A provincial archer is summoned by the Emperor to rescue the Moon, which has been taken hostage. A captain falls in love with an obstinate poetess who has renounced romance and vows to stand outside her window wooing her for a hundred days. A poor man brings his aged mother to the top of a mountain to die.

These are just a few of the many stories contained in Ethan Lipton's magical new play 100 Aspects of the Moon, which is being presented by Clubbed Thumb as part of its Summerworks festival. All of the stories are inspired by the work of Yoshitoshi, a Japanese woodblock printmaker who died in 1892. Like the prints themselves (which you can see some examples of here), the vignettes are exotic, colorful, bold, and fragmentary—some are presented in phases while others play themselves out quickly and disappear. All blend, provocatively, modern-day American pop culture references with Japanese mythology and traditions (the play reminded me of the works of Chiori Miyagawa in this regard), so that a defeated Japanese warrior about to commit hara-kiri is attended by a servant who spouts colloquialisms and wears a "Pink Floyd" t-shirt. All mix humor—quirky wit and bald slapstick—with a more contemplative poetic style of writing. The best are stunningly lyrical and moving.

What's the purpose of this excursion into Japanese culture by way of American pop? Lipton and his director, Emma Griffin, never really make the answer clear. I took it to be a sort of zen thing: it just is.

Griffin's staging parallels the script's mix of styles, incorporating some breathtaking Eastern theatrical effects (like a chorus of stagehands holding long-handled baskets from which they delicately sift paper snowflakes to create a snowstorm). Transitions between the scenes usually involve cast-members rearranging the wood blocks that constitute the main "set" for the show (the imaginative, stark design is by Tom Gleeson); this generally seemed to take longer than felt right to me—is there a more elegant way to move the pieces around, I wonder?

Seven actors portray some two dozen roles, offering some grand challenges and opportunities to them. Matthew Maher is splendid as the homely archer, Hou Yi, whose reward for rescuing the Moon turns out to be a gift from the gods. He's also fine as Kamuro, a little boy who has apparently been adopted by a geisha or prostitute following the deaths of his parents. April Matthis is excellent as the prostitute and also as the Old Mother being carried up the mountain by her son, Skinny; and Gibson Frazier excels as Skinny and as Hidetsugu, the defeated warrior who must commit ritual suicide. Kate Hampton is terrific as Hou Yi's grasping wife, Chang E. Rounding out the cast are Tim Kang (whose is equally at home playing a Japanese housewife, the lovelorn captain, and a blind warrior), Chris Wells (best as the housewife's expansive husband), and Joanna P. Adler (who shines as their son, Mitchi). I wondered why Kang's cross-gender casting was included, as it's the only instance in the play.

100 Aspects of the Moon is dazzlingly theatrical and richly entertaining, and that proves to be enough for a highly satisfying evening. It will be interesting to see if the play is developed further beyond this new works festival; I'd certainly want to see where it goes from here.

The HOT! Festival is a celebration of queer culture. Now in its 13th year, this month-long production by Dixon Place provides a venue for a variety of theatre, dance, music, performance art, or as they say; “Homoeroticism for the whole family.” One of this year’s offerings is Susana Cook’s 100 Years of Attitude. It is a parody loosely based on the classic Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel. I have never attempted to read 100 Years of Solitude, but a quick Cliff's Note study (thank God for the Internet) revealed a complex layering of one family’s history, where the men grow up only to stagnate in their memories and their incestuously conceived children are born with the tails of pigs. Cook's chronicle makes a facetious substitution: 'Everybody thought there were no more lesbians in Macondos'. Surprise, there are. And it’s here that Attitude meets Solitude.

Cook’s play touches upon some of Marquez’s themes using the same magic realism and political bite. What I enjoy most about Cook’s parody is her raw, in your face, political rants. How could you have an evening of lesbian theatre without one or two good diatribes? On this score Cook does not let us down.

What the play does wonderfully is take current American politics and good old Yankee brutality and reveal it from the other side, the "people's" side, in third world or other underdeveloped nations. Cook shows that the U.S. loves to condemn others for the very barbarism we ourselves have made into an art form.

The "people" are subject to the whims of the powerful; always abused, neglected, and suffering while subject to brutal law and order. Cook covers it all, from hunger and poverty to the inflicted dogma of religious belief, military retribution, and the stigma of being sexually "different." It is here that she is able to make good use of magic realism and keep us engaged while making great leaps to tell her story.

Cook has assembled an eclectic group of “ass kicking dykes” to carry her tale of woe forward. Many of them are performance artists in their own right; most of them are not actors. I found that to be problematic. The play comes across as under-rehearsed, and the lack of acting skills gets in the way of the comic timing and loses some of the funnier bits. With a few more performances under their belts however, this ensemble will likely tighten things up.

Cook’s writing is simple, poetic, and to the point. Her energy as a performer combined with her dramatic features makes her enjoyable to watch on stage. Standout performances are also given by D’Lo as Aureliano Solo, Simba Yangala as Maria, and Marisa Ragonese as Bridgett. The lighting and settings are simple and effective and the score by Julian Mesri is dark, humorous, and a perfect complement to the text.

I think the play would benefit from someone else taking over the directing responsibilities; still 100 Years of Attitude makes its point with wit, rage and infectious energy.

What makes you happy? This is the simple yet overwhelming question posed by Ted Bettridge when he interviewed his mostly lower and working class East LA neighbors. It is these neighbors and their responses that are the character subjects for his one-person show 14 Faces (7 Faces Remix).

If Bettridge’s goal was to demonstrate his considerable acting skills, 14 Faces is the perfect vehicle. Although scaling down his fourteen-character show to a lean seven, presumably to better accommodate the festival circuit, Bettridge has left himself ample room to display his versatility as a performer. While not attempting to straddle the gender divide, Bettridge shows his range by tackling virtually everything else, credibly taking on characters ranging all over the spectrum in terms of age, ethnicity, physical ability, and sexual orientation.

But, thankfully, 14 Faces is not merely a talent showcase. Bettridge has clearly picked characters to show his range, but he has also hunkered down and concentrated on what his subjects have to say. In portraying a bus boy who thinks marijuana can bring about world peace, Bettridge could easily be mocking or condescending. Likewise, in portraying a man with cerebral palsy recounting the Special Olympics, he could be cheap and exploitive. Instead, he always shows the utmost respect for his subjects, betraying what appears to be a genuine interest and desire to share with the audience what he has learned in the process of building his piece.

The result is an unapologetically personal documentary for the stage. In taking us along on his journey, Bettridge has shorn away any theatrical slickness in favor of a very straightforward approach. Betttridge chats with the audience beforehand, gamely addressing opening night technical glitches without breaking character, and launches the show by stating frankly how this piece came to be and why it is important to him, indicating his own spiritual transformation during a turning point in his life. Bettridge offers up to us the folk wisdom of his subjects in the same simple way they offered it up to him, and what could be monumentally pretentious in more self-serving hands emerges as a very thoughtful and moving piece of theatre. In doing so, Bettridge seems to accomplish his goal. You come away from this piece both considering what makes you happy, as well as whether you should look at and talk to your neighbors differently.

Just in case you're worried, there are no actual blowjobs in this play; there aren't even any actual blowjobs depicted in the seven photographs that fuel all of its action. These photos arrive at the office of Senator Bob X, from an anonymous sender, delivered FedEx. Receptionist Dot peeks into the mystery package and is stunned by what she sees—pictures, evidently, showing people in provocative states of doing something that apparently is naughty, perhaps even forbidden. Administrative Assistant Eileen and Legislative Assistant Bruce take a look next—long, long, long looks—looks that drive them gaga, in fact, with Eileen writhing about at a desk and Bruce more or less orgasmic on the floor, one photo pressed against a private area of his anatomy. Eventually, Senator B himself gets a gander at the offending photos, and is, yes, offended. But unlike his staffers, he's more interested in finding out who has sent these incriminating evidences to him, and why.

This is, in effect, all that happens in 7 Blowjobs. Senator Bob seeks advice from a television evangelist named Reverend Tom, whose reaction is pretty similar to Bruce's but whose broader experience in such matters enables him to provide the senator with some valuable strategic/tactical assistance—namely, to pin this and other conspiracies against decency on "fags." Bob, Jr., who one suspects may indeed be a bona fide member of that last-named group, is also interrogated, but to no avail.

The point of all of this non-sequitur lunacy is obvious: playwright Mac Wellman wrote 7 Blowjobs in 1991 in response to the flap on government funding supposedly obscene art by the likes of Robert Mapplethorpe, and he dedicated it to Senator Jesse Helms. Hypocrisy in government not having gone away in the past decade, the play resonates resoundingly; the spectacle of seeing self-appointed guardians of the moral order salivate and drool over dirty pictures feels great and registers as hilarious, scoring points off its lascivious targets all the while.

The play's brilliance is mostly attributable to Wellman's astonishing language, which simply soars with glee as it dances around actually naming whatever it is that might be depicted in those seven pictures. Wellman delights in imprecision here: Reverend Tom declares them "photos of unnatural acts, capable of rendering a full-grown man happy," and that's really as much as we actually know about their content: how much apt commentary on the current state of morality and censorship in America is packed into that?

Subjective Theatre Company's production is zany, anarchic fun, which is, I think, precisely right for this play. It takes place in a stylized office (kudos to set designer Nicole Frankel for transforming the tiny Manhattan Theatre Source space so effectively), where a Big Brother-ish voice on the loudspeaker reminds the characters in the play and the audience watching them that they're all here together, looking at each other. There's also a "media packet" provided in lieu of a program, which adds more formalized interactivity to the proceedings, the loudspeaker voice directing us to turn to page X at predetermined intervals.

Director Steven Gillenwater wisely eschews subtlety in his staging, which is knockabout and broad throughout. The actors play similarly big, with Darius Stone the standout as an explosively hilarious Senator Bob, outfitted in a Groucho moustache and bounding about with a self-interested bluster somewhere between Archie Bunker and the Cowardly Lion. Robert Saietta has a blast doing Reverend Tom, especially when a makeshift "sermon" against the evil blowjob photos takes him to (literally) orgasmic heights. Alaina Noel, as Dot the Receptionist, who is apparently the sanest person in the office (faint praise, that) really warms into her role; Megan Kilian as Eileen and Andy Waldschmidt as Bruce perform with gusto but perhaps too little restraint. Zack Griffiths does fine in the play's smallest role of Bob, Jr.

One possible misstep that Gillenwater takes is in letting the audience see the photos too clearly. The MTS space is very intimate, so it's hard to hide things from spectators, and there's a very funny moment when Senator Bob actually shows some of the pictures to audience members. But I think on balance the photos ought to be smaller and less visible to us, which would let our imaginations go wherever they will—hopefully not the same dire places that Senator Bob and Company seem to be headed; but you never know.

Billy Crystal has lots of devoted fans, I guess; the rapid multi-million dollar advance sale for his solo Broadway show 700 Sundays attests to that. And I feel pretty certain that they are going to have a good time at this comfortably low-key evening of jokes and reminiscences, mostly about his jazz-loving father (who died when Billy was 15), his heroic mother (his word), who died just three years ago, and his childhood in Long Beach, Long Island, where he played basketball, thought a lot about girls, and dreamed (briefly) of being a Yankee.

For the rest of us—for me, anyway—700 Sundays is something of a chore to sit through. It's long: 2-1/2 hours, with several laugh-free stretches, especially in the second act, that tax our patience with the star's relaxed/rambling story-telling. It's sophomorically coarse: there are routines about his penis, his grandfather's propensity for farting, and his uncle mouthing "fuck you" repeatedly on a vintage family home movie. And, though Crystal shares (for example) his grief and anger at his father's untimely death, the level of discourse here is entirely superficial: there's no incisive self-revelation of the kind fellow Saturday Night Live alumnus Julia Sweeney gave us in God Said, "Ha!"; no in-depth exploration of a chosen career that's also a life's passion such as Crystal's Soap co-star Jay Johnson offered in The Two and Only.

Indeed, the main thing I got out of 700 Sundays was how self-indulgent this fellow seems to be. He proclaims, with would-be disingenuousness, that at 53, when his mother died, he became an orphan; the story preceding that announcement, all about how he had to do a show in Seattle rather than stay by his dying mother's bedside, did not predispose me to feel sympathetic. And the gnawing recollection that Crystal is charging his audience a hundred bucks for the best seats to hear him kvell and kvetch didn't help matters any.

In fact, most of the time during 700 Sundays I felt too keenly aware of a star walking through his own showcase. There are a few inspired moments that feel authentic, like his first act closer, lip-synching joyously and wittily to an old Spike Jones record, but they're few and far between. Set pieces such as a very lengthy sketch in which he plays his Aunt Sheila, telling a girlfriend about her lesbian daughter's recent commitment ceremony, are not only not that funny but unnecessarily cruel: presumably this woman is still alive; does she need to be made such a figure of fun by her wealthy and successful nephew? Plus there's a look-at-how-compassionate-I-am quality to this and other pieces, perhaps an attempt to neutralize the Jackie Mason-style Jewish in-jokes that otherwise pervade Crystal's monologues.

Anecdotes that should feel emotional fall flat, meanwhile; Crystal tells us how much he loves jazz, how much he loved his Dad, how much he thought his Mom was a hero. But he never shows us how he feels—a failure, perhaps, of Crystal the actor.

In the end, my reaction to 700 Sundays was principally boredom, compounded by at least a bit of consumer-advocate outrage that Crystal is charging his fans so much money to see him, not at his best, but at his mediocre middling. (Contrast with Comic Relief colleague Whoopi Goldberg, who is delivering a great deal of her signature stuff in her current Broadway stand; Crystal gives us ten seconds of Sammy Davis, Jr. singing "Hey, There" and that's about it.)

Now, none of this should matter to people who feel affection and/or kinship to this very popular comedian; I know what it means to be a fan, and criticism from the uninitiated always feels beside the point. But to those who aren't diehard members of the Crystal camp, a word to the wise: there may be many more entertaining ways to spend a night out on Broadway than to sit through 700 Sundays.

A Beginner's Guide to Deicide, the new show from the folks at Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company, is a kind of  experiment in studied irreverence. The first half is hilarious. Even before the show starts, writer/directors Qui Nguyen and Robert Ross Parker are exploding assumptions with parodic glee: there's a screen (made out of what look to be white bedsheets) on which are projected slides just like the ones you see at the cineplex these days—ads for soda interspersed among annoying trivia questions and cutesy fun facts. Only these are ever so slightly different, ranging from tidbits about Nietzsche and vampires to a sly anti-credit for Actors Equity.

The lights come down, and a guy named Bob Moran, whose exact function or reason for being here is never remotely explained, narrates some pre-show "warnings." Shortly after this, the play proper begins, in the midst (so it appears) of a scene between a teenage parochial school student named Lucy and a Pope. The title and the advertising blurbs have already clued us in on Lucy's objective—she's decided to kill God, for no clearer reason (at the moment) than that she's dissatisfied with how He's done His job. The Pope, naturally, is opposed. It's not long before they've launched into one of Vampire Cowboys' signature fight sequences, with the girl wielding a sword and the Pope wielding an official-looking staff.

So much for taboos, thought I, especially in light of the very recent passing of Pope John Paul II. Nguyen and Parker at their best have the fearless, take-no-prisoners bravura of early Monty Python; the fundamental ridiculousness of what's going on in a scene like this mitigates anxieties about offensiveness.

And so Deicide continues merrily on. Lucy, abetted by her friend (sister?) Mary (aka Skeeter), time travels to the study of Charles Darwin for a consultation; he advises her (whilst tied to a chair; she's a tad bit aggressive) to travel all the way to the beginning of time, reasoning that as God is the creation of Man, it's necessary to prefigure Man in order to destroy God. A montage of Lucy's backward journey follows, featuring quick over-the-top and off-the-wall bits with the likes of Nietzsche, Dante, Joan of Arc, and many others. Eventually she arrives in Galilee where she meets Jesus (who is played by a puppet; see accompanying photo). And the play—unexpectedly and, for me, unaccountably—starts to turn serious.

After about an hour of twitting, well, everything, our playwrights decide to take their subject at face value. Gone are the broad jokes, intellectual puns, and silly gags; as Lucy confronts first Jesus and then God Himself—and is revealed to be Lucifer—the play's essential nature turns metaphysical and then spiritual. Nguyen and Parker don't have time, in the final twenty minutes of this show, to mount anything other than the most peremptory investigation into God's existence and why/how people believe in it. So the piece ends unsatisfactorily: the denouement is fuzzy and unilluminating, and—after all the silliness that's come before—we're not at all prepared for it.

But apart from the truly strange twist at the end, the journey here is mostly great fun. The inventiveness and wit of its creators are nicely showcased in each of Lucy's bizarre adventures, in the surprise intermission film, and in the many segments involving the pair of masked "vampire cowboys" who figure in most of the transitions between scenes. Nguyen's fight choreography is as exciting and unusual as ever, and performed impressively by Christian T. Chan and Tom Myers (the "vampire cowboys") and Andrea Marie Smith, the athletic actress who plays Lucy. Caitlyn Darr plays the slightly nerdy Mary/Skeeter. Dan Deming, in a variety of silly costumes designed by Jessica Wegener, steals just about every scene he's in as all of Lucy's nemeses, from Darwin to Dante to Joan of Arc to God Himself.

The impulses behind A Beginners Guide to Deicide—which I judge to be equal parts bad boy clowning, nervy curiosity,  and just plain nerve—are all to be commended; few playwrights could dream up a heretical, post-modern stew of a show like this one. I wish the payoff here were more satisfying. I'm nevertheless eager to partake of whatever crazy concoction the Vampire Cowboys offer us next time around.

Every once in a while, someone comes up with a idea that is zany enough that I feel, upon hearing about it, compelled out of curiosity to see it. A musical version of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment? Good example of what I’m talking about.

A Case of Murder, written and composed by Robert Montgomery, is indeed a modernized, musical version of the famous Russian novel about a man who commits two atrocious murders, one planned and one spontaneous, and the detective who suspects but can’t quite prove his guilt. Montgomery’s play is set in New York City in modern times, and the murders take place on Avenue D on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Porfiry (Brian McCormick) is a homicide detective straight out of NYPD Blue, and he has a hard-nosed female partner, Cutter (Rachel Valdati), with whom he frequently disagrees.

Because Montgomery’s modernization allows him to change the story a little, he plausibly sets up two murder suspects: a Russian painter who was in the apartment building when the murders took place, and a down-and-out, highly-intelligent ex-student. Even though I knew from the book who probably committed the murders, I enjoyed a sense of suspense at intermission and even overheard one theatre-goer remark, “I have to stay —to find out who did it.”

The music, played live by accompanist Jeremy Fenn-Smith, seems to draw from a Rent aesthetic with its rock & roll style and gospel-influenced vocals, though it is not of that caliber by any means. I enjoyed the split-scenes, when characters with related story lines sing musically-related parts of a song, simultaneously or over-lapping. I also enjoyed the sometimes campy “dialogue put to music,” when, for instance, Porfiry interviews the character Koch, one of the first witnesses/suspects. All of the singers are strong, but Valdati and McCormick stand out—especially Valdati.

Where the book’s central theme is the killer’s frustration and guilt, to the point that he has to turn himself in due to the pressure of his own psyche, the play—which centers on the detective Porfiry more than on the suspects—explores a variety of subjects in addition to the detectives’ hunt for the killer. Porfiry unexpectedly finds love early in the play, while the killer’s love is what in the end redeems him and forces him to confess. There is also a religious theme: the Russian painter Nicolai  is a member of “Fools for Christ,” a religious sect; Catherine, a nun, questions her vow of chastity but not of charity; and Angelina, a prostitute and drug user, is redeemed unexpectedly (think Mary Magdelene) by Lucas, the student, who is the other murder suspect.

All of the actors do a fine job with their parts, with Valdati and McCormick leading the pack. McCormick’s Porfiry is right on the mark, mixing NYPD toughness with the tenderness that comes with finding love. Valdati’s Cutter is tough, tired, and straightforward, and Valdati demonstrates comedic timing and honesty as an actor. Maggie Low, as Catherine, is compassionate and gentle as well as wise towards the hardened characters in the plays world. Rich Hollman’s Nickolai is charming, with a nice voice and good dance moves. Judy Jerome, as Angelina, has a nice soprano voice and acts properly downtrodden and loving. Brian Seibert, as Zack, who puts the detectives on the track of his friend Lucas, appropriately fits the part. Dean Goldman, as Koch, successfully develops his secondary story line. Nic Tyler is perfectly believable as Lucas.

Though the play is imperfect—sometimes the music is strange and sometimes the singing is campy—it is enjoyable and interesting overall for its suspense, execution, and exploration of the redemption of love, religion, and other themes that appear in Dostoevsky’s novel.

This is the third time Joe Tantalo and his excellent company, Godlight Theatre, have mounted Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange. The first time I saw it, I was struck most by the piece's stirring indictment of violence in our culture. But this time around, though that message still rings out loud and clear, I was even more aware of the play's warnings against passive-aggressive bureaucracy—of a government willing to institutionalize something bad for the sake of a stated public good, and eager to pacify its citizens at whatever cost to their individual freedom in order to maintain control over them.

Interesting how times have changed in just a few years; and evidence of the strength of this material, which continues to challenge Tantalo and his collaborators in exciting ways as they re-examine and re-interpret this work in yet another taut, thrilling production.

Set in an unnamed future time and place (how far distant, one wonders?), A Clockwork Orange is about a boy named Alex who is into two things—violence and Beethoven. The soaring music of the latter is his religion, more or less; the former is his only vocation (he's just 14 when the story begins), and he and his mates Dim, Georgie, and Pete spend their evenings carousing at milk bars (where the cow juice is laced with evil-sounding drugs) and wandering the urban landscape intimidating people and beating them up. The stakes go up, as they will: soon after we meet Alex and his "Droogs" (as he calls them), they've graduated to rape and, eventually, murder. For this last crime, Alex is tagged as sole perpetrator whilst his cowardly gang abandons him. He is arrested, tried, and jailed.

Two years later, the now 16-year-old Alex learns of an experimental new treatment that may enable him to win release from prison. It's a brainwashing technique, developed by a sinister and very single-minded scientist called Brodsky, whereby impulses to do violence are counteracted, a la Pavlov's dogs, by severe feelings of nausea, thus rendering the subject impotent (and physically ill) against his rage. The treatment consists of a serum plus overexposure to extremely violent images (films of torture, scenes from Nazi concentration camps, etc.). Brodsky uses Beethoven on the soundtrack of these movies, and so a sad and unintended side effect of Alex's "rehabilitation" is his loss of the one beautiful thing that might have saved him—i.e., the music of his idol, "Ludwig Von."

The prison chaplain, in a moment that now feels enormously central to the play, protests that while Brodsky's brainwashing will bring Alex freedom from incarceration, it will steal his free will. A scary Minister of the Interior counters that the prisons are overcrowded and violence needs to be stifled. The parallels between Burgess and some of the events of 2005 are not perfect, but Tantalo makes sure that we notice them anyway—both the dangers of a society willing to let itself lose cherished freedoms for the "common good" and the surreal, docile acceptance of violence and torture as givens in our (post-Abu Ghraib) world.

He also gives us a heck of a good show—an intense, chilling 75 minutes of claustrophobic drama. The play is staged in the round in a small, boxy theatre, and the intimacy is integral to the experience: our discomfort and, yes, concern for our safety as fight scenes come within inches of our seats is absolutely intentional. Godlight's Clockwork Orange is not interactive, it's active—we are not just observers, we're participants as the government officials and Alex and others deliberately address us at key moments in the play; and therefore a little bit culpable.

Maruti Evans's lighting design is spectacular, defining the stark, empty space as a variety of abstract but recognizable locales. Christian Couture's costumes are simple variants on an all-black color scheme with one authentically shocking exception. The music and sound, by Beethoven and Andrew Recinos, is stirring and visceral throughout. David Lefkowich's fight choreography meshes beautifully with Tantalo's tight direction, keeping us riveted as the tale unfolds. Randy Falcon gives an extraordinary performance as Alex, full of vigor and physicality and entirely suggestive of the tragic waste of a human life that Alex's story portends. Eleven hard-working actors portray the other characters in the tale with energy and commitment.

When I left the theatre my first impression was that the story didn't wear as well as I thought it would—a second viewing in three years seemed a little bit redundant. I don't think that anymore: A Clockwork Orange is a play worth coming back to, because it's loaded with stuff that, though hard to take, is absolutely necessary for us to see and hear. If you saw one of Godlight's earlier mountings, don't let that keep you from checking this new one out—you will likely be surprised, as I was, at the new meanings and ideas that Tantalo and his collaborators have found in this piece. And if you're new to this company or this play, well, you've got a terrific, involving theatre experience to look forward to.

Energy and pace are maintained for the full 50 minutes of A Day in the Life of Ordinary People, Josh Walden’s first musical for which he wrote the book, lyrics, and music and for which he also choreographed and directed. Walden’s undertaking is admirable, particularly because each of the twelve talented cast members has at least one solo. But for all its merits, and there are many, this production suffers from too much parody.

In A Day in the Life, all the residents of a small town in New Hampshire harbor secrets, but they maintain a rosy, public demeanor until one way or another the secrets slip out. A pall takes over the town and reaches its depth when one of the children dies. At the funeral, the child returns as a ghost to plead with his mother to tell the truth to the townspeople, leaving the audience with a moral: an accepting/supportive/broadminded parent/friend/companion makes life a lot easier.

The story is a springboard for the actors to showcase their musical talent. And, this is considerable. Their voices are good, and Walden inserts considerable humor in his lyrics and variety in his compositions. The characters, though mainly caricatures, are memorable. Credit much of this to Rob Bevenger’s splendid 1950s costumes and Steven Kirkham’s adventurous wigs.

Of course, these ordinary people and their nasty little secrets are delivered as a spoof. I love spoof, particularly when it is mixed with a dollop of realism and the humor catches me unaware. Javier Muñoz does this as Son 3, the popular high school football stud who loves nothing more than to dress as a woman—behind closed doors. The delivery is terrific. But in other cases, the exaggeration becomes tiresome and prevents the audience from connecting to the characters and the characters from connecting to one another.

Fortunately, the brisk pace and cast energy compensate nicely. Musically, the cast demonstrates individuality and accomplishment, but only one manages to wring any emotional depth from her part, and that is Jené Hernandez, who as Mother 1 loses her son to cancer. The script gives her a semblance of a connection to her son and when she mourns, the audience feels it.

Walden makes an unfortunate choice when he numbers his characters rather than naming them. Granted, they are supposed to be templates for a larger universe. But, even Our Town has its Emily, making it no less universal and far more personal. Initially, the twelve cast members introduce themselves in quick roll call. Visually, it is clear who they are, but as an audience member, I file all the information given me in case I need it later. I found it difficult to keep track of who was Daughter 1 or 2, Son 1, 2 or 3,  or Mother 1, or 2. The numbers distracted from the more relevant parts of the production.

I missed one other thing: a list of the musical numbers in the program. It is clear Walden put a lot of effort into A Day in the Life of Ordinary People, and much of it paid off. While I didn’t walk out humming the tunes, I did refer to my program for reminders of the numbers I had seen and heard. They weren’t listed. My loss. But, overall, Walden did a nice job and I look forward to seeing what he does next.

Last night I saw my first show at the Flea Theater. A Heartbeat to Baghdad has to be the most compelling depiction of life during war I’ve seen yet.

Claire, a social worker, has come to an army base to work with support groups and individuals to find the best healing process for some soldiers who have returned from war and some families who continue to wait. Through the retelling of nine diverse stories, five soldiers and four family members give us a great sense of how much they sacrifice and suffer, directly and indirectly, at home and abroad, to uphold their sworn duty.

This play doesn’t discriminate between those who know about war first hand and those who don’t. It just tells their stories the way they happened, without trying to sell an opinion or convince the audience to riot against the government. In fact, politics is only mentioned twice in the play—and factually at that. Each soldier sees Iraq as a different place. One solider can’t stand being there because of the constant stupidity he encounters with each new face. Another soldier falls in love with the "Eden" he helps to create. And yet another is torn paternally, emotionally, and morally between his job and his survival. Here at home, their families expose their constant frustration, worry, and helplessness as they blindly wait for their loved ones to return.

Glyn O’Malley has written a stunning two-hour collage of stories describing life during Operation Iraqi Freedom that go straight to the heart. The play was inspired by first-hand accounts of soldiers he interviewed as they reflected upon their return. And that is precisely how the play is presented. Jim Simpson’s direction is seamless. He uses all the human senses to bring each story alive in the audience's imagination. The experience is enhanced by background music from a single drummer, Tim Hoey—a device that helps to emphasize the militant world in which the characters live, their emotional conflicts, and the volatile environment around them.

Kyle Chepulis’s set and lighting design are exceptional, helping us focus on what is being said instead of where it is happening. Jeremy Wilson’s sound design works seamlessly and surrounds the audience. The impact from the explosions adds to the volatile qualities of war and made me even more sympathetic to the soldiers that were actually living the horror. They put the audience right in the thick of war, instead of the voyeuristic sense of the fourth wall. Melissa Schlachtmeyer designed the costumes. And it was all stage managed by Yvonne Perez.

The acting is superb. Even though Gloria Reuben, who plays Claire, stands out because of her past exposure on ER, she blends in with the cast seamlessly. It is apparent that everyone is working together, instead of trying to shine. Steven Rishard is very believable as Dan, a soldier trying to conquer his guilt about being sent home before his younger colleagues. Christian Baskous and Kristin Stewart Chase simply and tenderly portray a married couple through letters, longing to return to each other's arms. Phyllis Somerville plays JD, an older woman who has lived with war her whole married life and now considers it her duty to be the mother to soldiers as they are being shipped out. Gordon Holmes is quite intimidating as Shane, a soldier surviving mental anguish with the help of alcohol. Joe Holt, David Marcus, Jace McLean, Alfredo Narciso, Joanie Ellen, and Irene Walsh round out this ensemble cast. All the actors in the show are marvelous story tellers, and work well together to effortlessly move me.

Even though I’ve met people that agree with me, and some that disagree—I can’t stop talking about this show. It is one NOT to be missed during its limited engagement at the Flea. With all the political upheaval that is happening overseas right now, the topic of this show seems to ring true more so than at any other moment. It’s like renewing your opinion of the war without any other source corrupting it with its own opinions. Everyone has their own story and everyone has their own experience while they're at war. And this show gives each of these people a voice.

A Hundred Years Into the Heart  is based on true events from the life of writer Richard Vetere (music and lyrics are by Jeffrey Lodin and William Squier, respectively). The authors weave together several different love stories representing many types of love. Is one type of love greater than another or are they simply different? Is one’s destiny set or is it possible to tempt fate and perhaps even change the course of events by doing so? These underlying questions are fascinating, but unfortunately, the musical falls flat.

Jonathan Todd Ross plays Sal, who at six months fell from a window and was caught by Vincent (David Bonnano). Stephanie Battista, played by Charma Bonanno, cannot avoid the romantic history that is destined to befall her. Despite her engagement to Vincent, she falls for Sal who impregnates her. It is not long before Stephanie leaves Sal because of his wayward behavior. Shortly thereafter he is killed, and Vincent heroically decides that he will still marry he—again he will “catch” Sal. The story of this love triangle is potentially powerful. The love Vincent has for Stephanie must be immensely great or he would never agree to marry her after her unfaithfulness. But the lack of stage chemistry between David and Charma Bonanno weakens its power.

Mark Lotito and Barbara Marineau play another pair of lovers, Carmine and Regina, Stephanie’s parents. Their story is much the same as their daughter’s. As teenagers they fall in love and before they know it Regina is pregnant. Aware that Carmine is not the reliable father she wants for her daughter, Regina marries Philip, leading Stephanie to believe that he is her father. As her destiny is set, Regina’s husband dies and she is left with no husband and no father for her daughter. Unlike her daughter, Regina does end up with the love of her life, as Carmine returns after Philip dies. Lotito and Marineau are most certainly the bright spot of the night—their chemistry is spot-on and both have beautiful voices with which they captivate the audience, despite some lackluster songs.

The intertwining of the various love affairs and types of love as well as the question of fate and destiny make for a seemingly great story. Perhaps with some development, the piece could become something. As is, A Hundred Years Into the Heart didn’t take me into its heart. Perhaps the story would have been more compelling if I believed the love affair between Sal and Stephanie. Or perhaps the message of the musical would be more powerful if the songs stayed with me. Unfortunately, the songs didn’t stick, and the story didn’t rise to its potential.

The subtitle of Melanie Rey’s musical, A Life…A Broad, “mi vida en jira,” translates to “My Life on Tour.” This subtitle is significant in several ways: Rey’s adopted father takes her family on tour as he competes in golf tournaments; Rey tours Europe in college, where she hilariously meets a man from each of several countries and asks herself an important question about each; and Rey’s show provides a tour through her life so far, from her early childhood in Texas with her grandparents and her mother to her college days, her search for love, and beyond all that to the present moment in the finale, where she sings to the audience, “vive el momento (live the moment)."

Like so many autobiographical shows, Rey’s play begins with her early childhood. She plays several characters and sings twelve original songs for which she wrote the lyrics and Rob Arthur wrote the music. A five-piece band accompanies Rey onstage: Rich Mercurio (drums and musical director), Tom Murray (sax), Marcus Wolf (lead guitar and some vocals), Denise Puricelli (keyboards), and Chris Smylie (bass). In addition to the music, the musicians provide sound effects and have a few lines, but this is essentially a one-woman show.

Rey sings low, jazzy songs, higher, soprano notes, and a few rock songs. Her voice is playful, expressive, and beautiful, and her strongest moments came from her singing. As an actress and performer, Rey is charming and funny, often flirtatious and playful. She also has a lot of sincerity and heart.

During the course of the show, her energy builds and her story becomes more engaging. I estimate that about 20% of the script is Spanish. One of my favorite moments is when she tells the story of why her grandmother has to move all the time. Rey uses large gestures and repetition and explains in Spanish that another woman was in love with her grandfather and put a curse on her grandmother. I was able to understand the story and enjoyed its significance as one of those family stories that are passed on to children, told repeatedly, and which build a sense of belonging in a family. Other stories, such as how her father didn’t want to stop on the road when they were traveling, seemed to have less significance. Though the story is humorous and does illustrate her parents’ relationship, it probably could have been left out.

Because A Life…A Broad spans so many years and points in Rey's development, it lacks some focus. She jumps around from place to place, telling and singing of incidents that were important to her but not necessarily exploring her life with any real depth. Still, she is a talented performer, and her likeability and talent work towards tying the play together.

What I know about British Music Hall comes from Rupert Holmes's The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which takes place in one, plus snippets of Monty Python, Benny Hill, The Two Ronnies, and Des O'Connor on the Kraft Music Hall, all of whom are among its varied and various descendants.

Which is to say, I know very little indeed; so Theater Ten Ten's "authentic British Music Hall" A Little of What You Fancy... proves to be as educational as it is entertaining. Either motivation provides sufficient rewards to justify spending an evening at this light-hearted gambol backward in time.

The thing I found out that surprised me the most is that Music Hall resembles American vaudeville less than it does the old-fashioned topical revue (which morphed into the old-fashioned variety show when TV took over). A company of players appear in a series of sketches and musical numbers and lead the audience in a few sing-alongs (lyric sheets are provided). The emphasis is on the comfortable and familiar, and having an easy, good time on both sides of the footlights.

The "Chairman" (whom we might call the "master of ceremonies") rules the roost, introducing the acts and offering wry commentary in between (and even taking the stage himself occasionally, most memorably singing and dancing to the old chestnut "The Man Who Broke the Bank in Monte Carlo"). His name is Bennett Pologe, and he's a lanky, genial fellow with a pleasant voice, expert comic timing, and an elaborate handlebar moustache. Rivaling him in importance to the smooth progress of the evening is musical director Jason Wynn, stage right at the keyboards, who utters not a single word but manages to get in a fair number of eloquent observations of his own with a turned-up eyebrow, a withheld or prolonged note, or a well-timed (synthesized) drum roll. (Wynn is an excellent accompanist, especially when he gets to cut loose with some American ragtime; he's also responsible for the fine arrangements heard throughout the evening.)

The players number eight, and are a talented, versatile group; each gets at least one moment to shine. Christina Hallop and Kristopher Monroe are the ingénue and juvenile, and they show off their sweet voices in the songs "Silver Star of Love" (her) and "If You Were the Only Girl in the World" (him). Jean McCormick, an engaging singer and comedienne, does a "trouser" number as a randy soldier, "Jolly Good Luck to the Girl That Loves a Soldier"—it's a lot of fun. Greg Horton, more or less her male counterpart, wraps his tongue around the twisty rhymes of "Which Switch Is the Switch, Miss?" which is about a dissatisfied customer of the phone company whose call was put through to Norwich instead of Ipswich.

Laurrinda Robinson is the silver-throated soubrette of the evening, teaming deliciously with Hallop in the frisky "Every Little Movement" and going solo as a spoiled little girl in "Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow-Wow." David Tillistrand does a bit of eccentric singing and dancing, and really shines in the witty number "The Employment Agency" (teamed with Horton and Monroe), in which he plays a fellow doing his darnedest to get a job but thwarted at every turn. (Tillistrand is also very funny delivering a running gag, which has him—having apparently drawn the short straw backstage—serving as the evening's substitute stage hand.)

Anthony Morelli, billed as a visiting American and therefore performing without the British accent affected by the rest of the company, sings a song from his native land, "Dapper Dan from Dear Old Dixieland"—he's great, and the song, which I've heard of but never actually heard before, is a fun and fascinating find. The energetic Morelli also does a novelty number called "I Do Love to be Beside the Seaside," which is the first sing-along of the evening, and partners Cristiane Young in another crowd-pleaser, "Daisy, Daisy" (which you may know as "A Bicycle Built for Two"); he also plays the ukulele at one point.

Young, who will be familiar to Theater Ten Ten regulars from such shows as Iolanthe and The Pirates of Penzance, is at her regal best here, showing off her range by singing the naughty lament of an artist's wife "It's All Right in the Summertime" and turning up later in a Bea Lillie wordplay skit about a dozen double damask dinner napkins. Young is grand—she's got the bearing and ruffled dignity of Margaret Dumont, but she's also a got a sense of humor and she can sing.

Director David Seatter, who co-created and -conceived the show with Wynn and Ten Ten producing artistic director Judith Jarosz, does a splendid job throughout. Appropriate, pretty costumes by Viviane Galloway; a modest set by Lucie Chin, and effective lighting by Jay Scott complete the picture.

A Little of What You Fancy... is a charmer, from beginning to end. By the finale—a salute to food and drink—everybody in the audience was lustily joining in on the choruses and beaming from ear to ear. British Music Hall can be, we now know, authentically fun. Don't be bashful: partake.

At its core, Jeffrey M. Jones's A Man’s Best Friend is a circus of human failings. Jones’s characters flaunt their flaws under this big top without ever realizing their existence. The main character is a "bad clown" named Sluggo who does nasty things all the time. Sluggo’s wife, Jane, has dated Sluggos in various forms since high school and she can’t seem to stop no matter how badly things turn out. His adopted brother Steve is a pathetic 30-something who just wants to have sex with young, hot chicks. Steve goes to a swami who tells him he has a "squid tumor" but then admits that he’s “a lying sack of shit”; still Steve allows the swami to operate on him. Sluggo’s guardian angel is too weak to resist his cruelty and eventually turns toward the dark side. His mom is jealous of other women getting too close to her boys. And there is a vicious, nightstick happy cop who keeps showing up in the bedroom.

A Man’s Best Friend is a bizarrely funny play, though at times I found it hard to follow. There is obvious intelligence at work here. Jones creates a world where cruelty is the currency of all human interactions. However, because of the surreal nature of the Jones’ format, it is difficult to clearly understand all the playwright’s intentions. But I’ll take a stab.

I say that Sluggo is a metaphor for man’s inhumanity to man. He is compelled to do bad things and to feebly smear on clown white makeup by a force within himself. That force is Sluggo’s Id, the mechanism that Freud claims we are all born with that allows us to get our basic needs met, but the Id in adulthood translates as getting whatever feels good at the time, with no consideration for the reality of the situation. Jones anthropomorphizes the Id as squid—making it so that everything Sluggo touches literally turns to squid, as if his selfishness has the ability to transform those around him. His brother Steve develops a squid-headed tumor where Sluggo stabs him, and his wife Jane gives birth to a squid (a la stork delivery by a dead Andy Warhol.) Eventually, Sluggo’s squid (Id) catches up with him in the form of a Giant Land Squid that wants to consume him. His loyal and oft-kicked dog, Woof, is forced to save him. Woof sees through Sluggo’s cruelty to the good that’s hidden in him and in turn causes an ever so slight transformation in Sluggo’s character.

But that's just my opinion, following a fair amount of reflection. It's as subjective as what makes a person laugh. And I definitely laughed.

The cast does an excellent job with this 80-minute roller coaster ride of shifting motivations. Tom Lenaghen grew on me as Sluggo, but there is an element of naturalness missing from his voice and some of his movements. Mary Shultz is hilarious and dynamic as the wife with no self esteem. Arthur Aulisi nails the pathetic brother Steve. Amazingly, he manages to squeeze some sympathy from his absurd situation (and a lot of laughs). Kate Benson explodes all over the stage as Officer Betty. She is a breath of fresh energy every time she enters. I found it hard to take my eyes off of Heidi Schreck as the guardian angel. She has a stage presence that is brighter than her pink wig. But it is Bruce DuBose who steals the show, playing Warhol, Mom, and the Great Swami. DuBose is funny, versatile, and altogether a natural comic star with perfect timing and knock ‘em dead delivery.

Director Katherine Owens does a good job drawing a consistent style from her actors. However there are a few stylistic choices that I question—could the movement be more interesting, and could finer points be placed on the playwright’s intentions? There are a few moments when the directing style doesn’t seem to match the writing style.

Aaron Mooney’s light design is sharp and Happy Yancey’s costumes are fitting. (Except, where are Sluggo’s big floppy shoes that he tells us he couldn’t rent a mid-size car with?) Robert Winn completes the look of the production with a set that is a perfectly bare stage with only a squeaky red curtain and a few circus backdrops.

The cruelty in A Man’s Best Friend is repulsive at times but it’s always funny or oddly entertaining in some way. For me that’s what it really comes down to: I enjoyed the show because it made me laugh at things that I never thought I would. Ultimately, I think A Man’s Best Friend is worth a look because Jones’s shameless sense of humor and peculiar world view will give you a refreshing jolt out of your seat.  There's authentic originality packed behind every kick of the dog. 

It's not Tony and Tina's wedding, it's Sam and Leah's: interactive nuptial comedy goes Modern Orthodox Jewish in A Match Made in Manhattan, a thoroughly charming and entertaining theatre experience, playing Monday nights at the Upper West Side contemporary kosher restaurant Levana. Sam is shy on the surface with the soul of a rock musician underneath (he plays with the local band Flesh); he's the only child of the very secular Jew Morton Levine and his estranged wife, well-known radio advice personality Dr. Roz. Leah is the lovely, sweet, and determined eldest daughter of Abe and Rivky Lowenstein, observant Orthodox—he's in the fish business, while she's very visibly expecting their thirteenth child.

That's all you need to know: mingle with the wedding party and their guests and you'll learn all about everybody's business before the evening is out. You'll meet the Gitti Schwartzes, one of whom is Leah's maid of honor (desperately in search of a suitable husband) and the other of whom is a longtime family friend (in search, the one time I talked with her, of her puppy dog). You'll also spend some time with Gus Peterson, the groom's Gentile bandmate and best man, as well as Yankl Spiegleman, Sam's awkward and nerdy chavrusa (Torah study partner). There's a Rabbi, a ubiquitous wedding planner named Ronnie (who snaps impromptu photos throughout the evening), a master of ceremonies in a jester outfit, an engaging keyboardist named Mitch Kahn and a terrific singer/bandleader named Avi Kunstler.

Cousin Susan (on Sam's side) makes a couple of unexpected, very public appearances as well; and then there's the heavily accented Alex, whom nobody seems to know very much about.

As I said, relax and enjoy: all of the foregoing will schmooze with you throughout the evening, treating you like a long-lost distant relative or sometime friend. Indeed, the experience of A Match Made in Manhattan is almost exactly like attending the wedding of a couple you barely know: people make an effort to make you feel you comfortable and welcome, as you slowly glean—from random chitchat and overheard conversations—some of the dramas facing Sam, Leah, and their families and friends. The main storyline here is that the Levines and Lowensteins seem to detest each other; watching them rail at one another—mostly because of their very different approaches to their common religion—is both funny and instructive. When an inevitable detente is achieved by evening's end, it almost feels cathartic.

Plus it's a Jewish wedding, so there's lots of food. Guests are treated to hors d'oeuvres before the service and a three-course meal afterward, with complimentary champagne. (Other beverages are available at the cash bar.)

And if you've never been to an Orthodox Jewish wedding—I hadn't—there's plenty to soak up and learn here, all helpfully explained by the participants as you go along. The ceremonies begin with the tish, where Sam signs the ketubah (marriage contract), and then the badeken, where Sam greets his bride and lowers the veil over her face. The wedding itself follows, under the traditional chuppah, of course, and ending with the groom breaking the glass under his right foot.

Things don't proceed smoothly, exactly: it wouldn't be interactive comedy if they did. But most of what happens is plausible and all of it is finally in the spirit of inclusion, tolerance, and joy. Perhaps best of all is the abundant music, courtesy of Kunstler and Kahn and, on the night I attended, the splendid Jewish blues musician Ruby Harris on the fiddle.

A Match Made in Manhattan is low-impact interactive theatre: no one is made to do anything they don't want to do, but neither is anyone left out. It's a fine example of this unique brand of story-telling: each audience member experiences only part of the whole story, depending on where he or she is at each moment in the evening. In feeling so much like the real thing, it reminds us how fleeting life really is—and how valuable.

Kudos to writer Michael Gurin, director Matt Okin, and creative consultant Spencer Chandler, who have put the evening together with real assurance and craft. The actors are excellent, often blending in so skillfully that we're not always sure who's one of them and who's one of us; they sustain their characters and improvise conversations with perfect strangers with astonishing ease. The ones who impressed me the most—and remember, this is based in part on whom I chanced to spend the most time with—are Deana Barone and Vincent Piazza as Leah and Sam, Caroline Langford as the eccentrically extroverted Dr. Roz and Jeff Farber as the chronically aggravated Morton Levine, Reuven Russell as the exuberant Abe Lowenstein, Christopher Lueck as the effete Ronnie, Matthew Hobby as Gus, and Ellie Dvorkin as Gitti Rochel Schwartz.

The Boomerang Theatre Company serves up a delightful morsel of free outdoor Shakespeare with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As always, the summertime favorite tells the story of four hapless Athenian youths who, with no help from fairy magic, completely fail to organize themselves into two coherent couples. Hermia (Jennifer Curfman) loves Lysander (WT McRae), but she’s engaged to Demetrius (Joe MacDougall), whom she must marry on pain of death, or worse. Meanwhile, Linda Ignazi’s charmingly daffy, loose-limbed Helena loves Demetrius, who won’t spare her a glance, and that’s where the confusion begins.

From within the walls of Athens we then travel to the Grease-ian fairy kingdom, where costume designer Carolyn Pallister has outfitted the play’s signature sprites with gossamer wings, pedal pushers, and motorcycle jackets in an homage to a simpler, sexier era. Vinnie Penna plays Puck as an affable (if randy) meathead from around the neighborhood whose love of mischief and magic herbs ensure that the four confused lovers won’t catch a break until the play is over. Highlights here include a sultry, jazz-inflected fairy lullaby courtesy of Peaseblossom (Beth Ann Leone).

Bottom the Weaver (Ron Sanborn) and his oversexed friend Flute (Benjamin Ellis Fine) lead a band of amateur actors who seal the evening with a laughably inept play-within-a-play. I have to admit I was puzzled by the symbolism of the “ass’s head” that Bottom wears through the middle of the play, which here consists of donkey’s ears attached to an Uncle Sam-style top hat with an American flag print. Does this suggest, perhaps, that the possibility of a Democratic president is nothing more than a feverish dream? Don’t wake me.

Director Philip Emeott keeps the action fairly antic and the whole performance is about two hours long, so it’s hard to imagine a healthy dose of Shakespeare being easier to swallow. While I sat entranced, dusk slowly crept over us. City buses chirped merrily up the avenue. A firefly landed in my open palm. Can you beat any of that? Remember to bring lawn chairs or blankets.

There are many types of vocalists. Some have technical training that allows them to maneuver very difficult terrain. Others have a natural pleasing sound even without training. Vicky Phillips is what I call a song stylist. A song stylist may or may not have formal training or a soothing sound, but can take any piece, even a familiar one, and put a very personal stamp on it. As we travel on this Musical Journey through Phillips's life, we find out how she discovered this music (she saw the original Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris at the Village Gate) and how it affected her evermore, and we are swept into the passion and conviction that she brings to every song.

The evening is packed with well-known pieces and some lesser known gems. I particularly enjoy when a well-loved song reveals something new, and Phillips's renditions of “Barbara Song” and “Pirate Jenny” from Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera are done more as monologues with music, which works very well. Brel’s “My Childhood,” which is supposedly his favorite, is sung low key and touchingly, while his “Carousel” starts low and easy, then builds to an emotionally exciting finish for the first half of the show. To open the second half of the evening, music director and accompanist Gerry Dieffenbach showcases his fine voice singing a rousing rendition of the Kurt Weill-Ira Gershwin piece “One Life to Live.” His musical talents, ease on stage, and rapport with Phillips are a welcome presence throughout the evening, and Phillips's warm dialogue with the audience enriches the total experience.

No one is credited for the costumes, which are simple and elegant; the lighting design, which makes creative use of the limited facilities; or the set, which could use more aesthetic thought. Bob Ost’s direction is simple and effective.

Caryl Churchill’s terse and compelling new play A Number is her contribution to the genetic engineering debate of what would come of cloning a human being—and the question that such cloning raises about the value that is placed on every life being unique and individual. The notion of human cloning would have seemed the distant stuff of science fiction 40 years ago, when Churchill first began writing plays, but now it feels like an issue we may confront in our lifetime. What is so effective about A Number is that the issue is explored in a play that does not have white coats, Petri dishes, technical jargon, maverick scientists, or sinister government interests. Rather than getting mired in the larger scientific or societal aspects of cloning, the play takes the issue out of the lab, away from the Congress, and drops it into the family living room.

On the couch in this living room are two men—Salter, a father in his 60s, and his 30-something “son,” Bernard. The idea of whether Bernard is Salter’s son at all is in doubt—not because of any familiar question of paternity—but rather because Bernard has learned he is a clone, in fact one of a number of clones, of Salter’s natural son Bernard, who Salter claims died many years ago. Bernard’s existential crisis comes by degrees, since Salter has been breaking the truth to his “son” in a series of admissions, each worse then the last. Bernard first believes that he is the original who has been cloned and seems to be able to accept that until it becomes clear that he is the clone. Next it seems that he can accept that he was cloned to replace the son his father lost, until it is revealed that the original son—also named Bernard—did not die, but rather was neglected and then abandoned by Salter during the depression following the mother’s death. Therefore, a clone was made as a way of getting a chance to start over again with his son, a clean slate that will begin even at birth.

With the family secret now revealed, the fallout of Salter’s actions keep him rooted to the couch as the consequences keep coming to the door. In the second scene, the original Bernard returns to confront his father. Like the subject of a perfect nature-versus-nurture experiment of identical twins raised apart, this Bernard is a very different man in the same skin (and played by the same actor). Where the Bernard from the earlier scene was sensitive and high-strung, this Bernard is cold, caustic, and damaged. In a later scene the Bernard clone returns from having met his original and decides to run away, fearing for his life. I will not reveal what becomes of the two versions of the same man, but as in classical tragedy it feels like Salter’s participation in the unnatural has brought something taboo to his family, and sacrifices must be made to bring the world back into balance.

The last scene of the play closes the circle of this nature-versus-nurture experiment. Salter interviews another clone of his son whom he is meeting for the first time, who has grown into a man without any influence from Salter at all. This man, named Michael, is a happily married math teacher who has just recently found out that he is one of "a number." And rather than feeling violated, or worrying that this makes him a non-person, he is fascinated, and in fact seems to be comforted by his being a part of something greater than just himself and even illustrates his peace with it mathematically to Salter:

We’ve got ninety nine percent the same genes as any other person. We’ve got ninety percent the same as a chimpanzee. We’ve got thirty percent the same as a lettuce. Does that cheer you up at all? I love that about the lettuce. It makes me feel I belong.

This revelation is lost on Salter, however, whose hubristic desire to be able to re-play his life with a new copy of his “perfect” son is the act that created this tragedy—and that cuts to the heart of the flaw that could make us desire human cloning: it is the selfish desire that we cannot let an individual naturally go, because we have not gotten what we need from them.

Originally produced at London’s Royal Court Theatre in 2002, this remarkable play is well-served in all of its elements by this current production at The New York Theatre Workshop. The language of the play is economical and crisp and so is James Macdonald’s direction. Each scene features only two actors and a couch, and the whole piece is only five scenes in a brisk 65 minutes, so within this tight framework Macdonald allows us to watch closely as these characters reveal themselves with every slight move. The design of the production encourages a close scrutiny of the action—set designer Eugene Lee has not only created a playing space for the actors, but has also completely redesigned the seating of the New York Theatre Workshop in the style of a 19th century surgical theater, giving the audience a perspective down onto the unraveling events of the play, as if they are student doctors observing an autopsy. Continuing on the theme of scientific inquiry, Edward Pierce’s lighting design consists almost entirely of one large circular instrument, reminiscent of the mirror light of a microscope.

Sam Shepard returns to stage acting after a 30-year absence—an exciting event in its own right—as Salter. It is not a flashy role and Shepard plays this complicated and flawed man with the stillness and restraint of an expert poker player. Salter chews every secret before letting it go, and Shepard’s strong, sad presence as this failed father gives every one of Churchill’s poetically spare lines its proper weight. As the other half of this two-hander, it is Dallas Roberts who has the bravura role. As the two Bernards and Michael, Roberts gives us three distinct, complete men—but that is something many actors who play multiple roles have been called on to do before. What is remarkable here is that they are also all three of the same man, and while the range of differences he creates is impressive, it is the little similarities that he has layered in—such as an identical gesture that all three use to express a subtlety different emotion—where you see Roberts's brilliance truly at work.

A Number has been one of the most anticipated plays of the season, and every aspect of this production meets and even exceeds these expectations. As her plays continue to get leaner, more graceful and always on target, Churchill continues to prove that she has few contemporaries that can be considered to be writing at her level. See this if you can.

A Picasso is a fascinating, thought-provoking exploration of art and its meaning, wrapped inside a taut, smart wartime suspense thriller. It takes place in a vault below the streets of Paris on an October afternoon in 1941. The Nazi occupation is in full force, and so even a famous man like Picasso isn't entirely surprised that a pair of trench-coated operatives have brought him to this prison-like, windowless room for no apparent reason.

Enter Miss Fischer, a German cultural official—attractive, but all business. She quickly explains to the artist why he's been summoned: the Nazis are planning an exhibition of confiscated "decadent" art and they want to make sure that they include in it a work by the master. They've got three small paintings that they believe are his, but they need to be authenticated. This exhibition is important: they're going to burn the works, and they don't wish to burn a forgery. They need a Picasso.

So the brilliant painter finds himself confronted with an odd artistic version of Sophie's Choice: which of the three paintings will he choose to identify as he own, and thus sacrifice to the bonfire; which will he denounce and therefore save from destruction? The route to the resolution of Picasso's dilemma takes him and Miss Fischer—who proves to be not so much his nemesis as his confessor and muse—through a consideration of what his work actually signifies. Can a work of art be political? Can it not be? Can it change anything? What are the links between social consciousness and genius?

Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher lets us eavesdrop on a riveting debate here (it's not clear from the program notes how much of what's depicted here actually happened, but the essence of the conversation as recounted here feels resoundingly authentic). Picasso and Miss Fischer's discussion, like most art, has a subtext—perhaps more than one. The main one here is Guernica, the extraordinary mural that Picasso created after the Germans destroyed a small Spanish city to flex their muscles in service of their presumed ally Franco. Picasso made Guernica, he tells Fischer, because he was absent from his homeland's Civil War; whatever overt political significance it may have, it's clear as he speaks about it that its resonance for the artist is more purely emotional and personal. Nevertheless, the Nazis think Guernica means what it seems to mean, and one of the choices Picasso is called upon to make during this meeting is whether or not to repudiate any anti-German message in the work.

Hatcher works out his plot's puzzles neatly and satisfyingly, and along the way gives us much to consider about what art is for, what it can do, and the ways it can move men and mountains. A Picasso is both entertaining and enlightening as a result. This production, well-staged by John Tillinger, offers the pleasure of two excellent performances by Dennis Boutsikaris and Jill Eikenberry as equally matched adversaries. Boutsikaris's Picasso is passionate and mercurial, a shrewd survivor who turns on his well-honed eccentric charm as both a kind of con and a form of protection. Eikenberry's Fischer operates directly from the intellect, which I loved; her own passion and desire for what Picasso creates comes out of her head and heart rather than her loins. She's more bottled-up than he is, but she's also more self-aware and self-assured. The confrontation between sensual genius and brilliantly analytical critic is electric.

“The heart wants what it wants,” Woody Allen said as part of his public statement about leaving his long-term partner/collaborator, Mia Farrow, for their adoptive daughter, Soon-Yi Previn.

It is impossible not to think of this resignation while watching A Second Hand Memory, written and directed by Allen and currently in production at the Atlantic Theatre Company. The heart, Allen seems in both instances to be saying, is a separate creature entirely—a pit bull patrolling the yard. There are “Beware" signs up, but if you don’t notice or cannot read them, you just might get mangled. “Yes, I will take full responsibility,” its owner says. “After all, it is my pet. But it is in its nature to be violent. Ultimately, I cannot control it. You have been warned.”

Alma is our narrator. She begins by explaining that she can go anywhere in time and space, because the play we are about to see, set in 1950’s Brooklyn, is memory—not even her memory. This “memory” is a fantasy of certain events described to her in letters by her kid brother, Eddie. The good child. Not the one who had an abortion and ran off to Europe. But she says little else of herself and instead explains that the first act is about the dreams the family has pinned to Eddie—that he’ll take over and revive his father’s jewelry business, that he’ll be a good husband to his new wife and a good father to the child or children in her womb; in the second act, Alma promises to show us what she terms the “rude awakening.”

The transformation that we are supposed to witness is Eddie’s slow turn from a docile boy who lives with his parents and works full time at the family store to the restless and resentful young man who has seen the world (i.e., Los Angeles) and come to realize that the old neighborhood is a maze of dead ends. Maybe Fay, his mother, shouldn’t have called her Hollywood-agent-brother, Phil, and asked him to take Eddie under his wing. For upon arrival, Eddie is assigned a job in the mailroom and promptly falls in love with his uncle’s secretary, Diane (who is having an affair with her boss). This last bit of devastating news, along with his father’s frantic reports of some serious trouble at the jewelry store, swiftly puts Eddie’s angsty butt on the next flight home. Needless to say, he’s now a different man, and his old clothes don’t fit anymore.

I say that this is the transformation we are supposed to witness, because Allen’s rendering of it is unconvincing, at times dull, and cluttered with clichés. I am not being flippant when I describe this work as The Glass Menagerie penned by Neil Simon in one of his Chekhovian moods. The character of Eddie is not well-developed enough for us to be anything other than generally bothered by his switch from selflessness to selfishness; or, to put it another way, from having a simple heart to one that is mutinous, frenzied, and fathomless. These extremes are great destinations, but they are only as interesting as the roads we take to get there.

Nicky Katt’s flat performance as Eddie draws extra attention to the banal writing. Luckily, he is supported by a few terrific performances: Beth Fowler’s Fay has a fascinating kind of headstrong bewilderment; Michael McKean, who plays her brother Phil, also seems nonplussed by the desires and despairs of others, but nods in agreement anyway. As Bea, Eddie’s anti-sexpot of a wife, Kate Blumberg makes very sympathetic a whiny one-note role; Erica Leerhsen, as Diane, however, seems out of her depth in a rather shallow role, and Dominic Chianese (Eddie’s father, Lou), too, feels like a fish out of water.

Alma brags that she can move through time and space, but Allen makes very little use of this theatrical conceit. Her name being Spanish for “soul,” she is actually still, she tells us, wandering about Europe, trying to be a writer, yet the more exotic her travels, the more she thinks of home. Aside from superfluously setting the scene and occasionally conversing with the other characters in their dreams (eliciting information we already “get”), she is not particularly useful to the story. Yet as our tour guide, Elizabeth Marvel’s droll and heartbroken portrayal fools us into thinking that her role is of utmost importance.

A Second Hand Memory seems like the first draft of a potentially powerful play—the structure is in place, and a few sections are genuinely moving (there are no surprises really, but the second act is composed of some compelling emotional peaks). However, Allen is rushing to a lugubrious conclusion that does not yet feel inevitable: “We cannot know or trust the human heart, not even our own.” But this verdict is too easy; first let’s see some evidence.

The program cover for A Shining Love, now playing at the WorkShop Theatre in the Midtown International Theatre Festival, says "Sometimes people fail for all the RIGHT reasons." Alas, this is not the case with this production.

A Shining Love, with book and lyrics by Greg Senf and music by Jeremy Rosen and Richard Sussman, tells the story of John Fremont, an American explorer who unsuccessfully ran for the Presidency of the United States in 1856, and his wife Jessie Benton Fremont who supported her husband until her dying day. Fremont lost his bid for the Presidency because he strongly opposed slavery and he would not compromise his principals, hence the program quote.

More a dull, wordy history lesson than a musical play, A Shining Love reminds me of a bad touring children's educational show. The lyrics are on the order of. "I choose the lighthouse not the White House." The costumes by Thomas M. Harlan (of which there are many) are poorly made and ill-fitting. All of the men's suits look as if they're left over from a previous production that featured much larger actors. At one point John Fremont appears in a frock coat that is so huge it makes him look like a vaudeville top banana or a Barnum and Bailey clown. The quality of the acting and singing is generally poor. The real problem here however is the direction by George Wolf Reily. His staging is unnatural looking and he has done nothing to make the flashback and memory sequences in the production less confusing, in fact he's managed to make them more confusing. His overall pacing of the show is slow and laborious. The lighting by Jessie Thatcher is also poor and adds to the confusion.

The result, I'm sorry to report, is the most interminable 75 minutes that I have ever had to sit through.
 

Michael Brandt's one-man show A Spalding Gray Matter is funny, intelligent, and enormously gutsy. Explicitly intended as an homage to the late great monologist, the piece is structured and mounted in precise Gray style: Brandt sits alone at a table, with just a bottle of water and a notebook in front of him, and a screen just above his head behind him that will hold, occasionally, salient graphics to illustrate this or that point. The whole play is nothing but Brandt talking to us, telling us a long, detailed story about an experience in his life and what he thinks it means, interrupted by tangential threads about related topics. One of the tangential threads is about Spalding Gray himself—the automobile accident in Ireland that derailed his life and career for about a year; the misdiagnosis of depression that followed (he was actually suffering from brain damage); Gray's disappearance on January 10, 2004; and the discovery of his lifeless body in the East River nearly two months later.

The dates frame the link between Gray and Brandt: while Gray was missing, Brandt was himself essentially absent from his own life. During a Christmas visit to his family in his home town of Lawrence, Kansas, Brandt—a 33-year-old New York actor—suddenly fell ill. Visits to a local doctor resulted in a diagnosis of influenza; but the prescribed drugs didn't work and just before he was scheduled to return home, he was rediagnosed with bacterial pneumonia. The infection spread to his knee, which swelled up to three times its normal size and rendered him unable to walk. For the rest of that winter, he was pretty much immobilized, either in a hospital or at his parents' home, where his normally uncommunicative father helped him with mundane tasks such as showers and going to the bathroom.

Brandt describes the progress of his illness and recovery; he recounts visits with doctors and nurses whose bedside manners and apparent medical skills often left much to be desired (yet his gratitude to them is absolutely palpable); he talks about medical procedures and enumerates the various painkillers prescribed to him and explains technical matters such as how his IV tube was removed. For much of the play, an x-ray of his lungs—one clear, one almost completely black—is projected behind him on the screen. The throughline of his journey, and the side trips through medical esoterica, are never less than fascinating, and often very funny as well. If you've ever spent time in a hospital, at the mercy of nurses who show up in the middle of the night to draw blood and doctors who unintentionally say scary things with nonchalant casualness, then you'll recognize plenty of what Brandt describes here.

His language is down-to-earth and frequently ironic. A lot of the images he conjures and some of the abstract ideas he trades in—such as why he used to think that people only died at two different ages or his lovely and economical evocation of life in his home town—are crisp and clear and occasionally beautiful and/or profound. The darkly humorous bits—rants about endless rounds of nurses trying to find a vein in his already-battered arm; sarcastic ruminations about his steady bad luck as his body rejects treatment after treatment; that sort of thing—are resonant and bitterly funny. Brandt clearly has a talent for storytelling, as writer and performer; I hope he revisits this form in the future.

The conclusions he draws in A Spalding Gray Matter—about family, destiny, and a new-found understanding of the way life is like a long term recovery process—are interesting and useful if not quite earth-shattering; the links to Gray's own story—the sad end of which he recounts with clarity and empathy—are possibly a bit more tenuous than he hopes. No matter: a good hook is a good hook, and as soon as Brandt starts talking about his own brush with death and Gray's final brush with life, we're with him, and he holds our interest for the full hour. This is a fine piece on its own and an extremely impressive debut.

Ian Morgan's direction is on target and completely unobtrusive. Lighting (uncredited) is enormously effective.

A Spalding Gray Matter is part of breedingground production's Spring Fever Festival, which features four other fully-staged new works along with occasional showings of a couple of comedy videos (the one that was screened before the performance attended, breedingground's own The Crawl, is hilarious and very well-realized). The energy and the attitudes at the festival felt great to me: I encourage everyone to take in this show or any of the others for a look at some of the adventurous new theatre happening at the edges of downtown's creative scene.

See Aquila Theatre Company's A Very Naughty Greek Play and stand up and be counted.

Or at least, stand up and get squirted with a water pistol. AVNGP is an attempt to bring the spirit of classical Greek comedy to the present day. To that end, the Aquilans have morphed The Wasps of Aristophanes into a very broad, very witty blend of British Music Hall, Marx Brothers anarchy, and well-oiled social/political satire, complete with lots of vulgar sexual double entendres, silly costumes, and naked rubber dolls. Their objectives are two in number: (1) to give the audience a fine old time, one that literally gets them out of their seats and on their feet, clapping and dancing along with the cast in a loopy Dionysian reverie (as Dionysian, anyway, as a modern buttoned-up American theatre audience can manage); and (2) to poke pointed fun at current affairs, to literally get a rise out of a complacent audience that has gotten too droopily accustomed to passivity in their culture and in their politics. Either way, they want you up on your toes, taking part. A Very Naughty Greek Play is a wakeup call that theatre can be fun, that participation is essential, and that dissent can be cathartically joyous.

In it, for example, a dog (played by a hand puppet) is put on trial for deviant sexual behavior:

   JUDGE: What have you got to say for yourself?
    DOG: Woof.
    JUDGE: How do you like to have sex?
    DOG: Ruff. Ruff.

The prosecuting attorney is a giant chimpanzee who sounds very much like our current Chief Executive.

Elsewhere in the play, unsuspecting audience members are brought onto the stage to participate in a game show in which they are accused of ridiculous crimes and then awarded even sillier punishments with the spin of giant wheel. (One of the booby prizes is being made to serve as Brad Pitt's slippers; another is to extract ear wax from Donald Trump's ear.) Still elsewhere, there's a mostly mimed sequence in which a provincial rube crashes a posh arts benefit and winds up getting drunk on the wine and turning the event into a circus. And still elsewhere, the entire ensemble launches into a synchronized swimming number (sans water) in which they are variously pursued by a giant killer shark (portrayed by a big vinyl balloon).

There is a plot at the center of this gleeful nonsense. Kokkos, an aging conservative judge, has been locked inside his house by his son, Huakinthos, and his slave, Xanthias, because they think he has become too incompetent and corrupt to inflict on the world. Abetted by the Chorus, Kokkos escapes; but Huakinthos catches up with him and engages in a series of mock trials in which he helps Kokkos realize that he is not the free Athenian he thinks he us, but rather an unwitting pawn of the rich and powerful oligarchs who have taken control of the land and perverted its democratic traditions.

The Chorus races about, changing costumes and acquiring props with alarming rapidity. He's the one armed with the water pistol (actually a water assault rifle): he threatens us with it if we fail to properly acknowledge the leader of Athens, Thamnos (Greek for "small leafy shrub") by pounding our chests and calling out his name each time he is mentioned.

The Aquilans are bent on having serious fun here, but they're also committed to making some serious points. There's more food for thought in about half a dozen monologues peppered throughout AVNGP than in the average national newspaper's op-ed section. There's a musical number in which Kokkos sings the praises of big chain department stores (think Wal-Mart) because he can buy bullets for his gun there. And there's a sequence featuring a Southern-accented preacher who relates a parable about a big scary pachyderm and its accomplice, a 100-headed serpent. Come to this show to laugh, but don't tune out the commentary.

I loved it—for being such a splendid hoot, and for being so smart. It almost feels subversive—though the final song of the evening contains a lyric reminding us that we actually won't get arrested for being here. It also feels enormously necessary.

Bravo to the four men who are responsible for this glorious shot in our democratic arm. They are: Anthony Cochrane, who wrote the music and takes the role of the slave Xanthias; Robert Richmond, who plays Kokkos; Richard Willis (Huakinthos); and Alex Webb, invaluable as the Chorus. This unstoppable quartet project antic energy and display astonishing versatility—they clown, they recite, they sing, they dance, they even each play a musical instrument. Behind the scenes are translator and co-creator Peter Meineck, who is producing artistic director of Aquila; and company members Lisa Carter and Desiree Sanchez who are billed as co-conceiver/creators.

Alas, A Very Naughty Greek Play isn't going to be in New York for very long. So I urge you to hurry to Baruch Performing Arts Center pronto, and let these playful folks from Aquila give you the poke in the ribs and kick in the pants that you deserve.

With so many holiday theatre offerings each season, and so many Christmas Carols, it can be very difficult to determine which production to attend. Nosedive Productions has thrown their hat in the ring this year with A Very Nosedive Christmas Carol. The production does sprinkle us with Christmas spirit—we are greeted as we come in with festive eggnog and treated to their unique interpretation of the Dickens classic.

James Comtois’s adaptation has a very intriguing premise: the spirits haunting Scrooge have done this countless times, every Christmas, over and over again—and they’re tired. We’re greeted by an exhausted Marley (Christopher Yustin) who’s still draped in the same chains he’s been carrying for years. After some straightforward complaints, we are launched right into the famous tale, complete with Scrooge, Cratchit, and a creative interpretation of Tiny Tim.

The cast is excellent; Patrick Shearer’s Scrooge is as good as any that has graced the stage, and Marsha Martinez is simply adorable as the Spirit of Christmas Past. Alice M. Golden and Chris Daly, the scenic and lighting designers, have done a lot with not much, fully evoking the various settings. Director Pete Boisvert keeps the show moving quickly, and the uncredited sound design creates a great mood, using appropriate contemporary songs for scene changes.

Comtois has come up with a very interesting idea for A Christmas Carol; unfortunately, it hasn’t been explored to its full extent. Audiences are so familiar with this tale, and I wanted to see more of the spirits’ plight, instead of the same scenes we’ve seen over and over again. I hope Comtois revisits his script in the new year; Nosedive could have an annual Christmas success on its hands with a deeper exploration of this great concept.

The title Abandonment takes on dual meanings in the first and (so far) only play written by British novelist Kate Atkinson. Characters forsake, desert, and leave each other with dismaying frequency here: one of the central characters, Elizabeth, was abandoned as a baby, found in a shopping bag in a public restroom and later adopted. In the course of the play, several of its characters (actually, almost all of them, at one point or another) are abandoned by or abandon lovers. But they also abandon themselves completely to emotion, even when that emotion can all too quickly prove to be false.

It’s a neat literary conceit, a doubled theme that runs through and links the play’s two narrative threads (one in the present day, the other in the nineteenth century) as much as the fact that both stories take place in the same living room. But it’s also a conceit that, like much of the writing here, shows the author’s roots as a writer of fiction who hasn’t quite successfully made the leap into a new medium.

The play’s present-day story takes place in Elizabeth’s newly acquired living room. A young historian, still licking her wounds from an ugly divorce, Elizabeth is surrounded by friends and family as she settles in to her new life. At the outset, this group includes her sister Kitty, a defiantly promiscuous tabloid journalist; her best friend Susie, a lesbian geneticist trying to start a family of her own with her partner; and her mother Ina, who wants nothing more than to see both her daughters—one biological, one adoptive—settle down and have some babies. Over the course of the play, Elizabeth’s “family” grows to include Callum, the “wood guy” who comes to repair her dry rot, wet rot, and various other floorboard problems. When Kitty writes a story about the circumstances of Elizabeth’s birth in the hopes of helping her find her birth mother, Elizabeth meets Alec, a photographer with whom she has a torrid affair.

Elizabeth has acquired the apartment shortly after the death of Aurora Chalmers, an elderly woman whose family had owned the entire building for well over a century. For much of the first act, the apartment seems to be haunted by a mysterious woman with a candle, dressed in the clothing of another era. This “ghost” eventually ushers in the other plot thread, which takes place in 1865, several generations further back in the fortunes of the Chalmers family. Merric Chalmers, an impoverished lawyer, has married his wealthy wife Laetitia for her money, since his own mother, Lavender, was disinherited for eloping with a sea captain. Merric falls in love, or seems to, with Agnes Soutar, the Portuguese governess who is the heroine of the second story. And it is Agnes’s abandon, her passion for Merric, that eventually leads to the tragic denouement that will bring the two stories together.

Both stories are twisty and complicated and there are characters and subplots I haven’t even touched on here. And there are definitely some beautifully theatrical moments to be found in the interplay of the two plots. All the actors except those playing Elizabeth and Agnes have one role in each story, and these roles reflect on each other in many ways. Director Kit Thacker has capitalized on these moments very effectively in his staging. And the actors do a good job playing with the echoes between the centuries, especially Erik Singer as the two seducers (Alec and Merric) and Veronica Cruz as Agnes, the core of the nineteenth-century plot and the ghost in the twentieth century.

However, the writing in general tends to feel like the writer has tried to cram the same amount of not just storytelling, but also exposition and information, into a few hours of talking that she would otherwise write into a 350-page novel. Every motivation, every thought, every action, every piece of back-story, is explicated in much detail. It feels like Atkinson doesn’t want to give up the novelist’s ability to tell us what a character is thinking—so her characters say everything they think. It’s playwriting that hasn’t learned to trust actors, and therefore forgoes subtext. This hurts the actors—I found several of the performances overly mannered at the beginning, but I grew to think they were frustratingly hemmed in by the language.

I also think the play overall is hurt by director Thacker’s decision to adapt the setting to New York City, rather than its original Scotland. Although now the place names might be more familiar to an American audience, the speech patterns, the cultural context, the sensibilities, don’t quite feel American somehow, or at least don’t feel appropriately adapted for New York. (Not to mention that I have a hard time imagining how a recently divorced twenty-something historian, no matter how frugal or successful, could afford a $650,000 downtown apartment…)

And I don’t understand why the nineteenth-century characters seem to have British, Irish, and Scottish accents, since the two strands take place in the same location. This confusion undercuts the set design (David Evans Morris), which effectively creates a room that seems convincing in both centuries.

There’s one scene, toward the end of the play, where Callum (James Martinez), Susie (Lisa de Mont), and Elizabeth (Ali Marsh), all having recently lost their partners, get wildly drunk together. Here, where all the exposition has already been addressed, and all three are too wasted to be articulate and spin out their thoughts coherently, we see the actors finally get a chance to play breathing characters who don’t think before they speak, and who are confused and inconsistent. We see the performances they might have given, and the play this might have been.