In the beginning …

We start as simple templates of mind and soul ready to begin our continuous journey to become better and better human beings.  From learning who we are to learning how to live with others either in the casually murky soup of society or the deeper, more tricky currents of love, this sojourn is what the Australian group Geppetto (composed of “pop cabaret princess, Emma Dean, and Green Room Award winner, Jake Diefenbach“) are using the fairy-tale cipher of Hansel and Gretel to explore the themes of learning how to navigate reality through a lush dreamscape in their new, provocative mini-rock opera/concert piece An End To Dreaming.

As they approach the stage in the darkness of existential doubt they move in a way that is not haphazard, but deliberate and somewhat mystical in nature.  We see a Hansel-and-Gretel-esque pair draped in capes, faces and hair a gothy white with stylized markings.  They test their paths as they go carefully forward, eventually reaching the points where they can begin to cast their spell.  They begin their ritual by gently touching the instruments of their art;  Emma Dean beginning on the synthesizer and Jake Diefenbach on the piano – telling us the story of how they began, in a darkness so complete that they forgot who they were before, and strove to find an identity as well as a path to bring them forth again into the light.

The key difference between this rendition of the Hansel and Gretel story is that this is about fighting a foe much harder to face than a witch or neglectful parents. Their chief opponent is themselves and their understanding of how they can find purpose in the world. The story of this journey is broken into different chapters with a prelude to each concept before each piece bookended by songs that show the beginning and end of their journey through each movement.  These “preludes” are beautiful spoken word pieces that really connect  you to the heart of their struggle. This is truly an existential coming of age story that goes far beyond the original text in scope.

The first movement is The Darkness (with the songs Black  and The Devil you Know ) where they explore the realization of how much they do not know in the world, and how they might begin to figure out how to escape that blindness.  The next section The Awakening (Is Anybody Out There? (see clip above) and Tomorrow) deals with the joy and fear that happen when you realize there can be different choices in life.  They learn to move beyond their inner instincts to be afraid, to want obsessively, and to dream.  The third section, The Reckoning ( This Is Where The Trouble Starts and Forged in Flames) they face who they have found themselves to be and confront that mirror vision of what they most fear as well as hope for in the future.  The fourth movement is The Healing (It’s All Fun And Games and Stuck In The Mud )  is  ”about pain..Not the blind pain of suffering, but ..one that is sexual and fragile.”  A pain that is like a new skin you are just learning to wear.  The finale of the show is The  Light  (Won This Game Before and An End To Dreaming [see below])  where they emerge into the edge of the future which is now.  They still have  new challenges to face, but they are all new journeys to reach for expectantly instead of fearfully.  The bravery of Won This Game Before and the strengthening Affirmation to go forth into the world that is  the song An End to Dreaming  are powerful transmissions to be received from these two prophets of self -rediscovery, that this alone is a reason  you make it to one of their last two performances.

Their journey is very subtle and esoteric… poignant and meaningful…helpful  as well as persuasive to take a chance.  Written directed and performed by Emma Dean and Jake Diefenbach, with brilliant lighting and sound by Ben Stuart, we see not just that these two are great musicians , but amazing at theatre as well.   Catch one of the last two shows this week if you can.  You definitely won’t regret this once in your lifetime opportunity.

Related Posts:

• Snow White Zombie: Apocalypse – The End Is Nigh In Fairy Tale Land (Fringe Festival 2012)
• Bite The Apple – To Bite Or Not To Bite? (Fringe Festival 2012)
• Christopher Marlowe’s Chloroform Dreams
• Happily Ever After (Fringe Festival 2011)
• The Halloween Plays – Three Bursts Of Fire, Fear And Fantasy

When Sheherizade began, it seemed like this might just be a production where there was interpretive dance to help us feel part of the story. But once the story of the storytelling began I was quickly swept up by the organic flow of this piece, wrapped up in the stories as dance, storytelling, a strange type of puppetry, and the hopes and dreams of the characters in the stories-within-stories blended into a magical world that is a wonderful successor of the original .

Director Priscila Garcia along with Director of Movement Anne Marie Bookwalter did a great job of working together to create a beautiful flow which seamlessly transported the audience from one magical world after the next, and made this show an experience I’ll never forget.

Sheherizade starts with the story of a troubled king who has taken up the nasty habit of marrying a new woman every day, only to behead her the day after the wedding. The first scene is simple: nothing but drums and dance and flowing red silk representing the blood the King is shedding, as well as the terrible emotions he is harboring. The King’s pain and rage as well as the sadness of those having to live with the results of his murders is clearly shown through expressive dance and movement.

We then shift to an even more troubled adviser who has had the charge of minimizing the damage this mad King does by placating him as well as supplying him with new brides. He confesses the King’s crimes to his wise daughter Sheherizade hoping for some counsel or comfort, because he is truly at his wit’s end. Wanting to ease her father’s troubles as well as those of the kingdom, Sheherizade quickly colludes with her sister to hatch a plan to end the King’s reign of terror.

She does this by offering to be the next bride, but instead of waiting until the morning to await her fate as others had done, she asks for sister to come with her, for it has always been there way to end the night in a story. surely he could give into this one final request.

Before telling you a little about the three tales covered in this lush and delicious 40 minute production I wanted to make a quick note about a wonderful technique in this piece. There is not one Sheherizade, and not one King. The role of Sheherizade was passed from one character to the next after every story like some early tribesman passing a totem one to the next to allow another to speak a story around the fire in days past.

This allowed for a different cadence and enactment of the storytelling as well as allow all to be part of the stories. I fell into the story deeper as one never knew what was going to happen next. The cast worked as a wonderful organic whole from the first moment of the play to the last; many thanks to Alex Akin, Terry Kenard Barnes, Erron Crawford, Rodney Earl Jackson Jr., Michael McGuire, Jordan Phillips, Lucia Roderique, Alex Speith, Jasmine Thomas, Josh Wilder for all being the stars as well as costars of this play.  Great ensemble effort.

The first story was that of Liang and the Magic Paintbrush, a well known folk tale from China. Liang is a poor man who wishes more than anything to save up his money to buy a paintbrush. A good fairy takes a magical paintbrush from a scholar who had been hoarding it away for many years, and tells Liang he must do Good with the paintbrush. When Liang finishes the final stroke in a drawing of a butterfly it flies off the page as it comes to life. Liang does many good deed from then on from drawing fish for the hungry, to drawing a well for a village. Eventually the Emperor hears of his exploits and captures Liang and commands for him to to draw him mountains of gold. Liang does this but also draws a sea between the Emperor and his gold and a boat for him to reach it by. When he is commanded to draw some wind he instead draws a hurricane that wrecks the boat and the people are freed from the emperors conceited and self-serving rule. The King who has been listening to this story doesn’t like the ending, but enjoyed the story and Sheherizade.

The second story is from the Dutch tradition of storytelling, and was called The Most Precious Thing In The World. There once was a very rich Lady (played by Michael McGuire) who was so rich that she was bored with all of her gold and jewels and sent her favorite captain out into the world with a ship full of gold to purchase The Most Precious Thing In The World.  While he is gone everyone wonders what sort of thing he will return with.  He brings lovely golden wheat which he says will feed all of her people and The Lady commands he toss it into the sea because she is so mad he missed the point of his assignment. There it grows and chokes off all  shipping into her country and causes the ruin of her fortune.  An interesting concept used in this piece was that everyone in it moved as if they were puppets with dangling arms and shuffling legs and bobbing heads.  That, plus Michael McGuire’s pronouncing of the h’s in wheat really made this an entertaining piece.

The third story was about Mansa Musa The Lion King Of Mali. In the story we hear of how the famous King made his country of Mali so amazingly successful in the 14th century (taken from this 2001 version by Khephra Burns). Kankan Musa was captured by slave traders and taken deep into the desert, a place very foreign to him. He was tutored by Tariq in new ways of seeing the world and eventually learns that in order to be a good King (or human being for that matter) it is more important to be compassionate than to be fierce … more important to be knowledgeable than to be controlling.  By learning  humility fighting against the destructive tendencies that live in us all, this helped him to become one of the greatest leaders of a nation ever.

This final powerful story heals the King of his rage and pride at last as the overall story ends with him embracing Sheherizade and weeping.

The choices and crafting of the stories by playwright Aidaa Peerzada (along with story design of each of the individual pieces by Rodney Earl Jackson Jr., Priscila Garcia, and Anne Marie Bookwalter) was exquisitely done in a very touching and thoughtful way that is a good example to all.  The music design pulled us through the story with excitement and magic, and the lighting by Calvin Johnson highlighted everyone’s strongly emotional faces beautifully throughout each scene.  The costumes by Patricia Sehar Peerzada were  entrancing, never distracting to the plot.  They blended in beautifully with the stories.

Seeing Bathwater Productions’ Sheherizade was a very joyful and meaningful experience, and like the King in the story I was sorry when it was done and hoped I could hear just one more story before I left.

~~~

Sheherizade
Bathwater Productions
Writer: Aidaa Peerzada
Director: Aidaa Peerzada and Rodney Earl Jackson Jr.
Choreographer: Aidaa Peerzada and Rodney Earl Jackson Jr.
A Slam/Musical adaptation of The Arabian Nights, incorporating movement, puppetry and stories from around the world. The new bride of a violent king tells fantastical tales, to ward off her death, and lure the King into overcoming his sadness.
0h 40m   National   San Francisco, California
Musical   Spoken Word/Poetry
Staycation: Fantasy Island Excursion   Overseas Adventure
www.sheherizade.com
VENUE #15: The New School for Drama Theatre
Wed 15 @ 3:45  Thu 16 @ 6:30  Sat 18 @ 8  Sun 19 @ 5:15

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• For Body And Light (2014 Frigid New York Festival)
• A Way Of Man (Fringe Festival 2011)
• Dandy Darkly’s Trigger Happy!: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2016 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• Eighth Grade: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2016 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
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There are a plethora of End of the World movies, television shows and now even off-off Broadway productions.  This can be evidenced in a special  insert in the program of The Apocalypse of John to “collect items from all five of the end of the world shows in Fringe” (Snow White: Zombie Apocalypse, Below, The End of Days, May 21st – Judgement Day, The Apocalypse of John, and they even forgot …And Then She Die At the End! where our hero Nicholas Sparks is constantly striving to fight against the world’s destruction by making people cry).  But none of these shows  (nor any I can think of off the top of my head) has dealt with the various possibilities of Apocalypse so thoroughly or entertainingly as the Apocalypse of John (though possibly the Evil Dead movies come close in terms of hilarity).

But with so many ways for the world to end, people have gotten a bit blasé about it all. The Apocalypse of John begins with a group of friends who have gotten together on the night that “all the experts” are saying will likely be the end of the world.  One of them is even an aspiring television reporter, Maggie (Erin Salm), getting ready to tape people’s reactions as a human interest story, hopefully successfully because this is her first big break.   And if anything is going to be  possibly,  perhaps maybe sorta happening in 15 minutes, she’ll be on the scene!

Her boyfriend John (Michael Mraz) backed by The Upstairs House Band (Ari Kessler on piano, Will Kitchin on drums, and Andrew Hollis on guitar) welcomes the audience and cast to sing along to a rousing tavern song of “Kiss My Ass Good Bye”.  The whole gang is there to commemorate the likely non-event of another badly called end of the world: Gary the bartender (Jacob Callie Moore) with his gritty barroom wisdom, John with his goofy charm, Maggie with her camera, Maude the waitress (Kacie Laforest) with her angelic sweetness, and Chris D’Amato playing Stinky Dan … well he’s just rude and stinky, but a long-time part of the band of regulars anyway.

According to bartender Gary in his televised interview (which seems to represent the consensus of the bar as a whole) if the End is going to happen it will probably be a mixtures of the following classic scenarios:

• Aliens
• Natural Disaster
• Zombies
• Nuclear War (“We call it the old fashioned”)
• The Devil and other supernatural causes
• Annihilation of all life by a deadly virus

With the seconds clicking down, John (our hero who is both a germophobe as well as an advertising guy), a little wasted out of his mind and fearing the end, asks his long time girlfriend Maggie to marry him at the worst possible time — when she’s on the air for the first time!  She immediately says no to him, crying on national television as she is signing off the air, then fleeing the bar in even bigger sobs.

Soon John falls into a fitful sleep, set upon by prophetic dreams of Apocalyptic Spectors riding little horsies warning that the end is nigh.  Terrified out of his mind  he awakes in the bar to find himself late for his yearly review to be conducted by the charismatic, yet megalomaniacal trickster Damien Blackstock, head of one of the mos successful ad agencies on the planet.

Damien sets John down, in a friendly yet somewhat creepy way and explains he really needs John to “wow him” by taking an account that is failing terribly (Gordon’s Flashlights) and bringing some really “outside the box thinking” to make it wildly successful, in one week’s time.  From there John is quickly swept along to meet his new team.  There’s the desperate-to-succeed junior project manager assistant Charlene (played by Kymm Walker) and slacker Creative “Director” Robert (Zach Sciranka) who seems to always have  glassy look in his eye (from being fixated on his smartphone).  They meet the “clients from hell” – who just happen to look a lot like they’re …  Aliens!  But the weird thing is it seems like he’s the only one feeling uncomfortable about working for clients who would like to enslave/eat the human race.

To sum up the various, hilarious charades and indirect explanations (and some direct explanations from Stinky Dan who turns out to be Satan himself), this is what the deal is:

The Apocalyptic things are only really happening to John for now.

• Other people will see more and be more effected if they believe John or they are in some sort of altered state of consciousness.
• Each day will feature a different apocalypse (ie zombies, natural disasters, aliens, etc.) until the big finale at the End.
• If John doesn’t manage to convince everybody in the entire world that Armageddon is at hand by the end of the week, it becomes real for everyone and goodbye cruel world.
• It’s all Gary’s fault because he’s secretly been in love with Maggie and sold his soul to Stinky Dan in order to get rid of John, never reading the small print that said he could use Armageddon to do it.

We then see John and the gang fighting against the end of the world in every way including using product samples from John’s old client Steel Shotguns (“They practically sell themselves.”), and using the full global mass marketing of an apocalypse (“This Time It’s Real”) for the sake of selling Gordon’s flashlights.  Of course there’s also the good old fashioned hand to hand in the final confrontation with Satan … I mean Stinky Dan.

This show is great for several different reasons.  The pacing moves an awful lot of plot quickly in an hour and half.  The great script created collaboratively by the Serious Theatre Collective  really hangs together.  Both the expert lighting  (Benjamin Danielowski) and sound (Nathaniel Chambers) can almost be counted as characters in and of themselves.  Norman and Ursala Stuby provide not quite menacing, yet convincing costumes and masks for the apocalypse, and the entire cast gels with great chemistry throughout the entirety of this production as a whole which is no doubt a credit to expert direction by Lizz Leiser.

Definitely recommend you try to get your tickets now,  before the end of the festival … or the end of the world!

~~~

The Apocalypse of John
Serious Theatre Collective
Writer: Serious Theatre Collective
Director: Lizz Leiser
John Darrian is charged with saving the world from aliens, super-viruses, earthquakes, and Satan himself in a comedy about the tragic end of all life on Earth. An absurd look at coming to terms with your worst fears. And zombies.
1h 35m   Local   Brooklyn, New York
Comedy   Puppetry
Staycation: Sci-Fi Tech SuperHero Camp   Fantasy Island Excursion
www.theserioustheatrecollective.com
VENUE #10: The Players Theatre
Sat 11 @ 5  Tue 14 @ 9:30  Fri 17 @ 9:30  Sun 19 @ 12  Tue 21 @ 4:30

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Sometimes performance art gets the reputation of being a bit esoteric, experimental, or just plain weird, and all of these come into play in varying degrees in < the invisible draft >.  However I think at the core there are some strong messages to be filtered through the barrage of multimedia and interpretive movement, and this play almost subliminally infiltrates the audience with a message that is both important as well as worth the effort of trying to digest during this challenging piece.

Here is a cheat sheet for those who are interested in knowing more about the world created in  < the invisible draft >.  My intent is to perhaps sort the ideas which I saw portrayed,  or at the very least help them  percolate more freely, much in the way Italo Roma does in the book heavily referenced in this play called Invisible Cities. This book inspired  the live action silent movie (ie mime and interpretive movement piece) called “Our Man of the World” that is simultaneously enacted along with a radio play, The Girl With A Backpack (performed with the voice talents of Briana Posner),.  This mixture is then interwoven throughout with lush multimedia contributed by Lotte Maria Allen (prints and animation), Jonah Rosenberg (sound design), Emma Grace Skove-Epes (video performance) and Nickey Frankel (scenic designer).  It’s all  baked together onto a large canvas that, with the assistance of pulleys, contraptions and the audience’s imagination,  becomes a house,  a swan,  a whirlwind…At least I think that’s how it goes.

We open with  a large fabric construction, silence and a face beaming out at us. He emerges from a flap just large enough in the “building” and is then followed by another man. They have a silent discussion/transcendent emergence about a feather.  Both are  ”Our Man of  the World” played by brothers Maxwell and Milo Cramer.  They help become the screen that the message of the play is projected across throughout this piece.  Whether silent shadows,  a room drowned in multimedia  — or the bright stark emptiness where the two converse dissonantly; they literally speak in random postcards in a way that mirrors the shifting beauty for the rest of the play.

The message is complex, but also simple.  There are many ways that we can move  between different parts of our lives and the meanings (or lack of meaning) that  are a part of the urban (or even just the social) life we live.  Sometimes thinking about who we are helps, but other times this investigation of who we are sets us more firmly in the void of objectivity that the world tries to enforce upon us, perhaps eventually we “become lost” when we try to think  of what would come next once we get to a place that’s stable in our way of seeing the world.  We are part of the world in every macroscopic and microscopic way, but sometimes our imagination is too much for our own good.

This is the third iteration of this piece, and  creator/director Claire Moodey has done a good job setting the balance between confusion and deeper understanding. However, it takes longer than the time of the performance to have everything slide in place — it is a very moving piece, but I think you definitely have to be prepared to “do the work” in order to have that movement.  If you think you’re up to the task, check out a clip of some of the multimedia below  to see if this show will be a good one for you.

Hope to see you on the other side of meaning.

~~~

< the invisible draft >
Preview the Arts
Writer: by Claire Moodey, sound by Jonah Rosenberg, set by Nickey Frankel, and animations by Lotte Marie Allen and Claire Moodey
Director: Claire Moodey
Enter a liminal space between reality and its representation: a map of consciousness constructed by the Girl with a Backpack and conducted by Our Man of the World. Where these gods meet blossom stop-motion “cities” inspired by Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities.
1h 0m   Local   Brooklyn, New York
Performance Art   Multi-Media
Staycation: Literary Lane   Spa Getaway (Mind & Body)
www.theinvisibledraft.com
VENUE #14: New Ohio Theatre
Sat 11 @ 7:15  Sat 18 @ 10:15  Thu 23 @ 4  Sat 25 @ 5:45  Sun 26 @ 12

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If you’ve read any of the many books written by author Nicholas Sparks, or seen any of the movies that inevitably come on the heels of publication, no doubt you’ve noticed a pattern.  They’re tear jerkers which stick to a formula: get the audience heavily invested in the love story of the gal and the guy … And Then … (wait for it) … She Dies At The End! This play written and directed by Christina Brosman and Elizabeth Kerin takes the cliches of all Nicholas Sparks’ stories and  wonderfully transforms the saccharine and bittersweet into a roaring fun adventure.  Lovers of fantasy adventure shows  will recognize and love the parody form which is taken to as high a level of art as Nicholas Sparks’ has taken the genre of “crymance”.

The play opens with good old-fashioned melodrama, as we hear Brennan Lee Mulligan  - the long deceased ghost of Sparks’ great-great-great granduncle Corporal Reginald Sparks  - who was one of the long line of Sparks who have been fighting for centuries “in a secret war with Hell itself”.  He introduces his descendant Nicholas as the only hope this generation has against the evil of the Demon Rodanthe who is so evil, “that even an ocean of holy water could not save us”. He holds him at bay for a little while with a haunting flute tune.

As we shift back to the world of 1996 (before The Notebook and the changes that it wrought), we see Nicholas (Alan Starzinski) enter with Callie (Sarah Black) carrying crates and canning jars with much mutual excitement over Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman and the joys of pickling.  Reginald invisibly whispers awkward phrases in Nick’s ear like a demented Cyrano De Bergerac to try and move Nick beyond his innate awkwardness and Callie leaves with a look of uncomfortable confusion.

After Callie leaves, Reginald reveals himself to Nicholas, and explains to him the charge their family has had for generations: to save the world from Rodanthe whose only weakness is the tears of mankind, particularly women “whose tears are the most potent”.  After a brief visit by Rodanthe through the magic of light and sound design (thanks to Jill Sapenoff, stage manager and production designer  Doss Freel), Nicholas -who was a bit of a slacker before- throws himself into the occupation of writing sappy romance novels that make you cry, which soon, besides keeping the demon at bay, also get him the girl, and success in life in short order.

However this is not “The End” for our heroes. The year is 2011 and people are getting used  to the power of Sparks’ crymance, his wife of 15 years, Callie, is sick of Nick being full of himself (along with always being occupied with creating his next novel)  and bellows of the Demon Rodanthe are heard closer than ever.  The only way to save the day is to get beyond his predictable writing and create his magnum opus, or else … once again the certainty of apocalypse is at hand.
To try to save his marriage Nicholas confesses the real reason why he has been so driven to write romance novels, which drives Callie to send a police officer (played also by Sarah Black again in a demeanor as tough and cold as her portrayal of Callie was sweet and sincere) to take him into an insane asylum.

The third movement of this story is several months later when Reginald brings poltergeist friends of his for enough of a distraction  (again through brilliant sound design) to bust him out so he can write and write until he is ready for the thrilling conclusion of the play.

The writing and direction of this show keep the audience laughing and engrossed the whole time and do a good job of melding parody with touching (melo)drama in a way that could be a good example to many. I hope to see more works by this company in the future and hope the rest of their Fringe run is as successful as the show I saw.

~~~

…And Then She DIES at the End!
Writer: Christina Brosman and Elizabeth Kerin
Director: Christina Brosman and Elizabeth Kerin
When a ferocious demon threatens the survival of mankind, only tearjerker novelist Nicholas Sparks can save the world. Can he churn out a masterpiece, get the girl, and still make it home in time for “Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman”?
1h 0m   Local   New York, New York
Comedy   Improv/Sketch/Stand-up
Staycation: Literary Lane   Celeb-reality TV in Hollywood
www.andthenshediesattheend.tumblr.com
VENUE #14: New Ohio Theatre
Fri 10 @ 7:45  Sat 11 @ 12  Sun 12 @ 7  Wed 15 @ 7:45  Sat 18 @ 6:15

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What if you had done something not necessarily evil, but very disturbing?  Enough to make you an outcast in society?   Hot Steams explores the lives of two imprisoned men who are mentally brilliant but socially inept.

We first meet The Man Awake (played by Zach Wegner), who has been in his cell awhile, as he writes in chalk upon the  floor, only to erase it, rewrite it … over and over again. On the other side of the cell is The Sleeping Man in a Santa suit, passed out with a pool of vomit beside him, which (according to Man Awake) is apparently from a night of heavy drinking by the smell of things.

When the Sleeping Man (Braeson Herold) finally awakes The Man Awake tells his story:  The long-time prisoner has an obsession with collecting (and caring for) the skulls of the deceased, starting from when his parents had died.   He was much young when they died, and with no one checking in on him, he was left to let them decompose for some time.   Eventually the act of  detaching, cleaning, and caring for his parents’ skulls gave him the sense of closure he hadn’t been able to get elsewhere.  After that it became an obsession which haunted him — driving him to find more skulls to add to his collection which now reside in his suitcase.

A twist involving grave-robbing, an unsolved murder, and wrong-place-wrong time leads The Man Awake to be imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit.  This sets into motion one of the largest bits of dramatic tension in this play: did The Man Awake do something evil? Or just distasteful?  And should we sympathize with him? Of course there is also the question of the other man being kept in his prison cell, but there is one more wrinkle to unfold.

We meet the Officer (played by Timothy Weinert) who (at times roughly) interrogates the formerly Sleeping Man and almost always is too personal as he works to find out what SM has learned about his cellmate, MA.  But often it is just rhetoric which creates a narrative for the other prisoner rather than incriminating evidence.  Weinert gives a very convincing performance as a brutish guard-cum-inquisitor who has all the power, but still has a shade of something else brewing beneath the surface which makes him lash out even more viciously when confronted with his lack of knowledge about the criminals under his “care”.

Immediately a feeling of “why” fills the room like a miasma which only gets thicker as time goes on. What playwright Zach Wegner does in Hot Steams is help  us understand that sometimes a prison is often  just the outward manifestation of  the walls that can hold back people who are misunderstood by society.  The fact that some of the thoughts that the characters have are disturbing only helps us remember a time when maybe we have harshly judged someone or been harshly judged, just for being different.

The set design is very basic- simply a door and then the stage itself outlined in various configurations. Books are in stacks and passed throughout the show.  There is a box on one side and a chair which only shows up when illuminated by a single spotlight – representing the inquisition chamber where the second prisoner is questioned.

The writing (by Zachary Wegner) and direction (by Jaclyn Biskup) work hand in hand to create a well timed play that keeps you spellbound throughout. Numerous dramatic pauses and silences are exquisitely painful;  this style of play is a treat for someone who likes to think and wants to see others doing the same.  The costumes by Deirdre Wegner give a beautiful Noir flair, that helps suck you into this world.

Throughout the play, there are numerous literary references and other interesting and elaborate wordplay. From poetry by Yeats or William Blake, to the corny detective story of “Joey Tonsillitis, Private Dick”, many fun and beautiful words are worked into this piece.  At times profound, at times laugh-out-loud gallows humor – even moments of subversive nonsense –  the Man Awake shows us the appeal of living in a dream-world made of random books and paper.  As he tells his favorite stories and ideas, he illuminates his view of the world as a lonely and often hostile place, one which doesn’t understand where he’s coming from.  His hope of salvation from a pen pal of sorts, “Anita Kiss”, shows us in stages the depths of his misunderstanding of the world at large. Perhaps the prison is actually a good place of nurturing quiet contemplation, and his second cellmate provides more social interaction than he has had in years…

But what does the title mean?  What are the Hot Steams that are behind the pressure cooker of this drama?

In part it may come from a southern folklore legend popularized by its mention in To Kill a Mockingbird, quoted toward the end of the play.

“What’s a Hot Steam?” asked Dill.

“Haven’t you ever walked along a lonesome road at night and passed by a hot place?” Jem asked Dill. “A Hot Steam’s somebody who can’t get to heaven, just wallows around on lonesome roads an’ if you walk through him, when you die you’ll be one too, an’ you’ll go around at night suckin’ people’s breath -”

Are one or more of the characters actual spirits, with the ability to inflict the type of damnation that is described above?  As you watch, it seems that regardless of whether the supernatural is involved you definitely feel the seductive pull of Wegner’s words which make you want to understand – even empathize  - with the three characters in this play who are all trapped by various layers of social restraint.   Finally the simple and  innocent prison of being different in the lonely world of The Man Awake makes him one of the strangest tragic heroes in a long time, with his prison of hope that grips him until the very end.

The biting social commentary of how the misunderstood are often imprisoned while the State works to find a charge that will keep them isolated from society is fit both within as well as inbetween the lines of this play.  The fact that most in a similar situation such as this do not get the chance to tell their story makes the charity that this play supports, the Innocence Project very fitting.  A small organization reviewing the many cases they receive each year of the often poor and forgotten by society, The Innnocence Project supports a limited number of cases who have used up all other legal avenues.  Their hope is that DNA evidence could shed enough light on their case for an appeal for their innocence.  Find out more here: http://www.innocenceproject.org/.

Hot Steams is a perfect example of classic absurdist theatre that I hope some day might become a classic itself. I certainly hope we get to see more of this play in the future.

~~~

Hot Steams played as part of 2012 Planet Connections Theatre Festivity.

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Have you ever wanted to be a fly on the wall, or maybe something even more ephemeral? Like a shadow? Bubby’s Shadow by Andrew Rothkin is a ghost story, but one where the living haunt those that have already passed on.

It starts, like many ghost stories, on a dark and stormy night.

There is a green glow of eyes, strange mystical chanting, crackling thunder and lightning and then . . .

We reenter the normal world again –  a house, though still draped in the shadows of a dark and stormy night where someone is knocking at the door. Nightgown-clad Debra (Rosie Cosch) comes to the door in an obvious state of alarm in response to the pounding and screaming of brother Jonny (playwright Andrew Rothkin).  Cosch as Debra does a great job conveying both annoyance as well as concern as she hears Jonny’s tale.

Apparently Jonny got a strange phone call which (Caller ID confirmed) came from Debra’s home but all he heard was strange wailing and muttering.  They both admit that they’ve been having dreams of their dear dead Bubby who raised them in that very house, but who has been dead for 19 years.

During their childhood their father was distant, so when their mother died Bubby, their larger-than-life grandmother, brought them joy and love and gave them all the support they could ever need.  She died in their late teens, leaving them feeling somewhat alienated with a disconnected father.  Their resentment toward him grew and Bubby’s set of memorabilia was stashed in the attic.

Now 19 years later Jonny is the workaholic, whose relationship with his wife is on the rocks because of his inability to express his emotions.  Debra is a single divorced mother to Cara, searching for Mr. Right to no avail.  Cara also becomes acquainted with her Great Grandmother Bubby through dreams.

In the morning we meet the friendly and spunky Cara who is up bright and early, having met up with her friend.  She arrives back home just in in time for the phone, which has been working strangely, to begin ringing bringing the ghost of Bubby on the scene.  For a moment Bubby and Cara talk simultaneously as Cara channels her long dead great grandmother.

In the final scenes of the show we find out that Debra and Jonny’s long estranged Father (played by Jeffrey Farber) also got a call.  He arrives back at the home and brings with him a charming male nurse, Eli (played by a very genuine and friendly Isaac Elkiss) , who is “a very good boy” about Debra’s age.  Eli gives Cara some wonderful reasons to check out the great programs at her local JCC where he teaches karate.   He is very learned in Rabbinical writings as well as a freethinking spiritualist who has  looked into Buddhism, Kabbalah and many other interesting things because (he tells  Cara when no one else is around) he can sense ghosts too.  He confides that sometimes when people are angry or confused it can cause a darkness to be cast about that can be dangerous.

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In The Wilderness written by John Kearns is a multi-layered play highlighting the struggles of the students and faculty of St. Philomena’s High School as they try to make their way through their own wilderness of the South Bronx in 1987.  It is powered by two strong themes: the myth of Sisyphus (rolling his boulder up the hill only to have it roll down as he neared the top each time) and the story of the Israelites who made their way through the desert after escaping from slavery in Egypt.  Both are strong metaphors for the students trying to escape the life of poverty,  early pregnancy, violence and drugs that awaits them were it not for the shelter of the private school.   The play makes the point that, like the Israelites after their escape from Egypt, the struggles of  the students and faculty of St. Philomena’s High School For Girls are often about perspective.

And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

Carmen with Mr. Logan and Ms. Farrell

 

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Ever been in a dead end job and it seemed like you were going nowhere?  Everyday the same routine?  Well the title characters of the play Ye Elizabeths have been doing just that for the last several years – and they couldn’t be happier.  They work as reenactors for the Old Salem Township Living History Museum, and are very content  (at least in a superficial way) with the set routines and repetitive but amusing dialogue they have as historical figures.  They also find comfort in the predictable ways their friendship plays out.  But what happens when the perfect job (dead-end or not) goes away?  Who will they be then? 

As the lights dim and then the spot lights come up again, we are launched suddenly into the world of Ye Elizabeths with a fun musical number outlining the premise of the story.  The two heroines (both named Elizabeth) introduce themselves and their world with expert piano accompaniment by Evan Gregory.

We’re reenacting history
From the 17th century
Through our characters we live vicariously
Because we don’t have lives of our own …

They have adventures (like the time when blood from the chicken slaughterers got in their eye and didn’t go away for a month), and gossip about the newbies.  They endure the curse of Wilawamat, and drool over (or disparage) the popular “Pilgrim Plantation” (a reality show about reenactors of the Pilgrim era which we get to see snippets of via a multimedia component of the show expertly and entertainingly done by Jeremy Mather). They also have numerous competitive verbal jousting matches about who is more desperate in one way or another.  Oh and there’s running. “Running’s our favorite”.

Mockucomedramady should be a term made especially for this show.  It quite successfully walks the fine line between slapstick and broad humor, highlighting the special tension between the two Elizabeths played by  Erin Leigh Schmoyer and Alicia Barnatchez.   One such moment is captured perfectly in the song Break-up which they perform in the climactic scene of the show.  With belting power ballad performed by Alicia  interlaced with the beating drum of Erin eviscerating her with rapid staccato in between her notes, we all hold our breath waiting to see how long the spell of their banishment from each other will take to weave. This is a really fun piece showcasing the talent of all three performers – Schmoyer,  Barnatchez and Gregory.

There are at least 3 strong threads weaving through this play.  There is the musical, which in and of itself is very catchy.  Then there is the mockumentary aspect which follows the same vein as Christopher Guest films.  The final and most thoughtful thread is the actual theme: What does it mean to have “a life”?  If you are feeling trapped, maybe you are.  It’s good to be good at what you do and be comfortable, but sometimes you just need to try something else if you’re going to get anywhere.

Alicia Barnatchez and Erin Leigh Schmoyer (Photo by Mike Gregoreksm)

One of the duo is dubbed “Elizasmith” for her aptitude for historical re-enactment of copper smithing and other tinkering, and the other is called “Elizabox” since she is an oxen interpreter who stands upon  a wood box  for the tourists who come through the stations each day.  She relays what the oxen are trying to communicate (“They don’t speak English”).

Elizasmith (Schmoyer) was born into the job being a “duo” with her mom since she was a baby.  In a way, Elizasmith is the more bitter of the two, but also sharper in many ways usually winning the verbal jousting matches the Elizabeths have with each other.  However, she is definitely much less worldly.

Elizabox (Barnatchez) is passionate for her work, and just wants to be the best at it what she is doing.  She wants to stay happy and stable with her friend who seems even more lost than she is.

One humorous meta-comic joke that recurs is simply the style of acting.  Even though the characters are in love with the idea of living in the times of the Pilgrims, in many ways they would fit more in the times of Vaudeville, what with their slapstick antics. It is almost a neo-Vaudvillian style taking the best of slapstick and inserting other more modern improv techniques.  Director Leah Bonvissuto’s hand is well played as she seamlessly moves from one form of story telling or multimedia expression to another while never missing a beat.

In terms of multi-media, the film clips range in style from that of reality show to classic silent movie which illustrates the duo transitioning from the world of Old Salem Township to the more alien outside world of imaginary motel rooms.  The two co-musical directors, Sarah Gregory and Evan  Gregory incorporate a diverse score – one that includes everything from the classic show tune to a smoky jazz song sung by the piano player during a scene change to a power ballad or two.

Erin Leigh Schmoyer and Alicia Barnatchez (Photo by Mike Gregorek)

Though there were a few rough edges in the production Barnatchez and Schmoyer do a great job showcasing the fun of this show, and Evan and Sarah Gregory have written some charming and amusing songs.

The ending might have been a little too pat, but for Ye Elisabeths it actually worked.  It drove home the message that maybe we can’t expect a perfect happily-ever-after for ourselves like we see in Ye Elizabeths, but we can sure try.

If you’re feeling down, this show is just the thing to perk you up.  It’s definitely funny and energizing, and it’s a little like hiding spinach in brownies: you get something good for you in what you though was just something basic and sweet.

~~~

Ye Elizabeths
Benefiting: Girls, Inc.
Produced by Easter Punny Productions
Written & Performed by Alicia Barnatchez and Erin Leigh Schmoyer
Directed by Leah Bonvissuto

$18 General Admission
$9.00 for Film/Music Participants
FREE for Theatre Festivity Participants

Saturday 6/2/12 – 5:00pm = Performance #1
Thursday 6/7/12 – 7:00pm = Performance #2
Friday 6/15/12 – 8:30pm = Performance #3
Saturday 6/16/12 – 3:00pm = Performance #4
Tuesday 6/19/12 – 8pm = Performance #5

50 minutes

At Bleecker Street Theatre (Upstairs)
45 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012
Conveniently located near:
Bleecker St (4 & 6)
Broadway – Lafayette St (B, D, F, M)
Prince St (N, R)
click here to purchase tickets

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Lovecraft Festival (Photos by Aaron Pachesa Photography)

THE OLDEST and strongest emotion of mankind is fear,

and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.  

- H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror In Literature

When I think of Howard Phillips (H.P.) Lovecraft’s Weird Stories I think of very intelligent people, facing the unknown. An unknown that is not known for a reason, as if we as human beings had evolved a blindspot to these things in order to protect our sanityand allow us to keep functioning as a society – especially after the world turns out to be different than we had ever imagined it. The truly alien nature of the entities that cross the paths of the protagonists (as opposed to “heroes”, as they rarely have a resounding victory) of these stories reminds us of the fragments of dreams we might have which don’t make sense, but disturb us greatly for reasons we don’t quite understand.

RADIOTHEATRE has taken Lovecraft’s stories in this 3rd edition of their regular Lovecraft Festival, and made them more horrific by performing them as a radio play – where we are forced to believe the unbelievable because the story is being told to us aloud – instead of just letting us process the strange visions of Lovecraft only in our heads.  Unlike most of Lovecraft’s stories, which are generally written in the style of a tortured lone soul chronicling his story, the tales being told are split into 3 voices (or in the case of The Horror On Martin’s Beach, a town) so there is always someone we can truly connect and sympathize with – even as the monstrous consumes them (and us) with fear.

Frank Zilinyi (Photo by Aaron Pachesi Photography

As a radio play, the dramatic storytelling of the actors (R. Patrick Alberty, Kevin Gilligan, and Frank Zilinyi), the eerily accurate sound effects (designed by Dan Bianchi with Wes Shippee as Engineer), and moving music (by Dan Bianchi and Kevin Macleod) allowed you to just close your eyes and be swept up in the engrossing story.  However with expert subtly as well as extreme lighting effects pulling us into the other-worldliness of the stories as well as the animated actors who reflect every emotion from happy and adventurous to confused or crazed to saddened or terrified, we the audience gets further drawn in.  By the time the hour and fifteen minute show was done I was somewhat drained, but very touched by what the different characters had gone through.

Frank Zilinyi’s direction and adaption by Dan Bianchi are definitely to be credited: to be frightened by horror is one thing, but to be moved by it is a much greater thing, and that is what this production of The H.P. Lovecraft Festival has accomplished.

This Festival comes in two Programs of stories.

Program A includes The Moon Bog which is a story what happened when someone decided to drain a very special bog and the residents of that bog came out of obscurity to stop him, and The Shadow over Innsmouth  which is a tale of an Irish town mostly inhabited by beings who are half human and half “deep one” (of the Cthulu stories).

Program B has 4 tales including:  The Lurking Fear which begins with 3 men spending a night in an old isolated mansion to investigate disappearances nearby, and ends with the main character learning the horrible truth behind it all, Statement Of Randolph Carter  in which a man in an insane asylum is interviewed by Randolph Carter, and his story changes Randolph forever, The Horror at Martin’s Beach  where a local group of fisherman bring in a “sea monster” 50 ft long and sets up a museum around it’s corpse to gain a profit from it.  Biologists investigating it determine this is a juvenile speciman of an unknown species.  Later it appears it might not be alone…, and finally The Evil Clergyman where a package is sent to a man who is lead to the room of  a deceased priest who was a leader of  strange cult.  He is warned by the landlords of the room not to touch anything, and not to stay there at night.  He doesn’t listen.

In RADIOTHEATRE’s adaption, we particularly see the strength of the ensemble. Instead of a single speaker in The Lurking Fear and The Horror at Martin’s Beach it is more of a greek chorus. The camaraderie of the characters in The Lurking Fear and the diversity of personalities, makes the horror that is felt seem more human because we identify with them more than in the original story.  Particularly in our hero, it makes the story sadder when he realizes the secret behind it all, the madness that caused the disappearances that set them out to investigate in the first place.  Hearing them all tell the tall tales they heard from various people made it make more sense how it could have been ignored so long by the people in the surrounding areas.  How the horrors of a living tree, a snake, a demon were all more acceptable answers to the human mind than the misfortune of evolution that was faced in the end in his narrow escape with the truth.

In The Horror at Martin’s Beach  instead of being told in a dryer, more journalistic sense, as is the original, the cast tells us the story of the events leading up to the horror in an enjoyable dialogue among people of a small town who recount a turning point in their community.  Even in describing the emptiness and desolation left in the aftermath of the story, there is still a bittersweet tone of  appreciation of the beauty of the stark emptiness of the sea on a moonlit night after the horrific events of the story unfold.

The text is basically the same as the original, with slight editing by Dan Bianchi. Frank Zilinyi really shows a great deal of thought and consideration in the direction of this piece, making us feel less alienated by the otherworldly parts of these stories.   The focus seemed much more on being part of community even if the characters involved tended toward isolation in the end.

H.P. Lovecraft had a unique way of seeing the world that helped pave the way for later thoughtful types of almost every other horror/speculative fiction narrator.  We see his influence in works by Alfred Hitchcock and shows such as The Twilight Zone.  As is the moral in many of Lovecraft’s stories, often it is knowledge that is the most damaging element, and while a horrible death may await, there is always a hint that some fates are much, much worse.

What RADIOTHEATRE has done is not so much brought back an ancient artform, but rather redefined it and made two classics better by their reinvention.  If you have the chance (and the gumption), I definitely think it would be worth your while to see one or both of the nights of theatre in this festival while you can.  It’s an experience you won’t soon forget.

~~~

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