Ever wonder what it might be like to hang out for a weekend with the casually wealthy? Ever yearn to be part of a clique of old friends who sit around and poke fun at each other for small transgressions such as packing five pairs of shoes for a four day trip or dropping, say, 30K on a Birkin bag? Then meet the people of playwright Molly Moroney’s Kithless In Paradise now playing at the Lion Theatre at Theatre Row. Hosts Tim McCall (David Wirth) and his wife Janice (Liz Forst) open their comfortable San Francisco home – as they do each year – to old friends Phil (Brit Herring) and Polly Barrett (Tracy Newirth) who come from Texas for the yearly shindig. Casual. It’s all very casual. The way they catch up on what’s been going on since they last met, the way they drink and drink … and drink. And drink. The way they bring up their successes as well as their failures. It’s all tossed off casually as they pass around the three thousand dollar bottle of wine and enjoy the hors d’oeuvres. Drop in on them briefly and you’d wish you were one of them. But stay awhile and you’ll start to miss your cramped apartment where the wine may come out of a box but at least you’re guaranteed a far better quality of kith.
I’ve known Grandma The Clown for as long as I’ve known the Big Apple Circus. Grandma is as much a part of that circus arena as the sawdust and the trapeze rigging. But it wasn’t until I saw the PBS documentary CIRCUS that I got to know Barry Lubin – the man underneath the gray wig and pearls. Meeting Barry Lubin through the six part series was a wonderful way to see exactly how much work goes into making people laugh year after year. It’s no easy job, and the life of a clown is serious business.
Last week I spoke with Mark Gindick about Wing-Man which opens tonight and plays this weekend as part of The Brick’s Amuse Bouche 2011: A NY Clown Theatre Festival Hors d’Oeuvre. Today I follow up that interview by speaking with Barry, who directed the show. I’m thrilled that he was able to share his story with us and give us a glimpse into his world. Read on to find out what it takes to be Mark’s Wing-Man, how Barry makes a 20,000 person venue feel intimate, and how getting out of his own way is when the magic happens. Continue Reading…
Attempting to grapple with the national ideological landscape of the present, James Haigney‘s new drama, The Woman Standing on the Moon, playing at United Stages on 30th Street, is undeniably ambitious. This is a serious minded engagement with the extremism of the times – religious and atheist. Set around Fayetteville, NC in 2006, the story focuses on the character of Mary Latrobe, a documentary filmmaker currently shooting a project examining Christian fundamentalism in the U.S. military. For her subject Mary has fastened on to a former Military Police officer, Randy Wallace, who is now a charismatic preacher in the area, with the glint of apocalypse in his eye. For Mary he is the ultimate bugaboo in the system, an evangelical extremist fashioning a corp elite of like-minded soldiers with a reach all the way up to the Pentagon. The mix is potentially, well, apocalyptic. She trains her camera relentlessly on Randy, willing him to expose his darker purpose, yet is met with a gentle-eyed, Bob Dylan quoting figure who espouses Christian wholesomeness and accord. We see clips of Randy’s camera self largely projected onto Christopher Thompson’s minimal, subtle set. He gives good face and sounds “harmlessly” idealistic. But Mary’s senses are sharp and she is not easily persuaded. Having both lost loved ones in acts of war, Mary and Randy are traumatized people. In their own ways they are looking to bring off some momentous coup that will bring life back into alignment; both are pushing for “revelation”. One deploys reason, the other, faith.
If you’ve ever seen Mike Milazzo play the guitar then you already know what an amazing experience it is to watch him – his fingers fly effortlessly over the strings producing almost unbelievably complex sounds that are not only beautiful and powerful but raw and real. As a songwriter Mike has the ability to find the core of what connects us all and finesse it into thoughtful words and haunting melodies. As a singer, Mike’s voice is earnest and true; evocative and filled with emotion. He takes you on a journey with every line he sings, and it’s not until he’s strummed his last note that you’re able to break the hypnotic spell which his music has cast over you. You only have to sit through one of Mike’s performances to know that he is one of the best musicians around.
For those not lucky enough to be able to see Mike perform in person, he’s working on getting a new album out called “The Show”. Mike Milazzo took some time in between gigs to chat with us about what inspired him to write these songs, what the differences are between collaborating and going solo, and he finally solves the mystery of who, exactly, “Mr. Barry” is. Read on …
Immediately arresting in this production of Deirdre Kinahan‘s new play, BogBoy, at the Irish Arts Center, is Ciaran Bagnall‘s simple stage set of several scrim panels reflecting projected landscape imagery. The mood is heavy and still – darkening flat vistas of bogland stretching off to meet a cloud-crowded sky broken only in places to admit thin fissures of light. The colors shift slowly between sombre browns and blues, with occasional russet veins of sunset. Amorphous, echoing sounds groan forth creating a mournful, timeless feeling. This is a bruised place. Into this scene walks Brigit, a woman as bruised as the landscape, but prickly, defensive, and verbally alert. She is a Dublin rehab patient, a former heroin addict and prostitute, transported to the rural remoteness of Navan, Co. Meath, and initially utterly at sea in this natural wilderness. Warily she begins an acquaintanceship with her neighbor Hughie Doyle, a solitary, slow-thinking bachelor who seems to her as foreign as the landscape. Gradually we watch as their sad stories unfurl.
Earlier this week FringeNYC announced the 2011 Overall Excellence Award Winners and we at THM couldn’t have been happier to celebrate with the winners and congratulate them on their success. One standout for me was The Bardy Bunch: The War of the Families Partridge and Brady which was definitely one of my favorites this year. I was lucky enough to get a moment with Stephen Garvey – writer of this fantastic show which takes one part Brady, one part Partidge, one part Shakespeare, and all parts groovy and mixes it together in a crazy plot worthy of Sherwood Schwartz on his best day. Read on to find out if Garvey is Team Brady or Team Partridge … see how creativity can spring in the most unlikeliest of places, and learn what the secret to a great mash-up really is …
Stephen Garvey!!! First of all, congratulations on winning the Ensemble Award! You’re in great company. It was clear from the first five minutes that your show was destined to win recognition, but did you see this award coming?
SG: Didn’t see it coming but so happy it came. We really lucked out with this cast. Director Jay Stern and I had to hold our auditions very late in the game, and we were nervous. Not only did we need to fill 18 roles, we needed actors who could sing, dance, be funny and manage to capture the spirit of the iconic characters they were playing. How we went 18 for 18 is nothing short of miraculous!
There is a delightful episode in Chris Phillips’s play Elysian Fields, which was presented at the Kraine Theatre during this year’s New York Fringe Festival, when the characters Maggie (“the cat”) and Skipper, from Tennessee Williams‘s play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, are talking. Skipper is recounting to Maggie the early years of his friendship with her husband, Brick Pollitt, and making a veiled confession about the tenacity of his attachment to Brick. He describes a hot southern afternoon as he watches an old tabby cat patiently riding out the uncomfortable afternoon heat on a rooftop, awaiting a patch of shadow to alleviate its situation. He is struck by the cat’s stoic forbearance. He has it in mind to be just like that cat in life, patiently staying put, expectant that what he desires will one day fall to him. This image is more famously invoked by Maggie in Williams’s celebrated play, when following Skipper’s death, she pleads for her grieving husband’s attention and affection. It’s a clever piece of writing, respectfully returning us to the allusive power of Williams’s theatrical storytelling.
Hosted by award-winning playwright Monica Bauer (Outstanding New Script, MITF 2008; nominee writing for Best Solo Show, Planet Connections 2010; finalist, Heideman Award).
Performers include:
playwright Monica Bauer performing the Breast Pride Movement from the Diet Monologues
John Fico performing a monologue from his critically acclaimed performance in Made for Each Other
Didn’t get a chance to see some of the Fringe shows everyone was raving about? Wish there was another shot at seeing some of the plays THM reviewers couldn’t get enough of? Well now’s your chance! 18 Hit FringeNYC Shows Return in September! Beginning September 9th, the FringeNYC Encore Series will take place at the SoHo Playhouse and The Players Theatre. All tickets are $18, available beginning August 29th. Call 866-468-7619 or click here.
SOHO PLAYHOUSE
After Anne Frank: Sat 9/10 @ 4:30pm, Sat 9/17 @ 4, Wed 9/21 @ 8pm, Fri 9/23 @ 9:30pm.
facebook me: Sun 9/11 @ 2pm, Sat 9/17 @ 2pm, Sun 9/18 @ 2pm, Sat 9/24 @ 9:30pm, Sun 9/25 @ 2pm.
The More Loving One: Sun 9/11 @ 7:30pm, Wed 9/14 @ 9pm, Tue 9/20 @ 8pm, Thu 9/22 @ 9:30pm, Mon 9/26 @ 8pm.
When is a tragedy not a tragedy? When we realize the Only Way Is Forward and healing takes place on a lot of levels.
In the folk-rock musical Pawn, by Karmia Chan Cao (playwright, director, and composer) we see a Canadian family split apart twice in 10 years, first by the oldest son being taken from them in the crumbling of the Twin Towers on September 11th and later on when the younger son volunteers to go overseas for three years to Afghanistan. The eldest son, Kai, is now just a picture on the top of a shelf in the family’s convenience store (the picture is of Eric Tran who plays piano with the rest of the band).
Now their other son, Abraham Niu (Alex Kaneko) will be finishing his second and final tour of duty in Afghanistan in 5 days and the story of this play circles around the end of his journey home and how he he finds resolution from his brother’s death by making a the most important choice of his life. It is a lush play with many different layers: cultural, spiritual, and that of personal redemption … of many types. It has truly been finely crafted and I hope this play get to “make it big” and spread its message: to accept the moment we are in and use it to make the future brighter to a larger audience sooner rather than later.
