Monthly Archives: August 2024

FRIGID’s Little Shakespeare Festival

Festival, Live Stream, Off Off Broadway August 18, 2024 Leave a comment

Saturday marked the closing night of FRIGID New York’s 4th annual Little Shakespeare Festival.  Known for their emphasis on creativity, collaboration, and affordability, this year’s line-up included seven original pieces.  Each one act script was built around the theme of Camaraderie and Community using the vast oeuvre of the Bard as a jumping off point.  

Festival curator, Conor D. Mullen, points out that Shakespeare himself was an independent artist whose casts were often composed of close friends who were given too little rehearsal time. Having a stripped down set and costumes “designed” by Goodwill is a fitting way to present productions inspired by his work.  Highlights included Mindy Mawhirter’s and Alyssa Cokinis’s The Lark and the Nightingale, which gave Juliet and Desdemona a second chance at love and happiness, and the bravely improvised As You Will created by Conor D Mullen, David Brummer, and George Hider.

Unfortunately FRIGID’s current home at UNDER St. Marks (94 St Marks Place) is literally “under,” in a basement and not fully accessible.  Aiming to remain truly inclusive, the producers added live-stream performances throughout the run.  This was how I was able to watch Hamlet Isn’t Dead’s utterly delightful When My Cue Comes with my elderly mother.  While I hope it won’t be too long before they find a space that more fully meets their needs, I encourage them to keep this option for those with mobility and caregiving issues and to reach out to audiences beyond New York. 

When My Cue Comes depicts a time when Hamlet’s Reynaldo, As You Like It’s Jaques de Boys, The Tempest’s Boatswain, and a very overworked Messenger find themselves deserted in a Waiting Room.  They had believed themselves to be essential workers.  Instead, they’ve been clipped from many a modern production and slowly bond while awaiting their next cue from The Playwright.  Quick witted and cleverly timed by writer/director B. Carty, the comical work also manages to be touching and relevant to today’s disconnected times.  

Jaques de Boys (Aaron Moore) tries to find himself with support from Reynaldo (Reid Watson), Messenger (Natalie Deboer), and Boatswain (Gabriel Ethridge) in When My Cue Comes.

This off-off-Broadway offering may be low budget, but it’s definitely not low talent.  Much of joy in this production radiates from the exuberant cast.  With perky energy possibility derived from a morning bowl of cookie crunch, Natalie Deboer’s Messenger punches through the fourth wall.  Reid Watson brings warm devotion to the abandoned Reynaldo.  As played by Aaron Moore, Jaques de Boys is profoundly rattled by his exile.  Mining every line for comic gems, Gabriel Ethridge’s Boatswain has never been more at sea.  Grounding them as long as she can is Madeline Parks, whose Playwright isn’t in as much control as she’d like.  The ease of the entire ensemble was palpable even at a distance.

Having (mostly) recovered from lockdown, FRIGID New York recently resumed their resident artists program.  Last week they announced the programming for their very full 27th season. This includes their annual Days of the Dead Festival, a celebration of nothing less than life and death, taking place October 17 to November 2. This will be followed November 3 through 17 by the 12th Gotham Storytelling Festival.  A complete schedule and ticketing information can be found at https://www.frigid.nyc/. 

Someone Spectacular

Off-Broadway, Play August 12, 2024 Leave a comment

When their grief counselor, Beth, fails to show up for their group therapy session, the majority of her six clients vote to go on without her.  The revelation of their interaction is not in the manifestation of their grief.  Theirs is the expected cocktail of misplaced guilt, regret for things both said and unsaid, and the pain caused by the absence of “their person.”   Rather, the eye-opening moments of Someone Spectacular stem from each participant’s attempt to move the meeting — and the others in attendance— forward.  Do you keep your feelings to yourself?  Do you breathe, sleep or eat your way through?  Do you force yourself to take an obvious next step?  Can anyone just snap you out of it?

Playwright Doménica Feraud has dedicated this warm play to her mother, Nathalie Feraud-Salame, who had nurtured her through a crippling eating disorder.  It is Feraud-Salame’s whose passions and heart run through each of the characters.  Doménica’s deep understanding of Nathalie’s way of being has enabled her to use knowing shorthand to tell us much about each character in just 90 minutes.  Feraud’s genuine affection for each of her creations shines through even when she has to rely on a few tropes to find essential connections and get to her point.

The confident ensemble brings out the best in the material.  Delia Cunningham’s delicate Jude attracts attention even before the official start of the piece, dashing off stage as the audience is still finding their seats.  A moody Lily played by Ana Cruz Kayne makes herself known with a bang of her bag, a thump of her tiny rump, and a conspicuous costume adjustment. Next to catch our eyes and ears is Shakur Tolliver’s Julian, drumming on the back of his chair with a discomfort that has taken over every aspect of his life.  Dressed for business even on a Sunday afternoon, Damian Young’s Thom seems more invested in taking phone calls than in staying present.  It is Alison Cimmet’s crisp and impatient Nelle who pushes for action.  And Gamze Ceylan elegant and vulnerable Evelyn who brings the most skilled therapeutic elements to their time together.  Though Beth hasn’t arrived, her essence takes shape through their interpretation of her techniques and motivations.

Delia Cunningham, Alison Cimmet, Damian Young, Shakur Tolliver, Gamze Ceylan and Ana Cruz Kayne; Photo by Julieta Cervantes

With the exception of Thom, Director Tatiana Pandiani moves the restless mourners around the traditional talking circle of chairs.  Scenic design team dots provides them with plenty to work with from the children’s toys in the corner, the dying plant upstage, an unexplained helium balloon hugging the ceiling, and the sparse coffee set-up stage left.  This gives each audience section an opportunity to experience everyone as they literally jockey for their rightful place. 

Writing this play may have been cathartic for Feraud and it certainly is for the audience.  The more serious conversations are interspersed with understandable snark and amusing insight.  I saw friends and couples touching hands and heads in connection.  A young woman got as far as an exit door only to return to her seat and watch the remainder of the piece clutching her purse. The majority laughed and nodded in recognition.  There are plenty of moments for all present to breathe.

Grief is obviously not a problem that has a solution.  But Doménica Feraud has turned a discussion about this tough experience into an engaging and touching theatrical work.  The world premiere of Someone Spectacular has been extended at the Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 West 42nd Street,  through September 7.  (Note that it is not a Signature Theater production, but the first creation of B3-A12, a partnership which was founded in honor of Nathalie Feraud-Salame.)  The action starts promptly on the hour and there is no intermission.  Tickets range from $39 to $119.  For more information and to purchase tickets, visit https://someonespectacularplay.com/.  

Six Characters

Off-Broadway, Theater Event August 4, 2024 Leave a comment

When theater-goers hear “Six Characters,” they expect them to be in search of an author.  But the half dozen who populate Six Characters, a new theatrical by Phillip Howze currently running at Lincoln Center, are in search of deserved attention, Italian tailoring, an equitable theater community, additional paid vacation, a through-line between scenes, a tolerant audience and, in the case of “the slave,” a really good book.  Howze concepts are ambitious, but the experience is less like attending a fully formed play and more like a 2AM doom scroll through Instagram.

While sitting in the Claire Tow bar area enjoying a theme drink — a mood-setter that might make you more receptive to the edgy content ahead — you will be offered a yellow bracelet if you’re open to being a participant.  You’ll be confronted no matter your answer since the Lincoln Center audience is repeatedly called out for supporting the white dominance of performing arts with houselights ablaze.  This piece kicks, scratches, punches, and admonishes, but without a cohesive narrative or genuine depth, little of it lands.  The overarching aim appears to be making everyone in the room uncomfortable with the messages and the messengers.  This would be more effective if we weren’t already feeling rubbed raw by current events and Howze had a clearer target.

No one can fault the commitment of the cast who must ride the bumpy waves of the script.  Julian Robertson is The Director, who starts off on an unfamiliar stage trying to corral an unruly troop of strangers.  They are led by the blustery Sassafras, played with boundless energy by Claudia Logan.  She is joined by her former boyfriend (Will Cobbs), a baby-faced younger man named Newman (CG), a runaway Slave who calls herself Road (Seven F.B. Duncombe) and the theater’s janitor (Seret Scott).  Scott is given the most to work with in her embodiment of all those who hold three jobs and yet remain invisible.  And Robertson has a sense of majesty that surfaces even when he is physically tied down.

Seret Scott and Julian Robertson in Six Characters at LCT.
Photo by Marc J. Franklin

Six Characters may be short on story, but it is long on atmosphere.  Starting off on a bare stage, the piece becomes increasingly visually interesting.  Director Dustin Wills — who has collaborated with Howze before —keeps finding ways to constrain his people even in this wide open space.  Regulars of LCT in particular will appreciate the wit infused in Wills’ set design, most notably at the top of Act II.  Each of the characters is given layers of fakery and playfulness to literally try on by costumer Montana Levi Blanco.  And the sound by Christopher Darbassie is relentless even during intermission.

Steps are being taken in boardrooms and on leadership teams throughout the American theater world to make space for a variety of voices and viewpoints.  And just as there is no such thing as a “Black job” (a line that was likely added in the last few days) no play should be labeled a color.  But Howze does a disservice to Six Characters and to a willing audience by leaving us feeling exhausted, peering out a tiny window with no sense of a healthy way forward.  

Six Characters run through August 25th at the Claire Tow Theater in Lincoln Center, 150 West 65th Street.  All tickets are $33 including fees, though the Telecharge interface is poorly designed and frustrating to use.  Runtime is 2 hours and 10 minutes including intermission.  The lobby and roof top deck open one hour before curtain.