Make no mistake, “the dick” of The Dick and The Rose (written and directed by Robert Biggs) is, in fact, a dick.  Remarkably, he’s also a cock, of sorts.  Ah, so much to explain, but trust me … it all makes sense in the end – as much as any story like this can make sense.  You see, the seeds of The Dick And The Rose come from disturbing headlines: sad, brutal, tragic headlines that gripped a nation and didn’t make any kind of sense. Stories that didn’t just happen once, but stories that happened over and over again – stories that horrified us all. But on a visceral level, stories that made almost too much sense.  But, enough with the metaphors.  Let me tell you what’s going on here with this particular dick and this particular rose.

The Dick and The Rose begins with the forlorn, mourning wail of a euphonium (I’ll admit, it could have been a Baritone horn) which ripples the specifically tattered curtain and summons forth the players from behind the billows.  A Crone comes forth and sings a bittersweet lullaby – sadly foreboding and gloomy yet in a voice that is gentle, comforting and sweetly mellifluous.

Scenes are announced from the side via the horn soloist “ME” (writer/director Biggs) who becomes the Master of Ceremonies of sorts, though he announces with a removed air and sticks to the side without comment, opinion or narration.  As the story comes to bear and echoes of headline news become obvious it’s clear that Me is reporting the headlines, not much more (excpet of course providing the occasional musical accompaniment or song).

The cock I alluded to earlier is of the rooster variety – the first introduction we have to the main characters is is a lot of “Ta-DA!” and “Whoosh” and cock-a-doodle-doo!!!! and such as the Sleeper (Ron Botting) is urged awake by the crowing and flourishes of the bright, energetic, lively Circus Girl (Caley Milliken) who twirls on point and brandishes a parasol with grace and flair.  Soon there is naughty giggling behind the curtain and not too subtle metaphors as The Dick makes its appearance in the form of a giant … make that GIANT hose which snakes its way through the various holes of the tatters much to the glee and enjoyment of the Sleeper (who is, by golly, wide awake now … but that’s his name).

The lovely Circus Girl, awash in red flounce (a rose if I ever saw one) is captivated by her new lover and with a bun firmly in the oven she sings of how she is enjoying not quite liking him, but liking how he makes her feel.

More twists of the fluttering curtain and soon after some good ol’ fashioned testifyin’ (Holy Moly!) looks like this Rose, thanks to simple eagerness and the natural tunes of life, has birthed a whole bouquet of kids who seem to be blooming up everywhere.  Represented both in human as well as puppet form this brood slowly overtakes the couple,  exerting the most strain on their overtaxed mom whose rose has begun to fade.  Her voice cracks, her melody waivers, and not even the most desperate tango designed to re-woo her man can staunch the smell of sour milk which billows around her and trails behind her like a mist.

With the voices of her children ringing in her head she finds evidence which drives her to the brink of madness … and over it.  The end is shocking – chilling – disturbing … but the matter is handled in a way that is not disrespectful or distasteful.

Ian Milliken as bandleader guides “ministering angels” (Gail Shalan, Kelsey Hogan, Jake Elitzer, Jennifer Vargas,  and Evan Gambardella) through musical numbers which feature homespun instruments such as spoons, the recorder, and simple percussions as well as guitar, accordion and others.  The group appears and disappears fluidly behind their billowing back curtain and all work seamlessly to present this story.  As an ensemble they are moving, passionate, and even funny.

Robert Biggs has tackled a difficult topic and delivered it in a way that makes it easier to examine.  By making The Dick and The Rose full of lively, sometimes moving, sometimes funny songs, and a presentation that lives between mime, clown and performance art, he has created physical poetry which allows the piece to breathe and invites the audience to take their own emotional journey.  Neither Biggs nor the actors are presenting a judgement – merely a set of circumstances and by doing so they open a path to deeper understanding.

~~~

THE DICK AND THE ROSE
Outcast Cafe Theatrix
Writer: Robert Biggs
Director: Robert Biggs
Choreographer: Barbara Allen
An American Gothic Romance with puppets and stubbornly live music. Rakish Man meets Circus Girl. They mate. Make lots of babies. Darkness haunts this sideshow fantasy. Raucous. Bawdy. Lyrical. True. It’s a bumpy ride. Hold on to your heart.
0h 55m   National   South Lee, Massachusetts
Musical   Puppetry
Staycation: Family Vacation   Ride the Rollercoaster of Love
www.dickandrose.com
VENUE #12: Cherry Lane Theatre
Thu 16 @ 9:30  Fri 17 @ 4:30  Tue 21 @ 3:30  Thu 23 @ 2  Sat 25 @ 8

Related Posts:

• Into The Vacuum (Fringe Festival 2012)
• Pieces (Fringe Festival 2012)
• Paper Cut (Fringe Festival 2011)
• The Panic Diaries (Fringe Festival 2011)
• Feeling the Chill? It’s FRIGID!

In the vast emptiness of a dessert some place in the West, an ultra-wealthy corporate mogul Jonathan Hemminger (David Arrow) cunningly and carefully plans a weekend that will turn a cure for cancer into millions of skin cream jars. The catch? Hemminger gets richer. Plus, the world economy continues to chug along because, as he convincingly explains, eliminating cancer would put everyone out of businesses: doctors, pharmacies and healthcare companies.

Stranded on a remote ranch where Jonathan’s plan brought him, is Grayson Campbell, (Chris Stack) a talented scientist who discovered a way to turn tumors onto themselves, to make them devour their own cells until the lumps dissipate as if sucked into a Vacuum. With neither phone nor internet access, Grayson and his wife Amelia (Dana Brooke) believe he is here to give a speech at a convention. Except there are barely any people in the hotel apart from Jonathan and his three wives: past, present, (although separated) and perhaps a future one. Unwittingly or not, the catty trio of Patricia (Polly Adams), Ruth (Lynne Halliday) and Kathy (Katie Wren Huard) is a part of Jonathan’s thriving skin care company – and his plan.

Jonathan plays a generous host. He flew the couple in on a private jet. The resort’s their oyster: they can have a personal tour guide, luxury spa treatments and anything they wish. There, in a masterfully orchestrated social and emotional vacuum, Hemminger hopes to make Grayson give up his rights to his almost uncanny discovery.

But Grayson’s invention is not entirely his.

Grayson’s beautiful yet brain-damaged wife had once been a scientist who rivaled her husband. But, a devastating head injury she sustained when she had fallen down the stairs rendered her with an intellectual capacity of a ten-year old. She can’t remember simple words, can’t drive a car and can’t find her way back to the hotel room. A sad caricature of a perfect housewife, brilliantly brought to life by Dana Brooke’s performance, she spends her days watching TV shows, adores the skincare commercials (which are ironically done by Patricia, Jonathan’s first ex-wife), dreams of living in a big house and grows flowers in her garden albeit she has trouble remembering their names.

Akin to a thriller in its suspenseful pace well-crafted by Arlene Hutton, Vacuum moves along slowly as David Arrow creates a terribly believable corporate sleaze who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. And he will use anything he can, from money to promises of miraculous cures for Amelia’s condition to wooing the childish yet pretty Grayson’s wife – in front of his own three.

Will Grayson give in to the temptation of lavish lifestyle and leave Amelia behind? Or will Jonathan charm her into scribbling her name on the dotted line of the contract? Someone will lose in this game, someone will declare a victory. But no matter who wins, there’s no happy ending to it, the same way as there is no cure for cancer. At least not yet – not until someone finally figures out how to make the tumors eat themselves as if into a vacuum.

~~~

VACUUM
The Journey Company & Wild Card Productions
Writer: Arlene Hutton
Director: Chris Goutman
Which is more important — preserving the world economy or curing a fatal disease? At an exclusive desert resort an idealistic scientist squares off against a billionaire-industrialist in this daring new drama full of deception, sexual intrigue and corporate power-plays.
1h 30m   Local   Manhattan, New York
Drama
Staycation: Ripped from the Headlines   Spa Getaway (Mind & Body)
www.arlenehutton.com
VENUE #12: Cherry Lane Theatre
Thu 16 @ 2  Fri 17 @ 6:15  Sun 19 @ 12:30  Wed 22 @ 9:30  Fri 24 @ 9

Related Posts:

• The Dick And The Rose – Some Say Love, It Is A Flower (Fringe Festival 2012)
• Pieces (Fringe Festival 2012)
• The Panic Diaries (Fringe Festival 2011)

Chris Phillips‘s new play, Pieces, running briefly at The Cherry Lane Theatre as part of NY Fringe 2012, is a fine example of dramatic writing and boldly engaging theatrical entertainment. Set amidst the gay male milieu of haves and have nots, it concerns a grisly murder in Hollywood. Specifically it involves the fallout as experienced by five associated parties; a straight woman – the District Attorney, and four gay men – the defendant, his Defense Counsel, a friend, and an interested journalist. The plot is thick right from the start – an apparent clear case of guilt, an outraged populace calling for capital punishment, a D.A. with a broad humanitarian streak, a predatory, trouble-rousing reporter, and an ambivalent counsel figure. But Phillips delves deeper, teasing out the complicated emotional histories and psychological motivations of the principals, exposing the greater social ills that underpin personal actions or failures to act. Social, sexual, and psychological, it’s a dense investigation, unsparing of its characters, and not a little damning in its broader implications. It would not be an understatement to say that Phillips, writing as an insider, reams the contemporary gay male social world. Oh yeah; he tears it a new one!

Explicitly this is done in the character of Rory Dennis, the Defense Attorney, a prickly, emotionally defended, verbally excoriating personality with a treasure chest of issues about himself and, as he sees it, his gay male brethren. Dennis is a giant of a dramatic character – a real accomplishment for Phillips – and is powerfully embodied here by actor Jonathan Gibson who gives him all the steam required, and then some. There isn’t a stone Dennis hasn’t already turned and found under it something ugly, cruel, and repugnant. Lacerating and far-sighted as his views are, they hold him a helpless prisoner, remote from the deeper contact and comfort that human intimacy can offer. He would rather use everyone as a chess piece in his own personal game of exposé. Presently at a critical juncture in his life, the incidents surrounding this new case push, all at once, his splenetic and rather tender buttons. His sad case, tumbleweed rent toy, Shane Holloway; the pushy, crusading journalist, Nick Goff; and most exactingly, Shane’s suave, successful erstwhile benefactor and confident, Jonathan Nielson, all have it coming and they hear it, but trenchantly, from Dennis. As do we in the audience. It’s quite electrifying and  -plot development, character evolution, etc. aside – well worth the price of admission. Gibson grandstands passionately, sweatily, and there’s never a dull moment.

The opening sequences slyly encapsulate Phillips’s theme of casual social assessments. The play begins with a scene of the blood covered suspect surrendering to police. It swiftly moves to the initial client/defense lawyer consultation scenario, and the audience is lulled into a sense of familiarity, dismissal even of another standard courtroom drama cliché. Dennis, the lawyer, is himself a chilly, officious suit, someone perhaps who will be on the wrong side of the story rather than its centerpiece. Shane is an apathetic presence, devoid of individuality and therefore, interest. But then Phillips begins to twist the stuff, opening up characters and situations in fresh ways. The audience’s preconceptions are implicated, part of a dulled pattern of socialized response which the writer wants to overthrow. Despite all the sturm und drang, the wider themes invoked, there’s yet a murder mystery and a courtroom drama in this play. Demanding critics might opine that , as treatments, these stories don’t break fresh ground. They’re merely a trope. The conclusion, when it arrives, is a little abrupt, perfunctory; and the landing, given all the in flight turbulence, a little smooth. But perhaps that’s a measure of what has come before; if you dig up large parts of the rose garden, it can be difficult to see it just as a rose garden afterward.

Brian Zimmer directs with assurance, soliciting on point performances and keeping a wordy play animated, unencumbered, and paced. Technically everything flows, though there are some questions about character lighting and whether shadow is intentional during a few exchanges. It’s a treat when a chewy dramatic text meets with receptive and able performers. Phillips is sharp at characters and everyone here is honed to a high pitch. Dennis’s emotional tornado does not preclude the other actors from making their mark. Chris Salvatore (Shane), Joe Briggs (Goff), Paolo Andino (Nielson), and Nina Millin (D.A. Mary Hamilton) resolutely stand their ground and present fully rounded, humane performances. This suits in a fully rounded, humane play. Pieces works as entertainment and as drama with teeth. Go, for pity’s sake, while you can. You should consider yourself lucky to be so bitten.

~~~

Pieces
Revolve Productions
Writer: Chris Phillips
Director: Brian Zimmer
A brutal murder. A damaged suspect. A public defender unsure of his place in the gay community. Straight from a sold-out run in Los Angeles, PIECES takes no prisoners and pulls no punches. You have been warned.
2h 0m   National   Los Angeles, California
Drama
Staycation: Ripped from the Headlines   Celeb-reality TV in Hollywood
www.piecestheplay.com
VENUE #12: Cherry Lane Theatre
Sat 11 @ 12:30  Tue 14 @ 5:45  Wed 15 @ 6:30  Thu 16 @ 4:30  Sun 19 @ 8

Related Posts:

• Elysian Fields (Fringe Festival 2011)
• Final Schedule Announced for Fringe Encore Series
• The Dick And The Rose – Some Say Love, It Is A Flower (Fringe Festival 2012)
• Pink Milk (Fringe Festival 2012)
• Mad Women By John Fleck

Katie Northlich has that commanding sort of physical presence that can hold a room with ease. There is a boldness in her look, an assuredness in her movements that can compel you to watch, whether she’s meekly sipping a glass of tea, or absently raking a hand through her hair while at the end of her tether. But, as her self-authored, one woman show, The Panic Diaries, playing at the Studio in Cherry Lane Theatre, amply demonstrates, she is a consummate actress, and no doubt can make herself invisible in a crowd if she so desired. Some dark glasses might be useful to this end, as she is possessed of a pair of large, glancing eyes that betray the intelligence and watchfulness within. Likely she is aware of this, as she uses their impact to focus an audience, and their watchfulness in appropriating the behavioral niceties of different character types. As an actress she is altogether self-possessed. Which makes it most interesting that the several characters she brings to life in this show are very much the opposite; people who have somehow lost themselves in the act of becoming what they believe is expected of them. On a psychological level, this particular malaise must be the classic actor’s dilemma. Adept at becoming someone else, they experience difficulty merely being themselves. So, for all her poise here, we can believe that she knows something of what she speaks.

We are presented with an unnamed woman, alone in her apartment, beset by the troubling sense that she has somehow, somewhere, lost the plot of her life. To her diary she pours out fears and frustrations, lamenting a feeling that things have lost their meaning, their value, their taste. Nothing survives as a refuge – her identity, her aspirations, her relationships. It is a dark and lonely place. Panic ensues. Each imploding diary encounter moves us along to a sketch featuring a new character Northlich gamely embodies in situations both banal – at a department store exploring bridal registry gift options – and pathological – a well-heeled southern woman comes apart in the course of a coffee date with friends. All of her women are, in some sense, heart-breakingly pathetic, even as Northlich, a natural comedian with a fluid expressivity, raises the comical pitch to hilarious levels. An explosive young chatterbox, visiting a gynecologist, erupts into a non-stop spiel about her profligate sex life to a hapless stranger in the waiting room, establishing new dimensions around the term inappropriate. It is both ridiculously funny and terribly sad. Which is to say it is the best sort of theatre. Before this character has even opened her mouth, with just the restless flick of her eye play, Northlich has delivered us the hopelessly narcissistic soul of the young woman.

All of her women suffer from a compulsion to say something that has unsettling consequences. A homeless woman, begging at a store entrance, is reliant on the store keeper’s daily charitable gift of a single cigarette. But she can’t stop herself sounding off at one of his customers and consequently unwittingly forfeits her smoke privileges. A nervous encounter between past college lovers prompts a young woman to carelessly divulge that she had a secret abortion following their break-up. The true self, long ignored and repressed, will eventually out. Spurned and un-nurtured, it is not surprising that rage will be leading.

There is a fine balance between the comedy of the sketches and the relentlessly self-questioning diarist’s scenes. Perhaps the solemn, unwavering tone of the diarist is overshadowed by the finer plumage worn by the sketch characters, but this tug-of-war feeds into the larger theme of imbalance, polarization, and self-alienation. There is art in it. Concentrated and, at just one hour and ten minutes, winningly brief, the whole performance is a tonic and a salutary riposte to the Sex and the City set, for whom Life seems reducible merely to the mother and father of all shopping lists (check off as you go). Director Joe Ricci uses a craftily light hand, allowing Northtlich to come through fully. Really there’s no call for panic here; everyone – characters, actor, and audience – are very nicely served.

~~~

The Panic Diaries

Katie Northlich
Writer: Katie Northlich
Director: Joe Ricci
1h 10m  
www.thepanicdiaries.com
VENUE #18: The Studio at Cherry Lane Theatre
Fri 26 @ 6 Sat 27 @ 3 Sun 28 @ 4

Related Posts:

• CLENCHED: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2016 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• Becoming Butch (Fringe Festival 2012)
• The Dick And The Rose – Some Say Love, It Is A Flower (Fringe Festival 2012)
• Pieces (Fringe Festival 2012)
• Open Mic Night And Post-Irene PARTY!