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.

~~~

Related Posts:

• Connect Five – Four Plays With One Thing In Common
• Interview With The Four Writers Of Connect Five
• It’s A Family Thing At “The House Of Yes”
• Reasons Why “reasons to be pretty” Couldn’t Survive

Connect Five photo by Suzi Sadler

We all want to feel deeply connected to someone else in a new way that surprises us.  How that connection comes about  - emotionally, physically, mentally or sexually – is actually secondary.  When that unexpected connection locks in there’s a heightened state of awareness that can overpower our conventional systems and methods, an allure that can captivate our essential nature on a level that we can’t always put into words – quite possibly because some times there are no words.  Some times there just is what we do, how it makes us feel, and that chance we’re willing to take to feel it again.

The four plays of Connect Five all deal with a connection that’s either surprising, suspicious, inescapable or indescribable, and the gratification (as well as the guilt), that can come about because of it.

Connect Five begins with The Make-Out Queen (written and performed by Bronwen Prosser and directed by Kathryn Walsh).  Don’t let the playful John Hughes-esque title fool you,  this solo act squarely showers the audience with magic, truth (sometimes brutal), honesty (sometimes heartbreaking) and beauty, finally ending on a note of triumph.  The woman who presents herself to us is on a quest – not for titillation or stimulation, but a quest to bring back the intimacy that kissing underscores. (“I find making out really life affirming. Here I am squishing my face against another face, and I mean hell, my BREATH is going into another body and I am breathing THEM and you can’t step back“).  The would-be Make-Out Queen (for the crown only comes if she “wins”) takes us through her 12 week quest of kissing men – and women – in the hopes of not detaching and approaching it with the same ferociousness people reserve for sex.  As both playwright and actor, Ms. Prosser has a deep relationship with the words and immediately charms the audience.  The message here, so pure and simple, takes on an enchanted element when told through her voice.  Under Kathryn Walsh’s direction Prosser was able to finely balance this piece at the nexus of loss and triumph, hope and heartbreak, determination and doubt – and finally leaves us with a kiss, a crown, and a call to action: to go out and kiss someone like it is its own sacred complete act from beginning to end.  Much like the play itself – complete from beginning to end and imbued with the passion of renewal.

Last Night (written by Wendy MacLeod and directed by Karen Kohlhaas) jumps to the other end of the spectrum; we come upon a live-in couple the morning after Juliet  (Sarah Kauffman), in an effort to spice things up a little, tried something new with Eric (Michael Pantozzi) which left him curious as to where she might have learned something like that.  He batters her with questions – was it a video they watched?  Is she having an affair?  Why is she using so much gas in the car lately; where is she going?  The idea that trying something new would immediately lead to suspicion clearly underscores how disconnected this couple have become.  No answer seems to satisfy Eric – no logic can mitigate the damage done by something Juliet didn’t “learn” but merely “tried”.  Ironically, in the end, the only thing that seems to make sense to him at all is a comment that gives very little information.  While the characters of the piece are engaging, and the topic is certainly one that could easily resonate with the audience this is still more of a play that asks a question rather than gives an answer.

In Young (written by Lucy Thurber and directed by Shannon Fillion), Ava (Kathleen Littlefield) isn’t trying anything new at all.  In fact, her m.o. is one she keeps doing over and over and over – she can’t seem to sever her connection to an old girlfriend despite the fact that she’s in another relationship.  We find her trying to come back to Hailey (Sarah Kauffman) “just to talk”.  Hailey is both confused and flattered by Ava’s insistent attention.  It’s clear, however, that Ava’s there just temporarily, regardless of how powerless she is to keep away; apparently there’s a girlfriend waiting at home.  And waiting she is – when Ava tries to tip-toe in the next morning Neci (Lila Dupree) is wide awake and waiting on the couch, fully aware of what has happened without being told because, again, this is Ava and this is what Ava does.  Even Ava’s long-time friend Timmy (Michael Pantozzi) knows – this is what Ava does. The question is – can she ever change?  Or is this payoff always going to be a large enough one to keep her playing this twisted game?

The last piece of the night is The Room and A Richard which is the tale of two strangers who find themselves curiously connected by a dead man and his apartment.  This is the most poetic of the plays, and  - as such – up for the most

The Room and a Richard (Blaze Mancillas & Heather Oakley / Photo by Simon Miner)

interpretation. On the surface this is nothing but the story of a young man, Alex (Blaze Mancillas), finding out that he was Willed an unusually large Manhattan apartment by a man  - a customer – whom he can’t even place.  He’s in this Park Avenue spot with the recently deceased man’s sister – Cynthia (Heather Oakley)- who is all flash and fast-talk in order to cover her . . . vulnerability?  Loneliness?  It’s hard to tell.  The play is written in a way that’s meant to volley back and forth – word play and alliteration rank high and while it can cast a dreamy tint to the piece it also never quite allows you to know what’s real and what isn’t.  Which, perhaps, is the point.  Regardless, they speak to each other in a way that’s more shorthand and more intimate than most conversations – let alone those held by people meeting for the first time. The actors themselves were engaging and  kept the chemistry and pacing, still, this play ends on a rather quizzical final note as scenes flip and skip through time leaving the audience with a feeling akin to having just thumbed through a stranger’s haphazardly arranged photo album.   Of all the connections presented theirs was, no doubt, the most cerebral and the one that asks the most of the audience – to not just passively watch but to actively engage in order to find the resonance.

The success of Connect Five lies in the subtle question that is implied at the end of each piece – What now? And that question is for the audience alone to answer; we are the fifth connection – and how we fill in that blank is what makes the circuit complete in a way that makes that connection most important to each individual who makes up that last element.

~~~

Related Posts:

• Interview With The Four Writers Of Connect Five
• Standing On Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays – Before And After “I Do”
• It’s A Family Thing At “The House Of Yes”

Four writers plus one audience equals Connect Five – The Common Tongue’s evening of one-act plays which will be going on from January 5 – 16 at The Ars Nova Building.  The night brings together two emerging playwrights – Danny Mitarotondo (recipient of the Edward F. Albee Writing Fellowship) and Bronwen Prosser (Vital Theatre’s The Picasso Project) – with two established playwrights – Wendy MacLeod (Schoolgirl Figure; The House of Yes) and Lucy Thurber (Scarcity; Bottom of the World).

All four writers were kind enough to take a moment out of their busy schedules to do a short Q&A with me before I go to review the show.

Wendy MacLeod

Wendy MacLeod / LAST NIGHT

◊ Juliet tries to do a little something extra in the bedroom for her boyfriend but the morning after finds him full of some ungrateful suspicions. ◊

I’ve been a huge fan of yours since I saw The House of Yes and have been lucky enough to see both stage and screen versions. You are brilliant at bringing the unexpected to life! Last Night sounds like something that will resonate with a lot of people. What’s the most unexpected thing about it?
In this play it’s the guy who is needy, jealous, and pre-menstrual. The woman just wants to get to work.

What drives Last Night more – the theme or the characters?
Characters always drive the play. I’m not a big believer in “theme” because I don’t know what a theme looks like.

What’s your favorite moment in the play?
I think only audience members are entitled to choose favorite moments.

How do you hope audiences will react to the piece?
I hope they will laugh. Then I hope they will recognize themselves in the man or woman or, ideally, both.

What has it been like being part of this night of theatre? What’s been the most rewarding thing working with The Common Tongue?
It’s nice to meet talented young actors and work with eager, hard-working young companies because you never know who will be the NEXT Atlantic or Labyrinth. It’s also nice to have my play in the firm hands of director Karen Kohlhaas.

***

Danny Mitarotondo

Danny Mitarotondo / THE ROOM AND A RICHARD

◊ Strangers Cynthia and Alex, having an ordinary New York exchange over an apartment, suddenly sink into an extraordinary interchange of loss, love, and memory. ◊

What drives THE ROOM AND A RICHARD more – the theme or the characters?
The Room and A Richard is completely driven by the characters (as is, hopefully, every play). Their language, and therefore their intention, literally changes them as they speak it, which changes the plot, the room and (hopefully) us.

What’s your favorite moment in the play?
The whole damn thing.

How do you hope audiences will react to the piece?
I hope that people will immediately feel something in their stomachs that makes them, two days later over a coffee, think.

What has it been like being part of this night of theatre?  What’s been the most rewarding thing working with The Common Tongue?
It’s been amazing. Heather, Blaze and Mo are a dream team and I couldn’t ask for more. Producing the whole evening – standing alongside Broni, Lucy and Wendy as a writer and then Shannon, Katie, Kathleen, Sarah, Lila and Mike … it’s a dream come true. TCT is my family. They inspire me every day to be a better me.

***

Lucy Thurber

Lucy Thurber /YOUNG

◊ Ava just can’t seem to stop hurting the women in her life. Can they forgive her one last time? ◊

What drives Young more – the theme or the characters?
I think actually the characters and the theme are equal in Young. Or the characters are the theme.

What’s your favorite moment in the play?
The end moment between Ava and Timmy. I like seeing friendship that functions like family on stage.

How do you hope audiences will react to the piece?
I hope they laugh a little. Being young is beautiful, agonizing and often funny in it’s intensity.

What has it been like being part of this night of theatre? What’s been the most rewarding thing working with The Common Tongue?
How much The Common Tongue loves true collaboration.

***

Bronwen Prosser

Bronwen Prosser / THE MAKE-OUT QUEEN

◊ A young woman’s fierce and spastic quest for magic through the revolutionary art of kissing. ◊

What drives  THE MAKE-OUT QUEEN more – the theme or the Characters?
The theme: It is the main characters intense desire for magic which in turn creates characters- some more magical than others. But then again the theme doesn’t exit without the character of The Make-Out Queen. She decides to go on this fever-quest in search of magic saliva, ao there is no theme without her very strong personality. So I change my answer: Character. But you can see they are inextricably linked. Because as the playwright I can honestly say the character and the theme emerged right along together. They take turns pulling each other forward.

What’s your favorite moment in the play?
The very top! Because it’s the first moment the audience and I see each other and it’s so insanely unpredictable- and so exciting because it’s the moment we all begin this voyage together. It’s also the most challenging moment for me because it just doesn’t work if I have any preconception of how I want the piece to appear. The actor part of me always gets annoyed with the playwright part of me during rehearsals when I’m working on the opening monologue.

How do you hope audiences will react to the piece?
I hope they will take my call to arms seriously and try kissing someone with a whole renewed energy and awe. I hope they re-commit to the magic. Because it is a conscious choice: re-committing daily to wonder.

What has it been like being part of this night of theatre?
Well, I feel really honored that my company picked my piece. It means more to me than anyone else in the world producing it, and I am in total awe of the other playwrights I’m sharing the stage with. It is such an immense honor to be in a night of theater that includes Wendy McLeod, Lucy Thurber and my Artistic Director Danny Mitarotondo. I am proud and humbled and I want nothing more in the world than to do right by this fabulous night of theater.

What’s been the most rewarding thing working with The Common Tongue?
They are my family. The rewards come abundantly. I do not get to produce work in such a supported personal way- and within a net of friendly arms- anywhere else. The reward is that communication is always kind and honest and keeping the best interest of the company in mind. It’s a challenge and a balance, and it’s very rewarding. And then there’s the sexy rewards: I’m part of a hot young theater company doing really exciting work with some very famous playwrights and some very talented new playwrights and some of New York’s finest actors.

We are dedicated and we love kicking ass.

—
Thanks again, to all the writers who took the time to tell us about their new one-acts.

Related Posts:

• Connect Five – Four Plays With One Thing In Common
• What The Sparrow Said (Fringe Festival 2011)
• Standing On Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays – Before And After “I Do”
• It’s A Family Thing At “The House Of Yes”

Full disclosure – I went to Heathcliff Entertainment’s production of The House of Yes (written by Wendy MacLeod and directed by Brandt Reiter) full of anticipation.  The movie of the same name (based on MacLeod’s play) had long been my litmus test; if someone loved the film as much as I did, then I knew we’d be friends.  If someone didn’t get it . . . well, let’s just say we didn’t exchange holiday cards after that.

So seeing one of my favorite movies in its original form on stage was, I knew, going to be great fun for me.  And this production, starring Jonathan Blakeley as Marty, Tommy Heleringer as Anthony, Marcia Everitt as Mrs. Pascal, Zoë Swenson as Jackie-O, and Hilary Bettis as Lesly lived up to my expectations and more.  Still, this is a story with a lot of bite so before you go I suggest you arrive prepared.  (Don’t worry, no spoilers ahead).

Happy, frightened or mad? Jackie-O (Zoe Swenson) meets her twin brother Marty's (Jonathan Blakely) new fiancee, Lesly (Hilary Bettis) in Heathcliff Entertainment's production of "The House of Yes"

The story itself is a simple one, really.  On a dark and stormy Thanksgiving night Marty (Blakeley) is coming home to his family home in Washington DC to introduce his new girlfriend, Lesly (Bettis) and announce their engagement.  Eagerly awaiting his return is younger brother Anthony (Heleringer) who’s a bit uncomfortable in his own skin, eccentric mother Mrs. Pascal (Marcia Everitt) who floats through the family home as though she’s vacationing in it, and bizarre, tilted, crazy twin-of-Marty: Jackie-O (Swenson) who is prone to fits, can be giddy to the point of  madness, and who is waiting for Marty with a devotion that outshines the rest of her family put together.

When Marty arrives his normalcy next to this bag of nuts makes him seem like Marilyn Munster next to Herman and Lily – at least at first.  Marty struggles against the insanity of his childhood home the way a salmon struggles against the current in order to spawn upstream.  On a positive note, Marty does actually succeed for a while in bringing his New York city life back home with him in a protective  bubble.  His love for his bride-to-be is admirable; Lesly is nothing like this group and her innocence and naivety is refreshing (both to him and to the audience).  Lesly comes from humble beginnings, hails from the great state of Pennsylvania, and met Marty when she waited on him in the local donut shop.  Despite Jackie-O’s rapid fire insults (most of which fly, at least initially, over Lesly’s head) Marty holds Lesly up as exactly the type of woman he’s glad he found.  She’s the perfect one for him, or so he’d have everyone think.  Not everyone is so sure.

Marcia Everitt, Tommy Heleringer, Jonathan Blakeley, Hilary Bettis, Zoe Swenson (Photo Credit: Mark Krieger)

The story gets interesting when the storm creates a power outage in the house and, with Mrs. Pascal not interested in even attempting to continue the evening, everyone retreats to different corners of the house.  It is only then, when characters deal one on one, that little breadcrumbs of history are dropped onto the path of this crooked family story.  Who was Marty’s last girlfried who he never speaks of?  What happened in the past that made Jackie-O go crazy?  What’s with the Kennedy obsession?  And just exactly how deep does this family bond run?

When all is revealed it’s like the crack of a whip and the curious games, odd traditions, and barely-kept secrets all come tumbling toward you in a mad rush.  This is one hell of a family.

Director Brandt Reiter does a wonderful job of leading this cast through a script that can only be seen as a gift to actors.  Each scene is so full of crisp, dense, biting dialogue that it might be tempting to speed up the pace and deliver this jewel in a rapid fire method just to show off; the way some piansists will rush a great concerto to show they never drop a note.  But Reiter keeps the pacing just right and that allows the wonderful ensemble to bring these scenes to life in a way that builds to the climactic end.

While all the actors were top notch I most enjoyed the nuances of Ms. Swenson’s performance and Ms. Bettis’ performance.  Ms. Swenson made sure to play Jackie-O in a way that merely hinted at crazy, rather than bringing the hysteria out full blown.  In fact, by seeing Jackie-O as a grounded girl made her acts of irrationality all the more eerie and frightening.  Ms. Bettis instilled Lesly with a sweet veneer of foolishness but nevery idiocy.  Lesly may not have been exposed to everything that others her age have seen, but she’s determined to learn as much as she can from each new thing she’s exposed to, and that makes her charming and vulnerable in this house of jaded characters.

Is it just a game, or is she crazy? Jonathan Blakeley as "Marty" and Zoe Swenson as "Jackie-O" in Heathcliff Entertainment's production of "The House of Yes" (Photo Credit: Mark Krieger)

It was a wonderful expereince for me to see this great favorite brought to me, and seeing this live version showed me several new things I hadn’t seen before.  So, by all means, say “yes” to this house, and get your ticket to the strangest family reunion you’ll ever be a part of.

~~~

Related Posts:

• Standing On Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays – Before And After “I Do”
• Connect Five – Four Plays With One Thing In Common
• Interview With The Four Writers Of Connect Five
• Pretty Theft Gives Stealing A Good Name