by Karen Tortora-Lee on August 12, 2009
Society doesn’t look kindly upon mothers who kill their children, intentionally or otherwise; right now the court of public opinion is busily vilifying Diane Schuler who was reportedly drunk and stoned when she piled a group of children (her own daughter included) into her car and then drove the wrong way on the Taconic State Parkway killing everyone as well as (some would say rightfully) herself. Before that, there was the infamous Andrea Yates, who, in a stupor of post-partum depression and psychosis, systematically drowned one child after another until all 5 of her young boys were dead. But really, the “how” is never the question. In fact, the “how” is pretty much shushed away quickly, no one wants to hear how a mother kills her own children. What we are left asking is … why? Why would a mother kill these little ones?
The Greeks have always been amazing storytellers; their myths and tragedies are rife with the themes that pulse through every level of society. Show me an Icarus and I’ll show you a victim of Bernie Madoff. But the story of Medea has always been a little harder to figure out; a woman who is so angered by her husband’s betrayal that she kills her sons in order to exact revenge on him. Again, this “why” never quite resonated enough with me to be clearly understood. A woman can more easily identify with killing herself over a tragic affair than she can with killing her own child. So updating Medea has to be done very carefully. Luckily, playwright Will Le Vasseur has found a way to give his Medea the perfect out, thus preserving the original story while making his main character actually sympathetic. Continue Reading…
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on August 1, 2009
New York Fringe Festival 2009
Unless you’ve been living outside of New York City for the last decade or so, chances are you’ve either attended a Fringe show yourself, or you’ve at least heard about the festival. ”Fringe”, of course, means The New York International Fringe Festival and it is the largest multi-arts festival in North America, with more than 200 companies from all over the world performing for 16 days in more than 20 venues. It kicks off in just two weeks on August 14th, so right now everyone involved is getting their act together, so to speak, and preparing for Opening Night.
One very special show which will be featured this year at the Fringe Festival is Eli and Cheryl Jump, a poetic, haunting play written by Daniel McCoy. I got a chance to chat with Daniel and find out what it’s like to be part of the Fringe, what sparked him to write this play, and what he hopes it will mean to the audience.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on July 25, 2009
Bird House (Photo by Marcus Woollen)
Lewis Carroll did it with Alice in Wonderland … L. Frank Baum did it with The Wizard of Oz: gave us stories of fantastical worlds where innocent girls stumble backwards into their watershed moment and grow up from the inside out. Now, playwright Kate Marks brings us another place of fantasy where not one but two girls on opposite sides of the same world struggle with the same journey. This is Bird House. (Directed by Heidi Handelsman and currently playing at Theater 3.)
Just as Wonderland begins with young Alice bored on a lovely day sitting near her sister, her life nothing so confounding as the frustration of trying to read a book without pictures, so begins Bird House … innocently. Young (or rather, of indeterminate age… but “childlike”) Louisy (Cotton Wright) is excitedly sitting in wait with the more grown-up (and therefore completely underwhelmed) Syl (Christina Shipp) for the clock to strike 8, for that is when Kook (Anthony Wills Jr.) and Ooo (Ora Fruchter), the two puppet birds who live in the cuckoo clock, will come out and announce the hour. Louisy is beside herself with excitement. She’s baked biscuits. Syl is bemused by Louisy but calmly reading the paper … (a book without pictures). It’s all so idyllic. So charming. So … safe. You can just see a rabbit hole and a tornado on the horizon.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on July 22, 2009
When I came on to the staff of neighborbee in October of 2008 as the theatre columnist I had no idea that just nine months later I’d be this immersed in the Off-Off Broadway community. But here I am, 29 weeks, 32 shows and 25 reviews later … writing not just for this site but for The Fab Marquee as well (go check it out!) … and thrilled to be part of a mechanism every week which (I hope) gets people off the couch, out of their homes and into these charming, cozy, sometimes unpredictably configured independent theatres. I love knowing I play a part in helping to get audiences out there in order to watch amazingly talented performers break new ground with never-before-seen plays, or bring the classics alive again for a whole new generation of theatre-goers. I’ve been lucky enough to see a bit of both in these last nine months and have enjoyed virtually every single performance I’ve reviewed. And you know, even the clunkers have a charm all their own, and can sometimes stay with me far longer than expected, just like that other indispensable New York linchpin that can be an equal hit-or-miss: the pushcart hot dog. But I digress.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on July 14, 2009
Twisted is the latest great ensemble piece to come from the Horse Trade group and once again they deliver a show that lives up to its name. From outlandishly twisted to deviously twisted to simply subtly twisted, each of these five one-acts is served up with a twist.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on July 8, 2009
Going to see The Temperamentals at the end of Pride Month was as deeply stirring as watching a reenactment of the signing of the declaration of independence on July 4th, if not more so. Because, while the history of how America fought and won its independence is a story that is well worn, the story of how, long before the Stonewall Riots, a group of men fought for their own personal freedom is one I’d never even heard about before seeing this amazing play.
The Civil Rights movement didn’t happen in one fell swoop; it progressed bit by bit and built on itself event by event. Brown v. The Board of Education beget Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott which paved the way for Martin Luther King, Jr. Similarly, the Gay Rights Movement didn’t burst forth, fully formed, in one great disco-as-wreaking ball through the walls of the Stonewall Inn. By definition, it simply couldn’t. Rather, it started off years earlier with Harry Hay, Rudi Gernreich, and a manifesto which became The Mattachine Society. The Temperamentals is the play which tells their story.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on June 23, 2009
"The Office"--Cast of Richard Hymes-Esposito's THIS ISN'T PARADISE (Photo Credit: NuansArt.com)
This Isn’t Paradise is so much like Glengarry Glen Ross that it could have been written by David Mamet himself. That is … if David Mamet had fallen down a well and lost his memory. And his ability to write a play. And when he crawled out of the well all he found in his pocket was a wad of cocktail napkins with scribbles on them which said Follow up on that real estate story … Don’t forget all that trademark cursing … and the trademark misogyny. Then Mamet took all the cocktail napkins and gave them to the guy who wrote Gigli and said Here, finish this up for me.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on June 15, 2009
In Memorium
This was supposed to be a review for reasons to be pretty (written by Neil LaBute, directed by Terry Kinney, starring Thomas Sadoski, Marin Ireland, Steven Pasquale and Piper Perabo). A very late review, no doubt, but not every reviewer has the luxury of seeing a Broadway show while it’s still in previews. Sometimes a reviewer needs to wait until someone wins an extra pair of tickets and graciously passes them along to her … which is how I came by my tickets. So, if you’re looking for a review I’m going to direct you to a terrific review of reasons to be pretty by David Stallings of The Fab Marquee. If you’re looking for my reasons why good shows can’t survive on The Great White Way these days, then please keep reading …
It all started last week when I got this call:
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on June 13, 2009
… my mom grounded me for getting a speeding ticket … so I peed in her shampoo …
… I only make friends with ugly people …
… I am sleeping with 2 married men … I am a married man myself …
… I will die NEVER having been loved …
… I dread coming home to my daughter and husband every day …
Wow. Heavy stuff. Stuff I did not make up. Stuff that can be found on a confessional website where people unloaded their deepest secrets anonymously. Secrets that were then gather up, assembled, and made into Bigger than I, written collectively by Counting Squares Theatre, directed by Nick Sprysenski and currently playing at UNDER St. Marks.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on June 9, 2009
I tend to like it best when language is used precisely … I get annoyed when I’m trying to say that something is futile and all I can think to say is hopeless. I care about nuance; futile and hopeless may live in the same neighborhood of language, but they’re blocks away from each other, in my mind. The other day I came across someone who used “alas” in place of “luckily” (“I really needed some frozen yogurt and alas! I suddenly saw a Pinkberry.” Whaaaat???). It upset me so much that I had to write to a friend and complain.
So the idea of being hit by a car and losing my power of precise speech (a condition called Aphasia) is as awful, to me, as, say … the star quarterback being told he’ll walk with a limp for the rest of his life. Unthinkable. Devastating.
Which brings us to Night Sky by Susan Yankowitz – directed by Daniella Topol and currently playing at The Rose Nagelberg Theater at Baruch Performing Arts Center.
Anna (Jordan Baker) is a busy lady … she’s an astronomy teacher who ponders the great wonders of the universe on a daily basis; she’s been recognized by her peers for her work, she’s an intellectual. Her signifiacant other, Daniel, (Jim Stanek) is a singer of opera, and her teen-aged daughter Jennifer (Lauren Ashley Carter) is … well, we’ll get to Jenny-Jen-Jennifer later.
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