There is a lot to like about Slag Heap, anton dudley’s new dramedy about British prostitutes. Namely, that it takes a sympathetic stance toward the oldest profession. dudley tempers Slag Heap with humor, wry observations, and likable protagonists. His whole take on the subject is refreshingly humane, even when he makes Slag Heap unnecessarily serious. Such instances nearly sink the script, but dudley has the good fortune of having some first-rate performances and crisp direction to bail him out.

Dave is a young Manchester lad who dreams of the London high life. But, in his current situation—living on the street, and tricking himself out to the locals in a public restroom—such a life seems unattainable. Fran, another local pro (and Dave’s high school girlfriend), is already living large: she has a flat of her own, and business cards for repeat customers. One night, when the two of them team up for a lucrative threesome in the back of a stretch limo, Dave finds the impetus to make his dreams a reality (i.e., he really can make big money after all), and shortly thereafter moves to London. It’s not long before he’s joined there by Fran, who gets herself into a spot of trouble back home in Manchester, and needs to get out of town.

What could seem like potentially distasteful subject matter is made humorous by dudley’s empathetic take on it. In the first act, he inserts little pieces of information that serve the dual purpose of developing character and illuminating a subculture. Dave’s best friend, Ashley, lets drop one such tidbit when she says that postal workers are “right cheap” when it comes to paying. Dave later reveals that he smokes menthol cigarettes to keep his breath fresh: “That way you don’t have to brush your teeth." In another scene, Dave and Ashley casually hang out at the laundromat in their underwear while they wash their clothes. All three instances display the characters’ sense of humor and their survival instincts. Both Dave and Ashley are homeless, and their biggest long-term goal—rarely achieved—is to make enough money each day for a hotel room that night.

dudley introduces more humor in the form of Fran’s sister and roommate, Donna. She’s a layabout with a taste for drugs and booze—so much so that she has long since stopped going to work, and nested on the living room couch. She has everything she needs: food, television, even the necessary tools to shave her legs with. She also has a potty mouth and the will to use it, especially when talking about how she’d like to corrupt the local underage take-out delivery boy. Such a lack of inhibition makes for good laughs, as more audience members' jaws drop with every word that comes out of Donna’s mouth. That is, until Donna decides to act on her impulses and lure the delivery boy over. Which is precisely where Slag Heap starts getting into trouble.

When the delivery boy arrives at Fran and Donna’s flat, late in Act I, Slag Heap takes a sudden and unexpected turn towards the serious—one that is not completely earned. Nothing that has happened so far indicates that Slag Heap will turn so... well, heavy. It’s surprising, and a bit disappointing. dudley’s approach to his subject and characters has been so unconventional up to that point that it seems like a bit of a cop-out to include some conventional crisis. I assume that he is trying to inject some moral gravitas here (as if he suddenly realizes that he’s writing a play about prostitutes, and siding with them), but the shift in tone rings false. The outcome of Donna’s jailbait tryst also serves as a plot device to get Fran down to London, and it feels like dudley could have come up with a better one. (Wouldn't the fact that she just wants to leave Manchester—an economically depressed town—for somewhere a little more financially stable have been good enough?)

Consequently, Act II—in which Dave falls into a clubgoer’s hazy spiral of sex, drugs, and deviance, and Fran decides to build a new life for herself in London—is mostly serious. The two acts—which both work well independently of each other—feel like two different plays, strung together only by common protagonists. And, once again, dudley heaps another deus ex machina-type tragedy upon Fran near the end, just as she is planning her escape from prostitution (one which I will not reveal here). It’s as if dudley isn’t listening to his own play telling him where it wants to go. He doesn’t seem to trust it completely, which is a shame because he ought to. Overall, though, Slag Heap is a good debut for dudley, and makes one eager to see where his writing will go from here.

Michael Morris’s sharp direction works wonders with these troublesome sections of the play, diving right into them fully instead of shying away half-heartedly. Such investment helps create fluid transitions and make the production feel like a seamless whole. He also gets terrific performances out of the cast. Vincent Kartheiser is right on target as Dave, making him an endearing blend of naiveté and self-centeredness. As Fran, Brienan Nequa Bryant convincingly navigates her character’s journey from tough-as-nails slag to fragile naif with aplomb. Polly Lee has a ball with Ashley’s bluntness and dry, deadpan humor. And Janelle Anne Robinson steals the show with her exuberant performance as Donna. Alexander Flores and Maggie Moore also turn in good work, respectively, as Darwin the delivery boy, and Natalie, the Eurotrash photographer who gives Dave and Fran some work in London. Despite each of their character’s respective drawbacks, the actors find things to like in these people, and they make the audience like them, too.

You see the snow before you even step into the theatre. Made from tiny scraps of white tissue paper, there are patches of it adorning the sidewalk beneath the Slava’s Snowshow awning on East 17th Street, spread hither and thither by the shoe soles of passersby and waiting audience members. But this is barely a prelude: upon stepping inside, you’re eyes are dazzled by the spectacle of the floors of the lobby, the aisles, even the seats themselves, blanketed one and all with deposits of ersatz precipitation. For Slava’s Snowshow is not content to idle upon the stage; no, despite the elegant deadpan of its conception and performances, it’s determined to expand its sensibility out into the messy world of you and me—you know, the people.

The fact is that there are two sides to Slava’s Snowshow, and they’re at odds. Slava Polunin is a clown who was born, raised, and trained in the Soviet Union, and though he’s since enjoyed popular success on world stages both with his own revues and under the auspices of outfits such as Cirque de Soleil, his work exudes an undeniable obliqueness and severity that isn’t for all tastes.

When he first shuffles morosely onto the Union Square stage at the top of the show, in his trademark baggy yellow union suit and red shoes, there is a noose dangling from his neck. As he pulls in the slack from offstage, he encounters resistance, and suddenly out pops another clown, with the other end of the rope tied in a noose around his own neck. Slava, in a moment of dubious generosity, allows the other fellow to keep the rope and slog offstage to his own presumed demise. But Slava’s barely had a chance to turn around when the guy reappears on another part of the stage, in the same faded lime-green coat, pink winglike hat and looooong shoes. Soon several more men appear, in the same outlandish attire, going about their business—Slava leaves the stage, dejected, surrounded by this army of Others.

As an allegorical riff on the challenges of retaining (or lamenting) your individuality in a totalitarian state, it’s fascinating. But as the rollicking family-friendly entertainment the producers seem to be pushing, it’s a bit of a head-scratcher. Though most of the audience spent the entire show whooping it up, to me these clowns were far more Beckett than Bozo, and sometimes the laughter felt forced.

As the show moves on, many of the routines border on the abstract, eschewing beginnings and endings for the sake of one big middle. For instance, a bit in which one of the green-coated clowns engages in a gibberish argument with himself using two differently tuned kazoos while a forlorn yellow balloon hovers off to one side doesn’t seem to be about anything specific, other than the routine itself. Slava himself has his everyman moments, but it’s hard to see ourselves in these alien beings that troop through the parade of images with such willful opacity.

However, the show has a second side, exemplified by all that snow. Slava (or his producers) would like to enchant people of all ages, and transform the theatre into a world of wonders. And, truth be told, there are some stunning visuals. At one point the stage is flooded by bubbles, heralding the arrival of a giant bubble with a clown inside it. On a sea of clouds—smoke machines are applied liberally throughout—a ship made out of a bed appears to the strains of “Chariots of Fire.” (Whether or not the tune is used ironically is open for debate.) From top to bottom, beginning to end, the physical production is stunning, a spectacle designed to reach its arms around the audience and draw them in, either gently or by force. This is even reflected during the performances, such as the period at the end of intermission, when numerous clowns carrying umbrellas rigged to rain from underneath foray into the aisles to assault mingling spectators—echoes of the wet-and-wild De La Guarda, soon to close a few blocks down.

The contrast between this magical populism and Slava’s occasionally obscure brand of Eastern European comedy certainly makes for an interesting evening, but not necessarily a transcendent or even joyful one. I chuckled a few times, but the appeal felt largely academic—for the most part, the show intrigued me with the quiet allure of the cold, distant Siberian wastes.

The major exception is that I was absolutely knocked sideways by the ending. I won’t give it away except to say that the show’s experiential side takes control, and that for the few short minutes until I left the theatre I felt the awe of a five-year-old, and a corresponding glee—after which, the stylish, puzzling performance preceding it felt like little more than a dream.

Upon entering the beautiful New Victory Theater for Sleeping Beauty, the first thing to see onstage is a large, sharp spindle—standing and rotating as if under its own magical power, lit by a single light. As an image, it is familiar, mysterious and dangerous all at once—exactly what a fairy tale should be. This opening image makes a promise, like the publicity for the Young Vic Theatre Company’s production, that this will be Rufus Norris’s unsaccharine adaptation of “Sleeping Beauty,” returning to Charles Perrault’s 17th century French version of the fairy tale. In the original the kiss to wake the sleeping princess Beauty is only the first half of the story. There are many more dangers to be faced between that awakening and “Happily Ever After.” This production explores and invigorates the classic fairy tale and delivers an exciting and intelligent telling that may surprise those who think they already know this tale.

The story of Sleeping Beauty is probably best known to modern audiences from the 1959 Disney classic, a simplified version in which good and evil are easily color-coded into their two sides. There is no reason behind one or the other, rather there are simply things that are pretty and good, and other things that are ugly and evil. The world of this production is much more complex and interesting than that. Even the most fantastical characters of this Sleeping Beauty are driven by recognizable hopes, desires, and hungers. It is these real forces that inform the actions of the characters, not an abstract, matter-of-fact good and evil. It is an infertile King and Queen’s desire for a baby that compels them to risk cheating nature with the help of a fairy’s magic, and the same couple’s pride that makes them break their promise to the fairy by not inviting her to the baptism of this child she helped make possible. It should be noted that the fairy here is more earthy, bedraggled, and flatulent than her Disney counterparts, making her a less appealing party guest to a too-proper Queen. When, snubbed by the King and Queen, this same fairy places her famous "Fall asleep for one hundred years if pricked by a spindle before her 16th birthday" curse, she is not a "Bad Fairy" simply fulfilling her villainous function, but rather she is lashing out, angry and hurt, making a terrible mistake, one that she spends the rest of the play trying to make up for. A valuable part of the Perrault version, well presented here in Norris’s adaptation, is that the cause of the sleeping curse is a figure that may be redeemed, rather than a monster which must be slain with a sword.

Sleeping Beauty enters some of its most exciting territory when the story passes the more familiar ending of Beauty being saved by the Prince. In fact, the kiss that wakes Beauty only marks the end of the first act. After intermission we find Beauty and her Prince more than two years later, having married and had two babies. This Prince—who succeeded in piercing through the magical protections of the curse and saving Beauty—is himself touched by magic. He does not know it, but he is the child of a human king and an ogress. When he brings his new bride and children home and leaves them with his mother, he has no idea the danger this new grandmother poses (ogres and ogresses eat humans, in case you didn’t know). So in the second half of the play, instead of being relegated to the passive object of the fairy tale—the damsel in distress—Beauty is her own heroine, a mother using her wits and strength to protect her babies while her Prince is away. I found that my lack of familiarity with this part of the story made it more fun—it is rare to be watching a fairy tale as an adult and not know how it will end.

Sleeping Beauty lives up to the Young Vic’s reputation as the United Kingdom’s premier producer of family theatre. Adaptor and director Rufus Norris has created an energetic and earthy world peopled with memorable characters, performed by a talented and dynamic ensemble of British actors. In keeping with the nature of family theatre, the portrayals are generously large and broad, but the cast wisely avoids the trap of simply pandering to the audience—indicating a character instead of playing them. Katrina Lindsay’s set—a raked, circular platform full of trapdoors— transforms, elevates, and twists so often as to be its own performer, providing the myriad locations for the story.

The running time is long for a family show—two hours and fifteen minutes with an intermission—but I did not notice any fidgeting or boredom from the young members of the audience around me, their attention completely wrapped up in the story. I think that the best kind of family theatre talks up to the youngest members of its audience, credits the intelligence of the young and challenges them. Much of the entertainment offered to families seems watered-down and desperate not to give offense, with every artistic choice seemingly made by committee and focus group. I think the reason that the most enduring fairy tales are often macabre is because that appeals to children, it is a part of their nature. They have a sense of the dangers, real and fantastical, that are in the world and in the woods that they are shielded from, and that is a healthy part of their imagination. I would have loved this show as a kid and I also enjoyed it as an unaccompanied adult. That is what all art made for family audiences strives for, and too rarely achieves. It was also refreshing to see that there were no colorful t-shirts or plush ogre dolls for sale in the lobby. In this way, the New Victory Theater helps keep the attention of its young audience focused where it should be, on the stage.

I have been a gigantic fan of Susan O'Connor since I first saw her on stage, in the New York premiere of Daniel MacIvor's Never Swim Alone, nearly five years ago. She's a remarkable actor of great intensity and emotional power, and her work in Snake in Fridge, the current offering of the Themantics Group, is at once one of the finest performances on stage anywhere in NYC right now and the most compelling reason to see this New York premiere of this kind-of-new (2000) Brad Fraser play.

O'Connor plays Donna, a childlike and possibly brain-damaged woman who is one of the residents of a spooky, broken-down Victorian house in Toronto. Her sister, Caddie, also lives here; she's a stripper at a club owned by high-powered sex-exec Violet, who owns the house and whose cousin, Corbett, is the main tenant there. The other inhabitants are Corbett's longtime pal Travis, a black man who works as a busboy but dreams of opening his own restaurant, and Randy, Violet's "personal assistant" and occasional boy toy; as the play begins, Randy announces that his girlfriend Stacey, a third-generation Chinese-Canadian with no job, is going to move into his room too.

The spine of Snake in Fridge is derived from Shirley Jackson's classic story "The Haunting of Hill House" and has to do with the idea that this old house is somehow evil (it's never clear why or, precisely, how). After Corbett stashes a dead boa constrictor (which he received in payment for a debt in lieu of what he really needs, i.e., cash) in the broken refrigerator, the house's tendencies somehow awaken, and it starts to demand sacrifices. Eventually there's a murder and, in an exciting climax, a good deal more violence. But I never really felt the supernatural pull of the house, nor was I really convinced that Fraser totally believed in it. Corbett and Donna are the only characters who "hear" the house's call—and they are linked as adult survivors/victims of horrific child abuse—but again, the significance of what they hear or why only they hear it is never satisfactorily explored, let alone explained.

Instead, Fraser piles on shock after shock, many of which are gamely executed by director Blake Lawrence and her cast though just as many are seemingly deflected. These include: scenes in the bathroom, depicting characters defecating on the toilet (staged here very abstractly); scenes at the strip club where Caddie works (including one showing us her act, with Sarah K. Lippmann as Caddie, topless and soulless); scenes about and around Violet's new Internet porn business, which she wants Caddie, Stacey, Randy, and/or Travis to work in; scenes about Corbett's dependence on all manner of recreational drugs (which he buys from a worshipful kid named Gabriel) and on a sugar daddy who he detests named Norm, plus others in which he bemoans the small size of his penis. There's also a moment where Travis recounts a mini-race riot that broke out in a bank after a white customer used an ugly epithet against a black manager. And there's a menacing older character named Charles, hovering around the edges and then right in the center of the story, who, it is suggested, could be the long-absent brother who repeatedly raped and then assaulted Donna sixteen years ago, leaving her in the very damaged condition that we now find her.

Snake in Fridge is, in short, crowded with incident—far too much for it's own good, I think, given that the characters we're really interested in—Donna and Caddie—wind up with very little of the plot. We're interested in them because O'Connor and Lippmann are far and away the most persuasive performers in this ensemble, and also because their story—of two sisters running from a dangerous past and toward a possibly redemptive future away from one another—is the one that feels most original and heartfelt. The rest of the stuff crammed into this play feels either like baggage or a red herring, and almost always more than a little derivative (of Mark Ravenhill's Shopping and Fucking and Fraser's own Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love, to name two obvious reference points).

The script would seem to call for a good deal of nudity, violence, and gore, which this production only partway delivers. Some effects—like the very rubbery-looking snake—just outright don't work; others, like a relatively tasteful nude wrestling match between Corbett and Gabriel, feel coy; still others, like a video monitor that provides backgrounds for some scenes but does not display what's on the widescreen video that Corbett buys in Act Two, are confusing. Indeed, Jennifer Varbalow's unit set, which contains a number of different playing areas within the basic frame of the house, is spatially strange, causing actors to (for example) go out and then right back in the same door as they travel from the main floor to the basement. There is, in sum, a disconnectedness in the staging and design that reflects the sketchiness of Fraser's script. Lawrence, who is one of the most consistently talented and intelligent young directors around, seems here to be unwilling or unable to totally commit to the play's grossness.

Sean Baldwin is fitfully effective as the weird older guy Charles, and both Gabriel Grilli and Angela Ai have their moments as Randy and Stacey; Matthew J. Nichols (Corbett) and Patrick Fellows (Gabriel) seem to be stuck working on their exaggerated Canadian accents, while Christian Felix barely registers as Travis and Mimi Bilinski overdoes the bitch-goddess thing as Violet.

But Lippmann and especially O'Connor create real women that move us and haunt us; I so wanted to know more about Donna and what she'd been doing all these years—we learn, to great surprise, that she's 32 years old—and what's going to happen to her. Unfortunately, Fraser has not written that play. The one he has written—oh so unevenly—provides its few rewards in these two characterizations. And luckily here are two fine actors to bring them, as much as they are allowed, to life.

Bonnie Culver’s striking and deeply effective new play, Sniper, opens with the protagonist, a seventeen-year-old boy named Anthony Vaccaro, seated on a large box in the center of the stage. Shortly he begins to list the events of a morning in the mid-1970s when he stood on a rooftop in the middle of his hometown, with a long-range rifle, and began to shoot at people in a store parking lot across the street. Several people were killed, and others wounded. We hear the shots ring out as he describes pulling the trigger and hitting or missing each target: a woman in a car is hit first in the stomach, and then in the head, as the woman beside her screams; a twelve-year-old paper deliverer is hit on the top of his head, causing part of it to rip off; a fireman responding to the emergency call is hit in the cab of the fire truck. Anthony says he remembers seeing each hit land. It looked like a rose, he says; a rose opening outward on the person’s body. We later learn that what we are listening to is the boy’s official confession to the police.

What is most striking about this first scene is not the sound of gunfire, or even the details of the event. It’s the boy’s delivery and demeanor. No, not cold and detached, as you might expect. That would be too easy. Nor does he seem to be “getting off” on the violence or gruesomeness of the event. There is nothing particularly diabolical about him, nor does he seem horrified or remorseful, though certainly he is bothered and confused by what has happened. In fact, nothing about this opening scene gives us much direction about what we are supposed to be feeling. The crime is clearly abominable. But the boy; what should we be feeling about the boy?

Anyone who remembers the many months when our country dealt collectively with the events at Columbine would agree that Culver and director, Adam Hill, made the only right choice here. There are no easy answers. Maybe no answers at all. And so, through crisp writing, tight direction and a top-notch cast, we simply learn about the life of the boy leading up to the killings, and we are challenged to come to our own conclusions about what happened that day, who is at fault, and what we might do to prevent other young people from following in Anthony’s footsteps.

The story is based on the real-life circumstances surrounding one of the first teenage rampage killings. The incident happened in the writer’s hometown in upstate New York in 1974. She did not know the boy, but remembers being in her car when an emergency broadcast came on the radio warning residents to stay inside after several gunshots were heard downtown. That the play takes place in the seventies adds the element of our protagonist having grown up during the Vietnam War. His golden-boy older brother, in fact, was killed in that war at the age of twenty-one, when Anthony was not yet a teenager. But in placing the play at this time in history, some thirty years ago, Culver also eliminates the graphic violence in movies, music, and video games, the easy accessibility of weaponry, and the nihilistic Internet chat rooms that took much of the blame for the tragedy at Columbine. There are no easy scapegoats here.

Director Hill, keeps all of the actors on the dark, gothic-styled stage throughout. When they are not in the scene, they remain seated on the side in tall-backed chairs that remind us of an altar. Much of the play concerns Anthony’s growing frustration with religion. His mother is hyper-involved with the Catholic Church, his father is disillusioned, and his friend—a good kid by any standard—is buried outside the churchyard in the old-school, pre-Vatican-Two tradition, because he committed suicide. In one of Sniper's strongest scenes, Anthony refuses to perform his duties as altar boy when the priest he has known for years is unable to explain away what the teenager sees as the Church’s complete hypocrisy.

The cast of eight is strong throughout. Kathy McCafferty and Vincent Sagona stand out in the roles of Anthony’s parents. Their performances are complex, subtle and painfully human as their relationships with each other and their son evolve, and they are forced to deal with the short and long-term effects of their older boy’s death in Vietnam. Much of the play, of course, rests on the shoulders of John O’Brien in the role of the young killer. O’Brien, in his New York theatrical debut, has borne that weight quite admirably. He convincingly takes us from age ten to seventeen, adding layers of personal history, and slowly peeling open—like a rose—to tease us with what might be inside, piquing our interest, but never giving too much or too little. When the play was over, I wanted to sit with the actor and ask a million questions about the inner life he had created for the character, just as we all have wanted to ask the boys responsible for Columbine what was going on inside their heads.

As usual at Center Stage, the sound and lighting are above average for a space this size. Bok-yung Youn’s dark, almost gothic set provides a clean, hauntingly suggestive background.

Sounding Theatre Company makes an excellent entrance to the off-off Broadway scene with their inaugural production, a very tight and well-produced revival of Frank McGuinness’s Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me. Sounding Theatre Company’s goal is to “present revivals of important plays that are distinctly emblematic of their times.” McGuinness’s 1992 story of three men in the mid-1980s—an American, an Irishman, and a Englishman—who are held hostage together in a small cell in Lebanon is a fitting choice for their inaugural production.

This play would be a great piece of drama at any time—one that finds humanity, humor, and truth in a situation almost too terrible to imagine—but it is a particularly resonant experience now. It is an opportunity to be immersed in the perspective—and naiveté—of these Westerners, who lived in Lebanon but viewed themselves as complete outsiders to the politics of the Middle East in the 1980s. These three men—the American a doctor studying the effects of war on the local children, the Irishman a journalist on assignment, and the Englishman a scholar who has just taken a job at a local university—have each not paid attention to the danger around them as they went about their work in Lebanon, perhaps thinking that their passports made them invulnerable, and didn’t realize that they were targets. It is an attitude that a Westerner abroad could never have today. At one point, the American even yells at his unseen captors, “I haven’t done anything to you!” While he is correct that he has not personally done anything to these men or their country, it is a shock to remember a time when a person in that situation might not realize that, as an American abroad, he is a representative of his country and will be held responsible by many for his country’s policies and actions. It would be hard to imagine an American hostage in 2005 thinking that the exclamation, “I haven’t done anything to you!” would be an effective appeal.

The action of the play takes place over several months and is spent entirely in the small single cell, perhaps no more than 10 feet by 10 feet. In the months that they spend together, these men come to rely on each other to remain sane. To pass the time they share stories, sing childhood songs, and even make up elaborate fantasies for each other. The isolation and lack of stimulus that is being forced on them feels like the stuff of a Beckett play: like Hamm and Clov of Endgame, they have so much time to pass and so little hope to hold onto, that their rituals and games become vital to their survival. Above all, they decide that whenever they want to break down and cry, they will instead laugh—as their captors are always listening and they never want them to think that they have been broken.

It is a great play, arguably a modern classic, and an ambitious undertaking for a brand-new company. Fortunately Sounding Theatre Company has succeeded in giving audiences the opportunity of seeing a solid and deserving revival. Director Orlando Pabotoy has created a taut production that makes no false steps and has no extra air—he has collaborated with the actors to find a believable journey for each of these men through a drama of unbelievably high stakes. Rob Cameron, Laurence Lowry, and Damian Buzzerio are excellent in their roles. Their work is focused, brave, and grounded in truth moment to moment. They do a remarkable job of taking the story into their bodies as well—from scene to scene they change in front of us, wasting away as they struggle to hold themselves together. This is especially clear in the case of Buzzerio as Michael, the Englishman: we see his first day in captivity early in the play and by the last scene he really looks like a different person. It is startling, as it should be.

Antje Ellermann’s set and Peter West’s lighting combine to make exactly the kind of hell the play calls for. Especially effective is the large set piece that hangs above the playing space, creating a cage while still letting us look in from the sides. The excellent, full-sounding design and music by Fabian Obispo keep up the tension between scenes and underscore with admirable restraint. Obispo also creates the presence of the captors—they are never seen, but throughout they make themselves known by sound effects such as doors that crash angrily when the prisoners have gotten too loud.

This production is a great opportunity to experience or re-experience this play, a drama that is perhaps even more compelling to audiences now than it was when first presented. This is also a chance to welcome and support a new theatre company that, judging by this production, is worth getting to know.

Andrea Kolb is an actress and stand-up comedienne who was once recognized as “America’s Funniest Mom” on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Surely enough, her solo comedy piece Sometimes Over the Summer… managed to draw constant, hearty laughter from the audience on the night when I saw it. The only problem is  too much of the humor is rather broad and steeped in stereotypes to allow her story to register past the performance’s end. The overbearing Jewish mother, the rambunctious but endearingly “wise” grandmother, the father who dumps his wife for another, more desirable, woman—all familiar characters to us, rich in comic potential, but often too casually used as punchlines for easy jokes in this play.

Nonetheless the pace of the show is quick and easy, and its scene transitions are skillfully directed by Kathleen Brant. Special regards should also be given to Nayan Pachal and Margaret Hall for their respective lighting design and light/sound operation. All three enable Kolb to jump effortlessly from character to character, decade to decade, and one scene to the next.

Kolb herself does reasonably well in inhabiting the roles of her present self, her younger self, her mother, and the ghost of her grandmother. It is just unfortunate that her broad renderings of her mother and grandmother, both in writing and performance, dilute the effectiveness of her attempt to present a cross-generational picture of how women from three different eras struggle to cope with their ever-changing roles as wife, mother, and worker. Suitably enough, the most resonant parts of the show are the times when Kolb actually performs a bit of her stand-up comedy onstage. It is here when her commentaries about marriage and women’s domestic struggles are their most biting, and, it seems, when she herself is capable of being most vulnerable.

There's so much going on when Ruth Brown sings a song: some of them took me on surprising and unexpected journeys, while others just enveloped me, letting me relax and get lost inside them. I don't do cabaret very often—it's been at least a few years since my last trip to a venue like Le Jazz Au Bar—but Brown made me feel welcome and gave me plenty to process and plenty to enjoy. I'm glad I got to see and hear her.

She's 77 years old now, and her health is clearly precarious: offstage she looks frail despite her imposing demeanor and onstage she remains seated throughout the performance, referring to large-print lyric sheets that a series of strokes have made it necessary for her to rely upon. But once she starts singing, the years melt away—the voice is resilient and rich, an astonishing instrument; the phrasing and interpretations of standards and her own hits reflective of every interesting, joyful, and painful moment she's been alive. In her element, she eases through an hour-long set that seems much shorter and that we wish were longer; and I think that's how it feels to her as well, because singing is what she does, and even if she can't perform in quite the same way that she could years ago—her arms and legs never stop moving to the music, even though she's sitting down; she's forcing herself not to cut loose—she makes awesome magic when she's doing it.

Brown delivers several of the songs she made famous as a pioneer of '50s rock/r&b: "5-10-15 Hours," "Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean," and the terrific "That Train Don't Stop Here," which occasions charming interplay with the key member of her 5-piece band, saxophonist William "Bill" Easley, who responds neatly as she calls out the different kinds of "trains" ("A Train," "Soul Train," "Col-trane") that will no longer be welcome at this lady's home.

She also performs several standards from that era, including a rendition of Charlie Chaplin's "Smile" that resonates with conflicting emotions, and a magnificent "God Bless the Child" that made me listen carefully to exactly what that Billie Holliday lyric says.

The jazz combo performs a 20-minute set to whet our appetites for the main event. I did have one quibble with the ambience at Le Jazz Au Bar, which is mostly very cozy and intimate: why must the server start distributing checks in the middle of Brown's last number?

So what, you may ask, is in Sonofabitch stew? You don’t want to know; in this case ignorance is indeed bliss. However, playwright/director Moira Cutler does not allow us the luxury of ignorance because her sharp new play Sonofabitch Stew! reveals the ingredients, on the back of the label of our current society. Some of these ingredients aren’t pretty. Unfortunately, neither are some components of the production.

I was told that Sonofabitch Stew! is a prequel to Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis. I thought, "Hey, I’m a Kafka fan," and I love the idea behind the story of Metamorphosis, where hard-working salesman Gregor Samsa wakes up one day to find that he has transformed into a giant beetle. However, when I got there and looked at the postcard, the subheading read “a cheap synthetic Kafka byproduct.” That is in fact what this play is. Kafka’s infamous story may be a jumping-off point, but Sonofabitch Stew! has little to do with the themes or the characters of that story.

Instead, Cutler gives us the heroic past of Samsa’s parents, Svetlana and Franz. The press information says that the play assumes a second Bush term and is set ten years in the future when the economy and the environment have taken turns for the worse. (Yes, we skip into the future for a look into the past but don’t let that confuse you. Remember, it’s science fiction). New York City at this point is basically a trash heap and is inhabited by mutant cockroaches. Svetlana has the brilliant idea to recycle the trash into a delicious stew. And that, folks, is where Sonofabitch stew comes from. She finds some success in cheaply feeding the cockroach population but she is squashed by an evil corporation that steals her idea and undercuts her price. However, the evil corporation has designs on total cockroach domination and throws a hunk of fear and a pinch of starlight into the stew. Evidently starlight causes the brainwaves to reverse which in turn causes our cockroach proletariats to repeat the same lines over and over and to want nothing but more stew.

Cutler’s script is smart, insightful, and occasionally very funny. She addresses issues such as corporate greed and manipulation, the indifference of the masses, and the responsibility of the scientific community to the public. She approaches her issues from unique and sometimes bizarre angles. The aforementioned evil corporation that laces its disgusting product with fear is an excellent example of her approach. She throws in some intriguing film work as well. I especially liked the segment that is a parody of the early scene in Apocalypse Now where Martin Sheen’s character is stuck in his hotel room like a trapped animal waiting for his next assignment. The monologue in this scene (performed by Cutler herself) is exceptionally poignant and it made me laugh hours later. Cutler also employs a narrator whose commentary, for me, is the heart of the play. The narrator doesn’t always agree with the action on stage and at one point even threatens to quit the play. This convention not only provides cohesiveness to a somewhat odd script but it also allows the audience to make their own decisions about the play’s themes instead of being compelled to agree with the playwright.

On the other hand, Cutler’s direction is slightly uneven. A couple of the actors use highly stylized movement but the rest of the ten-member cast do not follow suit. For example, Meghan Finn, who creates a fabulous Svetlana, uses her body and her voice unlike anybody else on stage. She directs many of her lines out to the audience and her movement is hilarious. She makes you watch and listen to her. I could not get enough of her. Anne Robinson also deserves a nod for her distinctive acting style. But it is Julie Baber, as the narrator, who steals the night. Her performance is flawless. I wish that Cutler could stage this play with just these three actors because quite frankly the rest of the acting is not very good. Her clever script deserves better. She has packed the show with engaging conventions—direct audience address, multimedia, placards that Gregor holds up (I like the way she slips Gregor in there, even though he hasn’t even been born yet), and of course her narrator. However, she does not achieve an overall balanced style of performance.

Cutler has an impressive resume. She has worked with such theatre luminaries as Richard Foreman and Anne Bogart (how cool is that!) and one can see the impressions they left on her in her work. I am positive that Sonofabitch Stew! can rise to the level of a Foreman or Bogart production if Cutler can just find an ensemble without any weak links and a director with a keen eye for detail.

There are things in life that are real only because we believe them to be. In many ways this is the essence of the theatrical experience. When we go to the theatre we suspend our disbelief and allow ourselves to be transported into the world of the play. This unfortunately did not happen to me at Theatre for a New Audience’s production of Eduardo De Filippo’s Souls of Naples (newly translated here by Michael Feingold).

The story goes like this. In post-World-War-II Naples, a man named Pasquale (John Turturro), and his young wife, Maria (Francesca Vannucci), move into a 17th century palazzo that is said to be haunted. He has been allowed to move in rent-free, with the stipulation that he must stay there for more than six months in an effort to dispel the rumors of ghosts. These supposed ghosts are the restless souls of lovers who were caught in the act of their infidelity and summarily walled in alive and left to die.

In what appears to be history repeating itself, Maria is having an affair with a wealthy man named Alfredo (Juan Carlos Hernandez). When Pasquale catches him in the house, Alfredo pretends to be a ghost by freezing in a silly pose—and Pasquale buys it. Alfredo and Maria continue their affair; all the while Alfredo sends lavish gifts of furniture and other items to the house to try to persuade Pasquale that the "ghosts" favor him. The ending is bittersweet and is certainly the most satisfying part of the play.

I enjoyed the theme of a man who refuses to see what he doesn’t want to see. Pasquale is terrified of self assessment. He knows very well that he is on the brink of losing his pretty young wife and of falling into financial troubles, but he’s so bent on attaining success that he thinks so long as he’s on this streak of good luck, why jinx it.

But De Filippo never cracks the surface of his own convention to reveal the emotional core of the play—at least, not until it is too late. John Turturro is certainly good as Pasquale, doing the best he can with a character that doesn’t truly blossom until the very end. Turturro delivers his final monologue with such deep felt honesty that I finally began to care about his character, but as I’ve said already it was too little too late.

Director Roman Paska presides over a production that is glaringly uneven. I think the trouble stems from the misalignment of the farcical style of the play and the mostly naturalistic style of the acting. There were a few performers besides Turturro who piqued my interest, all in smaller roles—Max Casella, Rocco Sisto, and Aida Turturro—but the rest of the cast left me feeling unsatisfied.

Another thing that is uneven is the accents. I could not tell if I was supposed to be in Italy or in Bensonhurst. Also, there are two puppets that inexplicably appear in the middle of the play. They have no lines and they barely even interact with other characters (except their puppeteers) so it seemed as if they were transplanted from another production.

Still another thing that I found to be missing from this production is humor. I giggled a couple of times but overall I found myself unengaged by the listless pace and understated punch lines.

The technical elements of this production are decent. John T. La Barbera’s original score is good though it is used rather sparingly. However, Donna Zakowska’s set design did not make me feel that I was in a 17th century palazzo.

There is a flood of honesty at the end of Souls of Naples that almost makes it worthwhile. Ironically, one of the characters says that the honesty has released him from his curse… well, I felt the same way.

Anyone who’s ever told a story to a child knows that a mere recitation of plot will get you heckled right out of the nursery. Without some authentic villain cackling and virtuous heroine whimpering—not to mention assorted nature sounds, suspenseful pauses, and a strategically timed “boo!”—any self-respecting three-year-old will have you for lunch. Those toddlers can be a tough crowd.

But not nearly as tough as New Yorkers facing yet another solo performance piece at yet another summer festival. So what if the multiple characters are vibrantly dramatized and sufficiently idiosyncratic to keep us hooked on every syllable? Or if the work displays a written virtuosity and performance agility seldom equaled without costumes, props, or sound effects? Yawn. We’ve been there and done that with so many solo storytellers over the years that we’re starting to feel as restless as a kindergartener who’s missed his afternoon nap.

So what is it, exactly, about writer/actor Frank Blocker’s Southern Gothic Novel that keeps one as engaged as a pajama’d pre-schooler, begging to hear more? Well, perhaps it’s that in addition to the merits listed above, his framing device is actually a pretty compelling yarn with a nimble hybrid of irony and earnestness. Alternating between descriptive (nearly cinematic) narration and wickedly funny dialogue, Blocker’s “novel,” complete with titled chapters, is a brooding mystery set in a sleepy southern town where young girls keep suspiciously disappearing and our love-addicted heroine, Viola Haygood, has just breathlessly set eyes on the latest object of her mercurial passions. With over a dozen irresistible characters, half as many settings, and copious attention to meteorological detail, he spins an affectionate yet meticulous parody of this potentially hackneyed genre.

Ably directed by Gabriel Shanks, Blocker’s performance is impeccably faceted with the physical precision and vocal variety demanded by his quirky material. But perhaps most appealing is his balance of sardonic perspective with an uninhibited, utterly sincere immersion in (and connection to) his various creations. Whether evoking a sultry Mississippi night on the cusp of a thunderstorm, the trailer park tribulations of a world-weary single mother, or the coarse braying of a lovesick redneck, Mr. Blocker weaves a tale both archly satirical and sweetly ingenuous. It’s an adroit combination of wry sophistication and gleeful, childlike abandon that’s certain to satisfy the cranky inner toddler of even the most jaded New York theatergoer.

Florence Foster Jenkins intended to share with her audiences a rapturous love of music, but what they took away from her performances was something else entirely. That is to say, their “souvenir” was not a renewed appreciation for Bach, but tear-smeared cheeks and a sore abdomen from laughing themselves silly. You see, the popular success of Ms. Foster Jenkins, an East Coast society woman, was not based on her musical aptitude, but her vocal ineptitude: what she experienced as her rare, angelic soprano soaring through a dramatic aria, the rest of the world heard as the desperate braying of a donkey being eaten alive.

“Tone deaf” is hardly an accurately encompassing diagnosis for the artistic malady from which this woman suffered. Souvenir, a play by Stephen Temperley, subtitled "A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins," has Ms. Foster Jenkins afflicted with complications from self-delusion with significant secondary infections of pride and confidence. Yet despite the (surely willful) misinterpretations of her audience’s regard for her—e.g., watery-eyed gentlemen stuffing their handkerchiefs into their mouths to keep from bursting with laughter (“They were moved to tears!” she concludes)— Florence does not seem to be a sad case (even if she is a lost one).

This blissfully naked empress may have affected no one more than Cosme McMoon, a pianist and composer who became her accompanist and unwitting artistic companion; incidentally, he is also our narrator. The play is in flashback: Cosme is the resident pianist at a supper club in Greenwich Village, and as it is the anniversary of her death, he is “talked into” (by some invisible patrons) recounting the phenomenal effect of this woman on her historical moment and on his own personal sensibility. There was no romance between them, but he did learn something about the subjective importance of the role self-knowledge plays in the pursuit and maintenance of happiness.

Despite Cosme’s ruminations on the irony of their relationship (he writes so many “perfect” songs that no one wants to sing; she sings only “imperfect” notes that people pay dearly to hear), I think Temperley could have pushed his thematic explorations further. Perhaps some more details about the impact of this delusion on her life outside of the concert hall, or other instances where her version of reality is distinctly at odds with everyone else’s. As it stands, this two-character play is a one-trick-pony.

However, the trick, in the hands (and voice) of Judy Kaye, feels endlessly amusing. As Ms. Foster Jenkins, Kaye gives such a disciplined performance that she seems to control the audience as deftly as she manages her own bizarre vocal distortions. (The first note she squawks makes the audience jump.) There is not a single joke in her performance; she is truly a wide-eyed innocent, a vulnerable (but never pitiable) woman and it is clear why Cosme becomes her protector.

Jack Lee, too, is pitch-perfect—he is an emotional pinball, smacking into shock, disdain, exasperation, and bewilderment before settling into a groove of pleasure and, ultimately, respect. An accomplished pianist, Lee hits the keys as the emotion hits him, and he does well with the clunky “so-you-folks-really-wanna-hear-a-good-story?” intro Temperley has (hastily, one hopes) fashioned for his limited, but nonetheless engaging play. Director Vivian Matalon should be credited here, too, for guiding both of these delightful performances to often hilarious heights.

Beneath all the laughter, though, there is something here that might be useful for us to listen to, and that is our own reaction to the phenomenon that is/was Florence Foster Jenkins. A bit of reflection might tell us something about our capacity for empathy, acceptance, courage—and that brief self-evaluation is something that all artists wish us to take away as our own private souvenir.

All over the Shubert Theatre are kiosks where you can buy Spamalot programs, shirts, hats, beer steins, key rings, and assorted other merchandise/memorabilia—even a souvenir can of Spam (with the Hormel people neatly credited in the playbill). And that's really all you need to know about the musical comedy that feels, to me, like Broadway's biggest commercial juggernaut since The Lion King: this is an entertainment enterprise designed to make a lot of money. I think it will succeed.

Spamalot is, as you undoubtedly know by now, the new musical by Eric Idle, "lovingly ripped off," as the playbill has it, from the '70s cult comedy classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The Pythons—the late Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Idle—had a lot to do with changing the face of comedy back then, but did they ever see a mainstream mega-hit like this at the end of their rainbow? Spamalot ends with a sing-along finale (a la Mamma Mia) with the entire cast exhorting the audience to get up on their feet and clap and sing, while buckets full of paper glitter drop from the ceiling all over everyone. Seems a far cry from the edgy, vaguely subversive, vaguely postmodern ambience of the film; it's possible that this glitzy finish is supposed to be satire—but as it is identical to the phenomenon it may be satirizing, it's very hard to tell.

Spamalot tells the story of King Arthur and his knights' quest for the Holy Grail. In broadest of outlines, it's the Camelot legend you know: Arthur is given the magic sword Excalibur by the Lady of the Lake; founds the Round Table, whose members include Sir Lancelot and Sir Galahad; goes off in search of the grail; and marries the Lady Guinevere. But this journey is about as far from Mallory or even Lerner and Loewe as you can get: the knights are bumblers and buffoons and every enemy they encounter—from a castle full of taunting Frenchmen in the service of Sir Guy de Lombard, to a bombastic nutcase of a knight who refuses to concede defeat even after most of his limbs have been cut off, to a passel of strange forest dwellers known as the Knights Who Say "Ni"—refuses to stay on point and do battle properly. The comedy here is all bizarre, non-sequitur tangents, from the very first scene, when King Arthur is annoyed by a pair of guards who launch into a learned discussion about the flying habits of swallows, to the climactic one, when the instructions for using the Holy Hand Grenade are wrought in lengthy prose that is, hilariously, a dead-on parody of the Bible.

Well over half of Spamalot's book is lifted pretty much verbatim from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and is enormously funny. The rest is musical theatre parody, along the lines of Urinetown but never so skillful and just as unnecessary. There's a number that makes fun of Phantom of the Opera, another that sends up glitzy Las Vegas revues, and another that feels like it might have been cut from the Peter Allen biography The Boy From Oz. Andrew Lloyd Webber is the direct target of one gag; Jews, inexplicably, are the butt of the joke in the show's main production number. Even though some of this stuff isn't as lame or cliché as it probably sounds, almost none of it feels like it belongs here: the universe of Monty Python and the Holy Grail just isn't the universe of contemporary big-business musical comedy (in fact, it is more or less the opposite). But Idle doesn't care; he grafts the callow glitter whether it suits his show or not, determined to create a mindless, crowd-pleasing diversion around (and in spite of) his brainier source material.

(The next paragraph may not make any sense to you unless you are familiar with the film on which Spamalot is based; consider yourself warned.)

So how does Spamalot work for the diehard Monty Python fan, something I will unashamedly proclaim myself here and now to be? Only fitfully, I'm afraid. The script holds up much better than I expected, even in the hands of actors who, despite their credentials and talent, are never equal to the originals (Cleese turns out to be the most invaluable of the Pythons; Hank Azaria never approaches his comic brilliance as Lancelot or the French Taunter). Oddly, director Mike Nichols and the company often mistime the jokes and a lot of laughs are lost or swallowed up as a result; the sequences that work best are the ones rendered most faithfully—Brother Maynard (David Hyde Pierce) reading about the Holy Hand Grenade; the sequence involving Prince Herbert's father (played perfectly by Christopher Sieber) and the Stupid Guard (Pierce); most of the Knights Who Say "Ni" bit (with Azaria at his best as the chief Knight Who Says "Ni"). Most of the movie's main sketches are recreated here, with the notable exception of the Sir Bedevere/Witch Burning story; Sir Galahad dallies here briefly with the Lady of the Lake rather than with the flock of nymphos who try to seduce him in the movie. Sir Lancelot turns out to be gay and winds up with Prince Herbert. The "Knights of the Round Table" number is blown up into a gigantic kitschy ensemble number in which, among other things, King Arthur tap dances (with Patsy supplying sound effects on cocoanuts; a nice touch), and a half dozen chorus beauties emerge from prams (a not-so-nice touch). The Knights Who Say "Ni" demand, as their second sacrifice, not another shrubbery but a Broadway musical—which all by itself, I think, tells you where Spamalot goes astray.

The  production values are smashing all around, with Tim Hatley's sets and costumes perfectly evoking the Python style and Hugh Vanstone's lighting always appropriate. The many new songs, written by Idle and John Du Prez, are mostly negligible; Idle's own "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," from Life of Brian, becomes the de facto hit of the show, opening the second act in rousing if unimaginative style as a high-kicking show-stopper led by Michael McGrath as Arthur's servant Patsy.

The show's stars never live up to the original performers they're attempting to channel. Tim Curry, as Arthur, fares best, imbuing his stodgy character (who is essentially the show's straight man) with real charm and good humor. Hank Azaria's work is spotty; David Hyde Pierce is stiff as Brave Sir Robin but pretty good in some of his smaller cameos, when at least we can sense his pleasure in performing shtick he probably recited ad infinitum, the way we all did when the movie first came out. John Cleese, recorded, scores as the Voice of God in what is undoubtedly the funniest and most understated performance of the evening.

The real star of the show turns out to be Sara Ramirez, who is actually creating a role as the Lady of the Lake, conceived here as a Diva longing for the limelight. Ramirez does stunning comic vocal work impersonating a variety of Diva Archetypes; she deserves an authentic star part in her future.

The bottom line: Spamalot is not as good as I hoped it would be; certainly nowhere near as good as The Producers, to which it is inevitably being compared, largely because Mel Brooks thoroughly re-imagined his work for the musical stage while Idle more or less looted his. This matters very little though, because canny construction and savvy marketing have already made Spamalot into the crowd-pleasing smash hit of the season, and word-of-mouth—the show is entertaining, no doubt about it—will only reinforce the show's popularity. Who'd have thought that when John Cleese first said "Fetchez-la vache!" he would one day be talking about a cash cow?

Playwright Neal Bell is no stranger to noir or shadowy characters. His plays are filled with people who are either compulsively running away from their demons or compulsively embracing them. In Two Small Bodies, a police detective and the murder suspect he’s sexually attracted to play cat-and-mouse; in Sleeping Dogs, a crooked insurance executive tries to get out from under his own chicanery; in Ragged Dick, a world-weary man searches for a mysterious, haunting woman. In his newest play, Spatter Pattern (Or, How I Got Away With It), Bell returns to cat-and-mouse games. His dual protagonists—Dunn, a grieving writer whose career could use a boost; and Tate, a university professor suspected of murdering a female student—desperately circle around each other, hoping to find their places in an increasingly barren and unfriendly world. And, while these two men increasingly find themselves in the heart of a mystery, this latest offering from Playwrights Horizons also finds them at the center of what may be Bell’s most lucid and satisfying noir yet.

Dunn is still reeling from the death of his longtime lover (whose cremated remains sit in a cardboard box on his bedside table) when his literary agent drops him for not being able to crank out a screenplay she can sell. Living in an empty, new apartment, and with his career at a crossroads, Dunn discovers that his new neighbor may provide just the creative inspiration he needs. Tate, who is under intense police scrutiny since they don’t have enough evidence to formally charge him, has lost both his wife and his job. Holed up in an equally empty apartment, Tate keeps the wolves at bay (i.e., prank calls on his cell phone) while hoping to be cleared.

There is more to Spatter Pattern than the typical Did-He-Or-Didn’t-He scenario, however. Bell’s ruminations on loss and guilt—and particularly his sharply etched portraits of Dunn and Tate as survivors trying to make sense of tragedy’s aftermath—are moving and effective. Even minor characters, who appear for only a scene or two, are surprisingly well-drawn and memorable.

Director Michael Greif, set designer Mark Wendland, and lighting designer Kevin Adams create a very sparse, isolated world for the dual protagonists. Source light slants in sideways through a window, or from another room, keeping the main playing areas evocatively dim. The walls literally close in on Dunn and Tate, thanks to Wendland’s grey, movable flats. (The actual physical plant aides the collaborators as well: Playwrights Horizons’ Peter Jay Sharp Theater—a low-ceilinged black box—is an ideal space for Spatter Pattern).

Bell has infused his play with a palpable sense of urgency throughout that Greif emphasizes beautifully. Dunn and Tate both have something big at stake, right from the get-go, and their stakes just keep escalating. Greif keeps Spatter Pattern moving swiftly, from beginning to end, with fast, clean scene transitions and an unwavering focus on the play’s urgency.

The entire cast does terrific work here. Peter Frechette is perfect as Dunn. The sense of dazed loss that permeates his behavior, and lurks behind his eyes, communicates a volume’s worth of words and meaning in itself. Deirdre O’Connell and John Lavelle are both excellent, in a variety of roles from an aggressive police detective and cocksure bar pickup (Lavelle) to Dunn’s blunt agent and the murdered co-ed herself (O’Connell). They pull off their multiple character changes with an arsenal of skillfully executed attitude adjustments (and a deft costume change or two). The real find here, though, is Darren Pettie as Tate. Equal parts charm and charisma, menace and desperation, pent-up sexuality and barely contained frustration, Pettie combines talent, skill, and a commanding stage presence to deliver an utterly convincing performance. His is a name that will hopefully be known at-large very shortly.

spurn feels to me more like sketch comedy than theatre—a fuzzy distinction, I know, but one worth making. Sketches are, well, sketchy: a premise is put forth in very short order—something that looks familiar to us—and then it's subverted in a (hopefully) surprising or even enlightening way—the familiar is turned on its ear. And then: blackout.

That's certainly how spurn goes: A high-tech Walter Mitty-ish fellow is ordered by his Tivo to kill his wife; a sexually frustrated bride-to-be mishears everything her waiter says as randy innuendo; a group of hapless losers chatting over beers and checking out chicks turn out to be stalkers. There are fifteen pieces altogether, a few of them thematically linked via mentions of characters and/or situations from earlier skits. They're briskly staged by Michael Weitz and professionally performed by Shawna Anderson, Brian Bianco, Eric Cross, Lara Jane Dunatov, Ross A. McIntyre, and Jennifer Spragg; the appealing Cross, in particular, makes a strong impression.

The material is written by Cross, McIntyre, and spurn creators Ian Hemenway, Sang Kim, and Neil Trivedi. It's consistently funny if never downright hilarious; I'm out of touch with contemporary sketch comedy, I'm afraid, so the closest parallel in my somewhat dated experience is Kids in the Hall: spurn shares that series' hard-edged, envelope-pushing, vaguely absurdist sensibility.

I was surprised by the sameness of the writing—almost all of the sketches are concerned, directly or peripherally with sex (which is different from, and inherently less humorous and less grown-up than, dealing with relationships). I was also somewhat distressed by the heavy frat house/testosterone aroma that hangs over spurn: there's far too much objectifying of women happening here, and far too much implicit gay-bashing (actually any of either is too much for my taste). For example, when actresses Anderson, Dunatov, and Spragg portray a trio of women merrily joking about the presumed psychopaths who are stalking them, are they smashing a taboo or are they behaving irresponsibly?

One bit, in which a group of apparently homeless beggars on the subway are revealed to be international espionage agents, felt like the best of the comic ideas in spurn (albeit slightly derivative of the "Lemming of the BDA" sketch on Monty Python years ago); I'd like to see these obviously talented young writers and performers turn their hands more to material like this, which tests our basest assumptions about the world instead of merely playing into them.

Squeeze Box, written and performed by Ann Randolph, is inspired by her personal journey as an employee at a Los Angeles women’s homeless shelter and her relationship with an accordion player named Harold. Her contribution to storytelling weaves a tale of Ohio gone California, Match.com, Brahms, and three homeless women named Brandy, Irene, and Peggy. At the center of it—sometimes in chaos, sometimes stuck, always searching—Ann the character/Randolph the woman, is humble, inspired, and honest. Her relationships with the women at the shelter and her awkward yet perfectly matched union with Harold all challenge a metaphoric homelessness that Randolph feels has put her life is on hold. She has a job she is embarrassed by, works with colleagues whose "isms" frustrate her, is struggling financially, is lonely in the city of “forgotten” angels, and is searching for the meaning of her life (yesterday, today and tomorrow).

In order to uncover her path to contentment, she quits her job, gets in a car, and escapes L.A,.deciding to drive north on Route 1. A cd given to her by Harold (of his original compositions on the accordion) accompanies her sojourn. The magical symphony of his “toy for untrained ears” plays music that is as revelatory as that of Aaron Copland. She runs from life like a drifter, moving from town to town, always in search of the elusive answers to too many questions. In the end, Randolph’s escape from the shelter and her life ultimately teaches her that home is the shelter and her life.

Alan Bailey’s direction is sensitive and economical. He knows he is telling a tale of American folklore, as if it's midnight around a campfire, maybe in a wood, maybe near an ocean. He allows Randolph and her story to generously live center stage.

Jonathan Spencer’s lighting design fills the space with hues of amber and blue: the setting sun and a burning log—the night sky and an emotion. Like Bailey's, Spencer’s work is sensitive to the simplicity of the story and is executed effectively with economy.

Squeeze Box is a simple piece of theatre and Randolph is funny, gawky, and poignantly touching. There is no political agenda to the play, no terminal disease, no screaming battle—just the contribution of a life, dealing with real issues, insecurities, and passions. I encourage you witness this refreshing experience on the New York stage.

I’ve always thought Steel Magnolias was a good play. No, there’s nothing earth-shattering about Robert Harling’s soap opera script: six southern women meet regularly at the local beauty parlor and share their lives over three years. But there are plenty of laughs along the way, some nice moments for each character, and a tearjerker story arc about a diabetic daughter and her caregiver mom. A tremendous hit off-Broadway in 1987, and made into a popular film in 1989, Steel Magnolias today is, more than anything, a vehicle for the six women playing the six almost equally interesting roles. This production—the show’s Broadway premiere, directed by Jason Moore (Avenue Q)—is mostly strong, though a bit of a mixed bag.

The amount of experience each woman has had on the stage is certainly visible here. I will begin at the very top: Frances Sternhagen is a subtle gem in the role of Clairee, the well-to-do widow of the local Mayor. Having recently spent much time with Sternhagen in the role of Kyle MacLachlan’s uptight mother on Sex and the City, it is truly a delight to see her in a terrific comedic role. Her performance is a lesson in restraint and timing. With effortless grace, and not a bit of force or camp, she squarely nails every possible laugh. From my seat in the third row, where no amplification could be detected, her voice was one of the strongest and clearest, though she was the only cast member who neither looked nor sounded like she was projecting.

Marsha Mason’s many years on the stage are also delightfully in evidence. As Ouiser, the cranky neighbor with the nervous dog, she is funny and slightly outrageous in the first act. In Act Two, where her material is stronger and more diverse, she really shines with many great bits and awkwardly touching moments.

The third real stage veteran in the cast is Christine Ebersole in the pivotal role of M’Lynn, the mother of Shelby, the diabetic young woman. Stronger than steel, her statuesque entrance is the most striking of the evening. When Shelby has a diabetic attack, Ebersole becomes a triage nurse, unemotionally clicking into action and taking control, like she’s done this many times before. Later in the play, it is painful to witness this devoted mother slowly concede control of her daughter’s life and watch helplessly as the inevitable unfolds. Her climactic scene is chilling. She quietly recites lines that most actors would scream. When she finally does break down in this safe space, surrounded by her closest friends, it is only for the briefest moment. Rather than milk the drama of that scene, Moore keeps her reeled in, a pillar of dignity. In the end, eyes dried, hair back in place, her final exit is as striking as her first entrance.

Of the less experienced stage actresses, Delta Burke, who had her Broadway debut in Thoroughly Modern Millie, seems tailor-made for the role of Truvy, the overly primped owner of the beauty parlor that is the clubhouse of this sisterhood. Burke is fun and likable in the role of the hostess with a few ghosts in her closet. But there is something a little off in her performance. She often seems a half-beat behind, and misses some of the humor of the character. There should also be a sadness to Truvy, a sense of disappointment about her life that she masks behind the makeup, hair dye, and colorful outfits. But Burke doesn’t give us much of an idea about what’s going on in her life beneath the façade.

The two younger women in the cast are both making their Broadway debuts. Rebecca Gayheart, probably best known from Beverly Hills 90210, plays Shelby, the diabetic daughter, with the strong will and thick-headedness that the character needs. What is missing is the depth of the pain she feels at the thought of not having a child. The pain needs to be so palpable that we believe she is willing to ignore her doctor’s orders and her mother’s pleas, and risk her life by getting pregnant.

Lily Rabe portrays Annelle, the aspiring hair stylist on the run from a failed marriage. The changes in her personality from scene to scene are so extreme they never quite made sense to me. Rabe’s performance here is nice, if a bit over the top, although I’ve never seen this character played any other way. It seems to be in the writing. Moore again makes this character almost a cartoon at the beginning, giving her much room to pull in when the character becomes quieter. Rabe certainly shows her range here, and becomes more interesting in her softer scenes where she is often an observer, providing occasional commentary that is sometimes surprisingly appropriate and wise.

The busy beauty parlor set, by Anna Louizos, is nicely used and looks lived-in, with many wall hangings and furnishings that add Southern references and flair. It’s a little generic, though, and not necessarily as “Truvy” as I would have imagined it. The transformation for the Christmas scene is wonderfully tacky and home-spun.

And then there’s the hair, by Bobby H. Grayson. From Burke’s over-sprayed, over-dyed mounds to Mason and Sternhagen’s beautifully natural-looking grays, coiffure becomes an important character element for these haunts of the beauty parlor, and Grayson has done a great job distinguishing them, giving each the importance, simplicity, or functionality that the character would, without overstating it or making it too focal. The hair here provides a few laughs, a little business, and a simple background to allow these six actresses do what they are there to do, and what you are there to see and enjoy.

Straight on 'Til Morning begins thrillingly with a tiny light finding the eager and open face of Michael Colby Jones, as a modern-day Peter Pan, peering down from a high window at the rear of the theatre, anticipating what looks to be another great adventure. His Peter is very different from James Barrie's: he's clearly grown up, for one thing—a man of 30 or thereabouts; he's dressed in bluejeans, a greenish leather jacket and a battered baseball cap. Neverland is Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a hip gentrifying neighborhood that "lost boys" like this eternally boyish Peter can treat cavalierly like a giant playground; they can even find a pirate to battle, in the person of a local entrepreneur named Hoard who wants to turn the long-closed-down community swimming pool—the very landmark that Peter is gazing so longingly at when the play begins—into high-rise apartments and shops.

What playwright Trish Harnetiaux has in mind to do in Straight on 'Til Morning is to make points about growing up—the kind that idealistic and/or immature young people find themselves pretty much forced to do as years catch up with them, and the kind that actual grown-ups like Hoard impose on a pristine, authentically vibrant, ethnically diverse neighborhood like Williamsburg in the name of something called "progress."  Peter Pan is an intriguing frame of reference; but in mapping Barrie's fantastical tale onto modern-day Brooklyn, she worries too much about the details of her analogy and winds up losing track of her larger point. The result is a wonderfully vibrant and ambitious concept that bogs down instead of flies.

Harnetiaux has made her Peter a scout for cutting-edge rock bands, which seems like an ideal profession for a man who refuses to grow up. She's surrounded him with Isabele (Tinker Belle), a migratory rocker who reminds Peter of his past; Moira (Wendy), a relatively normal young woman from Idaho who wants to be his helpmeet and may be pregnant with his child; and Nico, Peter's idolizing pal, a stand-in for the band of lost boys. Their hangout is a local saloon run by Friendly, an elderly Italian gentleman whose name is entirely accurate. Harnetiaux and director Jude Domski do a splendid job capturing the funky/homey atmosphere of this mercurial little corner of town, even inspiring set designer Sarah Pearline to create a playful, pseudo-high tech environment for the show in which a park bench emerges out of a drawer and a bar is constructed, Lego-like, in front of our eyes.

The place feels strangely buoyant—at once joyous and melancholy. But the specific events that play out here are heavy-handed and overwrought. One plotline deals with Hoard, who is actually given a fine monologue in which he explains his point of view but is nevertheless cast as villain; he's even given only one hand, having lost the other to a mysterious accident at the catalytic swimming pool years ago. Another plotline features Peter's Uncle Price, who has come to bring Peter back home to Connecticut for a memorial service for his deceased brother Michael, who was apparently abused in some way by Price when he was a boy. (This is an allusion to Barrie's questionable relationship with the five brothers he adopted and later based the "Lost Boys" on.) This distasteful digression takes Straight on 'Til Morning off onto a very uncomfortable tangent, from which it never quite returns or recovers.

So the script tries to cover more ground that it ought or comfortably can; the production has plenty of moments of brightness, though, thanks to some really fortuitous casting. Colby Jones is a terrific Peter, catching in every moment the ambivalence and ambiguities of a man who is determined to act big but deathly afraid of acting his age; his every movement bespeaks both the swaggering bravado and pixilated grace of this sadly conflicted character. Jason Griffin, as Nico, is similarly impressive: his hero-worship of Peter, his blind adoration for Moira, and his wary caution around pretty much everybody else are seamlessly conveyed. I also really enjoyed Maurice Edwards' blissfully natural turn as Friendly, bringing a neat touch of placid authenticity to the mix of the play.

The title of this play, by the way, comes from Peter Pan's directions to Neverland: "second star to the right and straight on 'til morning." But of course actually getting to Neverland is trickier than that sounds; Harnetiaux is, sadly, finally too earthbound to bring us there in this appealing but overly ambitious new play.

I would like to request a moratorium on overused direct address in plays, please. Here we sit, ready to go anywhere that the playwright, director, and actors want to take us, ready to suspend disbelief and journey to any real or unreal location that their imagination and craft can conjure. And instead, we go—no place. Ellen McLaughlin, billed only as "Woman #1" in the program, comes out and starts talking—to whom? Where is she? Who is she talking to? Why is she talking? Her narration is in past tense sometimes and in present tense other times: When is she talking?

Sure, there are indeed times when two or more of the four actresses who comprise the cast of String of Pearls actually get to play scenes with one another—but they're few and far between. Most of the time, Michele Lowe's script consists of somebody narrating at the air. You can call it post-modern or you can call it economical production—I call it shoddy playwriting and I'm sick to death of it. Plays compel us when they show, not when they tell; if I want to have a story read to me, I can visit my older sister, who read to me all the time when I was growing up and who, I am sure, will be more than happy to do so again.

I'm coming down hard  because the whole of String of Pearls is so sloppy! Lowe's High Concept here is to follow a pearl necklace from owner to owner across three decades, to sketch out a variety of women's lives that will presumably entertain and/or enlighten us. But most of Lowe's characters are the broadest of two-dimensional cut-outs—not real people but constructs who behave the way the playwright needs them to in order to move us from one improbable vignette to another. The titular jewels begin their "life," metaphorically, as a vulgar joke; the perpetrator of said joke, a husband, then gives his wife a real string of pearls as—as far as I can tell—a reward. She passes them on to her daughter, who for some reason becomes poor and single while dying of a terrible disease in somebody's basement in Milwaukee (her mother, mind you, is still living quite comfortably in Manhattan). The daughter gives the necklace to her landlady, who has generally been cool and aloof but did, on one occasion, drive her to the beach.

From here, the pearls find their way to many necks: a high-powered committee-woman who sleeps with her sister's husband; an immigrant hotel housekeeper who discovers the pearls while cleaning a room, turns them over to be pawned by her untrustworthy and abusive "boyfriend," only to knee him in the groin and escape with the booty to a distant city; a Jewish dance company chaperone whose mother and twin sister were killed in front of her by a Frenchman after the liberation of Paris; another Jewish woman who thinks it will impress her domineering mother if she gets an audience with the Pope (it doesn't); an overworked and underpaid mortician who wishes for her own mother's death; a 300-pound lesbian gravedigger who falls in love with—of all people—the necklace's original owner, now 74 and showing signs of impending dementia.

What Lowe does here is consistently impose implausible behaviors on people who ought to know much, much better; worse, she's unsparing with the exaggerated detail that will make her characters, already straining credulity, figures of derision or fun. Case in point: why must the lesbian be a gravedigger? And why must she be so grotesquely overweight? The answer, alas, is: for the sake of an easy laugh. Audiences who go in for coarse, mean-spirited gags (like the one where the mortician's senile mother wets herself on line at Dunkin' Donuts) seem to be Lowe's target here.

What's missing is compassion, lightness, and anything resembling a point of view. I left String of Pearls fairly distressed by the lack of humanity in these people and their stories, and utterly unclear as to what, if anything, the playwright was trying to accomplish apart from some cheap laughs.

Eric Simonson's staging, with the play's four actresses talking into the void so very often, and then trudging the meager set pieces on and off or sliding a single sliding panel back or forth in a lame effort to define "space," finally does little to enhance the script. The set, which I will grant looks kind of cool, is by Loy Arcenas; costumes, by David Zinn, are downright mystifying, however: why does Woman #1 tell us that she's wearing a red dress when she is clearly wearing a brown pants suit?

McLaughlin is joined by Antoinette LaVecchia, Mary Testa, and Sharon Washington to play the two dozen or so characters depicted in the play. They all acquit themselves nicely, with McLaughlin and Testa faring even better than that—the former has a nearly transcendent moment up front when she transforms from the 74-year-old Woman #1 to a much younger version of the same person in just a few seconds, while the latter is in her element doing a variety of crowd-pleasing comic turns, the best of which is actually a cameo, as an affected saleslady in an upstate jewelry store. Washington, meanwhile, is saddled with the truly bizarre baggage of being referred to, several times, as a white divorced lady, though she is clearly African American and the race of her character has no bearing on, well, anything. (Why wasn't the line changed? Misguided reverse discrimination/affirmative action guilt would seem to be the culprit: more sloppy thinking.)

So, as you have undoubtedly come to understand, I'm no admirer of String of Pearls. With all the terrific new comedy and drama being generated by playwrights, not to mention the ripe and compelling issues facing us in this pivotal historical moment, I'm loathe to spend time on something as fundamentally uninteresting and trivial as this play.

The good news is, the next thing I see will be better; and if not that one, then the one after that. Thank goodness for the variety and vitality of New York theatre!

I always find it interesting when a playwright seizes a classic play and creates a parallel to its themes in a contemporary setting.  In her compelling new show Sus Manos, Lauren Gunderson takes Shakespeare’s Othello and not only crafts some fine parallels to its themes but also weaves in some of its events and even includes it as a silent film within her play.

Gunderson takes us back to the year 1910 at the eve of the Mexican Revolution and sets the action in a hacienda just outside the southern city of Oaxaca. Christian, an American filmmaker, has come to Mexico to film a Mexican-style silent movie version of Othello, with himself (a white man) cast as the lead and otherwise an all-Mexican cast. Marco, the head of the household and successful Chicha (a corn beer) brewer and plantation owner, has allowed Christian to use his hacienda as the backdrop for his film. Marco has also provided Christian with a Desdemona named Lolita who happens to be his favorite prostitute from the local brothel. Marco’s indomitable wife, Julia, is infuriated by Lolita’s presence in her house and bares her claws in the timid Lolita’s face. Eventually Julia makes a pact with Lolita to pretend to be friends so Julia can get the better of her husband.

Gunderson gives us some really fantastically nuanced characters in this play. All of them go through some sort of transformation. I don’t wish to give away too much of Gunderson’s intricate plot here, but I’d like to give a couple of examples of the playwright’s craftiness. As soon as Julia makes the pact with Lolita to pretend to be friends, I saw this as a tool to give these two women from completely different backgrounds the opportunity to learn from each other and possibly even become friends. The two of them are in search of themselves and the meaning of love and they find both in each other. Gunderson makes a great comparison between their sexual/personal revolution and the revolution that is brewing all around them. Also, Lolita has a beautiful singing voice but the film she is starring in is a silent film—which is an excellent bit of irony that exposes how marginalized or voiceless she has been her entire life.

Othello, like many of Shakespeare’s tragedies, has themes of love, betrayal and revenge. Gunderson takes these themes and superimposes them onto the inevitable events at this hacienda. Marco thinks he’s on top of the world but he has no idea who’s on his side and who will betray him. This compares very well to Othello who is at the top of his game when he falls. Sus Manos is at its heart an unlikely love story. It’s a story about passions—political passions and as well as passionate love. Gunderson is a gifted literary seamstress, weaving parts of Othello into her story. Sus Manos has all the elements of a great Shakespearean drama except for one: dead bodies. I expected at least one dead body but, alas, there were none. It makes for an ending that is unfulfilling.

Throughout the two-hour program we are shown clips from the silent film that is being made. I was able to draw direct comparisons to some of the action in the play with the sections of Othello we were being shown, but not to all of them. At times the actors were obstructing the screen and I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be watching the film clip or not. There was something about the film clips that didn’t quite work for me. They don’t add to the plot or the richness of Gunderson’s characters and I think the play would do better without them.

Another element of the show that is less than satisfying is director Heather Ondersma’s underutilization of the wonderful pianist, Racquel Borromeo. There are several scene changes in this show but Ondersma only taps Borromeo’s talent to play some classic silent film piano riffs during the film segments. Otherwise, Ondersma’s direction is quite brilliant. She certainly manages to draw out the love and tenderness alongside the arrogance and wickedness from her actors. She also sets up a few scenes in tiny pockets of the stage in order to avoid additional scene changes.

I have to admit that I expected more Spanish to be spoken in this show. There are a few words thrown in here and there, but for the most part there is not a significant amount of Spanish spoken until the very end, in the form of direct audience address.

On the technical side, the show puts on an attractive face. Alisha Engle’s early 20th century costumes are beautiful and they help take us back into the period. Scott Boyd’s set is a perfect rendition of the yellowish stucco walls one might come across in Mexico. There is also some decent fight choreography provided by Judi Lewis Ockler.

The show boasts a powerful ensemble. Arlene Chico-Lugo slowly boils over with desire for liberation as the shy prostitute Lolita. Natasha Yannacañedo delivers a stunning performance as the strong willed yet vulnerable Julia. Christopher T. VanDijk is great as the suave and slimy misogynist Marco. Joe Fellman gives an excellent performance as a man out of his element as the filmmaker Christian. Kevin Lyons and Sylvia Roldán Dohi round out the ensemble with two strong performances.

Brian Parks’ hilarious new comedy Suspicious Package is packed with all sorts of explosives. There are jokes that blow up in your face. There are idea bombs that sit and tick in the back of your mind and detonate long after you’ve left the theatre. And there are concepts that, like a burning trail of gunpowder, lead you through twists and turns until you suddenly come upon the powder keg.

Suspicious Package is actually five short pieces packed into an hour of irreverent brilliance. The show opens with a monologue so singularly funny that I could have left satisfied after that. Entitled The Dinner Guest, it features a refined man in a fine suit who stands alone on stage and casually discusses his recent dining experience. I don’t want to give away what is so special about this particular dining experience because he tells us in the very first line of the show, a line which immediately has the audience in stitches and sets the stage perfectly for what is to follow. The next scene, The Cocktail Party, is a fast-paced exchange of snooty prattle between two high society ladies. The catch is, just where and when is this scene taking place? Once we figure that out, the social commentary is so shockingly relevant it’s kind of scary. The following scene reminded me of the sort of bizarrely lucid premise you’d see in a Kids in the Hall sketch. Two guys who work in the underbelly of a scalping corporation have a somewhat mundane (but still very funny) conversation about their lives. This scene turned out to be my favorite. Maybe that’s because I work in an office, and I found myself empathizing with one of the character’s frustration when looking for a “pencil sharpening request form.” The next piece is based on the image of the Pieta (Mary holding the lifeless body of her son, Jesus); however the characters in Parks’ version have attitudes that are different than most of us would expect. The final scene is set in a traditional Irish pub. All present are drinking a sacred pint of Guinness, and then a secret is revealed that sets the action spinning until an untimely death forces everyone to repent.

Parks’ writing is quite ingenious. His satire is surreal and it bites hard, sometimes in a soft spot. The audience the night I saw the show laughed loud and long at times while at other times they groaned. Not because they didn’t think the joke was funny but rather because they didn’t think they should laugh. For me, those are the best kind of jokes. Satire should have no sacred cows and Parks is well aware of this. His sketches don’t all have the best endings but that doesn’t take anything away from the overall quality of their concept and execution. Nevertheless, I do think the Pieta scene could do with a little tweaking. The characters of Mary and Jesus are too much on the same level which takes away from the comic potential. Also, I had the feeling like I’d seen the Irish pub scene before—it’s filled with stereotypes, but the monologue in it is a twisted yarn that is menacingly funny. I like the fact that Parks doesn’t try to burden his show with a theme or through line of action. He points his pen in any direction that suits him and fires at will.

Director Paul Urcioli places three very distinct tones all within this one scene and it really works. As for the rest of the play, the direction didn’t jump out at me, but Urcioli should be commended for keeping his actors in the same arena of pace and style. The ensemble is superb. Everyone gets his or her chance to shine and believe me they all sparkle. The material requires intelligent and seasoned actors and they fit that description. In the opening scene, Rik Walter is absolutely captivating as the dinner guest with the odd story to tell. He sets the bar very high for the rest of the show. Leslie Ferrell and Jona Tuck are both very funny as the cocktail party ladies. They respond with verve and panache to Walter’s opening salvo. Then Jody Lambert and David Calvitto sweep away the first two scenes and re-invent the show all for themselves—and they make it look easy. Christopher Carley rounds out this powerhouse ensemble with his unexpectedly harsh portrayal of Jesus and a truly inspired monologue in the final scene.

Suspicious Package is like a hybrid of a sketch comedy show. It’s loaded with jokes that are funny on many different levels, which makes for a night of theatre that is entertaining on even more unexpected levels.

Jaroslav Hašek’s early 1920s novel The Good Soldier Švejk, though unfinished, is a hugely influential work of wartime satire. It is the epic of Švejk, a man from Prague of simple mind and tastes, who has been officially diagnosed as an idiot. Despite this status, Švejk is conscripted into the army to fight for the Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I. The innocent, almost childlike nature of Švejk is juxtaposed with the various figures he meets in this chaotic time—some corrupt, some desperate, some striving to be noble. The archetype of the absurd hero lost in war is a satiric device that can be found throughout 20th century literature in the books and plays of writers like Bertolt Brecht, Joseph Heller, and Vaclav Havel, all of whom site Hašek as an influence. And this satiric device has endured—perhaps the most current Švejk image would be the title character of the film Forrest Gump.

Throughout his travels, Švejk is never daunted in his belief that he is doing his part to serve Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef. He spends most of his time as a soldier away from combat, as attendant to different officers, particularly serving as batman (a kind of military servant) to the sincere, though flawed, Lt. Lukas, who wins Švejk’s service in a card game. Švejk’s efforts usually get Lukas and himself into trouble, but despite many opportunities to cut and run (and Lukas’ several attempts to lose him), he continues on. After running afoul of a General and his wife’s dog, Švejk and Lukas are sent to the worst of the fighting on the Russian front. On the way, Švejk’s antics get him kicked off the train and, instead of taking the chance to flee, he decides it is his duty to walk to the front and rejoin Lt. Lukas. Throughout all of his episodes, Švejk’s only hope is to get through the war and then make it back to his favorite bar in Prague. He is so confident he will do so that, upon meeting a friend from home near the front, he makes a plan to reunite at their Prague bar for a beer "at 6:00 after the war ends."

Švejk’s journey of several years provides a wealth of events and characters for Colin Teevan’s adaptation to cover. Unfortunately, like its hero, the play's point seems to get lost along the way, which dulls the edge of its satire. Though Švejk has a strong start, it spends too much of its first half on episodes that feel like Švejk-lite: comedy sketches that could be given titles like “Švejk Tries to Steal a Dog,” “Švejk Tries to keep the Cat Away From the Canary,” or “Švejk and the Lt. Meet the Oversexed Countess.” Though there are funny moments, the war seems too distant and the incidents themselves too minor to merit the amount of stage time given to them, padding a production that runs more than two and a half hours.

Furthermore, director Dalia Ibelhauptaite has created a world that is so strange, peopled with a funhouse of cartoon characters, and so stylized with bursts of music and songs that add little to the narrative, that it obscures the effect of Švejk as a plain mirror held up to the nature of men at that time. Perhaps that is her point—that Švejk is not an idiot, but rather the normal man in a world of fools—but with the people around him characterized so broadly, particularly figures of authority, and the setting to abstracted, the world of the play does not feel like our world. As a result, the audience is let off the hook, which is not in keeping with the spirit of satire.

The play vastly improves in the second half, when Švejk and Lukas get to the front, and the events are connected to larger themes with higher stakes. The style of the storytelling gets simpler as well, which helps keep the attention focused on the grim reality of trouble that these men, and their world, are in.

The greatest asset of the production is the remarkable ensemble of 13 actors that Theatre for a New Audience has assembled. Led by Stephen Spinella as Švejk and Ryan Shively as Lt. Lukas, the cast has great talent and experience. It is often said that it takes intelligence to play dumb, and Spinella is simply brilliant as Švejk. Throughout the play, Švejk is yelled at to wipe the idiotic look off his face, to which he always replies that he can’t. Like a concert pianist who is only allowed half the keys, Spinella must stay wide-eyed and open-faced throughout, but still gives a layered, complex performance that never misses a note. Shively’s earnest and long-suffering Lt. Lukas is the perfect foil as the other half of the Master-Servant pair.

There are reasons to recommend the newest Broadway revival of Sweet Charity, starring Christina Applegate, directed by Walter Bobbie, with choreography by Wayne Cilento. The biggest reason is Applegate’s vibrant and captivating performance in the title role of Charity Hope Valentine. Despite some strong supporting characters and group musical numbers, it is largely up to Applegate to carry the show. This is no light task. The actress, best known for her TV work and supporting roles in a few films, steps into shoes that have been filled by some of the best and most beloved musical stars, including most notably both Gwen Verdon and Debbie Allen on Broadway and Shirley MacLaine in the film—all three of those productions directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse. Applegate’s comic talent and charming vulnerability keep the audience rooting for her from beginning to end. Even Applegate fans (and I am an Applegate fan) will be surprised to see her take control of the stage and fill the theatre. She is working hard here for sure, having recently recovered from a now-infamous broken ankle. She is obviously putting all of her heart and soul into the role. It’s refreshing to see a performer work that hard for something she wants so badly, and the payoff is thoroughly delightful.

But there are problems here too. Some of them are particular to this production, but many are built in. The book by Neil Simon, based on a Fellini movie, is funny in many places, and even moving in a few. But the story itself—the whole idea of the show—is as strange today as it was when the show first opened. It’s the mid-sixties, New York City. Charity, our struggling heroine with big dreams, is working as a dancehall girl—someone whom men pay to dance with them. Did such a thing really exist in New York City in the sixties? Did such a thing ever really exist? After her fiancé robs and abandons her in the first scene, Charity sets out to get her life back in order. Along the way she spends a memorable evening with a famous Italian movies star, and eventually meets Oscar (Denis O’Hare), a neurotic accountant, while trapped with him in an elevator. She falls for him and the settled domestic life he represents. But how will he react when he finds out about her “sordid” life? It’s all kind of silly and anachronistic. The setup, the character of Oscar, even the other dancehall girls who dream of being receptionists and hatcheck girls (hatcheck girls, in the sixties?) seem more suited for a musical set in the forties.

The score by Cy Coleman, with lyrics by Dorothy Fields, is filled with classics, though even these are somewhat of a mixed bag with many seeming to belong to another era. "Big Spender" takes us inside the world of the dancehall and the dancehall girls. Bobbie and Cilento have re-imagined this number in a way that’s too upbeat, losing a lot of the intention that made it such a classic. The number here is fun, colorful, even sexy. But Fosse’s girls, with their mechanical flirting and hardcore dance moves, couldn’t hide their utter boredom and contempt for their clients, which was much more interesting. In "Rich Man’s Frug," Charity has managed to get into an upscale dance club with the Italian movie star (Paul Schoeffler). Cilento sticks closer to the original here, borrowing much of Fosse’s quintessential choreography (it would be foolish not to) to recreate the haute elegance and avant-garde snobbery of the wealthy club set. It’s one of the strongest dance numbers, with pretentious, pop-colorful sets by Scott Pask and fun period costumes by William Ivey Long.

Back at the movie star’s home, Applegate shows off her great talent as well as a bit of her weakness with another crowd pleaser, "If My Friends Could See Me Now." As a dancer, she’s no Verdon, Allen, or MacLaine. But her choreographed slapstick is perfect, her singing is as good as any of her predecessors', and she more than pulls off this musical solo, getting the strongest audience cheers of the evening.

"There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This," in which Charity and her co-workers Nickie and Helene imagine better lives for themselves, is less than the big full-out dance trio it should be. It almost looks as though the choreography has been taken down a notch to accommodate Applegate. Another well-known number, "The Rhythm Of Life" (the Sammy Davis number in the movie), takes place at a hip new church service, which Oscar has taken Charity on their first date. It’s an underwhelming period piece, taking us into a world somewhere between beatniks and hippies. I never understood what this side trip to a fly-by-night religious group meeting has to do with the rest of the show. The new musical arrangement here, with more of a funk and soul feel, is much stronger and more in synch with the time and place than the usual arrangement of this number, which never made sense to me. Another big number, "I’m a Brass Band," is cute and grand, but no number from the show seems more out of place in a sixties musical than this one, which feels straight out of The Music Man.

O’Hare is funny, as you would expect, but a little over-the-top throughout. The scene in the elevator is played like sketch comedy, milked for every laugh with little room to establish any real character. Janine LaManna and Kyra Da Costa as Nickie and Helene do a good job supporting Applegate, though they never quite become fully formed characters on their own. Ernie Sabella is brash and funny as the cranky club owner who loves to cry at weddings, and Rhett George gets to flash his strong voice and smooth moves as Daddy, the "Rhythm of Life" preacher.

Pask’s sets work great throughout, from the pop period design of the flats to the creative mechanics of the elevator, a Ferris wheel, and the movie star's opulent apartment with a couch that grows and grows. Long’s costumes paint a bright and festive picture, though I would have loved to see Applegate in something besides the same red dress for the entire show.

Despite its weaknesses, Charity is a fun evening; easy on the eyes with many songs you’ll look forward to. More than anything, it is a great vehicle for Applegate to courageously take on, an opportunity to see an unexpected side of this shining star. And shine she does, with every bone—broken or otherwise—in her body.

If you go to the theatre often and it’s beginning to feel routine, or if you haven’t been in a while and want a fresh—even exuberant—experience, see Sweet Pushes, Tangy Pulls, the latest show from the talented ensemble of Ripple Productions.

The play, written by Andrew Frank, is a simple tale of relationships: one that works beautifully, one that is on the mend, one that can only be difficult, one that is there and then not, and one that falls apart. Essentially, each is a routine story, but context is all and once inside the theatre—even before the players appear—expectations rise, and then…are surpassed.

What’s to be made of the long, low tables circling the performance area? On each table, set for four, sits a bottle of water, a carafe of wine, and flickering votives. Audience members select a soft banquette strewn with colorful silk pillows for an evening of dinner and theater—a four-course meal plus dessert that both coordinates with and supports the script. Of course, it is possible to eat and enjoy without making a connection to what is on stage. It is delicious and beautifully presented. But why not play the game?

In the first scene/course, Max Davis as Kenji portrays the generous friend everyone would love to have, and he is as easy to digest as the puree of butternut and acorn squash bruschetta when he finally agrees to prepare and serve dinner for his best friend Joanne and her sister. You see, Joanne, portrayed with the right amount of manipulation by Katherine Jaeger, hasn’t talked to her sister in three years and the evening could be difficult. It is not surprising that the bruschetta is topped with green apple and lemon zest. Neither Kenji and Joanne’s relationship nor the bruschetta would be as interesting without the slight tartness.

As the story unfolds, the crunch of crisp bruschetta is heard, audience members pour more wine, and an occasional clatter of dishes from the hidden kitchen is heard—all predicted by Chef Coleman Foster at the start. It’s all part of the performance. And, if anyone has allergies or doesn’t care to eat, Foster advises pushing the food aside. He has enough experience—and an impressive resume to support it (including Chanterelle, Gramercy Tavern, and Bouley)—not to take offense.

In the next scene/course, we have Kenji visiting his elderly Aunt Lillian, convincingly played by Natalie Burgess. He brings her homemade tomato soup with coconut cream—the same dish the audience is eating. Suffering from dementia, Lillian argues and refuses to eat it, claiming that nothing tastes good anymore now that she is denied salt. The audience’s soup is served with cilantro and curried popcorn on the side. Little packets of salt rest on top. The soup is creamy and mellow and Lillian melts after she ultimately tastes it, putting her in a sultry mood. The audience is right with her. She slides into a hallucinatory reverie, imagining that her caretaker Eric, played winningly by Benjamin Thomas, is a handsome young man who has asked her to dance. The moment is beautiful and highlights yet another relationship—between food and sexuality. Burgess and Thomas slip into the sequence and back seamlessly.

In the third scene/course, the pace quickens when Eric returns home after work and he and his girlfriend, Jessica, spar. Jessica dresses and undresses in anxious anticipation of a dinner at her sister’s house, ultimately selecting the outfit that Eric does not prefer. Eric, who is to join her, does not want to meet her sister, Joanne, without having a commitment from Jessica. But Jessica isn’t ready and ultimately she goes alone as the audience nibbles at the carrots simmered in buttery carrot juice and ginger broth topped with radish sprouts—a tasty dish, but, well…not quite satisfying. Sort of like the relationship before us. As Eric explains, “It’s like I’m hungry. I want you.” Ginger O’Neill and Thomas show what it is like when two people are not in sync, he longing and she indifferent and preoccupied with her own concerns.

Joanne’s dinner unfolds with some surprises in the final scene/course. Thus, the spicy pickled tilapia salad with red onions and coriander on a bed of greens is entirely appropriate. Watching Jessica absorb Kenji’s generosity brings a nice moment to the sisters’ interchange, and to my mind, influences the sweet outcome—a dense pana cotta with orange sauce.

The scenes and the courses are satisfying. But, the cast rises to additional heights with Jaeger’s fanciful, sometimes downright funny, choreography as they bus the tables and bring in the food between scenes. Appropriate music supports the transitions and an original song, composed by Doug Silver, adds humor. Each sequence is a performance on its own.

Sweet Pushes, Tangy Pulls is directed with a deft hand and a clever eye by Erin Brindley. Costumes, by Jaeger, and sets, by Jaeger and Brindley, are simple yet notable. Ripple Productions is a new company with an ensemble that clearly loves to work collaboratively. With its third production under its belt, this is a company to watch.

There are several near-transcendent moments for theatre lovers in Melba Moore's new autobiographical musical Sweet Songs of the Soul. One, predictably, comes when she dons the goofy pigtails that she wore as Lutiebell Gussie Mae Jenkins and bursts into a joyous rendition of the title song from Purlie, shedding thirty-odd years in the process. Another, just before this, is a lovely, intelligent reading of "Easy to be Hard" from Hair, which she sang on Broadway in 1969. And—my favorite, I think—happens near the end of Act I: a delicious tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, "Air Mail Special," Chick Webb's blend of classic scat and a dozen or so signature tunes, uncannily rendered by Moore in a voice practically as sweet and pure and strong as Ella's.

The funny thing, though, is that Moore herself seems mostly disengaged when she performs these numbers, all of them hallmarks of her blazing (if long-ago) years of Broadway and vocal stardom. Technically, she's note-perfect, displaying the four-octave range that made her famous; but her mind isn't on these triumphs of her past.

It is, instead, very focused on telling the story of her rise, fall, and rehabilitation—especially the last of these, which happened with the help of friends she calls Born Again Saints; daily readings of the Bible; deep, deep faith; and the music that is obviously her first love, gospel. At the beginning of the show, she talks about her topsy-turvy childhood: she grew up in Manhattan, the daughter of a jazz singer who spent most of her time touring, leaving little Melba to be raised by her grandmother and then by an illiterate maiden lady from the Deep South (her recollection of one of Miz Lou's tales of Brer Rabbit is a high point of the show). There's an interesting story here, and one hopes that Moore—who admits that this production is still a work-in-progress—will go further (and deeper) in exploring her early years in future iterations of Sweet Songs of the Soul.

Act Two is about her quick rise to fame and then, for most of its running time, a series of personal and career calamities that brought her to the depths of despair. This, too, is intriguing material; it needs to be shaped and honed, however, to clarify the chain of events and especially to allow audiences to really understand how Moore fell so low, the better to appreciate how high and strong she's bounced back. After struggling through this lengthy narrative, she launches into "Lean On Me," a gospel piece written by Van McCoy that's become her new signature song, and for the first time in the show she really comes to life. A sing- and clap-along encore to another traditional gospel hymn turns Sweet Songs of the Soul, at its end, into a kind of revival meeting.

If you came, as I did, expecting greatest hits from Purlie and Hair, you may feel a bit left out in the cold by this finale. But Moore's new fans—prepared, as I was not, that this show would be a "ministry" (her word)—were on their feet, and rhapsodic.