Jim Rutter's Post and Reviews

How long till the Spiderman musical makes money?

2010-12-20T19:07:00.000-08:00

According to NYTimes economics writer Catherine Rampell, it will take four years of nearly sold out shows for the production to reach a point where it recovers the initial 65 million (yes) investment. Read the full story here.

Review of Uncle Vanya at the Lantern Theatre

2010-11-16T13:27:00.000-08:00

In his 1994 The Western Canon, Yale professor Harold Bloom catalogued the great literary works of Western Civilization since Dante. He capped his near-1,000 year progression with Tony Kushner’s two-part Angels in America, deeming it the last work fit for inclusion.

The original productions of Angels garnered multiple Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize. Its current off-Broadway revival at New York’s Signature Theatre Company has critics re-confirming its exalted place in literature.

I’ve seen multiple productions of both parts, and until recently, I felt inclined to agree with critical estimation. But then I watched the Lantern Theatre’s production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. While I can still appreciate the epic scope of Kushner’s six-hour Angels, his play nonetheless deals—per its subtitle of a “Gay Fantasia on National Themes”—with problems related to the “Democratic Age” in which Bloom catalogues it. Chekhov’s Vanya, by contrast, confronts the very problem of existence.

Fixed locale, timeless problems:

Chekhov’s play opens on the Serebryakov estate, most likely in present day Ukraine. However, with few textual exceptions—that call for a samovar and a guitar—Meghan Jones moderately detailed manor could exist in any Western nation.

And the problems Chekhov’s characters face feel equally timeless. The arrival of Professor Serebryakov (David Howey) and his young wife Yelena (Sarah Sanford) throws the normal routine of the estate’s denizens into chaos. They work the land and manage the estate’s affairs; he lists about complaining about petty academic struggles and geriatric health complaints.

His wife embodies the problems of beautiful women anywhere. Men dote on her, unless she ignores them (in which case they snap), and less attractive females unload the equally unfortunate perils of having their inferior genetic endowments overlooked. Watching Sarah Sanford’s eager eyes attend to everything but the reality of her life, I couldn’t help thinking of Hedda Gabler or Helen of Troy.

As the possibility of a more refined and leisurely life intrudes, all other concerns fly out the window. The local Doctor (Charlie DelMarcelle) trades his conservationist lifestyle for long nights of drinking, their neighbor Telegin (David Blatt) ruminates on his past misfortunes, and Serebryakov’s daughter Sonya (Melissa Lynch) pauses long enough from her work to realize that she’s aging, and no man might ever love her.

One line that carries them all:

In any production of Vanya, the entire dramatic weight of the play rests on a single line, uttered by the overlooked titular character: “I could have been the next Schopenhauer…the next Dostoyevsky.” I’ve seen other translations which preface that line with “If I had lived a normal life.” Whether or not we agree with Vanya’s outburst depends on how well the actor has set up the line, and how much we view—at any age—the potential application of that sentiment to our own lives.

At the Lantern, Peter DeLaurier’s masterful performance balanced Vanya’s buffoonery with both solemnity and a desperate exhaustion at having failed in his own life because he satisfied the expectations of others. DeLaurier shows us Vanya’s intellectual strength (in solidly challenging Serebryakov) while indulging his moral weaknesses and self-pity. And the line, coming as a culmination of such a rich portrayal, evoked both scoffing laughter and my own chilled spine.

An existential crisis, averted:

Director Kathryn MacMillan imparts tremendous care into the production, letting the play unfold along the lines of each character’s narrative. No member of the ensemble contributes anything less than a stellar performance. Her and the cast’s depiction of life at the estate transcends its locale, showing even the servants as trusted members of family, equally ready to offer support or rebuke, but unlike Vanya, all equally committed to a desire to solve their problems with a return to routine, even if only the lost status quo.

And by giving the production this sense, the Lantern’s production reveals something extraordinary, that Chekhov only achieves with conviction in Vanya. To many, the normal association of “existentialism” implies one of two meanings: the nihilism of Waiting for Godot or the reckless hedonism of Dorian Gray.

But Chekhov provided a third option, telling us in Vanya that we can find meaning and alleviate present-day suffering by working toward a better earthly future for those to come. He states this same idea more explicitly in his Three Sisters, but dulls its impact by repeatedly insisting upon it.

At the Lantern, MacMillan and her cast let us feel it as the vital key to their own lives. It doesn’t matter if you accept that in your own life, or pity or hate the characters in Vanya for soldiering on by those lights in theirs.

What matters is that this staging possesses a rare quality, where its characters could not just reach across the fourth wall to sit down with us in our own lives, but that we could get up from our chairs and take their places on the stage. And that’s something only a great production of a great play can make you realize.

Problems with the New Barrymore Awards: Part II

2009-10-01T00:20:00.000-07:00

In my first article on the problems with the new Barrymore Awards voting process, I pointed out how the new system’s assignment of voters enabled clustering of awards around certain productions to a degree unseen in seasons past.

Here, I will show how the new process itself cannot fulfill its stated goal of recognizing the best performance, design element, or production over an entire season. And I would say that this holds true even if everything I wrote in the first article proves false.

First things first: I realize that the Barrymore’s do not—in name—designate the “best” anything (e.g. director), but instead give awards signifying “outstanding” sound design, “outstanding” performance by a leading actress, etc. But this circumlocution merely equivocates on a term.

Under the old system of voting, only one performance or design element received the top number of votes from the judges, and similarly, the new system yields a “highest score” from the voters. In each process, someone is (or will be) collectively regarded as the “best” of the season. Of course, people can always pretend otherwise.

However, I would argue that only the old system could legitimately recognize the best performances and design elements of a season. By contrast, the new process cannot even convey a standard of excellence, let alone reward the most outstanding anything of the season.

Who Decides and How?

This year’s new system of voting sent eight randomly assigned voters out of 62 to see each show, with each voter seeing 12 to 20 shows over the season. Their instructions encouraged them to treat each show on its own merits and rank each performance or design element on a scale of 0 to 100, with rough-and-ready categories (like “poor: 0-20”) guiding their scores.

The judging of figure skating in the Olympics attempts something similar, assigning point values to each performer taken in individual consideration. But there, the judges possess pre-determined objective criteria (difficultly of routine, number of specific movements performed) that form part of their scoring.

However, because theatre lacks any such observer-independent objective criteria, the new Barrymore system more resembles trying to determine the fastest runner by taking each competitor in isolation, letting a handful of people watch him run, and then selecting another, different batch of observers to evaluate the next sprinter. Imagine this process without a stopwatch and you understand how they determined this year’s awards.

As such, this quantifiable system can only encourage thinking about excellence, but without a frame of reference or cross-comparison, it cannot possibly measure it adequately. Like obscenity, we must trust the voters to just “know it when they see it.”

How the old system of judges solve this problem

When it comes to art, this might be the best any of us can do, and the judges of the old system operated similarly. However, unlike the judges, the voters do not see every eligible show, which, in a qualitative analysis, is the only thing that could give them a frame of reference to properly vote for the “most outstanding X of an entire season.” Instead, they cast a once-and-done fixed vote that they cannot later rescind or alter.

The old system of judges who had seen every eligible production could—no matter how flawed otherwise—at least introduce a frame of reference for cross-comparison. Yes, they also lacked “objective criteria,” but unlike runners viewed by rotating sets of observers, the judges at least possessed the advantage of seeing and evaluating every show. At the end of the year, after marshalling a continually refined set of theatre-evaluating experiences, they could then confidently cast a vote for excellence.

But now, the new system has transferred the power of the judges to an even smaller group while losing the one advantage of cross-comparison that the judges conferred. Even assuming bias on the part of all judges, that they had seen every eligible show still gave the old system a level of quality control that the new process lacks.

A sports analogy clarifies the problem

So rather than 10 to 17 judges deciding all the awards after a period of reflection, this season the first (and isolated) impressions of eight individuals decided each and every award. But because of the random distribution of the voters, not even the same group of voters made any two decisions.

To borrow another analogy from sports, the new process resembles allowing a different set of judges to decide the gold, silver, and bronze medals. Whoever thought that spreading the responsibility of choosing each award—though not any award—onto new random groups actually increased the rigor and integrity of the Barrymore process needs to take a course in qualitative analysis.

In order to rank something as “the most outstanding X” of the year, one needs a large sample, not of voters seeing isolated shows, but of total number of shows seen.

By contrast, trying to pretend that the voters should only treat a show on its merits means asking them to ignore every single show or theatre-experience any of them ever had. But each voter can only know excellence by past exposure to such. And since no one can ever ignore the totality of their experience when making judgments about excellence, why wouldn’t Silvante want to buttress the system’s ability to truly reward it by ensuring that each and every person who votes on the awards all possess the same theatre-going experiences that season?

Qualitative analysis versus quantifiable metrics

Qualitative notions like “best” and “outstanding” must involve a comparison. But the elimination of a group of judges that could make these comparisons eliminated the possibility of the new system rendering such judgments. At best, the new awards can only stipulate which performance, production, or design element earned the highest score via random assignment of a group of voters who never again voted on another production as a unit. Perhaps they should change the name of each award from “Outstanding Actor,” to “Highest Voted Upon Performance,” a meaningless moniker to signify a process that could not otherwise ensure that it rewarded the quality of excellence.

Stay tuned for Part III in this series, where I discuss the potential for using quantitative analysis to judge art.

Problems with the New Barrymore Awards: Part I

2009-10-01T00:07:00.000-07:00

Next Monday, the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia will host the 2009 Barrymore Awards for Excellence in Theatre. However, the unprecedented clustering of nominations for this year's awards points out the problems with the new method of nominating. See Part II for how these problems render the Awards unable to fulfill their stated goal of recognizing excellence.

In the past five seasons (2004-2008) of the Barrymore Awards, only five productions earned 10 or more nominations.

This year alone, four productions garnered more than 10 nominations, even though a greater number of participating companies made more shows eligible than ever before. Two of them—Cinderella and Something Intangible—equaled the total of 13 given to Sweeney Todd in 2005. The Producers and Scorched scored 12 apiece, bringing the total for the top-four vote getters to 50 out of 113 possible nominations. In the musical theatre categories, two productions captured 25 nods, and five took 44 of the 51 nominations possible in this genre.

Furthermore, this clustering of nominations extended to whole award categories: the Wilma’s production of Scorched and People’s Light’s staging of the musical Cinderella each saw four female performers nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress (in a play and musical, respectively); likewise, the Arden’s production of Something Intangible raked in three best actor nods.

Something doesn’t add up. While some might contend that a handful of shows emerged as clearly superior candidates in a mediocre season (despite notable oversights like Blackbird and Hamlet, among others), I’d argue that the clustering effect around these (and a few other) productions resulted from changes implemented this year to the Barrymore Awards voting system.

Out with the Old: How the nominating used to work

To understand what happened requires some background on the Barrymore Awards’ history. Started by the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia during the 1994-95 season, the Alliance first used nominators selected from the theatre community to decide the awards. In 2000, the Alliance switched from this simple system to a two-tiered approach of 40 to 50 nominators and 10 to 17 judges, the latter handpicked theatre professionals who formed a unit possessing hundreds of years of theatre-producing and theatre-going experience amongst them.

This now-discarded two-tiered system randomly assigned six nominators to see each eligible production within the first three days of its opening night. Within 24 hours, each filled out a ballot, giving either a “thumbs-up” or “thumbs-down” for every applicable category (such as “outstanding music direction”).

If a minimum three out of the six nominators gave a thumbs-up in any one category, then that production became eligible for nomination in every category. To determine which aspects of a show (if any) should receive a nomination, all of the judges now went and viewed that particular production. At the end of the season, the judges—who had seen every eligible production—then voted on the awards. The top five ballot-getters received nominations, with the winner determined by which show/performer/designer garnered the most of the judges’ votes.

In with the New: From differential expertise to random voters

For the 2008-09 season, Margie Silvante, the Theatre Alliance’s new Executive Director, decided to eliminate the two-tiered system of nominators and judges, and replace it with a cadre of “voters”. Armed with a metrics-based standard of quantification, her new system randomly assigned 8 voters (out of a pool of 62) to see each show, with each voter weighing in upon 12 to 20 productions out of the 130 eligible for consideration.

Within 24 hours after seeing an eligible show, each voter logged onto a website to post their scores for each of the applicable awards (for instance, “outstanding actor in a play”). The website’s ballot ranged from 0-20 (poor) to 86-100 (outstanding), and each voter cast a specific number score for each possible award, using these categories like “poor” as rough-and-ready standards to guide their scoring. Under this new system, the top five scores in any award determined the nominations, with the top-point scorer ultimately winning the award (to be announced at the ceremony on October 5).

In early 2008, Silvante announced these changes at a mid-season meeting of nominators and judges and stressed her desire to reintroduce integrity into the process and eliminate the prejudice of some judges. I had witnessed this bias at an earlier meeting when then-judge Alan Blumenthal admitted to Walnut Street Theatre’s Artistic Director Bernard Havard the judges’ past prejudice against the Walnut’s productions.

Silvante hoped that her new metrics-based system would eliminate this unfairness and enable greater rigor by introducing a method of quantification that could (in theory) draw upon the commonalities of judgment from a larger and more diverse pool of voters.

Considered Judgment versus The Wow Effect

But rather than produce greater integrity and rigor, the new process instead yielded a clustering of nominations unseen in previous years. Two competing hypotheses can explain this phenomenon; neither have anything to do with artistic merit.

To understand what happened, consider the new system’s process of assigning voters. Out of 62 randomly assigned voters, the chance that any eight of them saw a single show comes to 1 in 136 trillion. The chance that any single group of eight voters reunited to see another production amounts to 1 in 1.8 x 10²⁷. (The actual number is slightly less because of the cap put on the possible number of shows assigned to each individual voter.)

Under the old system, the chance that any grouping of judges not only all saw the same productions but saw every eligible production: 100 percent. The judges could compare performances, and thereby ensured a level of measured reflection and quality control that this new system lacks.

The new system, by contrast, requires that each voter post a score within 24 hours, without recourse to reflection, and without the frame of reference that seeing every other eligible production affords. As such, the evaluative process each voter employs must contend with his or her first impression of a performance and whatever overwhelming emotions—both positive or negative—the production has elicited.

Because of this time constraint, I would assert that voters, taken as a whole, will tend to over-value an excellent production and fall victim to the “wow effect” just like anyone in the audience. (Other critics have cited this as the number one reason to postpone writing a review until one can fully collect his or her thoughts.)

Certain plays—those heavily indebted to spectacle, or capable of inducing powerful emotions in the audience—could take much greater advantage of this wow effect. The final unraveling of the mystery in Scorched packs an emotionally stunning revelation that few plays equal, and walking out of the theatre, and even for the next 24 hours, the show’s conclusion would still leave one reeling. But a magnificent moment doesn’t necessarily make a magnificent show. And a common error—the fallacy of division—would see voters acceding greater weight to each performance in a show that elicited that effect.

The old two-tiered system of judges and nominators could actually take advantage of this “wow factor’s” bias. The judges would see plays overvalued by the nominators, and by not having to decide the ultimate merit of each production element on the spot, could temper their observations through evaluations of other performances. For the judges, what may have appeared overwhelmingly “outstanding” after a single viewing, could, in a broader sense of what the community offered over an entire season, come into better perspective. (Don’t believe the “wow effect” exists? Judges have said to me on more than one occasion that they “can’t believe the nominators sent them to see such-and-such a show.”)

The Second Hypothesis: Mediocrity rears its non-descript head

Allowing the awards to be determined by the random distribution of voters who only see a handful of shows enables another likely–though far more invidious—possibility for the clustering of awards, which I’ll call the “mediocrity effect.”

While the new system hinges on a set of commonalities distributed evenly among 62 voters that could help quantify their choices, a rough-and-ready metric of five categories cannot eliminate personal judgments in assigning the scores.

Take any two critics seeing the same show. Presumably, Philadelphia Weekly’s J. Cooper Robb and I bring a commonality of background qualities to our roles as theatre critics. Yet, in his best of the season roundup, he called Geoff Sobelle’s performance in Hamlet the year’s best. I thought it decorated with frills that lacked a central unifying quality. In the Barrymore voting system, Robb might have scored Sobelle’s performance a 95, where I would’ve chalked up a 70.

However, under the new system of scoring, Sobelle’s unique interpretation would have lost to any performance that consistently earned a vote of 83, a score that falls below the cutoff for “outstanding.” To give another indication of how this could happened, when I was a nominator, actors (who I won’t name), told me that they had auditioned for the role they now had to vote upon, didn’t agree with the choices made by the performer who was cast, and for that reason, didn’t think it worthy of Barrymore consideration. And rather than eliminate the bias of the judges and restore integrity, this new system makes it possible for disgruntled voters to trash a performer’s rankings entirely.

Moreover, statistics predicts that most rankings will cluster around a norm. (And even if the Awards process eliminated the highest and lowest score—as the Olympics adjusts the points for diving—this would actually further encourage regression to an average score.) Unfortunately, this new system of voting actually makes it possible that this “norm” enshrines mediocrity at the expense of more superlative work.

What the new system ultimately makes possible

I don’t write these comments to discredit any of the voters, many of whose opinions I respect, but to point out what types of outcomes a particular set of boundaries will make more likely. And knowing that all systems of measurement possess flaws that mandate trade-offs, I will not pretend that all of the voters can completely avoid well-established observational biases. I would instead opt to select systems that minimize the impact of each bias in turn.

And this all goes back to the way the voters are assigned. The new system only produces a 1.8 in 10²⁷ chance that the same 8 voters ever reunited to evaluate a show again. In all likelihood, the voters who cast their vote for Something Intangible never evaluated another show as a unit. Furthermore, the parameters of this new system encourage the “wow effect” and the “mediocrity effect” in such a way that not only makes each error possible, but exacerbates the likelihood of each of them occurring.

Because the new system lacks a method of self-correction or quality control (that the judges provided in years past), it further exacerbates the effects of each error. Hence, you get clustering: either around shows that wowed voters or that contained enough reasonably good elements as to ensure a high average, though not an outstanding one.

In either case, the less-than-24-hour reflections of 8 individuals who hadn’t seen all the contenders (and not the same 8 people for any single award) decided each and every award this year.

In a system with dual levels of quality control and far greater numbers of variables provided by the judges seeing every eligible production, this clustering effect would not be a statistical probability but would only happen for a show that was truly phenomenal. Hence, under the old system, only five shows in five years garnered 10 or more nominations, as opposed to 4 productions this year alone receiving that many. By contrast, the new system encourages the clustering of awards not out of any reason of artistic merit, but out of sheer probability alone.

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

See Parts II and III for more.

The original ending to my review of Headlong's "more."

2009-09-18T16:11:00.000-07:00

To read the full article as edited and published by the Broad Street Review, click here.

Then come back and see the final two paragraphs, as I submitted them (and which got cut, leading to unnecessary claims that I lack knowledge of dance history).

And FYI: I don’t write the headlines or subject headings for the pieces that appear in the BSR.

A question for my cleaning lady:

"And while I don’t believe for a minute they showed what remains of dance when bodies disappear, I think the work continues to ask important questions about the boundaries of dance’s movement vocabulary. Is rearranging your own furniture art (and not merely when it’s feng shui)? The next time my maid comes over to clean, do I owe Headlong royalties? Can any movement function in a choreographer’s arsenal?

Choreographers long ago answered the latter question affirmatively. But in making an entire work out of a continual reframing and re-asking of the question, Headlong instead set up an insignificant tautology, proving only that any time dancers (or anyone) engage in movement, they’re engaging in movement. As a company, they may have needed to take an artistic leap in a piece like more. But to argue that any and all of the movement they present constitutes art in some definitional sense when disconnected from bodies, from context, and from meaning does not extend the boundaries of dance but reduces them to meaninglessness."

In other words, embrace the freedom to use whatever movement you want but integrate it into a piece, rather than fashion the act of questioning into some meta-level approach to your work.

Review of A.W.A.R.D. Show Round One

2009-09-18T01:17:00.001-07:00

First published in Edge Philadelphia:

The "art for art’s sake" crowd rarely likes to acknowledge the huge role that financial concerns play in the creation of new works. But two shows (among many) at this year’s Fringe Festival exposed the near-inseparable connection between money and art.

Indeed, when Headlong Dance Company choreographer Amy Smith hosted the first installment of the A.W.A.R.D. Show-a dance competition with a $10,000 prize-she opened the night with a complaint, telling the audience that "The idea of a competition for dance nauseates me a little".

I guess what worked for the Ancient Greeks doesn’t suit Smith’s sensibilities. But I can sympathize with her a bit. Four local choreographers competed in the AWARD show, and the evening structured three minute intervals between each of the four pieces, giving audience members time to reflect before voting. When the lights dimmed to commence the second piece (Jenn Rose’s "Way Up High"), the audience burst into exuberant, almost overwhelming applause merely on the mention of Rose’s name.

So much for the audience not turning the evening into a popularity contest (for those paying attention, Rose’s piece won the first evening’s audience vote count). I don’t know any of the four choreographers personally, and so I will say who I voted for, even if my vote doesn’t entirely reflect the merit of the piece they presented that evening.

ROUND ONE PRESENTS:

Kate Watson-Wallace opened the evening with "dances for the recession," an excerpt from her recent Live Arts Festival full-length Store. Their heads wrapped in fabric, six dancers rose up out of piles of clothing, clutching paper bags in a consumerist post-apocalypse landscape. Small scenes played out; a couple fighting, a man stripping to reveal a dress worn underneath, then later ecstatically groping and caressing a broken television set. Her dancers sometimes moved rhythmically in unison, and an ominous sense pervaded the entire piece.

I had already seen Store earlier in the week, and found it hard to separate my experience of the full-length work from this excerpt, especially since I consider Store the best dance piece I’ve seen during the Festival. However, as an excerpt, "dances for the recession" failed in many ways that Store admirably succeeded. Without the abandoned warehouse setting, Watson-Wallace’s shorter version didn’t engender the same sense of desperation, isolation, and pathos in her characters, and couldn’t locate their activities within the same space of consumerist experience.

In short, it lacked a framework to both contextualize the mood of the piece and give it meaning. Still, for all its disembodied disconnect, I loved it.

Jenn Rose’s Oprahesque "Way Up High" blended tap and modern dance choreography in four women’s emotional struggles. Rose’s dancers started in a circle around four pair of shoes, and the mood and music (and Jessica Sentak’s excellent lighting) set a dark tone for the piece. As the women found strength and hope in each other, they donned their tap shoes, and moments of exuberance and joy began to pierce through their darkness.

Rose didn’t need to tell us afterward the meaning that her choreographic journey made readily apparent. While I found the first half overly neurotic, in both choreography and dancing, Way Up High showed the best execution of the evening.

Jumatatu Poe’s melodramatic "Alibi" played the evening’s best soundtrack, but I found his multimedia and videos unnecessary to what the piece clearly conveyed. The text and dancing capably told the story of a man who comes home to find a dead woman in his house, and the oft-frightening choreography showed the battle within one man between his innocent reason and guilty conscious. Throughout, dancer John Luna wracked his face to fashion the night’s best characterization.

Finally, Kathryn TeBordo’s "You Ain’t Gonna Get Glory If That’s What You Came Here For" blended spoken word poetry (text borrowed from Dorothea Lasky) and minimalist dance. While three dancers moved slowly about the floor, a man stood still at the back of the stage, loudly and monotonically blathering out lines like "Conceptual art is dead, representational art is also dead."

The delivery hit the piece’s humor, but I wondered what TeBordo intended as ironic, and what as mock-ironic. TeBordo set out to find "how small can movement be to still be dance, and still be seen," and her work, while enjoyable on one level, proved just how insular art can become when it only focuses on the medium and not the product. Like the famed paradoxes of Zeno, I could just as sophistically (and just as easily) ask "is the last flicker of a bonfire still part of the fire?" and the answer would only satisfy those with an iron already plunged into the flames.

SO WHO'D I VOTE FOR?

If you want to know how I voted, re-read the order of the pieces as I described them. As for my comments on merit? Ultimately, my final vote reflects which choreographer I would rather see create new work with the $10,000. With money on the line, I’m going with who I can consistently count on to create new art. It’s not fair, and probably what artists hate the most about the free-market.

Review of Applied Mechanics "It's Hard Times at the Camera Blanca"

2009-09-18T00:54:00.000-07:00

First published in Edge Philadelphia:

Applied Mechanics "It’s Hard Times at the Camera Blanca" presented the inescapable nature of the global economy, that other thing artists hate most about the intersection of art and economics. Here, eight circus characters (trapeze artists, clowns, a lion tamer) downed drinks at the Camera Blanca bar as they struggled with the economic uncertainty of a travelling show on the verge of financial failure. The audience moved between tables, chairs, and barstools, eavesdropping on conversations between a brother and sister as their relationship fragments over an uncertain economic future, listening to the outpourings of clowns who fear irrelevancy, and throughout, witnessing a Ringmaster ruling over all of them with a unyielding iron fist.

One moment of hope rises above the Dickensian din: a young clown arrives, hoping to reinvigorate, if not reinvent the circus (i.e., the economy, if you didn’t get it yet). "No one does that," the lion tamer tells him; "no one can do that" the Ringmaster commands.

Rebecca Wright’s text lays the metaphors on thick; however, she enlivens the dialogue by creatively borrowing from a number of other sources, providing a movie-buff’s dream script with quotes culled from Greatest Show on Earth, Trapeze, and Casablanca (hence the mnemonically mimicking "Camera Blanca" bar). I laughed in hearing the bartender and trapeze artist replaying the "Go back to Bulgaria" dialogue, just one of the moments that transcended the show’s melancholy mood.

Like several other Fringe Artists presenting works that deal with the scientific discipline of economics, I’d love to know the depth of Wright’s knowledge in this field (or at least how much research she’s done). However, unlike the two monologues Mike Daisey showcased at this year’s festival, Wright at least doesn’t dip into fantastical solutions to fix economic woes, but instead presents the valid, real concerns felt particularly by artists during an economic recession that makes the production of art a luxury and further drives the existence of artists to the margins.

Despite these financial concerns, Wright and her designer Maria Shaplin didn’t manufacture a sure-seller for the Fringe, but instead pushed at the boundaries of theatre as an art form. "Hard Times" dropped the proscenium, linear narrative, and fixed directorial focus, and forced the audience to follow characters about an awkward landscape, catching only part of the conversations at a time to piece together the evening by themselves. At times it felt a bit scatter brained, but the entire 35 minute piece repeated, allowing anyone with decent parallel processing skills (or massive ADHD) to catch every conversation and get the whole jist of her "hard times" and circus metaphor.

And while Wright may not have found any answers about the economy, her new work asked important, and theatrically rewarding questions about the dramatic nature of theatre.

Review of Anthony and Cleopatra at Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival

2009-07-23T21:07:00.000-07:00

First published in EDGE Philadelphia:

The Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival’s Anthony and Cleopatra offers a unique opportunity in the Bard’s body of work, one that goes beyond the rare staging of his mammoth locale-jumping epic. Except for his “history plays,” Shakespeare—unlike Agatha Christie and her famed inspector Poirot—didn’t serialize his characters.

Instead, he either ended their lives or married them off into banality (thereby ending their fascination), denying audiences the chance to see their favorite roles tread the boards in new adventures.

And therein lies part of the fascination with Anthony and Cleopatra. When audiences last saw Marc Anthony (here played by a very robust-looking Greg Wood), he towered as the boyish hero of Julius Caesar. Much like Prince Hal from Henry the IV, Anthony’s arduous circumstances forced him to grow up quick.

But unlike young Hal, who matures into the courageous military genius that storms the field in Henry V’s Battle of Agincourt (delivering no less a monumental speech as "Band of Brothers"), Anthony devolves from the young hero avenging his mentor’s death into the henpecked whipping boy of an aging Queen Cleopatra (Lauren Lovett).

Seduced by her beauty, Anthony neglects his duties, falters from one military blunder to the next, and grants concessions to maintain his fragile political alliance with Octavius (Jacob R. Dresch) and Lepidus (played with terrific subtlety by Wayne S. Turney). With each mistake, his confidence erodes further and he crawls back to Cleopatra in desperation.

But after watching PSF’s production, I couldn’t help but wonder why. The fault doesn’t lie with Wood’s effortless transitions. In Alexandria, he lolls about the stage, either desperately begging favors from Cleo, or wasting the nights in revelry. In Rome, he exudes masculinity and confidence, and before battle, his fury cracks the stage like a whip. Only Steve TenEyck’s lighting fails to cohere with the shifts in attitude across atmospheres. Why paint the fiery passionate realm of Alexandria in white tones and Rome’s calculating world of men in red?

Under Patrick Mulcahy’s crisp direction, the supporting cast plays solidly off Wood’s lead. Dresch’s delivers the evening’s best performance, appearing commanding while simultaneously blending a young leader’s insecure need for haughty distance with childish petulance (I could easily imagine Dresch’s Octavius maturing into Augustus, the dictator that ushered forth the Pax Romana). As Enobarbus, Tony Lawton fashions his own mini-tragedy out of a soldier’s betrayal and regret.

And then there’s Cleopatra. Lisa Zinni’s gorgeous costumes only accentuate Lovett’s beauty and spectacular physique, (PSF’s costume budget probably exceeds the seasonal revenue of many Philly companies). Even Lovett’s tattoo fits the period. But the woman who captivated me with her 2006 performance as Rosalind failed to convince me here. In pushing Anthony away, she "is cunning past man’s thoughts," but her attempts at ardor convey far less passion than her verses imply.

Displaying little charm or tenderness, Lovett only wields the rough half of the push-pull histrionics that control Anthony, and beyond her beauty, I felt surprised that he returned. By contrast, even Chris Brown must have given Rihanna a backrub once in a while.

In fairness, Shakespeare’s Anthony serves up his manhood on a platter. When Cleopatra’s fleet flies from battle, Anthony deserts his troops to follow, and before he supped in Alexandria, Anthony sat at the feet of Caesar like a dog. But in a play called Anthony AND Cleopatra, PSF’s production takes this background for granted, and unfortunately, like Shakespeare’s histories, the real tragedy must then hide in the fact that these events actually happened.

Antony and Cleopatra runs through Aug. 2 at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, 2755 Station Ave., Center Valley, PA. For tickets or more information: 610-282-9455 or www.PaShakespeare.org.

Paul Rudd shooting a movie in my neighborhood

2009-07-15T23:18:00.001-07:00

If you're an arts journalist, little in life beats walking out of the front door of your apartment building onto a movie set.

But that's precisely what happened to me when I had to move my car to make way for the tentatively titled rom-com "How Do You Know," a James L. Brooks film starring Paul Rudd, Reese Witherspoon, Jack Nicholson, and Owen Wilson. The movie revolves around a love triangle, with both Rudd's character, a white-collar executive, and Wilson's character, a pro baseball pitcher, trying to win over Witherspoon's character.

Though the writer had mostly set the movie in Washington, D.C., as one of the crew told me, they were shooting many of the scenes here to take advantage of Philadelphia's tax breaks for film investment (thank you Governor Rendell!).

According to sources, the cast and crew will shoot on location in Philly, including shots at Drexel University and Center City, until October. Keep your eyes peeled!

OK, you've waited long enough for the shots of Mr. Rudd:

Here he is, shooting a scene with comedienne Cathy Hahn:

Here, talking with his wife, Julie Wagner, after the shot:

Here's Paul Rudd, outside the set and making his way toward the crowd of fans:

Finally, Mr. Rudd, who graciously stopped for a picture by yours truly:

Taylor Hicks' dick move in Grease

2009-07-15T22:48:00.000-07:00

About a week ago, I wondered why Taylor Hicks had agreed to perform in the touring production of Grease instead of promoting his new album.

On opening night, I got my answer: Grease was not the word at the Academy of Music Tuesday night. Instead, the prime attraction was a bit-part “star”— the slimy “American Idol” crooner Taylor Hicks.

After the show, Hicks pulled the ultimate dick move on his cast mates by performing a song from his new album. In one fell swoop, he eradicated the memories of the musical to which the cast had all contributed, and essentially made the evening all about his talentless self.

Like his performance in American Idol, the consummate wedding singer again ruins something that theatergoers enjoy.

To read the full article, click here.

Review of City of Nutterly Love at Philadelphia Theatre Company

2009-07-15T22:17:00.000-07:00

First published in EDGE Philadelphia

Philadelphians aren't known for taking too kindly to people from other cities picking on our hometown. (Most of our sports fans can't even stand it when someone shows up wearing a different team's jersey.) So I'm sure many local theatergoers felt a mixture of reticent excitement and anticipation when Philadelphia Theatre Company (PTC) announced City of Nutterly Love, a collaborative spoof of all things Philadelphia done in conjunction with Chicago's Second City sketch comedy troupe.

Like anthropologists in the wild, Second City writers TJ Shanoff and Ed Furman descended upon Philadelphia a few months ago for research. The group of seven performers-Second City's Katie Rich, Rachel Miller, Edgar Blackmon, and accompanist/musical director Bryan Dunn; and Comedy Sportz veterans Mary Carpenter Eoin O'Shea, and David Dritsas-loaded both barrels with snowballs and Tastykakes and took aim.

And who knew our town contained so many easy targets for humor?

The Philadelphia sports fans and their teams got slaughtered (though the Charles Barkley joke seemed too retro, especially considering Iverson only left a few years ago), and the six actors mildly skewered Mummers participants (arguing over the color of their codpieces), Comcast, and local rockers Hall n Oates. Though how did Rocky Balboa escape without mention?

One particularly funny sketch had an unimpressed tour guide ragging on the museum's snooty art collection, renaming Picasso's "Three Guitars" as "Triangles Puking on Squares," and flagging the Renoir collection as "Naked Chubby Chick Age."

Throughout, the group's sharply timed delivery and quick wit impressed. During the Mummer's sketch, the mention of a "Drexel girl's panties" got a lot of screams, to which one of the troupe quickly fired "I think that girl's here tonight), and with the exception of the lackluster songs (particularly bad: the one lambasting our love-hate relationship with Donovan McNabb), I laughed until the muscles in my face hurt.

But the laughs came cheap. The writers culled almost every other skit from the Second City archives, massaging the material with Philly references so they could play here (the museum skit could rip on any city's art collection). And while I appreciated the original take on the famed Ben Franklin impersonator's horrific origin, what's a skit about a nun with a dirty record collection got to do with Philly?

Don't get me wrong, the archived material provided most of the laughs-whether ripping on cougars chasing cub-age tail while downing "Ambien and Jaeger" bombs or a completely honest job interviewee telling a prospective employer "I just want to bone your hot secretary." But the evening's most subversive piece only managed to poke polite fun at the Larry Mendte-Alycia Lane news scandal. I expected far more insightful satire from the nation's premier comedy troupe and didn't find it at PTC.

Instead, the night consisted of shoutouts (including PBR references, though not Yuengling) at local celebs (Stephen Starr) and landmarks (Boscov's?), with two words-"Phillies" followed by "repeat"-eliciting the most hoots and hollers from the audience. The rest capitalized on the resentfulness of New York's Sixth Borough for her bigger neighbor, and some Main Line snubbing ("if you move to the city, where will you park your horse?).

If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, than provincialism is the mark of cheap comedy. 1812 does a much better job subverting the locals each Christmas, and none of these skits could hold a candle to the Philadelphia color infused into Patsy, Jen Childs' Shunk Street soap-boxer.

If you're never going to Chicago, see them here. At least they didn't just focus on the tourist crap.

Philadelphia Theatre Company presents City of Nutterly Love; playing at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, 480 S. Broad St., Philadelphia. Through July 26. Tickets: $34 to $39. Information: 866-985-0420 or www.PhiladelphiaTheatreCompany.org

Grease tonight at the Academy of Music

2009-07-06T21:19:00.000-07:00

Tonight I'm reviewing the much hyped appearance of American Idol winner Taylor Hicks, who's playing the role of Teen Angel in the touring production of Grease. I would've thought that after releasing his second album, The Distance, in March of this year, that Hicks would want to tour the country promoting his new record.

But no, instead, Philadelphia gets to welcome the contestant that Simon Cowell said "would never make it to the final round"--thanks alot votefortheworst.com--in a role once made famous by one of our native sons, Frankie Avalon.

See Hicks, below, performing "Beauty School Dropout" on Live with Regis and Kelly:

There, I just saved you a hundred bucks. Although Rizzo--that chick was my girl in high school--brings back memories.

However, I remember being far more excited about eight months ago for the touring production of Legally Blonde: The Musical, (review here) even if the similar story about a young woman's flowering seems a bit more shallow (In fairness, Grease, thanks mostly to the "hand jive" features better dance numbers).

Still, I'm missing my girl Elle Woods, especially in the fun opening number "Omigod, you guys!" (where you can't beat lyrics like "They're just like that couple from Titanic, only no one dies. Omigod you guys!").

Watch the opening number here:

Review of It Was a Very Good Year at Bristol Riverside

2009-06-22T21:41:00.000-07:00

First published in Edge Philadelphia:

At the start of Bristol Riverside Theatre’s current cabaret “It Was a Very Good Year,” Artistic Director Keith Baker welcomed us to the 1950’s by drawing some stark comparisons between that era and today.

“Those were very good years,” he began, playing to the audience who experienced them. Coke cost a nickel, a gallon of gas set you back 23 cents. People enjoyed romance rather than relationships, marriage lasted forever, and before a couple tied the knot, they went on dates, rather than ‘just hooking up’.”

Strangely, the set list included “Run Around Sue,” (about a girl who never hooked-up) and “Love and Marriage” a sonnet that sincerely sings the praises of marital bliss.

Sarcasm aside, in most cases, the song selection at BRT proved just how much good music the era produced. The evening opened on a medley of popular hits—from “Rock Around the Clock” and “La Bamba” to “Fever” and “Fly Me to the Moon”—before turning into an evening of mostly solo performances chosen to display the virtuosity of the four singers.

Lisa Mindelle imbued her pep-squad leader’s cute and earnest voice with a girlish charm on innocent numbers like “Where the Boys Are” and later displayed a country quality in “Tennessee Waltz.” And with his perfectly coiffed hair and Cleaver-esque good looks, John D. Smitherman reminded of the class President, one who didn’t draw any resentment in being voted “most likely to succeed.” With his voice—full of butter and honey—and masterful vocal technique, he could easily afford to ham up numbers like “It’s Now or Never,” shaking his legs wildly and curling his lip up like Elvis. Later, a commanding rendition of the Mario Lanza landmark hit “Be My Love” showed a sonorous elegance rarely seen outside of opera halls.

In stark contrast, Demetria Joyce Bailey’s chocolate-covered-cherry of a mezzo put enough seductive smoke into her numbers (“Fever”, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”) that I got lung cancer just listening. But hey, if you’re going to be lulled into the long sleep, what better voice to sing a lullaby, and if anything could rock you back out of it, it’s her brazen rendition of “Mambo Italiano” that kicks off Act II. Anthony D’Amato soulfulness showed incredible versatility, soaring effortlessly through Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” and making “The Great Pretender” reminiscent of an 80’s power ballad.

The band matched the singers’ talents, and like an era when this happened often, even surpassed them at times. Violinist Claudia Pellegrini plucked the through line on her violin to provide the best part of a vocally uneven “Unchained Melody,” and guitarist Neil Nemetz’s strident “Pipeline” reminded why it wasn’t once uncommon to flip through radio stations and hear four minutes of instrumentals.

But while the performers all shone vocally (for the most part; some stretched their instruments a bit), the evening strung the songs together with no semblance of why one followed the next, and with one exception, imparted no sense of narrative or atmospheric mood to the evening. On “It Was a Very Good Year,” lighting designer Kate Ashton painted the stage in visual hues that shifted like the seasons through the eras of one man’s life, and Baker’s tender singing conveyed an almost Proustian recollecting, full of sorrow and longing for days gone by.

Otherwise, the program’s deceptive title played like a night of “Here’s some songs from the 50’s and 60’s. Enjoy!” And it did so while totally lacking a bandstand like atmosphere. I wondered “why am I in a theatre, rather than a hall with a dance floor?”

Similarly, except for a few individual inventions, Baker’s direction failed to structure any skits, play-acting, or interactions between the performers or audience that would make the evening seem like a cabaret. Smitherman attempted to rectify this deficit on most of this numbers, handing a handkerchief to a woman in the audience, or combing his hair as he sang. But while he went a bit overboard with the deep lunges up the steps on “Kansas City,” the other three singers not doing anything—or D’Amato often singing his songs to himself—made Smitherman’s theatrical touches into an oddity.

Except for the too thin ties, Robyn N. Watson’s costumes don’t really reflect the era; the men’s chinos and button-down shirts and simple women’s dresses look more business casual than 50’s bobby-soxer. For the most part, the audience delighted in the evening, letting out gasps and nudges of recognition that recalled hearing these songs for the first time when they came out. Thankfully, the era gave us a lot of good music to enjoy just hearing.

Bristol Riverside Theatre presents “It Was a Very Good Year.” Written and directed by Keith Baker, runs until June 28. Tickets and information at www.brtstage.org

Review of Doubt at People's Light

2009-06-22T21:24:00.000-07:00

First published in Edge Philadelphia:

I’ll admit that when I first saw John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt a few years ago, I didn’t care for it very much.

Sure his play had won the Tony and Pulitzer Prize for Best New Play, and the touring production I watched starred none other than Cherry Jones (who also won the Tony for Best Actress in the Broadway staging). At the time, I found plenty to dislike in his powerful melodrama about a foreign and corruptin institution, presented through the scrim of modern sensibilities.

But Peoples’ Light and Theatre Company’s current production gave me a whole new level of respect for the play. And for that, I have only Ceal Phelan to thank.

Set at St. Nicholas’ Catholic school in 1964, “Doubt” begins as a conflict over teaching styles, with the school’s principal Sister Aloysius (Phelan) condescendingly warning the fresh-faced (and quite naïve) Sister James (Elizabeth Webster Duke) that “every easy choice hides within its consequences tomorrow.” However, after haranguing James for ten minutes, Aloysius quickly shifts to her real concern—the well being of Donald Muller, their first Negro student—who has fallen into the protective care of Father Flynn (Pete Pryor), a pastor transferred through three parishes in five years. Aloysius’ worry still persists today (witness the recent scandals of the schools in Ireland), that Father Flynn’s interests in becoming Donald’s protector hide something far more sinister.

While Sister James struggles to regain her peace of mind, doubt, suspicion, and gossip dominate the play from here. Flynn shows signs of guilt—with Pryor’s voice cracking on certain phrases—but he credibly defends himself, winning over James, and threatening Aloysius’ future. When the boy’s mother (Melanye Finister as Mrs. Muller) appears, she partially acquiesces to the alleged abuse. Already thinking her twelve year old son is gay, she only wants him to make it to June, so he can use this private-school education as a springboard to better opportunities in the highly competitive New York school system. As for the truth of the accusations, it escapes like so many feathers fluttering on the wind.

David Mamet once wrote (I’m paraphrasing) that in a good script, the language by itself should produce so much tension that the actors could just sit in chairs on the stage and entrance the audience with a reading. David Bradley’s direction of Shanley’s play seems to have taken this phrase to heart. Except in the interludes between scenes, the actors take little advantage of the staging’s wide courtyard, and everyone delivers their lines while either standing or sitting immobile, the two nuns speaking nearly all of their dialogue with their arms held tight at their sides.

As a result, Pryor appears suitably sympathetic and engaging just in delivery, but his lack of emoting can’t capture the charisma of a man whose congregation praises his sermons, and whose schoolboys look to him as a role model. More importantly, after seeing what Pryor has conveyed in much simpler roles, I wish he had brought more depth to his Father Flynn. Finister and Duke suffer similar problems; Duke’s facial expressions transmit her wracked conscious, but I would expect that a teacher warned about “being a performer for her class” would shape the language a bit more with her hands and body.

Ultimately, only Phelan’s performance truly benefits from Bradley’s directorial choices. Her measured manner of speaking turns the simple statements that “satisfaction is a vice” and “innocence is a form of laziness” into dictums worthy of Aristotle. Shanley’s script sets her up as the hated prison warden who stands between order and ruin, but while Phelan’s a block of ice, her fascinating absence of emotion moved me to profound admiration for a character that would “go outside the church even if I am damned to hell.”

Finally, I felt the moral force of this play, something helped along immensely by the Yoshi Tanokura’s set that not only frames the entire space, but also puts these four characters in an imprisoning cell where their conflicting emotions and stories confront them at every turn.

In trying to do good, Aloysius walked away from God. Still in His service, she may have even committed evil. And like the best tragedies, the battle is not fought between obvious good and clear evil, but between forces each bent on their own version of what’s right. And for 80 minutes at People’s Light, Doubt pulverizes any complacency of thought or easy emotion.

People’s Light and Theatre presents John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt. Directed by David Bradley, runs until June 28. www.peopleslight.org

Review of Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier

2009-06-22T20:46:00.000-07:00

First published in Edge Philadelphia:

Dear Benjamin Lloyd, cast, and crew of White Pines Productions

Re: Your recent production of Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier

I’m writing this review as a letter for two reasons. Due to your short production run, none of my readers can see the play. Also, as letters factor heavily in William di Canzio’s script, I wanted to pay a similar tribute to your very moving production. I hope you understand.

Di Canzio’s story probably presented some difficulties. I’m sure that even today’s worldly teenagers would find it difficult to accept not only a tale of love at first letter, but a narrative in which a reluctant and self-protecting 19 year old girl (Amanda Schoonover as Sarah) would yield her heart to the forthright, aggressive affections of Noah Drew’s 22 year old army-reservist Dan. And certainly, few outside the military would understand the impulsive need to cast an anchor in one’s own country on the eve of deployment, even if that means popping the question on a first date.

However, despite these difficulties, your direction turned the first half of Johnny into one of the most sincere, touching, and real hours of theatre I have experienced in a very long time. And as two young people struggling to better their lives with the community college education they must work forty hours a week to afford, Schoonover and Drew manage to make young love as charming as when it’s first experienced.

Schoonover turned her character’s lack of humor into an adorable attribute, making it very easy to understand not only Dan’s instinct for what’s real, but also his willingness to reach out to protect her. And though both were touched early by the tragedy of a parent’s death (and a concomitant reluctance to trust), each tinged their blossoming desires with the humor that break down those walls. Drew’s face and soothing voice painted a portrait of pure earnestness that put a smile on my face throughout act one, with his inspiring attitude in the face of deployment to Iraq keeping it there.

And while I expected a play about war to convey a measure of bombast and outrage, too often I’ve seen the political become preachy, tainting a sincere examination of war’s consequences with the shrill of oft-insincere indignation. So I appreciated the uncertain swagger of Mark Lazar’s Major Smythe when he asks Dan “what kind of life could you have with her if the homeland is not secure?” And di Canzio’s script (if not Marcia Saunder’s performance as Dan’s mother) subtly, though aptly compared the “national mistakes” of Vietnam and Iraq, while also illustrating the humble patriotism of sacrifice in a mother who ships candy and comic books to everyone in her son’s unit, and the fortitude of a wife who forestalls her dreams by dropping out of college to purchase the body armor that Halliburton price-overruns render unaffordable.

Though I can only attest to what I’ve watched on the news or read in the papers, Christopher Colucci’s sound design of choppers, gunshots, and bombings evoked the proximity of danger in a war played like a video game where cheering adolescents man the joysticks, and J. Paul Nicholas’ likable sarcasm (as the prisoner Amahl) showed the collateral damage that affects spirits as well as flesh. His comparison of the Iliad (a Western nation invading a mid-East city) conveyed an understanding of myth’s role in warfare; the wisdom in his performance impressed with the Odyssey’s notion that only on the voyage home does a soldier journey back into life as a hero.

And di Canzio’s script and your cast forced me to contemplate my least favorite example of fate, the notion that “no good deed goes unpunished.” Perhaps that’s the most horrible facet of war, that in the midst of barbarity, even an act of thoughtful compassion must engender suffering. And despite the valiant protestations of heroism, that suffering, as you showed so clearly, ripples outward in waves to wreak havoc on circles of loved ones, families, and communities—not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in the towns that more than four thousand now deceased soldiers used to call home. Matt Saunders’ simple set—of paper panels hung together like a battalion of tombstones—only underscored the continuing, national-soul eroding tragedy of this war.

As a too rational atheist, I’d like to believe, what Sarah comes to understand: that loved ones can continue to take care of you after they die. Di Canzio’s referencing of the Orpheus myth coupled with Teri Rambo’s haunting vocals and Colucci’s guitar, and the straightforward sincerity of your production convinced me, if only for a moment, of the possibility.

I won’t end with “sincerely” or “truly,” because those words are rarely either sincere or true, but close by saying “Thank You” to everyone who made this beautiful production possible.

White Pines Productions presented William di Canzio’s Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier at the Adrienne Theatre. Benjamin Lloyd directed, ran from June 3 to 7, 2009.

Review of PA Ballet's La Sylphide and Barber Violin Concerto

2009-06-09T09:30:00.000-07:00

Full article published in the Broad Street Review:

The Pennsylvania Ballet presents Auguste Bournonville’s La Sylphide and the company premiere of Peter Martins’ Barber Violin Concerto. At the Academy of Music until June 13. www.paballet.org

The Pennsylvania Ballet looked to close their 45^th Anniversary Season through a much-hyped restaging of Bournonville’s La Sylphide, last performed by the company 21 years ago. But Sylphide’s lackluster staging floundered in comparison to the brilliantly executed company premiere of Peter Martins’ Barber Violin Concerto.

To read the full article, click here.

Watch a clip of the Pennsylvania Ballet performing La Sylphide:

Below, a clip of the Ballet performing Martins' Barber Violin Concerto:

Olive Prince's "Serenade" at the nEW Festival

2009-06-09T09:25:00.000-07:00

Forthcoming article in the Broad Street Review (photo by Bill Hebert):

“Serenade” and “once i lived in a cardboard portal” by Olive Prince; nEW Festival 2009 Performance Program, June 3-7, 2009, at the University of the Arts Dance Theater at the Drake. http://www.newfestival.net/

When my sister and I were kids, my dad used to hold us on his knee and sing “you are my sunshine…my only sunshine” to us. Thinking about this recently, I wondered about the despair a person would feel losing someone—a child or a lover—held as their central point and reason for living.

Olive Prince’s overpowering Serenade made me feel just how devastating that loss would be.

By contrast, "once i lived in a cardboard portal" displayed one more disappointing parody of the subtle, dreary melancholy of corporate America's productive contributions derided while nonetheless being tapped to fund an artwork that mocks them.

To read the full review, click here.

Jaamil Kosoko's Virus at the nEW Festival

2009-06-09T09:08:00.000-07:00

Forthcoming article in the Broad Street Review:

Jaamil Kosoko’s Virus, as part of the nEW Festival 2009 Performance Program, June 3-7, 2009, at the University of the Arts Dance Theater at the Drake. www.newfestival.net

For just over $20,000, Canadian-born engineer Le Trung recently built what some are calling the first viable robotic companion: Aiko, a robot who can recognize speech, voices, face, motion, objects, and solve math problems. Sensors underneath her silicone skin enable her to mimic pain while programming gives her the ability to avoid it in the future. In the videos, she looks more human than she acts (or sounds), appearing like a hybrid of human flesh built upon a factory-floor machine interior.

Judging by the dystopic feel of Jaamil Kosoko’s Virus, contemporary Homo sapiens have been such a mixture for quite some time.

To read the full review, click here.

Review of Born Yesterday at the Walnut Street Theatre

2009-03-24T19:12:00.000-07:00

First published at Edge Philadelphia:

An old philosophy problem asks "What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?"

Put the pair on stage and throw a woman between them and the answer is Garson Kanin’s comedy Born Yesterday, now in a very funny, if heavily caricatured production at the Walnut Street Theatre.

In Kanin’s 1946 classic, the ruthless scrap-metal magnate Harry Brock (Marco Verna) and his 100k-a-year lawyer Ed (David Hess) go to Washington. In the aftermath of WWII, Brock wants to corner the market on Europe’s scrap iron, and plans to bribe (if not outright bully) Senator Hedges (Greg Wood) to skirt the tariffs, regulations, and red tape that stand in the way.

But Brock runs headfirst into Paul Verrall (Darren Michael Hengst), an idealistic young reporter who still believes in the Constitutional underpinnings and principles of democracy even if everyone else in the nation’s capital suffers from "don’t care-ism." Initially disguising his plans in the form of a standard interview, Verrall really wants to expose the illegal activities fueling Brock’s corporation.

After the first meeting with the Senator and his wife (Susan Wilder), Brock’s idiotic chorus girl girlfriend Billie Dawn (Kate Fahrner) nearly kills the deal every time she opens her mouth, and if Brock’s going to succeed in "a town of respectable fronts," Ed suggests that he either dump her or marry her. The problem: to cover Brock’s illegal activity, the pair has bullied Billie into becoming the dummy head (literally) of most of his corporations, and he can’t give her the brush-off because "she owns more of him than he does." So the bull-headed industrialist suggests that Verrall tutors her, and in two months time, Billie’s crammed her hotel suite full of books, and traded her nasally voice for measured speech, her jazz for classical, and is thinking of trading in her irresistible capitalist for Verrall’s immovable idealism.

The Walnut’s production (and in fairness, Kanin’s play) accentuates the comedy (and tension) by relying heavily on caricatures: mobster-like businessmen clashing with fearless journalists, remorse-filled lawyers driven to drunken hobnobbing with pushover Senators, and a gun moll chorus girl delighted to be stupid so long as she has her two mink coats. And while the play’s clearly a poke at American-style corruption (in Italy, and elsewhere, the bribes really are commonplace), director Mark Clements steers clear of the class-envy and social commentary to find the straightforward laughs that Born Yesterday offers in abundance. Picture My Fair Lady meets Goodfellas, minus the showtunes and murders, and you get the idea.

And in every case but Verna’s, the caricatures hit their humorous targets. Fahrner’s simply adorable, both in her initial idiocy (who wouldn’t want to keep her around) and in her later change of heart, and Wood’s wincing reactions to her blunt outbursts mark some of the first act’s funnier moments. Hess’ drunken former District Attorney ably reflects the shifting moral balance on stage and in the audience, where even Brock’s bullying and later complaints of ingratitude found laughter and sympathy.

But while Hengst find the right balance of fearfulness and sincerity that backs up every set of untested ideals, Verna’s characterization is less interesting, and too big for the rest of the performances. In a voice that’s part Vito Corleone and part every role ever played by Al Pacino, Verna screeches his way through all of the play’s moments with a booming intensity that he never modulates. Sometimes, he’s funny, but it’s the lines he delivers ("there’s only one Mrs. Brock, and she’s dead") more than his acting that scores the laughter.

Todd Edward Ivins’ utterly magnificent hotel penthouse set recalls the grandeur of a more gilded age, where lush divans and dark wood relax the eyes even as (faux) marble columns shoot up to forty-foot ceilings and abut a spectacular windowed view looking down on the Capitol Building (and nicely representing the position Brock came to Washington to attain). In line with the caricatured characterizations, Colleen Grady bedecks Brock in forceful pinstriped suits (and a gorgeous cream colored coat), dresses Verrall in more humble plaids, and when Fahrner first walks onto the set, her gorgeous hair, makeup, and dress only completes the sense of 40’s era glamour that the Walnut’s production values create.

And as for who wins the age old question? As Verrall himself puts it, "the war leaves everything the same in DC."

Comparative review of Simpatico's Long Day's Journey Into Night and Temple Theatre's Caucasian Chalk Cirlce

2009-03-24T19:10:00.001-07:00

In a season stuffed with new play events— 87 world or Philadelphia premieres— I was gratified to see two revivals of modern classics: Simpatico’s brilliant staging of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, and Temple University’s excellently staged yet overwrought production of Bertolt Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle. Between them, the pair painted thoroughly distinct (and for Brecht, thoroughly surprising) views of the family.

To read the full article, published at the Broad Street Review, click here.

Review of Road at Curio Theatre

2009-03-24T19:01:00.000-07:00

First published in Edge Phialdelphia:

Besides loving company, misery delivers ratings, because if nothing else, it’s usually interesting to watch. And judging from the tone of newspaper editorials, congressional outrage, and talking heads on television, some people clearly delight in the current economic crisis.

They’re the same people who would enjoy Jim Cartwright’s Road, now in a stilted, uneven production at Curio Theatre Company. Cartwright penned his play during the severe depression that afflicted England in the early-to-mid-1980s, when that country’s unemployment rates hit 20%. With the playwright’s permission, director Gay Carducci transferred the setting to 2009 West Philadelphia. And while America’s current "economic crisis" hasn’t reached anything near those numbers, a sense of relevance mostly permeates Curio’s staging.

Beyond a broken street sign that juts from a corner of the stage, Paul Kuhn’s disparate set pieces appears like a graveyard of props-crumbling flophouses, littered curbsides, and sparsely furnished interiors-and show a world that’s familiar to any Philadelphian who ventures outside of Center City. Prostitutes and pushers roam the streets, petty thieves snag their loot from pockets, and young and old alike bury their heads in local taverns.

Here, a young hooligan named Scullery (Newton Buchanan) narrates through a depressing series of vignettes, drawing a perverse comparison to the similar role played by the Stage Manager in Our Town. Clare (Chelsea Bulack) whines about missing her "little office job which she loved so much," Carol (Erika Hicks) wants something different than being pawned over night after night, and the crazy Mrs. Bald (Aetna Gallagher) trades songs for cigarettes or a swig of liquor from Scullery’s bottle. A mother smokes (despite the oxygen tube under her nose), women sell their bodies to keep their kids clothed, and even in a rotten economy, people still have money enough to drink.

The former sociology Professor (Kuhn), who first came to West Philly to record the suffering, now drags his files like a cross, and Ken Opdenaker’s skinhead reminds of the ethnic hatreds that often fragment neighborhoods in tough economic times. Clearly, all of these different individuals (the cast plays more than two-dozen roles) share a lack of jobs, dwindling resources, and diminishing hope. While some characters consider alternate economic models (communism, what else?), in the best single performance of the night, Joey (Delanté G. Keys) tries to escape through a hunger strike, his starvation a protest against the failings of a mixed economy.

Despite many fine moments and a sense of relevance that might otherwise engage, the production drags for one simple reason: it’s not funny. Cartwright built plenty of moments of humor into the script; when a prostitute offers her services for ten dollars, her john counters "that’s not very much," to which she replies, "maybe I’m not very much either." I laughed, hearing the jaded sense of humor the script intends but which Carducci’s production never managed to capture. As a result, one depressing scenario leads into another, ad nauseum, lacking the rolling momentum that even bits of comedy could have easily provided to buoy one scene into the next.

I can’t blame Carducci entirely. Few in the audience laughed at anything. Most likely, seeing the misery on stage, they felt afraid to indulge the jokes that did succeed. And unlike similar characters (think Mack the Knife), Buchanan’s rascal offers little charm or charisma to make theatergoers feel at ease enough to indulge the humor.

Despite solid production values in Jon Bulack’s original score and sound design and Jared Reed’s sharp lighting, Carducci and his cast "choke on the bitterness," in the script and this "Road" offers nothing but pessimism porn at its most exemplary. Scullery tells us early on "you can’t escape." Maybe not, but I wanted to.

Review of William Shakespeare's Land of the Dead at Plays and Players

2009-03-24T18:51:00.000-07:00

First published in Edge Philadelphia:

The real question isn’t whether John Heimbuch’s William Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead (LOD) is good or bad. The real question is whether or not it deserves the frequently heard comparisons to "The Rocky Horror Show."

Judging from audience reaction at both shows, theatergoers love both plays precisely for their moments of goodness and badness - relative terms for anything camp - of which "LOD" offers many. And like the cult-classic musical, most of the crowd who showed up for "LOD" appeared in costume, sporting zombie face-paint, bite marks, and blood soaked skin and clothing (one inventive young woman came dressed as a "zombie Dorothy," complete with a stuffed flying monkey biting her neck).

And like "Rocky Horror," Heimbuch’s play offers plenty of undead creatures. Billed as "A true and accurate account of the 1599 zombie plague that spread to the Globe Playhouse," "LOD" opens in the backstage area of Shakespeare’s theatre (sharply rendered by Lance Moore’s set), moments after the premiere of "Henry V." Former company member Will Kemp (Ryan Walter) sneaks in the backdoor, hoping to join the after-party at a nearby tavern. When Shakespeare (a very whiny Daniel Student) catches him (like a cat, Kemp wears jester’s bells), they immediately begin a bitter rehash of why Shakespeare kicked the Falstaff-playing actor out of the company. The peace-making lead thespian Richard Burbage (excellently played by David Stanger) tries to quell their quarreling, but not before reigniting jealousies over his current (and Shakespeare’s former) lover Kate (a delicate Molly Casey).

Meticulously researched, "LOD" offers quite a history lesson, and its own (mostly humorous) solutions to the academic speculations on Shakespeare’s identity and who exactly wrote all of the Bard’s plays. Francis Bacon (the stellar Paul McElwee) tries to convince Shakespeare to put his name on "Falstaff in Love," to which the Bard replies "but what if later, people think that you wrote my other plays" (as some academics do). Throw in a few dozen lines from Shakespeare’s collected works (not hard to miss, and the audience can rack up points), the labored appearance of Queen Elizabeth (Tanya Lazar, mostly mimicking Judi Dench’s Oscar-winning performance, which isn’t a bad thing) and her consort Robert Cecil (Dan Higbee); but despite some well-turned jokes, the production began to teeter on the verge of boredom.

And after about twenty minutes, the audience’s wait for the zombies was palpable, and they greeted the first arrival of the undead with catcalls and cheers. Burbage quickly dispatched this member of the undead-class, but not before she turned on the crowd and doused them with a mouthful of blood (the theatre provided huge plastic sheets to cover the first three rows). As wave after wave of zombies flooded into the Globe, Shoshanna Hill and Owen Timoney’s sharp fight choreography coupled with exploding dye-packs ratcheted the level of intensity back to bloodlust, and the audience - like at any performance of "Rocky Horror"- began calling out their own responses to the lines and cries for more blood, more action, and more zombies.

But unlike "Rocky Horror," Heimbuch’s play tries to balance the horror-camp with nerdy history and linguistic debates and an agonizing second half plot. Doctor Dee (Tom Blair) wants to retrieve his liquid metaphysic (undead cure), Bacon demands that everyone stay to protect the Queen, and Shakespeare again vents about his hatred for Kemp and reasons for killing off Falstaff. And while Bill Egan’s direction captures the moments of humor (including some fun physical comedy), he can’t speed quickly enough through these intervals of tedium and get the zombies back on stage.

Because like it or not, the crowd came to get covered in fake blood while watching zombies and humans maul each other. The rest, to paraphrase the Bard, might as well have been silence, and the Elizabethan-era premise merely provides a bit of fascinating, legitimizing reason for going to the theatre.

But despite the occasional drift into near-boredom, in many ways, "LOD" deserves a comparison to "Rocky Horror," which in any production offers tedious over-camp and disbelief-breaking implausibility (like the ray-gun scene). And while "LOD" may not offer the "Time Warp," for most of the two-hours, it thrills with kick-ass fighting and sharp (if campy) humor.

Photo essay of the 2009 Arnold Classic Sports Festival Weekend

2009-03-10T03:12:00.000-07:00

Below, a photo essay to accompany my article on the 2009 Arnold Classic (the fitness expo weekend hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger), currently published at the Broad Street Review (click here to read).

Some shots from inside the main expo hall. Try to find anyone who doesn't look physically fit.


Anywhere but the Arnold, the encounter on the top would be worth taking a picture of. At bottom, the cage that normally houses men of this size and strength.

Two photos of "average guys," hawking their products. Average for the Arnold Classic, that is.

This guy was pissed that I took his picture. Do you think it's because he knows he's one of the smallest people in the room?

By contrast, here's two shots of one of the AMATEUR bodybuilding competitors. Next to these guys, the dude on his cell phone does look a bit tiny.

Some more photos of the men's amateur bodybuilding competition.

But what about the women? Here's how they dress at the Arnold. (note how the one on the bottom still slightly resembles a "traditionally pretty" girl.

At the Arnold, I looked everywhere to find good examples of women who would count as traditionally pretty--that is, not overly-muscled, and with un-adrogenized faces (and ranked as 8 or above, looks-wise). These two are the best I could find:

These next two are moving in the opposite direction. Still attractive, but with severely musculated physiques, and yet still nowhere near the level of physical specimen on display at the Arnold:

Below, a step further. The one on top offers the perfect mix of silicone and leather; the one on the bottom has started to redefine the boundaries of the female species.

I'm not even sure what's in the next picture. But notice the "normal" girl in the bottom photo checking out the severely defined oblique muscles of the blonde.

Below, two photos from the AMATEUR Fitness competition.

And now it gets a little "freaky." Whatever the word "feminine" used to connote, it loses all traditional meaning in these next two photos of the women's AMATEUR bodybuilding competition.

But really, how is a woman supposed to look? Compare the Liv Tyler look-alike (and traditionally pretty woman in the center of the top photo) to the four "hired-guns" who surround her; then look at the three "super" models on the bottom. After a weekend saturated with a more muscled version of women, it became hard to tell what I still preferred.

Below: Beauty AND the Beast. By contrast, at bottom below is Olympic weightlifting "hottie" (and current US Bobsled Team Member) Ingrid Marcum. Is she how a woman should look?

At the Arnold, it's not much easier to discern the ideal for men. Below a very average specimen (the author) poses with former Mr. Olympia Jay Cutler, who outweighs me by about 70 lbs. At bottom, the far more athletic (and much lighter German Olympic Team member completes a very easy 375lb Clean and Jerk. Aesthetics does not always equal strength, even when it "looks better."

Of course, it's possible to take both aesthetics and strength to extremes. Below, Derek Poundstone, an incredibly fit competitor who won the 2009 Arnold Strongman Challenge. In these photos, he's hoisting over 970lbs off the floor to waist height.

Perhaps the worst part about a "body art" sport like bodybuilding is the transient nature of the finished product. Even though he's a far cry away from the anatomy lesson depicted below, 57-year old Lou Ferrigno still looks jacked.

But then, look at Frank Zane, in the photo (direct below) taken in his prime, when he won the Mr. Olympia contest (and looked carved out of marble). At bottom, he's a mere shell of his former self, as if someone had etched a scar across the Mona Lisa.

But then again, not even the Governator looks too hot anymore. I suppose, however, it's better than the two guys at bottom, a pair of "freaks" who've never had it.

The remainder of the shots consist of images I found interesting, and I'll leave you first with four of me, your fearless reporter who sided up to the "freaks" (and got fake tan all over his shirt).

Below, my two proudest moments from the Arnold. Making a 365lbs clean and jerk (for a competition personal best), and later, meeting German Gold Medal winning weightlifter Mathias Steiner.

Two photos of the ballroom dancing competition. At the Arnold, everything's a pageant.

For the first time ever, the Arnold Sports Festival weekend included an Ultimate Fighting Championship fight, this year held at the Columbus Arena. The card sucked, but two of the game's best stopped by the expo hall to sign autographs. On top, Tito Ortiz, and at bottom, possibly the truest freak of nature on hand the whole weekend, Brock Lesnar:

The various expo booths hawked a variety of products. On top, a plastic surgeon knows his customers are walking all around him. at bottom, those who can't do, make the costumes for those who can.

Speaking of products, would you visit a website if it was advertised like in the top photo? And would you get suckered into buying a product from the woman at lower right, who everyone knows didn't get to look like she does by lifting 5lb weights?

My original review of Sarah Ruhl's "In the Other Room," in reading at the Wilma Theatre

2009-02-25T00:04:00.000-08:00

Just so no one makes any mistakes about this, the Wilma held a staged reading of Sarah Ruhl's new play In the Other Room during the first week of January, 2009. Berkeley Rep had commissioned Ruhl to write a play about the history of the vibrator.

The Broad Street Review ran my article about the reading, then took it down in response to complaints from the Wilma. The controversy led first to the Wilma Papers, and later to my article The Case for Cantankerous Critics.

Over two dozen Broad Street Review readers commented upon the first article. Scroll down, as their responses are here.

For the record, I was the first person to comment critically upon Ruhl's new play. And despite the controvery, and a young woman who threatened me with (admittedly, laughable) violence, that's what has always mattered to me.

Here's what I had to say:

Quick question to the Philadelphia theatre community: How does a staged reading at the Wilma offers a better night of theatre than most of the full productions I’ve seen this season?

Like reading a play at home without the intermediacy of a production, a staged reading can’t destroy my direct sense of a play by interfering with what my imagination can too often do better. (Though stage manager Patreshettarlini Adams did use the one prop to a delicious effect, and when you get to the full title of the play, you’ll know the prop.) As for the actors working under Blanka Zizka’s direction, the almost all-equity cast impressed, and personally, I would rather see Julianna Zinkel or Sarah Sanford give a staged reading than watch most other Philadelphia actresses perform.

But Sarah Ruhl’s recently penned script In the Next Room (or, The Vibrator Play), is, of course, what made the entire evening. Berkeley Repertory—where the play will receive its world premiere next month—commissioned Ruhl to write a play about the history of the vibrator, a device first used for medical purposes to release up “pent-up emotions in the womb” by inducing “paroxysms” (orgasms) in hysterical women. Taking advantage of the new age of electricity, scientists in the 1880’s invented this new marvel—as Wilma literary manager Walter Bilderback so eloquently put it—“because the doctors and nurses hands and fingers kept getting tired.”

In Ruhl’s play, the inventor is the appropriately named Dr. Givings (Ross Manson), who assisted by a former midwife (Mary McCool as Annie), operates a clinic in a prosperous spa town outside of New York. He’s visited by patients like Sabrina Daldry (Sanford), whose husband (Ben Lloyd) has brought her in to cure her “women’s problems.” Givings prescription: daily releases of nerves that result in the most number of simulated orgasms I’ve ever seen (or would want to see) on stage.

Givings wife Catherine (Zinkel) becomes jealous, initially at the bonding between their baby and the wet-nurse Elizabeth (Miriam Hyman), later at her husband’s greater interest in providing relief to these women than providing attention for her. So she attempts to seduce the young painter Leo (Luigi Sottile)—the rare case of a man having vibrator-requiring hysteria—in order to provoke some sort of emotional response from her husband. Meanwhile, Sabrina becomes attracted to Annie (even asking for the device-free “Annie method” in therapy), and it leads to a situation that the stage direction describe as “we wonder if we’re about to witness three women play with a vibrator.”

However, that line is the best joke of the play, and through most of the “treatments” (applications of the device), the audience laughter made it very difficult to hear the lines of Ruhl’s incredibly hilarious first act. The women, especially McCool’s deadpan “I’ll wash my hands now,” and Sanford’s childlike innocence about her paroxysms, diminish any suggestive quality, and keep the awkward clinical situation just uncomfortable enough that if we didn’t laugh, we’d feel grossed out.

And for a play almost entirely about women’s needs for intimacy, their jealousy, awkwardness about asking for what they want, and family neuroses, I loved it. However, these issues only provide a spring board for the richly-integrated, deeper questions about race and class, the strange patriarchy of religion (cleverly asking at one point “why does Jesus get eaten when women breastfeed”), sexual politics inside the family, and the value of love versus sex. Her play operates and engages intellectually and emotionally, and Ruhl’s brilliance explodes the hysteria surrounding these themes with humor, making all of it entertaining, and best of all, palatable to both imbibe and discuss.

But surprisingly, the conclusions Ruhl draws are reactionary in their tone (far more so than the daddy-clinging that drove the theme and plot of her recent Eurydice). Catherine’s jealousy turns her into a sexually frustrated housewife who questions her husband’s adequacy. She begs him to use the device on her (he won’t, finding it unseemly to “experiment” on his own wife), and when she breaks into his operating theatre and tries it herself (with Sabrina’s assistance), it makes her “excitable” and she begins craving the feeling like an addiction.

In fairness, Ruhl’s got plenty of evidence that back this up. Though scientists began using the vibrator-induced orgasm as a “cure-all” for hysteria, commercial applications quickly followed, as the device became a popular amenity at luxury resorts (imagine seeing one in your hotel room), and the fifth home appliance to become electrified. But Ruhl’s theme—mostly delivered through Leo, the only fully rounded male character—is clear: after showing us where this road to pleasure leads, she puts her clear stamp of judgment on the lure of easy sexual pleasure versus the fruits of relationships built on compromises.

Describing the difference between an electrified lamp and a candle that flickers, Leo tells Catherine “A light without flame isn’t divine, and like having relations with a prostitute, without love, without the heart, bodies are means to an end.” And how does Ruhl end the play? By asserting contra women’s magazines and bedroom feminism, that women really want an emotional connection, and the best way to keep your wife from becoming hysterical is simple: pay her some attention and respect, and most importantly, love her, you idiot.

Strangely enough, Ibsen made the same point in A Doll’s House, written during the same period in which Ruhl set her new play. I realize that Ruhl had to completely infantilize her female characters (except the wise, noble, African-American, which in one instance, invokes a racist stereotype still common in our time) in order to get the humor of the innocence in using a vibrator. However, Ibsen’s Nora did not evince this level of childishness in order for her to become “liberated.”

And here I’m starting to see a reactionary pattern. In her recent Eurydice, Ruhl engenders a similar effect, as Eurydice, rather than return to her tumultuous and uncertain relationship with Orpheus, clings to the safe, easy, constant love that her father (as protector) gives her in the underworld. What next, a Stepford Wives style play where the robots gain consciousness but discover they’re happier in their delusions?

Is it possible that the hottest female playwright in the country has gotten there by embracing fathers, prioritizing love, infantilizing women, and dismissing (the now passé) liberating form of feminism? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not completely unhappy about this development, and while I liked the similar women-centered scripts of the Wilma’s recent Age of Arousal and Eurydice better, the subject matter, themes, and wit of In the Other Room make this play far more stage worthy. I can’t think of any audience member—except perhaps the extremest of Puritans—who wouldn’t find something to enjoy in this play.

Though Ruhl’s latest play is not without its faults, the Wilma should take a chance on producing it next season. They easily could have charged money for just a staged reading.

Don Draper's Carousel Monologue

2009-02-24T23:48:00.000-08:00

Recently, I've become a Mad Men junkie. I'll admit, I only started watching the show because someone reminded me of former Philadelphia actress Maggie Siff. Now a minor player in the AMC drama, she had brought me some of the best moments I had seen on Philadelphia stages, from her performance as Thomasina in the Wilma's (new-home) opener--Tom Stoppard's Arcadia--to her appearance in Samuel Beckett's Endgame alongisde New York actor Pearce Bunting (which is still the best show I've ever seen during the Philadelphia Fringe Festival).

And in a Winter theatre season that relies heavily on monologues (the Arden's Asher Lev, Flashpoint's Jump/Cut, and the Lantern's Sizwe Banzi is Dead), the best monologue I've watched in the month of January appeared in the Season One finale of Mad Men.

Here, the series protagonist Don Draper delivered an advertising pitch for the Kodak Carousel. Selling a product, he found value in life.

For those interested, I've attached the full text of his monologue:

Don Draper: Well, technology is a glittering lure. But, uh, there is the rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash, if they have a sentimental bond with the product.

My first job, I was in-house at a fur company, with this old-pro copywriter, a Greek named Teddy. Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising is new. Creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion.

But he also talked about a deeper bond with the product. Nostalgia. It’s delicate, but potent. Sweetheart. (lights switch off) (changes slide)

Teddy told me that in Greek, “nostalgia” literally means “the pain from an old wound”. (changes slide)

It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. (changes slide)

This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. (changes slide)

It goes backwards, forwards, (changes slide) takes us to a place where we ache to go again. (changes slide)

It’s not called the wheel. It’s called the carousel. (changes slide)

It lets us travel the way a child travels. (changes slide)

Round and around, and back home again. (changes slide)

To a place where we know we are loved. (changes slide) (changes slide) (changes slide)

Review of the Montreal Jazz Ballet at the Anneberg

2009-02-24T23:41:00.000-08:00

First published at the Broad Street Review:

Both MAPA and Rossini Cards, performed at Annenberg by Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal, began with a similar setting: a row of dancers at the back of the stage moving forward. The repetitive choreography of the former exhausted me; but the latter, while mostly wasting the dance talents of the ensemble, managed to leave a brief, unforgettable experience.

MAPA, aptly named after the composer—Marco Antonio Pena Araújo— opened on a staggered line of dancers. Dressed in Anne-Marie Veevaete’s black-and-white full-body costumes and kept in shadows from the waist down by the lighting of Daniel Ranger and Pedro Pederneiras, they blended hypnotically into the similarly patterned background of Fernando Velloso’s backdrop. To a soft, ethereal sound, the dancers began rhythmically dipping their hips, moving forward on the ascent like a low wave slowly rolling into the shore from a distance.

This seductive and sumptuous prologue quickly shifted into a volatile display of techniques that fused jazz, samba and meringue dancing in high-energy, lightning-quick movements across the stage. Three dancers moving in unison quickly became five, now fiery-red clad performers exploding across the stage in the same patterns. Paired dancers rolled in turns with the lifting progressions in the music, and men hoisted their partners into quick, mid-air split kicks before turning in a flash to set them down again.

To read the full review, click here.

I'd recommend reading about the five minute interlude in Rossini Cards, in which choreographer Mauro Bagonzetti showed me a human connection more beautiful than anything I've experienced in my entire life.The image shows dancers Christina Bodie and Andrew Murdock performing something so intense that I almost had to avert my eyes.

Review of Greed: A Tale of Enron at Rebecca Davis Dance

2009-02-24T23:37:00.000-08:00

First published in the Broad Street Review:

Let me start by saying that this is one of the best new dance pieces I've seen in some time.

Now, the article:

With the dismal economy weighing down the collective psyche of the nation, Americans need an emotional bailout. In her recent dance-theater piece Greed: The Tale of Enron, choreographer Rebecca Davis is banking on finding one in art.

In 2001, Enron’s crooked executives used dubious accounting practices to kite the company’s value to more than $100 a share, promising more than $100 billion a year in revenue before its house of cards collapsed and left everyone who didn’t cash out holding worthless paper. Enron’s executives— Chairman Ken Lay (as played by a thoroughly smug Ian Dodge), CEO Jeffrey Skilling (admirably played and danced by Troy Macklin) and CFO Andy Fastow (Charles Russell), among others—gave the economy a bloody nose that’s still dripping, and tried to hide their crimes in shredded documents.

The media elevated their crimes to mythical status; after the Enron scandal, Gordon Gekko’s name was no longer invoked as the symbol of corporate greed. It took Davis, a fellow business student, entrepreneur, and choreographer, to immortalize the Enron saga in art. Anyone who missed the two performances missed a work that elevated a business case study into a mythical cautionary tale of rampant avarice.

Utilizing a pop score that included Coldplay, 311, Orbital and some public domain instrumentals, Davis begins her piece in a corporate power play, in which Skilling and Rebecca Mark (the sensational Vanessa Woods) vie for the open position of Enron’s chief operating officer. Lay arrives, waving his hands like a wizard making an incantation, and Mark sheds her blazer, hikes her skirt, and dazzles in an ensemble movement clearly playing on the potency of sex in the workplace.

To read the rest of the article, click here.

Review of Blackbird at Theatre Exile

2009-02-24T23:33:00.000-08:00

First published in the Broad Street Review:

In my late 20s I began a relationship with a precocious and musically gifted woman in her late teens. Within a week of my ending the relationship— essentially, I abandoned her— she attempted to steal my dog, had me evicted from my condo, and tried to run me over with a car.

So I harbor some understanding of the terror that Ray— the male protagonist in David Harrower’s Blackbird— feels when confronted 15 years later by a woman whose testimony had him thrown in prison when their relationship ended. But unlike my case, the age differences in Harrower’s play are more extreme: during the summer of their sexual relationship, Una was 12 and he 40.

Happily, the usual moral recriminations that accompany adult sexual abuse of children don’t form the major focus of this play. Instead, director Joe Canuso’s superb and brutally honest rendering presents the immoral seduction— like Humbert Humbert’s in Lolita, of a weak adult by a child with “suspiciously adult yearnings”— as a way to use the moral issues in order to explore more universal themes of human love and emotion.

To read the rest of this review, click here.

Review of Hugging the Shoulder at Represented Theatre

2009-02-24T23:30:00.000-08:00

First published in Edge Philadelphia:

When Cain told God "I am not my brother’s keeper," he set off a still unresolved moral debate about the limits of filial duty. In his tightly-written Hugging the Shoulder - now in a compelling production at Represented Theatre Company-playwright Jerrod Bogard shows the consequences of one man’s attempt to rescue his brother from the perils of drug addiction.

Thankfully, Bogard’s conflict isn’t nearly as straightforward as the Biblical clash between Cain and Abel. Derrick (Nicholas Troy) has kidnapped his brother Jeremy (Ted Powell), stuffing him in the back of a van and setting off across the country to detox the latter from his heroin addiction. With some onstage tinkering by the cast in dimmed lights, Brian Grace-Duff’s set unfolds to double as both the van’s interior and Jeremy’s apartment, and for all of its 90 minutes, Bogard’s play flashes back and forth from the road trip to the events that precipitated its necessity.

But Bogard’s script offers no easy moral hero or sympathetic victim. Derrick drinks and smokes pot with Jeremy even while the latter self-destructs and beats up his junkie girlfriend Christy (Erikka Walsh). And while both clearly grew up in a shitty family plagued by substance abuse problems, the younger brother shows no pity, saying "Hey, I grew up there too." Adding intrigue, Bogard smartly conceals Derrick’s motives. Does he want to act the part of the hero, or simply not feel guilty about his brother’s condition? Or does he secretly love Christy, and need to clean his brother up to get him out of the picture?

As a pair of rednecks who discuss the philosophical implications of NASCAR, I found it difficult to identify with either and am surprised that I wasn’t thoroughly annoyed throughout by Jeremy. But Powell’s deft, naturalistic performance and accurate evolution of his character kept me locked on his performance in every scene (especially during the excruciating withdraw scenes, in which he’s fully comprehensible while speaking fast, clipped sentences). And thanks to Bogard’s equally convincing writing that’s rife with apt metaphors, I wanted to know what happened to this pair, what drove Derrick to kidnap his brother, and how it would end. You can’t ask for much more out of theatre than that.

Still, I think I would’ve enjoyed the play more if Bill Egan’s direction wasn’t so serious. Most of Jeremy’s lines seem tailored for laughs, but he plays them straight, even when the script hands him a fantastic line calling Walt Disney World "Walt-dismal world." While Christiana Molldrem’s slick lighting design makes the passing of cars on the highway believable, Egan’s pacing lingers too long on the highway scenes which aren’t as interesting as the back-story; and I wish the transitions appeared more seamless (though this is a minor complaint). The unoriginal music selection that plays during the breaks shows Jeremy shooting up to the strains of Pink Floyd’s "Comfortably Numb," and later, playing the obvious after he flatly declares "You want things to be different. I want things to be different. You can’t always get what you want."

As for the mystery of Derrick’s motives? In one very disturbing scene, Walsh’s performance fills in the blanks; she shoots up while completely nailing a monologue comparing Disney World (the "happiest place on earth") to her heroin addiction, and making me feel slimy with a single line ("it’s better if you don’t"). Throughout, Troy (as Derrick) explores the oft-complicated bond between brothers, though he only fully convinces in his final scene.

Which is unfortunately the moment the play self-destructs. With only five minutes of stage time left, Bogard totally shifts gears, going from an engaging, well-written melodrama about filial responsibility to a stupidly wrapped-up morality play about the perils of doing nothing. The ending initially disturbs (thanks to Powell’s dead delivery), but also feels cheap and dumb. Cain could at least blame God for the sudden shift in his fortunes. But I just watched a 90-minute road trip to get to an unlikely, uninteresting, and dramatically over-visited destination.

Review of What You Will at Bristol Riverside Theatre

2009-02-24T23:24:00.000-08:00

First published in Edge Philadelphia:

Much like today’s hip-hop artists, Shakespeare wrote his poetry for an urban audience. Bristol Riverside Theatre (BRT) looked to capitalize on this similarity in their current What You Will, a hip-hop rendering of the Bard’s comedy Twelfth Night. As Shakespeare’s most musical play (it begins with the line "if music be the food of love, play on!") I can understand the temptation that Co-directors Keith Baker and Donald Byrd felt when they conceived this project.

The stage certainly looked set more for a hip-hop concert than a theatre performance, with towers of speakers flanking a curtained recessed entrance at center stage, a disco ball hanging overhead, and a floor that lit up (a la Billy Jean and "Saturday Night Fever"). A DJ booth lords over the entire proscenium, complete with a laptop and turntables, and throughout the show players spun records and mixed beats while others recited verse. Ryan O’Gara’s lighting excites (especially in the club scenes) and Donald Byrd’s choreography and Justin Ellington’s original beats and music provide what’s no doubt the season’s best.

The cast saunters and sashays about with an urban swagger (Valerie Issembert’s hip-throwing would make Beyoncé proud), and they all look remarkable in Linda Bee Stockton’s costumes: designer suits, gorgeous pumps (on Olivia), matching sweatsuits, and sparkling green shoes (on Feste). When a storm shipwrecks Viola (Christin Sawyer Davis), she lands in front of a scrim where Gabriel "KwikStep" Dionisio breakdances and pops to a matching beat. "What country friend, is this" she asks, indeed.

With one notable exception, Baker and Byrd transplant Shakespeare’s verse and story wholesale into the "Club Twelfth Night" environment they’ve created. Knowing no one in Illyria, Viola exchanges her dress for a baggy white tee-shirt and hoodie, conceals herself as the boy Cesario, and finds employment with Orsino (RJ Foster). Before long, she’s playing pander in his romantic affairs, trying to woo Olivia (Miriam Hyman) in his stead, but thanks to the mistaken identities, Olivia falls for Cesario, who in turn falls for Orsino.

Thrown into the mix are Olivia’s cousin Toby Belch (Abe Goldfarb), the wench Maria (Issembert), and the priggish servant Malvolio (Carl Wallnau). Belch sips from a bottle of Hennessey while bumming money from the knave Aguecheek (John-Patrick Driscoll, here in stark contrast to the sharp looks the others cultivate, he dons a don’s tweed jacket and tie, looking like a lost sociologist in this Illyria). Aguecheek and Malvolio both want Olivia, and while Belch plays the former for his money, both he, Maria, and Aguecheek viciously plot against Malvolio.

Of course, they do it all in good fun, and any production can milk laughter from Shakespeare’s witty comedy. But while hip-hop often conveys a similar antagonizing, mocking humor, BRT’s production loses most of the jokes that Shakespeare stuffed into his script.

Through most of the production, I felt like I was watching Twelfth Night through a pair of glasses with a different lens over each eye, at times seeing (and hearing) the amazing production, at others, watching and laughing at a Shakespearian comedy. When Baker and Byrd left the actors alone to deliver their lines, they capably conveyed the humor (especially in Davis’ delivery). But a rubber chicken and having Maria suck a lollipop can’t supplant the wit and opportunities for pantomime and comedic turns in the script, and even Wallnau’s delicious approach to Malvolio (which I loved last summer at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival), couldn’t compete with the distracting background of electric violin and synthetic beats.

Similarly, when their production transformed Shakespeare’s verse into spoken word poetry, rap, or an R & B riff (delivered by Foster’s smooth baritone), the concept seemed so perfect that I felt amazed that I hadn’t heard of anyone attempting this before. And in those few instances where the hip-hop approach lined up with Shakespeare’s play, the production soared. Here, Trevor Vaughn (as Feste) rendered Shakespeare’s songs (written as such) with a gorgeous voice and styling that sounded like a hybrid of Justin Timberlake and Usher. (How did they audition this guy, ask him to sing R&B?)

Clearly, Baker and Byrd proved that the show can work with a hip-hop makeover, if only they had executed it solidly and capably throughout. With these actors, had BRT decided to do a straightforward staging of Twelfth Night, they would have succeeded admirably. Or if they had completely transformed Shakespeare’s script into a hip-hop musical (a la the highly successful rendering of Comedy of Errors in the rap production "Bombitty of Errors), they could have made something astonishing, breathtaking, and new.

But while their show possesses all the hip-hop accoutrements and attitude, it sells itself short on the lyrics (Shakespeare’s text). Robert and Steven Morris’s funny and enjoyable original song "What You Will" (the notable change I mentioned earlier), in which the entire cast burst onto the stage with fierce energy and rapped the beginnings of the story, showed what an amazing production this could have been.

Review of Orange Flower Water at Luna Theatre

2009-02-24T23:22:00.001-08:00

First published at the Broad Street Review:

Since California’s Family Law Act of 1969 created the conditions for no-fault dissolutions of marriage, divorce has become one of the most common features of adult American life. The first wedding I attended ended six months after the ceremony; the engagement lasted longer. This was in 1982, and my mother— and perhaps many others— (still) considered her friend’s divorce a shameful event. Today pop psychologists regard a “first divorce” as a rite of passage like middle age, and even encourage holding “marriage wakes” to celebrate the culmination of the legal proceedings.

Likewise, few Americans seem to feel revulsion at the consequences of divorce. Indeed, when I first read Craig Wright’s Orange Flower Water, a cautionary tale about the unhappy couples casting off current responsibilities in a quest for carefree happiness—I wondered, “Who would produce this?” I couldn’t believe that the same Wright who penned Luna’s 2008 spectacular hit Grace also wrote something that read like a watered-down version of the destructive effects of adultery in Patrick Marber’s much better play, Closer.

But what a world of difference a production can make. Or rather, what a world of emotional torture that Luna Theatre director Greg Campbell and four superb performances have wrought.

To continue reading, click here.

Sizwe Banzi vs. The Rant

2009-02-24T23:18:00.000-08:00

First published at the Broad Street Review:

Last week I saw both the Lantern’s and Interact Theatre’s respective productions of Sizwe Bansi is Dead and The Rant. While both were expertly directed and featured formidable performances of plots driven by moral-issues, one of them felt dated and of little consequence, while the other found continuing and universal relevance.

I saw the Lantern’s production of Athol Fugard’s play first, which portrayed the young worker Sizwe Bansi (Lawrence Stallings) imprisoned inside the machinations of South Africa’s apartheid system. The stamps in his government-issued passbook restrict him to work in Port Elizabeth, where he’s supposed to live with his wife and four children. But there’s no work there, so he has journeyed to New Brighton, where he can’t work because the local bureaucrats won’t give him a permit. While he’s out drinking with Buntu (Forrest McClendon), they stumble upon a recently murdered corpse, and the situation presents the innocent Sizwe with a rogue dilemma: either steal the dead man’s passbook and find work, or continue to live as a fugitive from the state.

Andrew Case’s The Rant appears less straightforward. Denise Reeves, an African-American woman (Kimberly S. Fairbanks), claims to have seen the white police sergeant Clark murder her autistic teenage son on her front porch, with the assistance of the black cop Simmons (Aldo Billingslea). The New York Police department buries the investigation, so Reeves turns to Lila Mahnaz (Elena Araoz), who heads a civilian review board that handles complaints and oversees internal police investigations. Mahnaz believes Reeve’s version and launches a personal crusade against Simmons, sensationalizing the case with the assistance of Alexander Stern (David Ingram), a cynical crime reporter. In a post-modern era, where truth is considered “another type of bias,” the question of “Who’s watching the watchmen?” takes on considerable moral significance.

To continue reading, click here.

Review of A Streetcar Named Desire at the Walnut Street

2009-02-24T23:13:00.000-08:00

First published in Edge Philadelphia:

Sixty-two years ago, The Walnut Street Theatre staged the original production of Tennessee Williams’ masterpiece A Streetcar Named Desire. Then starring a young Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy, the play shows the cultural clash of wills between Stanley Kowalski and Stanley’s sister-in-law Blanche Dubois as the latter invades his household and threatens the stability of his family life.

A fading Southern Belle who hides her alcoholism and creeping neurosis, Blanche (the almost too-beautiful-for-the-role Susan Riley Stevens) arrives at the home of Stella (Sandra Struthers) and Stanley (Jeffrey Coon) for a short "vacation" after being forced out of her job as an English schoolteacher for an indiscretion involving a 17-year old student. She still revels in the upbringing she received on the family’s plantation Belle Rêve (the beautiful dream), and condemns the life that her sister has forged with an uncouth, physically abusive working-class immigrant.

Stanley grates against her gentility and clashes with her from the start, initially over the loss of the family plantation (which affects his affairs as well). He doesn’t believe her stories about needing a break to "calm her nerves," and digs into her past to keep his old Army buddy Mitch (Scott Greer) from marrying her. When Stella challenges Stanley in defense of her sister, he explodes, shattering dishes, pounding walls, and punching his wife. And what Blanche doesn’t understand-that "there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark that make everything else seem unimportant"- ultimately makes Stella side with her husband, even after Stanley has violently attacked Blanche as well.

So much has changed in American culture’s judgments about relationships that I almost expect a director to stage Streetcar as a period piece. The post-WWII period still bound men and women into rigidly defined gender roles, ones where Stanley asks his wife "since when do you give me orders" and Stella defends her husband’s drinking with "people have to tolerate each other’s habits." And while Coon’s performance deftly showed a man defending his household against a woman threatening to wreck his home, I think it’s hard for an audience to accept Stella not only tolerating his abuse (even being turned on by it), but siding with him after what he does to Blanche (which I won’t spoil here).

But while the play still carries well (even over three hours), director Malcolm Black’s production strips the dark pathos that emanates from sexual desire and almost turns the play into a work more resembling a comedy of sexual manners. If Black can turn a moment of the script into a joke, he has his actors play for laughs, even in Blanche’s attempted seduction of a newspaper boy (which should stand as one of her more disturbing moments, not made humorous as if the play resembled an episode of TV’s Family Guy).

Moreover, between each scene, Black fills the street with gypsies, wandering singers and prostitutes. However, showing the street life of the quarter only diminishes the tragedy of all-consuming desire, making the action seem more like a tryst in Vegas, something brought about by the location rather than the pathologies of the characters in the play. And rather than let the audience silently absorb Stanley’s final act of violence, Black uses these interludes to divert attention to a fistfight in the street.

Consequently, the fine performances suffer, even though Stevens almost redeems every element of the pathos that drives the play in her last scene with Mitch. Coon fills his performance with great energy and employs a likeable charm that temporarily (and wonderfully) masks his wild animal movements, and his moments of explosive anger turn Paul Wonsek’ sharp set into the cage of Stanley’s animal nature.

Struthers’ straightforward portrayal of Stella removes any contemporary doubts as to why she’d stay with such a man; sitting curled up in a chair the morning after Stanley consummates his abuse with a night of sex, she looks ready to purr. And while Stevens’ early playing makes Blanche’s complaints seem reasonable (even though they stem mostly from her deluded fantasy of her upbringing), when her last veneer falls, Stevens gives a heart-wrenching glimpse into a destitute woman’s unfathomable decline into madness.

In trying to "save" her sister from what she sees as an unhealthy relationship, Blanche argues a contemporary and now common sentiment: "Maybe we are a long way from being made in God’s image, but we’ve made some progress since then" and men should now practice gentility and treat their women as equal companions. But I’d argue that we’ve lost something as a society when we can no longer understand a relationship like Stella and Stanley’s, one whose passion is fueled out of a woman’s (now rarely spoken) desire to be pulled down and conquered by a stronger, powerful man.

Even 61 years later, the strong performances in this play still provide a potent reminder that while the payoff we get in animal pleasure sometimes compensates for the pain we suffer for "hanging back with the brutes," it’s still human desire that clouds our "better" judgment.

Review of Lantern Theatre's Sizwe Banzi is Dead

2009-02-24T23:06:00.000-08:00

First published in Edge Philadelphia:

In the balcony scene of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the young heroine comes up with a simple solution to the crisis keeping them apart, and pleads with Romeo to "deny thy father and refuse thy name!" Were Romeo not a Montague, the feud that divides their families would not separate the young lovers. After all, she tells him, "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

Athol Fugard’s 1972 anti-apartheid play Sizwe Banzi Is Dead - now in a stirring production at the Lantern Theatre Company - begs to differ. That is, when it finally gets around to the moral dilemma that drives the second half of the play.

Unfortunately, the audience must first sit and listen to a 45 minute monologue delivered by Styles (Forrest McClendon), the black owner of a photography studio in a Nixon-era South Africa that’s deeply entrenched in the oppressive apartheid system. When he first appears, strutting onto the stage, he begins reading from the South African Herald newspaper, commenting on current events to remark on something old, something new. The former: more troubles plaguing Zimbabwe, which Styles dismisses with a shrug; the latter: tensions in America. "Let them elect a black man President," he remarks, adding, "then we’ll take notice. Same year hell freezes over."

A woman let out a hasty retort, and McClendon masterfully handled it, clearly addressing the audience while telling us stories about the six years he worked at a Ford automotive plant. Finally wanting to regain his self-respect as a man, Styles decides he needs to become his own boss, and opens the photography studio. Battling roaches (all pantomimed in an almost clowning fashion), he then tells the stories of many of the customers he’s served. "I offer a storeroom for dreams" he tells us, and is about to launch into another recollection when a knock at the door interrupts his speech.

The man who’s arrived? Rober Zwelinzima (Lawrence Stallings), formerly known as Sizwe Banzi. Dressed in Millie Hiibel’s fresh linen suit, salmon colored shirt, and derby hat wrapped in plastic, he wants to send a picture to his wife in Port Elizabeth, informing her that "Sizwe Banzi is dead." And with a cute trick of Janet Embree’s and David O’Connor’s lighting, finally, the production embraces Meghan Jones’ shantytown set of corrugated tin roofs and fences and become a play.

McClendon disappears to return as Buntu, a friend who harbors the fugitive Banzi. Banzi’s passbook (the apartheid equivalent of a National I.D. card) declares him ineligible to work anywhere but Port Elizabeth, where a drought has eliminated most jobs. He can’t feed his family, and skipped town illegally, looking for work in New Brighton, where he meets Buntu.

Though helped along by Peter DeLaurier’s sharp direction, a pair of excellent performances, and the stellar lighting, the play plods through long segments of seemingly meaningless exposition, requiring the audience to think about what’s happen "Do you have a letter from a white man who is willing to give you a job?" Buntu asks. "No? then go back to Port Elizabeth." After Buntu explains the Kafkaesque system of laws that imprisons black men in cordoned districts of the country, the pair stumble upon the recently murdered corpse of Zwelinzima. And Banzi must make a decision: steal Zwelinzima’s passbook and adopt an identity that will afford him work, or continue to live as a fugitive.

Though helped along by Peter DeLaurier’s sharp direction, a pair of excellent performances, and the stellar lighting, the play plods through long segments of seemingly meaningless exposition, requiring the audience to think about what’s happening while it’s happening. Banzi asks "does that (pass)book tell you that I am a man" before later arguing "I cannot lose my name."

But it’s Buntu who lays out the problem clearly. That name cannot feed your family, find you a job, or keep you from being arrested, he tells Banzi. So lose it. And yet, Banzi persists, as his identity as a human being seems to hold some key to his life.

The Lantern’s excellent production capitalizes on the well-played moral dilemma and analysis of all its implications, but ultimately, the first half weighs down the strength of this performance. I can imagine the implications that Styles character bears on the show: under apartheid, he sells unattainable dreams, photographing the illiterate Banzi holding a newspaper in front of a painting of the "city of the future."

But it’s a bad drama of apartheid politics, unevenly delivered. All the real action of this play could have taken 30 or 40 minutes, gravitating on what both Buntu and Banzi see as the unfortunate moral payoff: "If someone was to offer you the things in life that would make me or my family happy in exchange for a name, wouldn’t you swap?"

Though this production proves otherwise, Banzi’s dilemma ultimately seems easy. Buntu asks, "who are you to a white man...but a ghost?" And Sizwe becomes Zwelinzima. And why not? Romeo’s life would have been infinitely easier (and perhaps not ended in suicide) had he acceded to Juliet’s request.

Buntu nails it on the head when he says "there’s nothing we can leave behind except the memory of ourselves." But what kind of memory is it? Schopenhauer once wrote that "we remember our own lives a little better than we do a novel we once read, little more." Seen in that light, the decision seems easy. A man might have to die in order to live again, but it’s Fugard’s play that makes Banzi's dilemma into a hard decision.

Review of Flashpoint's Jump/Cut

2009-02-24T23:01:00.000-08:00

First published in Edge Philadephia:

Imagine taking everything in your kitchen and trying to make a meal out of it. If you don’t think it would taste any good, then don’t go see Neena Beber’s insipid and uninteresting Jump/Cut, currently at Flashpoint Theatre.

Of course, I’m assuming a well-stocked kitchen, and one thing’s clear, that Nina Beber has an (occasionally) very interesting mental pantry to draw from. Her Philadelphia premiere at Flashpoint includes a love triangle stuffed with thoughts and anecdotes on film, hagiography, biography, manic-depression, the poetic romanticizing of illness, keeping a blood oath to a friend, the nature of creativity, sexual apathy, etc. In this case, it’s not too many cooks that spoil the broth. Too bad she doesn’t have a good friend or editor to tell her what she needed to leave out.

But surprisingly enough for a TV and film writer, she lacks a sense of dramatic structure, and took an hour to get to her first-and only-major plot point.

Admittedly, I’m a bit wary of any play that starts with the line "I don’t know where to begin." But even the convoluted mess that comprises this play must begin somewhere, in this case, a monologue (one of many) by Paul (Christopher Bohan), which then flashes back to the night of his high school graduation.

There, in an evening otherwise full of youthful promise and marijuana-obscured debauchery ("the world’s gonna be our dime bag!"), he makes a fateful promise to Dave (Keith Conallen), who begs him "you gotta keep me off the ratty couch and make sure I don’t become a bum." Flash forward a few years (it’s not clear) to Paul’s career as a filmmaker in California. "Pulling back the camera," he announces, "alters emotional distance while letting something interesting come into frame." That something: Karen (Kristy Chouiniere), a former screenwriter he once humiliated, who he reencounters at a café and now pursues romantically.

I imagine that this play excites the few firing mental neurons of twenty-something pseudo-intellectuals, who think shallowly about many subjects (usually while stoned) and feel oh so deep in the process.

Now a grad student studying the hagiography of the Countess di Castelloni, Karen reluctantly begins a relationship with Paul just as Dave-now a failed novelist-moves in to live on Paul’s couch. Suddenly we learn that Dave’s difficulty with personal hygiene (he feels too unmotivated to even fasten the buttons on his shirt) stems from his longstanding manic-depressive illness. And while Karen initially berates Dave’s laziness, and Dave condemns Paul for selling out his dreams, the three of them (after an hour) hit on a solution: make a documentary about Dave’s illness.

I told you it took a while. For Beber, however, the delay poses no problem, as she has Paul explain that we could "imagine life as a series of jump-cuts, random events connected by a theme." However, most of the second half plays out like long stretches of reality television, but without the booze the producers feed the housemates to make things interesting. Conallen supplies enough juvenile humor to provoke laughter, but despite Beber’s compelling moments of free associative writing that nonetheless shine through the sophomoric dialogue, the tension feels manufactured. And by the time Paul and Karen make the invariable sex tape (not shown), it’s beyond banal and I’m uninterested.

I can’t blame the cast or director Karen DiLossi for my disappointment. If anything, while DiLossi’s staging (on Simon Harding’s accessible setting) easily skirts the difficult time and place transitions (well played by Bohan especially), Joshua Schulman’s lighting appears overly simplistic. As the play unfolds, each of the three characters engages the audience in direct address, and Schulman’s paint-by-the-numbers approach to the lighting design gives them each a different colored ambiance. How helpful! Otherwise, I can’t imagine anyone would’ve understood that when one person’s talking, they’re talking!

But ultimately, the play’s the problem, as Beber crams every stray thought she’s ever had about mental illness and filmmaking (among MANY other subjects) into a plot that can’t sustain interest. I imagine that this play excites the few firing mental neurons of twenty-something pseudo-intellectuals, who think shallowly about many subjects (usually while stoned) and feel oh so deep in the process. And I feel for Conallen, who gets a delicious line like "where’s your bourgeois de vivre" within a script that only allows his performance to command attention (in his psychotic episode) right after the point where I’ve completely lost interest.

Otherwise, I felt like I was watching-especially in the second half-the dramatized version of "Listening to Prozac," coupled with bits of Godard and Hitchcock, and all this stuffed inside only a marginally believable love triangle. Everything in the kitchen pantry, indeed.

Review of Altar Boyz at the Media Theatre

2009-02-24T22:53:00.000-08:00

I didn’t need to go to church this weekend to get my religious fix. Instead of hearing a dry sermon and music struggling through creaky organ pipes, the Media Theatre’s production of Gary Adler’s and Michael Patrick Walker’s concert musical Altar Boyz spread the word of God in a fist-pumping, Bible-thumping good time (that like, totally kicked it, yo!).

Often billed as a “satirical look at both boy-bands and Christian-themed music,” the show opens on the last stop of the Altar Boyz national “Raise the Praise” tour. Here, five young singers—Matthew (Phillip Drennen), Mark (Michael Jennings Mahoney), Luke (Lee Markham), Juan (Adrian Gonzalez), and Abraham (Joey Contreras)—have descended on Media, wearing “bling for the King” and pledging to save souls through the glory of pop music.

Using the technology of the Sony Soul Sensor, a multimedia screen displays the number of audience members still burdened by sin. To bring that number down to zero, this Catholic quintet sings a message of staying pure (no matter how Mary Magdilicious she may be!), becoming the person you’re supposed to be, and living your life as a shout-out to G-O-D.

Of course, it’s silly, and I don’t know how their songs or lyrics would appeal to anyone, even true believers. But while I wouldn’t listen to the Back Street Boys for more than five minutes, the music and skits of this 90 minute performance put a smile on my face from the start.

It helps that the Media cast five incredibly talented performers, who not only each sing and harmonize beautifully, but also make Samuel Reyes constantly changing music-video choreography look easy. Even if the disciples had played music (and as the Son of God, Christ would’ve sung with perfect pitch), they wouldn’t have sounded this good. Mahoney finds his praise-voice with a rousing gospel-driven number, and late in the show, Markham drives home a weirdly entertaining rap song about Jesus’ miracles.

Their clean-cut looks outdo the Jonas Brothers, and costume designer Lauren Perigard only forgot to add the promise rings when dressing the group in super-skinny jeans and cargo pants, died t-shirts and vests, with plenty of the Lord’s bling (crosses) hanging from their necks. Adam Riggar’s set looks like the interior of a metallic cathedral, with arches and faux windows peering in on the band (Samuel Heifetz’s ability to shift seamlessly from musical theatre to urban pop amazes), and Kelly Michelle Leight’s lighting accentuates the concert feel.

But don’t worry, there’s enough humor and dark elements to strip the sheen from the sugar-coated pop and Jesus-saved-my-life anecdotes. Luke munches on communion wafers while discussing his stay in a “rejuvenation center,” Mark might be gay, and Juan suffers a personal tragedy about the parent’s who abandoned him.

Peter Reynolds' direction plays every note right, maximizing enjoyment through the boys tremendous musicality, lingering just long enough on the jokes, and not heavy-handing the satire (with a skit like “Cruci-funktion,” a disco account of The Passion, he doesn’t need to). The songs are cheesy, but the performers act so sincere that when the soul meter finally counted down to zero, the audience burst into spontaneous applause. But unlike church, the relief we felt didn’t come because the sermon had ended, but because we all felt a little bit saved by the power of theatre.

Review of Mauckingbird's lesbian Hedda Gabler

2009-02-24T22:50:00.001-08:00

Mauckingbird Theatre was launched last year by Temple professor Peter Reynolds and recent grad Lindsay Mauck as a company “committed to producing professional gay-themed theater, while also exploring classic literature.” In each of its three productions so far, fulfilling that mission has meant transforming classic works into gay-themed theater.

Those who object to these literary transformations could argue that the genre already abounds in gay playwrights and plays with homosexual themes, so why tamper with familiar straight works? But in Mauckingbird’s case, the key question is whether or not the introduction of gay issues into any particular play is justified by what it adds artistically.

In Mauckingbird’s first two productions, this approach made sense. Mauckingbird’s all-male Misanthrope nicely illustrated a mirroring of court life extending into personal lives, creating the same hierarchal power structure and consequent viciousness in relationships required of those at court. And Mauckingbird’s production of Joe Calarco’s Shakespeare’s R & J transformed Romeo’s line, “Did I love till now?” into a powerful moment of personal discovery.

An unspoken problem

But unlike those first two works, Mauckingbird’s current lesbian-themed adaptation (by Caroline Kava) of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler did little to create a different feel in the play. It’s merely a production of a famous play that, here, dares not speak its name.

To read the rest of this review, click here.

2009-02-24T22:44:00.000-08:00

One-hundred years ago, the phrase “intimate apparel” denoted the corset, often hand sewn and treated as one of the most cherished pieces of clothing in a woman’s wardrobe. Worn by both fashionable society women and dance hall girls, they slimmed the waist, accentuated the bust, and pleased the eye. In the Player’s Club of Swarthmore’s current production of Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel, it’s the maker of the garment and the dreams she stitches together for herself and others that shape this sad, touching drama of women’s lives.

Nottage’s play opens on Ester (Erin Stewart), an unmarried seamstress living in a respectable boardinghouse in Manhattan. During a party to celebrate another girl’s engagement, she works the hand-wheel of a sewing machine to stitch together the wedding dress. Thirty-five and plain, she hates the happiness of young girls while disdaining the suitors proffered by her landlady Mrs. Dickson (Deborah E. Randall), snidely asking of a bellhop at a fancy hotel “is high class luggage any easier to carry?” She fancies and flirts with the Hasidic Jewish fabric merchant Mr. Marks (Edward Milliner), but despite his reciprocated feelings, his religion forbids him to even touch her.

In between bouts of advice to settle, Dickson presents a letter sent from George (Eric Lamback), a Barbadian worker on the Panama Canal who knows Ester remotely through someone at her church. He laments the dredging that transforms a “place of beauty into a morgue,” and longs for someone to make the long days of work bearable. Unsurprisingly, Ester leaps at the one opportunity for romance that her appearance and proud nature had previously denied her.

The only problem? She can’t read, and must rely on her two clients—the society woman Mrs. Van Buren (capably played by Shelli Pentimall) and the courtesan Mayme (Anjoli Santiago)—to read the letters and write replies. Despite their own problems (Van Buren’s husband spits at her because she’s barren, and Mayme fends off abusive clients), both women eagerly indulge the fantasy of reinventing Ester in letters and romantically imagining this unknown suitor from Panama.

But when George arrives to marry Ester, a harsh reality of deceit shreds the fabric of her dreams, and after twenty years of manual labor, she throws away her goal of owning a beauty parlor on the caprice of an unworthy man.

It’s always difficult to watch a story where the undeserving suffer, particularly given Stewart’s delicate portrayal that trades Ester’s pride for hopefulness, and director Bridget Dougherty’s deft handling of the timeless aspects of these women’s emotions. Never once presenting them as victims or begging for sympathy, Dougherty’s production earns a deeper emotional empathy by her honest, unsentimental rendering.

And there’s no need to dwell on the prejudices that shaped the era; Nottage’s script avoids heavy-handedness and the cast more than equals the demands of the roles. Milliner’s excellent performance turns stories about fabric into comical (though sincere) attempts at flirtation, and Santiago’s sonorous voice nearly sings the lies that hide her pain.

As always, the dreams die hard. Today, Ester might easily own a boutique on the same Fifth Avenue where her clients live, but would probably find no greater refuge from deceitful men. The real pity: that few stories of women’s lives treat their apparel with the intimate care this production shows.

Review of Ted Neely in Jesus Christ Superstar Touring Production

2009-02-24T22:40:00.001-08:00

First published in Edge Philadelphia:

Jesus died on the cross at age 33, but that hasn’t stopped Ted Neeley from reprising the role of Christ at nearly twice that age in the touring production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar,a role he’s played intermittently for over 30 years now. In the current tour, Rick Belzer’s gloomy lighting and Bill Stabile’s metal-scaffolding set--a bridge spanning two balustrades--looks like a border checkpoint, offering a reason for revival in their poignant, ironic commentary on contemporary Israel, where Jews, once oppressed inside their own homeland by a foreign occupying force, have now become the "hated Romans" to the Palestinians in Gaza.

But unfortunately for the rest of the production, there’s nothing timely about a performer who can no longer sing the role he once made famous in the 1973 film version, especially not in director Dallett Norris’ horribly sung, terribly staged production.

For those unfamiliar with the story, JCS follows the last days of Christ (Neeley), from his triumphal Palm Sunday entry into Jerusalem, betrayal by Judas (James Delisco) in the Garden of Gethsemane, to his crucifixion and ascension into heaven. Entirely sung through, this rock-musical gives equal balance to the torments of Christ (being relied upon to simply heal the physical pain of those whose souls he would rather save), and the political concerns of Judas, who sees Christ as upsetting the fragile autonomy of the Jews under Roman rule by inspiring rebellion among his followers. In almost any production, Tim Rice’s lyrics and Webber’s music makes both stories absolutely compelling and vibrant to watch.

But not this production. Not only does guitarist Jake Langley ruin the opening lick, but Norris opens the overture by staging weird slow-motion fighting between Jewish rebels and Roman guards, set to an occasional strobe light and minimal fog that doesn’t make the faux-fighting any more interesting. Jesus and his followers arrive, Judas bursts in, and from his first song to his last, Delisco articulates his lyrics in as weird and obnoxiously arrogant a voice possible. There are aesthetic limits to wanting to make a role your own, and when Judas worries about being damned for all time, Delisco should have worried more about musical hell.

The remainder of the cast and production splits down the middle. Matthew G. Myers (as Simon) impresses, but only gets one exciting song, Peter (Adam Campbell) sounds equally solid, but he only shares half of a number, with Mary Magdalene (Cristina Sass). When she enters, she looks scrumptious in her flowing red dress, but her pleasant, too pretty voice and attitude lacks sultriness. Those who read the Bible might know better than to judge her as a reformed whore, but her performance should still exude enough seductive passion to give Judas reason to doubt.

In his performance as Annas, Caleb Shaw’s striking voice comes in to grate on Judas or Christ at the right intensity, and while the ensemble sounds wonderful (musically, they’re the best part of the evening), I’ve never seen such an out-of-shape chorus in the (allegedly) professional touring company of a musical.

Overall, there’s just no rock feel to this rock opera, and I mostly blame Neeley. He has to lumber around like an aging grandfather and slow down nearly every song in which he’s required to sing so that what’s left of his voice can still handle the music. He can still nail the screaming, but he can’t sing above a D anymore without his voice either cracking or going immediately into falsetto, and while he shows that he still possesses the chops of his lower register on "The Temple" and "Gethsemane," by the time he get to these songs, I was already disappointed by his weak first half performance.

And when Christ sings about being dead soon, the disciples should worry more that he’ll keel over from complications of his advanced age. (Why didn’t they just ask John McCain to play the role? After all, he can’t sing either.) I won’t apologize. The touring company expected Philadelphians to shell out upwards of $100 a ticket. But good theatre should pay for good art, not Ted Neeley’s retirement.

Ultimately, I can’t blame Norris’ direction entirely. He achieved a nightmarish effect in the "healing scene" where the afflicted approach Jesus as a massive body covered by a sheet, with their black-covered heads poking out to demand "heal me." And in his one moment of brilliance, Norris has Mark Baratelli play Herod like a fey send-up of the Jewish King, fawned over and fawning, eliciting enough laughter to set up a great contrast with the crucifixion scene. Unfortunately, Norris and Neeley stretch this scene out too long and Neeley overacts these dying moments, coming in and out of life to give at least three opportunities for the audience to begin their applause for the musical’s end.

Or perhaps they were just eager to go while the going was still good, a lesson that Ted Neeley apparently has yet to learn.

Review of "O Captain, My Captain: Whitman's Lincoln" at Walnut Street Studio 3

2009-02-24T22:33:00.001-08:00

First published in Edge Philadelphia:

At its best, theatre attempts to create another universe, no matter how big or small, drawing the audience into a world fashioned entirely by the production of a play or musical. Certainly, Bill Van Horn attempts this in his 90 minute piece O Captain, My Captain: Whitman’s Lincoln, where he plays "America’s poet" Walt Whitman.

Set designer Glen Sears has done his part, transforming the entire Studio 3 space into a late 19th Century parlor in Camden, a time capsule filled with enameled paintings, Victorian furniture (and lots of it; not a single member of the audience forced to sit in anything less!), neo-classical statues, and beautiful silver serving sets. On one side of the room hangs a framed portrait of Abraham Lincoln, facing him on the other wall, hangs a painting of Lincoln’s favorite actor and future assassin, John Wilkes Booth.

Even the stage manager greets the patrons at the door in a high-necked gown (the more modern tattoo on her neck still visible though), an unseen "Mrs. Gilchrist" plays piano in an adjacent room, and a young serving girl (uncredited) hands out corn bread and lemonade to the audience. And when Van Horn bursts in as Whitman, costume designer Mary Folino has tailored him in a suit stolen straight out of one of the daguerreotype group "photos" adorning the walls.

We, Whitman tells the audience, are going to be part of his experiment, a preparation for an upcoming lecture tour, and the subject matter of the lecture is the same as the title: Whitman’s reflections on the life of Abraham Lincoln, from the time the former President attempted to enter politics in 1847, until his assassination in 1865. "I was there and saw everything," as they traveled the same roads and stayed in the same cities (when Whitman worked as a journalist), and later, when the poet lived in DC during the Civil War, sharing in the President’s aspirations for the fractured country.

Hopefully, everyone who grew up in America already knows some of Lincoln’s story, which Whitman punctuates with relevant sections of his poetry, intoning how he "yet shall mourn with ever returning spring" the death of a President that happened 22 years earlier and changed the spirit of the country.

But thankfully Whitman did not bring us to his brother’s house in Camden for a history lesson, either one to correct the falsehoods or lead us down familiar paths. Instead, he remarks what’s still true of today, that "All legends are basically true and America would much rather hear a good story than an accurate report."

Peppered with anecdotes, Van Horn’s play gives us a good tale, and in these little details, a new fascination for the familiar emerges. Whitman recounts the story of following the President’s corpse on its route from DC to Illinois for the burial. Making a stop in Philadelphia, thousands thronged 30th St. Station, and when the processional passed through town, a crowd hissed at the actor Edwin Forrest when he tried to apologize because one of his profession had committed the murder.

We also learn that Booth was Lincoln’s favorite actor, and that the President had earlier seen him in "The Apostate," a play in which Booth strode to the front of the stage and pointed straight at Lincoln when giving his speech denouncing a traitor. But unfortunately, these anecdotes (in which Booth prefigures heavily) provide the most interesting parts of the evening, and I wondered why I watched this piece here, at the Walnut Street, rather than slightly across town at the Constitution Center.

For while I get the story about Whitman’s love of Lincoln, very little gives me insight into Whitman himself, and hence, the play shows a speaker, but doesn’t offer a character (in a one-person performance, I can almost handle not getting a plot). Van Horn’s piece gives vague allusions about the poet, noting that he must live off the charity of family since his "latest misfortune," but those of us who don’t know the story of Whitman as well as we know Lincoln’s have to chew through this undercooked morsel of history. The piece, nonetheless, follows an interesting arc: Whitman did not initially vote for Lincoln, and didn’t vote at all in 1860, but yet came to admire the President.

As the poet, Van Horn holds the room throughout. He becomes bombastic when excited, and curls over like a wounded animal when finally mourning the President’s death, without ever dipping into the sugary waters of melodrama. Reciting several of Lincoln’s speeches verbatim, he delivers them with perhaps greater oratorical power than the President conveyed (I was certainly moved to belief).

But again, I wondered why I watched this on a stage and not in a lecture hall, classroom, or historical venue. And while it engrosses, even when Whitman meanders off topic, Van Horn’s piece isn’t so much a "stage-play" as a "staged event" or historical reenactment.

Historically, theatre finds its foundations in storytelling, one person under dim lights, assuming a variety of characters, spinning a tale to entrance an audience. I enjoyed Van Horn’s piece and performance immensely, even if by today’s standards of production and drama, it doesn’t so much create a universe of imagination, but tells a story that’s worth hearing.

The original article on the reading of Sarah Ruhl's new play

2009-01-13T15:16:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to post it here. However, Google's cache function still offers a snapshot of the page as it originally appeared.

Those wishing to read my commentary on Ruhl's new play can go to Google, type "Jim Rutter" and "Sarah Ruhl" and click the word "cache" under the second hit.

Or, just click here.

Review of Oliver! at the Media Theatre

2008-12-28T22:41:00.001-08:00

First published in Edge Philadelphia, 12-15-2008:

In addition to the pageant of George Balanchine’s "The Nutcracker," one holiday tradition dominates Philly stages each December: the theatrical cash-cow of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. But according to Media Theatre Artistic Director Jesse Cline, Lionel Bart’s musical Oliver! proves that there’s another Dickens’ story worth seeing during the holidays.

In our current economic climate, Cline’s insight hits home; even the toy sales dropped on Black Friday and shoppers left the malls without that "must-buy" item for their kids. But it’s a safe bet that no child in America would trade places with Dickens’ Oliver (Tovi Wayne) and face the dreary childhood he experienced in Victorian England. Orphaned since birth, he grows up eating nothing but gruel in a miserable orphanage run by the corrupt Mr. Bumble (Nicholas F. Saverine), a penny-pincher who sells Oliver for five pounds when the boy has the cheek to ask for another helping of food.

But his life gets no better working for a funeral director (Jim Ludovici as Mr. Sowerberry), and Oliver escapes into the clutches of The Artful Dodger (Will Porter) and Fagin (Bev Appleton), a pair that turns lonely runaways into an organized gang of pickpockets. His once chance at rescue and redemption lies in the warmth of a street-worker who befriends him (Elisa Matthews as Nancy), and the wealthy Mr. Brownlow (Stephen Bonnell), who believes that Oliver might be his grandson.

Kelly Michelle Leight’s dreary, gun-metal colored set serves as a miserable reminder of the workhouse conditions and pollution that coated London in grime during the height of the Industrial Revolution, and her harsh lighting doubly reminds of that bleak period. Costume designer Mary Ann Swords-Greene dresses the cast to reflect a divided society with which we’re too familiar, as the prim, well-kept appearance of those with position contrasts sharply against the Victorian-era underclass, who, like the chimney sweeps of that age, look perpetually covered in soot.

Policemen don’t hesitate to shoot a man on sight or even punch children in the face, and this "Oliver!" makes it clear that 100 years ago in England, society’s throwaway class suffered horribly. But rather than let the production’s atmosphere serve as the backdrop for a gripping Dickensian story of good versus evil and compassionate hope pitted against cynical greed, Cline’s lackluster staging deprives this production of energy. The chorus of ten-year-old orphans and pickpockets mostly stand around even during the uplifting numbers, and Tim Haney’s shoddy choreography doesn’t even give the adults anything interesting to do.

Cline’s staging would even had me doubt that some excitable and rambunctious 10-year-old ever existed to inspire Dickens title character, as Wayne sits or stands in almost passive acceptance of what happens to him, wondering "where is love?" in a world that offers him little kindness. This makes the production a double shame, as Oliver’s compelling story of hope becomes something dreary, rather than uplifting, and the spectacular singing seems out of place.

Saverine’s gorgeous, opera-quality singing fits right in with a cast that offers so much talent. In anyone else’s production, even these flower girls could play the female lead, and only the extraordinary Matthews, in her beautifully sung and inspired portrayal as Nancy, can outshine them. And by itself Wayne’s bright and richly colored paid for the plane ticket that brought him from California to play the title role.

So anyone looking for incredible voices can skip even the Academy of Music’s "Messiah" this year and head to Media to hear Oliver!, where the comparison to a choral work is unfortunately even more apt in the staging. But as for finding the Holiday spirit? The level of energy in the production leaves me doubting that anyone could walk out of the theatre and think of Tiny Tim saying "God bless us, every one."

Oliver!, at the Media Theatre, 104 E. State Street, Media PA, until January 4, 2009. Tickets and more information available at the theater’s website.

Review of A Tuna Christmas at Walnut Street's Studio 3

2008-12-28T22:35:00.000-08:00

First published in Edge Philadelphia, 12-10-2008:

To borrow a line from comedian Jeff Foxworthy: You know you’re a redneck if you’re hanging Christmas ornaments made from coffee filters and empty toilet paper rolls. Either that, or you’re appearing in Ed Howard, Joe Sears, and Jaston Williams’ A Tuna Christmas, now in production at the Walnut Street’s Studio Three.

After the Walnut Street’s successful production last year of the same authors’ Greater Tuna, director Madi Distefano recast John Zak and Benjamin Lloyd to play another 30 (or so) characters in Tuna, Texas, "the third smallest town in the state." A Tuna Christmas follows the struggles and foibles of the town’s backward residents during the Holiday season as they compete for the annual Christmas Yard Display Contest. For the last 15 years, the wealthy Vera Carp has won, and this year she’s hired Mexican immigrants to tend to the live animals in her holiday diorama.

If only they could fend off the "Christmas Phantom," a mysterious prankster who wrecks the lawn displays while causing the neighbors to accuse each other of perpetrating the mischief. Meanwhile, the town’s eccentric, "non-marrying type" (wink, wink) director Joe Bob Lipsey struggles to put on a production of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol because an overzealous public utilities worker threatens to shut off the power unless he pays the theatre’s electric bill.

Distefano contemporizes the script’s humor with updates about the Walnut Street’s current production of Hairspray, Sarah Palin (of course), and a Christmas tree decorated to look like Dick Cheney "shot it in the face." The remaining jokes-and there’s plenty-mostly target the backwardness of life in the Deep South.

The play starts and ends at Radio OKKK, where advertisements for the local used-weapons store announce "if we can’t kill it, it’s immortal," and residents call to announce meetings of the anti-pornography group "Smut Snatchers." Local high-school girls wear the hot-selling perfume "Compromise," and townspeople threaten Tuna’s lone liberal citizen," by telling him that they "shoot vegetarians on sight." So much for being done with rednecks from Texas.

A Tuna Christmas affectionately satirizes Southern life, and any theatergoer will delight hearing Lipsey complain about his "all-white" production of "A Raisin in the Sun," or celebrate his innovative recasting of the Greek tragedy "Medea" into a Confederate triumph. And those who love well-crafted performances will find much to enjoy in Zak and Lloyd’s superb performances.

The pair run on and off the stage, and with little more than a wig and costume change, manage to seamlessly and hilariously inhabit an entire town’s worth of characters. Zak’s radio announcer sports a Roy Orbison bouffant, and Lloyd, tucked inside a "fat suit," is possibly the nastiest looking housewife in Texas-or anywhere. And the choice for Zak to play the town’s lone liberal as mentally challenged shows a subtle and interesting commentary on the South’s perverted understanding of Blue-State values.

Costume designer Alisa Sikora-Kleckner finds endless variations on the theme of "Wal-Mart chic," contrasting John Deere pajamas with a one-piece satin jumper that makes even the town’s wealthy resident look like white trash. Meghan Jones’ adorns her functional set with ratty props (including a mounted Jackalope!), Shon Causer’s lighting helps sharpen the rough transitions in locales, and Christopher Colucci’s vivid sound design paints in the backdrop of southern life.

However, even the design team’s potent atmosphere can’t ward off the dead moments in the production. Distefano tries to enliven these with rock music and dancing or pesky grandmothers firing slingshots at birds, but the overkill of jokes means that some of the script will just not sound funny. Too many ancillary characters complicate the plot without adding a compensating humor for the distraction, and while I enjoyed Zak and Lloyd’s versatility, the final moments spent reminiscing left me bored.

Howard, Sears, and Williams have written a third installment to their Tuna series. Despite the changes in Washington, chances are Philadelphia audiences will get to laugh at rednecks from Texas for at least one more year.

The Independence Studio on Three at the Walnut Street Theatre presents A Tuna Christmas until Jan. 4. Tickets and more information available at: http://www.walnutstreettheatre.org/season/tunaxmas.php

Review of 1812's production of Cherry Bomb

2008-12-28T22:22:00.001-08:00

First published in Edge Philadelphia, 12-20-2008:

Possibly the least appreciated fact about human nature is how little it changes. Today, crazed and talentless contestants appear on American Idol to publicly humiliate themselves and ratings soar. 100 years ago, people loved the Cherry Sisters, a quintet appropriately, if not affectionately, known as "the Worst Act in Vaudeville."

Of course, the real question is why any of them, from William Hung to the Cherry Sisters, subject themselves to nightly humiliation. In 1812’s vaudeville entertainment Cherry Bomb: The Worst Act in Vaudeville for the Holidays, composer James Sugg and lyricist/book-writer Jen Childs’ seek an answer.

Childs cleverly uses a play-within-a-play construction to get at the heart of their story, making each of the five women-Ella (Mary Martello), Lizzie (Maureen Torsney-Weir), Addie (Megan Bellwoar), Effie (Mary McCool), and Jessie (Charlotte Ford)-characters in the musical, as well as a staged presentation of their life by Oscar Hammerstein I (Scott Greer). Each act employs a different vaudevillian style (from a burlesque and a romantic serenade to a juggling extravaganza), while the girls struggle to maintain the truth of their story against Hammerstein’s more insulting retelling.

Initially, the five sisters only needed to raise money to find a runaway brother, and decided to rent a local opera house to stage a show. A scandalous review, in which a critic compared them unfavorably to the three witches from Macbeth, caused them to sue the Des Moines Leader and brought the Cherry Sisters to the attention of Hammerstein, who needed an act to save his floundering Olympia Theatre.

After failing to win audiences with better acts, Hammerstein declares that he’s "now going to try the worst," and brings the women to New York. The city first indulges in its baser instincts - throwing enough tomatoes to raise the revenues of vegetable sellers outside the theatre - before embracing the women and featuring them in the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

But while this show has a heart (and Childs shows a real sympathy and affection for the sisters), 100 years ago, human nature was clearly on display. Even after seven seasons of American Idol, it’s hard to imagine that any act could inspire enough hatred that would make one spectator viciously unload the contents of a fire extinguisher onto one of the sister’s faces (actually happened, though not portrayed in this show). So, Childs’ ends the show by convincing us, that yes, they were this terrible, by staging the girls’ actual act as a finale of horrible singing, terrible acting, and a ludicrous tableau vivant of Jessie hanging from a cross to reenact Christ’s crucifixion.

But while the Cherry’s may have possessed no talent at all, 1812 rounded up some of the best that Philadelphia could offer for this world premiere. Sugg’s music, set mostly to piano, violin, and clarinet, provides dexterity to match the varying vaudeville styles, from engaging melodies and a tender ballad ("Let Love In") to a magnificent seven-part act one curtain number ("Good, What is Good"). Though with a few duller moments (the marriage proposal song), Childs’ book zings through the Cherry’s story with zest and verve, and her "trial scene" includes lawyerly riddles and jokes that remind of Alice in Wonderland.

The immensely talented Dave Jadico (as the stagehand Edgar Sayres) deepens the humor with his pantomimes, sings charmingly, and even balances a washtub on his face, while Greer’s boisterous personality and booming voice finds a perfect outlet in his impresario role as Hammerstein. All five of the women show a marvelous mastery of their gifts, managing to mangle their talents when directly portraying the Cherry Sisters, later singing wonderfully (Martello), or engaging with their lovelorn expressions (Bellwoar).

"Cherry Bomb" entertains, but rather than an explosion of over-the-top humor, it’s on a par with the style of self-indulgent, low-key humor that this company has put out over the years. Undoubtedly, 1812 has provided some of the most successful original comedy in Philadelphia, achieving tremendous success with their blisteringly funny "This is the Week that Is" specials, but it’s a winking humor, getting laughs while implying "look what you’re letting us get away with in Philadelphia."

Moreover, I didn’t leave the theatre feeling that the show gave me any greater understanding of why anyone would subject themselves to such public humiliation, and this might be the only goal that Childs’ didn’t attain. However, to their great credit, Childs’ story and Sugg’s music showed what the entertainment world lost when vaudeville gave way to musical comedy.

And their show managed this without schmaltz, without derision, and with warmth, including the most tender moment I’ve seen on stage in a very long time. Here, Ford’s endearing rendition of "I am a Cherry" proves that whatever else defines human nature, the definition must include the kind of heartfelt devotion that her artistry shows is possible.

1812 Productions presents the world premiere of Cherry Bomb, an original vaudeville by composer James Sugg, lyrics by Jen Childs. At Plays and Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey Street Philadelphia. Tickets and more information available at www.1812productions.org/

Review of Lantern Theatre's The Government Inspector

2008-12-28T22:17:00.000-08:00

First published in Edge Philadelphia, 11-30-2008:

My 2008 Christmas wish: that Philadelphians will forego their presents this season and instead ask friends and relatives to donate money to the Lantern Theatre. That way, the Lantern can hire enough actors to properly stage a work like Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector.

The fault doesn’t lie in the actors that director David O’Connor cast -- in fact, the Lantern’s show includes one of Philadelphia’s best comedic talents (Tony Lawton), the city’s most capable character actor (Seth Reichgott), and Sarah Sanford, who I consider the single most versatile actress in the region. But those three, along with Luigi Sottile and David Ingram must together cover twelve parts, and the costume changes, slow-to-develop in-characterizations, and forced exits and entrances to accommodate actors playing multiple roles strangle the quick pace that a satire like "The Government Inspector" requires, sucking the life right out of this production.

Gogol’s simple, straightforward plot should make for an incredibly funny play. Tsar Nicholas I has sent a government inspector from St. Petersburg to a small town in Russia to report on the state of his realm. The Mayor (Reichgott), School Supervisor (Sanford), Judge (Ingram), and Hospital Director (Lawton) all worry that he’ll arrive and expose their corruption: classes filled with idiots, geese in the courtroom, and hospitals lined with dying villagers. Like all politicians, the last thing they want is to be exposed as idiots and lose their cushy well-paying patronage jobs.

In Armina LaManna’s translation, this simple premise consumes well over two hours and in O’Connor’s production of the overly dense script, the pacing suffers, the satire evaporates, and the only laughter left comes at the climax of well-executed, often painstakingly set up sight gags.

The cast performs admirably, but not even Lawton and Sanford’s versatility can revive the squandered humor of the play. Able to flesh out their roles, Reichgott and Sottile deliver outstanding performances as an infuriated Mayor and a petulant spoiled rich-kid respectively, and Ingram’s savvy servant adds depth. But despite the best efforts of its cast, this production needed at bare minimum one more actor to increase the pace and successfully capture the comedy.

Lawton’s Bobchinsky/Dobchinsky schizophrenia notion gets old quick (and it’s not that funny to begin with), and Sanford’s brilliant quartet of performances nearly gets swallowed up in the confusion of speaking through a puppet. Admittedly, the doll she carries leads to a spectacular joke late in the play, but I’d rather an evening of consistent, quick-witted humor than the slow, drawn out pacing under which this production labors. And until almost the end of the show (when the script reveals otherwise), I thought Sanford played her School Supervisor as a woman, further showing the limits of her quadruple-casting.

Millie Hiibel’s outrageous costumes of poofy-sleeved dresses and gold-braided drum major uniforms help with the characterizations and mesh well with the teetering house-of-cards aspect of Meghan Jones’ set. But the transitions, punctuated by the quickly tiresome conceit of "scene change" as the actors move props and hang signs, only lengthen the production-time and dilute any momentum in the action.

Perhaps I’m too jaded by current affairs to buy into Gogol’s particular satire of small-town politics, or the material’s too dated, too Russian and too obvious. (Only last year Putin created a brand new constitutional office just so he could stay in power.) But what is clear is that the Lantern’s budget is too meager to take on "The Government Inspector." Donations, anyone?

The Lantern Theater Company presents Armina LaManna’s translation of Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector. Playing until Dec. 28th at St. Stephen’s Theater, 10th and Ludlow, Philadelphia. www.lanterntheatre.org

Review of Delaware Theatre Company's Picasso at the Lapin Agile

2008-12-28T22:09:00.000-08:00

First published in Edge Philadelphia, 12-15-2008:

Whether done at a community theatre, college, or professional stage, Steve Martin’s Picasso at the Lapin Agile stands as the one play that I will almost always advise people to see. Particularly if they’ve never before caught a production.

Set in a Parisian café in 1904, the play imagines a chance meeting between Pablo Picasso (Caesar Samayoa) and Albert Einstein (Matt Pfeiffer) before both of them became internationally famous in their respective fields. In conversation that ranges over art and science and what separates or unifies the two, their giant egos collide; the bar’s patrons chime in with discussions on the value of art, the nature of sex and the battle of the sexes, with the entire evening filtered through and enlivened by Martin’s unmatchable wit. (Yes, it’s that Steve Martin.)

As I said, I’d almost always recommend this play. I’ve even enjoyed staged readings, where nine actors in chairs read from the script and found all the laughter that bubbles forth from the wellspring of Martin’s wide-ranging comedic gifts. However, at Delaware Theatre Company (DTC), director David Stradley’s addition to and re-framing of the script proves that there’s not a script that’s safe from a director who thinks he can improve it.

Rather than feel charming and light and offer a sense of poignant grandeur-seriously, imagine a meeting between Einstein and Picasso-this production simply felt weird, as if Stradley wanted DTC’s audience to view an evening at a Parisian bar through the same kaleidoscopic refractions that Picasso made visible in his paintings. From the bizarre-and wholly unnecessary-opening that introduces all the characters like they’re arriving to perform in a pageant, to the strange interludes of dance and song that punctuated (or rather "punctured") the script, I started to wonder what’s next, having the Visitor (Danny Bernardy) arrive in the manner of an alien abduction?

I can’t blame choreographer Samantha Bellomo for her contributions, and I liked Eric Schaeffer’s scenic design of three inter-set painting frames. Both did what Stradley asked. But why he asked for a longish dance interlude to dilute the charm of Martin’s play baffles, especially since Martin’s self-referential lines already frame the play in a light, witty fashion.

When Einstein arrives, the bartender interrupts him to say "wait, you can’t be Einstein, you arrived third." To prove his point, he runs into the audience, snatches one a patron’s program and then says "see, you’re supposed to come on fourth." Later, one of Picasso’s lovers asks when he’ll return to his apartment. His reply: "When the play’s over." But Stradley ignores this straightforward device in favor of leaving his own mark on the play. Next up, his director’s edit of "The Jerk."

Due largely to individual efforts, much of the humor of Martin’s play shined through. John Morrison (as bar regular Gaston) lurched across the stage in his incredibly humorous portrayal of an aging Frenchman, and Aaron Cromie’s physical dexterity (as the art dealer Sagot) enlivened his every appearance. As the bar owner Freddy and his bickering wife Germaine, both Jeb Kreager and Lee Ann Etzold delivered deadpan humor that set an undercurrent for the more vibrant explosions of comedy (though I’ve seen Etzold deliver far more laughs with her deadpan in "The Happiness Lecture," where she positively shone, but the staging-having her walk toward the back of the bar while speaking-doesn’t help her here).

Pfeiffer and Samayoa both create fascinating versions of their characters that never degrade into caricature, and Pfeiffer especially (and almost by himself) manages to capture the moments of poignancy woven into Martin’s script. Bernardy’s "Visitor" smartly gave everyone in the audience a reason to smirk, and Nathan Holt garners ten-minutes of laughs as Schmendiman, the born-to-fail inventor of an asbestos product (even without the requisite intensity that should have sent him zooming in and out of the bar).

However, when Karen Peakes provides the most charming bit of the play in a one-minute, single-gag appearance, her brief moment reflects the inability of Stradley to capture the essence of Martin’s comedy. DTC’s production gets laughs; but never inspires a a sense of wonder. Stradley fails to gild the entire evening with a sense of joyous magic and, in the process, strains the credulity of Martin’s inventive meeting of the two minds that shaped the 20th Century. Martin basically gift-wraps this comedy for any production. Sometimes the best approach for a director is to take it with hat in hand.

Delaware Theatre Company, 200 Water St. Wilmington, DE, presents Steve Martin’s Picasso at the Lapin Agile until Dec. 21. Tickets and information available at http://www.delawaretheatre.org /

Some further commentary on Talk Radio

2008-12-24T07:44:00.000-08:00

The Broad Street Review recently published my article on New City Stage Company's production of Eric Bogosian's Talk Radio. Here's a teaser:

Eric Bogosian’s 1980s play about a radio talk-show host is as relevant as ever, even in the age of the blogosphere. But Paul Felder is simply too young for the central role.

Not to spoil the ending, but the second-to-last paragraph reads "Director William Roudebush’s choice of Felder as Champlain might really reflect the paucity of Philadelphia actors who could handle the demands of this role. The 27-to-45-year age bracket offers plenty of local talent, but Champlain requires the kind of electrifying, gigantic personality who can prowl the stage like a lion, only to crumble later beneath the weight of his own cynical despair. I can’t think of many Philadelphia actors who fill that bill. "

I'd like to clarify that point here with the following short list of actors that other knowledgeable theatre professionals and theatregoers have suggested.

Ian Merrill Peakes: Probably received the most recommendations, but I strongly disagree for the same reason that I enjoyed Peakes in Theatre Exile's Red Light Winter, but didn't like him as Iago in Pennsyvania Shakespeare's production of Othello. To me, he taints all of his performances with this semi-likeable (or at least, socially enviable) frat-boy persona. Even his 1920's artist character in The Walnut Street Theatre's production of Enchanted April displayed this characteristic. When he can show me a performance that lacks any connotations of Stiffler, I'll change my mind about Peakes' overrated abilities.

However, Peakes definitely possesses machismo in abundance--for any director who decides to go that way (by contrast, see the level of demorarlizing, poignant introspection that Oliver Stone drew out of Bogosian's own performance in the movie version of Talk Radio.)

Seth Reichgott: In my opinion, one of the best character actors in the city. (In my review, I called him "the best." However, hyperbole might suffice in a review, but in reality, if I had to pick one it woudl be either Reichgott or Tim Moyer.) It's why he gets cast so often, and so well, but also defines his limits. This is apparent even in the Lantern's current Government Inspector, where he ostensibly plays the second male lead, but can't match the versatility of Luigi Sottile or (especially) Anthony Lawton.

Jared Reed: Definitely versatile enough for the role, and most likely capable of displaying the psychological complexity Bogosian's part demands. But I've never seen him tower over a performance with the kind of looming, dangerous pathos that Talk Radio requires (For those who haven't seen Bogosian's play, in a pivotal scene, the character of Barry Champlain displays the bravado/lunacy--and fright--to open a possible mail bomb. For the record, Felder did this well at New City.)

John Zak: With the exception of The Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival's The Tempest, (where he won a Barrymore Award for his performance as the grotesque Caliban), I've seen Zak play mostly humorous parts that capitalize on a seemingly shape-shifting persona (one that eerily mirrors Caliban, minus the monstrosity), but since then, all humor. Maybe a good second choice.

Jered McLenigan: After seeing him read the part of Stanley Kowalski in EgoPo's reading of A Streetcar Named Desire, I wasn't sold on his "Stella!" but was sold on his ability to be both masculine and weak, confident and insecure. I don't know if he was working during New City's production or if they auditioned him. But he stands as my first choice. Plus, unlike Felder, he's over 30.

Scott Greer: Go see him in 1812's current Cherry Bomb. Then see New City's Talk Radio. Greer's right for the role (if he can tone down his booming personality enough), but he would have outstripped and too far outshone the rest of the cast at 1812--something that Felder (to his and director Bill Roudebush's credit) didn't do. (Though Felder did this, but unintentionally, at Act 2's recent Magnetic North, where even a good actress like Christie Parker received so much poor direction that Felder was the only person on stage worth watching.)

Chris Patrick Mullen: For anyone who saw his John Proctor in People's Light and Theatre's recent The Crucible, it's clear that the role of Barry Champlain would almost waste Mullen's talents.

Of course, I'd welcome any other suggestions.

Review of "Death and the Maiden" at the Curio Theatre, published in Edge Philadelphia

2007-10-24T12:57:00.001-07:00

While the American media seethes over Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence (and before that, Ford’s exculpation of Nixon), our news outlets devote considerably less attention to the pardoning of crimes perpetrated by the world’s more brutal regimes. The question in most of these countries is the moral theme that drives Ariel Dorfman’s play Death and the Maiden: “When the same judges who excused a government’s behavior now sit on the same benches to grant pardons, what happens to the criminals?”

With a script filled with heady political discourse, ambiguous ethical dilemmas, and three characters whose past and motivations he stains with disturbing moral complexities, Dorfman doesn’t make his play easy for any cast or director to stage. Yet Gay Carducci’s skillful direction and the superior talents of Curio Theatre’s cast creates a forceful and emotionally stirring production that seemingly makes short work out of Death and the Maiden.

Dorfman’s play takes place in an unnamed country still emerging from the remnants of a brutal dictatorship into the relative tranquility of democracy. Human rights lawyer Gerard Endawe (Jerry Rudasill) has accepted a recent appointment to head an official commission, one dedicated to investigate and uncover the truth about crimes committed by the former government.

He and his wife Paulina (Erika Hicks) hold a particular stake in the matter. While both sided with the opposition, she was imprisoned, tortured, and raped for her participation, and has yet to recover fully.

A chance roadside encounter—a flat tire without a spare—brings him into contact with the Good Samaritan Dr. Miranda (Paul Kuhn), who drives him home.

Paulina overhears them talking, and immediately believes that she recognizes Miranda’s voice as that of the doctor who prolonged the life of her fellow captives, assisting in their torture, and who had even raped her. Taking her husband’s gun, she binds Miranda, and through the course of an evening, works him over, both to extract a confession of his guilt and enact the vengeance that will allow her to finally move forward with her life.

From a seemingly awkward start that downplays the level of trust and genuine affection between the married couple, Carducci strikes a balance between the interests of all three characters. He skillfully escalates and draws out the tension between each link in the triangle, effectively highlighting the moral ambiguities and potential evidence revealed in Dorfman’s play: Gerard once promised to avenge Paulina, Miranda’s fondness for Schubert (the music played while she was tortured), and Paulina’s own longstanding rancor that suddenly finds a convenient, though much needed outlet.

Hick’s conveys a searing embodiment of her character’s pain, while at the same time showing the internal struggle between her desire to move forward and her uncertainty over what—violence or forgiveness—will best make that possible. As Gerard, Rudasill gave the evening’s most intense performance, that of a man walking through the minefield of his wife’s past, while trying to balance the interests of their future (his really) against the absurdity of the painful dilemma in which she’s placed him.

And while Hick’s sense of outrage tips the scales for many in the audience (who nearly cheer when she strikes or threatens Miranda), Kuhn’s brilliantly subtle innocence never allows them to sit in definitive judgment of his character. The question “Did he or didn’t he?” drives the play’s plot, and while the script offers hints, Kuhn’s spellbinding performance reveals nothing.

Kuhn’s set design-in-the-round even amplifies this by encouraging judgment, placing jury boxes of seats nearly inside the Endawe’s home, while Jared Reed’s sound design eerily accentuates the seaside location, a pacific background noise of waves crashing on the shore that creates a perfect contrast for the symphony of violence Paulina inflicts.

Who should forgive, forget, or do either? Will purges following regime change—democratic or otherwise—amount to any good or sense of justice achieved?

Curio’s production obliquely references South Africa, both in mentioning Soweto and transposing the “Escobar’s” from Dorfman’s original script into the “Endawe’s” of this production. If they intentionally specified this location, it’s only gives more reason to applaud the craft in their production.

After nearly half a century of human rights abuses, South Africa’s new government purposefully refrained from policies of redistribution and revenge against the former regime. But like Paulina’s character laments, how fair is it that the victims “must always make the necessary compromises to move a country forward,” when they’re the very ones who suffered the injustice? Dorfman’s play offers no easy answers. Curio’s production asks them with a fury.

Review of "Rigoletto" at the Opera Company of Philadelphia, published in Edge Philadelphia

2007-10-24T12:55:00.000-07:00

Dramatically, the story of Rigoletto has everything to recommend it. Francesco Piave closely based his libretto on a play by Victor Hugo, whose theme consists of curse-spewing vengeance (fulfilled, no less), larger than life characters including a hunchback, assassin, and a philandering Duke, and a tightly woven plot centered on seduction, filial love, and revenge.

Musically, Verdi achieves a minor perfection to match, with the Duke’s easily recognizable arias and the tender songs of devotion offset by the dark intensity of Rigoletto’s anguish stricken numbers, not to mention one of the most engaging quartets in the genre. Little surprise that Verdi’s work ranks as the ninth most performed opera in America.

Verdi’s opera opens on the Duke of Mantua candid pursuit of the wife of one of his courtiers, a fellow noble named Ceprano. The Duke’s jester Rigoletto suggests simply imprisoning Ceprano, which the Duke considers before he’s interrupted by the appearance of Monterone, whose daughter the Duke had earlier seduced. While Rigoletto mocks, Monterone vows revenge, and the Duke sentences to death this potential threat to his libertinism, but not before Monterone puts a curse on both the Duke and Rigoletto.

Fearing Rigoletto’s influence, Ceprano and the court abduct Rigoletto’s daughter Gilda (they believe she is his mistress). Unbeknownst to them, the Duke has been disguising himself as a poor student in order to see Gilda on the sly, resisting his possibly true feelings of love while deceiving her into loving him nonetheless. When the courtiers bring her to the Duke’s palace, Rigoletto swears revenge, and hires the assassin Sparafucile to kill the Duke, after which he and Gilda can escape to neighboring Verona. Little of these competing plans come to fruition, as fate cruelly intervenes at the cross purposes of human action to ensure the tragedy and fulfill Monterone’s curse.

Musically, this is the best production I’ve seen at the Opera of Philadelphia since their 2003 Il Trovatore, largely due to the company premiere of Israeli born soprano Chen Reiss in the role of Gilda.

Matthew Polenzani, the much-hyped tenor playing the Duke, sings beautifully the solo arias that everyone loves in this opera (Questa o quella, La Donna e mobile), with his honey-toned voice so charming to hear that I didn’t even mind how softly the orchestra played underneath his singing.

Yet he’s exceptional when singing with Reiss, as she brings out of him not only more volume, but also the most pleasing aspects of his voice, particularly in the flourishes (the “Adio” runs) that end their first scene together.

Alan Opie‘s Rigoletto gravelly baritone proves capable, if not outstanding, expressing his anguish more through his pained expressions and tantrums of rage than in his singing. Kirk Eichelberger looms over the stage powerfully as the Duke-cursing Monterone, and Dimitrie Lazich‘s Marullo, and particularly Julian Rodescu‘s Sparafucile admirably round out this cast.

However, the evening’s real delight emanated from Reiss’ flawless, brilliantly controlled, beautifully sung performance. Beyond her exquisite coloratura, she made comprehensible to me (for the first time out of the half-dozen or so productions of this opera I’ve seen) the motivations why her character would sacrifice herself to such a lecher as the Duke.

Here, her singing proves all the difference—portraying a caged lament when paired with Rigoletto, contrasted strongly against the happiness of a moment’s freedom and the joyful exuberance of first love that her voice conveys when singing with the Duke. She makes the choice of options so visibly (audibly, really) clear that her fatal choice almost seems obvious.

(Ms Reiss, thank you for clearing up the only problem I’ve ever had with your character’s motivations in this opera. Now, if someone could finally show me why Sparafucile abandons his otherwise proud assassin’s duty…)

Dramatically, the new production suffered, though not from any aspects of the visually opulent staging. No sooner did the anguish-driven overture end than the curtain raised upon a palatial revelry brought to life by jugglers, ballerinas, clowns, and courtiers, all resplendently bedecked in Richard St. Clair’s costumes, right down to a Duke entirely clad in the devil’s red. Paul Shortt’s set design impresses by sheer enormity, notably the massive Rubenesque-styled painting that depicts an abduction (after his Leucippus, rather than his Sabine Women) which hangs over the entrance to the Duke’s chambers in Act II.

Yet (maybe because of all this) Robert B. Driver’s direction somehow manages to underscore the dark and tragic aspects of the story. Granted, the extremity of the tragic impact only comes in the very last scene (enhanced superbly by Drew Billiau’s lighting), but for a opera which contains a forced abduction, judicial murders, a curse, multiple currents of revenge, and deep moments of shame, nothing seems dark, and none of the negative emotions seem effectively conveyed by the production. Nothing made this lack more evident than when the audience laughed after Sparafucile told his sister to “mend the sack” in which he plans to put the corpse of his next victim (in addition to their laughter during several other nasty moments in the plot).

Not that Verdi’s opera could ever achieve a happy ending. Rigoletto, who proudly exclaims, “Let the world behold the Jester and the King,” gets a comeuppance undeserved by any figure in tragedy, while the only innocent figure in the piece suffers irreparably.

Yet Rigoletto stands as one of the more powerful and penetrating operas written, and the opportunity to see this piece in a musically beautiful new production marks a reason for opera loving Philadelphians to rejoice. My only hope: that the Opera Company of Philadelphia will plan their future seasons around more opportunities for Ms. Reiss to perform here.

An absolute must see.

Two Recent Arts Editorials published at The Broad Street Review

2007-10-24T12:39:00.000-07:00

‘Death and the Maiden’ and Duke U. lacrosse BY: Jim Rutter 10.20.2007 Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden takes an even-handed look at the question of due process vs. cathartic revenge. But his premature support for action against Duke University’s lacrosse players suggests where his sympathies lie.

Death and the Maiden. By Ariel Dorfman. Through October 27, 2007 at Curio Theatre, 815 South 48 St. (215) 525-1350 or www.curiotheatre.org.

Click on the image above to read the article published at the Broad Street Review.

Artists and criminals BY: Jim Rutter 09.08.2007 Should a convicted drug dealer be allowed to put on a show about his crime? Performance artist Christian Lisak raised that question with his recent monologue, That’s Why They Don’t Call It a Picnic. Some Philadelphia theater people say yes and others vehemently disagree, but all of their reactions seem to misunderstand what art— not to mention crime— is really all about.

Click on the image above to read the article published at the Broad Street Review.

Review of "Three Tall Women" at BCKSEET Productions, published in Edge Philadelphia

2007-10-24T12:33:00.000-07:00

BCKSEET Productions kicks off their second season in residence at the Society Hill Playhouse with a compelling production of Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women. Albee’s play—which attempts to come to terms with the memory of his mother—marks a strange choice for this young company, and a difficult choice for any company to attempt.

Act I poses all the problems. Imagine going to a home for seniors, not to see anyone you know, but to walk into the room of a wealthy, cantankerous 92-year-old matron (Jean Brooks, referred to in the script only as “A”), her left arm disintegrating from osteoporosis, her mind melting away under an equally progressive case of Alzheimer’s, to hear her ramble on about her life.

Competing for time in arguments and listening to the stories are two other women: A’s caretaker (Catherine Palfenier, only called “B”), and a young representative from A’s lawyer (Janice Rowland, as “C”). While certain plot-lines surface throughout this act—A believes everyone cheats her, C recoils in horror from the A’s physical decline which B tries to manage with equal parts callousness and compassion—ultimately the first half exists to offer a window into the inner life of the recalcitrant, slightly bigoted woman who once threw Albee out of her house, and with whom he never completely reconciled.

To his credit, Albee fills this seemingly bland scenario with enough intrigue, humor, and bitter and joyful anecdotes, so that director Oscar Dubon and this cast can plough through the first half. (Which is in many ways a placeholder for the meatier material of Act II, where A, B, and C each play Albee’s mother at various stages of her life, as the woman in the twilight of her year’s, at 52, and two year’s before marriage at 26, respectively.)

In Act II Albee offers a captivating scenario that many would like to experience, the opportunity to listen as our future selves give us advance notice of the painful reality to come. Here the play takes off, becoming a dynamic and poignant meditation on the very nature of human experience in a life where the only constant is change. Highly pessimistic (in the philosophical sense), Albee explores the notion that “a person’s character is their fate,” as C points at the future selves that now terrify her with their bitterness and shattered ideals and declares, “I will not become that,” long after the audience has seen the futility of this gesture.

I’ve seen productions of this play where the director seemed to relish in the vitriol, nastiness, and existential anguish, which if taken seriously, would result in “streets littered with adolescent corpses.” Thankfully, Dubon makes some choices that both add dimensions to this play and unburden the audience from the potential viciousness and despair laden into Albee’s script.

Where Albee’s script uses B’s telling her younger self tales of adultery and mid-life anguish in an attempt to implode C’s notion that “happiness is on the way,” Dubon lightens the presentation, having a much softer A than the woman we met in Act I, and by showing the source of B’s cynicism as having more to do with rage in her interaction with Albee’s onstage, though silent, character (Noah Mazaika). The overall feel of the production then capitalizes on the existential themes (when is the happiest time? Why do we struggle?), particularly as enhanced by Steve Heitz’s lighting in the final moments of the play.

All three women help Dubon maintain this softness, particularly Rowland, who gives a searching and very affecting performance that struggles to hold onto the hope of her ideals even while seeing their eventual betrayal. Palfenier’s intermittent callousness in both acts plays nicely against this, nailing the bitter humor in stories like her adulterous interlude with a stable boy on a pile of straw that “probably has shit on it,” while Brooks tames Albee’s mother with an almost sing-song reading of her lines in the second half.

In a sense, Brooks’ acting further cleaves the production in two, as there’s not enough of her temperamental Act I persona or her Act II gentility. But this is a minor loss compared to the only real detraction, which is that these three tall personalities don’t have enough room.

Christopher L. Butterfield’s design isn’t the problem, as the jagged lines of his set aptly harp on the fractured memories and timelines played out on stage. But the small space nonetheless smothers these actors, starving them of the necessary space—personal and theatrical—necessary for them to manifest the grandeur of each of the contradictory epochs in this woman’s life.

At an age where A can’t even remember which one of her husband’s eyes was glass, she remembers being tall. Ultimately this play is much more than Albee’s coming to terms with his mother, and this production very compellingly shows not just a woman who endured, but who fought her way through life with a confidence in the values of an era many are thankful no longer exists. The real question, “How do we not become our future selves, how do we not lose our ideals, our capacity for happiness?” goes unanswered, but I walked away with enough of the impact of Dubon’s production to still ask this question.

Review of "Man of La Mancha" at the Walnut Street Theatre, published in Edge Philadelphia

2007-10-24T12:28:00.000-07:00

For theatre-goers accustomed to the visual and auditory onslaught of musicals written at the end of the 20^th Century, 1965’s Man of La Mancha offers little in the way of the spectacle.

While Dale Wasserman scripted his book for a large cast, only two muted, barely rousing chorus numbers take full advantage of their appearance. Joe Darion’s lyrics on many of the songs range from the straightforward to the simple, and that Mitch Leigh’s score contains four refrains, showing a seemingly boring lack of imagination (this isn’t Wagner where you expect motifs that work, or Andrew Lloyd Webber, where they often don’t). Moreover, though magnificent and impressive, the staging never deviates from Todd Edward Ivins’ initial set, most of the cast spends the entire evening sitting or lying down, little action takes place, and what does occur, all happens within the imagination of the main character. Not exactly a promising premise for a musical.

Yet, in terms of pure spiritual excitement and courage, I can think of no musical that matches it. I’m not referring to church or religion here, but to the spirit of the chivalrous Golden Age of Spanish literature from which this musical draws its source—Cervantes Don Quixote—a spirit that argues for a proud and noble bearing in the face of the constant onslaught of life. And in spite of (or maybe because of) all the elements of a traditional musical that Man of La Mancha lacks, this production still manages to soar.

Set in the late 16^th Century, Man of La Mancha opens on Cervantes (Paul Schoeffler) being thrown into prison by the Inquisition. His fellow prisoners quickly realize by his dress and bearing that he’s a gentleman (not to mention that his servant, Pancho (Jamie Torcellini) accompanies him even in a dungeon), and attack him, justifying themselves by setting up a mock court in which “one’s fellow prisoner’s determine your guilt first.” If found guilty, he must forfeit all his possessions, including the unfinished manuscript of Don Quixote.

Cervantes offers to stage his defense as a re-enactment of his novel—to explain why his “cowardly idealism” (as they see it) has landed him in a dungeon alongside thieves and murderers. More to relieve their boredom than to truly help out, the inmates take their parts, “converting” the dungeon into a castle, inn, and battlefield, the male prisoners into knights, fellow nobles, and priests (today they could play themselves), and having a prostitute named Aldonza play the princess Dulcinea.

It’s much to this musical’s credit and the Walnut Street’s production that they evoke so much of Cervantes novel with so little, a spectacular feat without spectacle that captures the spirit of indomitable virtue arising from imagination’s necessity in escaping despair. If any “spectacle” does color this production, it’s only noticeable in Jack Jacobs lighting that deftly narrates the play like a film camera that shifts from one location to the next.

Director Bruce Lumpkin stages the right amount of tedium and languor in both the prisoners and the background to imbue their side of the production with the necessary contrast for the grandeur of spirit exhibited by Schoeffler’s Quixote. And while Schoeffler initially seems ridiculous shifting back and forth between Cervantes and Quixote (mostly though, because he plays the latter role with the style of “Master Thespian”), his silky baritone quickly redeems his part, softly blending even his show-stoppers into the general tenor of the production.

Thankfully, the one role that gets to scream and make some noise does so with the fire of a hellcat, as Denise Whelan’s Aldonza ignites the stage with her passionate singing, while still managing to provide a heartbreaking final turn of character in the last moments of the play.

When Cervantes wrote his masterpiece four hundred years ago, Spain was slowly unwinding from the knight’s spirit of living boldly, finding beauty and goodness while fighting what was filthy and base. These Aristocratic values, long since lost on a democratic society, came back to life for a few hours at the Walnut Street, where the notion of “living beautifully” lived once more in song.

A two-hour withdraw from the world that’s well worth seeing.

Review of "An Empty Plate at the Cafe du Grand Bouef" at the ArdenTheatre, published in Edge Philadelphia

2007-10-24T12:25:00.000-07:00

Though it delivers a “feast of adjectives and adverbs,” Michael Hollinger’s An Empty Plate at the Café du Grand Boeuf offers little in the way of plot, character development, or (dare I say) entertainment. More of a grad school exercise in animated storytelling than a real play, the Arden’s production of Hollinger’s play only left me hungry for more filling and creative fare.

The Arden Theatre is celebrating their twentieth anniversary in a number of ways. They opened their season with a smash production of Sondheim’s Assassins. In January, they will present a world premiere of Wittenberg, the much-anticipated follow-up to their hit Daedelus of a few years ago. And to solidify and commemorate their long-standing collaboration with local playwright Michael Hollinger, they’re currently reviving An Empty Plate in the Café du Grand Boeuf, the first of the six works that they’ve premiered.

I didn’t see Empty Plate when the Arden first presented it in 1994, but after watching this production, I can’t imagine how it ever launched Michael Hollinger’s career as a nationally produced, nationally recognized playwright.

Empty Plate opens upon the aptly named (I won’t spoil it) interior of the Café du Grand Bouef (Café of the Big Ox), a four star Parisian restaurant devoted solely to the gastronomic satisfaction of one individual, Victor (Douglas Rees), a wealthy American expatriate and former publishing magnate. As much the traveler as gourmand, Victor keeps the restaurant’s temperamental staff on-call 24/7, occasionally dining in to share the latest, fascinating stories of his pan-European exploits.

And that’s about it.

Well, not quite, as Hollinger invokes a pair of twists—one major, one minor—to make this particular evening different from all of Victor’s prior visits. The minor twist: the restaurant’s former busboy (we never meet him) has died, and the staff’s closeted bi-sexual head waiter Claude (Ian Merrill Peakes) has hired the object of his desire Antoine (James William Ijames) as a replacement.

The major twist: Victor, despondent over an unrevealed crisis, has returned from Madrid without his traditional dinner guest Miss Berger (Mikaela Kafka), and now refuses to eat, instead deciding to starve himself to death in the seat of his culinary paradise. Over the course of 90 (long) minutes, the staff tries to restore his “appetite for life,” tempting him with descriptions of a series of “empty plates,” while Victor relates both the story of his life “from birth to a bullfight,” and the present tale of woe that’s caused his despair.

A few plot-lets break up the monotony of his narrative. In his intermittent lust for Antoine, Claude has severely neglected his wife Mimi (Mary McCool), who longs to travel as Victor does. The chef Gaston (Richard Ruiz) despises Claude and secretly pines for Mimi, but fears telling her. Victor longs to die. Antoine, the only self-described happy character, simply longs to work as a journalist.

Now that’s really all there is to this play.

Hollinger conceived Empty Plate as a gourmet-inspired poetic meditation on longing. However, just as longing must be felt, in a play it must also be shown, and while Hollinger masters the art of culinary description (perhaps paying homage to the first careers of actors and playwrights everywhere), and cleverly inserts allusions to stories and snippets from Hemingway, the evening contains no action whatsoever. Like Victor’s twin narratives about life and loss, it’s all told to the audience, with little acted out or shown.

The actors struggle valiantly to overcome this, most notably the energetic Peakes and neurotically amusing McCool, playing the only characters (besides Victor) with enough lines and stage time to do anything with their roles. Dees emanates a certain type of mournful vivacity (indicative of his former self), and his placid, sarcasm heavy demeanor adds color and humor (though over all, this production lost a great deal of the humor of Hollinger’s script). But in the one passage where he’s called upon to act out the tragedy that’s befallen him, he falters, though it’s probably not his fault, as the script calls on the cast to convincingly portray the spectacle of a bull slaughtered in a bullfight.

Like the series of empty plates symbolizing the food left in the kitchen, all I can think is what a waste: of the talent of this cast, Jerold R. Forsyth’s intimate lighting, and Donald Eastman’s gorgeous café interior, the walls themselves a series of oil-painting panels bound by deep mahoghany columns.

As a short story, Hollinger’s play would’ve succeeded very well, and it’s not hard to imagine what Nolen felt when first reading it, that it “leapt off the page at him.” But on the stage it plays like a grad student’s experiment in “animated storytelling.” And while I might expect to entertain children with a main character who does little more than sit in a chair and tell stories, Empty Plate doesn’t satisfy the needs of theatre for grown-ups, or even for those looking for passable entertainment.

In one of her last lines, Mimi comments on one of Victor’s stories, that “it was very eventful.” If only I could say the same of Hollinger’s play, which in the end, only sent me home hungry for more fulfilling theatrical fare.

Review of "Miss Saigon" at the Media Theatre, published in Edge Philadelphia

2007-10-24T12:24:00.000-07:00

People pick the worst times to fall in love. Take Chris (Christopher deProphetis), an embassy guard in Saigon. A few weeks from his redeployment home, he used to “love getting stoned and waking up with some whore,” but now he feels only disgust over the life he’s led in country. Then he meets Kim (Michelle Liu Coughlin), on the night of her first “deployment” in a brothel, and quickly falls in love—as she represents all the innocence that this do-gooder felt when he first arrived in Vietnam.

It’s bad enough when you’re forced to admit to friends, “this is the guy I met while trolling on Craigslist,” but imagine the story he’d have to tell… Such is the plot of the smash musical Miss Saigon, now in production at the Media Theater. Or rather, it would’ve been the plot, if NVC’s hadn’t overrun the embassy in 1975, forcing Chris to flee on the last helicopter, abandoning the woman now pregnant with his child.

Back in the states, Chris has (re)married—Kim believes they had wed after a village ceremony—and only returns to Southeast Asia after a visit from his old army buddy John (Jonathon Lee Iverson) informs him that he has a son, now living in Bangkok with Kim. Chris and the new wife Ellen (Jessica Edwards), though realizing that they could provide a much better life for the child in America, struggle over what to do with the child, causing some conflict, (if they had only asked themselves “What Would Angelina Do?”), before Kim preempts their decision with one of her own at the musical’s end.

My insensitive jokes aside, Miss Saigon stands as both a powerful love story, a tale of a mother’s love, and the failure of good intentions that too often lead to tragedy, set to emotionally powerful (some would say manipulatively so) music and lyrics by Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil—the same pair that wrote Les Mis—with additional lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr.

Under Jesse Cline’s direction, the Media’s production focuses mostly on the love story, but in what’s quickly becoming his signature style, Cline took a story of drunk, roughhousing GI’s, Vietnamese prostitutes and violent pimps, and a war ravaged country, and made it even lewder. After watching this production, I felt like I needed to take a bath.

Which is to this production’s credit, as Kim is no “hooker with a heart of gold,”—a character for whom prostitution is romanticized in everything from Madame Butterfly to Pretty Woman—but a farm girl who watched her family butchered, her village burnt to the ground, and found that her only escape from both the atrocities of war and a prearranged marriage to a violent cousin (Anton Briones) lay in (literally) prostitution. There’s nothing romantic in this—and Cline (rightly) doesn’t treat it that way. Instead, he intensifies the drama by letting her remaining innocence become the last battlement in her psyche to fall victim to this onslaught.

Cline also managed to assemble a stellar cast to sing the 30-plus songs this musical contains. As Chris, deProphetis seems chosen as much for his physique—one that equals his rich voice—and for his earnest, American-boy appeal, that he conveys well in his innocent, though bumbling manner. Coughlin adds her own charm, delighting as Kim, so long as she’s not forced to belt unendingly under Steve Ertelt’s musical direction (that also requires this of most of the cast). Moreover, she plays her role to great effect—shy and demure enough throughout that she devastates when she cries, “you don’t know what I’ve done to be here.”

But the supporting cast nearly runs away with the show. Briones gorgeous voice sparkles vocally in the darkest role, and Iverson’s and Edwards’ compelling solo numbers emotionally anchor their conflicting interests. John Haggerty’s engineer—the comedic undercurrent and embodiment of seediness—sings and entertains wildly, even if not quite nasty enough to convince that he’s capable of the violence that colors his daily life as a pimp.

The production values run high overall—though inconsistently in the minor details, which put Michelob Ultra bottles and German Luger pistols into a show set in 1975’s Vietnam—glitches which offset the impressive onstage appearances of a helicopter and a vintage Harley. And while Joshua Schulman’s lighting brought nightclubs, dream sequences, and gate-crashed embassies powerfully to life, the poor sound design and technical problems made the choral numbers mostly incomprehensible.

Like in Vietnam, the lengthy musical is one long set up for the events in the plot to tragically devastate Kim’s innocence at the end. Cline doesn’t ignore these political implications either—though to his credit, he touched upon this without resorting to heavy-handedness, deftly incorporating History Channel footage from that era into the songs to show the effects of a war-torn country—showing the general suffering that mirrors the individual tragedy in Kim’s story.

It’s hard to imagine a similar story today. Prostitution’s better monitored in Iraq, and more stringently enforced against in Islam, though I’m sure it won’t stop composers twenty years from competing to write the first drafts of Miss Bagdad. And while it’s tough to imagine anyone romanticizing current events in the Mideast at any time, I’m glad that this fall we had Cline’s production of Miss Saigon: a tragic, spectacularly performed story of love and devastation brought to life on the Media stage.

Review of "Company B" at the Pennsylvania Ballet, published in Edge Philadelphia

2007-10-24T12:20:00.000-07:00

The Pennsylvania Ballet opened their 44^th season with Paul Taylor’s Company B, the featured work in an evening that also offered George Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco, and As It’s Going, by the Pennsylvania Ballet’s choreographer-in-residence Matthew Neenan. Though the dancers upheld their consistently high standards of performance (for the most part), contrasts—both between the works and within them—both delighted and annoyed.

If it’s possible to describe choreography as “Baroque,” where each movement matches one of the notes, Concerto Barocco fits that definition. In Balanchine’s piece, set to Bach’s Concerto in D minor for Two Violins, two principal dancers (during this evening, Arantxa Ochoa and Amy Aldridge) play the “violins” of the piece, mirroring the score of the music in their movements.

To keep pace with the music, the dancers mimic the progressions of Bach’s chords through their sharp, nearly explosive, but perfectly controlled movements. There’s no plot or story, just a bare stage and a blue background, but Balanchine’s choreography nonetheless achieved a spiritual brilliance, an enchanting embodiment of Bach’s work. To see Ochoa and Aldridge dance to Balanchine’s choreography truly exhilarated, and the visual effect of their performance mesmerized.

Neenan’s As It’s Going offered an equally athletic, mostly in pairs choreography, with lots of lifts and tremendous physicality of motion and a structure that seems to echo the style of Concerto Barocco. But the plotless choreography here marks a frustrating difference between the first and second pieces of the evening. Where Balanchine does away with plot, he still keeps an overall structure, using Bach’s music as the backbone that structures the sequence of movements.

Neenan, by contrast, has one movement follow another in the way a bipolar sufferer (touched with a mild case of ADD) would suddenly express one contradictory emotion after the next. Only here, we see this affliction in movement, and while the effect sometimes pleases, it’s more often than not simply ridiculous, showcasing lots of technical artistry, but very little art.

His work does offer powerful images, utilizing the physical, aerial style of his choreography, combined with the ending moments of each of his pieces to great visual effect (John Hoey’s lighting helped out tremendously). However, even this is mere cleverness of style, as what Neenan effects at the end of each movement stands at a stark disconnect from the rest of the piece.

It’s not that Neenan can’t produce a coherent work either, as his seventh movement makes clear. Here he combines the physicality of his work with well-patterned ensemble choreography to produce something that’s harmonious visually and artistically.

Taylor’s Company B, paired to the 1930’s and 40’s hits of the Andrews Sisters, is engaging, spirited, and lots of fun. The music’s great to hear (I walked home humming the signature “Bei Mir Bist du Schon”), and the dancing incorporates or touches upon swing, jitterbug, and polka styles from that period. Santo Loquasto’s charming period costumes (think polka-dots and chinos), and the great hairstyles added to the overall feel of being carried back in time.

Many of the themes—love and loss, young men marching off to war during the heartbreaking “There Will Never Be Another You” number (captivatingly danced by Lindsay Purrington)—still resonate today. Though devoid of an overall story line, Company B offered some of the best-acted performances of the night, and how could it not? These songs of youth and free-spiritedness from a more optimistic time fit right in with the qualities that these dancers both posses and emanate in abundance.

But I’m puzzled as to why a ballet company should perform some of the numbers, especially the ones that either incorporate little classical (or even 20^th C.) technique. Some rough spots make the differences in the training clear, as none of the ensemble in “Oh Johnny” can bob their heads convincingly, except Barette Vance. Her attitude throughout suggests that she’s one of the few who captures the overall spirit of Company B, and her sizzling and sultry dancing to “Rum and Coca-Cola” marked the best performance of the piece.

If only they had performed the Balanchine piece last (rather than first), the evening would not only have achieved a better style of presentation, but provided more enjoyment as well. Though ending on the Andrews Sister’s music puts the catchiest piece last, Balanchine’s superior choreography provides the best performances of the night, giving balletomanes what they came to the ballet to see.

Review of "Amadeus" at the Wilma Theatre, published in Edge Philadelphia

2007-10-24T12:18:00.001-07:00

In his landmark study on envy, the Austrian sociologist Helmut Schoeck alleged that “the greatest civilizing effect of Christianity lay in its ability to temper the destructive influences of envy.” Of course, Schoeck wrote this before he could have seen Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus, especially the tersely-crafted, mesmerizing production now onstage at the Wilma Theatre.

In Amadeus, Christianity's instead the force that motivates an envy-driven hatred—at least for Salieri (Dean Nolen), the Viennese Court Composer who believes in a God that makes real and irreversible bargains with men. As a 16 year old, he promises the heavens that he will lead a life of virtue in exchange for musical ability, so that he can speak the pure language of God, and serve as a vessel to glorify Him on earth.

However, years later, when the younger, more brilliant (though less successful) Mozart (Drew Hirshfield) arrives in Vienna, Salieri instead hears God’s voice “spoken through an obscene child. Accusing God of reneging on their agreement, Salieri vows to destroy Mozart, and thereby block God’s presence on earth.

Or so this 18^th C. composer of operas claims in his final composition, performed for a “conjured audience,” and entitled, “The Death of Mozart,” or “Did I Do It.”

In Shaffer’s drama, Mozart comments on the difference between plays and opera, arguing that the latter—by using music to intensify and evoke dramatic action—represents the supreme form of drama. With many other plays I’m inclined to agree, but to director Jiri Zizka’s credit, the caliber of his production of this stage play entranced me as much as most of the operas I’ve ever seen. His lightning quick pacing, the inclusion of Mozart’s music to intensify Salieri’s anguish, his choice of how to have Hirshfield play Mozart, and stunning projected backdrops take a play infused with esoteric stretches of narratives where the central conflict is fought between Salieri and an unseen God, and ignites it into an emotionally-charged sensory explosion on the stage.

While the Oscar winning movie (and many stage productions I’ve seen) focus on the “Mozart-as-boy-genius” aspect of his character—with “boy” as the operant term—Zizka and Hirshfield’s approach instead portrays him as a musical talent who can’t fully make himself a servant to those he considers incompetents that should rightly get out of his way. Hirshfield’s Mozart—almost a boy Nietzsche—can’t (or won’t) control his tongue, offending everyone, not only increasing the tension by enraging Salieri, but also lessening the effects of Salieri’s wickedness.

This choice clearly pays off, when toward the end of the play, Salieri asks the audience, “which of you would refuse the opportunity to block a disliked human rival?” and the barely controlled silence showed at least a partial belief in his justification of a wickedness that carried the evening’s tension.

Of course, the production would suffer by more than degrees without Nolen’s Salieri. Compelling from his first throaty-voiced moments on stage, he proves no less a maestro dramatically than the much-maligned composer was musically, and makes it difficult to believe that someone so charming and sparkling could behave so viciously. Moreover, he balances these elements with such precision—only allowing the scales to tip decidedly in the closing moment of the play—entrancing with a subtle evolution of character that’s a devilish delight to watch.

The remainder of the cast serves to either increase the humor— Christian Kauffmann’s delightful stooge of an Emperor, and Pete Pryor and Jared McLenigan’s “little winds” blowing rumors through Vienna while updating the chronological backdrop of the play—or function as the obstacles Salieri sets along the path of Mozart’s destruction. Only Mary Rasmussen, as Mozart’s wife Constanze, shows the sense of defending loyalty and sympathy to Mozart’s plight (that perhaps we should all feel), in her apt portrayal of a boarding-house owner’s daughter unsure of how to function when elevated to a world above her upbringing.

Robert Pyzocha’s set design festooned the entire theatre space with long white draperies, fittingly contrasting the sense of innocence in Salieri’s rendition of his story with the cobwebbed sense of history conveyed in the dust and spider web covered chandeliers hanging above the audience. And though the text has someone call Mozart’s coat “vulgar,” Janus Stefanowicz’s costumes capture nothing less than the spirit of pure pageantry that dominated the aristocratic era.

In our age, we’re used to seeing men war with other men because of God; Shaffer’s play provides an intriguing example of one man warring against another to spite Him. While there’s something initially admirable about a man who engages in pitched combat with a deity (even if today we lack the pleasure of justifying our envy-driven abuse in this manner) the Wilma shows everything that’s admirable about a production that brings this battle to life.

Review of "Beyond Therapy" at Villanova, published 10-08-2007 in the Main Line Ticket

2007-10-24T12:17:00.001-07:00

Long before the films of Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler, (playwright) Christopher Durang perfected the genre of zany comedies driven by over-the-top characters thrown into otherwise usual/normal situations. Case in point: his hilarious early 80’s comedy “Beyond Therapy,” now receiving a slightly updated, slightly imbalanced production at Villanova University.

Prudence (Rachel Anne Stephan) and Bruce (Carl C. Granieri), two imperfect thirty-something’s, use online personals to look for love and maybe another marriage. She’s a homophobic uptight perfectionist, he’s an overly emotional bisexual living with his lover Bob (Luke Moyer). Both struggle through the relationship on the advice of their respective therapists—Dr. Framingham (Jeffrey S. Paden), a slimeball who bases his advice on trying to sleep with her again, and Charlotte Wallace (Amy Walton), who absentmindedly occupies the session with her own problems. Durang’s approach echoes through Wallace’s advice: “If you take psychological suffering in the right frame of mind, you can find humor in it.”

Dina Amin’s direction attempts to capitalize on the topical humor by updating the script (though not enough—it still feels like a period piece), but veers wildly between comedy that’s neither consistently frantic and over-the-top or consistently straightforward enough. Some lapses in timing further tarnish the production, particularly the stilted ending, which rather than giving one last explosion of absurdity or tapering off the play’s comedic high, falls apart entirely. Her best choice of the night: writing in a café singer for the adorably corny, vocally talented Janet McWilliams.

Some of the production’s imbalance lies in the cast, as only Walton’s blisteringly funny performance truly understands her part (even though in this production, her apt playing seems almost out of place). Granieri’s emotional dexterity produces one laugh after another, and finds a fitting compliment in Moyer’s pouting and ridiculously straightforward portrayal. By contrast, Stephan, whose character is fraught with indecision and constantly frazzled, plays her part too confidently. Whenever she declares, “I’m going,” I expected her to do anything but stay put. Meanwhile, Paden’s womanizer is never ridiculous or sleazy enough to effect the humor of his role.

While not the laugh riot Durang intended, the production nonetheless illustrates both the absurdity of imperfect professionals helping their imperfect clients, and Durang’s commentary on the silliness built into every relationship. If you’re longing for a comedy that’s delightfully off-kilter, or that nostalgically pokes fun at an era when patients solved their problems by lying on couches rather than popping pills, Villanova’s production will prove quite therapeutic.

Review of "Boy Gets Girl" at Celebration Theatre, published 10-17-2007 in the NEWS of Delaware County

2007-10-24T12:15:00.000-07:00

Don’t meet for a blind date at Celebration Theatre. At least not during their current run of Rebecca Gilman’s psychological thriller “Boy Gets Girl,” where the question, “What’s wrong with pursing a woman?” only finds a tragic answer.

In Gilman’s play, slightly misanthropic journalist Theresa Bedell (Jennifer Summerfield) meets the socially awkward Tony (Jim Hopper) for a blind date. After a few missteps, the evening ends a qualified success, and she agrees to date number two. Here, his lack of sensitivity (“so, are you like a feminist?”) fails to conceal a smothering pushiness, and Theresa uses the familiar “it’s not you, it’s me” to end the evening and refuse any future engagements.

But he won’t hear it. A few dozen phone calls later, she tells him to get lost, and he turns from creepy annoyance into threatening stalker, interfering with her life, both at home and work.

Coinciding with Tony’s escalating intrusions, Theresa’s magazine requires her to interview Les Kennkat (Ben Kendall), an aging cult-figure and producer of B-movie sexploitation films. He initially becomes the target of her misdirected anger, as do her sympathetic coworkers Howard (Ed Gretz) and Mercer (JP Timlin), but when the stalking intensifies to violence, she finally seeks the help of Officer Madeleine Beck (Laura Cevallos). Beck’s pitiless policewoman advice: get a new number, apartment, and identity, because in her experience, these problems only end in tragedy.

Celebration’s superb effort marks one of the best non-professional productions I’ve ever seen. Dave Ebersole’s direction engages immediately, effectively exploiting Gilman’s Hitchcockian device (can’t give that away), while crafting a performance that mines the script’s latent humor only to escalate the tension further.

However, little competes for, or captures the attention more than Summerfield’s penetrating portrayal of a woman under siege. Even the quality of her laughter changes under the crippling stress, as the tremendous depth she brings to this role conveys the ever-intensifying degree of the simmering terror she experiences.

The solid ensemble performances radiate outward from her tremendous portrayal, most notably Kendall’s intentionally scene-stealing humor, Gretz’s and Timlin’s amiable protectiveness, and the harmless looking Hopper, who deftly turns surface-level awkwardness into venom.

Rodney Bruce Warren’s well-structured set, Ebersole and Bill Bansbach’s score-like sound design, and especially Paul Peyton Moffitt’s chilling lighting all enhance the force of this electrifying production.

Only Gilman’s script interferes, veering off into quasi-feminist politics and cultural analysis as she tries to insert the theme that “Tony is not alone in how he sees women.” While some of her points ring true—Theresa argues that saying, “he’s a good guy who can’t deal with women” no longer counts, as it really means that a man “can’t deal with half the population”—the majority of Gilman’s message only impedes the play’s second act.

Thankfully, Ebersole diligently handles the thematic distractions, enabling the cast to make Gilman’s arguments believable extensions of their characters, while Summerfield’s ever-more brittle responses never allow a drop in the tension that deflects from the thrust of the plot.

This hard-hitting play represents a powerful season opener for Celebration Theatre. As Theresa clings to the last shards of her identity, Tony reduces her to one final humiliating option. In this disturbing production, boy gets girl after all.

"Best of the Fringe: Part II," published in the NEWS of Delaware County, Sept. 12, 2007

2007-09-13T01:25:00.000-07:00

The Philadelphia Fringe Festival continued through its first full week, with productions that ranged from the lackluster to the spectacular. Since the bad ones aren’t worth writing about, here’s some of the best I’ve seen:

Drexel Hill’s Music and Motions dance group’s performance of Red exploded in a series of color and movement, displaying a vibrant versatility of styles that incorporated and fused ballet, jazz, hip-hop, and gymnastics. Here, Stephen Weisz’s choreography showed a creative mastery of these genres, both in elegant and moving duets and dazzlingly complex group numbers. Why he’s not earning more money directing music videos is both a mystery (his hip-hop pieces were energetic and alive in ways you won’t find on MTV) and a testament to his artistic devotion to the future of his craft.

The Fringe is often a place for works too controversial and challenging to find theatres willing to take a risk on these productions during their regular season, and this year’s festival is no exception. New York’s Stone Soup Theatre Arts troupe led the more challenging of these works with their production of Edward Bond’s Stone. Bond’s play draws the audience on an allegorical journey that fuses vaudeville song and mythic writing (not to mention a striptease), in an existential look at the apparent futility of life. A fascinating production, with Chris Wild giving the best acting performance I’ve seen at this year’s Fringe.

Diving deeper into the controversial, New Jersey’s The Riot Group presented the world premiere of Adriano Shaplin’s Hearts of Man. This compelling new work takes a stance on which few theatres would risk offending their mostly moderate audiences: the notion that Megan’s Law and cyber task-force stings—the kind featured in the “To Catch a Predator” series—often ensnare lesser types than the hard-core pedophiles, and in those cases do more harm than good. Shaplin’s play sparkles with lines of true poetry (he was the first playwright-in-residence for the Royal Shakespeare Company), and Riot Group’s Stephanie Viola and Kristen Sieh give powerful and heart-rending performances as the legal team trying to defend the worst cast-offs of society.

I’m split on my best pick of the week, neither of which posed a controversy, and both of which fall into the category of musicals. Philadelphia’s BCKSEET Productions played their rock and roll Hung on a Blonde Ponytail, about the tragic (and I don’t use that word lightly) breakup of a rock duo on the eve of their greatest success. Brilliantly structured as a mystery, the exhilarating performance of Greg DeCandia (singing his own lyrics), features original compositions by Joe Horak in an evening that explores the often devastating history that lies in the life behind an album. With better quality singing and songs than you’ll find in any current top 20 lineup, I can’t recommend this performance enough.

But Brooklyn punk legends World/Inferno Friendship Society gave by far the hippest show I’ve seen at this year’s fringe in Addicted to Bad Ideas, their punk rock operetta about the life of troubled actor Peter Lorre. Their ninety-minute set took the audience on an odyssey through not only his life, but also the styles of music—ranging from swing, jazz, blues, and rock, and from big band to punk—of the entire 20^th Century. Jack Terricloth’s charismatic singing fused the silky voice of Brian Setzer with the mesmerizing fury of the Sex Pistols, backed up by an overpowering nine-piece band of horns, percussion, and electric guitar. Though their run already ended, catch them on their return tour through Philadelphia on Friday, Sept. 21 at the First Unitarian Church, for what will probably be the most invigorating and wildest show of the season.

Review of "Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical," published by EDGE Philadelphia

2007-09-13T01:24:00.000-07:00

Poor Debbie Benton. She’s got a great life as captain of the cheerleading squad, and a chance to make the Dallas Cowgirls when she graduates. However, her parents consider cheering a form of “outdoor burlesque,” and won’t help provide the money she so desperately needs to relocate to Texas. What’s a girl to do but form her own company (aptly named “Teen Services”), and bleed the pockets of all the sexually frustrated and lonely men in town?

When I was in high school, all the cheerleaders worked as cashiers or waitresses. Then again, my life (regrettably) didn’t follow the plotlines of a 70’s porn classic.

Such though, is the story of Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical, the hit off-Broadway show written by Erica Schmidt and Susan Schwartz to Andrew Sherman’s music, now performed by To The Wall Productions as part of the 2007 Philadelphia Fringe.

However, the only overlap lies in the plot (there’s no nudity), and only the goofiness of the piece matches the style of a 70’s porno, except with much better music. Schwartz and Schmidt wrote this as a send up, and director Dawn K Cowle treats it as nothing less. After her first encounter (“Ten Dollars Closer to My Dream”) with frustrated adults willing to pay far more than minimum wage for what girls now give away for free on spring break videos, Debbie (Kara Senich) pauses philosophically to remark, “I suddenly feel as if everything is clear to me and I know how I must live.” The ridiculousness builds by degrees from here, as the girls slowly take offers for teen services from all of their various bosses, and song and dance numbers become just so much hysterically simulated sex on stage. Even the sensuality is contrived, as the leering of the adults more resembles Mr. Furley than Jack Tripper. (Sorry, can’t help with the 70’s references here.)

And while DDD contains a few oblique references, both literary (to the Scarlett Letter, no less) and political (one of the girls longs to run for Senate, and worries that she needs a spotless background to enter politics), most of the humor requires a less urbane audience background. Due to the nature of the show, most of those seated in Sister’s nightclub this evening were 20-something members of Generation Porn, all of whom laughed in full comprehension at the jokes, having no trouble understanding the reference during a water-gun fight when one of the girls mock-erotically cried out, “get it all over my glasses.”

Thankfully, Cowle never lets an opportunity for humor go unused, and makes this musical as much about a porn film as Legally Blonde represents the legal field. A few rare intrusions of semi-serious sentimentality (when a voice-over announces, “and now, a song from the heart”) break the mood with no real effect, and display the only moments of awkwardness in a thoroughly ridiculous send-up. Of course, too much of anything wears thin, but by the time Debbie’s plot takes its last twist—having her give up her virginity for more money than she could dream of—this cast has so successfully created a spirit of ludicrousness onstage, that the self-referential attempt at the fringe festival becomes more of a nuisance than a joke. (Not that anyone stopped laughing though.)

Although this show might not make Senich a star (it’s one of the jokes), this production should certainly bring some much-deserved attention to everyone in the cast. Senich delights in her bubbly, naïve portrayal, and an impressive ensemble makes a wild evening out of this material, with Caitlin Reilly (as the future first lesbian Senator Tammy) and John Greenbaum (in multiple roles) delivering hysterical character-based performances.

I hope that Cowle restages this show later in the season—hopefully in a place with better sightlines—so that larger audiences can better see the wild physical humor of this show, and experience the smash production she’s made of it. Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical was some of the most fun I’ve had at this year’s Fringe.

Review of Nice People Theatre's production of "Killing Women," published by EDGE Philadelphia

2007-09-11T00:35:00.000-07:00

Three women, struggling their way through workplace filled with sexism, glass ceilings, and eventually beat the odds and the rule of their male bosses, rising half-heartedly, to some satisfaction and a place at the top.

Though it sounds familiar, it’s not Nine to Five, or even Working Girl, but a piece of theatre, in this case, the allegorical comedy Killing Women by Marisa Wegrzyn, in production at this year’s Fringe by the Nice People Theatre Company.

Killing Women centers around the lives of three professional hit-women. Gwen (Miriam White), married to an assassin, enjoyed her tenure as a stay at home mom, and never wanted anything to do with her husband’s career, though she possesses a real knack for offing people. Abby (Annie Erickson), on the other hand, killed her one true love in order to pursue a career to the top, only to run against the glass ceiling that exists even in the murdering business. Lucy (Nicole Blicher), lies somewhere in between the two. Vaguely interested in her job (but refusing to use guns, as the trigger breaks her nails), she uses her job contacts to meet potential boyfriends, only to find her work a nuisance when her contract requires their deaths.

As allegories go, well, there’s probably a reason that Aesop composed his fables about humans with animal characters. Besides the over-used vehicle that Wegrzyn’s play adopts (society has long described business as “making a killing,” or their jobs as being “murder out there”), the overlap between what these women do in their work, and the actual business world situation becomes too confusing in her play.

For while it’s clear that women, like Abby, must often drop an early romance to pursue a promising career (nicely drawn in her back story about her first kill), the play confuses in Gwen’s substituting murder for divorce (doesn’t fit) and glosses over reality when substituting a this-or-that choice in Gwen having to pick a career or family life, ignoring the reality of millions of women who shift comfortably and effectively between these two worlds. And Lucy’s inability to date business contacts because they’re business points to a dated problem in the work world.

Which isn’t to say that this play is without its charms, or that this production suffers under the undue weight of an overbearing heavy-handedness. Thankfully, it’s a comedy, which Nice People Theatre takes full advantage of in their laugh-out-loud production. Wegrzyn shows a real knack for humorous one-liners (“you make me wish I was autistic”), and she cleverly spoofs business management style textbooks with advice to not “get involved with anyone you have to kill,” and “every job has its shit and you have to learn to cope or you don’t get a paycheck.”

Of course, not all of this is well-effected either—White and Blicher show subtlety in their delivery, while Erickson’s a hit or miss—sometimes her coarse attitude serves the humor well, at other times, she’s one gritty F-bomb away from making the audience feel too uncomfortable to laugh at anything. Luckily, when character laughs are needed, Chris Fluck’s big grinning moron Mike produces a laugh-riot every time he appears on stage as a dimwitted haiku-writing killer.

When it comes to handling the allegory itself though, director Bill Felty misfires, only partially exercising the obvious knack he displayed for over-the-top comedy in his recent direction of Valhalla. Instead, he splits the difference on the treatment the play calls for—opting for humor, but of a straightforward kind, when the overall intent of the play, as any allegory, clearly requires a touch of absurdity, as no one will believe it otherwise. Moreover, most of the confusions mentioned earlier would diminish in a less sincere treatment of the script.

Only Pat DeFusco’s well played Mike Hammer clone of a boss, Fluck’s goofiness, Ben Stanley’s Antonio Banderas inspired Johnny Duke, and White’s milksop of a housewife-turned-killer add the right atmosphere to the play. Erickson’s too literally forceful, and while Blicher shows the most talent of the three women, she applies it in the wrong direction, opting for a sincere love-struck girl torn between her heart and her career, and not doing enough with the sheer ridiculousness of her role. A line like “cold calculation is barbaric and doesn’t suit me,” uttered sincerely, just doesn’t fit—or rather it does, but only at the expense of believability.

As a result, long, long stretches of semi-seriousness become flat streaks of boredom between the play’s peaks of humor (particularly the overly long “chemical killing” scene). Part of this does rest on Wegrzyn, who shuffles fast-paced, clearly goofy vignettes of scenes in between longer, expository or character-detailing passages, a rhythm that by itself is enough to distort the enjoyment of her play.

In the play’s send-up of women’s struggles in the workplace, Killing Women scores as a boisterous comedy spoofing modern life. But whenever Wegrzyn or Felty take the allegory too seriously, Nice People’s uneven production made it appear more like the ups and downs of a business cycle—great when riding the crests, the rest of the time in a recession waiting for the humor to build again.

Review of The Riot Group's production of Adriano Shaplin's "Hearts of Man," published by EDGE Philadelphia

2007-09-11T00:25:00.001-07:00

In his preface to Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov wrote that there are three subjects that modern society won’t tolerate in art: a work that depicted interracial relationships, a work that glorified the life of a degenerate, or a work that non-judgmentally (or favorably) dealt with the (sexual) relationship between a grown adult and a young person.

While changing social norms reflected in books, plays, and movies have shown the acceptance of the first two, I think it’s fair to say that the last topic still remains a taboo in art.

Or, as Adriano Shaplin’s Hearts of Man’s criminal defense attorney states even her reluctance, "I don’t do politics, and luring’s a politicized crime."

In Hearts, a police sting arrests the mid-thirty-something Rabideux (Drew Friedman) attempting to meet a 14-year old boy after dozens of suggestive online chats that they’ve recorded (and conducted). The initially self-serving DA (Paul Schnabel), goaded on by the lead detective (Dennis McSorley), the media, and the community activist leader of "Jill’s Group" (Tara V. Perry), indicts him on every possible charge. Rabideux’s sister Kris (Kristen Sieh) interns at a law firm, and convinces crusading defense attorney Vicki DeFazio (Stephanie Viola) to take the case.

Most people who go to the theatre wouldn’t think twice about condemning even a potential child offender, even one who’s engaged in online luring only (reinforcing Nabokov’s point). Yet Shaplin’s play takes the opposite approach entirely-indicting everyone but the perpetrator for their self-righteousness, their gun-jumping approach to justice, and their leering voyeurism in the popularity of programs like "To Catch a Predator."

But Shaplin’s also very careful to draw his character and his crimes in a way that not only implies potential innocence of a man victimized by an overzealous police sting, but to craft the language of the internet chat’s in a highly ambiguous not-clearly-sexual manner. And his play argues (much like an essay argues, but not always like a play argues), that anti-child endangerment programs and Megan’s law often ensnare lesser types than the hard-core pedophiles, and in those cases do more harm than good.

For such odious subject matter, this is a very compelling new work, especially in this world premiere by New Jersey’s The Riot Group (as part of the 2007 Philadelphia Fringe Festival).

Shaplin’s obvious gift lies in his use of language to shape characters, which ranges from the coarse, streetwise vernacular of the detective, to the Biblical alliterations of his Chris Hansen tele-clone Rex (Friedman, double-cast), to the intense, near poetry spoken by DeFazio. Phrases like "you log one half a dirty phone call and call it police work" mingle with "I knew these laws were wrong, but I hid and did nothing...and now I must defend those human remains whose corpses even seagulls would avoid" to create an effect that’s half Law & Order, and half C.S. Lewis style religious prose drama.

For the most part, the actors underscore the text with sincere, nuanced performances. Friedman is just pathetic (and guilty) enough as the alleged predator, while McSorley presents a cantankerous, too-funny-to-dislike detective. Only Schnabel fails to present a convincing role in his DA, either in his reticence to push the case, or his half-hearted attempts to get the media to back off when he barks, "the law is not your sentiment."

However, the women outclass all of the men in this production, though not enough to provide a noticeable imbalance, as Perry’s roles all line up morally opposed to the parts played by Sieh and Viola. Perry shifts effortlessly through multiple, disparate roles, and Sieh’s concerned, yet doubting sister gives an insightful haggling of her emotions from denial through rationalization, while still making the audience feel her shudders when faced with a brother who may have tried to lure a teenager into his bed.

Yet it’s Viola who gives one the best performances of the entire fringe in her attorney’s mix of Christian zeal and legal righteousness. Her quick, nervous movements across the stage generate more tension that what’s on the page, and she makes her final sequence of scenes a heart-rending experience to watch as she crumbles under the weight of the "you’re fucked either way" statutes set up to condemn any defense of these offenders.

Regrettably, it’s this aspect that Shaplin didn’t focus upon more in his play-the frustration experienced by many (mostly drug offenders) slammed by a prosecutorial system in this country that indicts defendants with "attempted" and "conspiracy" charges on top of the actual acts themselves-all in an effort to railroad them into pleading guilty to a lesser charge. Instead, he veered off course to indict too many other sources-the media, the internet itself, the "Jill’s group" type community activists-all of which diffused the injustice initially brought about by the overzealous laws and their highly politicized enforcement.

The play ends with Rabideux, arriving back at his apartment, after pleading guilty (and receiving a long probation) to a lesser charge, only to find an activist has already posted a flier labeling him as a sex offender all over his neighborhood. Rabideux’s guilt remains indeterminate, and I’m inclined to pity him for the self-inflicted wound he’s put on his life, but not because he’s suffered an injustice.

This is partially the fault of the story, and partly the fault of the playwright. The plot never let Rabideux defend himself in a trial, and his early protests of "I didn’t do anything wrong" aren’t the same as innocence. However, Shaplin errs in trying to do too much (the whole media indictment became one monologue of a dead end), and as a result, only touches upon the source of the potential injustice he wants to point out, alerting us to a problem like a town crier vaguely saying, "there’s a fire...somewhere."

Review of Uncut Productions "Assembly: Junior High," published by EDGE Philadelphia

2007-09-11T00:11:00.000-07:00

What do you remember learning from junior high school assemblies? “I learned that I should be scared everywhere I go” answers one of the students emerging from the first half of Uncut Productions presentation of Mark Dahl’s Assembly: Junior High. After listening to songs about “the terrorists among us,” getting raped in cyberspace, and watching 1950’s sex-ed and safety films re-edited for maximum effect, you’d be scared of everything too.

But this is the theatre, and this is the latest work from Uncut Productions, the local masters of all things satirical in Philadelphia. So while the characters on stage get frightened out of their tidy-whities and training bras by the educational performing troupe “Scare Tactics,” the audience nearly falls out of their chairs with laughter.

Split into two halves, the play starts with the principal’s announcement for all students to meet in the auditorium for an “emergency assembly” designed to shock and horrify the students—conveniently occurring right after the school has subjected them to the latest rounds of personality tests borrowed from the FBI. This slightly eerie beginning quickly explodes into hilarity, as the five-member crew of “Scare Tactics” performs Dahl’s original songs that parody the Pledge of Allegiance, Homeland Security and the lurking dangers that are only one mouse-click away.

The second half of the show shifts its tone to focus on five junior high students, one from each decade—from the Eisenhower fifties to the Clinton nineties. These students struggle to cope with first periods and crushes, sexual and drug experimentation, and their identities, gender or otherwise, with all of their (mis)information filtered through the lens of the various assemblies and school films by which the first half has educated them. The result, of course, is one of awkward missteps, ignorant malice, and general confusion—students mistaking bulimia for morning sickness, and Chlamydia for flowers.

Carried forward by humor, the highlight of the first half was Dahl’s “The Ability Song,” where a wheelchair bound member of Scare Tactics laments his condition, and where the lyrics (rightly) skewer our society’s current means of inducing tolerance in children by celebrating the unfortunate circumstances of the handicapped. Joining him in song, a girl with flipper arms (from her mother’s thalidomide use) delights in resembling a goldfish, and a boy with one giant sized foot proudly announces his success in kickball. Just when I was writing in my notes “this is the kind of genius that made Avenue Q possible,” out comes one of the members of Scare Tactics attached to a puppet representing his conjoined twin, gleefully boasting of a difference that in class "lets them see 360 degrees.”

The heavily re-edited school films do no less justice to Uncut’s brilliant multimedia work, particularly Jena Serbu’s original short safety film, “The Buddy System.” For those who aren’t aware of the efficacy of partnering to avoid danger, Serbu shows two kids, hand in hand walking through a playground filled with snipers and machine guns, walking unscathed, protected from all harm by following the rules. It could’ve been Philadelphia, or Baghdad, in either case, in an age of terror and violence-filled streets that requires something better than sleep-inducing propaganda, her film provided a moment of much needed, hilarious insensitivity.

Of course, Dahl does have a slight, though sinister message hidden in his play. The hesitant and unsure behavior of Act II’s Junior High’s students stands as the direct result of witnessing the very types of assembly spouted drivel and films presented in Act I. We can laugh at them, but for five decades worth of kids growing up on this paternalistic pulp, the results aren’t nearly as funny.

If only the two halves weren’t so disparate. I loved Assembly, and could tell from the ever-ascending pitch and volume of laughter that the audience loved it too. And while certain parts of Junior High both evoked laughter and clearly disturbed (a woman behind me blurted out loudly, “this is so wrong,” when Dahl’s 80’s Valley Girl described her bulimia as “Karen Carpenter in reverse”), overall, I think everyone kept waiting, as I did, for the second half of the program to reach the tenor of the first.

Otherwise, the entire evening seems like two plays linked by location and Dahl’s theme of the deleterious effects of institutionalized ignorance. The brilliantly over-the-top satire of the Assembly strikes almost painfully against the Junior High’s more muted tones, so much that they don’t even appear as written by the same person, but rather a collaboration; one half fashioned by a satirical genius, and the other crafted by the painstaking efforts of a historian.

In this regard, Dahl’s play is still a work in progress, though I wouldn’t have missed Assembly for any other show in town. The writers of the Onion could not have done more justice to this first half than Dahl’s songs (and a highly talented pair of ensembles) so cleverly achieve. And no artistic directors in Philadelphia slaughter the sacred cows of society with as much verve and hilarity as Dahl and Serbu, and no show at the Fringe made me clutch my sides in laughter as much as the first half of Assembly: Junior High. See it.