Lauren Hennessy (photo by Cathryn Lynne / WWW.CATHRYNLYNNEPHOTO.COM)

It’s no secret that Mariah MacCarthy’s beautiful Ampersand: A Romeo & Juliet Story struck a deep chord with me; I loved so many things about it.  For me it was one of the highlights of this season’s Fringe Festival.  So when the wonderful Lauren Hennessy was the recipient of an award for overall excellence for her work as Romeo I was thrilled that this talented woman was being recognized for her remarkable skills as not only an actress but as an overall performer.  In MacCarthy’s Ampersand Romeo is a rock singer with a devoted following … and the minute Hennessy takes the stage there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that she’s got the goods to pull it off.

The Fringe dust has settled, and I was able to chat with Lauren to find out how much of Romeo is really Lauren, how she feels about working with the talent Mariah MacCarthy … and just which role she’d love to play if anything were possible.  Read on …

Lauren!  First of all, congratulations on winning the FringeNYC 2011 Overall Excellence Award for Performance! I was lucky enough to see your show and I was captivated by your performance – so I know how well deserved this award is. I’d love to know a little more about your character and the journey that you, as an actor, took.

Ampersand is “A Romeo & Juliet Story” … and you embodied the character of Romeo. Tell me who this updated Romeo is to you personally.

LH: It’s funny you ask…This Romeo is essentially me if I were driven solely on emotional reaction alone. You’ve heard of id, ego and superego? Romeo is the personification of my id. From wearing her heart on her sleeve, to being carried away by romantic distractions, to murdering in a flash of anger, to feeling and living out the extremities of love, hatred, anger, rage, sex and joy. Some filters are good and I have to work every day to keep my impulses under control as not to affect other people negatively. For as we saw with Romeo, it could be detrimental to my life. So yeah, Romeo hits home with me and was not a tough suit to try on.

Lauren Hennessy and Brigitte Choura. Photo by Kacey Anisa

Romeo is a singer – and obviously so are you … Romeo is charismatic, charming and it would seem (by the way you adlibbed) so are you. You see where I’m going with this. How much of Romeo is pure Lauren and how much was already on the page?

Hahaaaaaaa I suppose I answered this question above. When I was a kid, I always wanted to be the Fonz. Mariah just helped me live my dream. I know that sounds douchey. I just loved the charisma and charm of James Dean, Marlon Brando and 50′s era cool-cats. In some way I identified with them at a very young age. Romeo reminds me of these guys very much so. Mariah has a weird way of writing me.

You’ve worked with writer Mariah MacCarthy and Purple Rep before. How important is it as an actor to create a dynamic with a playwright? What does it wind up doing for the character?

Mariah and I have found each other. Thats how I see it. She writes characters very relatable to me in terms of speaking and personality but also in terms of parallel lives. Many experiences that my characters have had, I’ve had. The characters that I’ve played in Mariah’s work always have a mental and emotional struggle with themselves. I constantly am thinking too much and putting too much pressure on myself to do what I think is the right thing. So does Romeo, Devon and Cindy (all characters I’ve played in Mariah’s plays). These characters, like me, are their own best friends and their own worst enemy.

Because I’m able to embody and portray Mariah’s characters so comfortably, we’ve developed a trust to a point where she lets me take some artistic license with the character’s choices, lines and development. This is a gift I’ve never experienced before. I can’t say I’ve even met most of the playwrights whose work I’ve done. This is a true artistic partnership and we’ve vowed to make each other famous.

Of all the roles in the world, written or unwritten, what would be your next dream role?

Damn this question is like: what’s your favorite song or book? … I’d love to play Nancy in a Broadway revival of Oliver! Probably not my dream role but it’s the first thing that popped into my head just now. Oh, I know! Whatever role gets me a TONY. Can I say Stanley Kowalski in Streetcar…? I’m thinking of other roles now. You said just one. Nevermind. Skip?? I’ll get back to you!!

You just won an award … I think you can give me two.  And if there’s anyone who can play Nancy AND Stanley Kowalski, dang – Lauren … it’s you.

Bonus question – no holds barred! Feel free to tell me anything at all … More about Ampersand, tell me a joke, give me the lyrics of your favorite song, explain what you’re most passionate about, plug a project (or a friend’s project!) The Mic is yours!

Ok selfish moment…GO: I won an Icelandic Academy Award [for the movie 'Clean'] this year and an ‘Overall excellence in performance’ from NYC Fringe…I am currently seeking representation!!! LaurenHennessy.com.

C’mon!  Someone represent this chick already!

Lauren … it was great to find out more about you, and I hope as your star keeps rising we can keep checking in with you.  Again, congratulations on all this wonderful (and well deserved!) success.  You’re a rockstar.

Related Posts:

• Ampersand: A Romeo & Juliet Story (Fringe Festival 2011)
• The All-American Genderf*ck Cabaret – Equal Opportunity Exploration
• FringeNYC 2011 Announces Overall Excellence Award Winners
• The Team Behind “Gay Plays For Straight People (And Also Gay People)” Gives Me Some Straight Answers (And Also Some Gay Answers)
• The Foreplay Play – What Comes Before

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!

Mash ups are all the rage right now. There is a right way and a wrong way to do them — you obviously know the right way. What would you say your formula for success was when it came to putting together The Bardy Bunch?

I think it begins with knowing your material, and I did, thanks to NYU (Shakespeare) and a wasted childhood (The Brady Bunch and Partridge Family). With mash-ups, it’s easy to get laughs just by folding contrasting genres together, but I think the richer laughs come when you go deeper and find the surprising amount of similarities these opposing forms of storytelling share.

Okay – be honest. Of the two families, who had the kids you’d most want to hang out with and why? Brady or Partridge? And did that play a part in how you put this show’s script together?

I’ll admit it. I grew up Team Brady, but as far as hanging out with a family, I would lean Team Partridge. I loved Laurie and always wanted to ride on that awesome bus. The coolest thing about our show is that it actually felt like I was hanging out with both families while writing the script, which was a childhood fantasy come true…and yes, I realize how pitiful that sounds.

One of the great things about The Bardy Bunch is how perfectly it utilizes so many of the Shakespearean themes we all know so well. Was that an easy thing to do? Do you think that essentially all drama at this point is a bit derivative of The Bard?

It wasn’t that hard to write, because I was having so much fun with it, and as you said, the Bard offers so many plotlines to choose from. Honestly, the whole thing was a thought exercise at first. I was doing laundry one day and thinking about what a great couple Keith Partridge and Marcia Brady would make (as one does when doing laundry). It felt very Romeo and Juliet to me, and that began a game in my head of assigning different Shakespearean characters to different Bradys and Partridges. I sometimes wonder if there was something in the fabric softener I was using that day.

Speaking of Shakespeare … were there any other great plays you’d have wanted to work into the story line but found you couldn’t make fit?

The original draft of this script was about 2½ hours long and had a lot of King Lear and Twelfth Night elements. I needed to keep this thing lean and mean though. I’m saving the other great plays for my Love Boat/Fantasy Island mash-up.

Love Boat / Fantasy Island!  Two more childhood obsessions!  I’ll say it now:  if  you can bring that one to life with even a fraction of the creativity you brought to The Bardy Bunch I think you’ll have another runaway hit on your hands.

Now that you’ve won the Excellence Award, what’s next for Bardy Bunch?

We feel we have a great piece that we’re eager to share with audiences who grew up loving the Bradys, the Partridges and the Bard. We’re ready to “Keep On’ Movin’,” and are talking to venues right now!

That’s fantastic news!  I would love to know that New Yorkers are getting another chance to see this show — Fringe goes by in a flash … Bardy should get a chance to stick around for a loooong time!

Bonus question – no holds barred. Feel free to tell me anything at all … More about The Bardy Bunch, tell me a joke, give me the lyrics of your favorite song, explain what your most passionate about, plug a project (or a friend’s project!) The Mic is yours!

I wish I had something really juicy for you. “No holds barred” almost mandates it. I just want to proclaim my love for the whole Fringe experience. The friendships that came out of this are legion. People bust on The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family for being corny and unrealistic, but our cast and crew embodied a very loving, nurturing spirit throughout, and none of us want to let go of it!

Steve, thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us.  Again, congratulations on your well deserved award – to you and the entire talented cast and production team.  We’re waiting anxiously to see what happens next!  Check back in with us again – we’d love to do a follow up!

Related Posts:

• The Bardy Bunch: The War Of The Families Partridge And Brady (Fringe Festival 2011)
• I Light Up My Life: The Mark Sam Celebrity Autobiography (Fringe Festival 2011)
• Drowning Ophelia: She Gets On Swimmingly (2012 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• Drowning Ophelia: A New Rock Musical – 5 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2012 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• My Left Hand Man: Antonia Bogdanovich Explains What It Means To Be A Family

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.

The pleasures of Phillips’s play, and they are many, are watching well known characters from the works of Williams acting in freshly contrived scenes. He releases the characters from their celebrated, somewhat tragical cages, to breathe and talk again in earlier phases of their stories. Most especially he is resurrecting the ghosts of three deceased characters, figures whose tragic demise worked as triggers for Williams’ plays, A Streetcar Named Desire, Suddenly Last Summer, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Allan, Sebastian, and Skipper never make appearances in these three plays, but their ghosts pervade the stories, propelling the action. They are all coded as homosexual and as such are emblematic of Williams’s relationship with his own sexuality and its configuration in dramatic works that  powerfully addressed the social taboos of his time. Phillips, in large part, is respectful of the mores that prevailed during the period of rapid social evolution these theatre works spanned, from WWII through the dawn of the sixties counter cultural revolution. He is sensible too of the cultural status some of the characters have attained today. So he can throw us delicious treats with scenes in which a youthful Blanche DuBois succumbs to her own carnal appetite; Sebastian rubbishes his poetry and yearns to run through his mother’s garden setting the plantings on fire; and Brick and Skipper go at it in a chair as Maggie sleeps in the room next door. Whether or not Williams might approve such liberties is not so much the point as whether they hold up in context of the original plays. In a rush of desire the young Blanche might well have lost her affected little head, but did the playwright envision the spit-lubricated attachment we are presented with here between Skipper and Brick? The times were the times, and frustrated desire is most pointedly Williams’s theme, not clandestine liaisons. His dramas are filled with allusions to castration and lobotomy. Sex, for the principal characters, is an agent of destruction and chaos, rarely ecstatic release.

But perhaps that’s a quibble. Before the shadow of tragedy overtakes each tale, there is much to enjoy. Suicide and murderous vengeance take their toll on all our resurrected phantoms. Asking why Williams insisted on these endings for these characters is a bit like asking why Iphigenia had to be sacrificed at the beginning of the Trojan War. These are the original blood sacrifices that offend justice, that precipitate the action, that sow potential ruin for all in proximity. It’s one thing to play at revisionism in works like L. Frank Baum‘s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, but something else to tangle with the complex psychological, elaborately theatricalized characters of Williams the playwright. Acts of redemption are nice, but can Phillips really have these characters ask their original author why they had to die thus? As affecting as this is, it is a contemporary sensibility addressing that of another era. If you begin that process, there is no likelihood it could ever end. And perhaps there’s something willfully anachronistic about it. Which is perhaps why in the final act we are left with a fantasy realm, with neither recourse to Williams’s world, or our own. Here at least, the three fated figures can arrange themselves into a somewhat classical tableau of heroic brotherhood, no longer alone, rinsed temporarily of the tragedy that hangs over them. Fanciful and affecting sure, but you can’t file down all of the sharp corners of life, in the real world or the fictional one; not if you want anything to be worthy of the term tragedy.

The production, by Revolve Productions, glides seamlessly from opening to end, figured with a minimum of props, some well-used lighting, and just five actors. Amanda Kruger, as the only female cast member, has the unenviable task of filling some major iconic pumps in the parts of Blanche, Catherine, and Maggie, and she does very nicely. Muscular performances are turned in by all the men, Scott Hinson (Sebastian), Aaron Hartzler (Skipper), and Daniel Marks (Brick), with the stand-out Miles Cooper (winner of a Fringe 2011 acting honor) as young Allan, disarmingly vulnerable as he approaches his shrouded desire nature. With his co-director, John Michael Beck, Phillips pulls out all of the drama written in to this accomplished new play, and New York can only hope that this production, so cruelly cut short by the onslaught of Irene, will rise again for a longer run. It should not be short of a captivated audience.

~~~

Elysian Fields ran until August 26, 2011 as part of the New York International Fringe Festival.
 

Related Posts:

• FringeNYC Announces 2011 Encore Series
• Smoke The New Cigarette (Fringe Festival 2011)
• The Pretty Trap – If “Glass” Had Never Broken
• Williams’ Clothes For A Summer Hotel: A Ghost Play Returns To NYC

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.
• Fourteen Flights: Mon 9/12 @ 8pm, Tue 9/13 @ 8pm, Thu 9/15 @ 9:30pm, Fri 9/16 @ 9pm, Sun 9/18 @ 7:30pm
• PigPen Presents The Mountain Song: Wed 9/14 @ 7pm, Sat 9/17 @ 9:30pm, Sun 9/19 @ 8pm, Sat 9/24 @ 5pm, Sun 9/25 @ 7:30pm.

HURON CLUB @ SOHO PLAYHOUSE

• Paper Cut: Fri 9/9 @ 7pm, Sat 9/10 @ 5pm, Sun 9/11 @ 7:30pm, Mon 9/12 @ 8pm, Tue 9/13 @ 8pm.
• You Only Shoot The Ones You Love:  Fri 9/9 @ 9:30pm, Wed 9/14 @ 7pm, Thu 9/15 @ , Fri 9/16 @ 10pm.
• Bongani: Sat 9/17 @ 4:30pm, Sun 9/18 @ 5pm, Mon 9/19 @ 8pm, Wed 9/21 @ 8pm.
• Who Loves You Baby?:  Sun 9/18 @ 7:30pm, Tue 9/20 @ 8pm, Thu 9/22 @ 8pm, Sun 9/25 @ 7:30pm.

PLAYERS THEATRE

• I Will Be Good: Fri 9/9 @ 7pm, Sun 9/11 @ 4pm, Sat 9/24 @ 5pm, Sun 9/25 @ 6pm.
• Araby: Sat 9/10 @ 5pm, Sun 9/11 @ 6pm, Sun 9/18 @ 7pm, Mon 9/19 @ 7pm.
• Felony Friday:  Sat 9/10 @ 7:30pm, Sun 9/11 @ 8pm, Tue 9/13 @ 7:30pm, Thu 9/15 @ 9:30pm.
• Pearl’s Gone Blue: Fri 9/9 @ 9:30pm, Fri 9/16@ 9:30pm, Mon 9/19 @ 9pm, Sun 9/25 @ 8pm.
• The Legend of Julie Taymor,or The Musical That Killed Everybody!: Wed 9/14 @ 7pm, Thu 9/15 @ 7pm, Fri 9/16 @ 7pm, Sat 9/17 @ 7pm, Sat 9/17 @ 10:30pm.
• Parker & Dizzy’s Fabulous Journey to the End of the Rainbow:  Wed 9/14 @ 9:30pm, Sun 9/18 @ 9pm, Wed 9/21 @ 9pm, Fri 9/23 @ 7pm, Sat 9/24 @ 10pm.
• COBU – Dance like Drumming, Drum like Dancing:  Sat 9/17 @ 5pm, Sat 9/24 @ 3:30pm
• Noir: Sun 9/18 @ 4pm, Tues 9/20 @ 7pm, Thu 9/22 @ 7pm.
• Jersey Shoresical: A Frickin’ Rock Opera: Wed 9/21 @ 7pm, Thu 9/22 @ 10pm, Fri 9/23 @ 10:30pm, Sat 9/24 @ 8pm, Sun 9/25 @ 4pm.

Related Posts:

• Elysian Fields (Fringe Festival 2011)
• Smoke The New Cigarette (Fringe Festival 2011)

Imagine what it would be like if you had always dozed off to sleep during your childhood bedtime stories, and you never got to hear the words -”and they lived happily ever after”? You were awake for the introduction of the main story characters – a fair maiden, a prince, a beast, a witch – and your head was nodding as the tale was reaching a crescendo of anxiety and crisis, but you were out for the count by the occasion when all was safely resolved and truth and goodness triumphed over evil adversity. Well, all your stories would be unresolved, forever arrested at a pitch of extreme desperation. You yourself might be inexplicably fearful, characteristically tense and anxious, and your slumbering dreams could well be nightmares. Such is the imaginative, if unlikely premise of Cody Lucas‘s Happily Ever After, produced by the Denton, Texas based outfit, Sundown Collaborative Theatre. The main character, Jack, was such a highly sensitive child, drowsy enough to experience this unfortunate set of circumstances. Now, a young man, he is a nervous pill-addicted wreck, afflicted and exhausted by his fear of sleep, a state that delivers him relentlessly to a nightmare realm of terror.

Beginning on a bare stage, with just a spotlight to dress the scene, we are presented with Jack, curled in the fetal position, but adamantly resisting sleep. Cody Lucas, as Jack, is extremely effective at pulling you into Jack’s tormented psyche, his anguished fretfulness never surrendering an instant in which your attention might wander, the tension slacken. Despite his best efforts, sleep overtakes Jack, surrendering him to the frightening world of his dreams. This realm is overseen and controlled by a couple of turn-of-the-century style carnival barkers, Jacob and Wilhelm, the Brothers Grimm. That their tastes and inclinations run toward the perverse is made swiftly clear as they indulge in a groaning session of incestuous mutual masturbation. When their attentions turn toward Jack things can only get uglier. He is summarily educated as to the level of his subjugation to their will and his complete powerlessness. Having dished out a little physical punishment, they decide to proceed on a more psychological level, summoning a cast of hapless story tale characters to re-enact depraved scenes of humiliation and despair. These characters are all as resentful and helpless as Jack, but their rebellious efforts to preserve their dignity are over-rode by the brothers, and each is mocked in a savagely cruel manner. In sequence the brothers call forth the characters – Rumpelstiltskin, Rapunzel, Beauty, Hansel, a Prince – as helplessly Jack is made to watch each tableaux of defilement and suffering. It’s a compelling and dark spectacle, punctuated with music, dance, and acrobatics; a delicately visualized carnival of horrors.

All of the performers are to be commended here. There is a conviction on display that defies you to relax your credibility in such a fantastical abstraction. Each scenario pushes at the limits of digestible mortification. The effect is genuinely unsettling. The Grimm brothers (Travis Steubing and Zane Harris) have some nice sneering comical passes, leeringly foul throughout, but never teeter over into recognizable contrivance. Robert Linder (Rumpel) and Nick Ross (the Prince) are especially strong in their scenes. The music (Patrick Emile) and choreography (George Ferrie) are effective at stimulating an atmosphere of drilled corruption. The direction, by Lucas, is taut and detailed. As the offenses mount up, and tension builds, I had utterly surrendered to the story’s gravitational pull, which made the conclusion, when it is suddenly sprung, all the more disappointing for being so pat. The skeleton in Jack’s closet, the bugaboo under his childhood bed, just did not do it for me. For all its ghastliness, the themes invoked in the various scenarios reached quite a bit deeper than the Tales from the Crypt-style denouement we’re served here. If these explanations must be maintained, perhaps the language they are divulged with might be adjusted. As a conclusion it goes some distance to undermining what came before, leaving it ultimately less than the sum of its parts. Horror buffs might disagree with me, but they will surely be delighted by this otherwise admirably wicked tale.

Happily Ever After ran until August 26, 2011 as part of the New York International Fringe Festival.
~~~

Related Posts:

• Christopher Marlowe’s Chloroform Dreams
• Stinky Flowers, Sweet Thoughts

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.

We begin with this family singing forlornly;  they miss their sons terribly. The family is made up of  the mother (Ma played by Sarah Guerrero), the father (Ba played by Julian Kusnadi), and the daughter (Shea played by Alicia Triana).

At the same time, back in Afghanistan, Abraham’s unit finds out that they will have to guard the perimeter of a village they have been working to establish friendly relationships with for several months.  They’ll have to guard to make sure that no one gets out of the village.  They feel like they will be betraying both the villagers as well as themselves, but those are their orders.

[AK featuring Gator (played by Sam Julian) and the ensemble (played by Karen Young, Anna Gu, Christian Ollano, Katherine Neubauer, Mark Hammer Johnson, Rachel Purcell, and Troy Yang) in the Fringe cast]

Abraham has misses his home and this causes him to have a change of heart and he begins trying to warn some of the villagers of the coming danger after comparing the desert with his snowy native land of Alberta, and wishing he could make himself pure again after his time as a soldier in Afghanistan. He finds some children in the targeted area which is to be bombed and tries to get them to call off the run, but he can’t get Gator to stop the run before the first barrage.  He is order to get out of the impact zone before the plane comes back for it’s second pass.  Abraham rushes back in to get the children out and a dying mother presses her baby in his arms.

At the same time his mother, sensing her child is threatened, reaches out with her spirit to protect him however she could. She chants a song of protection as the bombs are zooming in on their targets.

The lights go down and then Abraham finds himself in the Pawn Shop of Time confronted by a stranger.

Once in the Pawn Shop of Time he is approached by someone who introduces himself as Lego (played by Graham Roth), who in part looks like his army buddy Gator but in part reminds him of a childhood toy.  He finds himself surrounded by bits and pieces of memories from his life.  Lego is some cross between Puck and a guardian angel or some personal incarnation of intuition slowed down enormously.

Lego reads from a book, apparently Abraham’s Book of Life which seems to be set the form of a poetic play dialogue with Lego as   narrator.  It explains that Abraham is in the Pawn Shop of Time, where time has been stretched.  What will only be the last few seconds before the bomb above him drops will feel as if it takes up the length of a night.  In that time Abraham will have to make the most important decision of his life: will he run away from the blast site thus saving himself  but dooming the native children to death?

It seems that the metaphor of  Pawn Shop works to bring across the idea that it a place where we have all the forgotten things in our lives, as well as a place to evaluate and decide what can be traded for what.  It also underscores that this is the time for him to no longer be just a pawn, but to finally take control of himself and truly make a decision. But before he makes this most difficult decision, he must look back at his life and see what brought him here.

At the end everyone sees that – as the title says – the “Only Way is Forward”. We see Abraham’s vision of the future and funeral inspirations and how his family finds closure.

In this great musical by Karmia Chan Cao we see a triumphant journey from pain to redemption as a family steps out from under the shadow casts by prejudice in their home in Alberta.  Since the final show was cancelled due to the oncoming Hurricane Irene, instead of a regular review I made a more of a compilation in order to tell a lot of the story, so more people could get a chance to see this. These clips are from an earlier version of the show, with a more basic production.  The Fringe production was very smooth with great sound (sound design by Jason Fang and assisted by Tamarind King) and music (played by this talented group of musicians: Eric Tran playing piano; Nathan Heng-chi Cheung, playing Liuqin, Melodica, and Glockenspiel;  Sterling Camden playing electrical guitar;  Stephen Quiñónez on acoustic guitar, and Karmia Cao on drums) as well as lively dance (choreographed by Alisha Mitchell) beautiful costumes (by Leanna Keyes) and a set that pulls together the many different locations of this play (the convenience store, Afghanistan, Chinatown, New York and The Pawn Shop of Time) in a very balanced and meaningful way (set design by Michael Cohen).

This play has had a lot of world wide critical acclaim, and a very heartfelt and meaningful storyline and I hope it gets the chance to be in the Fringe Encore  Series so we all get another chance to see it again.

~~~
Pawn ran until August 26, 2011 as part of the New York International Fringe Festival.
~~~

Related Posts:

• The Custodian (Fringe Festival 2011)

We’re thrilled to pass along the Overall Excellence Award Winners for 2011 FringeNYC.  Some of our very favorite shows and performers are being celebrated and we’re so thankful that we were able to experience these talented performances this year.  Congratulations to all the winners!

***

August 28, 2011 — Winners of the 2011 FringeNYC Overall Excellence Awards, as selected by an independent panel of nearly 50 theater professionals, are as follows:

Overall Production/Play

• PigPen Presents The Mountain Song
  • What we said: As always the only disappointment with PigPen is when the play is over; it’s hard to watch them leave the stage – the same way it is hard for a child to watch that
    

    favorite relative go home at the end of a giddy day of make-believe. The good news is PigPen is relocating to New York City so those who can’t get enough of them will now be able to see them a lot more. And as long as they’ll be putting on shows, I’ll be in the audience, watching: amazed and dazzled.

• The More Loving One

Overall Production/Musical

• Yeast Nation
• Pearl’s Gone Blue

Performance

• Jennifer Barnhart (The Legend of Julie Taymor,or The Musical That Killed Everybody!)
• Ryan Barry (In the Summer Pavilion)
• Miles Cooper (Elysian Fields)
• Patrick Byas (Sammy Gets Mugged)
• Casey McClellan (My Name Is Billy)
• Brian Charles Rooney (Winner Takes All)
• Lauren Hennessy (Ampersand: A Romeo & Juliet Story)
  • What we said: [Hennessy] is breathtakingly real … often funny, sometimes sarcastic and deeply sexy … her chemistry with Choura (not only during their intimate moments
    

    but during her moments of longing as well) can be felt all the way in the back row, and considering this show is playing at The Ellen Stewart Theatre that’s saying a lot. When she sings she seduces and bewitches everyone in the room.

Playwriting

• Nicholas Billon (Greenland)
• A.D. Penedo (The Three Times She Knocked)
  • What we said: Writer A.D. Penedo has successfully taken a different type of relationship and made it not only understandable but accessible. By giving Eric a mechanism where he constantly breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience we’re given a unique look into the mind of a man consumed not so much by a woman but by a way of operating. By Eric himself explaining his little quirks and foibles to us we are left free to sit back and watch as his confessions to us pave the way for his actions toward Tara. And sure, while he may seem a little out of his mind, at least he’s explaining his motives to us.
    

• Bella and the Pool Boy (Dennis Flanagan)

Music Composition

• Chris Rael (Araby)
• Dusty Brown (The Ballad of Rusty and Roy)

Ensemble

• Jersey Shoresical
  • What we said: Fans of (or those who admit to watching) Jersey Shore will love Jersey Shoresical for the extreme attention to detail paid by the creative team.  People who have
    

    never seen one moment of Jersey Shore will also love Jersey Shoresical – because the final product is just that good.  Either way, this was one hour of entertainment that left me clamoring for more.

• The Bardy Bunch: The War of the Families Partridge and Brady
  • What we said: What delights so thoroughly is how faithful each character remains to their Brady/Partridge origins while faithfully moving the Shakespearean plots along.  This story was just waiting to be done.  Thanks to the fantastic team of Garvey and Stern it has now been done perfectly.
• Stimulated!
• Crawling with Monsters

Costume Design

• Stephanie Alexander (Le Gourmand, or Gluttony!)
• Mark Richard Caswell (Parker and Dizzy’s Fabulous Journey to the End of the Rainbow)
• Tara DeVincenzo (Technodulia Dot Com)

Directing

• Greg Foro (Hamlet)
  • What we said: At mid-performance, just after Hamlet has rigged a play to prick the conscience of his murderous uncle, Claudius, the two characters circle the stage silently for a beat, eyeing each other variously as hunter and quarry, before Claudius calls -”Give me some light!”- at which the house is plunged into darkness and we are moved to intermission. This delicious moment is a sample of the thoughtful direction and stagecraft on display here.
• Joshua Kahan Brody (Fourteen Flights)
• Alaska Reece Vance (The Disorientation of Butterflies)

Solo Performance

• Donna/Madonna
• The Day the Sky Turned Black
• Be Careful! The Sharks Will Eat You!
  

• Paper Cut
  • What we said: Rasooly supplies all the voices while working the miniature mechanics and characters. It’s an inspired visual performance. To a movie-literate audience, it’s catnip.
• Heroes and Other Strangers

Dance

• Wallstories
• When the Sky Breaks 3D
  • What we said: The choreography of When the Sky Breaks 3D is nothing short of amazing. Several scenes stand out in my mind – one in particular is a scene where the dancers are fighting. At first two, then four, in a syncopated expression of movement; they struggle against each other, and ultimately themselves. The movements are strong and forceful, falling and rising, breaking apart and coming together – mirroring so many different struggles within our lives. The audience held its breath until the final resolution, as the dancers stood in unity together under the threatening sky.

Video Design

• Cinty Ionescu (Nils’ Fucked Up Day)

TheaterMania Audience Favorite Award

• COBU – Dance like Drumming, Drum like Dancing.

Congratulations again to all those recognized for overall excellence!!

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Kevin Mannering and Matthew Michael Hurley (Photographer: Alona Fogel)

Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me? Wait a minute now – what? Just what is Danny Mitarotondo’s new play, What the Sparrow Said, at CSV Latea, trying to say? Or is it really trying not to say anything? The language has certainly been put through a crafty shredder, stripping it of any natural clarity, eliptically hinting that there is more going on than is apparent, morphing into indigestible poetry, and flashily playing at nonsense while preventing any speaker from actually finishing a sentence. The actors rattle off their lines as if they were in some over-paced 1930s screwball comedy, overlapping sentences in a manner that defies clear communication and challenges listener comprehension. Strain as you will to grasp what is being said, it is all but hopeless. And when this difficulty is pointedly compounded by the decision to stage separate scenes on top of one another, and having characters in different scenes talking simultaneously so that your attention is split in the rising din, and you are forced to abandon at least one set of exchanges… well; really? Yeah, I get life can be confusing; chaotic even. Yes, and life can be annoying. Very annoying. Verisimilitude, however, is definitely not a part of this playwright’s vocabulary. Absurdism? Perhaps.

The story begins at the LA hospital bedside of an elderly dying woman, Hannah. Her two sons, have for reasons undeclared, drifted apart over the years. One, Danny, presently lives in New York. The other, Blaze, is by her side; but is he present?  Blaze, a high-strung poetic type, seems incapable of confronting the fact of his mother’s imminent demise. He prattles on noisily about the small glorious minutiae of living, desperately eluding the matter to hand. Yes, he’s in denial. Yes, he’s annoying. He even turns off the audio monitor at his mother’s bed as he can’t stand the electric tone of her fading heartbeat. And when a young female visitor enters the ward to see another patient, he begins a frenetic courtship with her. Meantime, upstage, we are introduced to Danny, who has just inherited, to his great surprise, a Park Avenue apartment from someone he considered merely a passing acquaintance. Cynthia, the estate agent cum executrix, who possibly could be a sibling of the deceased, is gamefully making a play for him. Danny has newly broken up with his girlfriend, Kristen. There is a rapid-fire exchange between Cynthia and himself where he addresses her – is it confusedly? -as Kristen, and she even seems to change into her for the course of a galloping verse of poetry. Blaze’s seduction scene in the background meantime is continuing apace, and the separate scenes begin to vie for our attention. Not only are both situations intentionally unlikely, but the doctored language undertakes to unpick any emotional realism that might emerge, even as the big poignant themes of love and death are being dramatized. We are not prompted to care about any of these people. Danny leaves Cynthia. The old woman dies. Should it matter if Blaze may indirectly have contributed to his mother’s death by disengaging the monitor? Or that Cynthia is left bereft, weeping wretchedly in the foreground following Danny’s exit? The scene shifts.

Danny now is traveling across country to LA to attend his mother’s funeral. Enroute he meets several enigmatic women who speak obliquely about matters inconclusive. These roles are played by actresses from the earlier scenes, emphasizing the interchangeability of the characters life throws at us, or relates us to. Is that Cynthia behind those dark glasses, obfuscating about her connection with a brother? Could there be some portion of his mother  in that eccentric lady Danny gives a ride to and who guides him to a cemetery? Every encounter is pregnant but undelivered. When Danny at last arrives in LA and meets Blaze for lunch at  a restaurant from their past, the play finally comes a cropper. Blaze is behaving like an unhinged person. Is he schizophrenic, or merely speaking in the play’s poetic babble? As psychological realism has been jettisoned quite a while back it is impossible to know. Following a heated exchange, amped up by Blaze’s urgent provocations, and a tussle, we are treated to a vision of both brothers, broken men, in a palpating embrace of desperation. Danny’s words wither in his mouth as he pleads for anyone to help them, and darkness swallows them. Well excuse me; you cannot at last storm the heartstrings in a closing act unless you have first successfully plucked them in the course of the story. Or on another note, darkly absurd, is this final scene an intentional act of  bathos?

There is no denying that Mitarotondo has devised an ingenious theatrical language here. The poetry does not work for me, but the eliptical exchanges have acuity and a comic vigor. The structural complexity is intriguing, as is his investigation of, shall we say, the relativity of relativity. There is much allusion to fracturing, fractals and refraction. Linguistically and formally the work integrates this interest, but it is at once itself refractive and refractory. The specter of an intensive workshop hangs over it, but perhaps it is not fully cooked. The actors must all work hard to put it across and there is a problem with vocal projection in some instances. Standouts are Brenda Currin as Hannah (a non-speaking role!) and as an eccentric fellow traveller, and Heather Oakley as Cynthia, who brings a welcome touch of neurotic comedy to the proceedings. Ambitious the work certainly is on the part of the director (Jenna Worsham) and the author, and that’s to be commended in this serious-minded production company. But perhaps the general problem with the show is endemic in the enterprise’s title, which most incongruously is The Common Tongue. Nothing could be less applicable to the production’s style. Regrettably it’s an unworkable mix of the intellectual and the emotional. It’s a cocktail that just won’t hunt.

What The Sparrow Said ran until August 26, 2011 as part of the New York International Fringe Festival.
~~~

What The Sparrow Said

Writer: Danny Mitarotondo
Director: Jenna Worsham

1h 30m
VENUE #4: Teatro LATEA

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Jersey Shore is a show on MTV that, in and of itself, is already parody – boldly mocking an easily mockable subculture known as the Guido and Guidette.  All executive producer SallyAnn Salsano had to do was sit back, let the cameras roll, and watch as these buff, well tanned, dark haired over-accessorized not-too-bright kids perfected the art of GTL (Gym, Tan, Laundry), avoided making out with Grenades, beat up the beat on the dance floor, got drunk, then got into each other business (and beds) and just generally ran amok.  The formula was keyed into the system early on and everyone involved with this runaway hit just had to sit back and ride the wave of success ever since, following their cash cows from the eponymous Jersey Shore to Miami, to Italy and back again.  So, frankly, does a show this rife with built in self-mockery require a parody  … in the form of a Rock Opera no less?  If that show is Jersey Shoresical: A Frickin’ Rock Opera then the answer is (cue the fist pump) oh hell yeah.

The first time I’d heard of the MTV show was early on from a 17 year old girl.  This was the type of precocious young woman who read Graham Greene, was studying archaeology – didn’t touch alcohol but could explain the difference between a Cabernet and a Bordeaux … and certainly never watched trashy TV.  So when she stared explaining the “plot” of Jersey Shore and footnoted her rant with a maniacal “I can’t stop watching it!!!!” I couldn’t help but say “Wait, you’re being ironic, right?” She leaned in to me with a wild gleam in her eye, put there by the inability to contain the over spillage of guilty pleasure, and whispered, “I don’t know!”

There is a strange intoxication that comes from dipping your toe into the Jersey Shore franchise.  Once you give yourself over to a few episodes (whatever reason you have … “sick day”, “nothing else was on”, “wanted to see what all the fuss was about”, “my cousin was watching it” … Uh HUH) you’re as powerless to turn away from it as Sammi Sweetheart is to turn away from Ronnie  (even though she knows he’s out there double kissing grenades before stumbling home and climbing into her bed to smoosh).  But say you haven’t watched a day of the show in your life.  Does this Frickin’ Rock Opera still hold up?

You bet your Blowout it does.

Jersey Shoresical begins with a talented Greek chorus cum doo-wop trio who also double as the “Random Sluts” (Kimmy Gatewood, Aynsley Bubbico and Meghan Parks).  This trio catch us up with fun and flair – everything we need to know about how the show came into being and what we can expect from these crazy kids.  Soon the whole gang start arriving.

There’s diminutive, likable Snookie (Karen Diconcetto) followed by gorgeous, in-your-face J-Woww (played by Derrick Barry).  Mike “The Situation” (Max Crumm) is full of self-love and hard abs — a perfect bookend to sweet, smiling, affable Pauly D (Mark Shunock). Complex Sammi “The Sweetest Bitch You’ll Ever Meet” (Hanna LoPatin) is immediately drawn to over-buff knucklehead Ronnie (Daniel Franzese), all while mamma’s boy Vinnie (Mike Ciriaco) tries to keep the peace.  On the fringe is nobody’s favorite, Staten Island Dump Angelina (Rebekka Johnson).

Music Director (and keyboard player) Mike Meehan helps the cast musically review the highlights (and low-lights) of Jersey Shore Lore … everything that fans are looking for is there in song, verse, break out production number or even just small throwaway line. Rentheads will be particularly thrilled at several easter eggs placed in the Frickin’ Rock Opera; I won’t give them away but they are delightful and sophisticated.

Make no mistake – Jersey Shoresical‘s source material is vapid and stupid but  the Book, Music and Lyrics written by Daniel Franzese (who plays Ronnie) and Hanna LoPatin (who plays Sammie Sweetheart) elevates it to another level altogether.  By including some touching ballads such as “Bitch In A Bed” in which Sammi admits she’s a fool for her man this team proves they know how to take even the most meaningless of worlds and give it some depth.   After all, if you cut a Guido, does it not bleed?  And then does it not cut you back, bitch?

Director Drew Droege keeps the pacing quick and with no actual set enlists some clever props in order to create this Seaside Heights paradise.  Standout moments include J-Woww’s “Grow Some Balls” and Snookie’s plea to find a nice “Gorilla Juicehead”.  Costumes by MARCOMARCO and the House of Infinite Radness do much to help this talented cast emulate the Guido culture and special props on the T-shirts which are worthy of T Shirt Time.  (If you haven’t realized by now … I’ve seen more than my fair share of Shore episodes.)

There is one very funny moment when Angelina (played by Rebekka Johnson) gets kicked out of the house only to re-emerge a scene later as Deena.  No costume change, just a wig plopped on her head.  The reason this is so funny is because, honestly, most of the Guidettes of this world look exactly alike anyway, save for a few stylistic differences.  The irony was delightfully satisfying and worked on several levels.

Fans of (or those who admit to watching) Jersey Shore will love Jersey Shoresical for the extreme attention to detail paid by the creative team.  People who have never seen one moment of Jersey Shore will also love Jersey Shoresical – because the final product is just that good.  Either way, this was one hour of entertainment that left me clamoring for more.

~~~

Jersey Shoresical: A Frickin’ Rock Opera

Writer: Book, Music & Lyrics by Daniel Franzese and Hanna LoPatin
Director: Drew Droege

1h 0m
www.jerseyshoresical.com
VENUE #14: Bleecker Theatre
Sun 28 @ 2 (FINAL SHOW CANCELLED DUE TO HURRICANE)

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Schadenfreude, the German word meaning  pleasure derived from the pain and suffering of others could almost be a word to describe the dry, witty, quite thoughtful, and generally dark comedy of  74 Minutes of Stereo Radio Theater. This concept was wonderfully explained in Avenue Q  in 2003, but has been referenced in many other places including the Simpsons in 1991. However I think this play requires the audience to utilize schadenfreude differently – as rather a recognition or appreciation of suffering (which would be something like Schäden Anerkennung OR recognition/appreciation of pain).  Since there is always a lesson to be learned or an observation to be had by the characters in Stereo Radio Theater, it plays much more like a parable than a satire of people’s lives.

In 74 Minutes of Stereo Radio Theater, we have a couple playing off the different funny combinations and disasters that can happen when two people have some sort of relationship to each other in the form of eight short one-act plays.  The male roles are played by Andrew Shulman who is also the director, and the female roles are played by Maureen Fitzgerald who is also the writer.

One thing that is very tantalizing about this show is that there is a twist in each of the stories where the essence of the relationship changes so it is different than it started and that becomes the essence of the relationship between the characters in the next piece.

In the beginning of the first play The Essentials there is a change from a couple fighting with each other about every little detail in their lives to the end where they realize the most important thing each of them has is each other.

In the second play, I Have A Really Good Feeling About This, we start with two friends who have never been anything more than friends.  The man continuously goes through a cycle where, when single, he creates an image of the perfect woman.  This image, however,  is so high on a pedestal that when he finally meets someone who will take him (with his plethora of emotional hangups) they can never live up to the fantasy so he quickly drives them away. His friend always tells him it will be okay and then cycle repeats.  They explore the idea of becoming more than just friends, and cheerfully run through the litany of reasons why this idea is such a bad one.  He says that their “sexual miscalculation” will be as bad for them as “a repressed necrophiliac with a skull fetish”.  In other the really GOOD feeling is a very BAD idea.

The third play begins with an obvious visual connection to the former play by having a witch doctor with a large feathered headdress with a skull in the center of it.  The bad idea of the second piece is that the witch doctor – in his need to “appease” the gods – has had the habit of sacrificing a rather large amount of virgin maidens for more and more trifling misfortunes of the society he lives in.  So much so that his once thriving civilization of a quarter of a million brilliant and beautiful people has gone down to 83 old people and children and 7 goats.  This has all been enabled by chief’s advisor – a woman who he has mistaken for a man all these years.  She decides to take a stand against this…

But then something strange happens which twists the story again. I’ll leave you to see what happens while you still can.  You won’t be disappointed.

~~~

74 Minutes of Stereo Radio Theater

Writer: Maureen FitzGerald

1h 15m

www.stereoradiotheater.com
VENUE #18: The Studio at Cherry Lane Theatre
Sat 27 @ 5

Sun 28 @ 2 (FINAL SHOW CANCELLED DUE TO HURRICANE)

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