Pretentious Festival Reviews - Page 2

Compression of a Casualty and Fox(y) Friends
reviewed by David Ledoux

We live in a time where our cultural landscape jumps between superficial mind candy and self-indulgent art for art's sake. You would think with a war and with one of the most corrupt administrations in American history that we would have more artists stepping up to the plate trying to provide real, complex, and thoughtful pieces of art to stir up the public discourse. Sponsored by Nobody takes on the challenge of satirizing one of the most destructive institutions in our democracy: the cable news media.

I believe both Fox(y) Friends and Compression of a Casualty have their hearts in the right place. Writer/director Kevin Doyle has come up with a great concept using text "grounded in actual transcripts," but these pieces both seem to run out of gas very early on.

The evening begins with the play Fox(y) Friends, in which we see four actors playing the roles of the Fox & Friends crew in front of a screen that has their actual pictures projected onto it. Each of them begins his or her own separate monologue about everything from force fields to Legos. They speak almost oblivious to the others who share the stage, freezing while someone else speaks. The result is an absurdist tapestry of non-sequitors while images of E.D Hill, Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade, and Julian Phillips images are projected on the back wall.

I found Fox(y) Friends funny, relevant, and I was on their side. But then the same joke went on and on until I was waiting for something new. The structure of the piece is missing peaks and valleys, turning points, and variety. News anchors expounding on their multi-layered force fields, sleeping dysfunctions, testicular situations, and merchandising opportunities is funny. It's funny for a long time. But this nearly 40-minute play goes a little beyond where it remains funny. And then after that there's no insight, no humanity, no point beyond what we all got immediately: that the media is manipulative, shallow entertainment.

I do think, however, that it could be a very good piece. I had the feeling that it is one or two new directorial or writing choices away from being able to sustain this good concept for the length of the play.

Compression of a Casualty shows us two CNN news anchors quickly reporting the anonymous death of a soldier in Iraq, shortly before going on to discuss Kobe Bryant. The Soldier then comes out and speaks directly to the audience, filling in the details of his own death. This piece seems to be saying that the news media is popular culture drivel that doesn't deal with the important stories in a responsible, in-depth, and professional way. Again, I couldn't agree more, but the simplicity of the image of the soldier with the newscasters says it all, and there didn't seem to be much reason for the piece to go on for the 15 minutes that it did.

But despite my issues with the logistics of the pieces, thank you Sponsored by Nobody for commenting on the mind rot all around us.

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Nihils
reviewed by Richard Hinojosa

You know, if you're not a part of the gunfire, you're part of the problem. Thankfully, Trav S.D. is part of the gunfire. He's taking potshots at the state of performance art, which over the past few decades has mutated into nicely packaged isms. Trav S.D.'s hilarious performance is fueled by his frustration with those who have hijacked the spontaneity of art and the surreal. He is armed with the very weapons that these hijackers use to sell us this art—pretentiousness, aesthetic deconstruction, and a far-out hairdo.

Trav S.D. plays a Beatnik buffoon named Nihils who is just too hip to be annoyed by our presence. His presence, however, is like a black hole (literally and figuratively) in that he is dressed entirely in black (black gloves, sunglasses and wig included) and that he sucks his audience into himself and his world like a singularity sucking light out of the galaxy. This performance is like the Big Bang of kitsch. It is part blank verse Beat nonsense, part one-liner "bah dum bum" standup, and part stream-of-semi-consciousness. He attacks everything from performance art to the culture industry to consumerism with a sort of Marshall McLuhan-on-mushrooms mystique. There is a trippy jazz trio (guitar, clarinet, and viola) that takes the stage with him, playing discordant riffs and displaying little to no emotion while doing it.

Trav S.D. is quite simply hilarious. Even when his one-liners fall flat he's hilarious. When it comes to one-man shows what I like to see is absolute commitment to the character or characters the performer is portraying and that's what Trav S.D. gives us. His character, Nihils, is the total embodiment of the performance's themes. He does not rely solely on his text or on hamming it up to get his theme across but rather he lets his message flow through his posture and gesture and every other aspect of his invention. This is not to say that his text doesn't hit the nail (and everything else, for that matter) on the head. He collages rant and vaudeville and poetry and pun and prattle like a found object mural. He shouts, "All hands on decadence!" as he tries to keep his head from rolling off his shoulders and his hair out of his mouth. I laughed at him, I laughed at myself, and I laughed at my culture all with equal zeal.

Technically the show looks good. We open with a crazy remix of the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" by Arthur Schlenger and accompanied by short, clever turns of phrase projected on a screen. There is a short film that S.D. overdubs live that is just shoddy enough to be appreciated. There are many quick blackouts that didn't really seem necessary to me though they didn't bother me that much. The jazz trio, Blaise Siwula, Robyn Siwula and Ed Chang, are just perfect for this show. They set the mood and break it too.

This show is a part of the Pretentious Festival at the Brick and I can think of no better show to fit that bill. Even his name, Trav S.D., is admittedly pretentious. He makes every moment interesting, funny, and dismantling. His ill motives are for us. He's shooting for us. See there, the man that rocks the boat generally doesn't have time to row it. He needs us there to row for him even if we all annoy him. Don't miss this show. It is eternally a work in progress. So catch it in whatever form it appears next.

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Q1: The Bad Hamlet
reviewed by Josh Sherman

Here's what's great about seeing theatre in New York City: you innocently pick a title out of a lineup like Q1: The Bad Hamlet and figure, "Hey, that should be fun, a spoof or comic adaptation of Hamlet." Then you get there, and you find out that you're 100% wrong, that it's actually the rarely produced First Quarto of Hamlet, and that it is uncut and pure drama. And then the kicker is that after about 15 seconds you realize you are watching an utterly terrific ensemble perform (ably directed and co-produced by Cynthia Dillon), and settle back to enjoy a great production of an obscure version of a classic.

Q1: The Bad Hamlet is regarded as either an early draft or a pirated script of arguably Shakespeare's most famous work. This quarto, unlike the most well-known version which is the folio, is stuffed with printing errors and omissions and is far less poetic than the traditionally produced Hamlet. It's also a heck of a lot shorter, and some historians go so far as to suggest that the First Quarto was meant to be a tab version or a touring version of the play.

If you are a serious Shakespeare buff, I would imagine that while watching this alternative script you would identify a plethora of differences. But as a more casual Hamlet fan, I only noticed the most obvious variations in the text. When "To be or not to be, that is the question" is morphed into "To be or not to be, there's the point," you know you are in the alternate Hamlet universe. Polonius is "Corambis," Ophelia is "Ofelia," and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern aren't dead, but rather "Rossencraft and Gilderstone" are.

The major plot points remain the same. The verse clearly does not flow as freely as in the well-known folio version, but it is a testament to the ensemble and the direction that the pacing of Q1: The Bad Hamlet whisks the audience along without dwelling on the lack of rhyme (a trim two-hour run time). The actors don't let you feel like you're watching a substandard take on Hamlet, they simply perform what's written and let the mistakes flow. It's almost like listening to a classic album on vinyl—there are skips and audio cracks, maybe even a few scratches that omit parts of the songs, but there's a value to hearing an album through this medium, the original way it was recorded. Similarly, it's interesting to see what Shakespeare may (or may not) have begun with, before refining the play to the poetic heights that it eventually achieved. True Shakespeare fanatics will also relish an additional scene between Queen Gertrude and Horatio, and debate its inclusion in the extra footage section of the DVD. Kidding aside, the new scene does add an interesting wrinkle and a host of what-ifs.

In lesser hands, Q1: The Bad Hamlet could easily fail, but Dillon has done some exceptional casting and the ensemble of seven give us a case study in team acting. First among equals is the melancholy prince himself, Jason Liebman (also a co-producer), who gives us a kooky, Zach Braff-inspired take on the great Dane. Kevin Lind is outstanding as both Corambis and the Gravedigger (terrific work on the alternate monologue there). Gabriele Schafer (another co-producer) is phenomenal as both Gertrude and the Ghost, whose facial contortions are truly disturbing and somewhat shocking. The remainder of the cast, with Robert Josef as Horatio/First Player, Anthony Bagnetto as Laertes, Thomas Poarch as "King" [aka Claudius], and Alyssa Mann as Ofelia/Rossencraft. Excellent fight choreography from Al Foote III rounds out this terrific production of Q1: The Bad Hamlet.

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The Children of Truffaut
reviewed by Richard Hinojosa

Sometimes we are influenced by our predecessors in our respective fields of art and we don't even know it. In his new play, The Children of Truffaut, playwright/director Eric Bland explores this scope of influence by looking at those inspired by French New Wave Film director Francois Truffaut and in turn writing a play suggested by the films of Truffaut's artistic "children."

Bland's play is pure inspiration. He does not lift scenes or dialogue from any of the movies. All the text and situations are original. His goal is to examine the atmosphere and tone in these films in a theatrical setting. The directors he chose are Jean-Luc Godard, Rainer Fassbinder, Federico Fellini, and Andrei Tarkovsky, highly influential filmmakers from France, German, Italy, and Russia respectively.

There are eight characters, one male and one female from each film director, and they relate to each other as couples and sort of tell their "stories" through text and dream-like movement. They also relate to all the other couples, swapping partners and entangling their motives, styles, and personal histories. At one point, Bland has all the females leave the stage and just the men talk (though not necessarily to each other). This play seems to be about love—the search for love, the meaning of love, unrequited love, and even suicide for love. One character is so eager to find love that he actually drinks Venus juice (or so he says).

There is not really a discernible plot to the play but what is more than evident is the ambiance. The dialogue swings from highly poetic speeches and exchanges to extremely trivial banter in the middle of an apparently serious situation. Much of the dialogue is also very metaphysical with the characters scrutinizing some perspective or other. The scenes are structured in a sort of elliptical pattern as opposed to a linear storyline, so the audience is forced to put many things together for themselves. This is a characteristic of Godard films. Bland certainly hits on all the various aspects of each filmmaker's style—Fassbinder's search for love, Fellini's hallucinatory images in ordinary situations, and Tarkovsky's metaphysics, stress on beauty, and sense of losing time.

One of the most striking aspects of this show is Bland's direction. His vision for the show is crystal clear and his staging looks gorgeous. There are characters placed at all levels, the pacing is alternately fast and slow, and he leads the eye just exactly were he wants it. The stage, by the end of the play, is a beautiful mess. An actor rubs yogurt on himself, a banana is squished into the stage, and there are countless other little bits and pieces everywhere.

The acting is great. Each member of the cast seems to be steeped in the filmmaker's style he or she portrays. I was particularly impressed with Samara Bay. Her opening monologue and accompanying physicality is so quirky and striking that I couldn't take my eyes off her. Scott Eckert is also very memorable in his role. The rest of the cast—Hollis Witherspoon, Charlie Hewson, Brian Barrett, Victoria Keap, Jesse Liebman, and Bibiane Choi—all deserve a clap on the back for their excellent work.

Bland tells his audience that they don't need to know the film directors or their films in order to appreciate the show. And he's right. The show stands on its own feet, as if Bland had never heard of any of the directors but was influenced by them regardless.

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Commedia Dell'Artemisia
reviewed by Ishah Janssen-Faith

A strong willed woman, fueled by the desire to escape the tight hold of her money-grubbing father, compromises her chastity for the promise of marriage to a unscrupulous man about town. The Stolen Chair Theatre Company has taken this seeming fodder for melodrama and transposed it onto the challenging form of commedia dell'arte, complete with beautifully crafted masks and perfectly suited versatile set design. The combination proves fruitful in theory, if slightly less so in practice.

At the center of the action is the rape of the young Artemisia by the smooth-talking cad Tassi. It is not viewed as rape at first as the two have made an arrangement of sorts; he will deflower her now and marry her later. He fulfills the first part of this deal, albeit a little forcefully, but manages to slither out of the latter. When Artemisia's father is alerted to this transgression, he immediately brings Tassi to trial for the rape of his daughter.

Kiran Rikhye's script is clever in its rhyming couplets and witty turns of phrase, and gives the audience rich food for thought. In the trial scene in particular, a clear dig at a few current real and fictional scenarios is made with "You're having her tortured? It's the only way / Without that, heaven knows what the witness would say." Rikhye then piles on still more satires of contemporary culture. At the close of the play, she leaves us with the notion that Artemisia will profit from her torture; that she will be known throughout history, if not for her art, at least for being a victim. I found this the most effective of all the satirizing, achieving a key component of commedia by holding up the mirror to the particularly American trait of "making lemonade out of lemons" and asking, is this a stalwart quality to be praised? Or is it just another way of morally justifying an immoral buck?

As for the rape, I am not a squeamish audience member, so when I say I cringed at the rape scene, it was not due to the subject matter. My feeling of unease stemmed from what felt to me as a too polite staging (and perhaps a slight sense of embarrassment or apology from the actors performing it). Wearing those masks and playing those stock commedia characters is meant to free the actor, director, and writer to completely embody the essence of the one color, whether it be greed, stupidity, innocence, or pomposity, with utter abandon and sheer fun. But I didn't feel that here, and it struck me as a possibly lost opportunity.

Overall though, the company does put a good foot forward with this show. Cameron J. Oro, as Tassi, has an amazingly commanding voice, and precisely the light quality of movement needed for such demanding work. David Bengali, as the miserly father Orazio, transforms into an old man with a nimble and wiry quality needed for such a conflicted character. The fact that he also designed the lights and the extremely clever set can only mean he is a true virtuoso. The women of the cast hold their own with these two masked men. Liza Wade White plays both the title role and the judge, the latter with more abandon and fun than the former. Layna Fisher fits the bill nicely as the nosy, meddling, morally loose neighbor Tuzia.

There is a lot to grab onto with this piece, a lot to mull over. Was it rape? Was it consensual? What is fame? Why do certain people get in the history books? Is torture useful? The company is clearly on the right path with regards to its mission of creating "visually stunning and uniquely contemporary work where the earnest and ironic happily co-exist", now they just need to take the gloves off and come out punching.

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Evangeline
reviewed by Nicole A. Watson

La Boca Theater Company's Evangeline is supposed to be a contemporary adaptation of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem of the same name, Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie. According to the director's notes, the Longfellow poem references the expulsion and migration of the Acadian people from Nova Scotia to Louisiana where they resettled, becoming what we now know of as "Cajuns." The idea behind the play, which was created by the theatre company and directed by Sarah Ashford Hart, was to tell not only the story of the Acadian Evangeline but to parallel that narrative to stories from those who suffered through Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The idea is a good one and it is clear that the theatre company put a lot of time and effort into interviewing hurricane survivors and devising their performance piece. Unfortunately, the piece seems more like a work in progress than a polished one-act play.

In the production, excerpts of the original Longfellow poem are narrated by actors as puppets perform the actual story. The stories of those who were affected by Katrina and Rita are performed by four young women, Michelle Brown, Rajeeyah Finnie, Priscilla Flores, and Cate Weinberg. At the beginning, the piece suggests that it is following the stories of four individuals but at times it seems as if the text actually incorporates stories taken from many survivors and the line between specificity and generalization is unclear.

Furthermore, although the narrative of the poem and the experience of those who suffered through Katrina share the same themes of exile and loss of home, the performance piece does not adequately adapt or bridge the two stories. The story of Evangeline is about a young Acadian woman who is separated from her true love and that idea drives much of the poem, as it was presented. The Katrina narratives detail the awful experience of those who could not leave the city, the ineptness of FEMA and other government agencies, and the need to find a "home" either by returning to New Orleans or starting over somewhere else. In the performance the story lines are quite disconnected so rather than yield a seamless production, the separate narratives interrupt and interfere with one another.

Maya Cuevelo and Alicia Gerstien are extremely busy as the puppeteers. There are numerous scene changes as well as light and sound cues and the overabundance of both slowed down the overall production, which was supposed to be a little over an hour. The show ran 90 minutes.

There is much potential for Evangeline to become a rich, multi-layered performance piece and it is clear that La Boca Theatre Company is heading in the right direction with its emphasis on storytelling and social awareness.

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Every Play Ever Written
reviewed by Michael Criscuolo

Actor-writer-director Robert Honeywell takes his daring experiments with genre and form to delirious new heights with Every Play Ever Written, his brilliantly uproarious new meta-play that attempts to live up to its subtitle as "a distillation of the essence of theatre." Constructed as a lecture about the history of world drama, Honeywell's show-within-a-show quickly (and purposefully) crumbles into a heated backstage comedy of intrigues as the cast's personal lives seep onto the stage. In lesser hands, such a conceit could easily turn disastrous. But, Honeywell magnificently makes it a heady occasion for both high and low comedy without sacrificing any of his Pretentious Festival street cred.

Honeywell and his fellow cast members, Lynn Berg, Audrey Crabtree, and Moira Stone, play the stage versions of themselves as they embark on what is intended to be a three-hour tour of theatre history. But, a change of plan is imminent as their stage manager, Rasha Zamamiri (using a microphone from the theatre control booth), reminds the company that they only have 90 minutes due to a last-minute schedule change. The lecture immediately turns into an ad hoc affair, with Honeywell making on-the-spot decisions about which parts stay and which ones go, much to the chagrin of his cast. Before long personal jealousies, both artistic and romantic, leak into the proceedings like a toxic waste spill and all hell breaks loose.

The main focus of the intended lecture is to illustrate the four dominant themes of theatre: power, ambition, love, and survival. Key scenes by Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Ibsen, and everyone in between and beyond are used as examples. Throughout, Honeywell punctuates Every Play Ever Written with humorous banter-like footnotes: "Was prehistoric theatre postmodern?" "Was Medea the first feminist play?" But, as the cast's personal lives enter the mix, the four themes of theatre come to symbolize their collective attempt to get through the show.

Honeywell makes clever use of the play's numerous homages. Some—like an excerpt from Everyman performed in Olde English, and Honeywell and Zamamiri playing the Greek Chorus from Agamemnon (he from on stage, she from the booth)—can be taken at hilarious face value. Others serve as riotous reflections of the other actors' growing unrest. Crabtree takes her romantic frustrations out on Stone when they play Desdemona's death scene from Othello. Berg expresses his disillusionment with Honeywell in an impassioned passage from Uncle Vanya. And, when copyright issues impact their ability to comprehensively cover the 20th century, the actors use a rap music-influenced solution to stage a revolt.

Performance-wise, everyone is in top form here. Berg, Crabtree, and Stone mine Every Play Ever Written for all the laughs it's worth (which are many), and make viewers long for their actual performances in some of these roles. (Stone as Medea? I'm all for it.) Zamamiri does excellent double-duty as both actor and stage manager, giving the show some of its funnier deadpan moments. And, as the show's aggressively snobby Master of Ceremonies, Honeywell channels Tom Cruise's testosterone-laden performance from Magnolia to great comic effect.

Every Play Ever Written is further proof of Honeywell's fertile imagination, and his extraordinary skill on all fronts. If you want to bust your gut laughing, and also be exposed to one of New York's fastest-rising theatrical talents, then you need to see this show pronto.

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Macbeth Without Words
reviewed by James Comtois

Macbeth Without Words delivers exactly what it promises: a performance of William Shakespeare's tragedy about the overly ambitious usurping Scottish king who gets his comeuppance, with nary a line spoken.

Jeff Lewonczyk expertly adapts and directs an all-movement pantomime performance of Macbeth that is both lucid and mesmerizing. A tight ensemble cast tells the story through dance, silent film-style gestures, and cartoon violence. Ryan Holsopple's brilliant soundscape blends ominous ambient noise with a synthesized score reminiscent of Angelo Badalamenti's work. Even if you're not familiar with the play (hey, there may be someone reading this review who isn't), this is a coherent and engaging show that I feel confident in recommending.

Am I making it clear that I think this is not only a well-made show, but also great fun?

Consider the scene depicting the three murderers ambushing and murdering Banquo, which is performed through deliberately slow movements as the murderers pile up on him as he tries (and ultimately fails) to break free. It's hypnotic and poetic, not unlike watching a cross between an interpretive dance and a slow-motion death scene from a film.

Also, Macbeth's—I have no other way to describe it—"Crazyface Angrymarch" (looking quite intense and crazy, holding up his sword, and marching in place) as he gets ready to defend his kingdom had me in stitches, especially when he convinces others to get ready for battle (insisting they mimic his Crazyface Angrymarch).

Although the entire cast is excellent across the board, I have to point out two performers in particular who really sell the show: Bryan Enk as Banquo and Fred Backus as Macbeth. Their facial expressions and postures are so dynamic and communicative you can tell exactly what's going on with their characters every time they're on the stage. You know who they are and what they're thinking and feeling. I buy Backus's Macbeth as a once-noble warrior crossing the line and going insane.

Fight choreographer Qui Nguyen brings his A-Game to the ultimate showdown between Macbeth and Macduff, combining Braveheart-style barbaric swordfighting with Matrix-style martial arts. At first, I vaguely wondered why Lewonczyk decided on cross-gender casting for Macduff. Then I saw Stacia French's swordplay and acrobatics. I stopped wondering.

Ultimately, I have only one minor quibble, and it's that the scene with the Porter goes on a bit too long. This is not to say that Katie Brack isn't amusing as the drunken doorman, but the scene does come close to outstaying its welcome and distracting from the story. Again, this is a very negligible criticism.

I really could go on and on, but then again I don't want to offer too many spoilers. My job is to report on what I see on the stage and what I think and feel about it, and I believe I've done that.

Macbeth Without Words is a whole lot of fun. Go see it.

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Yudkowski Returns!
reviewed by Robert Weinstein

Dr. Eliezer Yudkowski, the lead character in Yudkowski Returns (The Rise And Fall And Rise Again Of Dr. Eliezer Yudkowski) wishes he were Japanese. He sits at a desk scattered with seemingly random paraphernalia, downloads episodes of Lost and analyzes the homoerotic subtext of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He orders Chinese food. He puts on his Psycho-Sociological Hat, dances around the theatre and leaps into the narcissistic void of his psyche created by a recent breakup. He restages significant moments while putting others in newfound contexts depending on his ability to understand them. And he is not alone.

He has the audience, whom he addresses frequently and with a plastered-on smile, and he has The Assistant, a friendly, disheveled, and increasingly confused woman who is at different times his girlfriend, his girlfriend-as-ex, his confidante, and his conscience. Is she real? I'm not confident Dr. Yudkowski knows. But their isolation—his voluntary, hers more problematic—creates an incredibly complex relationship which plays out as they wait on the appearance of The Singularity, an Artificial Intelligence technology that can solve all of life's unsolvable problems. It makes sense of the nonsensical and will bring an end to all of humanity's conflicts as well as Dr. Yudkowski's isolation and, quite possibly, The Assistant's existence.

It took me nearly three quarters of the show to put these plot pieces together because Yudkowski Return's is a mess; a well-acted, cleverly presented, and surprisingly funny muddle. The production consists of the games they play with each other and the audience as they await The Singularity's arrival. The games are often funny and brutal contests that serve the purpose of constantly redefining their relationship to each other and the audience's relationship to them. It was a confusing path to follow because director/playwright Robert Saietta constantly undercuts his characters' experiences by failing to grant their experiences lasting, dramatic weight. They experience things, drop their experiences, and, unaffected, move on. This seems forgivable in a play exploring such murky territory but it keeps it from achieving a lasting impact.

Near the end of the play though, Saietta provides us with a moment of supreme clarity. After an argument, The Assistant walks out and, alone and vulnerable, an earnest Yudkowski looks directly at the audience and admits that he might look pathetic but "why are you watching? Why are you here?" It was an uncomfortable moment during which I had to struggle to keep up. Loss is one of life's more terrible experiences. It is full of pain and rationalization and there are very few concrete answers in a process that is at best 20/20 hindsight. By letting Yudkowski's question linger, Saietta gives the audience a moment to give serious thought to his question. It's also a moment that asks some important questions about The Singularity. What is it that we demand from clarity? And what is it—observation? reflection? endurance?—that helps us move on?

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