the New York Public Library and creates a one night low budget variety show.  This month’s book was 1921’s New York: The Nation’s Metropolis.  She tells us, “so I wrote this yesterday at 5:00.”  A tune follows with pictures and humor.

Ran Xia was inspired to take an eighteen day train trip, talk to strangers and create a travelogue.  In her segment, storytelling is set to a piano accompaniment.  Nikki Knupp follows with a transgender themed pop song and a fun homemade music video.  The opening line is memorable:  “Is who you are reflected in a stranger’s eyes?”

As we can never truly escape the abominations of the White House occupants, a section from The Melania Trump Road Show is played.  Lauren LoGiudice portrays the first lady.  The segment is titled Fashion Police of Politics.  “Shame on him for those eyebrows” made me laugh out loud.  Poet Mike Fracentese came next.  He began a bimonthly poetry reading series at the Tank.  The third show was cancelled due to the virus.  He shares his poem about climate change.

Constantine Jones has written a manuscript called The Gut.  It is one long poem separated into distinct movements.  Three selections highlight his project and you feel drawn into his creative process and thoughts.  “Slide Show” particularly stood out for me with the promising opening, “all the things I’d like to be.”  Finally, Julia Knobloch concluded the episode with three recently written poems.  Her themes were the dark legacy of the Nazi’s, getting older and the search for a place which bore the title, “Los Angeles.”

Mr. Roberson reminds viewers that The Tank (like all smaller non-profits) will be struggling financially through this period.  Donations are encouraged.  The Venmo accounts for most of the artists are also noted in the upper left hand of the video.  If you enjoy a performance, a tip can be easily shared from your seat.  I look forward to the next batch of experimentation and sharing.

The Tank is a Off-Off Broadway theater and arts incubator which typically puts on 1,000 shows annually working with over 2,500 artists across many disciplines.  New episodes are scheduled to go live on Tuesdays at 4:00pm eastern.

www.thetanknyc.org/cybertank

The brain has been studied for centuries.  Veinticinco: a myth of the brain is a performance art piece that ponders that fact in a personal way.  The brain adapts, molds and transforms.  One of the four young women says “all of this I’ve been obsessed with.  So obsessed with.”

The four lobes of the brain are covered in this meditative exploration.  The temporal lobe is in charge of language.  Cleverly, the show begins with “maybe it’s the first thing you recall that starts building a language.”  The ladies then alternate snippets of the first things that they remember as a young child.  “My turtle Leo” had a name which was based on a television program.  This detail later elicits a laugh as she recounts all her turtles up through Leo seven.  When the thoughts are sharply detailed, Veinticinco is at its most effective.

Isabella Uzcátegui created this piece in collaboration with her co-performers Sofia Figueroa, Ana Moioli and Sofia Sam.  With backgrounds from Venezuela, Brazil and Peru, the languages of their own histories are addressed.  “I have to give up a part of myself to speak English.”  The English language is considered “very chewy” and makes “my brain go slightly faster.”  Emotions are “definitely for Spanish.”  Hearing foreign languages interspersed throughout the show brings these storytellers to life.

Most of the dialogue spoken is in short segments.  There is some vivid imagery developed such as equating one’s mind to mirrors and windows.  The occipital lobe controls sight and illusions.  One complements she likes the color of another’s blue shirt.  But it’s green.  It looks blue.  “It’s yellow,” concludes a third person.  The show is also a playful study on our brains; what makes us similar and what makes us different.

Directed by Attilio Rigotti, Veinticinco flows easily between proclamations, questions, insights and movement.  The lighting design by Orsolya Szánthó is particularly fascinating in its variation and choreography.  Most of the effects are hand held by the cast.  There is a feeling of analysis and of illumination.  The staging and visual impact added a nice layer of mystery.  We know what we know and we don’t know what we don’t.

“This is my dream body” is said during the segment which covers the frontal lobe.  What followed caught me by surprise.  “Wouldn’t it be great,” we are asked, “to have a second brain…  a reserve heart… that would just drop down into place when the first one breaks?”  Memorable writing is a strength of this show.

Clocking in at forty five minutes, Veinticinco is probably long enough for now.  There is a distant, lecture-like quality to this dreamlike excursion into the brain.  I found myself wanting to know more about these women which is a good sign that they drew my attention into their vision.  If each person had a short monologue or two, that could potentially allow us to get emotionally attached to their exploration rather than primarily intellectually.

Cinquanta might be a nice follow up piece twenty five years from now.  What makes artists’ tick and want to create is usually interesting and, as is the case in this unique production, often entertaining.

The Tank is a non-profit presenter and producer serving 2,500 artists in 1,000 productions annually on their two stages.

www.thetank.org

Can the biblical tale of Adam and Eve be told in stunning burlesque without upsetting any higher powers?  The audience didn’t seem to care while soaking up this witty, imaginative and delectably subversive version.  The devil opens the show with Sam Tinnesz’s “Play With Fire.”  The lyrics are altered to set the mood as in “my boys like to play with fire.”  As is usual for a Company XIV performance, things do indeed get hot.

Poor Adam is created but soon thereafter complains of loneliness.  A cleverly executed scene produces Adam’s rib, the key ingredient for making a woman.  (Are we really still teaching this in schools?)  Dean Martin’s “If You Were the Only Girl in the World” cheekily underscores their duet.  Costumes (Zane Pihlstrom) in this show are fantastically bawdy and sparkly.  Adam and Eve wear sheer material decorated to look like a nude body over their undergarments.  Remember, shame takes them a while to discover.  Scott Schneider and Danielle J.S. Gordon were terrific in their roles and atmospheric dances.

An elaborate snake dance ensues.  The temptation.  The bite.  The fall.  Adam and Eve are cast out of paradise.  There are seven paths to hell.  Seven deadly sins.  Now the cast wants to celebrate as we are getting to the pulsating heart of this show.  “Sinners, a toast… to hell!”  The spirit being conjured is summed up by the follow up remark.  “May your stay there be as fun as the way there.”

After a perfectly timed intermission, Austin McCormick’s burlesque extravaganza kicks into high gear.  The seven sins are thematically embraced in this ex-warehouse space.  The decor is described as Versailles decadence spliced with Prohibition era dance halls.  The room can definitely get a little smoky (for design effect) and the superlative lighting by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew completes the visual picture.

If you’ve never seen Company XIV before, attending is a super stylized and dreamy trip back in time.  The performers greet you and are also the bartenders.  Different types of seating are available.  This show has a few large tables in the middle of the room.  These people are served food and drinks.  They also get a close up on some of the action.  There is a party-like vibe but when the lights go down, all eyes are focused on the performers and their impressive skills.

Marcy Richardson is a peacock strutting her stuff as Vanity.  If you have seen her act before, she has an knack for aerial acrobatics while singing opera.  This time she performs “L’eliser D’amore” (The Elixir of Love) by Gaetano Donizetti.  The troupe’s trademark intermingling of musical styles is typically fascinating.  Ms. Richardson returns later in the show during Greed and delivers the best routine I have ever seen by her.  That is saying a lot if you’ve been lucky enough to catch her act before.

Lust  is appropriately placed in the middle of the show.  In an ensemble piece, two men hang upside down in a full split position from the overhead lighting fixture.  This is a brief moment in the show but it informs the high level of quality.  You notice the double lyra in the air when you take your seat.  During a Jealousy scene, Troy Lingelbach and Nolan McKew are dazzling on this apparatus.

Cab Calloway’s “Everybody Eats When They Come to My House” concludes the Gluttony section.  A little can-can nods to the Moulin Rouge feel of this nightclub.  After all, we are told, “everywhere there’s a lot of piggies living piggy lives.”  Funny, sexy, artistic, athletic, musical, breathtaking and endlessly entertaining, SEVEN SINS is a perfect introduction to this company.  Stay far away if bare buttocks and teasing sensuality offend your delicate sensibilities.

SEVEN SINS is performed at Théâtre XIV in Bushwick, Brooklyn.  The show is running until October 31, 2020.  A delicious slice at Artichoke Pizza can also be had on the nearby corner.

www.companyxiv.com

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/nutcrackerrouge/companyXIV