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by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson on May 9, 2012
New York City is host to two concurrently running productions of Shakespeare’s Macbeth this Spring: Aquila Theatre‘s presentation at the Gym at Judson (April 18th – May 6th), and Epic Theatre Ensemble‘s interpretation at the 47th Street Theatre (April 20 – May 26th). A stable of many a theatrical company’s portfolio, apart from its matchless, vivid language, Macbeth as drama has much to attract aspiring ensembles, not least the challenge presented in portraying two of Shakespeare’s most unsympathetic lead roles. We watch as Macbeth and his wife are enticed into evil by the lure of power and then, as good stage villains, are punished for their crimes. The trick, however, is in making them into more than stage villains, for in that resides the case for tragedy and its capacity to ennoble human existence. It is a tricky bit of the equation as both of these productions can testify.
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by Michelle Augello-Page on May 7, 2012
Actress and Comedian Livia Scott hosts this monthly variety show, where dead celebrities are brought back to life and stellar guest performances contribute to the experience of Livia’s Castle of Enchantment at the UCB Theater East.
I attended Livia’s Castle of Enchantment on Tuesday, April 24, and was pleasantly taken on a whirlwind as Livia morphed into the dead celebrity of the evening: Mike Wallace. Livia’s portrayal as Mike Wallace was as respectful as it was funny and had the crowd laughing throughout the show, highlighting her skills in stand-up, improv, and impersonation.
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by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson on January 26, 2012
- John Sowle in Horripilation!
/ Photo by Steven Patterson
The writer and performer of Horripilation!, John Sowle, is unquestionably a shining light in the fields of research and preservation of obscure global theatrical traditions, as well as being an imposing performative figure in the relating and embodiment of these same traditions. In 1973, with a Fulbright fellowship to research a doctoral thesis in dramatic art, he spent time at the Kerala Kalamandalam in southern India, where he was obliged to rise each morning at 3 a.m. in order to begin his day’s grueling training in traditional dance movement and actorly craft. Kept on his feet for hours at a time, in a highly repetitive form of dance stepping, his relief would come finally in the form of a massage administered by his teacher (asan), who would walk up and down his back while he lay in a formally controlled position. It should come as no surprise that classical traditions of drama and dance, wherever they originate, involved a regimen of severe physical hardship and mental discipline, but the sharing of these events in the performance by Mr. Sowle, as he reproduces the exercises nearly forty years later, is quite something to witness.
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by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson on January 23, 2012
Deploying a short and narrow raised, wooden platform, with a total area surface of 21 square feet, seven actors in blue spandex outfits (that’s 3 square feet each they have to work with; you do the math!), no scenery or lighting effects, and just 35 minutes, Theater Un-Speak-Able set out to tell that well-worn saga of our age, Superman, transposing it to the year 2050. No actor gets to leave the platform during the telling. All of the fantastical visual effects necessary in the elaboration of this story – illustrated comic book panels, complexly designed camera shots – must be generated solely by the actors as they shuffle, dip, duck, dodge and dive while dramatizing such a highly visual narrative. This is both extreme physical performative stagecraft and compacted theatrical story telling.
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by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson on December 13, 2011
Younger minds may find entertainment and diversion at 3 Ghosts, this stage musical adaptation of Charles Dickens‘ story, A Christmas Carol by Pipe Dream Theatre Productions. Everything about it resonates with an enthusiastic note of, well, glee. The attractive and animated cast strut and stand about stage looking very pleased with themselves, and the energy level is up; positive; high. They know enough to drop the smiles when the mood switches to somber – as the tale of a haunted, miserly materialist may necessitate – but you know it won’t be long before the scene is lit once more with those megawatt smiles, so de rigueur for the current generation of spotlight-hungry performers. And with an ensemble cast of forty plus, that’s a lot of light, a lot of energy. There are almost twenty musical performances, several involving choreographed dancers, and all on the modest sized stage at the Beckett Theatre. Just imagine the stage direction logistics alone!
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on November 14, 2011
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.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on September 24, 2011
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.
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by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson on September 23, 2011
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.
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by Geoffrey Paddy Johnson on September 13, 2011
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.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on August 8, 2011
Imagine if you could re-visit a tragedy and restore the hope; take away the shadows of doubt, the shudders of despair. Imagine if you could re-visit shabby rooms, where stale air does little but circulate the layers of dust and melancholy, and breath in fresh life imbued with optimism and energy.
Imagine if you could see a classic play such as Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie from a whole other persective, one of possibility, where the “bitter” of bitter-sweet is removed and all that is left is a revving of the heart at what is yet to come. The Pretty Trap currently playing at The Acorn Theatre (Theatre Row) does just that. Written by Williams as one of the earlier drafts of Menagerie it is a sparkling one-act starring Katharine Houghton as the matriarch Amanda Wingfield.
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