Category Archives: Off Off Broadway

The Healing

Off Off Broadway, Play, Uncategorized June 23, 2016 Comments: 2

In The Healing, a circle of friends who met at a religious camp 25 years ago reunites to honor the death of one of their own.  Before you can roll your eyes, let me add that the situation is set in motion by Samuel D. Hunter, the Obie Award winning playwright behind A Bright New Boise.  In both cases, Hunter explores what happens when extreme faith meets life’s curveballs with stunning agility and clarity.

Here he adds an extra thought-provoking layer.  All of the main characters and the actors who portray them are disabled.  This is both significant and irrelevant.  Commissioned by the Theater Breaking Through Barriers, the piece provides a welcome opening for a group of gifted actors who have more limited opportunities.   The work was written specifically for this cast and that customization shows in their ease with one another.  In the lead role of Sharon, the heart of the group, Shannon DeVido — a comic, improv artist, and frequent Hunter collaborator — conveys a delicate balance of command and doubt.  (Regrettably on this occasion her perfectly timed moments of reflection sometimes lead to too quiet a delivery.)  Even stronger and more approachable is actor/speaker/filmmaker David Harrell as down to earth Donald.  Jamie Petrone and John McGinty are adorable as newly coupled Bonnie and Greg.

Their presence on stage also holds up an important mirror to an underserved audience of partially sighted and deaf as well as those with limited mobility.  The energy zooming in both directions is electrifying.  Ultimately, though, this is simply a terrific story about friendship, loyalty and getting through the day.  While The Healing isn’t quite up to Boise’s level of greatness, Hunter’s set-up is intriguing, every little touch has relevance and the dialogue simply flows forward.  As a result, the script could be well executed by any talented troupe, all be it less sincerely and powerfully.

This world-premiere production has been well-mounted at the small Clurman Theatre in Theater Row.  UK and US director Stella Powell-Jones brings her delicate touch to even the most uneasy of the play’s beats. Jason Simms’ set design wonderfully captures the watched-too-much-QVC-ness of Zoe’s living room.  And I would give Christopher Metzger a separate round of applause for Mary Theresa Archbold’s physically overwhelming outfits for her role as the nearly defeated Laura.

If you like your theater on the natural side, The Healing will strike many graceful notes.  Tickets are available through July 16 at http://www.theatrerow.org/clurmannowplaying/.

Phalaris’s Bull

Off Off Broadway, Play, Uncategorized December 27, 2015 Leave a comment

I am a fan of solo performances, having experienced the wonder that was Spaulding Gray and later regularly attended the fabulous Marsh Theater in San Francisco.  The Marsh introduced me to the memorable works of Don Reed, Dan Hoyle and Josh Kornbluth among others.  All of them took me on adventures far from my own personal history.  I also have close friends who studied with The Marsh’s gifted workshop leaders, Charlie Varon and David Ford.  So I admit my taste in this arena has very much been formed by their focus on storytelling techniques to define character, time and place.

Yesterday I saw my first one-man show in New York after 30 years away. Phalaris’s Bull: Solving the Riddle of the Great Big World is written and performed by Steven Friedman.  Phalaris’s Bull was an execution device described in stories of Ancient Greece and it is also one of dozens of obscure references used by Mr. Friedman as he knits together his life story with philosophy, medicine, and poetry.   With that as background, I was expecting the piece to be dense and perhaps a little above my intellectual capacity.  But I was sorry to also find it as overly accessorized as Mr. T the day after a David Webb half-priced sale.  Swells of music, flashing lights, and dense projections cloud the story until Mr. Friedman’s words are literally turned into objects.  This is quite counter to the approach I’ve seen so successfully employed and I do not think it served the material or the performer well.

Director David Schweizer and his design team (Caleb Wertenbaker, Jimmy Lawlor, Ryan Rumery and Driscoll Otto) are certainly a cohesive artistic collective.  But what they’ve created is a flashy piece of multimedia decoration around Mr. Friedman’s tale rather than a production that enhances the work itself. We are told it’s “staged to reflect Friedman’s prismatic and eclectic vision of the world”.  Instead, it comes across as if Mr. Friedman either didn’t believe in the power of his story or didn’t have faith in the willingness of his audience to follow him on the journey.  His doubt became my doubt, and with each showy step I became less involved and more irritated.  It’s a shame because once you strip off the goo, the narrative has some profoundly sweet moments and the unique viewpoint only a gifted student and unconventional artist could tell.  While Mr. Friedman may not be the most natural and relaxed of actors, what he needed was cultivation of his on-stage persona not razzmatazz.

Phalaris’s Bull: Solving the Riddle of the Great Big World is playing at the wonderful Beckett Theater — part of Theatre Row — through January 16.  Visit http://solvingtheriddleplay.com/ for tickets and information.

The Eternal Space

Off Off Broadway, Play, Uncategorized November 22, 2015 1 Comment

New York’s original Pennsylvania Station is a poster child for lost opportunity.  The majestic Beaux Arts building was allowed to fall to ruin before being razed in the early 1960s and replaced with a modern monstrosity filled with florescent lighting and fast food joints.  Playwright Justin Rivers uses the demolition of this lost landmark to serve as a backdrop for exploring an unlikely relationship that develops between a teacher/activist and a construction worker.  The resulting production, The Eternal Space, is nothing short of glorious.

I have talked with Mr. Rivers and he is exactly the sort of person I hoped I’d meet when I became a Drama Desk member.  He has a clear vision of what he wants to express while remaining open to the creative ideas of others.  This wise and secure approach to the artistic process enabled him to assemble an astonishing team of professionals on stage and behind the scenes.  Skillful director Mindy Cooper makes the most of every one of the piece’s 85 minutes.  Jason Sherwood cleverly designed a series of architectural surfaces on which Brad Peterson projects stunning photos of the slowly dissolving station.   This allows the genuine and moving performances by Clyde Baldo and Matthew Pilieci to be set off by scenery so vibrant it becomes the third character.

While I imagine this production will particularly appeal to city dwellers who dread the thought of a big box store or luxury condo on every corner, The Eternal Space covers more universal subjects of love and loss that anyone can relate to. The story evolves more like a piece of music than a typical play.  Themes return in the dialogue but as if performed on a different instrument.  On several occasions I was taken by surprise, only to think a moment later, “well, yes, of course.”   The experience is (appropriately enough) much like a delightful slowly unfolding journey by train.

The Eternal Space is at The Lion Theater at Theater Row through December 6, 2015.  For tickets and information visit http://theeternalspaceplay.com.

Underland

Off Off Broadway, Play, Uncategorized April 13, 2015 Leave a comment

You aren’t likely to confuse Underland by Alexandra Collier with any play you’ve seen before.  Its “Lost-y” WTFness is more typically associated with television and movies.  It is a credit to director Mia Rovegno that it works mechanically and, for the most part, narratively.  It was not at all to my taste, but I applaud 59E59 for making such a daring selection for their season.

Collier makes great use of the mood and isolation of the Australian Outback where the play is set.  From the opening moments it is clear something otherworldly is happening to the entire population, though some townspeople are more aware than their neighbors.  Collier moves her players skillfully to make the most of the small stage.  Burke Brown’s lighting and Elisheba Ittoop’s sound help create an appropriate menacing tone for the action.

The fantastical dialogue doesn’t always flow.  Daniel K. Isaac fares best as Taka, a Japanese businessman who gets sucked into town through a tunnel in Tokyo.  His character is enhanced by some subtle and imaginative “business” which sets him apart from the residents.  Many of the other actors are weighed down by the thick tenor of their lines.  The performances of Kiley Lotz as Ruth, an awkward school girl, and Jens Rasmussen as Mr. B, a domineering PE teacher, are so overblown they could be starring in a silent picture.  And the talented Annie Golden is burdened with mercurial speeches that are so drawn out they shoot beyond mood-setting and right into numbing.

Just as there is something lurking in the town’s quarry, there is something just below the surface of this piece.  For me, it stayed buried.  But to lovers of all things mystical and unexplained, attendance is likely to be an appropriately haunting experience.

Underland is being presented by the terraNOVA Collective in Theater B at 59E59 through April 25.  For tickets and information, visit http://www.59e59.org/moreinfo.php?showid=199.

Verité

Off Off Broadway, Play, Uncategorized March 13, 2015 Leave a comment

Apparently Jo Darum — the lead character in Nick Jones’s satiric play Verité — is unfamiliar with the so-called “Chinese Curse”: May you live in interesting times.  After a rather unorthodox publishing house offers Jo $50,000 to pen her memoir, the housewife and mother decides she must start living a life worth writing about.  The results are by turns funny, unexpected and chilling.

In less assured hands, Jo’s surreal journey would be too preposterous to be engaging.  Thankfully the appealing Anna Camp’s experience includes turns in Pitch Perfect, True Blood and Equus, giving her all the tools necessary to make us connect emotionally with the play’s enthusiastic if naive heroine. Unfortunately, while some of the scenes crackle, the dialogue is too thin in places to fully support the bizarre premise.  At one point Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Winston, who may or may not have gone to high school with Jo,  is given a speech that resembles those dreadful scenes at the end of Perry Mason in which all is revealed in a Jamesian level of detail.  The woman next to me literally started snoring.

Director Moritz von Stuelpnagel’s skill is tested by the unusual dimensions of the Claire Tow stage.  The newest space at Lincoln Center is shallow and long, so those at the end of each row crane their necks while seeing too much of the actors’ backs.  Despite this challenge, Mr. Stuelpnagel and his cast deftly handle the rapid changes in tone.  Sharp pacing, terrific timing and clever sound cues are clearly in evidence.  Furthermore, the LCT3 is to be praised for offering this offbeat experience for $20 and bringing a diverse audience into their theater.

Verité runs through March 15 at the Claire Tow theater in Lincoln Center.  For tickets and information, visit http://www.lct.org/shows/verite/