I met Paul Hutcheson during the New York Frigid Fest a few years ago and, as most people do, immediately fell in love with him – as a person and as a performer. Just take a look at that face and you can see why! If you don’t already know Paul you have a great chance to see him perform – one night only – this weekend at the Duplex. Here’s a special 10 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE SHOW BEFORE YOU GO so you can plan your weekend around this and make sure you’re STUPEFIED.

Stupefied
Saturday April 23rd at 4:30 pm
The Duplex, 61 Christopher Street $10/15

Answers provided by: Writer & performer Paul Hutcheson

1. Forget the PR version. When you’re talking to your friends, how do you explain this show to them?
Paul: This is the show where I discuss all things that ‘stupefy’ me! From gay men &  a drinking study, to teaching teenagers, to the anus and love, I am constantly ‘Stupefied’ by life!

2. Here’s a scenario: After the show some audience members go have a drink. What’s the part of the show you hope they’re discussing?
Paul: I hope they are discussing how their cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing.

3. What drives your show – character, theme or plot?
Paul: The theme drives the stories and life experiences that I vividly bring to life on stage.

4. In rehearsals, read-thrus, or prior incarnations, what’s the one thing someone said about the show so far that made you (or the team) the most proud?
Paul: That their cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing!

5. If money and resources (and even reality) were no object what is the most lavish, luxurious, pointless prop, costume, effect – anything – that you would spend money on for this show?
Paul: I want to ‘stupefy’ the audience by flying around the stage and swooping into the audience in a custom made Wonder Woman outfit.

6. What’s the one thing you’re looking forward to as your show opens?
Paul: Getting to premiere the show in NYC! (This is a dream for a Canadian artist.)

7. Is there a scene, a moment, a gesture … anything at all in the show that you anticipate may get a completely different reaction depending on the audience that night?
Paul: Scolding people for not being able to talk about oral sex and masturbation but watching shows like ‘The Bachelorette’ & ‘Breaking Bad.’

8. What’s your favorite line from the show?
Paul: “Stupefying, isn’t it?”

9. What’s the last thing you usually do before the beginning of a show?
Paul: Stretch.

10. You scan the audience and you see a face that stops you dead in your tracks – who is it? And why are you shocked?
Paul: I scan and see John Cameron Mitchell. I am shocked because – how did he find out? And I hope he’s looking to manage a queer comedic performer!

~~~

Paul, my sweet, I know you’ll be stupefying that Duplex audience like crazy.  The rest of you – get your butts over to the Duplex … one of my favorite New York places to hang and have fun.  To purchase tickets CLICK HERE.

THE DUPLEX
INFORMATION: (212) 255-5438
61 CHRISTOPHER STREET @ 7TH AVE
NYC, NY 10014

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There’s not too much that’s quiet about Pat Kinevane’s performance in his self-authored, one man play, Silent, now playing at the Donaghy Theatre in the Irish Arts Center. This is a piece that has shown some legs since it’s development through 2010 and performances in 2011, when it won prizes at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Brighton’s Argus Angel Awards, and accolades around Ireland. Energized by an electrifying performance from Kinevane, and a richly theatrical dramatization from both performer/author and his director Jim Culleton, it’s not difficult to see why it works so successfully as fine entertainment with a dark twist.

It emerges against a background of contemporary Irish theatre works that show a marked inclination toward the dramatically dark comedy. Stifling social mores work hand in hand with smothering familial circumstances, producing situations so bad that – well, you’ve got to laugh, haven’t you? In this bleak tale our narrator, Tino McGoldrig, a homeless wino on the Dublin streets, recounts his sorry history and the story of his tragic older brother, Pearse. Set in the present, as Tino tells it, there was a sustained small-town roughness, a narrow-mindedness to their upbringing in the picturesque town of Cobh, Co. Cork. We’re back in the world of Brinsley MacNamara’s Valley of the Squinting Windows, where the residents have little to do but shame and one-up each other, ever watchful for anything that might not conform to a coveted normalcy. Pearse, alas, is recognizably light in the loafers from an early age, and soon attracts the scorn and ridicule of his community. He is, however, surpassingly beautiful, and wins the attentions of a merchant seaman. Discovery and public disgrace follow soon after and from then on he is hounded, suffering threats of humiliation and  physical violence at every turn. Young Tino observes all fretfully, but silently, happy in his own evasion of attention or accusation. Isolated and hectored, Pearse gives up in his teen years and commences a series of suicide attempts as coarsely comical as they are pitilessly unsuccessful. Stigma and shame attaches to the family and even though Tino struggles towards a blameless normal existence – marriage, and a child, and denial – guilt and depression overtake him and he succumbs to alcoholism and a downward spiral. He is thrown out of his home, debarred, and eventually institutionalized, ending up on the streets of the capital.

It’s baroque stuff, with a whiff of melodrama, but all retold in a caustic, unsentimental manner, swinging from the anecdotally ridiculous to the inflatedly operatic. The lost romance of the silent movie era is given some play – Tino and his father having been named in honor of Rudolf Valentino – and there are arresting sequences of old-school actorly projecting – smoldering dumb shows with opulent lighting effects and text placards. These passages are nicely foiled by Tino’s more natural, direct stage address, comprising elements of contemporary stand-up, satirical impersonation, and loquacious bar stool Blarney. Everything is punctuated by the recorded tinkle of a coin dropping into Tino’s pavement begging bowl, recalling us to the here and now, and Tino to his present predicament – the need to ‘perform’ for his supper.

Kinevane as Tino is mesmerizing, both to watch and to listen to. This is a performer as fully adept with traditions of physical theatre – mime, dance, voguing – as he is with vocal modulation – pitch, expression, mimicry. He even works in some audience interaction, relaxing the dramatic tension, just as easily as he can sharpen it, never losing control. This is a considerable asset, as in the final analysis, there is something over-long in the telling – a tendency to meander off on a riff that proves as compelling as the main narrative itself. If it’s possible for the teller to upstage his tale, then perhaps Kinevane is a bit guilty here. Tino’s life has been devoured by Pearse’s story, but Kinevane’s performance, in some measure, overwhelms his narrative. Whether you agree or not, it’s something to see.

In dramatic visualization, director and co-developer, Jim Culleton, displays insight and authority. Along with Kinevane, Culleton devised the lighting design. One wonderful scene – at a moment of high drama - deploys shadows thrown up on a backdrop as separate stage presences, heightening mood and tension. This high degree of imaginative thoughtfulness is consistent in Catherine Condell‘s simple, but supple costuming, and in the evocative sound design by Denis Clohessy. Taking a compelling lead from Kinevane, this condensed company have produced a work of elaborate theatricality, sounding a bold and refreshing note for theatre as theatre.

Running Time: 80 minutes

Admission: $30 non-members / $24 members

Click Here for tickets

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Katherine Maughan‘s An Evening With Kirk Douglas opens on a modest, tidy motel suite, with a neatly made-up bed, a nightstand, and a backpack resting on a table. Enter Maisie Kingsley, a young wife celebrating her first anniversary with a road trip around northern California. Her hands are covered with blood. Lots of it – that garishly bright, glistening theatrical blood favored by make-up artists. Immediately there is tension. Maisie moves about restlessly in a state of shock. She wants something in her backpack, but is reluctant to touch anything with her gore drenched hands. A beat. She tries delicately picking at a pocket zip on the bag. Okay – now it’s funny. The phone begins to ring. Maisie’s eyes open wide with terror. The tension tightens as we witness her dilemma. Enter -thank goodness! – her husband, Walter. Without batting an eyelid he begins a discussion about answering the phone. The phone continues to sound shrilly, and your nerves begin to stretch, as you watch these two – presumably imperiled fugitives – show every sign of bungling their escape because of some thick-headed disagreement.

As an introductory scene that builds dramatic tension while playing on comical ridiculousness, these opening moments are truly a class act. It’s contemporary screwball with a nod in the direction of something darker. The humor is sustained, the scenario explained (weird and funny), as our protagonist couple try to come to terms with what they have done, and what they must do. While a body lies bleeding in their bathtub, the high drama of the situation is comically undercut by their frequent segues into petty irritable exchanges and inappropriate sentimental overtures. High-strung Maisie is hopelessly panic-prone and histrionic, and Walter contrarily hard-headed and calculating. Everything they have done thus far, around the scene of an accident, is exactly the wrong thing to have done. It’s a funny metaphor, but only a matter of time, you surmise, before Maisie deploys those blood-stained hands in an inadvisable manner. Which shortly she does in epic fashion, hysterical to observe. As played by Morgan Grace Jarrett (Maisie) and Winston Noel (Walter) this first part of Maughan’s two act play is clever and funny, wickedly so. It’s too bad everything it has going for it is let down by what follows.

Farcical as the first part was, we have removed to much further along the comedic scale, and foolishness, for the second act. We are in heaven, in the company of God, Jesus, and St. Peter, who are conducting a dull staff meeting regarding the day’s expected entrants at the Pearly Gates. It may be amusing to entertain the notion of these figures as broad 21st century types – God as an unimaginative authority figure with a soft spot for celebrities, Jesus as a responsibility-shy, feel-good slacker, and St. Peter as a put-upon, under-appreciated, make-do manager – but only mildly so. The day’s big arrival is going to be Kirk Douglas, which is exciting for God who has been trying to reel him in for some time now. Jesus meantime is grumbling about the present batch of his followers who find their way up here; they’re limited and boring. Heaven is presented as something like a less than spectacular, under-serviced holiday camp. Everything, however, is thrown out there merely for its humorous appeal, and nothing activates to drive along a plot, or even describe one. With a start-stop momentum, it’s a loose sequence of sketches, of variable impact, set in the same environment. Except for the fleeting appearance of Kirk Douglas – with allusions to the reason for his demise – it has hardly any connection to the previous act, holds nothing of its pedigree, and leaves a much weaker wake in its trail.

Too bad, as some of the actors – Brian Faas (in a class of his own as St. Peter), Austin Rye (Jesus), and Brandon Scott Jones (Caleb, a Jesus freak) – have something going here. The author’s looser writing, however, just goes nowhere. It’s not aided by Kerry McGuire‘s slack hand in the directing role, who might have contributed something with just a tighter blocking of her actors. The obvious unevenness between the two acts is problematic and partly spoils enjoyment of some promising comedic writing by the young Katherine Maughan.

~~~

An Evening With Kirk Douglas  was part of the 2012 Fringe Festival.

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Iranian-Canadian actress Tara Grammy portrays three distinctive characters in her one-woman show, co-authored by director Tom Arthur Davis, Mahmoud. We see her as the titular Mahmoud, a Toronto-dwelling, Iranian ex-patriot taxi driver in his middle years; as Emanuelos, a gay Spanish immigrant working happily as a department store cologne salesman; and as Tara, a twelve year old Iranian-Canadian schoolgirl with aspirations to acting. Each character is richly invested with a clutch of mannerisms and a particular voice, stylizations which -while attention-grabbing – come perilously close to stereotypes. There’s something more than just a little cartoonish about Grammy’s turn as the rapid-speaking, gasp emitting young Tara, and her Emanuelos could cause Will & Grace‘s Jack McFarland to blush. There may be a political point being made here about westerners – they’re spoiled, shallow, and self-centered – but it’s a pretty broad one. Mahmoud, by contrast, an immigrant who fled Iran during the cultural revolution, is shown as friendly and engaging, with a moderately pitched voice. Even though he wants to talk relentlessly about how wonderful his former country is, and he’s no slouch when it comes to sounding off at other predatory drivers, he’s the soul of modesty. But it’s a comedy – isn’t it? – so go with it.

We’re in Toronto and it’s 2009. The television news media is focused on the protests and social upheaval surrounding forthcoming presidential elections in Iran. All of the characters are vaguely impacted, even Emanuelos who, it transpires, is dating a nice Iranian man (who just happens to be Mahmoud’s closeted nephew). The stories begin to draw together and broader themes of cultural displacement, immigration, racism, and homophobia come into focus under a wider banner of -’what price personal liberty?’ The writing in this regard is skillful and more subtle than the performances suggest. Time passes, things change. Tara gives up on the notion of ever being seen as anything other than Iranian. Emanuelos becomes engaged to his boyfriend, who returns to his country to “announce their plans.” As things continue to heat up in Tehran, the three characters encounter each other in telling exchanges. Tension mounts until the video-captured shooting of a young Iranian woman attending a rally is broadcast around the world; the Neda story. Various simmering issues in the lives of the three principals abruptly erupt with dramatic consequences. The comic vein the piece began in has been left well and truly behind, and the stereotypes melt into more recognizable flesh and blood individuals.

There has been method in Grammy’s broad impersonations after all. Commencing with almost two-dimensional types, the story closes in on the real individuals as the political, social realities of their lives close in on the characters themselves. The climax has a somewhat melodramatic, symbolic over-reach perhaps, but the story holds together and is deftly brought off. For all her enjoyment of comic overkill, Grammy is an agile and attractive performer. She proves disciplined and well timed, both in conducting the story’s narrative flow, and in her changes from one character to another. The performance is all the more praiseworthy for being enacted on the limited platform stage at Jimmy’s No. 43, with no curtain or props; just fluidly synchronized lighting (Jenna Koenig) and sound effects (Mike Conley). As co-author, director Tom Arthur Davis knows what he is looking for from her, and she delivers here handsomely.

Mahmoud is a winner of a   2012 FringeNYC Overall Excellence Award, and will be part of the Fringe Encore Series.   Details about the encore performance are below:

~~~

Mahmoud
Pandemic Theatre
Writer: Tara Grammy and Tom Arthur Davis
Director: Tom Arthur Davis, Consulting Director: Soheil Parsa, Assistant Director: Omar Hady
One Iranian actress, three characters: an Iranian engineer-cum-taxi driver, a fabulously gay Spaniard, and a pre-teen Iranian-Canadian girl. Their stories intertwine in unexpected ways in this personal and hilarious story. Learn more about Iranians, and maybe even yourself.
Huron Club. 9/22 at 8PM; 9/23 at 3PM; 9/25 at 8PM; 9/29 at 5PM; 9/30 at 5PM.
1h 0m
Solo Show   Comedy
 
www.mahmoudtaxi.com

The FringeNYC Encore Series will present 19 “Best of The Festival” shows in rotating repertory at SoHo Playhouse and The Huron Club (both located at 15 Vandam Street between 6th Avenue & Varick) as well as at The Players Theater (115 MacDougal Street between Bleecker and Houston Streets). Tickets are $18, available at 212-691-1555 or www.SohoPlayhouse.com  

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The Happiest Medium review by guest contributor Rebecca Bernard

 A man and a woman wake up in bed beside each other, neither one recognizing the other and then going about their day. This is the premise or idea behind Contrasts, a highly physical story that “reveals the ever-present contrasts between men and women.”

Much happens in this hour long duo performance, conceived and performed by Dana Cavaleru and Richard Bovnoczki. The gifted performers transition from scene to scene with little dialogue,  creating beautiful pictures and humorous scenes. Familiar and not so familiar scenes are explored through the specific style of theatre the two Romanian actors have developed; a fresh combination of pantomime, dance and theatre. A stand out scene includes the recreation of a black and white picture, complete with scratchy erratic movements that Bovnoczki depicted so well the night I attended that the audience burst into applause. Dialogue introduced in the performance doesn’t distract – it sparkles, proving that both the performers’ voices and the use of different languages are as engaging as their  physicality.

Though beautiful moments are created and the premise is strong, the play does not entirely follow through. One is not quite sure who the characters are. Is the man and woman the same man and woman throughout, or are they musings on a theme? Each scene ends and goes into another, often with the absence of a transition to help make sense of this. And though the performers’ miming is often very good, this same lack of follow through shows up at times when an object is created and suddenly dropped, breaking the illusion it created for the audience. Half way through the actors start to include the audience, reacting to breaths, sighs and reactions from the audience.

Though this quality is nice, it becomes confusing since it wasn’t present from the beginning of the piece. Overall, though, the contrast of confusion to beauty, inventiveness and fun wins over the audience, making Contrasts a joy to watch.

~~~

CONTRASTS
Richard Bovnoczki and Dana Cavaleru
Director: Richard Bovnoczki, Dana Cavaleru
Theatre. Pantomime. Dance. Original stage vocabulary. Stories that make you laugh or cry. Two Romanian actors revealing contrasts. An ever changing imaginary set. Several European Awards. “If Tom and Jerry saw this show they would have reasons to be envious.”
1h 0m   International   Bucharest, Romania
Comedy   Dance
Staycation: In Someone Else’s Shoes   Ride the Rollercoaster of Love
www.contrastsshow.blogspot.com
VENUE #19: HERE Dorothy B. Williams Theater
Wed 15 @ 8  Thu 16 @ 4:15  Sat 18 @ 6  Sun 19 @ 8:15  Tue 21 @ 7  Thu 23 @ 7

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If you feel like taking a trip to New Delhi or Mumbai this summer, skip the flight and hop on the 6 train to Astor Place. There, at the White Box Theater at 440 Studios, Malini Srinivasan accompanied by Kadhambari Sridhar and Umesh Venkatesan will transport you not only to the Indian subcontinent, but also back in time to the second century, B.C. with their mesmerizing Bharathanatyam performance, Being Becoming.

At first, she’ll hide from you behind the translucent magenta curtain, where she will skillfully put on her make-up so her already beautiful eyes will dazzle even brighter. Then she will wrap the jiggling bracelets around her ankles. Next, she will weave flowers in her hair – and the curtain will rise – lifted by the other two dancers as if  to invite the audience into a world none of us really know. For the next hour or so, the lithe and nimble trio clad in gold, blue and red iridescent costumes will tell us stories about a spiritual seeker, a woman in love and even about the Hindu gods Shiva and Parvati – all without a single word. The artists don’t need any sounds but the music and the changing staccato of its beat. The mastery of Bharathanatyam is being able to tell the story without speaking.

One of the oldest Indian classical dance forms, Bharathanatyam has a name as complex as the techniques it employs. In Tamil, a language spoken in South India, Bha- stands for Bhavam (expression), Ra- for Ragam (music) and Ta- for Talam (beat or rhythm) while Natyam means dance. So if Bharathanatyam looks unpronounceable, try Bharatha Natyam.

Having evolved from ancient Indian dancing, Bharatha Natyam is characterized by nrtta – the movement technique of complex rhythmic patterns and sharp and clear geometric shapes made by the dancers’ bodies. Another unique characteristic of this classic art form is abhinaya, the mastery of expression, and the dancers’ use of hand gestures and symbols to relate the story and their emotions to the audience.

There is a reason why the performance in called Being Becoming. It’s not just a beguiling title, made to catch your eye in the nearly 200 Fringe shows this year. The name takes its origin in the essential ideas of Hindu and Buddhist beliefs, presenting the concept that a person can become one with the object of his or her desire or devotion. This idea, also popular in Indian poetry and painting, weaves through the performance pieces of the show: the spiritual seeker wishes to unite with Lord Shiva and the lovesick maiden wants to be one with Lord Vishnu.

Granted or not, their desires and explorations are a way to disappear in your dreams, and a form of meditation, perhaps. And so the dance goes on with its sharp and precise hand movements, the seductive head rolls and the gentle flutter of eyelashes followed by fervent looks up above for an ultimate solution for all the mortal and immortal ills – leading us through the wonders of Indian mythology and thousands of years of history.

~~~

Being Becoming
Malini Srinivasan and Dancers
Choreographer: Malini Srinivasan
She puts on her make-up and becomes a classical Bharatanatyam dancer. With each dazzling gesture she transforms into a playful child, forlorn lover, or Ardhanariswara: half-man, half-woman. Join us on a journey where gestures create and each of us transforms.
1h 15m   Local   Queens, New York
Dance   Drama
Staycation: Overseas Adventure   Ride the Rollercoaster of Love
www.malinisrinivasan.com
VENUE #06: The White Box at 440 Studios
Sat 11 @ 2:30  Fri 17 @ 6:15  Sun 19 @ 9:15  Tue 21 @ 2  Thu 23 @ 9:15  Fri 24 @ 7

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Broadway Week, September 4 – 16, with 99% of plays and musicals offered in a 2-4-1 bonanza, is always eagerly anticipated. The Fall discounts include nearly 20 shows, including some hard-to-get-tickets-to blockbusters.  In addition, 25 Theatre District restaurants are offering a free dessert when a ticket stub from participating shows is presented.

“The only thing better than seeing a Broadway show is the opportunity to get two tickets for the price of one,” said Charlotte St. Martin, executive director, the Broadway League. “Thanks to NYC & Company, we’re thrilled to offer this exciting opportunity again to  theatergoers.”
Productions participating in Fall’s Broadway Week are Bring It On, Chaplin, Chicago, An Enemy of the People, Evita, 2012 Tony-winning Best Revival [in its last weeks on Broadway] Porgy and Bess, Tony-winning  Jersey Boys, Tony-winning The Lion King, Mamma Mia!, Mary Poppins, Newsies, Nice Work If You Can Get It, 2012 Tony winning Best Musical Once, Peter and the Starcatcher, Tony-winning long-run champion The Phantom of the Opera, Rock of Ages, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Tony-winning War Horse, and Tony-winning Wicked.  All are subject to availability and blackout dates may apply. Use the code BWAYWEEK at theatre box offices to save a bundle in service charges.

Participating restaurants are B. Smith’s, Ca Va Brasserie, FireBird, the Russian Tea Room, Shun Lee West, and Sky Room Times Square. To book tickets for a Broadway Week show and for the complete list of participating restaurants, visit nycgo.com/broadwayweek.
Amtrak Guest Rewards members earn 100 points or more for tickets purchased to participating shows by registering their account with Audience Rewards before purchase.
Broadway Week is produced by NYC & Company, the Broadway League, AARP, Amtrak, NBC-4, and The New York Times. For more information, to make online purchases, and a full list of restaurants, visit nycgo.com/broadwayweek.

Happy 100^th!

World dance impresario, Hungarian-born Paul Szilard is 100 (August 24). Many of the world’s ballet companies owe their current renaissance or, in fact, wouldn’t exist today without his amazing largesse. In June, at Paris’ Theatre du Chatelet, on the opening night of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater season, he was was decorated by the French Ministry of Culture for his years of bringing great dance to France and for his contributions to French culture.

Mr. Szilard has presented not only Alvin Ailey, but also New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theater, Martha Graham Dance Company, Madrid’s Ballet Víctor Ullate, and, among others, Universal Ballet and such artists as Mikhail Baryshnikov and Judith Jamison here and throughout the world. The first English-language Broadway show presented in Japan, West Side Story, was presented by Mr. Szilard.

As a leading dancer, Mr. Szilard performed throughout the world. Under My Wings: My Life as an Impresario, his autobiography, was published in 2002.

Kipling’s Jungle Book Onstage

Theatre East presents a new adaptation of Kipling’s classic The Jungle Book by Megan O’Brien, Off Broadway beginning September 1 for a limited engagement at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre [416 West 42^nd Street, between Ninth and Ten Avenues].  Dina Epshteyn directs. This tale of a lost boy being adopted by the animals of the jungle is told through the eyes of young Alex, who through the pages of the story uses his imagination to bring the book to life. Through shadow puppetry, and new staging this is a show the entire family will enjoy. For more information, visit www.junglebooktheplay.org.

Tickets are $25; $20, for groups of 10 or more. They’re on sale at the box office and through Ticket Central, (212) 279-4200 or www.ticketcentral.com, where you can find the performance schedule.

Celebrating Brazil

Millions will throng Sixth Avenue, in the vicinity of Little Brazil, West 46^th Street, between Sixth and Fifth Avenues for the 28^th annual Brazil Day festivities. They lead off with a parade and music festival on Sixth Avenue on Saturday, September 1. Then, the next day, 25 streets of the surrounding area become New York’s largest street fair. The stage at 42^nd Street and Sixth will showcase some of Brazil’s hottest musicians and entertainers will be in a Samba-madness mode, along with visiting soccer stars. Since Brazil will host the 2016 Olympic Summer Games, you can expect even more enthusiasm this year. For more information, visit www.brazilianday.com.

Sponsors include Brazil’s TV Globo and the newspaper The Brasilians and BACC Travel, owned by Honorary Little Brazil Mayor  João de Matos.
For authentic Brazilian delicacies and famed all-you-can-eat meats from dozens of skewers, visit the classic steakhouses Churrascaria Plataforma on West 49^th Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, and the Churrascaria Plataforma in Tribecca; and Brazil Grill, Eighth Avenue and 48^th Street.

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It’s that time of year loyal lovers of theater dread. Shows that have been struggling to make it, will be closing. The light at the end of the tunnel, as is always the case with Broadway, is that new, and some are quite exciting, shows will be taking their place.

The musical Ghost, based on the 1990 smash film, gave up the ghost Saturday [August 17]. The End of the Rainbow, with [whether you believe the arc of the play to be factual or fiction] a commanding performance by Tracie Bennett, heads out to tour soon [and will be adapted for the screen] and, as of Sunday, there’s no Judy, Judy, Judy on Broadway. On August 29, the curtain rings down on glitzy Sister Act.

Closing it’s limited engagement on September 1 is the New York Shakespeare Festival’s revival of Sondheim’s Into the Woods, playing Central Park’s Delacorte Theatre [free admission], and starring Oscar winner Amy Adams and Tony winner Donna Murphy.

September 2 we must say cheerio to one of this season best entertainments, One Man, Two Guvnors, starring 2012 Best Actor, the incomparable James Corden. It’s a laugh riot and should be at the top of your Must See list. Also closing the same day is this year’s Best Play, Bruce Norris’s Clybourne Park, also a Pulitzer Prize honoree and Olivier Award winner.
The acclaimed 2012 Tony-winning revival of George and Ira Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess,starring Audra McDonald

Porgy and Bess (Audra McDonald and Norm Lewis | Photo by Michael J. Lutch)

[except August 21-23], Norm Lewis, and David Alan Grier, has posted September 23 for its final performance. Rumor has it heading to the big screen, directed by Spike Lee.

Off Broadway, you can catch the last performances of the popular farce, Potted Potter, which presents all seven Harry Potter books in 70 minutes.

Still holding strong Off Broadway is Nina Raine’s must-see family drama Tribes, one of the best plays of this or any recent season.

In previews or soon to open are the play Grace, co-starring Paul Rudd and Ed Asner; the musical Chaplin, based on the life of filmdom’s silent era king, the Tramp; one of Broadway’s biggest blockbusters, the Tony-winning Annie; Roundabout Theater Company’s revival of Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac and Rupert Holmes’ Tony-winning The Mystery of Edwin Drood, based on Dickens’ incomplete last novel and co-starring legendary Broadway favorite Chita Rivera; and Chicago’s Steppenwolf’s revival of Edward Albee’s landmark play, the scorching Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf? 

Also in the good news department, a brand new edition of Gerard Alessandrini’s wickedly funny send-up Forbidden Broadway, Alive and Kicking! has arrived.

PBS Specials

PBS regularly airs performances of the Metropolitan Opera and a variety of the best in classical and pop concerts. Coming up is a superb example of the former.

Verdi’s La Traviata gets a contemporary design that’s both off-putting and provocative on August 23 at 9 P.M. and August 26 at Noon in Willy Decker’s production that might not satisfy loyalists but breathes new breath into a classic. Celebrated French soprano Natalie Dessay delivers a staggering portrayal of Violetta. Matthew Polenzani is Alfredo, with acclaimed Russian bass Dmitri Hvorostovsky’s magnificent portrayal of Giorgio. The Met’s Fabio Luisi conducts.

Upcoming: Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert, Great Performances, August 31, 9 P.M.; Paul McCartney, Live Kisses, September 7, 9 P.M.

On the Record

Tony winner and two-time Grammy nominee Betty Buckley’s new solo album, Ah, Men! The Boys of Broadway [Palmetto Records] features tunes from her acclaimed 2011 concert, “songs,” she says, “we gals never got to sing. It’s my take on some of the soaring melodies the men got to sing.” The 14 tracks include Irving Berlin’s “My Defenses Are Down,” Annie Get Your Gun; Bernstein/Sondheim’s “Maria,” West Side Story; Frank Loesser’s “Luck Be a Lady,” Guys and Dolls; and a suite from Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.

Raissa Katon Bennett, cabaret award winner and a later Christine in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Hart’s Phantom of the Opera, has released Another Kind of Light [LML Records]. The 15 tracks include Broadway, pop, and jazz. Among the highlights is “Ordinary Miracles” by Marvin Hamlisch and Alan and Marilyn Bergman, Cole Porter’s “I Concentrate on You,” and the rarely-recorded “How Could I Not?” by Alan Menken and David Spencer from the musical adaptation of The
Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. Bennett  performs songs from the album August 21-25 at Feinstein’s at Loews Regency. To book, click here.

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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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Written in 1983, an early effort from playwright John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck; Doubt: A Parable), Danny and the Deep Blue Sea has enjoyed a healthy theatrical life to date, being something of a favorite showcase for two actors displaying their mettle in a torrid tale of attraction, repulsion, knock-down and drag-out. At once alive to the profane speech and stunted hopes of its two messed-up blue-collar, Bronx dwelling principals, it is also elaborately artificial in its romantic trajectory, positing the notion that these two social zeroes could come together in the course of one night and offer each other something like redemption – in the form of a marriage proposal. You don’t have to be hyper critical to find it psychologically unconvincing. But you might want to re-examine your own smug sense of what is and is not possible as Shanleys’ characters, Roberta and Danny, play out this tormented encounter with the demons that preside over what can and cannot happen for them in their own desperately bleak lives.

At play’s opening Roberta (Allison Plamondon), sullen yet provocative, sits alone in a dive bar, drinking. Enter Danny (Joe Perrino) holding a pitcher of beer, bloodied and still steaming from a recent violent street encounter. He takes the table alongside Roberta. The pheromonal hum he’s giving off would move most people directly toward the exit, but to Roberta it works as an enticement. She engages him. In short order Danny has convincingly asserted that he is homicidal, and Roberta that she is suicidal. A perfect match in some ways, but the verbal sparring that ensues, escalating quickly to physical assault, offers not a shred of comedy, or even tragedy, as respite. As blinded with self-loathing and rage as his characters are, Shanley finds language for them to convey the greater evils of their lives – a generational despair passed on by parents who long ago lost any self respect, along with their way. A kinship evolves and as rashly and ill-advisedly as anything else they have undertaken, these two move from bar room to bedroom. Post-coital the tension eases to a degree, but in another way the real fighting for this couple is just beginning.

Each has a sense of a better life – as clichéd and romantic as can be – and following the savagery of what went before, a certain lame tenderness is aired between them. The mythos of marriage takes hold and there’s a measure of ghastliness about the tired projections the duo concoct for themselves. Shanley puts romance on the operating table and invites the audience into the surgical theatre. Stars in a night sky induce a headache in Danny, until finally he can see some that form themselves into  - a big lump of tuna. Roberta watches the glow of a red garage light outside her window and fantasizes it’s the moon. Even these two headcases can tell themselves stories, but can they find a different ending for the one they’ve been telling themselves all their lives?

If you don’t believe Shanley’s story, it won’t be on account of director Alice Spivak. Spivak, a veteran acting teacher and coach, throws all her energy into drawing performances from her actors, both incidentally  past students of hers. She certainly appears to know how to get what she needs from them. Character comprehension and projection is deep core. Perrino’s hopped up, thin-skinned aggression relents to just as tongue-tied a vulnerability once, unwisely perhaps, it senses safety around Roberta. Wide-eyed, muscular, prone to fits of breathlessness, every tic and posture broadcasts a hair-trigger, dangerous sore-head inviting some kind of hormonal intervention. Sporting a pair of amateurishly blood-laced knuckles, Perrino easily disposes of a clumsy theatrical effect that more readily suggests a run in with a raspberry syrup dispenser than the result of a bruising street brawl. Plamondon’s Roberta is shrewder, crueler perhaps in her calculating approach. Arrogantly abandoned to her own hopelessness, Plamondon gives Roberta a brazen stare and a mouth that most naturally relaxes into a lop-sided smile of contempt. For all her armored defiance she is see-through when desperate. She knows that she needs to be forgiven, but is not clear if she wants to be punished more than she wants forgiveness. Catholicism gets a shout-out here, and we get a riff of comedy as the pair consider the possibility of a protestant wedding ceremony. There’s a definite chemistry between these two, which drags you along for the ride however much you might protest the credibility of the scenario. Their convincing embodiment of the characters actually works at throwing the artifice of Shanley’s piece into relief. Which itself is a nice conceit, one the playwright might approve.

Minor quibbles would mention the poor sighting in sections of the auditorium’s seating during some of the action. The stage at the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe is quite low and one scene has the characters prone on a bed for exchanges. There’s enough real blood in the language and the performances to overlook the aforementioned poorly applied theatrical kind. Indeed, perhaps there’s something to be said in favor of the belaboring of this gory illusion. The best theatre teases us with the knowledge of its artificiality, even while it pulls us into a state of credulous surrender. All evidence suggests this production, from OnTheRoad Repertory Company, is vividly wise to this understanding, and sharp about how to convey it.

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