There’s a great independent festival kicking off tonight – right in the heart of the theatre district at the Roy Arias Studios & Theaters. What makes The Times Square International Theater Festival special is two things – one, it’s an international festival which means there will be a great range of talents from all over reflecting cultures from around the world.  The second thing is that The Happiest Medium is the proud sponsor of this festival! In the coming week we’ll bring you Q&As with each of the production teams to get you excited about the shows, and we’ll review as many as we can get to!  In the mean time, check out the full schedule here:

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It’s rare that a six-degrees of separation type plot unravels as elegantly as Us vs. Them.

The play, written by Wesley Broulik and directed by Michelle Seaton, begins simply enough at a road side rest stop where two sisters have pulled over to take a break, stock up on some fortifying snacks, and continue to get reacquainted after an apparently long estrangement.

It’s Christmas time and Nicole (Siouxsie Suarez) has made the trip to pick up her sister, Katy (Maria Itzel Siegrist), so that they can spend the holiday with their ailing mother. Throughout the conversation bits and pieces of their family’s history come out in a natural, off handed way, with out the awkwardly phrased exposition some playwrights will fall back on which often tends to cripple a scene and take the audience right out of the moment. Rather, Katy and Nicole have the same awkward hesitancy which can flip into don’t-try-it-because-I-know-exactly-how-to-press-your-buttons and back again – something that can only come naturally from two sisters who grew up close and then grew apart.

From this initial scene we then move through a series of one-act vignettes which all stem from these two main branches; each building upon the last, each new story having been referenced in an erlier scene either as an important footnote or merely as background information. Therefore, when we next see Katy the timeline has shifted and we are (it seems) seeing her right before the road trip has occured when she is having a night with her romantic interest, the firefighter Kris (Christopher Halladay). From their scene together we find out a little bit more about the life Katy’s been leading since moving away; we also find out about Kris and his teen daughter Dannie (Dannie Flanagan). Much later, we will meet Dannie as she and her father deal head-on with Dannie’s leap into adulthood and her first serious sexual relationship.

Nicole’s story is similarly interwoven. We are brought back to a night that occurred before the road trip for her as well and we meet her partner, a vulnerable yet angry woman named T (Michelle Steaton), who is simultaneously hateful and heartbreaking. It’s obvious the two women have a lot of baggage that they brought into the relationship – problems with alcohol, trust issues, violent tendencies, but despite it all there is a real love between them that struggles to persevere. T speaks of a past that she needed to leave behind – and soon enough that past is unfolding before us as she goes back home for her own Christmas visit. We meet her father Eddie (Eric Michael Gillet), T’s sister Barbara (Brooke Page) and Barbara’s husband Howard (Welsey Broulik). Once we see this bunch suddenly T’s anger doesn’t seem so unprovoked anymore.

T (Michelle Seaton) tries with all her might not to kill her idiotic, cheating brother in-law Howard (Wesley Broulik) | Photo by Yolanda Suarez

The character of Howard is played by playwright Broulik and to his credit he doesn’t cast himself as the hero of this piece – rather he’s probably the most deserving of a punch in the face. (I won’t give anything away, but in a family like this one, chances are good that he gets it). Howard is demeaning to all those around him, speaks to his wife Barbara as if she were stupid, and has very little respect for the family he’s married into. In fact, he does a great job of making some unlikeable people seem a lot more likeable when he’s around.

And that’s the gift of Broulik the playwright. In Us vs. Them he’s managed to make you dislike a character for their failings one moment and then staunchly defend them as they come under attack the next moment. His gift of being able to present a fully formed character is as sharp as his ability to create a wonderfully knitted storyline that walks right up to the edge of sentimentality without tipping over into the marsh of sappy. There will be moments during this show that will have you nodding in recognition, as well as recoiling in revulsion. And it is exactly because these human beings are frayed, chipped, scarred and wrinkled that they are so real. Some times they are Us. Some times they are Them. Throughout it all – they are worth seeing.

~~~

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• Hollow Log – If Theatre Was TV

Hollow Log by Lawrence Dial is billed as a Comedic Thriller, but I think that’s just economy of words. It’s not so much a comedic thriller as it is a drama, which then becomes a comedy, then moves on to a thriller, then becomes dramatic again then swerves over to tragedy just before ending on a happy note. Sitting through Hollow Log is a bit like renting a whole season of a TV series from Netflix and watching several episodes back to back. As in: the characters are consistent in each episode (read “scene”), but the tone from one episode to the next can change dramatically. Still, after you’ve seen it all together, it’s a pretty satisfying 2 hours, though you’re not sure it all should have been seen one right after the other like that.

Hollow Log felt like settling in for a marathon viewing of Season Three — of a show I’d never seen before. Clues around the set give a little background about what probably happened before we join our characters. There’s some packing tape cordoning off a section of the room; in this little mess is a futon, a stereo, lots of crap, posters, crap, some other stuff, some crap and some junk. Oh, and a sleeping guy. The rest of the apartment is neat and spare, just waiting for some hijinks to occur.

From the looks of it, (Non-Existent-I’m-Making-It-Up-In-My-Head-To-Provide-My-Own-Back-Story) Season One could have been called Bong Boy and probably would have concerned itself with the funny antics of the stoner / slacker Denny (Joachim Boyle) as he mishapped his way through his “life” and mooched off his best friend Annie (Erin Roberts). Oh, that Denny, using his money to buy a pogo stick instead of investing it wisely in something substantial. We can just imagine what mischievous pranks he got into as he smoked his bong, probably never changing out of that bathrobe (or his underwear) for days.

Season Two (Equally Made-Up-By-Me) would have been called Getting Grown Up and would have given some meaty conflicts to Annie as she runs her bar, “Clean and Cleaner”, and grows continually more frustrated at having to bail her best friend out of one jam after another. And let’s not forget, poor Annie’s an orphan, albeit a grown up rich one who can afford to eat Nobu take-out for dinner. (Just let that settle: Nobu. Take out. It’s one thing to be so rich that you want to show everyone that you can get a table right down the aisle from the Spielbergs. It’s another thing to be so rich that you can just want to eat the pricey food in the comfort of your own home.)

Now, as the lights come up on Season Three, or, you know, Hollow Log, Denny is about to be evicted / gently nudged from the nest (depending on which side of the taped-down room you’re standing on) he shares with Annie. You can feel Annie’s frustration as she tries not to pick up the pieces for Denny YET AGAIN. She vacillates between wanting to set Denny up with a life-in-a-box (enabler) to tearing up his last 13 dollars … all the money he seems to have in the world (tough love). Neither choice seems to give her much peace. Either way, she’s getting married to Ray (Matt Yeager) soon and needs to rip the tape off the floor, metaphorically as well as literally. Now, of course, here’s where the twist comes in. Coincidentally a man who may or may not be using a fake Russian accent may or may not have put a set of real or fake circumstances in motion today and life for Denny and Annie may change in ways they hadn’t planned.

Annie had a heck of a day, and after telling Denny about it, it looks like things may or may not change, depending on what they decide to do. This happened, that happened, and right now there possibly may be a big bag of ecstasy that could potentially be sold to “a guy”. Or, you know, it could just be a big ole bag of Smarties. There’s some debate there. In any case, Episode One is all about Denny and Annie and not so much how the hell they managed to stay friends for so long (some friends who are completely different just do) but more how the hell are they going to continue to stay friends once the staus quo is status gone? Confused? You won’t be after this week’s episode of … Lights down, scene change. Here’s where you’d stop if you were so inclined. But this is a play.

Lights back up and let’s call this Episode Two – The Russian Dude. Boris (Andrew Kaempfer), has somehow gotten into the apartment and he’s either there to confirm Annie’s story about this possible bag of ecstasy, or it’s all just a big ruse. Either way, he’s threatening Denny in a whole different way and not having a place to live suddenly seems so last episode. Boris is menacing, strange, creepy … and then he’s gone.

Episode Three – The One With All The Jealousy. (Okay, I copped that from Friends, but there’s a reason. 1. Because this one is the one with all the jealousy. And 2. Because this is the funny one.) When Ray comes storming back from Russia, looking for Annie, he and Denny verbally spar about who loves her more, and who knows her best and who has the right and who should get out and who should shut up and who should … you get the picture. Some of the funniest, most crackling moments happen between these two characters, the most laugh out loud, hilarious moments of the play. Meanwhile, Annie’s missing and no one knows why. Hmmmm. Tension.

Episode Five – the Big Finish. Oh My God! Where have you …? Never mind that … why are you …? No time to explain. We’ve got to get out of here before they … Oh no! Too late! Grab the … Well, I can’t give it away but I’ve seen episodes of CSI:NY that had less violence in them.

Episode Six – The Christmas Episode. Every show has one.

Hollow Log has a lot going on in it, and as long as you compartmentalize it all, it’s very well done. The actors are fantastic, particularly Joachim Boyle who has amazing comic timing, yet can play feckless without overdoing it. He may be aimless but he’s not a fool. Erin Roberts, too, plays Annie just right … just because she’s got a heart when it comes to Denny doesn’t mean she’s a complete sap. Matt Yeager and Andrew Kaempfer can make you squirm in your seat at times … which just means they’ve done their job right.

Hollow Log is playing Thursdays through Sundays till February 8th at the Roy Arias Studios (300 West 43rd Street and 8th Avenue). For more information visit their website or click here to purchase tickets.

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