TheaterReviewsFromMySeat

WP (Women’s Project) Theater is the nation’s oldest and largest theater company dedicated to developing and producing work of female identified artists, especially early in their careers.  What We’re Up Against is a dark comedy by Theresa Rebeck.   Two of her plays, Seminar and Mauritius, have appeared on Broadway.  This one takes place in an architecture firm in 1992.  Krysta Rodriguez (First Date, The Addams Family)  plays Eliza, the newest member of the team.  She wants more work to do and, after five months on the job, is more than frustrated by the discrimination against her.

What We’re Up Against, therefore, is about women, the glass ceiling, the workplace and the good old boy’s club.  Characters in this play include the young, inexperienced, talentless male mouthpiece (Skylar Astin)  who gets the bigger projects.  Throw in an older woman (Marg Helgenberger) who has dutifully played “the game.”  Add in the whiskey swilling boss (Damian Young) who, when confiding with coworkers, is not afraid to use the word bitch.  The play is a combustible mix of workplace anger and overwrought clichés.

I enjoyed the play perhaps more than the production.  Because the direction is so broad and some line readings so exaggerated, the whole thing comes across as dated, cartoonish and unrealistic.  Every curse word is loudly emphasized.  Can Eliza, the most talented of the bunch, figure out a way to rise up in this male dominated world?  How and at what price?

The structure of the play, its office scenes and monologues are very good.   Jim Parrack (Of Mice and Men) as Ben was my favorite performance of the play.  We sense Eliza’s real abilities through his character.  Ben is a real person, believable amongst the chaos.  Perhaps the hyped up direction was intentional?  My view is that this rolling boil of a production would have benefitted from reducing the heat to simmer.  Then we may have squirmed more which likely was Ms. Rebeck’s intention.

www.wptheater.org

As a work-in-progress, downtown’s Dixon Place showcased Harry Clarke, written by and starring David Cale.  This one man play is now having its world premiere starring Billy Crudup (Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, The Pillowman) in a major off-Broadway venue.  Harry is a shy Midwestern boy who, during his formative years in South Bend, Indiana (Go Irish!), adopts a British accent to the dismay of his father.  An inherently shy person, he eventually moves to New York and becomes the cocky Londoner, Harry Clarke.  What follows is outrageous cunning as Harry infiltrates himself into a wealthy family.

Never dull, often funny and paced like a thriller, Harry Clarke is interesting but somehow not more than that.  Billy Crudup plays everyone, going in and out of accents and characterizations, in many conversations.  The dialogue moves quite swiftly which keeps the kettle boiling but can confuse transitions slightly.

When leaving the theater, I remembered seeing Lily Tomlin’s one woman Broadway play, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.  Hers was a tour de force performance but the play also had a moment at the end that brought a welcome, satisfying conclusion.  For me, Harry Clarke just ended.  A memory play that effectively revealed its story, gave an actor a lot of material to work with but ultimately did not have enough to say.

www.vineyardtheater.org

In 1982, Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy opened on Broadway.  After off and off-off Broadway runs, three plays were combined into a trilogy:  “International Stud” (the name of a real bar at that time), “Fugue in a Nursery” and “Widows and Children First!”  All center around Arnold, a Jewish homosexual drag queen living in New York during various phases of his life.  For his work, Mr. Fierstein won Tony Awards for both Best Play and Best Actor.  His career took off from there to include writing the books for La Cage Aux Folles, Kinky Boots and Newsies, authoring the play Casa Valentina and starring in Hairspray.

From the original New York Times’ review:  “I cannot – and do not want to – imagine anyone else playing Arnold.  Mr. Fierstein’s self-incarnation is an act of compelling virtuosity.”  Clearly after seeing this revival of Torch Song, it is easy to imagine the author’s voice and physicality throughout this play.  Happily, Michael Urie (Buyer & Cellar, Angels in America, The Government Inspector) is up for the challenge.  Although the oft-used physical description of “big” does not fit, he effectively conveys this man’s self-deprecating humor while searching for love and family.

The original four hour play was shortened for this production but the connective tissue of the plot seemed intact.  Parts of this play are very funny. Other parts are emotionally draining, even scarring.  In the third segment, Mercedes Ruhl (Lost in Yonkers, The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?) plays his monstrous mother and the scene between the two of them is raw.  Also notable in this production is Ward Horton as Ed, the confused bisexual, and Jack DiFalco (Marvin’s Room) as young David.

The creative team has mounted a fine, fluid version of this play.  As a result, Torch Song seems to stand the test of time for a piece very firmly rooted in its post-Stonewall era.  This past month we have seen news reports about the President of the United States joking that the Vice President wants to hang all gay people.  If we were all lucky enough to meet Arnold thirty five years later, I expect his torch song would, sadly, still be sung.

www.2st.com

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/thegovernmentinspector

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/marvinsroom

Duncan Macmillan wowed me a few months ago as co-adapter and co-director of 1984 which travelled to Broadway from London.  Now his play People, Places & Things is being performed at St. Ann’s Warehouse.  Once again, we are rewarded with stylized and intense theatricality with a riveting central performance.  The play is about addiction and rehabilitation.  The actress is Denise Gough, who won an Olivier Award for this role and is making a big time New York stage debut.  While she will be on Broadway this spring with another London production (Angels in America), this performance should not be missed.

Ms. Gough’s character is an actress who opens the play in a tailspin while performing The Seagull.  Within minutes we are at a rehab center watching the train wreck and cannot look away.  The performance is real and complex, like the character.  As you might imagine, we are in the land of emotions, sharing, setbacks and healing.  Writing her as an actress is one of the great devices here.  We are forced to examine identity; how we present ourselves, how others see us and ultimately who we want to be.

This might sound like every other addiction story ever told.  Under the direction of Jeremy Herrin, however, this production is far from ordinary.  This play connects rehab with the theatrical process.  In that regard, we have a staging that is dynamic in the big moments while quiet in the soft moments.  Add in a few jolting flourishes of light and sound and we are forced to experience this character’s journey head on.  Icing on the cake:  it’s a great play from beginning to the unforgettable end.

www.stannswarehouse.org

www.theaterreviewsfrommyseat.com/1984

When audience members trickle out of a performance, it is usually not a good sign.  When you yourself want to leave really badly and fairly early on during the proceedings, it is definitely not a good sign.  When you hang on and make it to the end, you lament the two hours of life lost.  Well at least we celebrated October 17th as the 50th Anniversary of the Public Theater, which opened its doors for the first time with Hair.

Elevator Repair Service is a talented company I have seen twice.  The improbably phenomenal Gatz in which every word of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was read and staged over a multi-part eight hour marathon.  Then there was Arguendo, a dramatization of a Supreme Court hearing.  The company has a way with words.  Shakespeare has a way with words.  Why the epic fail here?

Measure for Measure is a five act play.  Here it is reduced to about 2:10 over one act.  How is this accomplished?  By speed performing nearly all of the text.  What flows out of the actors mouths are mostly unintelligible words with not really enough time to convey any meaning or story.  If you do not read the synopsis or know the play, I cannot imagine there would be any way to follow the action.  Maybe they were going for farce?  Slapstick?  If that’s the case, buffoonery needed to happen way more frequently.  And actually be funny.  And also not crammed briefly at the end when our relentless boredom overtook any connection to the stage.

An unwatchable mess.  A huge disappointment.

www.publictheater.org

www.elevator.org