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Kingfish, A Scar is Born & Syncope

FRIGID Fringe Festival 2023 (Part 3)

The 17th Annual FRIGID Fringe Festival is underway in New York City.  This three week event is an open and uncensored downtown theater festival that gives artists an opportunity to let their ingenuity thrive in a venue that values freedom of expression and artistic determination.  Many of this year’s performances are livestreamed so there are ample opportunities to see some Indie theater works and support the artists who develop and perform them.

 

Kingfish

Off the side of a simple yet effective boat set a man is peeing the “last couple drops”.  An aggressively nasty tone begins the adventure called Kingfish.  Two men are seemingly strangers on this fishing boat.  Despite the unfamiliarity trash talking is abundant.  One man is “talking smack” about another man’s wife.  Where is this boat headed?

J.J. Williams is the “best bass fisherman the game has ever seen”.  He enters a mixed tournament where anyone might be assigned as your partner.  J.J. has the unfortunate luck to have Scratch on board.  His character is best described as an obnoxious overweight insulting pig of a manchild.   Even more concerning is that Scratch is Satan.

Satan collects souls in Mason jars and has every intention of adding to his cache today.  Arguments ensue.  J.J. realizes “it’s tough to be a good boy when it’s just you and the devil”.  The premise is fun, the horns are funny and the tale nicely transitions into a fishing contest for one’s soul.  “When I win maybe I won’t flay you right off the bat” hints at the occasional amusing tone.

The trip stretches over a period of time leading J.J. to wonder if hell simply is a never ending fishing trip with the devil.  Even more danger lurks in the water.  The storyline enters an unruly whirlpool of sorts and the plotline becomes a bit muddy.  Winning random references like “Fuck Charlie Daniels” keep the mood light  but a consistently darker tone might make this a creepy scary parable.  After all, Satan remarks, Jesus told us to “go forth and be a fisher of men”.

 

A Scar is Born

Lorelei Zarifian is admittedly “intoxicated by the sound of words”.  Her “stand up tragedy” A Scar is Born places this “word addict” at an audition for a theatrical film in Orlando.  How big a word freak you ask?  “I snort thousands and thousands of words”.  The show begins in an intriguingly quirky manner.

Through a series of songs and sketches Ms. Zarifian will review her life experiences to this unseen casting director.  Some of the wordplay is very entertaining.  “Suddenly I saw the silhouette of my fiancé/ Had no time to finish my crème brûlée”.  She wears a sign “Stop Bad Bread” pronouncing the American equivalent “a bad joke”.  In France, bread is four simple ingredients.  Here the package lists twenty one including enriched flour.  “Enriched with what?” is the amusing aside.

The audition takes us on her personal journey from Marseilles to Paris to New York and ultimately to Florida where the homeowner’s association creates a never ending series of new restrictions.  The moral of the Manhattan segment is “it costs an arm and a leg to be a foreigner”.  The revelations are a mixed bag.  There are many songs sung throughout.  While nicely rendered, they tend to illuminate the fragmentary structure of this show rather than help it coalesce.

At the end of the audition she receives a priceless call back from Netflix.  They love the idea but just want to “make slight changes”.  Those are funny.  None more so than asking her to change her role from poet to prostitute.  A Scar is Born might have a few boo-boos but there is definitely wit and heart within its storyteller’s continual reaching for that elusive dream.

 

Syncope

“Join celebrated storyteller Will Clegg on his lifelong journey with marijuana and panic disorder!  Hijinks ensue!”  That is the description and punctuation found online for Syncope.  While factually accurate, it does not begin to hint at the engrossing seriousness of this exceptionally well told memoir.

The show begins with a fairly typical scenario.  The father of a teenage boy finds a bag which is “either spices for spaghetti sauce or weed”.  Apparently Mr. Clegg was not quite the goody two shoes imagined.  He grows to love smoking pot.  “Everything I was worrying about melted away”.  This evolution gets him through middle school and eventually studying filmmaking at Columbia University.

There are attempts to cut back.  Never smoke before class is a mantra.  Then the punchline arrives.  “But I can skip class.”  There is an effortless conversational ease in Mr. Clegg’s presentation but there is no shortage of vivid imagery or details.  Living in a shoebox in the East Village he warns “whatever you’re imagining, it’s smaller than that”.

A few events give pause.  One time waking up in the bathtub with no idea how long he had been there.  The year 2003 with its pile of upsetting news.  Real concerns about life, career, relationships and substance excesses.  Anxiety issues.  Paranoia.  Am I having a heart attack?  Mr. Clegg candidly and expertly dives deeper and deeper into how he discovered the real antidote to anxiety.

This cathartic trail of foibles, both humorous and also a tad frightening, contains a bit of scientific information as well.  I now know the terms micturition and gelastic syncope which relate to temporary losses of consciousness due to a fall in blood pressure.

There is much to admire in Syncope as a piece of theater.  Perhaps more valuable, however, is hearing about a well traveled road to gaining confidence.  We can all use a dose of self-actualization now and then.  “I was able to be present and just enjoy it all” concludes Mr. Clegg.  From my seat I was happily present for Syncope and just enjoyed it all immensely.

Performances at the Frigid Fringe Festival are running through March 5, 2023.  Two dozen shows are performed multiple times at either the Kraine Theater or UNDER St Mark’s.  Tickets can also be purchased for many shows via livestreaming as well.

www.frigid.nyc

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I AM MY OWN MILF & Emil Amok: Lost NPR Host Found Under St. Mark’s, and other stories

FRIGID Fringe Festival 2023 (Part 2)

The 17th Annual FRIGID Fringe Festival is underway in New York City.  This three week event is an open and uncensored downtown theater festival that gives artists an opportunity to let their ingenuity thrive in a venue that values freedom of expression and artistic determination.  Many of this year’s performances are livestreamed so there are ample opportunities to see some Indie theater works and support the artists who develop and perform them.

I AM MY OWN MILF

“How’s it going Upper East Side?” asks our middle aged  hostess diva.  The ladies are getting together for lunch which will hilariously feature yuzu chiffon birthday cake.  I AM MY OWN MILF is at its enjoyably zaniest and most clever in the details and asides.

Sending up the rich and privileged is certainly nothing new especially in the campy world of drag.  Matthew Antoci’s version is supremely confident giving out a “shout out to everyone with social anxiety; I kinda feel sorry for you”.  This show is described as a “mixed-media drag+dance spectaculare” and also “part TV segment, part nature blog”.  Let’s settle on manic variety show where the guardrails are down, the brakes are faulty and speeding is the only option.

They have privilege take down as the main course in this uneven buffet.  “What does it feel like to be an elitist New York piece of shit?”  From that our diva will discover that she’s broke.  “No more gems, jets, sillouettes”.  Listen carefully and you will often be rewarded with delicious amuse-bouches.  The struggle is definitely real: “none of my friends will see me, not even Susan Sarandon”.

There is some linking to the Shakespeare play Timon of Athens with its feasts followed by poverty.  Here, critically, important questions are asked such as “what do poor people wear?”  Swipes at JK Rowling, Lynn Nottage, Kim Kardashian and the Roundabout Theatre Company’s Board of Directors pepper the rants.  Truthful confessions emerge.  “What a lot of people don’t know is how draining Athens is”.

Sidekicks Lizz Mangan and Meaghan Robichaud jump in as backup dancers and inhabit various roles including the 70 Minutes interviewer Debra Messing.  The show has energy to spare with some really funny lines sharing the stage with some clunkers.  You cannot say, however, the I AM MY OWN MILF failed to go big.

A song choice at the end included the lyrics “I’ve stayed too long at the fair/ I couldn’t find anybody who cared”.  That summed up this experience.  It’s impossible not to find fun things at the fair even if there are more scintillating versions in existence.

 

Emil Amok: Lost NPR Host Found Under St. Mark’s, and other stories

The title gives a preview of the expansive journey to be found in this storytelling memoir monologue.  Emil Amok:  Lost NPR Host Found Under St. Mark’s, and other stories is one man’s tale growing up as a Filipino American.  Emil Guillermo admittedly has a chip on his shoulder.  That energy adds a fascinating storm cloud hovering over his personal experience of racism.

Mr. Guillermo is a second generation American.  His father arrived here in 1928 and became a citizen although “some think I should have had my head examined for that”.  Son Emil seems to be achieving the proverbial American dream including attending Harvard and becoming the first Asian American male to be a national news host on NPR.

The crux of his anger is being treated like a first generation foreigner.  He comments that “white voice privilege” is not the same as white privilege.  Emil is in the one percent but the wrong one.  His tribe is part of a very small racial minority in the United States.

There are some jokes sprinkled throughout.  “Black Hair Matters” is one example which came across to me as a little flat and off-putting rather than funny.  His school friends debating whether he was “Winnie the Pooh color” or “Golden Bear brown” was a vivid memory.  The storytelling eventually devolves into a discussion of “that’s a gay job” followed by an overlong diatribe about his colonoscopy.  (Spoiler alert:  the prep is the worst!)

The bitterness generated from Mr. Guillermo’s life experience is the heart and soul of Emil Amok.  At the end of the show Emil informs that he’s “gonna get out of the past and into the present”.  Whether this show accomplishes that is debatable.  There is no doubt, however, that he sharply feels the anguish of being part of a small minority in a land of majority rule.

Performances at the Frigid Fringe Festival are running through March 5, 2023.  Two dozen shows are performed multiple times at either the Kraine Theater or UNDER St Mark’s.  Tickets can also be purchased for many shows via livestreaming as well.

www.frigid.nyc

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Sadec 1965: A Love Story & The Parentheses

FRIGID Fringe Festival 2023 (Part 1)

The 17th Annual FRIGID Fringe Festival is underway in New York City.  This three week event is an open and uncensored downtown theater festival that gives artists an opportunity to let their ingenuity thrive in a venue that values freedom of expression and artistic determination.  Many of this year’s performances are livestreamed so there are ample opportunities to see some Indie theater works and support the artists who develop and perform them.

Sadec 1965:  A Love Story

Sa Dec is described online as a small, sleepy, charming town featuring architecture from the colonial period.  In Sadec 1965:  A Love Story, Flora Le narrates a 2013 motorcycle journey through her father’s homeland in Vietnam.  The tale is intensely personal and effusively honest.

At 31 years old, Ms. Le finds herself exhausted.  Her ten year career, constant moving, negative relationships, substance abuse excesses, compulsive shopping and no family contact have left an “empty hole inside”.  A “decade in therapy” did not seem to do the trick nor “more Buddhist meditation retreats than I can count”.  Could this solo trip be the answer needed?

A best friend asks, “Do you think this has anything to do with your father?”  I saw this show the day after viewing Ana de Armas’ Oscar nominated turn as Marilyn Monroe in Blonde.  Father issues are a central element to both.  Sadec 1965 comes across as a far more constructive exercise in soul searching contemplation of childhood trauma and its aftermath.

Her father left Vietnam in August of 1967 to go to college in Montreal.  He meets a Canadian woman and Ms. Le is born.  By the time she was five years old her father had left.  Weekend visitation memories are still wounds.  “I learned at a really young age we just don’t talk about things”.  This upbringing provides the contextual backdrop for this philosophical attempt to connect a myriad of distressing pathways taken and, seemingly, survived.

The storytelling jumps back and forth from the past to the present.  This memoir is both about a journey to her father’s homeland and an opportunity for thought.  That time spent results a promise to “remain single until I find a way to heal my wounds”.  Presumably this show is a testament to that hard work.

Sadec 1965 is stuffed with big revelations which, when compounded with the shifting time perspective, becomes a lot to digest in one hour.  There is no doubt, however, that Ms. Le has effectively contemplated and confronted “all the shadows I’ve been carrying”.  At the show’s end there definitely seems to be more sunlight in her world.

The Parenthesis

“Sometimes we’re looking for an explanation, tacking on afterthought, enriching what is already complete with a pair of rounded brackets”.  That quote is from the program of The Parentheses.  What comes between those brackets is often illuminating nuance.  This play delves into a single relationship by exploring the delicate subtleties encased within a common framework.

Talia (Claire McClain) and Natasha (playwright Marissa Fleming) were a couple living in New York City.  Talia now lives in Berlin but has a layover and meets up with her ex on short notice.  The banter between the two is easy and safe at the start.  “Berlin doesn’t feel like it cares if you miss out on something”.  The mindset seems to suit Talia.  You know there is more history here since Natasha lets her know that her mom says hi.

While Talia has used her wings to fly away to a better place,  Natasha also is evolving.  She turns down an educational opportunity which upset her parents.  Talia is happily supportive.  “You can’t spend your life chasing someone else’s dream Natasha”, she tells her.  Both know each other well yet the evidence of maturation is apparent from this passage of time.

Their meeting at a café eventually turns into a walk and then a stop to Natasha’s apartment.  They reconnect.  A shared kiss.  Their natural chemistry is tentative but present.  And then the parentheses emerge providing transparency to what went wrong.  The colors darken and the canvas of this relationship reflects pain.

The response to “you completely ghosted me after you left” is met with a pointed barb of leaving “Planet Natasha”.  Further peeling back the onion leads to more (archetypal but serious-minded) revelations of how these two were in or not in sync during their clearly complicated relationship.  Ms. Fleming’s nicely realistic play ends without definitive resolution (hopeful, perhaps messy, unknowable, like life itself).

Performances at the Frigid Fringe Festival are running through March 5, 2023.  Two dozen shows are performed multiple times at either the Kraine Theater or UNDER St Mark’s.  Tickets can also be purchased for many shows via livestreaming as well.

www.frigid.nyc

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Ain’t No Mo’

I managed, luckily, to see Ain’t No Mo‘ before it quickly closed on Broadway after opening to ecstatic reviews.  After numerous celebrity interventions the show hung on for one extra week and I happened to be in town for its penultimate show.  I was floored.

The basic premise for this mind-blowing assemblage of skits is an America which is offering black citizens free one-way tickets back to Africa.  Gate Agent Peaches is hurrying passengers along as this particular flight is going to be the last one.  If you stay, the law will no longer protect you.  (Weirdly that seemed too realistic.)  The flight number is 1619, the year the first enslaved Africans were carted to our shores.  Peaches might say “Category is… Critical Race Theory Extravaganza!”

The show opens at a funeral for Brother Righttocomplain.  In his eulogy Pastor Freeman lets his congregation (the audience) know that all prior grievances from his people are now dead and buried with the election of Barack Obama as President.  This evolves into wildly uncomfortable humor delivered on purpose with the intention to provoke.  He chides the audience to shout the N word during one sequence.  The African American woman in front of me looked around as if to say “you better don’t”.  My take was she was warning everyone not just nearby white people.  The author, however, seemed to have none of that trepidation.

Every scene was memorably outrageous and bitingly on point.  The tone is satire ratcheted up to offend, illuminate and tear down any pretense of tiptoeing around the issues of race.  All of that in an uproarious comedy brimming with stinging bitch slaps to a myriad of targets.

Peaches is played by the play’s author Jordan E. Cooper in a memorable drag turn filled with the expected laughs.  Not all the energy is clearly black and white.  Grays pepper the proceedings too.  Mr. Cooper spends a minute commenting on how badly he was treated by other black men in his formative years.

There is a segment lambasting the real housewives and other similar franchises.  This one slays.  A well-to-do family who has climbed up the ladder to “a deluxe apartment in the sky” has mixed feelings about returning to Africa.  They would be giving up a lot of delicious capitalistic trappings and, notably, their homeland was Nigeria.  A hidden surprise awaits.

This production is Broadway handsome with colorful and witty technical elements.  Steven Walker-Webb’s direction keeps the laughter escalating.  When there is a moment of pain, the contrast is vivid and deeply disconcerting.

Ain’t No Mo’ is a triumphant piece of theater.  That all of this hilarious mayhem came out of one person’s young mind is revelatory.  Boundaries were pushed and the results were riotous… this full throttle comedic attack on our fucked up racial history needed to be absorbed by so many more people.  That it made it to Broadway is a step.  Let’s see what the Tony Awards have to add.  They better not forget the creative force that is Mr. Cooper and at least two of his superb castmates, Marchánt Davis and Crystal Lucas-Perry.

There will likely be no productions of Ain’t No Mo’ planned in the state of Florida any time soon.

Ain’t No Mo’ closed on December 23, 2022.

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The Last Five Years (Art 4, South Bend, IN)

When the music begins in Jason Robert Brown’s engrossing musical The Last Five Years, melancholy sets the mood.  Cathy’s first song contains the lyric “Jamie decided it’s time to move on… and I’m still hurting”.

Loosely based on his own divorce, Mr. Brown wrote this show which propelled the careers of Norbert Leo Butz and Sherie Rene Scott when it opened Off-Broadway in 2002.  My first encounter with this musical was the 2013 revival starring Betsy Wolfe (& Juliet) and Adam Kantor (The Band’s Visit).  I am a big fan of this piece and decided to stop in and see a small community theater production.

The company Art 4 presented this challenging work in the comfortable Leighton Auditorium within the St. Joe County Public Library.  The night was cold and snowy so the audience size was rather small.  That is a shame as the quality of the production was enormously higher than my expectations.

Interestingly, the show cast six performers in the only two roles, mixing up the performance combinations over three weekends.  The night I attended Cathy was played by Michelle Miller and Director Mark Albin was Jamie.  Both of them nailed their characterizations resulting in the emotional payoff required by the show’s end.

The Last Five Years takes place in two story arcs which alternate as the musical progresses.  Cathy’s half begins at the end of her relationship with Jamie.  At the end of the show, she is just meeting him.  Jamie’s tale starts with his meeting a “Shiska Goddess” with all of the exuberance of a love-struck youth.  The tonal shifts are abrupt and draw the listener in immediately.

Toward the middle of the show is the only time the two are fundamentally in the same time and place.  I find the structure riveting.  Most of the songs are excellent, some even feel like classics after hearing them again.  They are not simple to sing and this cast impressed not only with their vocal chops but also their focused commitment to storytelling.

A six piece orchestra, including two essential celloists, was terrific as well.  It is not often I comment on Sound Design (Engineers Todd Lemons & AJ Ridenour and Soundboard Operator Erin Joines) unless it is an issue.  Here it was noticeably fine as the balance between the two voices and the largely continuous musical were harmonious and neither overwhelmed the other.

Mr. Albin’s solid direction kept the action moving on the basic yet appropriate set design.  One minor note would be for the choreography.  When it infrequently happened, the steps felt a tad forced and not intricately wedded into the characters being played.

Ms. Miller and Mr. Albin had many memorable high points.  Jamie’s bedroom scene was particularly great and his portrayal clearly displayed the requisite aging of this flawed person.  Cathy’s audition scene was a hoot and Ms. Miller’s portrait was richly multi-dimensional.  She was never less than radiant on stage and the pleasure of hearing her sing those memorable tunes was worth far more than the modest ticket price.

This little company has announced its 2023 season which will include Godspell, Spring Awakening and The Lightning Thief, all of which I have seen before.  If this production is any indication, a visit should be on your theater schedule.  I will definitely be back.

The Last Five Years concluded performances on December 18, 2022.  The four other actors were Hannah Efsits, Myah Englebrecht, Pierre Cooks and Sean Leyes.

www.art4sb.org

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The Rat Trap (Mint Theater Company)

Here’s another rediscovered little gem from the ever resourceful Mint Theater.  The Rat Trap was Noel Coward’s first play, written when he was eighteen.  This production is its American premiere.  Filled with intense cynicism and psychological warfare, this play is long overdue to be seen.

Mr. Coward would soon enough become famous in the years after this play was created.  In an introduction to a book containing three early works he describes wanting to defy the forces of “sex-repression, lack of education, religious mania, respectability, and above all, moral cowardice”.  Funny how timely 1918 can feel today.

The Rat Trap takes place over four acts.  Sheila Brandreth and Keld Maxwell are two up-and-coming writers madly in love.  The celebration in Olive-Lloyd Kennedy’s London flat is filled with bubbles and witticisms.  Fresh faces gloriously beginning their lives brimming with he hopes and dreams of youthful innocence.

Dear friend Olive has a telling conversation with Sheila where she warns against the dangers of marriage.  There has to be sacrifice in order for the institution to work.  She believes Sheila is the more clever of the happy couple.  As a result, she will be the one to sacrifice.  It is no surprise that the play proceeds directly down that path.

What’s most interesting about The Rat Trap is the darkness of the material.  Where these two tread is a shockingly abusive, immersive train wreck.  There’s no real mystery about what will happen.  The pessimistic ending is fully appropriate and, frankly, a sad inevitability.

The core relationship has to degrade believably and does so here thanks to unsympathetic performances by Sarin Monae West and James Evans.  Their chemistry is spot on and the two year time arc comes across as realistic if predictable.

Cynthia Mace (as the maid Burrage) and Claire Saunders (as young starlet Ruby Raymond) have superb moments which lighten the mood amidst the looming dark clouds.  The hipster friends Naomi and Edmund came across a tad too cartoonish but they are not full characters just representations of a free love ideal.

The Rat Trap would be an excellent choice for regional and community theater productions.  Juicy parts and crackling dialogue with a topic that never seems to get old.  When we look back with open eyes, we realize how little we learn.

Next up from the Mint is Betty Smith’s Becomes A Woman.  This play was written in 1930.  She would find huge success in 1943 with her debut novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  This semi-autobiographical coming-of-age play has never been produced or published so this production will be a world premiere.

The Rat Trap concluded performances on December 10, 2023.  Becomes A Woman is scheduled to run from February 7 through March 18, 2023 at City Center.

www.minttheater.org

www.nycitycenter.org

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Titanique

I must admit I was not a fan of the movie Titanic.  The boat sinking was impressive though.  I was in the minority as the film was a smash hit and a cultural touchstone.  Certain youthful identifiers have come together to revisit, lambast and celebrate this watershed moment in cinematic history.  Titanique is utterly hilarious.

With a Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney inspired “let’s put on a show” vibe, three friends conceived this silly, wildly entertaining vehicle for themselves and, happily, for us.  This show started downtown in a basement and now has transferred to a larger Off-Broadway house.  The night we attended the theater was packed.  An energetic fan base ate this campy confection up rabidly.

Titanique is a musical spoof of the film.  The story here recounts the famous love story and brings aboard some familiar characters as well.  In this reunion of sorts, however, Celine Dion remembers herself in the film not simply belting out the theme song “My Heart Will Go On”.  She will plunge herself headfirst into the fray and make sure no one, absolutely no one, gets to be the star over her.  Diva worshippers should pounce on this merriment.

The book was written by Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli and Tye Blue.  The laughs are voluminous referring back to the Oscar winning picture while also liberally sprinkling more current, often gay, references.  Because the surprises are so important and supremely additive to the fun quotient, I will not spoil them here.

Ms. Mindelle is our star, Celine Dion.  The exaggerated mannerisms are spot on.  It’s a wink wink performance that’s well sung given the real Celine’s vocal chops.  Mr. Rousouli plays Jack Dawson, the role made famous by Leonardo DiCaprio.  His is an appealing take on the standard issue upstairs/downstairs love triangle.  The ending of the film was a trifle stupid and these clowns make sure we remember that.

The third writer, Mr. Blue, directed this vigorously staged musical comedy.  There are no lulls.  Scenes whisk by just like the extra speed the Titanic took before running into some real trouble.  This show is a party and the guests gleefully drink it up.  The theater bar provides the bring to your seats thematic cocktails.

The show has a nice handmade quality to the props.  Costumes (Alejo Vietti) are appropriate and witty.  None of this would work if the performers were not up to the combination of sharp ridicule and blithesome adoration.  They are.

Frankie Grande is a scene stealer portraying multiple roles including Victor Garber not as the character in the film but as the actor himself.  Avionce Hoyles is the Iceberg.  Damage will be done as she figuratively stops the show cold.  Russell Daniels’ Ruth Dewitt Bukater is a star turn.  John Riddle is highly memorable as the jilted contradiction that is bad guy Cal.  Everyone on stage is full throttle as required in a musical which is gigantically over-the-top.

The Titanic story is one of the most famous disasters in history.  Titanique is far from a theatrical catastrophe.  Fun seeking theatergoers should book passage.  You will be doomed to have a great time.

Titanique is running at the Daryl Roth Theatre off Union Square.  Tickets are currently on sale through February 2023.

www.titaniquemusical.com

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Euphoria (Park Avenue Armory)

I do not use this blog to review movie experiences but Euphoria is so much more than that.  This cinematographic masterpiece is stunningly unforgettable.  Viewing this artistic triumph in the cavernous Park Avenue Armory left us speechless, sadly depressed yet slightly hopeful for the future.

This nearly two hour long multichannel film installation is a searing analysis of capitalism and the effects of individual greed within the world at large.  Multiple points of view are presented but blunt criticism is evident and brilliantly depicted.

The film is a series of lengthy vignettes of widely diverse stylings.  The messaging is not simply negative critiques.  There is seriously thought provoking challenges offered to the viewer.  The rush of contemplations overwhelm in the very best way.

It is probably best to not know too much but just to go.  The main film is accompanied by five jazz drummers and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, all in separate yet synchronized films.  The music (Sammy Moussa) is intoxicating and illuminate the grander storytelling.  You can sit, stand and walk around soaking in this thrilling piece of art.  And you should since there are so many things to take in.

The dialogue, acting, direction and choreography are all extraordinary.  These are thoughts and musings from a variety of sources including economists, business magnates, writers and celebrities.  They are reinterpreted into scenes of realism and surrealism.  As described on the website, “the result is a searing monument to the history of greed that asks seminal questions around the success and enduring legacy of entrepreneurship”.  Euphoria came across to me as even more expansive than that.

Julian Rosefeldt is the creative filmmaker behind this utterly unique mind-blowing exercise.  I saw his memorable previous installation in 2016 called Manifesto with Cate Blanchett.  There are stylistic visual and thematic similarities in his work.  Euphoria, however, is one of the greats, possibly of all time.  What will the future bring for the next generations?

Euphoria is being presented through January 8, 2023 at the Park Avenue Armory.  The installation is presented in a continuous loop so you can enter and exit anytime.

www.armoryonpark.org

 

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Becky Nurse of Salem

Contrasting the persecution of witches during the 17th Century with our current climate seems like an interesting idea.  Unfortunately Becky Nurse of Salem is a jumbled assortment of ideas with underdeveloped characters and a half-baked premise.

“My name is Becky Nurse and I’ll be your tour guide.”  She is literally a tour guide of a witches museum in Salem.  She is also a descendant of a witch who was burned at the stake many generations ago.  As a result, her knowledge is better than anyone else’s or perhaps not.  Our guide enjoys liquid lunches at the bar of her high school crush Bob (Bernard White).

During one particular tour for a group of nuns, she drops some inappropriate language.  Her boss Shelby (Tina Benko) promptly fires her.  Becky decides to hire a witch (Candy Buckley) to give her a plan.  Her revenge follows which involves breaking and entering followed by jail time.

There is the one dimensional buffoon called The Jailer (Thomas Jay Ryan) who torments poor misbehaved Becky.  Added to this mix is a granddaughter Gail (Alicia Crowder) who is in a mental hospital after watching her mother overdose in a pharmacy.  Gail also has an older boy love interest (Julian Sanchez).

Toward the end of the first act we hear “Lock her up.  Kill the witch.  Lock her up.”  References are drawn to today’s headlines but then the play reverts back to a bizarre juxtaposition of family drama, substance abuse withdrawals, hallucinations, prison abuse antics and a love story.  None of these plot points are fully explored so it is difficult to care about any of them.

Occasionally arrows are slung at easy targets such as “the Sackler’s should be in fucking jail”.  Becky’s boss will visit her in jail and find it difficult to balance herself while talking and sitting on the toilet seat.  Much time is spent garnering laughs which sometimes amuse.  “It’s not like witches have malpractice insurance” was a fun quip.

The play also harks back to 1692 and Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible.  A connection is made between Miller’s seventeen year supposed seducer of John Proctor.  In fact, we are told, she was really only eleven.  That moral quandary is likened to his lustful obsession with Marilyn Monroe.

Director Rebecca Taichman (Indecent, School Girls or The Mean African Girls Play) does not create a scenario where Sarah Ruhl’s skit-like structure can gel.  Many performances are flat or worse.  Deidre O’Connell (last year’s Tony winner for Dana H.) performs the title character.  She gives her all in a loud manic caricature that is at least fun to watch.  Both of the male love interests are solidly believable and nicely grounded amidst the confusing turmoil.

One of the conclusions made in Becky Nurse of Salem is that the witches were found guilty since “there were no women on that jury”.  That may be true.  If you look around today, our current environment has plenty of women who gleefully embody the stereotypical finger pointing moralistic hysteria of that puritan era.  That strikes me as far more compelling than the comparisons being made on the stage.

Becky Nurse of Salem is playing at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi Newhouse Theater through December 31, 2022.

www.lct.org

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The Piano Lesson

The Piano Lesson marks the halfway point of my journey through August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle.  He wrote ten plays chronicling the African American experience during each decade of the twentieth century.  Each one of them thus far has been outstanding.  This masterpiece won the Pulitzer Prize as did Fences.

The drama takes place in 1936.  Doaker Charles (Samuel L. Jackson) lives in his home with his niece Berniece (Danielle Brooks) and her daughter Maretha (Jurnee Swan).  Her brother Boy Willie (John David Washington) and his friend Lymon (Ray Fisher) arrive one day early in the morning from down south.  They are sharecroppers who have a truckload of watermelon to sell.

The owner of the farm where they work is dead, having fallen down a well under mysterious circumstances.  Boy Willie believes his future lies in buying that now available piece of land.  His idea involves not only selling the produce but also the family heirloom.  The piano was carved by an enslaved ancestor.  The images include the faces of a great-grandfather’s wife and son during their enslavement.

Despite an emotionally troubled relationship with the piano, Berniece has no intention of letting it go.  Preacher Avery (Trai Byers) once brought a buyer to the house but Berniece refused to sell.  Boy Willie hatches a plan to have that buyer located.  He owns half of that piano and wants to put his inheritance to use.

Wining Boy (Michael Potts) is the elder brother of Doaker Charles.  A comical character, he fancies himself a successful musician and gambler.  In actuality he is an alcoholic who often has little or no money.  Each adult character has an opinion about this piano, some of which will evolve during the course of the story.

The play also touches on various themes related to present and past.  Never forgetting one’s roots and also woefully looking backward versus living in the present with a keen eye on the future.  That is not a generational tug-of-war but an individual one.  Boy Willie most aggressively looks ahead while Wining Boy’s best days are memories which are long behind him.

As in the superb Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, supernatural elements figure into this drama.  These people are haunted by their histories.  The piano is a physical embodiment of that deeply felt connection.  From the beginning of the play, however, a more ethereal presence is felt.  A phantasmic mysteriousness hovers over these characters as well as over the audience.

Mr. Jackson’s wife, Latanya Richardson Jackson, directed this clearly staged and vividly told tale.  Her husband, an enormous stage and screen star, originated the role of Boy Willie thirty five years ago at the Yale Repertory Theatre and understudied the role in its original Broadway outing.  His performance here as the older Doaker is spot on with nary a moment of showboating star power ego.

This production’s Boy Willie, John David Washington, is the son of another A-list star, Denzel.  I saw the father’s Tony winning performance in a 2010 Broadway revival of Fences.  The son is exceptionally fine in this role as well.  Boy Willie is a big character, a somewhat unlikable schemer who is filled to the brim with personality and drive.

Ms. Brooks’ Berniece is a complex combination of hard-earned strength and debilitating anxiety.  Mr. Potts depiction of Wining Boy is an edgy, comical thrill.  Everyone in the cast is excellent, including a spectacular cameo from April Matthis as Grace, a woman Boy Willie and Lymon meet on the town one night.

As Lymon, Ray Fisher delivered a phenomenally realized characterization which was deceptively simple.  A quiet type, he experiences this family as we do.  Everything about his performance was incredibly realistic with memorable physicality and an understated yet heartwarming sense of optimism.  Maybe a new life can be had in the North.

All the technical elements of this staging are excellent.  I did find the direction occasionally distracting when multiple monologues were performed dead center facing the audience rather than towards other members of the cast.

In addition to those plays already mentioned, I’ve also seen Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Jitney.  Picking a favorite in this Cycle is impossible.  If you haven’t seen any of Mr. Wilson’s work, The Piano Lesson is an awesome place to start.  During a week of theater where I attended seven shows, this one was my absolute favorite.

www.pianolessonplay.com