7. Review of ANNAPURNA (May 10, 2014)

7.     ANNAPURNA

 

When you enter the Acorn Theatre to see Sharr White’s ANNAPURNA you may want to reach for a Coors since designer Thomas Walsh’s set shows a naturalistically squalid trailer interior surrounded by brightly realistic images of Rocky Mountain peaks. The filth-filled trailer, like the shabby office of THE FEW (see the review before this one), is packed with the accumulated detritus of years of use and abuse. Actually, ANNAPURNA and THE FEW share a few things in common. Each has someone who fled their loved one after a dramatic occurrence and now, years later, seeks out that person in search of some kind of redemption, even if reluctant to admit it. Each also has a third party, a young man, yearning for a father figure, although this person is an actual character in THE FEW and is only spoken of in ANNAPURNA, a two-hander. In both, the onstage characters are writers or editors, personal letters (the snail mail kind) play an important role, and the big reveals have to do with what prompted the person who left to do so. While ANNAPURNA is well written (and directed, by Bart DeLorenzo), however, it’s less affecting, believable, or involving than THE FEW.   

Nick Offerman, Megan Mullally. Photo: Monique Carboni.

Certainly, the major draw is the performances of TV stars Nick Offerman (“Parks and Recreation”) and Megan Mullally (“Will and Grace"), husband and wife in real life, who appeared in ANNAPURNA at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble in Los Angeles a year ago, although the play was premiered with other actors in San Francisco in 2011. Mr. Offerman plays Ulysses, a bearded, gruff, Hemingway-ish, recovering alcoholic and one-time cowboy poet and English professor now living in self-imposed, self-pitying exile. Ms. Mullally is his ex-wife Emma, who also was his editor, and who suddenly walked out on him 20 years ago in the middle of the night. Just as suddenly, and without advance notice (he has no phone), she shows up at his insect-infested mountain aerie in Paonia, Colorado; he’s anything but thrilled to see her, having gotten used to his solitary, if unsanitary, lifestyle. The only thing he can say, in fact, is "Holy crap!" which he repeats in amazement several times. It seems that their 25-year-old son, Sam, who was five when Emma left, has discovered a cache of letters his dad had written to him, which even Emma didn’t know about, and has learned Ulysses’ whereabouts through the services of a private eye. Ulysses, for his part, is deeply puzzled about why Sam never wrote back to him. 

Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman. Photo: Monique Carboni.

Emma, hoping to smooth the way before Sam arrives, gets there first and discovers her divorced husband living a grit-encrusted life, wearing nothing but a mucky little apron (to prevent damage to his nether regions from the spatter when he fries the spoiled sausages he bought at the Dollar Store). Ulysses not only calls his location “the ass-crack of the Rockies,” he literally reveals his personal version of that remark whenever he turns around. He wears a backpack with an oxygen tank whose tube enters his nose because this former chain smoker, who puffed five packs the day he quit, is dying of emphysema, a fate made even more apparent by the surgical bandage on his chest put there after a lung was removed.  

Emma’s a smartly dressed, perhaps too fashionably coiffed (with magenta-tinted hair), glasses-wearing woman who hasn’t had it easy after leaving Ulysses and marrying again, as attested by the bruises she displays. But despite Ulysses’ retch-inducing habitat (I won’t give away why he keeps his inhaler sealed away), she seems determined to resolve their issues, meanwhile setting to the task of cleaning the place with ferocious single-mindedness. (THE FEW also has a scene of intensive straightening up.) As Mr. White continues to string out the situation between Ulysses and Emma with memories, arguments, and questions, one big issue hovers, what did he do that led to her abandoning him? This, of course, is kept secret for as long as possible in the one-act, 95-minute play, and when it comes the payoff is less than earth-shattering, even if Ulysses— having been subject to alcohol-induced blackouts (a device playwrights love to exploit)—has no memory of it.  

As in THE FEW (despite its ambiguous staging), an optimistic ending is provided in which we hear Ulysses read to Emma from the epic poem he’s been writing, called “Annapurna,” a metaphoric title referring to the dangerous Himalayan mountain of that name and to Emma herself. The manuscript itself, having been rendered essentially unreadable, is spoken by Ulysses from memory, which I suspect is a feat most modern epic poets would be incapable of achieving. Perhaps his name, with its echo of Homeric bardism, is excuse enough for this feat.  

Despite the mechanical nature of the plotting, Mr. White’s squabbling dialogue is juicy enough to sustain interest, especially when as well delivered as it is in Mr. Offerman’s bullish yet sweetly vulnerable manner. Ms. Mullally’s voice can be shrill but she brings intelligence and skill to Emma, and makes an effective partner to her costar/spouse. Both balance the play’s darker moments well with infusions of sharp humor. John Ballinger’s sound design, in which a barking dog plays an important part, is valuable, as are the costumes by Ann Closs-Farley and the often shifting lighting effects of Michael Gend.  

ANNPURNA may not rise as high as its namesake mountain, but it offers its actors a chance to scale some heights of their own.

6. Review of THE FEW (May 8, 2014)

6. THE FEW

Unlike THE WHALE, Samuel D. Hunter’s fascinating play of last season about a 600-pound man, there are no physically unusual specimens of humanity on display in his poignantly dramatic but occasionally hilarious new romantic anti-romantic work, THE FEW, directed by Davis McCallum at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. THE FEW received its world premiere at the Old Globe in San Diego last year, also with Mr. McCallum at the helm. Like THE WHALE, however, the central concern of this 85-minute, intermissionless piece is the need of an emotionally wounded man to reach out and find some sort of redemption for his past behavior and to reconnect with someone from whom he’s been estranged. THE FEW is about caring, and how essential it is to have others in our lives, even at the expense of pain and disappointment. 

Michael Laurence, Gordon Glick. Photo: Joan Marcus.

The man in question, Bryan (Michael Laurence), is a scruffy ex-trucker who cofounded a trucker’s newspaper, The Few, in northern Idaho, with his friend Jim and a woman named QZ (Tasha Lawrence). Its inspiration was the belief that long-range driving causes truckers (like Jim and Bryan) to lose the very sense of their existence (“Like you’re never in one place long enough even to exist”), while the sense of communion with other humans gradually vanishes. Such feelings of alienation, of which Jim especially was a victim, needed to be expressed in a way that spoke directly to truckers and let them know they existed. But, after Jim’s death (the truth about which comes out in a big reveal), Bryan suddenly left for parts unknown, leaving the paper and a load of debt in the hands of the broken-hearted QZ, who loved him.

Michael Laurence. Photo: Joan Marcus.

Now, after four years, Bryan has returned, unannounced, claiming he's broke and in need of a place to stay. It’s August 1999, a time of potential chaos mingled with the promise of a new millennium; this was when the world feared the possible effect of the Y2K bug. QZ, who has been having an epistolary relationship with a certain Rick, who proposed to her, is upset by Bryan’s presence, but she allows him to sleep at the office for a few days (although he claims legal ownership of the place). During his absence, QZ hired a teenage geek, the nervously nerdy Matthew (Gordon Glick), a gay 19-year-old who got interested in The Few because of Bryan’s columns and has long idolized him.

QZ has managed to make the paper profitable by abandoning trucker stories and emphasizing instead personal ads. Throughout the play, the answering machine keeps playing messages left by those placing ads, each of which, in its own way, underlines the sense of loneliness pervading the lives of Bryan, QZ, and Matthew. The messages often serve as a mildly ironic counterpoint to the regular dialogue. Bryan, who smokes and drinks, does his best to ignore, even snub Matthew (who claims to be allergic to tobacco and alcohol). But, much as Bryan might like him to disappear, Matthew shyly\slyly manages to stick around. Matthew, who has a poetic streak of his own, wants Bryan to write essays for truckers that would return the paper to its original purpose; he believes Bryan spent the past four years gathering material about the heart of America.

Eventually, Bryan will confess the real reason for his return; Matthew, who will take matters into his own hands using a BB gun, will learn some life lessons; Bryan and QZ will tussle over their different visions of the paper and their personal relationship; a jug of antifreeze will join the action; and people will keep calling The Few as—like Matthew, Bryan, and QZ—they reach out for someone to love. One such caller provides the play with what reads in the script like an optimistic ending; in Mr. McCallum’s staging, however, the result is ambiguous.

The Rattlestick often provides sets of greatly detailed naturalism, such as the one designed by Dane Laffrey for THE FEW. It shows the newspaper office, a shabby affair, stained ceiling and all, located in what could be a truck’s disused trailer. The joint is overflowing with office junk, including big old computer monitors. A red floppy disk even makes its appearance at one point. Aiding and abetting this thoroughly convincing interior is the sensitive lighting of Eric Southern, giving a true sense of the always changing time of day. Jessica Pabst's costumes and Daniel Kluger's music and sound design round everything out perfectly.

Mr. Hunter’s vernacular is crisp, smart, and authentic-sounding in the mouths of whoever speaks it, including the wide variety of people leaving personal ads , some of them unsure of how to do so. This one closes scene 3: “It’s, uh—. Wait what am I supposed to—? Uh, Trent, I’m in—. Why do you need my phone number? Look don’t print my name. Truckers call me Bent Nickel, just print that. No, uh, actually don’t print that, just print—hot trucker. Print hot trucker seeking—” And those with fully prepared statements are always oddly realistic enough to capture your attention:  “Montana, 406-343-2043, my name’s Jessie. Full-figured woman with big breasts looking for man. Just got out of an L-T-R, looking to start a new one. I don’t know how to swim. Send me a message and we will meet and see what happens. Please only men interested in large-breasted women.” 

Mr. Laurence acts Bryan with much the same  haunted sense of disillusion, depression, and self-loathing that Jon Hamm brings to “Mad Men.” Having returned to his former job and partner in obvious distress, and given the chance to work (with reduced authority), Bryan struggles to retain his sense of dignity even when suffering abject humiliation, although this forces him to be crueler to Matthew than he intends. Gordon Glick’s Matthew is a bundle of physical and verbal tics that vividly express his awe of Bryan, his repressed ideals, and his ultimate loss of control. And the feisty Ms. Lawrence’s QZ is every bit the cynic whose heart was crushed when Bryan left following Jim’s funeral and who refuses to let it happen again. 

Michael Laurence, Tasha Lawrence. Photo: Joan Marcus.

There was a technical mishap that delayed the start of THE FEW on opening night. The actors had taken their places in the darkness but there was a problem with the electrics and, after an announcement, the lights popped up again, catching the actors rushing off to get ready to start again. A few minutes later, the problem was fixed and the play started once more, but this time everything went so smoothly that you were quickly immersed in the action and the glitch was practically forgotten. The audience at the intimate venue, which included many theatre professionals, was so grateful for the unbroken focus of the fine three-person ensemble, and the expert writing of Mr. Hunter, that each of the first few scenes received applause. Opening night audiences, which always include friends of the cast, tend to be effusive, of course, but the response at the final curtain was genuinely enthusiastic. There was no question that THE FEW had made an impact on more than a few people in attendance. It’s a small play and of a familiar type but it has enough originality in its way to make an even wider impact.

5. Review of 17 ORCHARD POINT (May 2, 2014)

5.      17 ORCHARD POINT

The title of this well-acted but less than successful new play by Anton Dudley and Stephanie DiMaggio, now receiving its world premiere at the Beckett Theatre, refers to the address of an apartment building in a Cleveland suburb. It’s where Vera (Ms. DiMaggio), a woman in her thirties, has lived most of her life and which she manages on her absent mother’s behalf. A plain, dumpy spinster who’s found religion and never touches alcohol, Vera pays little attention to her appearance; her principal concession to decorating her nondescript apartment, realistically designed by John McDermott and effectively lit by Daisy Long, being the various crucifixes pegged here and there to the walls. For the moment, however, the place has been spruced up with adornments heralding a forthcoming baby shower.

Into this otherwise drab environment there suddenly appears a vivid shaft of brightness represented by Lydia (Michele Pawk), Vera’s flashily attractive, cynically sarcastic mother, just in from Las Vegas where she's lived for ten years and currently cohabits with her boyfriend, Stuart. Lydia has come to celebrate the forthcoming birth of a child by Annie, her other daughter; no one else will show up, though, because this two-hander is concerned only with exploring the sharply contrasted characters of Lydia and Vera and their strained relationship. The baggage Lydia hauls in from her flight is a metaphor for the personal baggage these two will have to confront.

Michele Pawk. Photo: Matthew Murphy.

The 50ish Lydia is a hard-drinking, selfish, ultra-narcissistic, and unintentionally cruel hedonist, a woman who does all she can to hold back the clock on her aging body and to get as much fun out of life as she can. Annoyed by Vera’s dowdiness and lack of sexual experience, she attempts to doll her up, applying makeup, putting up her hair, and trying to get her interested in a man. She even sets up an amusing improvisation in which she tries to give Vera a lesson in how to get picked up a guy in a bar. Speaking as the man, Lydia, says at one point: “You live around here?” to which Vera says “Yes” and Lydia insists, “With ease, Dear, you sound constipated.”  

Stephanie DiMaggio, Michele Pawk. Photo: Matthew Murphy.

Eventually, the sometimes tense, occasionally funny chitchat grows more urgent; secrets and lies come bubbling to the surface, and there’s even a high-stakes game in which each participant must deliver some hidden truth before downing a shot of bourbon, the first one to vomit being the loser. As usual in such plays, there are a couple of big reveals, and, finally, an ending you may not expect.  

 

Michele Pawk, Stephanie DiMaggio. Photo: Matthew Murphy.

Tony-winning actress Michele Pawk gets every ounce of mileage from her showy role. A voluptuous woman, she constantly fluffs her well-coiffed hair and struts about in an outfit perfectly designed by Tilly Grimes, wearing tight black pants and a black and white bolero-length jacket with large lapels. With her jacket off, and her torso wrapped in a form-fitting silk blouse, Ms. Pawk thrusts her bra-covered but notably abundant breasts forward as if insisting that the world take notice before they begin their inevitable encounter with gravity.  

Ms. Pawk’s appearance aside, however, her character tosses off so many perfectly crafted puns and smartass bawdy zingers and epigrams that you begin to think her life in Vegas must be spent either studying the local standups or watching sitcoms. An early example comes after Vera reminds Lydia that when sister Annie was a child, and her mom dressed to go out, Annie would tell her to add a brooch. Lydia: “I never liked boob art. My breasts are fit for the Louvre, why put a bow on a bow?” Or, “Vera, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Might have to have its teeth whitened, but I certainly wouldn’t look it in the mouth.” And, speaking of Vera’s getting older and still not having kids, “Venus only gets flies in her trap when she opens it.” Too many quips fall flat, as when she asks a crucifix, “How’s it hangin’?” Of course, the success or failure of these wisecracks depends on the skill of the performer, and Ms. Pawk rarely misses a beat or fails to underline just the right words. 

Ms. DiMaggio, who probably wrote Vera for herself, is perfectly cast as the responsible, intelligent, born-again, physically unprepossessing daughter, who's asked her mother to fly in from halfway across the country for a purpose unconnected with a baby shower. Ms. DiMaggio makes it sound plausible enough at first, but after a little thought you may find it hard to suspend your disbelief.  

In general, 17 ORCHARD POINT, efficiently directed by Stella Powell-Jones, is a decently crafted and modestly entertaining piece of work, the weaknesses of its script shielded from too much critical radiation by the finely honed skills of its performers.

4. Review of FORBIDDEN BROADWAY COMES OUT SWINGING! (May 3, 2014)

4      FORBIDDEN BROADWAY COMES OUT SWINGING!

 

 

 

If you can make it here, as the song says, you’ll make it anywhere, but if you manage to make it on the Broadway musical stage you’re going to need the skin of a rhinoceros. That’s because the bigger you are the harder you’re bound to fall once FORBIDDEN BROADWAY, the Off-Broadway parody revue that’s been around in one form or another for three decades, gets its hilariously crabby little hands on you. FORBIDDEN BROADWAY COMES OUT SWINGING!, the latest gloves-off incarnation of Gerard Alessandrini’s on again, off again series, spoofing Broadway’s best and brightest (and those of less brilliant wattage), is on again, this time at the newly renamed Davenport Theatre, formerly the 45th Street Theatre. 

 

 Scott Richard Foster, Marcus Stevens. Photo: Forbidden Broadway.  

There are no sacred theatre cows when it comes to FORBIDDEN BROADWAY’s targets, or rather, the more sacred a performer or a show, the more likely is it to become asphalt ready to be flattened by this steamrolling phenomenon. The ensemble consists of four fiercely versatile singer-clowns, two women (the blonde Carter Calvert and Mia Gentile) and two men (the fair-haired Scott Richard Foster and the dark-haired, gap-toothed Marcus Stevens). They play on a tiny stage before a multicolored curtain of shiny streamers whose rainbow hues—thanks to the expert lighting of Mark T. Simpson—change brilliantly from number to number; pianist-music director David Caldwell accompanies them up left beneath the familiar FORBIDDEN BROADWAY sign. One number follows the other in rapid succession as the actors dash off into the wings to make quick costume, wig, beard, and prop changes, allowing them to roll and rock through nearly two dozen routines, turning Broadway icons into theatrical roadkill (but all in good fun!). Dustin Cross and Philip Heckman created the costume knockoffs, some of them accurate reproductions and others broadly stated jokes (like the fat suit worn by Mr. Stevens when he impersonates Harvey Fierstein).  

 

Carter Calvert, Mia Gentile. Photo: Forbidden Broadway.

 

The show’s mostly new edition takes comical pot shots at PIPPIN (a deliberately klutzy circus number); MATILDA (which jibes at the exploitation of kids in shows like BILLY ELLIOT, ANNIE, and MATILDA); CINDERELLA (Fran Drescher’s [Ms. Calvert] Queens-girl nasality takes a laugh-worthy hit); THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY (with adulterous lovers Francesca [Ms. Calvert] and Robert [Mr. Scott] belting “You and I Have Just One Sex Scene”—instead of “Just One Second”); ROCKY (in which the inarticulate Sly Stallone [Mr. Scott] teaches Andy Karl as Rocky [Mr. Marcus] to be less coherent, and a handheld toy boxing ring subs for the full-size Broadway version); ALADDIN (which burlesques Disney shows, with Mary Poppins [Ms. Calvert] making an unexpected appearance); LES MIZ (which lampoons the current rage for projections, and with actors dressed as turntables to lament the new revival's lack of one: “I’m the turntable from LES MIZ; now they’ve fired me from the biz”); ONCE (“We’re so unpretentious that now we’re pretentious”); THE SOUND OF MUSIC (a shot at the recent TV version, with country-accented, amateurish Carrie Underwood overshadowed by five-time Tony winner Audra McDonald [Ms. Gentile]); THE BOOK OF MORMON (renamed “The Book of Morons," and featuring Mr. Marcus as Matt Stone and Mr. Scott as Trey Parker); BULLETS OVER BROADWAY (Broadway's seemingly annual show set in the 1920s, featuring Susan Stroman [Ms. Calvert] and Woody Allen [Mr. Stevens] parodying Cole Porter with “Let’s Misdirect”); CABARET (a Michelle Williams [Mia Gentile] and Liza Minnelli [Ms. Calvert] faceoff in this “revival of a revival”); and KINKY BOOTS (presenting Cyndi Lauper [Ms. Calvert] celebrating her Tony win by singing “Girls Have Finally Won," along with avatars of Harvey Fierstein [Mr. Stevens]; Neil Patrick Harris [Mr. Scott] as Hedwig; and Stark Sands [Ms. Gentile]). Also amusingly teased—with Ms. Gentile as a Teresa Brewer-like singer singing “Put Another Nickel In”—is a quartet of jukebox musicals (MAMMA MIA, JERSEY BOYS, MOTOWN, and BEAUTIFUL).  

 

Mia Gentile, Carter Calvert, Scott Richard Foster. Photo: Forbidden Broadway.

In addition to the stars and creators of these shows being brought down from the flies, there are big numbers aimed solely at mimicking and mockingly mutilating such supernovas as Idina Menzel (poked by Ms. Gentile for being loud and whiny), Mandy Patinkin (jabbed by Mr. Stevens for his self-importance), composer Jason Robert Brown (skewered by Mr. Stevens for his egotism), and, in a knockout moment, Liza Minnelli, given a devastating, but affectionate, scorching by the flat-out terrific Ms. Calvert singing about Liza's career to the tune of CABARET’s “So What?”   

Scott Richard Foster. Photo: Forbidden Broadway.

 

Several numbers don’t go for the jugular of particular artists or shows so much as they aim for larger ends.  Most memorable is the number inspired by the Nazi anthem in CABARET, in which the performers appear in business attire, each with corporate logos on their armbands and carrying attaché cases, to demonstrate Broadway's takeover from independent producers by huge corporations, such as Disney, American Airlines, Chase, and Chrysler: “Groundbreaking theatre is finally dead/And Broadway belongs to me.”

 

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From left: Scott Richard Foster, Marcus Stevens, Mia Gentile. Front: Carter Calvert. Photo: Forbidden Broadway.

 

Mr. Alessandrini’s lyrics, set to the best-known songs from the shows on the execution block, are as scintillatingly clever as ever. Some of the material, as usual, is a little too broad, and the laugh meter registers a bit unsteadily here and there, but that so much of the show not only makes you smile but burst out laughing is a tribute to Mr. Alessandrini’s verbal talents and directorial skill, the latter job shared with Phillip George.
 

As always, FORBIDDEN BROADWAY’s good natured but ice pick-sharp puncturing of the pretensions and aspirations of the Great White Way plants in your brain the festering reminder, when watching a new musical, to keep an eye out for future satirical fodder. If you’re a Broadway devotee with a taste for this kind of benign nastiness, you’ll find FORBIDDEN BROADWAY very tasty, even if your favorite shows get seriously broiled. When this show gets out its knives and forks, it's Broadway that reaches for the Tums.

 

3. Review of AN OCTOROON (May 4, 2014)

3.      AN OCTOROON

 Chris Myers. Photo: Pavel Antonov.

Forget, for the moment, DJANGO UNCHAINED and 12 YEARS A SLAVE. If anybody needs a reminder of why the Soho Rep is getting a special award this year from the Drama Desk they need only to visit the Rep’s current production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s satirical take on American racial attitudes as seen through his reimagining of Dion Boucicault’s 1859 melodrama about slavery, THE OCTOROON (rechristened AN OCTOROON for this adaptation). The award, to be formally presented on June 1 at the annual Drama Desk Awards ceremony at the Town Hall, recognizes Soho Rep for “nearly four decades of artistic distinction, innovative production, and provocative play selection.” These attributes are outstandingly represented by this unusual presentation, staged with great inventiveness by the Rep’s artistic director, Sarah Benson.

 Chris Myers, Amber Grey, Zoë Winters, Danny Wolohan. Photo: Pavel Antonov.

Unlike the full-scale, historically accurate revival I saw at the Phoenix Theatre in 1961, this self-referential interpretation essentially deconstructs the play to examine its sociological heart. Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins, who introduces himself (through a character dubbed BJJ) as a “black playwright,” followed by the disclaimer, “I don’t know exactly what that means,” has a playful attitude toward labels. He also playfully, yet seriously, expresses concern about racial perceptions, as demonstrated by having a black actor perform in whiteface, a white actor in blackface, and another white actor in redface (as an Indian), with the remaining actors working with the colors God gave them. THE OCTOROON, the vehicle for the playwright’s often very funny, if sometimes vague, ruminations, on race, was one of the mid-19th-century’s most popular and controversial melodramas, set on an antebellum Louisiana plantation, Terrebonne.

It tells a story centered on the attempts of a wealthy but villainous plantation owner, Jacob Mc’Closky (Chris Myers), to gain possession of the financially troubled Terrebonne as a way of acquiring Zoe (Amber Gray), the beautiful octoroon (1/8 black) slave for whom he lusts. The play is filled with dramatic action, including a major plot development having to do with a self-developing camera owned by McClosky’s romantic rival, George Peyton (also Mr. Myers), the European-bred, British-accented nephew of Terrebonne’s aged owner, who loves and is loved by Zoe, although a flirtatious neighbor, Dora (Zoë Winters), also has George on her mind. George and Zoe’s love is verboten, though, because of her tiny dollop of black blood (signified, she declares, by the hint of blue near the quick of her nails and in her eyes). Nearly everything in Boucicault’s play has something to do with racial attitudes, by whites toward blacks, blacks toward whites, whites and blacks toward an Indian named Wahnotee (Danny Wolohan), and vice-versa; Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins’s treatment injects a modern point of view into this material.

Marsha Stephanie Blake, Chris Myers. Photo: Pavel Antonov.

The dramatist (whose APPROPRIATE stirred some buzz during the past season) uses substantial chunks of Boucicault’s original, eliminating or eliding various characters and sometimes giving their lines to others, but essentially retaining THE OCTOROON’s structure, essential dialogue, and major plot points, including a climactic slave auction. The slave characters speak both Boucicault’s dialect-heavy lines, with their 19th-century manner of representing black speech (at a time, of course, when blacks were played by whites in blackface), and present-day black dialect. The latter is heard in interpolated scenes, much of it spoken by two female slaves, Minnie (Jocelyn Bioh) and Dido (Marsha Stephanie Blake), with all the comic sassiness you might expect from young women raised in the ghetto. The irony, of course, lies in their being slaves who look on their situation not as a horror but as jobs. One of the show’s most brilliantly funny yet provocative moments comes when they parade for their potential buyers as if strutting in a beauty pageant.

Amber Gray, Zoë Winters. Photo: Pavel Antonov.

In addition to conveying Boucicault’s plot about love, lust, murder, and enslavement (the play was influenced by the classic slave drama of only a few years earlier, UNCLE TOM’S CABIN), Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins also explodes Boucicault's structure by introducing himself as BJJ (another role for Mr. Myers). In the opening scene, during which he'll put on whiteface, he addresses the audience in white underwear, recounting a discussion with his imaginary therapist (he can’t afford a real one) and telling us what led him to create this work. Joining him in a further extension into surrealism scene is the Irish-accented Boucicault himself (a.k.a. The Playwright [Mr. Wolohan]), with whom BJJ soon joins in a synchronized round of mutual “fuck you” insults. This kind of believably acted theatrical game playing occupies almost the entire fourth act, where the action is narrated instead of acted out as BJJ and the Playwright also stop to explain some of the principles of melodrama writing, a chief aim of which is to get the audience to feel something. AN OCTOROON certainly does that, multiple times.

Danny Wolohan, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Jocely Bioh. Photo: Pavel Antonov.

But the play has many other surprises as well; while it keeps you pondering where the playwright is going with his theatrical maneuvers, it allows you at the same time to be drawn emotionally into the tale of Terrebonne and Zoe. But it also offers diversions that take you down unexpected paths, such when an actor—unnamed in the program but rumored to be Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins himself—enters on various occasions, dressed in a long, plaid coat as a shambling-gaited Br’er Rabbit (based on19th-century illustrations, not as Disney showed him in SONG OF THE SOUTH), wearing a realistic, long-eared rabbit head. The rabbit doesn't participate in the plot, per se, but serves as a sort of stage assistant, stopping occasionally to look questioningly at the audience, almost always getting a laugh in return. His presence adds another touch of the bizarre to the proceedings, yet seems perfectly organic in the world that's been created. 

,

Chris Myers, Danny Wolohan, Amber Gray. Photo: Pavel Antonov.

The eight-actor company (apart from Br’er Rabbit), makes use of doubling and tripling; in the final scenes, when McClosky and George must be on stage simultaneously, Mr. Myers rapidly changes positions so he can play them both. This culminates in a terrifically staged (by J. David Brimmer) fight scene between the two in which a large knife figures prominently. I suspect that Mr. Myers loses several pounds night from his tour de force acting and solo fighting. There are no weak performances here, each actor capturing just the right blend of realism and exaggeration for characters that range from the melodramatically stereotypical bad guy McClosky to the flighty  Dora to the old slave Pete to the truthfully tragic Zoe to the gossip-dishing slaves.

Mimi Lien’s setting also surprises. At first, seated on bleachers, you believe you’re facing a scenery-less black box space, with a simple door cut into the back wall, but when the opening scene is over, the entire wall suddenly falls forward, sending a gust of air toward you and revealing an identical arrangement in white behind it, including the floor (the rear side of the previous wall). Something similar will happen later in the play as well. Matt Frey creates outstanding lighting effects (including a strobe sequence) for the spare scenic backgrounds, while the costumes, designed by Wade Laboissonniere, are creatively re-imagined versions of mid-19th-century clothing, especially the colorful dresses worn by Zoe and Dora. As in a traditional melodrama, musical accompaniment is essential, and for AN OCTOROON César Alvarez has created excellent melodies that are mostly played by an onstage cellist, Lester St. Louis.

Putting together this mélange of old-time melodrama and modern theatricality needs the skills and imagination of a gifted director, and Sarah Benson must be loudly applauded for her achievement. The result is unlike anything now playing in New York, and, while the Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins’s precise intentions may sometimes prove slippery, AN OCTOROON succeeds on enough levels to make it essential viewing for any serious theatergoer.      

2. Review of CHERRY SMOKE (May 1, 2014)

2.      CHERRY SMOKE

The just ended 2013-2014 season was filled with plays about sports, among them THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER, FETCH CLAY, MAKE MAN, ROCKY, and BRONX BOMBERS. Some of them reveled in athletic performances as well, a trend that continues with CHERRY SMOKE, James McManus’s play being given a dynamic presentation at Urban Stages after earlier incarnations, with different casts, in Chicago and Washington, D.C. The New York staging is under the auspices of the Working Theatre, dedicated to the mission of providing plays "for and about working people" with the hope of bringing such people to the theatre so as to "change the composition of New York's theater audience to reflect a full range of socio-economic diversity." CHERRY SMOKE is in the highly capable directorial hands of Tamilla Woodard, and features an excellent ensemble with an especially potent performance by Vayu O’Donnell as Fish, a pugnacious, working-class amateur boxer from a small, poverty-riddled steel mill town in western Pennsylvania.  

Molly Carden, Vayu O'Donnell. Photo: Michael Blase.  

Fish, referred to as a volcano ready to explode, does so pretty often in the course of the intermissionless hour and 40 minute play, which moves back and forth in time (sometimes not too clearly) to tell the story of his love affair with Cherry (Molly Carden), another survivor of an abusive upbringing (her dad burned their house down, killing her mom and her lover, and her grandpa got her pregnant). This homeless, sweet, and ignorant child—who later claims to have met Jesus on the riverbank—falls in love with Fish when she’s 10 and he 13. Fish’s nickname comes from his ability to stick his face in the dirty waters of the local river and catch fish in his teeth (which he demonstrates with a believably slithery prop). The play also explores Fish and Cherry’s connection to Fish’s slightly younger brother, Duffy (Patrick Carroll) and his girlfriend/wife, Bug (Julie Jesneck), who has an interestingly disgusting story about how she got that name. CHERRY SMOKE is essentially a character study of these four misfits, mired in poverty with little way out, and of their trying to find a way to live meaningful lives despite the lack of outlets for people of their low-end educational and cultural backgrounds. 

The potently dangerous Fish, with or without his gloves on, can barely restrain his temper, a flaw that keeps landing him in juvenile correction (“juvie”) or prison, separating him from Cherry, the one thing in life—apart from fighting—that keeps him grounded. At one juncture, he gets out of prison to discover that Cherry is pregnant, which contrasts with the situation of Duffy and Bug, who can’t conceive, but otherwise have found a semblance of stability in their lives. Ultimately, the desperate Fish takes on a make or break bout, after which the play surges forward to its tragic conclusion.  

The dialogue is rough yet poetic, the situations realistic yet theatrically heightened (including moments of direct address), and the acting, which depends on authentic west Pennsylvania dialects, first-rate. Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams has created a perfect visual ambience with a set suggesting a cruddy riverbank, filled with discarded tires and other junk, as well as a neutral space that allows for found objects to be used as furniture. The side walls seem splashed with blood, which figures prominently in this violence-prone drama. Lighting that makes the most of a limited budget is the work of Solomon Weisbard, who crafts especially powerful effects during Fish’s last fight.   

Vayu O’Donnell, a trimly muscular actor, demonstrates impressive boxing moves as he fights his invisible opponents. These scenes are well staged by fight director Rick Sordelet, who also creates a credible boxing lesson given by Fish to Duffy, the hapless, gentle brother who eventually becomes Fish’s “cut man” (the guy who staunches a fighter’s bleeding) and his trainer.

CHERRY SMOKE is an expressive play about a neglected part of the national landscape, one that convincingly gives the fire of life to characters for whom the American dream is little more than blood, sweat, and tears without a meaningful payoff. It’s much more of a blow to the emotional solar plexus than a fantasy like ROCKY.

1. Review of THE GREAT IMMENSITY (April 30, 2014)

1.      THE GREAT IMMENSITY

On the day I saw this show, my neighborhood in South Queens found itself under water for the second time in two years. The first, of course, was when Hurricane Sandy was kind enough to visit us, but the no-name monster that smacked us this week did even more damage than Sandy to the homes along my street, even getting special coverage on all the local news channels. These events, of course, are only asterisks on the list of worldwide evidence of the effects of global warming (excuse me, climate change), a problem that too many brain cell-damaged people continue to claim doesn’t exist. Clearly, there’s an urgent need to educate the public about it in easily digestible yet dramatic fashion, a task that Al Gore took up with excellent results in his documentary, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, although he probably wound up preaching only to the choir. This is likely to be what happens with THE GREAT IMMENSITY, the educationally effective, theatrically appealing, but dramaturgically flawed new musical about climate change that just closed at the Public Theatre. 

Erin Wilhemi, Chris Sullivan. Photo: Richard Termine. 

THE GREAT IMMENSITY, written and directed by Steve Cosson, with music and lyrics by Michael Friedman, was presented by the Civilians, who are best known for their documentary-style theatre. The well-researched show, which appeared earlier at the Kansas City Rep, attempts to serve both as a classroom lesson in what climate change is doing to the world and—because it’s necessary, as a character says, to sell the message via a “compelling narrative framework”—as a hopefully entertaining story about a woman searching for her missing husband. It succeeds admirably in the first half of this equation, but falls down a bit in the second. Still, the effort is totally admirable and deserves to be seen widely, particularly by the heathens who need to see the light. I’d be surprised if audiences attending, however, were the ones most likely not to need the lesson. The performance I saw was filled with a group of middle-school kids from the elite Grace Church School who probably have all this data embedded in their DNA.  

From left: Trey Lyford, Cindy Cheung, Damian Baldet, Dan Domingues. Photo: Richard Termine.

Mimi Lien has designed a two-level set, built on a turntable, that allows for Jason H. Thompson’s extensive video and still projections to be flashed on the upper portion. The plot concerns the visit to Panama of Phyllis (Rebecca Hart), wife of the Emmy-winning filmmaker Karl (Chris Sullivan), who’s seeking Karl’s whereabouts after he vanished while filming a nature series. We learn that Karl became disillusioned with his producers when they insisted that his episode on sharks be more about the dangers they represent than the ecological dangers threatening them; scary sharks are more entertaining, of course, than endangered ones. Phyllis encounters various scientists during her quest, which eventually leads her to Churchill, Manitoba, on the Arctic tundra (the fate of the polar bears is a dominant issue), where she discovers that Karl has somehow become involved in an international plot involving students from each of the countries in the U.N.—a Greenpeace-like group called the Earth Ambassadors—who are tied to an upcoming Global Climate Summit in Paris. One of these earnest, perhaps too earnest, treehuggers is a remarkably articulate teenager named Julie (Erin Wilhelmi), who serves as the voice of the environmentalist movement, and whose words spark Karl’s newfound activism and agreement to help the Earth Ambassadors.

This simple summary hides the implausible plot developments, artificial characters, excessive number of environmental issues, unnecessary subplot about Phyllis and Karl's baby-making problem, and back and forth time shifts, culminating in an unlikely scene at the Paris conference where Phyllis is suddenly catapulted into the role of a major speaker.  

The cast, most of whom (apart from Hart, Sullivan, and Wilhelmi) appear in more than one role, sometimes using heavy foreign accents, is uniformly good. The actors include Damien Baldet, Cindy Cheung, Dan Domingues, and Trey Lyford. The songs, while generally engaging, are not intended to send you out of the theatre singing or even humming them; they consist of melodically simple tunes that support information-intensive lyrics related to climate change; a rich vein of satire runs throughout them, as when the inability of governments to come to any meaningful agreements, no matter how many summits they attend, is ridiculed. Although rhyme often takes a backseat to reason, the songs are nicely performed in a variety of styles, a standout being an old-time vaudeville routine about Martha, the last passenger pigeon, which died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. 

Despite its drawbacks, it would be nice to see THE GREAT IMMENSITY (named for a Chinese container ship that figures in the story) have a longer life by being presented in schools across the nation, especially in places where skepticism runs high. How sad it would be to see the ecology of show biz make a show like this extinct before its time.