New York City is host to two concurrently running productions of Shakespeare’s Macbeth this Spring: Aquila Theatre‘s presentation at the Gym at Judson (April 18th – May 6th), and Epic Theatre Ensemble‘s interpretation at the 47th Street Theatre (April 20 – May 26th). A stable of many a theatrical company’s portfolio, apart from its matchless, vivid language, Macbeth as drama has much to attract aspiring ensembles, not least the challenge presented in portraying two of Shakespeare’s most unsympathetic lead roles. We watch as Macbeth and his wife are enticed into evil by the lure of power and then, as good stage villains, are punished for their crimes. The trick, however, is in making them into more than stage villains, for in that resides the case for tragedy and its capacity to ennoble human existence. It is a tricky bit of the equation as both of these productions can testify.

Aquila Theatre is devoted to the classics of western theatre, in restating their claim to preeminence as timeless pieces, triumphs of human artistry and culture. As such they tend toward language focused productions that are light on the use of contemporary stagecraft elaborations. For their Macbeth Desiree Sanchez wears both directorial and production designer hats. She is spare in her approach. A minimum of props are deployed in the expansive and lofty space  Judson’s Gym theatre offers. There is an economy and subtlety at work in the way she groups the action about the squared arena. An innovative, momentary introductory prelude scene which highlights a blood-soaked, battle worn Macbeth in one corner, and a bereft Lady Macbeth on bloodied bed sheets following unsuccessful labor in the opposite corner, acts as a startling, punched signature of this director’s suggestion for the fatal couple’s motivations. The Macbeths are traumatized people, destabilized, estranged, in search of a project into which they can pour themselves, erase the past, and reunite. This prelude dispatched in an instant, there is little other tinkering with the body of the play and all unfolds to order.

The performances are vigorous, emotive, well spoken and, most importantly, psychologically grounded. If you have an ear for Shakespeare this is a wonderful production to hear his words delivered eloquently and with conviction. Rebecca Reaney as Lady Mabeth is nuanced and bold, spectacularly benefiting from Peter Meineck‘s well-judged lighting, which is at once lavishly theatrical and self-disciplined. Guy Oliver-Watts, working to uncover an aspect of post traumatic stress disorder in the role of Macbeth, has a more complex part. He is thoroughly convincing, but in so doing projects a weakened, dependent quality in the man who would be king and, strangely, this deflates the character somewhat, puncturing the fullness of the play’s tragic reach. He is doing well what he has been directed to do but herein lies the rub, and a very fine rub it is for the measure of what might be deemed tragic theatre. The rest of the cast are for the most part assured in their roles, with Peter F. Gardiner, (Banquo), James Lavender (Macduff), and Rachel Barrington (Lady Macduff) especially commendable.

Coincidentally the notion that the Macbeths, and especially Lady Macbeth, are grieving former parents, is made central in Epic Theatre’s version of the play. This idea is evident in the presence on stage of a small shrine with a framed photograph of a toddler, to which Lady Macbeth touchingly returns for some of her scenes. Also, it is manifest in the large projected photo image of the Macbeths, tenderly converging about a drowsy infant, which is thrown up on the broken surface of the rear wall. This projection is relentless, hanging like a grey cloud above the proceedings, at once lugubrious and sentimental. Interpretation, with a capital I, is the strategy of this production. Set in a more contemporary world, we are treated to off-stage electronic voices in ear pieces, and a video screen displaying action elsewhere. The Weird Sisters are a heterogeneous mix of sexes and ethnicities, and hang about the stage throughout the action on overhead ladders and walkways, like jaded demi-gods, stonily unmoved by the unfolding drama below. Innovation appears one of director Ron Russell‘s chief concerns with his production. In the banquet scene where a guilty Macbeth is plagued with visions of the murdered Banquo, the bloodied apparition is suddenly encountered in a dance embrace by the newly crowned king. This shift works dramatically, as do some of the other re-imaginings. Richard Easton as Duncan, hailing from the video monitor, is a treat as a telegenic royal talking head, at once hammy and calculating. However, a growing awareness dawns as it becomes plain that Russell as director, engaged with innovation it seems for innovation’s sake, completely loses the plot in the finest sense. This might have been more immediately evident if I had read the production’s publicity notes which describe the play as “a brutal and darkly funny exploration of the banality of evil.” Really? Macbeth? Funny? If the line had been offered by Mel Brooks I might have taken closer note, but otherwise it seems merely, but utterly, wrong-headed. And how wrong-headed becomes dismayingly clear in due course as Russell stokes up moments of sour humor (one of the witches sings her lines in a borrowed tutu as a karaoke turn) and rubbishes any solemnity. It’s as if the idea of theatrical tragedy is unknown to him. The most damaging turn occurs amidst some rapid fire scene shifts toward the conclusion which require one actor to change swiftly between two characters. This is done on stage by the actor (James Wallert) taping and un-taping a fringe of hair to his brow to distinguish between roles. In the duration a cry is heard off stage. Jumping from left to right, Wallert, fringed one moment, un-fringed the next, delivers the news of Lady Macbeth’s death. It is, richly, a Mel Brooks moment, and there was more than one chuckle in the audience.

Can Russell actually hear the language Shakespeare is putting in his characters’ mouths? The evidence is scarce and the actors suffer from the inability to sound as if they mean their words. Who is to blame them if the director has no feeling for the real emotion of the play? Apart from Easton in the role of Duncan, and Julian Rozzell, Jr. (with presence to burn) as one of the witches, everyone seems merely focused on unburdening themselves as rapidly and succinctly as possible of their Shakespearean metre. Russell is not the director who can marry them to their lines. As Macbeth, Ty Jones actually commences the soliloquy – “Is this a dagger I see before me?” – with his back to the audience. No chance here for an actor to convey facially the extremity of the moment. Russell, it seems, is not interested in psychological subtleties (witness the never-changing backdrop projection) merely the chance of creating something different. Well sad to say, something different definitely this way comes, but you’ll be lucky if the pricking you feel is confined to your thumbs.

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Actress and Comedian Livia Scott hosts this monthly variety show, where dead celebrities are brought back to life and stellar guest performances contribute to the experience of Livia’s Castle of Enchantment at the UCB Theater East.

I attended Livia’s Castle of Enchantment on Tuesday, April 24, and was pleasantly taken on a whirlwind as Livia morphed into the dead celebrity of the evening: Mike Wallace. Livia’s portrayal as Mike Wallace was as respectful as it was funny and had the crowd laughing throughout the show, highlighting her skills in stand-up, improv, and impersonation.

Livia (ahem … Mike Wallace) was joined by three special guests: Mike Milazzo, Bamboo Silva, and Seaton Smith. These acts were woven throughout the show, giving each performer a space in which to shine, while being incorporated into the total experience of the evening’s enchantment.

Seaton Smith did a riotous comedy set, enthralling the audience with his edgy humor, thoughts, and observations.  Mike Milazzo and Bamboo Silva rocked the theater with solo acts, and then collaborated in an improvisational jam that had the audience shouting with excitement and electric applause. As Livia said, “the ferociously heartbreaking guitarist + Bronx beatboxer beyond Thunderdome = together they’re unlike anything you’ve ever seen.”

Overall, Livia’s Castle of Enchantment is a fun, organic variety show. Each month brings a new dead celebrity host via Livia and amazing guest acts to round out the experience. The show starts by 7:30 and lasts about an hour. At only $5, you won’t want to miss this kind of enchantment.

More about Livia Scott:

Livia is an actress, comedian and character powerhouse who’s appeared on Law & Order, Late Night With Conan O’Brien, the Comedy Central series Honesty, the upcoming feature film Snatched as Andrew McCarthy’s nurse and she pulls a Peter Sellers by playing about 7 different roles in National Lampoon’s Dirty Movie directed by Christopher Meloni.

She’s an ensemble player in The Shushan Channel by writers from The Daily Show With Jon Stewart with guest appearances by Will Forte, Scott Adsit, Rachel Dratch, John Oliver and Joel McHale, and MEAT, the critically acclaimed all-female sketch phenomenon hailed as “One of the nation’s best groups” by THE ONION.

Livia also writes for MIRTH Magazine, hosts the celebrated variety experience Livia’s Castle Of Enchantment at UCB and is a double ECNY Award nominee for Best Emerging Comic of the Year and Best Solo Show for Goodnight, OJ, her adaptation of real letters written to OJ Simpson which ran for a year at UCB and was directed by Baron Vaughn.

She’s been featured in The New York Times, Backstage, The New York Post, The NY Daily News and The Apiary.

Livia won the 2011 Channy Award for Best Villain in a Web Series & the 2010 Channy Award for Best Actress.  She was recently named “One Of Our Favorite 53 Female Comedians” along with Tina Fey, Amy Poehler & Sarah Silverman by THE HUFFINGTON POST.

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The writer and performer of Horripilation!, John Sowle, is unquestionably a shining light in the fields of research and preservation of obscure global theatrical traditions, as well as being an imposing performative figure in the relating and embodiment of these same traditions. In 1973, with a Fulbright fellowship to research a doctoral thesis in dramatic art, he spent time at the Kerala Kalamandalam in southern India, where he was obliged to rise each morning at 3 a.m. in order to begin his day’s grueling training in traditional dance movement and actorly craft. Kept on his feet for hours at a time, in a highly repetitive form of dance stepping, his relief would come finally in the form of a massage administered by his teacher (asan), who would walk up and down his back while he lay in a formally controlled position. It should come as no surprise that classical traditions of drama and dance, wherever they originate, involved a regimen of severe physical hardship and mental discipline, but the sharing of these events in the performance by Mr. Sowle, as he reproduces the exercises nearly forty years later, is quite something to witness.

He is telling us about the southern Indian tradition of Kutiyattam, and of the Natya Shastra of Bharata, an ancient text on the rules and aesthetics of theater – a medium itself imparted to humankind as a divine gift because its sacred deviser would not entrust the gods with such a potent form of diversion. The historical and mythic dimensions of the tradition are complex and rich, and as involved as the formal rites, rules, and roles of the drama are exhaustive. Alone on stage, in traditional Indian garb, Mr. Sowle enumerates some of the primary categories of consideration as to theatrical principles: for the erection of a theater, the composition of such, the qualities requisite in an actor, and the physical language of actorly expression. He demonstrates for us as he does so, at one point marching out into the auditorium with a length of rope in order to show the necessary dimensions required in establishing both the performance space, and the audience space. Indeed, and not surprisingly, there are rules that extend to the audience too, as to their composition, number, and receptiveness. In many ways we are witnessing a form of cultural archaeology.

As he speaks, gestures, and dances, the actor casually moves the minimal props around the space, and matter-of-factly attires himself in various parts of his costume and make-up. He segues easily into excerpted scenes from classical epics of sanskrit, demonstrating the formalized expressions and gestures he has introduced to us. Short of an enticing image of himself as a young man, cycling in the hours before dawn, through monsoon rains to classes, he does not deliver any personal content. Indeed, at the heart of the Kutiyattam tradition is the notion of a non-empathic experience on the part of the audience, a learned, highly abstracted and aestheticized appreciation of the codified artifice of performance. Mr. Sowle here seems uninterested in breaking with this tradition. To whit, at the end of the show I felt like I had been attending a highly informative lecture that made imaginative use of demonstration. I did not feel I had witnessed a dramatic performance. If I had anticipated attending an educational presentation, I might have been a little more prepared to sound the depths of my considerable ignorance.  As it was, I felt a little cheated out of my expectation of a moment of imaginative catharsis. Consciously or unconsciously, we come to theater with our own inherited expectations of  in what a drama should consist.

Mr. Sowle does have one great “dramatic” trump card in this piece, which he plays to perfection right at the conclusion. Horripilation, a word we should all adopt into our vocabularies, is a term describing the upward movement of the hairs on our skins on account of goosebumps stimulated by something observed. In Kutiyattam, all performers should be capable of producing this effect in their audience. For the jaded audiences of the present, it sounds like a tall order. But eerily, almost quietly, the actor creates just this effect in the final five minutes of his show as, fully painted and costumed in high finery, he becomes an extraordinary character while dancing in a quaint, exotic manner, eye and head movements formally observing the codes he has related. You were looking at something quite other, quite riveting. I didn’t check to see if I had goosebumps but, for several minutes together, I was experiencing something quite beyond them.

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Horripilation! was featured as part of the Times Square International Theater Festival at the Roy Arias Studios & Theatres located at 300 W. 43rd St, NY, NY.

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Deploying a short and narrow raised, wooden platform, with a total area surface of 21 square feet, seven actors in blue spandex outfits (that’s 3 square feet each they have to work with; you do the math!), no scenery or lighting effects, and just 35 minutes, Theater Un-Speak-Able set out to tell that well-worn saga of our age, Superman, transposing it to the year 2050. No actor gets to leave the platform during the telling. All of the fantastical visual effects necessary in the elaboration of this story – illustrated comic book panels, complexly designed camera shots – must be generated solely by the actors as they shuffle, dip, duck, dodge and dive while dramatizing such a highly visual narrative. This is both extreme physical performative stagecraft and compacted theatrical story telling.

Despite an unavoidable aura of farce, the adaptation is purely deadpan in delivery. There’s barely a hair out of place as we are introduced to the familiar cast of characters – Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, and Lex Luthor. Even Lana Lang gets a look in here. All proceeds in orderly fashion as the villainous genius Luthor schemes to destroy the mid-western high-speed rail network (I know we don’t have one now, but in 2050…) and, of course, take out Superman in order to achieve that end. Will his dastardly plan succeed, or will the man of steel save the day? (Oh, come on.) Tropes from the popular Alexander Salkind movie of 1978 (will we ever get passed this rendition?) – John Williams‘ music (dum-de-de-dum-de-de!), lifted lines of dialogue (“You’ve got me? Who’s got you?“) – are sprinkled into the mix to create a narrative shorthand, generate atmosphere, and, cunningly, a sense of nostalgic conspiracy. After all, this piece is fundamentally reliant on the audience’s imaginative participation. And this is where and how it scores. Make no mistake, for all the light-weight silliness at play, this is a sophisticated and highly disciplined piece of theater, and its steel is what brings it off. Which really is the ultimate pleasure about Superman 2050; it is a meringue developed by engineers and architects, who just happen to be savvy chefs too.

An ensemble-developed project, it emerges from the Lecoq-styled approach which stresses disciplined physical performance and improvisational story-telling. As director and original conceiver, Marc Frost must rank as the head chef.  A quietly enchanting Clark Kent/Superman, Frost is to be commended also for his direction and for assembling such an extraordinarily winning cast of cartoonishly perfect performers, each of whom seems to resonate with the recalled ghosts of by-gone cameo role greats. As well as characters, actors stand in for scenery and  objects, in forms both hackneyed and original, generating illusions, visual and audial, that deftly and economically command attention.  There are even some moments of transcendental beauty, such as when Superman is flying with Lois, and the other actors, huddled at their feet, making low whooshing noises, hands sweeping softly to an fro, suggest clouds and the passage of air over the duo. It’s simple and startling. No green screens needed here. No super-padded and enhanced costumes either. There’s enough firm flesh to ogle that could while away more than twice the tale’s duration. Just say no to CGI.

My one small cavil, if I could be allowed, is with the determined G rated feel of the exercise, the refusal to develop subtext or analyze the original tale. The well-worn frame is broken in only one instance, in the character of Jimmy Olsen, who is shown to be more than a little slavishly attached to the company of Clark Kent. At the finale, Brittany Bookbinder, in the role of Jimmy, emits such a hysterical shriek of complex delight when the Daily Planet employees are rejoined by the mysteriously absent-for-everything Clark, that it opens up all sorts of imaginative new perspectives on the saga. But perhaps I’m asking for too much here from this otherwise masterful, rapid-fire condensing of one of our great modern fairy tales. It’s a mistake, after all, to look for the yolk in a meringue. With it, it would simply be something quite other. That it’s taken out is frankly the pleasure of it.

A Chicago based outfit, the hard-working cast and crew is rounded out by Kathleen Wrinn, Thomas Kelly, Melissa Cameron, Becky McNamara, Lily Emerson, Zachary Baker-Salmon, and Alice da Cunha. More good works must be anticipated from this imaginative group, who surely are struggling to keep theatre performance alive –  for truth, for justice, and the American way.

Superman 2050 was featured as part of the Times Square International Theater Festival at the Roy Arias Studios & Theatres located at 300 W. 43rd St, NY, NY.

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Younger minds may find entertainment and diversion at 3 Ghosts, this stage musical adaptation of Charles Dickens‘ story, A Christmas Carol by Pipe Dream Theatre Productions. Everything about it resonates with an enthusiastic note of, well, glee. The attractive and animated cast strut and stand about stage looking very pleased with themselves, and the energy level is up; positive; high. They know enough to drop the smiles when the mood switches to somber – as the tale of a haunted, miserly materialist may necessitate – but you know it won’t be long before the scene is lit once more with those megawatt smiles, so de rigueur for the current generation of spotlight-hungry performers. And with an ensemble cast of forty plus, that’s a lot of light, a lot of energy. There are almost twenty musical performances, several involving choreographed dancers, and all on the modest sized stage at the Beckett Theatre. Just imagine the stage direction logistics alone!

More is more is the discernible aesthetic working here. Every actor and dancer’s costume is lovingly stitched, patched, distressed, flounced, bustled and ruffled well beyond any parameters that realism might allow. Styling itself “steampunk“, the production is utterly devoted to the notion of a theatrical world divorced from any day-to-day, humdrum existence. This is the world of musical theatre, after all, and everything is big, bold, brazen, and better. And therein, alas, lies the rub. In love with its own artificiality, it persistently overplays everything. In fairness, the theme of Time is given a thorough going-over, convincingly evoked dramatically and musically, but there’s something intrinsically callow about the perspective. Devoid of a hint of maturity, the entire production – music, direction, choreography, costumes, singing, dancing, and acting – is dramatically unsophisticated. 3 Ghosts looks very believably like what might occur if a group – maybe forty or so - of young people said, “hey kids, let’s put on a show!”

Ouch! I can hear the wrathful screams of young gleesters everywhere howling, “well, what’s wrong with that?” In truth, nothing; nothing’s wrong with that. But if older eyes are watching, older ears are listening, older minds attending, then they might observe: Given the enormous amount of work in developing a coherent musical narrative, why did the creators, Collin Simon and Liz Muller, set out to produce something that comes as close to resembling other recent Broadway style productions as they might dare? Is there such a thing as Broadway muzak? Was this set designed and constructed in one afternoon? Does this choreography read as generic? Has the makeup artist ever heard of soot? Can the director tell the difference between sweet and saccharine? Does the term “creative risk” play a part in the producers’ vocabulary? And, given the monumental efforts at play by all parties involved, why, why, why aim so low in the first place? Youthful enthusiasm can overcome many obstacles but not, finally, creative timidity and conceptual immaturity.

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Heading into the new play written by an “A-list lineup of writers with 2 Pulitzer Prizes, 4 Obies, 1 Emmy® and 3 Tony® nominations” I expected that the evening would make me laugh … but not till my sides hurt. I expected to be moved … but not to tears.  Standing On Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays manages to take a controversial topic and give it a 360; some aspects are made endearingly simple yet never does this show shy away from the frustration and confusion that the issue of gay marriage brings with it.  What Standing On Ceremony does so elegantly is show how gay marriage is just as easy as, just as complicated as, just as worthy as, just as demanding as, just the same as, and completely different from straight marriage.  There are no two marriages on this earth that are the same because there are as many ways to live on this earth as there are human beings.  The two people who join their lives together define what makes the union – the two personalities melding together will create the new whole.  Gay, straight – these issue and roadblocks, these milestones and hurdles are to be celebrated together.  That is what defines a marriage.  Standing On Ceremony explores this brilliantly.

Ultimately there will be a revolving cast with writers offering up different material so your experience may vary.  Currently the show is featuring ‘The Revision‘ by Jordan Harrison, ‘This Flight Tonight‘ by Wendy MacLeod, ‘On Facebook‘ by Doug Wright, ‘My Husband‘ by Paul Rudnick,’Traditional Wedding‘ by Mo Gaffney, ‘Strange Fruit‘ by Neil LaBute, ‘The Gay Agenda‘ by Paul Rudnick, ‘London Mosquitoes‘ by Moisés Kaufman and ‘Pablo and Andrew at the Altar of Words‘ by Jose Rivera.

Conceived by Brian Shnipper and directed deftly by Stuart Ross, Standing On Ceremony couldn’t be more robust.  The bookend plays both deal with the biggest lynchpin of the wedding: the vows.  The first offering – Harrison’s The Revision - finds Craig Bierko and Richard Thomas hammering out a way to best use words that will reflect their union.  It playfully pokes at how each line must be revised in order to correctly and accurately communicate the event (I take you to be my lawfully wedded husband turns into my domestically partnered partner).  Conversely, the final play of the evening – Rivera’s Pablo and Andrew at the Altar of Words - simply allows the joy, the giddiness and the love to wash over the couple (Bierko and Mark Consuelos) and their friends (I want to lie with you in a bed of exclamation points).  It is a beautiful way to end a show which, in between, shines a light into every dark corner of the issue.

Particularly hilarious is Harriet Harris, although this comes as no surprise.  She is deliciously devilish as she plays both ends of the argument – in one short The Gay Agenda (written by Paul Rudnick) she plays Mary Abigail Carstairs-Sweetbuckle who is a staunch Right Wing Conservative.  When attempting to welcome her gay neighbors to the community, she finds that a small gay voice has taken up residence in her head. (How did I know it was gay?  Because it was bitchy!)  Suddenly she is seeing gay people everywhere, in everything.  Her nagging doubt leads to full blown hysteria that is as funny as it is maniacal.

Harriet Harris, Mark Consuelos

Later in Rudnick’s second offering, My Husband, Harris comes off winningly again – and once more hilarious – as Gabrielle Finkelstein – a liberal and progressive New York mother who, in the race to keep up with her friends, bemoans her gay son Michael’s single status as she watches all her other friends marry off their gay children in lavish ceremonies.  (One such extravaganza had the rabbi flown in from the ceiling on a blazing chariot.  “Who was the wedding planner?“  “Julie Taymor“). Michael (Mark Consuelos) reflects the exasperation of every unmarried child (gay or straight) … half wishing they could give their mother what she wants, half wishing she would just back off.

Wendy MacLeod’s This Flight Tonight and Mo Gaffney’s Traditional Wedding both pair Polly Draper and Beth Leavel who are beautiful to watch together.  They have a chemistry, an ease and a natural physicality together which underscores their believability as a couple. Both plays deal with the pre-wedding jitters that can fall on a couple even after they’ve been together a long time, underscoring the fact that there’s a difference between living together as a unit and actually having that piece of paper that says you’re bound and committed to each other for the rest of your life.

On Facebook by Doug Wright unites the whole cast in a dramatization of an actual Facebook-Post-gone-mad. While possibly the least creative of the works it is also the most reflective of the times.  What begins as a “let’s just agree to disagree (Smiley face!)” type exchange slowly escalates into a heated debate on the use of the word “marriage” and what it actually stands for.  Ultimately the woman who is against gay marriage — or at least the use of the word “marriage” to describe a gay union — turns out to be divorced.  When that irony is pointed out to her she storms off in a virtual huff.

Throughout all the laughter of the evening there were two stirring, thoughtful, emotional pieces which acted as a reminder of how far the movement has come — and how far it has still to go.  Neil LaBute’s Strange Fruit takes two monologues and intertwines them; Craig Bierko and Mark Consuelos discuss meeting, falling in love, starting their relationship, deciding to marry.  Their current of words moving, melding, combining until the moment when it all doesn’t quite go as planned.  As you begin to see what is happening it’s like the breath is being squeezed out of you.  Bierko and Consuelos are astonishing in this one.

Moises Kaufman’s London Mosquitoes is perhaps the biggest gem of all.  Richard Thomas is Joe, who has lost his partner of 46 years and now stands at his memorial attempting to eulogize not only Paul, the man, but also attempting to color in the different shades of their life together. He starts from the beginning when what they did went unmentioned … when they didn’t even have a name for what they were doing.  He moves on to the middle of their life together – when the AIDS epidemic swept through and took all their friends … not some, but all.  He winds through the decades of their life together that saw the towers fall; just blocks away that day he and Paul stood, watching.  People plummeted to their deaths and the crowd below screamed and turned away.  But not Paul.  “Someone needs to bear witness to their death,” he said.  “I need to witness“.  We see this man who is no longer alive as more vibrant because of how Joe witnessed him.  In a heartbreaking moment Joe explains why Paul didn’t want to get married – what would that mean for the last 45 years of their life together? What would that have been?  London Mosquitoes covers themes of love, hope, secrecy, passion, despair, loss, silence, and triumph – tying in tragedies both great and small, spiritual, profound, personal and universal.  It is an utterly breathtaking, heartbreaking piece that honors in death as it also reverberates with celebration of life.

If there’s a viewpoint to be found regarding the issue of gay marriage you’ll find it in Standing On Ceremony.  Each opinion is handled with truth, raw emotion, tears of joy, tears of pain, and nods of recognition.  For a topic that deserves to be discussed, debated, written about, mulled over and one day agreed upon, this is the perfect place for the discussion to begin.

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Ever wonder what it might be like to hang out for a weekend with the casually wealthy?  Ever yearn to be part of a clique of old friends who sit around and poke fun at each other for small transgressions such as packing five pairs of shoes for a four day trip or dropping, say, 30K on a Birkin bag?  Then meet the people of playwright Molly Moroney’s Kithless In Paradise now playing at the Lion Theatre at Theatre Row. Hosts Tim McCall (David Wirth) and his wife Janice (Liz Forst) open their comfortable San Francisco home – as they do each year – to old friends Phil (Brit Herring) and Polly Barrett (Tracy Newirth) who come from Texas for the yearly shindig.  Casual.  It’s all very casual.  The way they catch up on what’s been going on since they last met, the way they drink and drink … and drink.  And drink.  The way they bring up their successes as well as their failures.  It’s all tossed off casually as they pass around the three thousand dollar bottle of wine and enjoy the hors d’oeuvres.  Drop in on them briefly and you’d wish you were one of them.  But stay awhile and you’ll start to miss your cramped apartment where the wine may come out of a box but at least you’re guaranteed a far better quality of kith.

As this quartet have their patter we get a rather complete image of who they are – while they’re all the same age and the same tax bracket the McCalls are a sturdier couple with heartier values – or so it would seem from the bits of weightier conversation we’re allowed to listen in on.  Their house guests, the Barretts, on the other hand come off as at least a decade younger.  They’re friskier (when Tim and Janice leave the room for a moment Phil wastes no time lunging for his wife’s breasts which have been on display and apparently calling to him) and just seem edgier and more fun-loving risk takers.  Together these rich folks seem to know all the best wines, the up and coming artists, the best shows and the hottest investments.  They’ve known each other so long that they can recall stories of high school, yet they can’t bring themselves to delve into a conversation any deeper than the eternal struggle of who should change the toilet paper roll. They’re all a friendly bunch, and while you’d be hard-pressed to find a nugget of meaningful conversation between the four of them they’re nice enough to spend an afternoon with.

Kithless in Paradise (Photo by Carol Rosegg) L to R: Bob Manus (Ken Loring) David Wirth (Tim McCall) Liz Forst (Janice McCall) Jill Melanie Wirth (Sandy Loring) Brit Herring (Phil Barrett) and Tracy Newirth (Polly Barrett)

Just when you’re wondering what could possibly go wrong here – red wine spilled on the pristine white couch?  Someone tearing a hole into the precious piece of art hanging prominently on the wall? – Two more guests arrive.  Ken Loring (Bob Manus) is another old high school friend but obviously not part of the inner circle.  That much is made clear as he and wife Sandy (Jill Melanie Wirth) seem to hover on the perimeter of the merriment.  Soon enough  – though small and somewhat meek – Sandy manages to drench the party in black humor.  Apparently the skittish Sandy can’t help but quickly mention that she’s dying imminently of leukemia.  This dark announcement brings the joyful gaiety of the party to a halt  – but only for a beat.  Soon enough the chatter bubbles up again and while everyone seems as if they know they should care the truth is no one of this bunch can seem genuinely concerned about anything for very long.  Within minutes Polly is distracted by the lovely sweater Sandy is wearing (going so far as to reach in and check her label) as well as her Chanel purse.  Sandy’s comments about her illness are simply peppered into this conversational mix as casually as the previous ingredients were — and no one stops to consider any of it.  Every comment is given the same weight regardless of worth.  Even as Sandy grows agitated and attempts to make a sweeping confession (to relative strangers) she is brushed aside because, after all, there is wine to be had.  Better to keep the conversation to cellulite and sports.

Moroney’s dialogue sounds real and flows quickly, however the story rings hollow as far too many issues are raised, only then left to wither, resolved only partially if at all.  While director Niki Flacks moves the piece along with a comedic bent and an upbeat tempo there is still too much ground to cover here.  The actors are enjoyable, but with dialogue which never amounts to more than cocktail party chatter it’s hard for us to come away feeling as if we’ve grown to know them, or what makes them tick.  While we certainly learn that these people can afford to buy thirty thousand dollar handbags we don’t find much more about what has kept them close over the years, especially with so much tension right below the surface.   Friends betray friends, men make plays at each other’s wives, women cheat on their husbands, secrets are kept with disastrous results … and ultimately the resolutions feel very thin.  If it can’t be waved away by a joke, a smarmy remark, another drink, or have money thrown at it then it’s simply ignored.  Apparently, if Kithless In Paradise is to be our blueprint, we are to believe that rich people really don’t process very deeply.

I came away from Kithless In Paradise unable to conclude if the play was meant to be served as nothing but a parody: highlighting the shallowness of the two-dimensional West Coast Rich and pointing out that money can’t buy happiness; or a sincere effort by  Moroney that simply misfired.  The big reveals which would truly shake a marriage do very little to either further the plot or change the trajectory of these character’s lives or their way of thinking.  By the end, despite having lived through – or witnessed – rather stark developments they remain as cavalier and as shallow as they were when we met them.  And while they celebrate this never-ending lovefest which brings them together year after year in a tradition that seems as solid as the ball dropping on Times Square, if this is what you become when you have millions of dollars, I think I’ll pass.

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Attempting to grapple with the national ideological landscape of the present, James Haigney‘s new drama, The Woman Standing on the Moon, playing at United Stages on 30th Street, is undeniably ambitious. This is a serious minded engagement with the extremism of the times – religious and atheist. Set around Fayetteville, NC in 2006, the story focuses on the character of Mary Latrobe, a documentary filmmaker currently shooting a project examining Christian fundamentalism in the U.S. military. For her subject Mary has fastened on to a former Military Police officer, Randy Wallace, who is now a charismatic preacher in the area, with the glint of apocalypse in his eye. For Mary he is the ultimate bugaboo in the system, an evangelical extremist fashioning a corp elite of like-minded soldiers with a reach all the way up to the Pentagon. The mix is potentially, well, apocalyptic.  She trains her camera relentlessly on Randy, willing him to expose his darker purpose, yet is met with a gentle-eyed, Bob Dylan quoting figure who espouses Christian wholesomeness and accord. We see clips of Randy’s camera self largely projected onto Christopher Thompson’s minimal, subtle set. He gives good face and sounds “harmlessly” idealistic. But Mary’s senses are sharp and she is not easily persuaded. Having both lost loved ones in acts of war, Mary and Randy are traumatized people. In their own ways they are looking to bring off some momentous coup that will bring life back into alignment; both are pushing for “revelation”. One deploys reason, the other, faith.

The Woman Standing on the Moon (Photo by Garlia C. Jones)

Complicating things for both of them are their personal, human lives. Mary has a damaged, alcoholic ex-husband, David (James Patrick Earley), and an attentive if somewhat callow young lover, Jack (Steven Michael Lang). Randy’s young pregnant wife, Belle, is a wide-eyed psychic with an unfettered manner and an aversion to violence. As the drama progresses, and the characters come to know each other, tensions build and the scene is set for, as Randy might say, just one spark to ignite the dry kindling of this world. In an extraordinary and surprising scene, with its own distinctive atmosphere, the spark, inevitably, is struck, and proves devastating for all the characters concerned. For all its broad examination of religious, social and cultural themes, it is simple grief, tended and untended, that is at the heart of this tale.

The use of film documentary is nicely incorporated throughout. In one scene we are presented initially with just rolling film footage as part of Randy’s faithful army community improvise a puppet show aimed at addressing bereavement for the children of army personnel. The show veers off course when the puppeteers, Sgt. Steve and Cpl. Pam, are incapable of maintaining the pretense required, as their own traumatic experiences languish unaddressed. The film stutters to a halt and the puppeteers emerge onto the stage to discuss the problem, a scene that is tellingly away from Mary’s recording camera. At once an incisive demonstration of the limitations of both documentary and fabrication, as well as a grotesquely comical episode, it features two of the most subtly disturbing glove puppets you may have cause to encounter.

Bernard Cummings directs the production with great fluidity, which is saying something given the number of scene changes, and the jarring emotional encounters between characters. Despite the tragic history she is trying to put behind her, there is a dismaying lack of vulnerability evident in Christa Kimlico Jones’s Mary. This may have more to do with the writing than with Jones’s performance, which is both concentrated and guarded. Even when she calls Jack in the middle of the night, having woken from a nightmare, before she has hung up, Haigney has her resume her tone of pragmatic, rational self-control. A woman who has been left, too often, to deal with everything on her own, she is hard to feel in this play. Haigney has a freer time with his characters Randy and Belle, and is well served by performances from, respectively, Taylor Flowers and, especially, Sarah Saunders. Scott O’Brien’s sound productions and Kevin R. Frech’s projections work well at fleshing out both story and atmosphere.

Like Mary’s camera, Haigney’s script is unrelenting and far-seeking. This is an intelligent investigation of large themes and a salutary depiction of how too frequently we can turn into the very thing we set out to counteract. The writing is dense and the allusions go deep. There is no final bulwark against the darkness (another of Randy’s phrases), only the possibility of insight and break-through. In the final scene we are left with the projection of a blue sky hanging over a vista of gently nodding wheat. Is it a clear, fresh horizon; amber waves of grain; or the fields of the Lord? The real question is, who is observing?

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Immediately arresting in this production of Deirdre Kinahan‘s new play, BogBoy, at the Irish Arts Center, is Ciaran Bagnall‘s simple stage set of several scrim panels reflecting projected landscape imagery. The mood is heavy and still – darkening flat vistas of bogland stretching off to meet a cloud-crowded sky broken only in places to admit thin fissures of light. The colors shift slowly between sombre browns and blues, with occasional russet veins of sunset. Amorphous, echoing sounds groan forth creating a mournful, timeless feeling. This is a bruised place. Into this scene walks Brigit, a woman as bruised as the landscape, but prickly, defensive, and verbally alert. She is a Dublin rehab patient, a former heroin addict and prostitute, transported to the rural remoteness of Navan, Co. Meath, and initially utterly at sea in this natural wilderness. Warily she begins an acquaintanceship with her neighbor Hughie Doyle, a solitary, slow-thinking bachelor who seems to her as foreign as the landscape. Gradually we watch as their sad stories unfurl.

Originally written for radio, BogBoy retains some of its original source characteristics. It is short, tightly compact, structurally sophisticated, and brisk in the manner of its verbal exchanges. Jo Mangan‘s direction keeps things moving rapidly and this works well with the tone and tempo of Kinahan’s language. Admirably matter-of-fact and colloquial, Kinahan does permit herself the odd shift to a more lyrical register, introducing some vivid descriptive color to the characters’ humdrum exchanges. Brigit, in a letter, waxes unusually eloquent on her discovery of the bogland’s hidden natural charms. But the dominant tone, for all the aura of tragedy here, is low-key. We observe mundane instances of neighborly exchange between Brigit and Hughie that serve as views to an evolving friendship, opening the door just a crack wide enough perhaps to admit hope. Hughie teaches Brigit to ride a bicycle in a light-hearted scene that has everything to do with empowerment, but which spends no time mulling over the fact. Beginning with just this slender degree of interaction, two psychologically convincing characters, relaxed and in extremis, the story stretches effortlessly to encompass themes of political, social, and historical relevance for contemporary Ireland, north and south, urban and rural. Everything resides most naturally within the unfolding drama. There isn’t a whiff of a sermon here, just the sad appraisal of human damage in the aftermath.

Mangan’s choice to have the characters direct nearly all of their dialogue outward, face forward toward the audience, is compelling and intriguing. We get to witness fully the emotional nuance in their faces, as well as some considerable craft in actorly responsiveness. There is also the suggestion that, as much as they want to connect, these characters can never truly face each other. Sorcha Fox is winningly forceful, bossy and vibrant as the wounded Brigit. She embodies an instinctual energy that livens the atmosphere, her large eyes wide and boldly defensive. Steve Blount, resolutely inarticulate as Hughie, is bemused and enthused by her brio, and there is a fine comic contact quickly established between the two. Rounding out the cast are Noelle Brown as Annie, Brigit’s skeptical if well-meaning social worker, and Emmet Kirwan as Brigit’s scathed and unforgiving husband, Darren, both assured turns in brief parts. Philip Stewart supplies the effective sound effects.

This is an impressively compacted story which errs, if it does so, on the side of brevity, driving us rapidly to an abrupt, almost brutal conclusion. I couldn’t help feeling that there’s at least another scene or two tucked into the narrative. A tale of would-be redemption, it never quite gets there for these two lost characters. Neither have the strength to overcome the forces surrounding them. In a letter she is writing to a murdered boy’s sister decades after the event, Brigit describes having seen the sister in the landscape once, surrounded by “bogmen guards” who seem themselves to have emerged from the muck of the bog. But to Brigit, the woman appears distinctive, separate, in a tight white suit with sunglasses – an anomaly in the landscape. For Brigit she is the definition of freedom, success, escape. But, just like all the characters here, this idealized, seemingly emancipated figure will never truly be rid of the bog. A part of her is buried here. Brigit’s letter, an intention she feels is finally something wholly good, will recall the woman once again, oblige her to step into the muck again, albeit to retrieve something ultimately lost. Kinahan’s play has many hidden leaves like this. It could go on unfolding.

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Imagine if you could re-visit a tragedy and restore the hope; take away the shadows of doubt, the shudders of despair. Imagine if you could re-visit shabby rooms, where stale air does little but circulate the layers of dust and melancholy, and breath in fresh life imbued with optimism and energy.

Imagine if you could see a classic play such as Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie from a whole other persective, one of possibility, where the “bitter” of bitter-sweet is removed and all that is left is a revving of the heart at what is yet to come. The Pretty Trap currently playing at The Acorn Theatre (Theatre Row) does just that. Written by Williams as one of the earlier drafts of Menagerie it is a sparkling one-act starring Katharine Houghton as the matriarch Amanda Wingfield.

Katharine Houghton as Amanda Wingfield, Nisi Sturgis as Laura and Robert Eli as The Gentleman Caller (Photo by Ben Hider)

It’s nice to get a chance to visit with a family we think we know so well, put in a situation we think we understand, and see another experience emerge. Under Antony Marsellis’ direction this tightly staged piece brings us into the family of the Wingfields – aging southern belle Amanda; shy, flighty, distraught Laura (Nisi Sturgis) who is terrified of the evening about to unfold;  likeable, creative, not-too-ambitious brother Tom (Loren Dunn); and the reason for the evening’s excitement: the “gentleman caller” – charming go-getter Jim (Robert Eli).

What is meant to appear as nothing more than a dinner is really Amanda’s scheming intentions to have Laura set as the pretty trap for Jim. (“All pretty girls are traps. And men expect them to be.” she tutors her skittish daughter as they await the caller’s arrival.) It is obvious that with Laura’s temperament she is unfit for work (although she’s gone to business school) and with her mother getting older and her father long gone (save for the photo which looms large in the living room) her remaining choices are either to become the spinster aunt living off the charity of her brother (if and when he himself finds his own way in the world) or find herself a husband.

All the same notes of Menagerie are here – but rearranged and uptempo so that the song is very different … and how it sets your internal toe to tapping depends strongly on how cleanly you can delineate between what you know of this family, and what you want to believe of this particular melody. Taken at face value you’ll find yourself beguiled by this one act that is sweet, charming, magical, and yes … hopeful.

The entire cast is strong and each actor in turn gets their moment to shine; particularly Nisi Sturgis and Robert Eli as the gently tentative couple who share sly romantic moments in the dark and sweetly begin a romantic evolution; one that shows no foreshadowing of the ache that comes to bear in Menagerie.  It is particularly satisfying to watch Sturgis take Laura from terrified to tentative to triumphant as she opens up her world to this new man and allows him to see what she sees, to hold what she holds, to know what she knows.

It is Katharine Houghton, however, as the complex Amanda who sets the tone, draws the audience in, and lays the foundation for the entire play. Her incessant chattering about seemingly nothing is actually a finely woven spider’s web of intricately devised manipulation, and in Ms. Houghton’s delivery the smooth layering and complexity is almost imperceptible – a brilliant slight of hand that is almost unbelievably subtle but leaves the audiences with a wealth of knowledge upon which to draw in order to understand this family.

All of this takes place in Ray Klausen’s two-room set which is a beautiful combination of faded, delicate and fragile pieces, gently worn and all in varying shades of pink (or memories of pink) which at any given moment can remind us of Amanda’s faded blush of youth (“I was as pretty as Laura … prettier even, if you can believe it” she says often) or Laura’s deep stain of embarrassment as she is forced to move from her world of safe imagination to the world of real men … with real intentions.

Overall The Pretty Trap is a satisfying, beautifully done piece which is a refreshing night for those who would love to see a “what if” moment retold with a happier ending.

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