Introducing Three Small Musicals with Potential for Life Beyond the NYC Theater Scene

Small off-Broadway shows are quite capable of standing proudly beside their hot-shot cousins on the Great White Way. Last season, for example, provided theatergoers with some wonderful fare, including at least three stand-out musicals: The Toxic Avenger, The Kid, and Yank. It is no exaggeration to say that all three were head and shoulders above much of the season’s new Broadway shows, at far more affordable ticket prices.

This summer has given us the opportunity to see several more entrants into the field. I would like to talk about three of them that, while not landing in the “must see” category, I found to be original and interesting, with a good potential for future lives.

The first of these, and perhaps the most polished, is With Glee, now nearing the end of what has been an well-received run at the Kirk Theatre at Theatre Row. With book, music, and lyrics by John Gregor, With Glee was first workshopped at New York University’s Skirball Center (Gregor is an NYU alum in musical theater writing) and then given a production as part of the New York Musical Theater Festival back in 2007.

The musical, which recounts the lives of a motley crew of young teenagers attending a boarding school “for bad kids,” boasts engaging, quirky characters, winning performances, a snappy score, and smart directing by Igor Goldin, who helmed the York Theater’s Yank, a show that is about to make its Broadway transfer. With Glee does not have the chops of Yank, but it owes at least a nod to another successful musical in which adult actors played middle school students; indeed, my friend Carol, when she saw With Glee, referred to it as “Spelling Bee Lite,” an apt description of the show’s style and sensibilities.

With Glee would be a good fit for a run at the New World Stages, home of The 39 Steps, Avenue Q, and the ever popular Naked Boys Singing. It may also wind up having an extended life as a staple of community theaters and high schools. It certainly would be interesting to see the roles of teens played by teens for a change.

A second show worth mentioning, Falling for Eve, was penned by this year’s Tony winner for best original score and for best book of a musical, Joe DiPietro (for Memphis). Falling for Eve is his take on the Biblical story of Adam and Eve, with music by Bret Simmons and lyrics by David Howard. There are some original ideas explored within this admittedly lightweight entry, including a God who is both male and female, a pair of all-to-human angels who push the plot along (no snake in this Garden), and, most interesting, a strong-willed Eve, who leaves Eden to explore the world on her own, while Adam obediently stays behind.

While Falling for Eve is not a terribly memorable show, the bland production it was given at the York Theater did not serve it particularly well. In my view, it deserves another shot with better—well, pretty much, with better everything. I suspect that, in the right hands, this is a show that might find its audience away from the New York theater arena. I can even picture it being performed in rep with The Diary of Adam and Eve from The Apple Tree (music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick).

To wrap up this consideration of new shows–with-potential, I’d like to mention a work that was offered as part of this summer’s New York International Fringe Festival, the always-unpredictable “running-of-the-bulls” event that throws together something in the neighborhood of 200 shows at 18 venues in 16 days.

I have yet to immerse myself in the insanity that is Fringe, but I did catch a musical that might just stand a chance if the folks in charge keep working on it. The show is called Menny and Mila, with book, music, and lyrics by Paul Schultz, who is a writer and editor at the New York Daily News.

The show tells the story of Menny, who is, interestingly enough, a writer and editor at the New York Daily News. Menny decides to sponsor a Russian woman, Mila, whom he has met on the Internet, to come to America as a possible love match. Menny is happiest when he can take the lead in their relationship, showing Mila the ropes of living in the Big Apple and expecting her to just melt in his arms. For her part, Mila—while she likes Menny and appreciates his support--is excited about finding her own way. Schultz has created a pair of likeable, if mismatched, characters; neither is interested in taking advantage of the other as one might cynically predict to be the case. The storyline leads us into some interesting situations (his dysfunctional family; her sexist workplace colleagues), and offers up some enjoyable tunes and an interesting set of supporting characters. Gotta say, the charm of Menny and Mila shined through the dismal production values of a show-on-the-run, and I would like to see it nurtured further along.

So there you have it, three musicals with the potential for an extended life beyond their brief runs off Broadway. The lesson in all of this is that not every show needs to be tailored for the New York City crowd in order to be successful. Each of these—With Glee, Falling for Eve, and Menny and Mila—offers ideas, musical voices, and a real spark of talent that should be nurtured and supported, lest the well truly dry up to all but jukebox musicals and Wintuk!

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Want to Know the Secret of Success? Don't We All!!!

With warmth and humor, though admittedly also with a few questionable side trips, Secrets of the Trade tells the story of Andy, a nice Jewish boy from the suburbs with dreams of a theatrical career that he expects will take off after he connects with a well established New York writer-director.

The backdrop for Secrets of the Trade is the era in which it is set--the decade of the 1980s—the time when the heyday of the book musical was giving way to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s extravaganzas, Cats (“Now and Forever!”) and Phantom of the Opera, and Times Square was embarking on its transformation from seedy to greedy.

That the role of Andy is performed by Noah Robbins, who starred in the recent revival of Neil Simon’s 1983 play, Brighton Beach Memoirs, is surely not a coincidence. Indeed, playwright Jonathan Tolins borrows liberally from the Simon playbook, and it is not much of a stretch to view Andy as a suburban version of the 15-year-old Eugene from the Simon play.

Secrets of the Trade begins when Andy, at 16, writes a letter to his idol Martin Kerner, played by veteran actor John Glover. It takes two years for Kerner to get around to responding, but when he finally does, he invites Andy to dinner and regales him with theatrical tales that feed into Andy’s idealized vision. It does seem that the two have hit it off, and an apprenticeship that will lead to a career in the trade appears likely. Certainly there are precedents; think of Stephen Sondheim and Oscar Hammerstein II, or Michael Feinstein and Ira Gershwin.

We follow Andy and Kerner over the next ten years, and watch as their relationship waxes and wanes and reshapes itself, until it becomes clear that it means different things to each of them. It also becomes clear that it is the business side of “show business” that now dominates the trade. Even someone as successful and well-regarded as Kerner is feeling the pressure to keep up with the times.

In the course of the play, Tolins veers scarily towards a lot of potential clichés—the overbearing stage mother, the newcomer overtaking the mentor, the casting couch, to name but three—yet he generally manages to swerve away from them just in time to give us characters who are more complex, less predictable, and thus more human, than they may seem on the surface.

Director Matt Shakman keeps things humming along at a steady pace, and the play is well served by its strong cast, anchored by Robbins and Glover. Bill Brochtrup as Martin’s assistant, and Mark Nelson and Amy Aquino as Andy’s parents contribute greatly to the play by giving life and meaning to their roles as supporting players. In the end, when Andy is older and wiser, that support comes to mean a lot to him.

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Danny Aiello Shines in 'The Shoemaker'

Special things sometimes do indeed come in small packages.

Certainly such is the case with the compact (2 characters, 45 minutes) play called The Shoemaker, written by Susan Charlotte (based on her screenplay) and movingly performed by Danny Aiello and Lizbeth Mackay as two strangers whose paths cross during a time of crisis.

This one-acter received its world premiere production recently as part of a week of charity events by Cause Célèbre, a not-for-profit theater company with a mission of “fostering an enhanced understanding of psychological, physical, and social issues through drama.” The playwright, who happens to be the executive and artistic director of Cause Célèbre, has done proud by the company’s mission and has offered up more depth of understanding of the human psyche in under an hour than almost anything I’ve seen on or off Broadway in a very long time.

What drew me to the play was the opportunity to see Mr. Aiello, whom I last saw perform on stage more than three decades ago in Gemini, one of the plays on my personal favorites list. He did not disappoint, and both he and Ms. Mackay gave first-class performances.

Mr. Aiello plays the title character, a curmudgeon of a man who seems to be in a persistently surly mood, and certainly someone you would not particularly want to do business with. That Ms. Mackay’s character, Hilary, is insistent on doing business with him is strictly the result of a hole she has worn in her shoe while wandering aimlessly up and down the length of Manhattan. He wants to close up his shop for the day; she wants him to fix her shoe.

On the face of it, this is not much to hang a play on, but the writer has her characters unveil their secrets slowly, and we gradually come to understand what it is that has so affected their lives that normal discourse has become nearly impossible. As it happens with people in times of high stress, one of the characters has more immediately absorbed the blow through personal empathy and a flood of memories; the other, it would seem, is still in a state of shock and has yet to be overwhelmed, even as the pair part company at the end.

Without revealing any more of the storyline, let me just say that the power of the play is such that it has stuck in my mind long since the actors took their bows. Indeed, it wasn’t until I was describing it later to someone else that the emotional impact of it fully hit me and left me choking back tears.

The Shoemaker deserves to have a long life beyond its brief initial run, and I hope that Ms. Charlotte is not tempted to expand it into anything more than the polished jewel that it already is.

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Where Are the New Playwrights? They're Here! They're Here!

A question that is frequently asked in the wonderful world of theater is “where are the new playwrights?” There always seems to be a fear that the “golden age” of theater is gone forever, and we will never again see the likes of [fill in the blank with your favorite dead or aging playwright].

Well, let’s take a look at the current Broadway and Off Broadway season and see what we can come up with.

Annie Baker is the new playwright I’d bank on the most. Not yet 30, she already has Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Award nominations under her belt. This season alone, she has given us two strong entries with Circle Mirror Transformation and The Aliens. Baker has an uncanny ear for authentic dialog and the ability to capture the essence of each of the characters she creates. She is definitely a writer to be reckoned with.

But there are plenty of other up-and-comers who are doing interesting work. They offer us original ideas, or voices, or ways of looking at things that make us sit up and take notice.

From first-time playwright Alexi Kay Campbell, we had The Pride, a play that contrasts gay relationships in the 1950s with those of today. The Pride was given a strong production under the direction of Joe Montello, with topnotch performances by Hugh Dancy and Ben Whishaw. I look to see what Campbell will come up with next.

Chicago playwright Ellen Fairey, whose Graceland is on tap at the Duke, is someone else to watch. Graceland is only her second full length play, yet in it she shows she is able to create interesting situations and complicated characters. The play, which presents us with two intersecting stories about fathers and their children, holds an audience because her characters are not so easily pigeonholed and behave both as predictably and as unpredictably as the people who make us crazy in our own lives.

On the lighter side, there is Ben Andron, whose first play, White’s Lies, is currently on view at New World Stages. And while White’s Lies received a mixed reception, I see it as a strong first effort, with a comic flair and enough writing polish so that I view Andron as someone to keep an eye on. Tackling farce is a risky business, yet with White’s Lies, he comes pretty darn close to getting it right, despite slipping a little too deeply into sit-com territory.

As if the room weren’t getting crowded enough, we need to ask everyone to move over to make space for two additional playwrights, both of whom have plays in preview at Off Broadway houses even as I put down these words

We’ll start with Minneapolis-based Kristoffer Diaz, who has presented us with a truly original theatrical voice in his play, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity. The play, which casts a satiric eye on the professional wrestling industry and the general buzz of xenophobia that surrounds it, brings an energetic hip hop sensibility to the theater. The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity is both funny and thoroughly engaging, thanks to Diaz’s wonderful command of language and sense of the absurd.

Let me offer up a few words about the production itself, since I have not written about it previously. The success of The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity is definitely abetted by the solid direction of Edward Torres, and fun staging by Brian Sidney Bembridge (set design), Jesse Klug (lighting design), and Mikhail Fiksel (sound design), all of whose efforts add markedly to the audience’s pleasure. The fine cast includes Desmin Borges as the Puerto Rican narrator Macedonio Guerra, known in the wrestling world as “Che Chavez Castro,” and Usman Ally as Vigneshwar Paduar, an Indian street performer who is transformed into the vaguely Arab terrorist, “The Fundamentalist.” The play, much of which takes place on and around a wrestling ring, deals with Macedonio Guerra’s transition, from accepting his work as just a job in the entertainment field, to his growing understanding that he is a willing collaborator in the promotion of racial stereotypes in order to sell Pay-Per-View tickets and wrestling merchandise. The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity is not Diaz’s freshman effort, but it is sure to be the one to launch his career into hyperspace. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the play was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize!

And last in our roundup, we will tip our hat to Polly Stenham, a young British playwright who, at the age of 19, wrote That Face, now on view at Manhattan Theater Club’s City Center Stage 1. That Face, a visceral dark comedy/drama, took the London theater world by storm when it opened in 2007, garnering accolades and multiple awards for its writer. The play, very well acted by its American cast, deals with an exceptionally dysfunctional family, presided over by alcoholic, pill-popping, bipolar Mummy (powerfully portrayed by Laila Robins), whose desperate and selfish neediness has all but destroyed her teenage children. Her son, Henry (Christopher Abbott), in particular, has been pushed from being a hapless enabler into co-dependency. By the end of the play, you are trying to figure out how many years of therapy it will take to get anyone on his or her respective feet.

All in all, I think it is safe to say the theater world is in good hands, with many new and emerging playwrights hard at work creating original and provocative plays. Broadway itself may be caught up in the greater show biz culture, dependent on jukebox musicals and movie stars to draw in the crowds, but certainly Off Broadway is alive and well and handily taking up the slack with first-rate productions of a wide array of new plays by up-and-coming playwrights whose talented voices should keep us audiences in good stead for many years to come.

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Two new shows: One warm and inviting, the other smarmy and farcical

Aficionados of edgy plays about the angst-filled lives of sophisticated, cynical, and smarmy characters should skip down to my review of White’s Lies below. First, I want to talk about a new show that has likeable characters, a situation that is thoroughly engaging, and a script that is both laugh-out-loud funny and moist-eyed touching.

The show is The Kid, a musical about a gay couple hoping to adopt a baby, now playing at the Acorn Theater at Theater Row on 42nd Street.

That the couple in question is gay is, of course, germane, but one of the many strengths of The Kid is that it tells a universal story about two people who have made the commitment to bring a child into their lives, and the challenges they face trying to make it happen.

If it were not so well done, it would be easy to dismiss The Kid as a live version of a made-for-television movie you might see on the Lifetime Channel, or perhaps more likely on Logo, the TV network that shows Lifetime-like gay themed movies. A couple wants a child, works through an adoption agency, goes through some anxious moments, seeks the support of friends and family, and so forth (“and so forth” being my way of saying I am not going to tell you how it ends).

The Kid is based on the book by the same title, written by popular sex advice columnist Dan Savage. Savage has been transformed into the lead character in the musical by writer Michael Zam, supported with songs by Andy Monroe (music) and Jack Lechner (lyrics) that build our understanding of and connection with the characters over the course of the show.

Gotta hand it to director Scott Elliott, someone whose work I have to confess I never particularly admired before now, and to a wonderful cast, starting with Christopher Sieber, he of the beer belly, teddy bear personality, and facial expression of borderline panic as he deals with the everyday crises of life, both the real and the feared. Sieber plays the lead role of Dan, whose protective mantra is: “babies are born dead; birth mothers can change their minds.” The line is, of course, not funny, but it says much about the character of Dan and of the anxiety that undercuts his dream of parenthood.

It would take a real curmudgeon not to grow quite fond of Dan and his partner Terry (Lucas Steele), Dan’s practical and supportive mom (Jill Eikenberry), and Melissa, the homeless teenage birth mother (Jeannine Frumess, in a strong and layered performance). The rest of the cast, many of whom play multiple roles, are also quite good, and the whole of the show has a real ensemble feel to it.

Bottom line: I arrived at the theater tired and cranky after a frustrating day at work. Before long, I found myself caught up in the show as events unfolded onstage, and I left feeling uplifted and warm. Works for me!

OK. Now on to the edgy comedy about the angst-filled lives of sophisticated, cynical, and smarmy characters.

It’s called White’s Lies, and it is the first play by motion picture marketer Ben Andron, who has given us a mixture of sit-com and farce that more-or-less works if you think of it in those terms. Thus, the play offers us TV comedy situations, and characters who speak in snappy one-liners and who perform with the rapid pacing of a light-weight farce, under the direction of Bob Cline.

The storyline: Womanizer Joe White (Tuc Watkins) has made a career of picking up women in bars and telling them all manner of lies as they head out for a night of debauchery. Joe’s mom (Betty Buckley), from whom Joe has been estranged, tells him she has terminal cancer and wants nothing more than for him to present her with a grandchild before she dies. The plot unfolds as Joe tries to spin a web of lies that will restore him to his mother’s good graces. Along the way, he learns a few lessons about life and grows up just a little bit.

The play is abetted by some good comic performances by supporting players Rena Strober, Jimmy Ray Bennett, and, especially, Peter Scolari, who earned his sit-com chops of such television fare as "Bosom Buddies" and "Newhart."

White’s Lies has not been well received by the critics, but in my view Ben Andron shows some skill and reminds me somewhat of Douglas Carter Beane, who has given us a couple of funny offbeat comedies, As Bees in Honey Drown and The Little Dog Laughed. Andron is not yet writing at that level, but I would say that White’s Lies works better than Beane’s most recent outing, Mr. and Mrs. Fitch, and I would like to see what else he is capable of.

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The Burnt Part Boys: Earnestness is Not Nearly Enough

The best thing about The Burnt Part Boys, now in previews at the Playwrights Horizons, is its evocative title. Unfortunately, the musical itself, which has been in development for at least four years, has little to offer by way of script, lyrics, or music—kind of a difficult set of obstacles to overcome.

It’s not that wonderful theater can’t happen with a modicum of plot. Waiting for Godot comes to mind, as does the current production of The Aliens at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. But both Samuel Beckett’s classic play and Annie Baker’s contemporary one engage an audience because the characters are intensely engaging, as are the words that come out of their mouths courtesy of the playwrights.

In The Burnt Part Boys, however, playwright Mariana Elder and Lyricist Nathan Tysen have not succeeded. The storyline, while earnest as can be, just doesn’t make for interesting theater. Neither Elder nor Tysen shows a mastery of language to convincingly express the thoughts of the characters, a group of teenagers, one of whom leads the others in a quest to dynamite a coalmine where two of their fathers were killed a decade earlier. [The title refers to the name the locals started calling the mine after the disaster, which occurred in 1952 in West Virginia coal country.]

All of Act I and much of Act II concerns the long journey to the mine site, which is about to be reopened despite a pledge by the owner to keep it permanently shut in memorial to those who died there. So you do have the makings of a quest story or a bildungsroman, in which you might expect great truths to be revealed and friendships to be either cemented or destroyed. Yet little that unfolds in The Burnt Part Boys leaves the realm of the mundane.

I don’t want to beat the show to death, yet there is little to praise. What I can offer goes to the minimalist set by designer Brian Prather, using ropes and ladders to portray the rugged terrain, and the score by Chris Miller that shows some potential in the modernist style of Adam Guettel or Michael John LaChiusa.

As for the performances, let’s just say that even talented thirty-something actors who look and act like thirty-something characters should not be playing 18-year-olds, and characters living in West Virginia coal mining country in 1962 should talk like that’s where and when they are living. In the case of The Burnt Part Boys, I absolve all of the actors and hope they go on to find roles that allow them to display their talent to better advantage.

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The Aliens: A Gem of a Play by One Gem of a Playwright

If you saw and enjoyed Circle Mirror Transformation earlier this year, you know that the theater world has been granted the gift of an exceptional writer in Annie Baker, and that Baker herself is, likewise, well served by director Sam Gold.

The pair have teamed up to give us Baker's latest play, The Aliens, now at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. And once again, we are privileged with a gem of a play by a gem of a playwright.

Granted, the plot could fit into a thimble, and the play, as was true of Circle Mirror Transformation, reveals itself in short scenes and blackouts. But these do serve the purpose of providing a frame for a trio of misfits--two slackers and a dork, to use some stereotypic shorthand--who come totally and believably to life through their interactions with one another as they hang out in back of a coffee house (great set design, by the way, done by Andrew Lieberman).

Baker has an ear for authentic dialog that is amazing. One can imagine her perpetually eavesdropping on conversations and writing down every word and nuance, before turning them into dialog for her plays. She also cares enough about her characters to trust them to find the words to express themselves. Indeed, one word--in this case, the word "ladder"--can be full of meaning, as it reveals much about one of the characters. Even their hesitations are significant--not Pinteresque pauses, but human moments of awkwardness that arise as they do in life.

The cast of three--Michael Chernus, Dane DeHaan, and Erin Gann--create engagingly authentic characters, under Gold's gentle and supportive direction. As an added bonus, the play is punctuated with several charmingly goofy songs--reminiscent of something by the group They Might Be Giants--that were penned by Chernus, Gann, and actor Patch Darragh, now starring as "Tom" in The Glass Menagerie.

If you want theater that is full of bombast, smoke, and mirrors, then you might prefer something like the current production of Enron. If, however, you long for theater that expresses a real love of language, and that offers up well-drawn characters that were created with compassion and affection, then by all means make it a point to see The Aliens.

And while you are at it, do keep an eye on Ms. Baker as she continues to grow as a playwright. I can't wait to see what she comes up with next!

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I Never Sang For My Father: A Gift from a Master of Language

“Death ends a life, but not a relationship.”

I jotted down this quote on my program while viewing the Keen Company’s poignant revival of Robert Anderson’s I Never Sang For My Father, starring and with strong performances by Matt Servitto as the middle-aged “dutiful son,” and Keir Dullea and Marsha Mason as his elderly parents.

The quote captures the theme so well that when I later went back and read The New York Times reviews of the current production and the original one from 1968, both critics included the line in their remarks.

I had never seen the play before, but I was enthralled by the beautiful writing. Anderson creates dialog that allows the characters to reveal themselves and their relationships with one another through their verbal interactions. He also displays a real mastery of the sounds of the English language; he had me early on by having one of the characters utter the phrase “frowzy dowagers.” All right, maybe this isn’t the best example of “genuine dialog,” but don’t you just love the assonance?

The storyline itself is a familiar one—a son trying to connect with his self-centered, cold, and possibly abusive, father. Perhaps it was that familiarity that led Clive Barnes, in his review of the original production, to brush off the play as sentimental claptrap. Or perhaps it was because it was the 1960s, a time of experimental avant-gardism, and Anderson’s work was seen as too old fashioned.

Regardless, I’m glad it’s back.

Like "The Glass Menagerie," I Never Sang For My Father is a “memory play.” Matt Servitto plays the central character of Gene, the narrator and the son who is trying to be supportive of his aging and ailing parents while working to rebuild his own life after the death of his wife. Both Marsha Mason and Keir Dullea give rich depth to their portrayals of those parents, the doting mother, Margaret, and the distant and angry father, Tom. When Margaret dies, Gene struggles with how best to help his father without losing himself in the process, all the while hoping against hope for some sort of loving acceptance and validation.

It may sound corny, but I can tell you that there were those in the audience around me who were muttering to themselves and offering advice to Gene as they identified with the situation.

The Keen Company’s self-identified mission is to produce “sincere plays.” In this cynical age, sincerity is not the usual fare for the theatergoing crowd. I tip my hat to both the company and to Jonathan Silverman, its resident director, who has shepherded the production with appropriate restraint so that Anderson’s revealing language and sincerely moving play are allowed their day in the spotlight.

Note: The image at the top is of Keir Dullea in his iconic role of Dave Bowman in Stanley Kurbrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," which came out in 1968, the same year as the original production of "I Never Sang For My Father."

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The Glass Menagerie: Deconstructing Memory

Never trust a memoirist.

Haven’t we learned that lesson yet? Remember James (A Million Little Pieces) Frey being upbraided by Oprah for using her to promote his fake memoir depicting his alleged drug addiction and recovery? Or the more recent never-actually-happened Holocaust memoir of the long-married couple who supposedly met while he was a Concentration Camp inmate and she the young village girl who passed him food through the barbed wire fence?

Even when deliberate chicanery is not the goal, memories are most unreliable things. Even as they are being formed, they are filtered through the emotional and cognitive interpretations of those who are experiencing them, so that objective reality immediately becomes an idiosyncratic version of reality.

With the passage of time, memories continue to reshape themselves, especially in the revisiting and retelling of them. An unpleasant occurrence becomes an amusing anecdote. “I wish I had told that SOB what I really thought of him” becomes “And I stood up right up to him and said...” Perhaps in this way we strive to find resolution to regrets and lost opportunities.

So, what do we make of The Glass Menagerie, or, more specifically, of the current production of Tennessee Williams' iconic “memory play”? Long regarded as an autobiographical play about Williams' family, the production of The Glass Menagerie now on view at the Laura Pels takes a more modernist stance by challenging that assumption and suggesting that what we are seeing is one of those suspect memoirs. Director Gordon Edelstein has altered our viewing of the play by having it unfold directly in Tom’s mind ('Tom' being Tennessee Williams' birth name) as he is in the process of writing it. The production is set in a hotel room, where Tom has ensconced himself with his typewriter and a bottle of Bourbon, and the action of the play takes place within that room—like parallel universes coexisting in the same space. In playing his duel roles of playwright and scion of the “Wingfield” family, Tom crosses those two universes in order to interact with the other characters—his mother Amanda, sister Laura, and “The Gentleman Caller,” the knight in shining armor who has been brought in to rescue Laura from a life of agoraphobic seclusion.

This production has been criticized in some circles for removing us from directly experiencing the action, with the “nudge nudge wink wink” of the framing device that reminds us this is a play, not reality. Frankly, I appreciated this approach. Tom, after all, is not really Tennessee Williams, and The Glass Menagerie was not written in a secret diary. It is a play, originally conceived as a screenplay. Williams wrote it with the expectation, or at least, the ambition, that it would be produced, that it would launch him full tilt into the glamorous world of Hollywood.

Thus, Edelstein has given us memory in its many forms: Tom actually remembering his family; his idiosyncratic view of his family; his idiosyncratic view of own place within the family structure; his self-serving recollection of events; and the public image he wishes to portray. All of these coexist in Edelstein’s version, and, from my perspective, it all works well.

One of the reasons it works well is because it is well-acted. Judith Ivey captures Amanda Wingfield in all of her complexity: abandoned wife, overbearing mother, flirtatious Southern belle, and practical and sacrificing breadwinner trying to hold things together. The fragile Laura, as portrayed by Keira Keeley, seems to exaggerate her crippled gait as it suits her purposes; in her own way, she is as self-serving and self-protective as the rest of her clan. Patch Darragh imbues Tom with layers of restlessness, anger, self-deprecation, social awkwardness, a strong sense of the absurd, and a sharp tongue with which he lashes out at Amanda.

In the second act, when Tom’s coworker, the long-awaited Gentleman Caller, shows up for dinner (and, at least as planned by Amanda, to woo Laura), Edelstein and actor Michael Mosley give us what we must have in order for the play to work. First, they allow us to see the Wingfields through the eyes of a “normal” outsider; the rituals and dysfunctional behaviors that have sustained them as a family suddenly appear quite outlandish. Second, and most importantly, The Gentleman Caller remains a gentleman throughout, and his kind, supportive, quiet conversation with Laura—away from the bickering Amanda and Tom—provides an emotional high point of both the play and of this production: Williams’ “the kindness of strangers” in action.

The delicate moment cannot last, of course, and The Glass Menagerie ends as it must. Tom leaves Amanda and Laura to fend for themselves and goes off to embrace his own destiny, which includes sharing this version of the story with the rest of us.

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Brave Men and True: The Temperamentals

Near the end of The Pride, Alexi Kaye Campbell’s solidly-acted, emotionally moving play juxtaposing the lives of gay men in the 1950s and in the present time, there is a moment I found to be particularly poignant. The young modern-day characters of Philip and Oliver are attending a Gay Pride parade, and Oliver remarks on an elderly man dressed in flowery clothing he sees on the edge of the parade.

It’s just a passing comment, but it struck me at the time that this must surely be the “Oliver” or the “Philip” from the 1950s, someone who has survived all the years of virulent homophobia, the AIDS crisis, “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell,” and all the legal and political debates, and who has found a place of contentment in his life. Just thinking about whether it was the more self-aware and accepting Oliver, or the more repressed and self-loathing Philip makes for a fascinating consideration of what might have ensued during the half century between the two parts of the play.

Now, having seen The Temperamentals, the engaging, heart-warming, and uplifting play by Jon Marans, about the early gay rights movement in the United States, I wonder if the nod to the elderly gentleman in question might have been inspired by Harry Hay, the gay rights activist and central character in The Temperamentals.

I did not see last year’s original production of The Temperamentals (the title refers to Hay’s “code word” for gay men) at the Barrow Group Studio Theater, but I don’t think it could have been any better than the current one at the New World Stages, where there has been only one change in the cast.

Let me begin by praising the direction of Jonathan Silverstein and the wonderfully cohesive ensemble acting by the cast of five: Thomas Jay Ryan and Michael Urie in the lead roles of Harry Hay and Rudi Gernreich, co-founders of what became known as the Mattachine Society, and their three comrades-in-arms, Arnie Burton (the new cast member), Matthew Schneck, and Sam Breslin Wright, all of whom contribute greatly to the play’s richness of spirit in portraying a group of men who refused to be victimized for the “sin” of existing.

As the play tells it, Hay conceived of starting an organization in the late 1940s to serve as a gathering place for “temperamentals” and a center for human rights activism for what he considered to be a maligned “cultural minority.” As models, he drew on the African American civil rights movement and his experience as a labor rights advocate and member of the Communist Party.

Imagine what it must have been like to be “out” and a Communist in the 1950s during the witch-hunting McCarthy Era, and you get a sense of the undertone of the play. It is a brave and scary thing these men are doing, standing up for one another and their fellow “temperamentals,” and everyone involved has captured just the right tone and attitude and style to tell this story in a way that is genuinely moving without being falsely sentimental or schlocky.

A real strength of the play lies in the gradual shift in tone in the performances of all, moving from reticent to courageous. This feels very real, where reluctant leaders arise from among the “just plain folks” among us, who see a void in leadership and are compelled to fill it. In this regard, special kudos must go to Thomas Jay Ryan. He appears at first almost to be miscast in the role of Hay—so “straight” seeming is his performance—but he gradually lets go of the businessman façade, and with the simple donning of a magenta shawl, transforms into a proud gay man, totally comfortable in himself so that the man and the image are one and the same.

It’s a remarkable performance, devoid of gimmickry or flamboyance. The same can be said for the play as a whole. Gay characters are so often seen as comic sidekicks, flaming drag queens-with-a-heart-of-gold, or angst-ridden victims. The Temperamentals offers another option, an image of gay men as positive role models and leaders.

Note: The picture at the top of the review is that of Harry Hay, age 84, at a 1996 "Radical Faeries" event.

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Quick Takes on Three New Off-Broadway Shows

I recently attended previews of three new off-Broadway shows: Mr. and Mrs. Fitch, The Pride, and Clybourne Park. Here are my impressions.

Mr. and Mrs. Fitch

Mr. and Mrs. Fitch is a light and witty comedy by Douglas Carter Beane, the playwright who gave us the delightfully offbeat As Bees In Honey Drown and the very funny (thanks in no small part to the manic Tony winning performance of Julie White) The Little Dog Laughed.

Mr. and Mrs. Fitch, while set in the here and now, is written and presented in a style that is reminiscent of work from the 1930s. Think of the loving banter between Nick and Nora Charles, as portrayed by William Powell and Myrna Loy in The Thin Man series of films, and you’ll get what I mean.

The title characters, performed by John Lithgow and Jennifer Ehle, are a pair of gossip columnists, who, having run out of anything new to report, have invented an intriguing up-and-coming star. The plot, slim as the MacBook Air laptop on which they compose their column, hangs on the speed with which buzz travels via Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking modes of instant communication.

Don’t go expecting any brilliant insights, but you may have fun trying to guess which New York stars, former stars, and wannabes are being satirized during the Fitches' gossipy chat sessions.

One concern: At the early preview I saw, Lithgow and Ehle tended to oversell every line, SPEAKING IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS AND EXCLAMATION MARKS!!! If director Scott Ellis can get them to be more subtle in their delivery, the level of fun is sure to go up for the audience.

The Pride

The Pride comes to us from across the Great Pond, where it was first produced at the Royal Court Theater in 2008, garnering high praise and several prestigious awards for its fledgling playwright, London actor Alexi Kaye Campbell.

The Pride is an examination of gay life and the struggle to build enduring relationships during two different eras—the highly repressed and repressive 1950s and now.

One could quibble over the fact that The Pride offers no particularly new understandings; building and maintaining relationships is difficult in any era. But what it does give us is an engaging and moving human story centering on the lives of two sets of characters that we care about, stellar acting (especially by Ben Whishaw), enough humor to keep it from becoming mawkish, and a hopeful ending--all of which make for a thoroughly satisfying theater-going experience.

The non-linear movement between eras is, perhaps, a little confusing and might be handled better through more obvious staging (costumes, setting, music). I did hear puzzled conversations about it during the intermission. Barring adjustments by director Joe Mantello, I recommend reading the article "A Triangle Built for Two" in the Playbill prior to the start of the play.

Clybourne Park

Playwright Bruce Norris is not known for the subtlety of his writing. The New York Times critic Charles Isherwood used words like “overplotted,” “overstatement” and “savage comic flair” in his review of Norris’s The Pain and the Itch back in 2006. These same descriptions could be applied to Clybourne Park. Whether you view this as a flaw or as the playwright’s hallmark style is a point you might wish to debate after you have seen this compelling new work.

Clybourne Park is a bit messy, with two acts that sort of connect but which could use more of a bridge between them. It wouldn’t hurt for audience members to have a familiarity with A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry’s classic American drama in which the matriarch of an African American family wants to move everyone to a house in the all-white community of "Clybourne Park."

As in The Pride, Clybourne Park is a two-era play, set, in fact, in the same two eras of the 1950s and now. (Are we seeing the start of a trend of 50-year spreads to capture societal changes over time?) Both Act I and Act II depict events surrounding changes in a community, centered on its racial makeup. In 1959, the theme is “white flight;” in 2009, the theme is “gentrification,” as young white suburbanites rediscover the inner city neighborhoods from which their families had previously fled.

There is more than enough here to wrap a play around, but Norris brings in several other plot elements, the most significant one being a family tragedy that is the cause of the white couple’s decision to leave their home in Act I. As that story unfolds during the first half of Clybourne Park, the gradual revealing of this sad event takes us from what seems at first to be a gentle, rather bland comedy to a disturbing realistic drama, solidly performed by a strong ensemble of actors and well directed by Pam MacKinnon.

Whatever flaws there are, Norris’s “savage comic flair” provides a real wallop, and his sharp-tongued examination of racial tensions during both eras makes David Mamet’s “Race” look like a mere academic discussion.

Totally Irrelevant Trivia

In my recent review of Ernest in Love, I praised lyricist Ann Croswell for cleverly rhyming the words “bachelor” and “satchel or” in one of the numbers. Turns out, the same rhyme had been used by Johnny Mercer in his lyrics for the musical Li’l Abner some four years earlier. To be fair, for that same show Mercer also rhymed “bachelor” and “natu’ler,” a pairing that had been used by E. Y. (“Yip”) Harburg in Finian’s Rainbow a full decade before Li’l Abner.

Just wanted to set the record straight.

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Jerky Ride Through the Mind of a Mass Murderer

Some plays are intended to disturb--not just by shaking up the audience through provocative ideas, but by using the theatrical platform to create a viscerally unsettling experience. Once such play is Jerk, ending a short run at Performance Space 122 as part of the Under the Radar Festival.

Jerk essentially is an hour spent inside the head of a torturer/murderer. Based on the events of an actual serial murder spree that took place in Texas some thirty years ago, Jerk recounts some of the gory killings perpetrated by a middle aged man and his two teenage accomplices. The grisly tale is related by “David Brooks,” the surviving member of the threesome, who uses a set of puppets to relate the story.

When the audience enters the theater, “David,” intensely portrayed by French actor/performance artist Jonathan Capdevielle, is waiting patiently for us on a folding chair set up on the floor of a dingy basement suggestive of the one in which the killings took place, or perhaps a space in a facility for the criminally insane. It seems that David has been performing his little puppet shows before audiences of psychology students, not unlike ourselves, perhaps as a form of psychotherapy or to serve as a living cautionary tale along the lines of those reformed former gang members who make the rounds of the country’s middle schools

Once we are seated, an usher comes around bearing booklets titled “Two texts for a puppet play by David Brooks.” Before he begins, David says, he wants us to read the first of these “nonfiction texts” so we have the appropriate background to understand his story. These preludes crudely establish the story, which David then completes by acting out the gruesome events with his crudely-made puppets. One puppet represents Dean, the ringleader; one represents David’s cohort and sexual partner, Wayne; and another represents the victims. David tells us he himself will be the puppet representing David.

Note that I have twice used the word “crude,” because that’s the most apt description for the first half of the play, in which “David” re-enacts several of the tortures and killings, as well as the sexual activities in which he says the trio engaged during and after the deeds. It is disturbing, not for psychological reasons, but only because it is most unpleasant to watch. Certainly it was not surprising to see a number of audience members leave about 20 minutes into Jerk.

Still, those who remained did get to experience the play’s real strength during the last 20 minutes or so. After we have read the second selection from “Two texts,” we return to a David who has abandoned puppetry and the physical re-enactments of the first section. Through a powerful act of ventriloquism (the program identifies a ventriloquism coach), Capdevielle as David continues the story in the three voices he used in the first half. Here, he has succeeded in getting us inside of David’s head, without moving his lips or using the puppets; indeed, as the play comes to a close, David seems to fall into a catatonic state, drool dripping from his mouth as we hear his memories, up until the arrival of the police.

I do not want to oversell the last 20 minutes of Jerk against the first 40, which are most off-putting—taking us not to any psychological insights, but into the realm inhabited by contemporary horror/torture movies like Saw and Hostel. Yet the play, as a whole, does provide a visceral experience while raising a serious consideration of the nature of someone who would be drawn into a world such as that experienced by David, Wayne, and Dean.

Beyond that, we wonder about the reliability of David as the narrator, who does come off as relatively less corrupt than the other two--whose stories are, after all, being represented by the person who killed one or both of them. Then again, we wonder if there ever were actually three killers, or did David’s mind merely concoct the other two?

In the end, I can’t really recommend to anyone I know that they see this play. The “gross-out” factor outweighs the psychological intrigue. Yet, I imagine that Jerk will stick in a corner of my mind along with other far more successfully disturbing plays like The Lieutenant of Inishmore and Shockheaded Peter, both of which I consider to be among the best shows of the first decade of the 21st century, as I will discuss in an upcoming blog entry.

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Off-Broadway Delights, Part III: The Irish Rep

The Irish Repertory Theatre is probably my favorite Off-Broadway venue. The creativity and skill behind its productions is all the more remarkable when you get a glimpse of its postage stamp of a stage and then see what they can do with it. You never know what you’re going to see there, as it explores its mission of presenting works by Irish and Irish American playwrights, ranging from lightweight fare like the musical comedy Ernest in Love to under-appreciated dramatic classics like The Emperor Jones—both from this season.

Irish Rep co-founder Ciarán O’Reilly, serving as director, has breathed new life into Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones, a play from 1920 that is generally viewed today as a musty, racially insensitive, and pretty much unplayable psychodrama about one Brutus Jones, an African American escaped murderer who has ensconced himself as the self-proclaimed and decidedly despotic emperor of an isolated Island.

When we meet Mr. Jones, all stagger and threat, he is near the end of his reign, on the brink of being deposed and executed by rebels. For the bulk of the one-act play, we journey with him as he flees through the jungle, chased by both the rebels and his personal and racial memories (à la Carl Jung) and demons that haunt his every waking minute.

O’Reilly, aided and abetted by a remarkable company onstage and off, has turned this into a glorious and triumphant theatrical event. John Douglas Thompson offers a powerful performance as Brutus Jones, giving us a complex and difficult character, much as he did in his portrayal of Othello in last season’s production of Shakespeare’s tragedy with the Theater For A New Audience. The ensemble of players that surround Thompson turn in solid supportive work, but the real brilliance of the production is the use of puppets, masks, original music, lighting effects, and well-choreographed movement to create a truly theatrical experience and to thoroughly engage the audience in Jones’s flight for his life.

In recent weeks, The Emperor Jones transferred to the SoHo Playhouse to make way for Ernest in Love, a revival of an Off-Broadway musical from 1960 based on Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest.

This is a small show, ideally suited to the Irish’s Rep’s tiny stage. “Charming” is an adjective that admittedly does not suggest “must-see theater,” but it is a most appropriate description to apply to a musical with charming tunes, charmingly acted by a charming company of players.

Not surprisingly, the best lines come straight from Wilde. I’ll cite one I especially like, Lady Bracknell’s reaction to catching Jack on bended knee in the act of proposing to her daughter Gwendolen, said in a most imperious tone: “Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent posture. It is most indecorous.”

The show’s creators, Ann Croswell (book and lyrics) and Lee Pockriss (music) drew inspiration from Wilde in at least one of the show’s tunes, “A Handbag Is Not A Proper Mother,” in which we are given the clever rhyming pair of “bachelor” and “satchel or” in a way that actually makes sense, and which leads us to our trivia question of the day: In what other musical from the current season will we find a clever rhyme for “bachelor?”

Regardless of whether your tastes run to chamber musicals or to psychological drama, or to anything else in between, for that matter, the Irish Rep is willing to tackle it and uncover its hidden magic. Kudos to all involved for understanding and sharing the magic of theater.

Oh, and that trivia question? Check out the song "The Begat" in Finian's Rainbow, in which lyricist Yip Harburg has rhymed "bachelor" with "natchu'ler."

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Off-Broadway Delights, Part II

This is the second in an ongoing series of postings about Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway acting companies that provide some of the best theatergoing experiences in New York. Indeed, I must say that during the current season, these smaller organizations have offered more interesting, engaging, and exciting productions than pretty much anything that has opened on Broadway.

Case in point: Playwrights Horizons, about to enter its fifth decade as “home to new American theater,” currently is offering not one but two exceptionally fine new plays.

The first of these is Circle Mirror Transformation by playwright Annie Baker. Ms Baker, not yet 30, is on a meteoric trajectory, churning out plays almost faster than I can see them. Her Body Awareness drew favorable reviews and award nominations (Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle) when it had its world premiere at the Atlantic Theater Company in 2008. Another of her plays, The Aliens, will have its world premiere this spring at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater.

In Circle Mirror Transformation, we follow the members of a weekly acting class at a local community center in Shirley, Vermont. Over time, the students participate in a variety of exercises that require them to uncover inner truths in order for them to become sensitive to themselves and to each other. The ultimate test is a repeated exercise that requires them to lie face-up on the floor, taking random turns counting aloud from 1-10; the goal is to be so aware of one another that, as a group, they reach “10” without having more than one person call out a number at any one time. Between the exercises and the individual conversations that take place among the characters, we witness how each of them changes as a result of their experiences in the class.

A playwright with a keen ear for authentic dialog, Baker provides us with a group of compelling characters whose stories we want to hear. She has been aided by a cast of consistently strong performers who convincingly embody those characters, making Circle Mirror Transformation a memorable evening of theater.

Special kudos to Tracee Chimo as “Lauren,” a 16-year-old member of the group of otherwise middle-aged men and women. Ms. Chimo captures the spirit of a teenage girl who is shy and awkward, yet who shows us she is on the verge of becoming a strong, confident woman. Appropriately, the final moments of the play belong to her.

Finally, we mustn’t neglect to acknowledge the fine direction by Sam Gold. This is a delicate play, in the sense that there are no huge dramatic outbursts or meltdowns or moments of glory for anyone. Circle Mirror Transformation is not August: Osage County, which requires over-the-top performances. Nor is it A Chorus Line, in which each of the characters is given a moment in the spotlight. Instead, it is essential that the actors perform as a truly collaborative ensemble; the “1-10” counting exercise is a perfect metaphor for what is called for. Gold is to be commended for directing with style, grace, and an appropriately soft touch that allows much of the dialog to feel spontaneous.

The second offering at Playwrights Horizons is a new play by Melissa James Gibson, called This, another world premiere for the organization. Ms. Gibson, the more experienced of the two playwrights, has had productions of her plays done by Steppenwolf in Chicago, by the Woolly Mammouth Theatre Company in Washington, D. C. and the La Jolla Playhouse in La Jolla, California. She also won an Obie Award for [sic], produced at the SoHo Rep in 2001.

In This, Gibson gives us another ensemble of characters, a circle of long-time friends who are struggling with some of the disappointments and challenges that life brings in middle-age when the futures we imagined for ourselves at 20 come face-to-face with reality.

Jane (Julianne Nicholson), recently widowed, is in the throes of mourning for her husband, trying to raise her daughter on her own, and struggling to make sense of her own life. Her friends Marrell (Eisa Davis) and Tom (Darren Pettie) have found their own lives turned upside-down and their relationship strained by the arrival of their newborn son, who never seems to sleep for more than 15 minutes at a time. Everyone’s nerves are on edge, and the inevitable combustion occurs when Jane and Tom enter into a brief sexual relationship. But like Annie Baker, Ms. Gibson and director Daniel Aukin use restraint and a deep sense of who the characters are in order to develop the play as a realistic human drama; we never enter the realm of soap opera as the story unfolds.

What Circle Mirror Transformation and This have in common is a maturity in their writing about the complicated nature of human relationships. Baker and Gibson both eschew the shortcuts of sound bites and sitcom writing that plague far too many plays these days. They are writing about grownups trying to make it through life as best they can.

Their work reminds me of two exceptional plays I saw many years ago: Moonchildren, by Michael Weller, and Gemini, by Albert Innaurato. Both of these were written in the 1970s and had central characters who were in their early 20s. The two playwrights captured perfectly the tone and mood of the characters they portrayed in a way that is rarely seen in the theater, where the young tend to be wise beyond their years, and the adults tend to behave as if they were far younger than their chronological age.

In a similar vein, Circle Mirror Transformation and This, offer us characters who are middle-aged, and who behave accordingly; they are the “Moonchildren” all grown up. I look forward to future opportunities to see work by Baker and Gibson, and I hope that they stay grounded in the drama of human life.

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