What’s the difference between a janitor and a custodian? It’s all about a sense of responsibility for what you care for.  The Custodian is a story about trying to find one’s way in the world, the complexities of love, and one normal man’s struggle to learn how to fight back against the messy carelessness of superheroes creating a codependent relationship with the regular citizens of New York by saying they need to save the world from disaster and then making the people trapped under the rubble of their battles beg to be rescued.

The Custodian (written and directed by Will Lacker) opens upon a messy apartment where a man is avidly playing a video game.  All of sudden another man (played by Kevin Alan) in a bright yellow getup comes out of the shadows.  Is this our first look at a superhero in this play?  We quickly find out he is announcing another tussle between super hero and super villain … and the effect it is having on traffic (this announcer’s specialty). Kevin returns time and time again as the voice of the world outside the apartment whether as announcer or as a trivia savant who gives the other characters special bits of information to help them understand more arcane facts that they (or the audience) need to know.

Kevin does a great job of conveying the excitement and investment the world seems to have in the exploits of superheroes.  He also gives the underlying fear of collateral damage that is unsaid but sometimes seen in his face.  Sound and lighting is done expertly by Matt Wharton who brings us deeply resonate thuds, thumps and crashes of the scary world outside the apartment which is never seen.

The clever costumes by Sara Lukasiewicz and Laurel Casillo (who plays Wanda) illustrate flamboyancy of the world outside in the glimpses we get.

In this story what our hero, Max (played by Eryck Tate), cares for is nothing less than New York City, and he isn’t used to having such large passionate feelings, so his transformation from a normal everyman to The Custodian is a tough one.  He has an eccentric roommate Remi (played by Nick Hepsoe), who has obsessions with trivia, Gina Davis and a “commitment” to video games, as well as a trust fund to support his habits.

His girlfriend Wanda (played by Laurel Casillo) is always being supportive and her father gets Max an interview which seems like it might be far up on the ladder of success (“data entry” – an exciting possibility to Max), but the job is of custodian.  He is sent home with a mop to work on his mopping skills.

Later Max wakes up to his “day off” and an urgent call from his supervisor Manuello that he’s “needed urgently” to help sweep up the four floors of smashed glass caused by a superhero.  Only you can save us!

Added to the mix is a story of an old yet mysterious friend of Remi’s named Fing (played by Adam Delia), a wild-man guerilla fighter just out of Uganda who will be staying with them for an “indefinite” period of time.  Wanda is at first repulsed by Fing, but soon a chemistry beginning to develop.

With disaster threatening to take down the city, and Wanda’s life in peril, what can they do to stop the careless rampaging of superheroes?  Then the answer comes in a flash (a muddled confused and almost incoherent flash) of mental agility.

Kidnap a superheroes sidekick!

It seems wrong and yet so right.   A plan is made and we see the wheels of transformation happen to all in this gang of would-be crusaders.

See the show while you can for a great mix of laughs, ethical dilemmas, and great chemistry both between and within the characters as they all change into something closer to their true selves as we see the birth of  The Custodian!

~~~

The Custodian
Five Flights Theater Company
Writer: Will Lacker
Director: Will Lacker

1h 45m

www.fiveflightstheatercompany.org
VENUE #6: The Living Theatre
Thu 18 @ 8 Wed 24 @ 2 Sat 27 @ 7

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Anyone For A Swingin’ Threesome? is a trio of comedic One Act Plays put together by Just Ask Productions.

I like One Act collections, and collections of short stories. Besides being short, I also like that – as collections – they are of different origins (even if by the same author) and that the world of the story is of a completely different universe than the others in the collection. Yet often, as with this collection, they are held together by some subtle yet powerful thread of why they were collected together in the first place.

Sometimes the reasons are obvious, other times, more subtle. The connection in Threesome leans more towards subtly; for a few days, at least, the ultimate theme eluded me. In a show titled Anyone For A Swingin’ Threesome? one might jump to the conclusion that it’s a play about throwing morals to the wind and hooking up in some unconventional way with a non-traditional number of people. However if you look at the plays shown here, the characters (as well as the audience) seem very aware that a moral conundrum is being portrayed, obviously we are being given some potential ethical dilemmas that must be figured out:

1. The Questions of the Queen (by Duncan Pflaster, Directed by Adam Samtur)

Which is more important: happiness or order?

The answer may not be as simple as it appears. Though Spock might advise: the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

In Queen Cindy’s (Stephanie Strohm) sunny kingdom everything runs like hearts and sunshine, because if it doesn’t she’ll “Off With His Head” you sooner than Alice In Wonderland’s Queen of Hearts. Disagree with Queen Cindy – even when her direct order is to tell her the truth – and you’re signing your own death warrant. And she does it all on morning TV (Whhheeeee! Fun!). With her sycophantic Justin (Brendon Katon-Donegal) and Barry the Guard (V. Orion Delwaterman) telling her everything she wants to hear, is it any wonder she’s confused when straight talking Victoria (Sarah E. Jacobs) uses her “come on down” moment to tell Cindy that no one is happy, people hate her and life isn’t fantastic? Queen Cindy pits Victoria against Nick (Charles Coleman) who terrifyingly keeps insisting everything is fine. By the time the dust settles the Kingdom is left very very different.

2. Trials (by Will Lacker, Directed by P. Case Aiken III)

Which is more important: love or the integrity of space and time? Or: Can every relationship be fixed or are some just doomed no matter what?

Don’t we all wish we had a Groundhog Day apparatus of our own, something to make all the events which lead up to that one disastrous moment happen again so that we could divert the (perhaps not so) inevitable and make sure it all goes right this time? In Trials the twist is that perhaps this relationship isn’t worth saving – but Miles (Partrick Reidy) needed to come to that conclusion on his own, and no matter how many times he re-set his date with Judith (Vanessa Hardy), it was all to no avail until some very strange things begin to occur.

3. Park Slope Cassoulet (by Dan Via, Directed by Matthew Kagen)

Which is more important: The idea of a neighborhood or the ideas of a neighbor? In other words: You can’t step in the same Gowanus Canal twice.

Mark (Jeffrey A. Wisniewski)) and Lydia (Regina Gibson) are you typical Brooklyn couple. They live in the ‘Slope, Lydia cooks up healthy delicious dishes for herself and her family, and they live a good life.  They do things “right”, they want things “fair”, they blog about their little corner of the world and grip tightly against the gentrification, rising property costs and new neighbors like the very pregnant Jeanne-Anne (Caitlin Bruggeman) who, despite being a lesbian (good), is also a banker (bad). Jeanne-Anne is exactly the type of person who’s ruining Brooklyn for all the people who’ve been there for the last twenty five years. And . . . well . . . Lydia’s had just about enough. So she and Mark take action . . .

Ultimately, for Threesome - the theme of the plays overall is judgement. Do we have the right? And what would happen if we didn’t exercise ours correctly?

So most likely the “swingin’” in this threesome is representative of a “hangin’” (more than a sexy-fest) – the ultimate symbol in judgment. But like the Hanged Man card in the Tarot Deck these plays are symbols that can give us some guidance as we move into the second mysterious and confusing decade of this second millennium.

~~~

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