Paul Boocock has the uncanny ability to tell his stories using every tool nature has provided him: his body, his voice, the tiny muscles in his face, his intuition, and his use of language. And he makes it look easy—just like the great baseball players, whose stories he uses as a metaphor for our democracy, make the game look easy.

Baseball as a metaphor for politics or life or what-have-you may be as played-out as the game itself, but Boocock manages to breathe some life into this venerable metaphor. He takes the Great American Pastime and reminds us what is so great about it while at the same time reminding us what is great about our way of life and why it's worth fighting for. This is not to say that he makes everything out to be apple pie; he gives the good with the bad, telling his stories with endearing honesty.

He makes a point of showing us that democracy is a balancing act; we balance the needs of the many with those of the few, we swallow our pride for the greater good and we set up checks and balances to help ensure that justice is served. But everyone knows that our democracy does not run like a well-oiled machine. Without a doubt, it is far from perfect. Boocock takes baseball and democracy and shows us how they have survived their share of controversy, bouts with corporatism, and players/politicians with excessive pride. As Boocock says, “This country will survive George W. Bush.” Indeed it will!

The show starts off with Bush in what Boocock calls his “fantasy, dream, nightmare” where Boocock is the owner of the Yankees and Bush is the owner of the Texas Rangers and they’re rubbing elbows at an owners convention. Bush is bragging about his lineup of heavy hitters because “that’s what sells tickets” and Boocock relishes in reminding him of the in-your-face-Mr.-President fact that the Rangers have never won a World Series. But then he turns around and balances this with the fact that the Yankees haven’t won one since Bush took the Presidency.

Boocock’s performance is unswervingly engaging, like driving down a narrow country road. He grabs the audience with this first impression of Bush (the first of many impressions) and doesn’t let go for even a second. So what if his impressions are not necessarily dead-on?—they are nonetheless hilarious and his knowledge of the game and its history is certainly impressive. It’s important to note that you don’t have to be a fan of the game to enjoy the show nor do you have to follow politics closely to catch the connections he’s making to our democracy. Boocock and his director Mary Catherine Burke make the show very accessible and they make it as interesting to watch as it is to hear because Boocock is a tremendous physical actor.

Even though he tells his stories using elements of standup, he doesn’t just stand there and deliver a monologue of parables like a sermon on a pitcher’s mound. Instead he incorporates mime, movement, and dance (not artsy but silly dance). His talent in animating his subjects draws us further into his world. One of his funnier movement bits is his jerky, slightly-faster-than-reality mime of Babe Ruth recorded on early film. And his mime of Jason Giambi bulking up on steroids is a scream.

Movement is also created through Jeff Croiter’s striking lighting, and Jake Hall’s excellent sound design helps to create the atmosphere of each segment. Burke’s direction is a driving force in the flow of the show. She highlights details with alternating subtlety and forcefulness.

There are a couple of ironies that I’m not sure are intentional or not. First is the contradiction between Boocock’s anti-corporatism sentiments and the fact that his favorite team, the Yankees, must be the most corporate team in the league. However, this has not always been the case and I’m sure he’s been a fan since before he knew the meaning of corporatism. So he’s forgiven. Second, several of his stories make the point of overcoming pride for the sake of the team and yet one can’t help but notice that his name, in possessive form, is in front of the title of the show. This seems to run in direct contradiction to the theme of the show. However, perhaps his intention is to parallel baseball’s standard of individual performance within the context of teamwork.

Despite these ironies Boocock’s House of Baseball is a show that you’ll walk away from feeling like you just spent an hour with your funny friend who tells great stories and loves his country. The fact is, between the animation and the intuitive script lies a performer with a lot of heart.

Staceyann Chin radiates the kind of energy that could hold an audience’s attention even if she were reciting from the Yellow Pages. Because she so relishes the words tripping off her tongue, because she is proud of the journey she has taken to get her to this performance, and because she revels in the fact that fate is “another word for whatever the fuck I choose to do,” we revel along with her. Her one-woman show BORDER/CLASH is the story of her life to date.

Chin was born in Jamaica, to a Jamaican mother and a Chinese father, neither of whom raised her—her father never even came to see her mother after she was born. She spent her childhood with aunts and grandparents, mostly separated from her brother and only occasionally seeing her mother. In college, she not only came out to herself as a lesbian, but defiantly “live[d] out loud as a lesbian” in a culture where being openly gay would get you shunned, if not raped or killed. She came to New York in her twenties, got up the nerve to perform at the Nuyorican Poets Café, and almost before she knew it, was a star of the slam poetry world—touring, speaking at colleges, performing on Broadway in Def Poetry Jam, even at one point being interviewed on CNN.

BORDER/CLASH is an illustration of one of the lessons Chin has learned along the way: “the invisible story is valuable if it can be sold.” This autobiographical narrative, performed with full acknowledgment of the watching audience, shows that she is both cynical enough to know she’s a commodity and confident enough to ask the highest price for herself. It’s a progress narrative, a lightly tongue-in-cheek rags-to-riches story whose protagonist is still moving onwards and upwards.

Chin’s roots as a writer are in slam poetry, and some of the show’s high points come when she pulls out her poems and performs them. But her prose also shows a fine ear for an aphorism and a tart phrase—my favorite, used to describe the first woman she fell in love/lust with, is Savannah’s “angst is in perpetual bloom.” Some parts of the show are more effective than others. Not surprisingly, Chin has more perspective and more insight about the earlier parts of her life than about the most recent events. Perhaps surprisingly, her perceptions are sharper when she’s talking about the bad times than the good ones. She’s rightfully proud of the success of Def Poetry Jam—but the part of the play where she talks about Broadway has substantially less impact than her quiet, blow-by-blow recounting of an attempted gang-rape.

It’s the tiny observations that make it hit so hard. She is able to retrace the path of her thoughts in those minutes with microscopic detail: each touch, each word, each step toward the door as she tried to escape, each color in the shirts the boys wore. Director Rob Urbinati’s staging is at its most effective here as well. Sometimes the traffic patterns feel a little random, but here Urbinati keeps Chin still, and far from the audience, which sharpens our focus.

The physical production is gorgeous, especially Garin Marschall’s set, riotous with color and cleverly delineating the streetscapes of Jamaica and New York with different arrays of fabric.

In concluding, Chin describes the current state of her life, and realizes that “Most days I am exactly who I want to be.” How can you ask for more from a life? Chin’s joy—in her politics, in having a platform from which to speak, in having accomplished this much already—makes BORDER/CLASH well worth watching.

The Tempest is about Prospero, a banished duke-turned-enchanter who, with his beautiful young daughter Miranda, continues to inhabit the “deserted” island where they washed up after a shipwreck a dozen years prior. When a new ship bearing those who wronged him sails within his territory, Prospero conjures a “tempest,” a magical and deceptive storm that ultimately puts all the players together on the island playing field—but, of course, separated and strategically placed so that Prospero can manipulate them like chess pieces. Among them are Alonso, King of Naples, who conspired with fellow castaway Antonio (Prospero’s brother) to get rid of Prospero 12 years ago, and Alonso’s beloved, innocent and honorable son Ferdinand. Ferdinand, cut off from all the others and believing himself to be the only survivor, comes upon Miranda, who has never seen another human, apart from her father. They immediately fall wildly in love, much to Prospero’s delight and convenience. As the “visitors” are about to discover, there lurk on the island many more presences than are dreamt of in a mere mortal’s philosophy—including Ariel, a spirit indentured to Prospero and visible only to him (and us), and Caliban, a misshapen half-demon man-beast, who hates and fears master Prospero but yearns for Miranda.

On the day that I attended the performance in the lovely old West Bank Presbyterian Church at Amsterdam and West 86th Street, it was a hot, muggy Saturday afternoon. The altar has been stripped bare, and there's an eerie, almost too-quiet atmosphere in the church. Apropos to the opening sequence of The Tempest, it was about to rain and thunderstorm outside at any moment. Naturally, the play got started with a jolt—the sound of the storm and ocean waves crashing.

Unfortunately, for the first fifteen or twenty minutes of the play, Shakespeare’s text was pretty much garbled and incomprehensible. Initially I attributed this to the storm scene’s sound effects being too loud; but then the inaudibility continued well into the next and all-important introduction of Prospero, played by Philip Bartolf, and Miranda, adeptly played by the lovely Cotton Wright. We are supposed to learn here through Prospero’s exposition (somewhat long-winded and complicated even for Shakespeare) about how he and Miranda ended up on the island, but I mostly couldn’t understand a word Bartolf said. It seemed as if he was speaking really quickly just to get an irksome speech over with sooner. Also his voice didn’t project well until much later in the play. I was sitting third pew from the front, and I strained to hear him.

But the production really came to life with the entrance of the savage, groveling half-creature Caliban, played with great charisma and agility by Ryan Patrick Ervin, who literally comes crawling out of nowhere. Ferdinand is played by another fine actor, Bradley Thomason. He and Wright make a very attractive couple, and Thomason is very elegant and articulate in all his other scenes. The reigning King of Naples, Alonso, is played by veteran actor Robert O’Melia. Also part of Alonso’s entourage are his young brother, Sebastian, played to preppie-boy perfection by Tim Scott, and Antonio, Prospero’s opportunistic brother who wrongly assumed the dukedom of Milan with Prospero’s banishment.

Sebastian and Antonio hang back from the ministrations to the King of Naples to make snarky, petty, smart-ass remarks about their companions. Their easy vulture-of-a-feather camaraderie became for me a fascinating highlight of the play. When Alonso and his attendants fall under Ariel’s sleep charm, Sebastian and Antonio are mysteriously unaffected. The more ruthless of the two, Antonio—in a deliciously wicked performance by Dwayne Thomas—convinces weak-willed but ambitious Sebastian to help him kill Alonso and crew as they sleep. But their dire deed is foiled not a moment too soon by Prospero’s magical intervention.

The play truly becomes a comedy with the entrance of befuddled jester Trinculo, played by the fabulously dweeby Tom Farrell, who takes flakiness to new heights as he staggers whimpering and disoriented about the beach. When he stumbles upon Caliban, who is fleeing in terror from Prospero’s threats of punishment, Trinculo somehow mistakes him for a very big fish—or a man—or a man who’s also a fish and possibly dead. Finally, enter the butler Stephano (played by the production’s director Marc Silberschatz), who is too drunk even to be scared of being lost and alone on a possibly deserted island, but drags his wine cask around with him to ensure his continued anesthesia just in case. Whereas Antonio and Sebastian feel like malicious, smarter versions of Hope and Crosby, Trinculo and Stephano here are Bill and Ted, and they play it to the hilt.

I think I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that on the performance I saw there were a few distractions that had little to do with the play being presented. There is liberal use of music in the production, which is kind of nice, but more often than not the volume was too high and overwhelmed the action on the stage. I was very aware of actors moving back and forth along the back of the balcony throughout the play as they went to the dressing room or their next stage position; I often found my eye going up to them rather than focusing on the scene being played. Similarly, in one of the final scenes, at the entrances of goddesses Iris and Ceres, my attention was pulled away by how the banners were cascading down from the balcony. Perhaps Silberschatz might consider integrating this moment into the scene with hooded attendants to the goddesses rather than hazard the clunkiness of someone hidden behind the rails and struggling to manage the banner, as was happening.

I think Silberschatz has the right idea. His production, overall, is good-looking and well staged, with inspired use of the church space (especially in suggesting the bough of a ship) and some better-than-average performances. Once the technical issues are resolved, the production should have a much more polished and professional feel to it.

Buster Bins, purveyor of boxes, is having a bad day. Although a sign on his office wall proudly announces that it's been 7 days since the last accident on the factory floor (and 13 days since the last dismemberment!), this particular morning has gotten hopelessly out of control. Mr. Dunleavy is on line 1, complaining that the boxes Buster sold him have fallen apart (well, he did try to pack his 600-pound hogs in them, but...). Buster's Mom is on line 2, getting more and more upset each time Buster puts her on hold, trying to find out if he's coming over tonight for meatloaf. One of Buster's employees, McKenzie, is on line 3, requiring help with a crisis involving yet another box order. Posh customer Henrietta Swank (of the Mayfield Swanks) is at the door, hoping to get Buster to sell her some boxes to ship her antique porcelain chicken collection. And, to top it all off, Buster's receptionist, Rose, is quitting.

What's Buster supposed to do to keep up with it all? Well, Rose's departure leads him to call a temp agency, where super-helpful operator Melissa will set him up with someone to tide him over for the next week. Trouble is, poor distracted Buster, thinking he's still speaking to McKenzie, says, into the phone, something along the lines of, "Just what I need—a fool working here!" And Melissa, ever-efficient, sends one over, pronto.

And that's how the delightful silent clown, portrayed by Box of Fools' creator and star Jessica Putnam Peskay, happens to get a job as Buster's receptionist.

What ensues in this broad comic show, which combines Putnam Peskay's innocent, good-natured antics with a very silly, complicated plot involving Henrietta Swank's chickens, a doofus inspector named Muggins who's on her trail (without knowing it), and a hilarious auction at the county fair that features, delightfully, plenty of audience participation. All you really need to know is that everything works out nicely in the end, thanks mostly (though not entirely) to the off-kilter machinations of our Fool, whose name, at least for this show, is Miss Beep.

Although the auction scene in particular is a real hoot, and the humor is occasionally pitched directly at adults (one of the so-called antiques being auctioned off, for example—a cheesy looking lacquered plastic or ceramic banana—is said to be part of Josephine Baker's costume from a 1923 Cotton Club revue). But the target audience for Box of Fools would seem to be kids, the younger the better: Putnam Peskay's physical comedy, Kyle Lange's cartoonish characterization of Inspector Muggins, and the simple, broad jokes laced throughout Joshua Putnam Peskay's adorable script all seem to attest to this. And indeed, the biggest laugh of the evening—onstage as well as off—came when one of the younger members of the audience, in the spirit of the auction, shouted out a bid of "infinity" for one of Ms. Swank's supposedly rare chickens.

Box of Fools is well on its way to being not just an okay kids' show but a really extraordinary one. Clocking in at about 105 minutes, it's a bit too long right now; and the show's great underlying concept (noted in the program)—the idea that the Fool can teach Buster how to think "outside the box"—falters a bit in Act Two. (Its Act One manifestation is great: Miss Beep takes phone messages on a giant drawing pad, forcing Buster to decipher them in a whole new, fun way.)

The production values are clever and carefully wrought: backdrops (presumably painted by set designer James Burns) are particularly eye-filling and charming, but the whole layout of the show is smart and fun at the same time. The costumes are on-target as well, especially Putnam Peskay's colorful Fool's uniform (which she accessorizes with a strand of big blue pearls to add just the right "professional" touch as a receptionist).

Music by Stephen Jacobs and Eric Rockwin (some of it arranged and played by Ken Thomson) is appropriately perky. The cast of nine keeps the energy high and the seriousness quotient close to zero, which is exactly right; I was especially charmed by Ben Jones as Mr. Dunleavy, whose warm, dry persona makes this slightly dim-witted hog farmer into a real swell guy, and by Jacqueline van Biene, who is pretty funny as Henrietta Swank.

I had a great time at Box of Fools; creator/clown Jessica Putnam Peskay, author Joshua Putnam Peskay (her husband), and director Matthew A. Peskay (his brother) are doing great work here and I will be eager to see what they come up with next. Meanwhile, New Victory Theatre and others specializing in fare for small fry would do well to catch this show before it closes.

This was my first experience at a Bread and Puppet Theater event. I was impressed by the potency of the experience; and surprised that it moved me in ways very different than I was expecting.

The company, founded more than 40 years ago, is still run by Peter Schumann, who creates their shows in collaboration with the ensemble as well as directs and designs them, including sculpting and painting the enormous masks and puppets that are their trademark. Wow—these pieces are stunning: visually arresting in and of themselves, and also visceral evidences of Bread and Puppet's credo that art must be populist (i.e., readily available, cheap, and for everybody). So an impressionistically carved and painted piece of wood turns into a donkey leading a plow in one sequence. Masses of goons (the shadowy, underdetailed human-sized puppets shown in the background of the photo at the top of this page) stand in for populations from ancient times and nowadays, and morph, in groupings, into twin towers and a renegade aircraft intent on toppling them.

Most of this year's Bread and Puppet offering—titled "The National Circus and Passion of the Correct Moment"—is performed in silence (or with some spare musical accompaniment) by actors wielding or encased within these remarkable puppets and masks. The eloquence of these mute monsters re-enacting scenes of warfare and destruction is pretty powerful. In one sequence, a passel of well-dressed, highly placed puppets watch helplessly and haughtily as some kind of natural disaster—a tsunami, maybe, or a hurricane—rages in front of them. When survivors climb out from under the devastation and reach out for a helping hand, the establishment puppets throw fake and useless "hands" at them and then quickly exit. In another segment, armies wielding pots and pans as weapons advance and retreat in a seemingly endless cycle of battle until everybody on both sides falls down dead—only to rise up and start over again.

The evening begins, on a somewhat lighter note, with the "circus" portion of the show, which includes Schumann as Uncle Sam on stilts higher than any I've ever seen in my life, a literalization of the meeting between two "great ladies"—Truth and the New York Times, and the "Rotten Idea Theater Company" in three pointedly satirical blackout sketches that made me laugh out loud.

The evening ends, after nearly an hour of solemn, deliberate exploration of what Schumann calls the "Correct Moment" (i.e., where things are in our world right now), with a call for insurrection. It's a grand finale, but almost touchingly naive; though the ugliness and perils of the "Correct Moment" have been amply demonstrated, the show nevertheless fails to jolt us headlong into activist mode, instead leaving us—or me anyway—feeling nostalgic and a little melancholy that the lively energy that protest street theatre ought to stir up in a sympathetic crowd just doesn't seem to exist any more. Why is that, I wonder?

Ok, so we're in this drinking establishment in a still-edgy neighborhood in Brooklyn, enjoying the tail-end of open mic night. Kevin Orton sings a song or two and reads a poem from Whitman. Stephen Morfesis does some standup. Scott Nogi recites two of his (terrific) slam-style poems. The entertainment seems to be wrapping up. Our hostess turns things over to a woman (who seems to go by "Witchy") who makes an impassioned plea for historic preservation: her neighborhood, Bushwick, is just the latest section of Brooklyn to fall prey to gentrification; we're losing our heritage and our roots and our grounding. She wants us to sign a petition.

And the show seems to be over, except all of a sudden here comes a guy to talk to Witchy (who by now has returned to her seat), and everybody in the room is paying attention to him. He's from Williamsburg and he's a blogging fiend (his online name is Cakemaven) and he's interested in getting somewhere with this girl but she's not; she's interested in channeling the ghosts that, she tells him, are everywhere in New York.

And then one by one, five of those ghosts materialize, and begin to tell their disparate tales to groups of people seated around the room.

There's a Dutch woman from long ago, speaking about an accident at sea that claimed her husband. There's a woman from the Civil War era who reveals her feelings of love for another woman. There's the Russian immigrant caught up in a political demonstration that turned violent. There's a 1920s flapper type, reminiscing about her hotsy-totsy lifestyle. And there's a kid on roller skates whose life was as unpredictable as her death.

Their stories—monologues, written in strikingly different voices by Breuckelen's playwright, Chris Van Strander—are brief but riveting. They don't add up to anything obvious save the unheard legacy of the millions who came before the present inhabitants of Brooklyn. They're well performed by five actresses (listed here in the same order as above: Shannon Burkett, Brooke Peterson, Stacey Jenson, Candy Simmons, and Karie Christina Hunt; Burkett and Hunt are especially memorable).

The ghosts drift out; Cakemaven wanders off; the evening really does end now. Breuckelen, about an hour from start to finish, is an intriguing experiment in performance, storytelling, and audience engagement. It's at the forefront of a very interesting mini-trend whereby theatre is just part of a bigger evening (as opposed to being the "main event" or an end in itself): Breuckelen, at 10pm at Collective: Unconscious, is intended to sit in the middle or near the beginning (depending on the hours you keep) of a longer night of eating, drinking, being with friends. The "play" happens almost entirely offstage, in the same space as the spectators (with different parts of it unspooling simultaneously, at once very distracting and very stimulating).

It's a great notion, but in this incarnation can't be judged entirely a success. The space is one problem: this show really needs to be in the place it says it's in, i.e., a pub or saloon-like space with a real bar where you can really bring drinks to your seats). It also seems to call for a less boxy space: I think it would be more interesting to be tantalized (but not actually able to completely see or hear) the other "ghosts" at the same time that you're interacting with the one before you, and that would require alcoves and nooks and crannies in the playing area that just aren't available at CU. Finally, there's the inherent paradox of having to know in advance what the evening's key surprise is going to be: I would have loved it if Van Strander and his director Matthew Didner had figured out a way to not tell us in advance that the "open mic" thing is just a pretense, but I don't know how they'd get people to pay theatre-type prices without giving it away.

But there's something really nifty and special brewing here, and I hope that Van Strander and Didner and their collaborators keep stirring it up. Meanwhile, if you're up for an unusual and offbeat hour of entertainment in the middle of your Friday or Saturday night, Breuckelen may be just the thing to send your evening off into an unexpected new direction.

Often theatre puts the more central mediums of the culture in high relief. Oscars are in the air, and among the nominees is the film Crash, which depicts an ensemble of racially diverse characters, all with their racism and hypocrisy simmering throughout. If I have heard any criticism of Crash, it has been that it makes its point by discounting any nod towards racial harmony, as if we are forever struggling against almost inherent prejudices, that only extreme circumstances force us to reconsider.

Balancing the recently en vogue grit and glamour of racial discord is Bridge and Tunnel, an expressly positive hug to the modern immigrant experience, raising each of its many characters to their most noble and accepting forms.

How does Sarah Jones make this script's rose-colored glasses seem so honest and provocative? It seems to me that she lifts her characters out of the day-to-day drudgery of endless work hours and struggling to pay rent. She places them in an oasis, in “beautiful South Queens,” and lets them use the common language of storytelling and poetry. If anything, Bridge and Tunnel is just as much about the power of expression and poetry as it is about the immigrant experience. It’s about how the opportunity to tell our stories lifts us up. And yet with that, Jones avoids the pitfalls that could have made this all too safe, and gives us the sort of idealistic vision that would have made the late Coretta Scott King proud.

Sarah Jones, whose performance has already been heralded in her run at the Culture Project and is now performing Bridge and Tunnel at the Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway, is a mimic of a high order, but not only a mimic of voices and stances and emotions. She is a mimic of language.

I admit that when she started the piece, I thought it was solid, but her portrayals were clever, perfect, but pat. The old Jewish woman from Long Island who decries anti-Semitism and doesn’t understand rap music; the Pakistani who is under investigation; the homeless woman who tells us to turn off our cell phones. Each is a wonderful character, but they’re familiar enough, even if performed by this young woman who can wow us with the quick change.

Then she revealed a young, American Vietnamese male, angry slam poet, who sounded and moved exactly, precisely, like a young, American Vietnamese, male, angry slam poet. And the poem was the poem he should have given.

As it wears on, the awe of Ms. Jones’s formidable chops doesn’t wear off, but it is augmented by what a pleasure and a privilege it becomes to be in the presence of characters who are pouring out what amount to be a parade of beautiful souls.

Perhaps the most subversive thing in the evening is how she recasts the everyman. The truth is that the new James Stewart may well be a Pakistani man with the unfortunate name of Mohammed Ali. The image of a single white man struggling against a world that seem unfair (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) has been replaced in 2006 by the image of a heavily accented man, thrilled to be in a roomful of others who share his passions. In fact, the portrayal of this man by a 32-year-old black woman makes it all the more truthful. Jones is showing us the new common experience.

There is something about modern society, particularly New York hipster sensibility, that resists a positive vision. I’m sure that some will express that Sarah Jones isn’t showing the ugliness and difficulty that pervades everyday life. I found it a rare moment, a truly important one, to see something that isn’t built on a foundation of disaffection, and that doesn’t ever fall into the muck of Hallmark cards and Disney. After all, poetry can still bring people together; and that is cause for celebration.

Here's a quick report on Broadway Originals!, the two-hour concert/revue that capped the first annual Broadway Cabaret Festival at Town Hall. 21 performers re-created moments from Broadway musicals of the last 40-some years. The lineup included some folks we've not seen on stage in a very long time (people that I've never seen on stage at all): Pat Suzuki, James Randolph, Sarah Rice, Walter Willison, and Mary Louise; some more familiar faces: the Callaway sisters (Liz and Ann Hampton), Chuck Cooper, Melissa Errico, Evan Pappas, Jack Noseworthy, Rachel York, and Cady Huffman; and some well-known veteran performers, some of whom we don't associate so much with the musical theatre: Austin Pendleton, Lee Roy Reams, Karen Akers, Jim Walton, Alice Playten, Penny Fuller, Priscilla Lopez, and Randy Graff.

Host Scott Siegel started things off by explaining the ground rules of the event: everything here was performed on Broadway by these stars, who either introduced these songs or, in two cases, were original cast members of a Broadway revival (for the record: James Randolph played Sky Masterson in the 1976 all-black revival of Guys and Dolls and Mary Louise played Irene Molloy in the 1975 Hello, Dolly! starring Pearl Bailey).

As you can probably tell from the lineup, most of these folks played supporting roles in their shows, but many of them proved why their work was memorable and worth seeing once again. Topping the list was certainly Karen Akers, spinning Maury Yeston's "My Husband Makes Movies" from Nine in her incomparable style, opening windows into the soul of her character (Luisa, wife of Fellini-esque director Guido Contini) with spectacular economy and depth in the space of a four-minute song. I was also thrilled to see Priscilla Lopez return to her signature song from A Chorus Line, "Nothing," which she does better than anybody I've ever seen do it; ditto Penny Fuller, conjuring her Eve Harrington from Applause in "One Halloween"; Evan Pappas, bringing back a happy memory (for me, anyway) from My Favorite Year with "Blue Lights, Pink Lights"; and Rachel York, who seemed as lithesome and sexy as ever in "Lost and Found" from City of Angels.

Randy Graff chose to perform one of her lesser-known numbers, "The Next Best Thing to Love" from the musical about Edward Kleban, A Class Act; that's precisely what she was (always is, I'd say). Austin Pendleton, who does just about everything in the theatre these days except musicals, stepped back into the shoes of Motel Kamzoil in Fiddler on the Roof, a role he originated more than 40 years ago, and delivered a delightful "Miracle of Miracles." Sarah Rice gave us a letter- and note-perfect "Green Finch and Linnet Bird" from Sweeney Todd, and Alice Playten performed the heck out of "Nobody Steps on Kaffritz," the unpleasant show-stopper that brought her great acclaim in Henry, Sweet Henry in 1967.

Cooper, Errico, Noseworthy, and Huffman did numbers from shows less than ten years old: not so necessary or exciting, in my book (though Huffman and Cooper got big, welcoming ovations recreating roles that won each of them a Tony Award). Randolph, who has a grand, silky voice, fumbled through "Luck be a Lady" and Suzuki, looking great at 70 or thereabouts, misstepped frequently during "I Enjoy Being a Girl"—both made game recoveries, but were disappointing, nonetheless. Willison ("I Do Not Know a Day I Did Not Love You" from Two by Two), Walton ("Not a Day Goes By" from Merrily We Roll Along—though not the version he actually introduced), Louise ("Ribbons Down My Back" from Dolly!), and Liz Callaway ("The Story Goes On" from Baby) rounded out the program. Only Ann Hampton Callaway's number—"Blues in the Night," which she performed in Swing (but certainly did not introduce; she wasn't even the first to do the number in a Broadway show)—seemed out of place, belonging more to the world of cabaret than to Broadway.

Stopping the show—and making at least this audience member wish for much, much more—was the ageless and versatile Lee Roy Reams, who clowned, hoofed, and sang his way through a delicious medley of songs he introduced, "She's No Longer a Gypsy" (Applause), "Lorelei" (Lorelei),  and "Lullaby of Broadway" (42nd Street). Reams needs someone to produce him in a one-man autobiographical show, in which he would, I have no doubt, give Stritch, Rivera, Channing, et al some major competition.

Broadway Originals!, arguably somewhat deficient in authentic star power, was nevertheless a lot of fun: the half-dozen or so really classic performances included here were a thrill to see brought back to life by their original actors. Siegel, who in addition to hosting the show produced and wrote it, along with the other festivities at this weekend-long Broadway Cabaret Festival, clearly loves the songs of Broadway and his energy in boosting them in concerts like this one is, apparently boundless. Musical theatre buffs—who were out in force at this show—owe him their gratitude for carrying the torch.

In Broken Journey, poet-playwright Glyn Maxwell transports the characters and plot ideas that Kurosawa used to create Rashomon to present-day America, where their singular circumstances have little to do with objective truth and everything to do with that most subjective of experiences, love.

The play unfolds in a police station and, in flashbacks, in a remote roadside area in the wee hours of a Sunday morning. There, a businessman named Andre and his high-spirited girlfriend Chloe run out of gas, make some half-hearted attempts to find help (his idea) and some other half-hearted attempts to enjoy the spontaneous thrill of the moment (champagne on the grass, dancing, lovemaking--her idea). Troy, a coarse ex-hippie on a motorcycle, turns up, and then some dangerous things happen: Andre winds up handcuffed to a telephone box, Chloe and Troy have sex (whether its consensual or not depends on who you choose to believe), and Andre ends up dead, knifed in the belly.

Troy, Chloe, Andre (via a medium named Mrs. Millwood), and a passerby (Paul, a paperboy) all relate their own versions of what happened. We are left to sift through the conflicting perceptions and observations and try to decide what really transpired.

However, as I've already suggested, Maxwell is more concerned with emotional truths than objective ones: he doesn't care whether Andre was killed by Chloe or by Troy or if he committed suicide (and he says as much in a program note); instead, he's interested in why Andre has dropped the "w" from the end of his name and why Chloe is so ready to flirt with a stranger in the middle of a woods and why said stranger (Troy) can morph from Chloe's ally to Andre's in the space of just a few minutes. Maxwell has given us a play filled with contradictions and asks us not to worry about sorting them out, but rather to sift and search through the mire and seek whatever we can find there about essential human nature. Aspects of love—from physical lust to deeper feelings of compassion—and aspects of love's opposite, which I would argue Maxwell believes to be loneliness: these are what's on view in Broken Journey, for our contemplation and edification.

Now, I have to tell you that, all that said, I didn't care for Broken Journey: the very damaged hearts that it trades in held little interest for me. Putting it another way, I didn't find much to like, empathize with, or ultimately understand in Chloe, Andre, and Troy; Maxwell's crafted them to represent much that is base in our lives, and I don't cotton to that, I admit it. I cannot, for example, watch an actor handcuffed to a pole for an hour or more without feeling it in my gut—after even a few minutes, I start to get really squeamish. (Who has handcuffs in their pocket or glove compartment, anyway? I'm sorry, but I just don't know these people.)

I also found some of Maxwell's poetry jarring. The dialogue (in very contemporary blank verse) mostly does succeed in replicating everyday speech in a heightened fashion, but there are places where I just lost the thread of what the characters were talking about, so mired in obscure imagery did they become. And one aspect of the writing proved a continual distraction: Broken Journey wants to be set in America (and indeed Troy and Andre talk very specifically at one point about being fans of the Giants and the Packers football teams). But the language is never American English but British English: what we'd call towns are referred to as villages, for example; Troy calls Andre "squire" repeatedly. Why was this disconnect allowed to persist?

Broken Journey does mark the return to the NYC stage of Craig Smith and Elise Stone after almost a year's absence, and it's a definite pleasure to see them (though I myself would have preferred to see them as characters I liked and understood better). Michael Surabian, with Smith and Stone a founder of Phoenix Theatre Ensemble, is very good as the conflicted and possibly cuckolded lover Andre. Newcomer Joe Rayome is similarly fine in the smaller role of Paul, the newsboy who happens on the events of the play. But Sheila O'Malley, as the psychic whom the police enlist to help them solve the mystery, never quite convinced me that she was authentically channeling Andre's spirit.

Ted Altschuler's staging is stark and efficient; I found myself especially riveted during the psychic's rendition of events, with Surabian's pained and pathetic characterization of Andre really front and center (this, for what it's worth, was the version of the story that felt "truest" to me). Tony  Mulanix's lighting design serves the piece very effectively.

Phoenix Theatre Ensemble will give us another look at Maxwell's work later this season with Wolfpit. Your reaction to Broken Journey may well help you decide whether or not to look in on that piece next spring.

If you read the description of Brother, a new play by Lisa Ebersole at the Paradise Factory, you’ll know exactly where it’s going as you’re watching it and that makes the tension in the room so thick you might find it hard to breathe.

Other than the tension, the two most appealing elements of Brother are the acting, which is completely devoid of any affectations whatsoever, and the clever, often funny banter. The dialogue is at times so crisp and real that I got a sense of déjà vu, like I’d had these very same conversations with my own friends and/or family. This, coupled with acting that is as natural as I’ve ever seen on stage, made me feel like I was sitting in someone’s living room (almost literally—the audience is seated on all four sides of the space) listening to their dysfunctional relationships form an elephant in the room that is packed with explosives and could blow any moment.

However, despite the excellent banter and acting, the pacing of the show is tedious and slow. There are moments when you feel the action rising and the pace begins to pick up but these moments are abruptly cut off and the show falls back into its sluggish pulse. Also, though I truly liked the dialogue I could not get a firm grasp on what the playwright is trying to say because the plot leaves so much open-ended and/or unexplained.

The plot goes something like this. It’s Jamie’s birthday and she’s invited a handsome black man named Carl up to her apartment for some drinks and a little sex. (At least I thought they had sex, but my companion didn’t get that.) Jamie’s sister, Margeaux, who is the black sheep of the family, has recently been evicted from her apartment and has showed up at her sister’s to crash on her couch. The three of them talk and drink and there is a bit of flirtation bounced around until Jamie’s husband Kevin comes home from his nighttime job and the tension in the room skyrockets. Naturally, Kevin questions why Carl is in his house at that hour (and wearing his clothes) and he makes his sheer hatred for Margeaux well known. Kevin leaves to buy Jamie a grocery store birthday cake and when he returns he seems even more determined to uncover the truth about what has been going on. Lies, half-truths, and false confessions begin to pile on top of one another, pushing the already volatile Kevin to his breaking point.

As I was watching the plot unfold I began to think that a search for the truth about (and from) these characters was the theme of the play, but as I began to reflect on the evening I came to think instead that Ebersole is trying to make a statement about dysfunctional relationships. However, there is too much uncertainty for me to make an accurate assessment. Ebersole reveals very little about these characters’ pasts, the nature of their relationships, and what they want at this moment in life. There is no character transformation and no resolution. The surfaces of several subjects are breached, race issues in particular, but Ebersole never takes the time to really delve into any of them. The play is only an hour long. This gives the playwright some writing room to answer the unanswered and to delve where she skims the surface.

It is perhaps Ebersole’s artistic vision to leave so many questions unanswered. After all, life doesn’t always answer our questions nor does it always have a resolution. Brother is merely a slice-of-life’s birthday cake and it makes one wonder what the rest of the cake looks like. (In fact, it may have been an interesting metaphor for this show had Kevin brought Jamie only a single slice of birthday cake instead of a whole cake.) Still, there is something unsatisfying about walking out of a play thinking more about plot questions than plot points.

Ebersole also stars in and directs the production. As an actor she is quite talented and is certainly as natural as the rest of the cast. As a director she uses the open space in an intimate manner and she keeps her actors on the same page stylistically. However, perhaps an outside eye could have recognized (and fixed) the problems with pacing.

The one actor who comes the closest to picking up the pace is Haskell King. King as Kevin delivers an extraordinary performance. The energy he brings to the room made my heart race, as if I were watching a late-night thriller. Stephanie Sanditz is utterly unaffected in her role as the contemptible Margeaux. Her use of a little laugh to show her disgust and vulnerability in a manner that is almost indistinguishable is a thing of beauty. Orran Farmer is excellent as the soft spoken stranger, Carl. He brings an appealing dynamic to the cast.

In the end, it is hard to say whether I’d recommend this production. There are elements that make for a great theatre experience but there are others that are unsatisfying. With a little bit of development, I think Brother (and its creator, Ebersole) will be something to look out for in the future.

Brundibar, the new version of Hans Krasa's opera for children by Tony Kushner and Maurice Sendak, and its curtain raiser But the Giraffe, manage to tread the difficult line of entertaining adults in the audience, while inspiring the kids (and some of those adults, as well) to squeal with glee, encouraging along the way a very special sense of thoughtful fun. Under the disarming umbrella of production designer Sendak’s imagination and supported by Kushner’s finely tuned libretto, the pieces never condescend to their genre or audience. Both manage to have something for anyone that might be in attendance.

The opera for children, with music by Krasa and original libretto by Adolf Hoffmeister, was composed in the years leading up to World War II, smuggled out of the Czechoslovakian ghetto, and performed by the children imprisoned at the Nazi’s “model ghetto” at Terezin (many of whom were later interred at Auschwitz). It follows the story of young Pepicek (Aaron Simon Gross) and his younger sister Aninku (Devynn Pedell) as they enter town to find milk for their dying mother. Once in town, they find that, without money, milk is scarce. Taking their cue from Brundibar (Euan Morton), the town’s organ grinder, whose boisterous music earns him great wealth from everyone that passes by, the children decide to sing for their milk money. The brash and loud Brundibar runs the children off with his frightful manner, leaving them scared and alone in the city streets that night. Protected and aided by a dog, a cat, and a sparrow, Pepicek and Aninku gather together all of the town’s children to outsing Brundibar, gaining the ears of the townsfolk, earning money for their milk, and ousting Brundibar from the town.

As an allegorical story about the weak and oppressed unifying and rising up to fight the bullying oppressors, Brundibar is pretty much by-the-book (but what allegory isn’t, to some extent?). In Kushner and Sendak’s production, under the vibrant direction of Tony Taccone, the little fable takes on a fantastical and surprisingly sharp-edged life. Anyone familiar with Sendak’s work in children’s literature (Where the Wild Things Are, most notably), will recognize elements of the production design and thrill to the effect that those elements have live onstage. Sendak’s work always carries a certain unnamable, subconscious dread to go with its generous helpings of kid-friendly, uplifting adventure, and things are no different here. From the face of the sun beaming knowingly over Pepicek and Aninku, to the shape of their mother forming in the moon as they sing of her, the stage lives in a world with firm roots in dream, but never strays too far from the reality of the play, and the circumstances of its original production.

Costume designer Robin Shane and set designer Kris Stone (who also worked with Sendak on the production design) both achieve this effect to phenomenal success. Stone’s set resembles any number of town sets that you may have seen over the years, as translated by Sendak’s mind. With his perfect replication of Sendak’s illustrations, complete with a slightly skewed perspective adjustment, it feels like walking into one of Sendak’s books. Shane completes that physical picture by skillfully exaggerating a realistic look to dreamlike proportions. From the children’s ultra colorful peasant garb to Brundibar’s massive carnival military uniform (twice the size of Morton’s compact body, I swear) to the three cartoon-like animals, everything looks just right, but just wrong enough to leave you unbalanced and full of glee.

Kushner’s libretto treads a similar line. Without abandoning his familiar polemic, the playwright has changed the language of it to adopt the rhyming, simpler frame of the children’s opera, and, one could argue that he, happily enough, has found exactly the right children’s opera and collaborators to do this with. This is a light-handed Kushner that we see in Brundibar. We still see calls for unity against abusive power, but it’s framed in lyrics like “its fun to lend a hand” and “friends make us strong.” In fact his understanding of the children’s plight is downright touching, right down to the idealistic idea, not only that milk will save their dying mother, but that milk can make everything better.

Gross and Pedell, playing the two children, lend themselves to this kind of earnest idealism. As the older of the two, Gross leads Pedell about the stage, and genuinely seems to be playing older brother to the frail seeming nine-year-old. They both throw themselves into the roles admirably, keeping up, in song and in performance, with the older actors around them. And those actors are nothing to sneeze at. The ensemble works spectacularly well together and there’s not a low point in the bunch, including the collection of children from Rosie’s Broadway Kids program. The standout, though, is Euan Morton. Quickly becoming the best actor in American theatre without a passport, his charisma alone makes the blustering, bullying, evil Brundibar an instant favorite of the audience, and he knows how to milk it for everything its worth.

But the Giraffe, a curtain raiser to Brundibar, is an animal of a completely different sort. Framed as a biography of the original play, it’s a short morality tale basically about a young girl learning the importance of selflessness in the face of things larger than herself. It’s an interesting but uneven piece that gives a kind of fictionalized version of the smuggling of the children’s opera out of Prague and the familial events leading up to it. Danielle Fried as the girl is a fantastic young performer and carries much of the piece nobly. But the Giraffe is a very straightforward short one-act that prepares the mind for the main act without preparing the imagination, leaving Brundibar to reach that much further to achieve its goals.

The title—Bukowski from Beyond—suggests that the great poet and writer Charles Bukowski has come back from the dead to do one last reading of his work. Or maybe we're in heaven (or hell, or purgatory, or wherever the blazes Bukowski is spending eternity) and he's signed on to do this show to earn his keep there. Either way, expect no compromise from this singular author whose vision of the world—at once romantic and blearily pragmatic—enabled him to create a body of work that alternately tickles, shocks, disturbs, pokes, and profoundly moves the listener.

This solo show, which is directed by Leo Farley, performed by Steve Payne, and has been adapted from Bukowski's works by both of them, takes us on a journey through the writer's life and soul, wryly winking at the conventions of the one-man play along the way. These gentlemen collaborated a few years back on South of No North, a play based on several of Bukowski's stories in which Payne played Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's alter ego. So they know the territory; their passion for and understanding of Bukowski's work is spectacularly apparent in this show's content and form. Payne drawls the poems and stories to punch up their sardonic humor. He surprises us with a variety of voices—different from the whiskey growl he uses for Bukowski/Chinaski—in narratives about the writer's family and the hard-nosed women and drunken barflies who populate the tales (Bukowski's poems and stories are like a tour through noir country, except you know that he lived every word).

In the middle of a long piece about how, at seven years old, he attempted to fly off the roof of his house, only to be soundly beaten by his severely dysfunctional father for breaking or spraining a bone and needing to go to the doctor, Payne-as-Bukowski looks up to announce that he's going to skip a whole bunch of stuff about his grandfather—and then flips over about three sheets in his notebook before continuing.

When the audience tries to applaud the first piece, he sternly warns us not to; and then, a few minutes later, he slyly remarks that a little applause now and then would be fine. When the response is too tepid for his taste—it almost always is—he chides us further, telling us we're doing golf claps (and he lapses into ironic muted sportscaster commentary on an imaginary golf game to let us know we're not enthusiastic enough).

About an hour into the thing, Payne asks if he might be excused to take a piss. (He's been steadily drinking beer throughout his performance, in true Bukowski tradition, so he probably really needs to.) He's gone for about four minutes, and then returns. "I probably shouldn't have done that," he barks. "Some people thought it was over and left."

The point of all of these little anecdotes about the evening being, I hope you'll understand, that Bukowski from Beyond doesn't feel like any other one-man play I've ever seen; its acknowledgement of the artifice of the situation and its easy embrace of the audience rock the form even as they reveal the spirit of its subject.

Grand as Payne is, Bukowski's words are the undisputed star of the evening, and they're so worth hearing. His poetry is gorgeous, here evoking, with uncanny precision, lonely and/or wistful times alone or in strange company; there delineating a list of several dozen artists, writers, and poets who are Bukowski's heroes. The wisdom is sometimes so simple that its breathtaking; the imagery is so sharp that it's like hearing a crystal clear photograph. Throughout, the work reminds us that what a poet does is to make large and complicated ideas vivid and compact. Bukowksi from Beyond exercises all of our senses as its vibrant language flies past us, and makes us hungry for more. If this play takes off, sales of Bukowski's books are going to take off.

Farley's staging is on-target and unobtrusive. He's put a pianist, the talented and good-natured Carl Riehl, on stage to serve as very occasional accompanist and more frequent foil to Payne; it's an inspired touch.

This is a sort-of workshop engagement of a piece that Farley and Payne have been developing for a while now. It's splendid and deserves a long life. Hopefully an extended run is in Bukowski's future.

Race, identity, and the search for self fill the narratives of American theatre to abundance. Eisa Davis’s Bulrusher takes as its paradigm the story of Moses, or at least the part where Moses is sent down the river in a basket only days after birth by his mother. This baby, named Bulrusher by her adoptive parent for the bulrush weeds that line the river where she was caught before being found, finds divine providence during her time in the river—so much so that she’s possessed with an ability to read “people’s water,” i.e., their futures when making contact with them through water. More of a poetic than a biblical effigy, Bulrusher brims with profound lyrical passion on the page, it seems; but the production staged by Leah C. Gardiner for Urban Stages fails to support this, with static and recessed blocking that seems to be filtered as through the glass walls of an aquarium.

It’s 1955, just after the Emmett Till murder, in a small town in Northern California, a place seemingly untouched by the racial strife of the burgeoning civil rights reform movement. Bulrusher, our seer (the charismatic and talented Zabryna Guevara), is a mixed breed, albeit an unaware one who identifies herself as an outsider not because of her race/skin color but because of her ability to “read the water,” the fortune telling she’s ridiculed and condemned for by the townspeople. Schoolch, the aforementioned parent (the stoic Peter Bradbury) and schoolteacher, cares for her as if she were his own, educating her with formal academics and practical self-sufficiency.

The town, Boonville, in the Anderson Valley of Mendocino County, north of San Francisco, is a lost place, a logging town whose loggers have been displaced by industrialization. The only thing for the Logger (the robust Guiseppe Jones), the “colored” lumberjack, to do is hang out at the brothel run by Madame (the feisty Charlotte Colavin), who insists on the French pronunciation—“don’t you dare call her Madam.” And so it is for Bulrusher, Schoolch, even Boy (the outmatched Robert Bietzel), Bulrusher’s former bully and current courtier, and presumably many others not seen on this stage: black, white, it’s all the same at Madame’s as long as you’re paying. The mundaneness of it all gives this place and time a serenity that befits its rural rustic setting, a bubble bursting with secrets and silences ready for popping. This needle is personified by the arrival of Vera, (the vibrant Tinashe Kajese) the niece of Logger, from Birmingham, the messenger of another reality of black-white relations, and a catalyst for Bulrusher’s awakening. It’s a stormy evening the night Vera arrives, the night she’s picked up by Bulrusher while hitchhiking, the night Bulrusher first looks into the mirror. And thankfully so, because this is when finally the story begins to move and find momentum.

Bulrusher takes Vera under her wing, reuniting her with her uncle, making her a partner in her orange and lemon stand, and in the process unraveling a metaphysical link between the two that manifests itself in sexual awakening. Anyone who’s experienced the epiphany of true love, the sensation of transcending that emotion for the first time, will sympathize with the girls, and immediately you root for them. You hope that in spite of the reality of what we know 1955 race relations to be that this fusion of souls perseveres, both for the awakening of the characters and for the hope of all mankind. If this all sounds a bit hyperbolic and melodramatic, I’ll admit it’s in the style of the writing, which utilizes the tension of emotional inner conflict to build to a climactic confrontation. Their bonds, we as audience are all well-aware, goes deeper than the lesbian love through which they manifest them. These are real “sistahs” whose interconnectedness threatens those around them. Vera shows Bulrusher the face of “colored”-ness in the U.S. and brings out a fury in her that drives her to want to cast out the part of her that is her mother. Not even Schoolch, who normally can affect her to stand down with merely a look, can control Bulrusher’s impulse to avenge her water-borne abandonment when her mother contacts her and asks to meet her.

This climax is best left to be experienced in person, but unfortunately, the night I saw it, the finale had none of the passion and combustibility to which the writing was building. The unraveling of one web inevitably leads to the unraveling of all others around. This inertia foments great storms of emotion and catharsis, a tornado taking everything with it. I saw little of this action on stage. There is great power in stillness and silence; acting doesn’t require speaking. But mere stasis and silence are not enough if they're not imbued with action. I don’t know whether this was a directorial choice or just exhaustion and mis-timing from the actors. At more than two hours, the entire piece could use some trimming and some pacing. And we all know that new plays in independent theater have little time to build momentum in front of an audience before they’re already closed. And Davis has presented a challenge to the director and the actors, a lyrical poetic play with much nuance that requires precision and commitment. Finding that rhythm is the key for any production. In spite of any shortcomings, Bulrusher has the potential to achieve that flow and satisfy its author’s beat.

White Horse Theatre Company, known for its revivals of Sam Shepard’s work, is currently tackling Shepard’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play Buried Child at the American Theatre of Actors. This seminal piece tackles the themes of incest, secrets, and the American Dream. Though this production isn’t flawless, anyone unfamiliar with this important work should be encouraged to see it.

Buried Child is set on a fallow Norman Rockwell–esque farm in the American Midwest. The family’s ailing patriarch, Dodge (Bill Rowley), sneaks sips of alcohol from a bottle he’s hidden under the couch. His wife, Halie (Karen Gibson), has turned to God and stays out all night with the local minister (David Elyha). Their eldest son, Tilden (Rod Sweitzer), has been forced out of his home in New Mexico and appears to be mentally unstable, while their youngest, Bradley (David Look), who has lost a leg, is aggressive and violent. Into the mix enter Tilden’s son Vince (Chris Stetson), and his girlfriend Shelley (Ginger Kroll), on a road trip to visit Tilden. The introduction of a beautiful young stranger into the family mix is too much to bear, and the secret they’ve all been hiding for years becomes unearthed.

Shepard purposely leaves much unclear in his text, leaving the audience with a slew of questions. What happened to Tilden in New Mexico? Who is Vince’s mother? Is anything growing in the backyard, as Tilden argues? Or is the field barren, as Halie and Dodge claim? The questions heighten the impact of the play and emphasize the nature of secrets so central to the show’s core.

Director Cyndy Marion wisely chooses to focus on each member of the cast’s strengths. Rowley nails the part of alcoholic, crotchety Dodge, bringing both humor and pathos to his character. Sweitzer is eerily convincing as unstable Tilden, and Look frightens as a very angry Bradley. Gibson’s Halie is appropriately optimistic to the point of delusion, and though he only appears briefly, Elyha as Father Dewis makes quite an impact as the minister unable to deal with any real problems.

Marion takes a straightforward approach to the play, bringing out the inherent humor and letting the dark moments speak for themselves. She makes a wise choice—Shepard’s play is powerful enough to stand up on its own merits; without wild interpretive choices, it makes a stronger impact.

Burning Bush: A Faith-Based Musical has something very specific on its mind. If the production company's name (Nero Fiddled; also the name of writer-director team Noah Diamond and Amanda Sisk's mostly political blog) doesn't tip you off, then the ads in the program for democrats.com, worldcantwait.org, and afterdowningstreet.org may point you in the right direction; so will the posting at the end of the program, which simply reads "IMPEACH BUSH: Work for a Democratic Majority, Midterm Elections November 2006." Indeed, "Impeach Bush" are the last words spoken in this show. (They're also printed on the president's shorts; he moons us at the end of Burning Bush, leaving us with this final message.)

So we're dealing here not just with parody or satire, but agitprop.

As political activism, I'd say that it works reasonably well, especially because it picks up lots of steam as it goes on, galvanizing and energizing its audience by reminding them of lots of reasons why our current administration deserves to be criticized/replaced (security and intelligence failures, the war in Iraq, possibly "stolen" elections, etc.) and offering plenty of angry-cum-humorous songs and sketches that offer up Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, Rove, and their followers as figures of derision and fun.

My personal favorites: a song in which a teenage girl plaintively asks her otherwise forward-thinking and upstanding mother why she voted Republican (she's joined in successive verses by their gay neighbor and Jesus Christ); a sketch in which a number of folks at a church meeting try to decide what group(s) to blame for the 9/11 attacks; and a very funny sketch in which Rumsfield and Bush, on a "working vacation," locate oil wells all over a map of Iraq while Osama Bin Laden kidnaps Laura Bush right out from under their noses. (At the beginning of this segment, Laura relaxes on the beach with her hubby, stretches her legs languidly, and announces that she really likes being First Lady because they've never been able to take so many vacations before.)

Ok, so if you think the foregoing—and about 90 minutes more of the same—is funny and on target, then Burning Bush is for you. If you don't, you're not likely to be influenced by it, except perhaps to dig yourself deeper into your Republican trench—which is absolutely your right. What's great about Burning Bush, regardless of your own political views, is that it exists at all: it reminds us that we still live in a country where activism against the regime is protected by our Constitution; and it also reminds us how rare, compared to, say, the Vietnam Era, this sort of very pointed theatre-as-pure-propaganda is nowadays. We need more Noah Diamonds and Amanda Sisks to take aim at all the bastions of power in this country, regardless of the party they happen to belong to.

How is Burning Bush as theatre? Scattershot but very clever; well-executed, principally because of all the positive energy behind it. Some of the niftier touches include a parody of The Who's Tommy purporting to tell the story of George W. Bush's childhood (to the tune of "Pinball Wizard: "That dumb kid / Sure is mean to frogs!"), a dancing Vice President dressed in a business suit and a Disneyfied oversized Cheney head, and a woman playing the first President Bush as an outsized parody of Dana Carvey's trademark caricature.

The six-person ensemble, led by Diamond and Sisk themselves, bring tons of conviction to their work, and clearly enjoy all the goofs they're having at their targets' expense. Brian Louis Hoffman is hilarious as George W. Bush, particularly in an envelope-pushing sketch that re-enacts the infamous 9/11 a.m. reading of "My Pet Goat" to a room full of Florida school children. Ellie Dvorkin plays both Barbara and George Herbert Walker Bush, among others; Kim Moscaritolo is very good as a CNN-type journalist with the improbable name Mopsy Jimenez-Tippington; and Corey Moosa is dead-on as Karl Rove, a pro-Bush Dad, and an anti-Bush Jesus. Playing the rock & roll music—some familiar, some original—is the band Death Mask, who are swell, and seem as totally into it as the rest of the company.

I don't know if Diamond and Sisk are interested in keeping their stage show going through next year's elections; they're certainly genuinely interested in working toward political and social change within the system, and an agitating satire like this one—updated appropriately—might help keep the troops energized for the cause. Either way, they're striking a blow for freedom just by mounting Burning Bush, which is hands-down the most politically motivated show I've seen in NYC in a long time. Hardly anything could be more American than that.

Are you appalled by our current president and not sure how to vent your rage? Do you feel a loss of camaraderie and purpose since Kerry was beaten by Bush? Are your online petitions and blogs still leaving a void that can only be filled by getting together live with a room full of like-minded people and having a little fun at the expense of our Commander-in-Chief? If so, you might want to drop by the Triad Theatre some Thursday night at 9 PM, and attend Bush is Bad: The Musical Cure for the Blue-State Blues.

If, on the other hand, you’re looking for a nuanced political discussion that tries to find common ground between the Donkey and the Elephant, this may not be the show for you. Living up to its title, Bush is Bad is an unapologetic evening of rampant Bush-bashing that is not intended to change any minds or bestow any bold new insights into how to view the current administration. Rather, the show is meant to entertain, comfort, and even inspire the already thoroughly disgusted. I’m happy to say that Bush is Bad delivers the goods.

Composer-lyricist Joshua Rosenblum has written an impressive collection of satirical songs that take us through the trials and tribulations of the Bush presidency. With songs such as “New Hope for the Fabulously Wealthy” (a paean by the rich to Bush’s historic tax cut), “I’m Losing You, Karl” (a musical retelling of the second 2004 Presidential Debate that explains the mysterious lump under the president’s jacket), and “John Bolton has Feelings, Too” (a sardonic plea for the misunderstood U.N. ambassador), Rosenblum shows an ability to heap scorn on Bush from a wide variety of angles with a light-handed wit that dances around its subjects before making well-executed and effective thrusts of the épée.

Rosenblum, who is a professional pianist and a Broadway orchestra conductor, also uses his extensive repertoire and knowledge of American popular musical forms to mix it up and create just the right tune for a given title. There’s “Lying Liars,” which has Ann Coulter, Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove having a good laugh over their successful spin-doctoring to a sophisticated jazzy rhythm with tight three part harmonies. There’s “The I Word” (for “Impeachment”), which is a stirring anthem and call to arms. “On Our Way (to Guantanamo Bay)” has the feel of an old soft shoe number, while “Culture of Life,” a brilliantly scathing attack on the Right to Life agenda, taps into the vaudevillian tradition. “Good Conservative Values,” where the cast takes on dour personas as the Republican rank and file, sounds like something you might hear from a prep school glee club.

Gary Slavin brings the eye of a seasoned professional to his choreography of the individual songs and in his direction of the show as a whole, and has assembled an accomplished trio of musical theatre performers. Kate Baldwin, Neal Mayer, and Michael McCoy all have fine voices and great musical skill, and work well together to create a fun atmosphere that is kept moving along with excellent comic timing. Each of the three performers has at least one great solo as well. Look out for “Crazy Ann Coulter,” where Baldwin provides a delightfully demented portrayal of the infamous conservative talk show celebrity; Michael McCoy’s rousing rendition of John Ashcroft in the hilarious blues number “Beaten by a Dead Man”; and Neal Mayer’s sassy and derisive jibing in “The Gay Agenda.”

It’s always great to see well-written material arranged, directed, and performed by talented professionals, but perhaps what really makes the evening work is that for all its barbs, Bush is Bad somehow manages to avoid being overly smug and superior. This is perhaps because its convictions seem genuine. Rosenblum and his self-proclaimed “gang of conspirators” may be having a lot of laughs, but ultimately one gets the sense that he does not see the current political situation as a laughing matter, and would gladly trade all of his songs for a different electoral result in the last presidential election. Instead, there is sense of utter disbelief and embarrassment mixed in with the outrage, which is perfectly summed up in the opening number, “How Can 59 Million People Be So Dumb?” As long as Rosenblum can maintain his passion and wit and continue to attract a talented and committed creative team, he should be able to keep updating his material to keep going through the next three years. After that, he can either take a well deserved rest, or start sharpening his knives for the next guy.

I loved Busted Jesus Comix the first time I saw it, two years ago; and I love it all over again in the revival, co-produced by Blue Coyote Theatre Company and Access Theater, which features the same director and most of the same cast members (along with much-enhanced production design by Kyle Ancowitz, Evan O'Brient, and Jonna McElrath).

What's probably more important, though, is that I found BJC even more pertinent and relevant today than I did in 2003. Freedom of expression, in varying forms, is under serious attack in the United States right now. Playwright David Johnston and his collaborators are courageously defending rights that we should not simply take for granted these days, in this scary, funny, subversive, and ultimately uplifting cautionary comedy about abuse of all kinds against our citizenry.

Marco is a 19-year-old kid applying for a job at a Dazzle Cups (think Starbucks) in Manhattan. His interviewer is a proudly out lesbian who talks the corporate lingo fluently but also has a brain—lucky for him—and as she asks him questions, he remembers (and sometimes recounts for her) the events from his recent past that have brought him to this place. His story, as it turns out, is a doozy.

Marco used to live in Florida, where he was part of a seriously dysfunctional family. His most recent trouble came about when he drew a comic book, called "Busted Jesus Comix," which depicted, among other things, two teenage boys taking crack cocaine and having sex with each other and then with a little baby whom they eventually "fuck... into cream cheese." Marco brought his creation to the comic book store where he worked, and soon after was arrested for obscenity. His crackerjack court-appointed defense attorney gets him off on probation with so-called lenient conditions that include a course of therapy with a conservative state-appointed psychiatrist and a three-year prohibition against drawing ANYTHING or having any contact with minors. (Marco: "I'm nineteen. Everyone I know is a minor.")

It would all feel like something out of Kafka if it didn't instead feel 100% possible in America in 2005.

Johnston captures the aggressive beneficence of self-appointed guardians of morality with savage accuracy:

COMMUNITY COUNCIL LADY #2: Another case of the liberal media imposing its agenda on the rest of us.
COMMUNITY COUNCIL LADY #1: A secular society imposing its will.
COMMUNITY COUNCIL LADY #2: David and Goliath.
COMMUNITY COUNCIL LADY #1: We're David.
COMMUNITY COUNCIL LADY #2: And we are not allowed to question the decisions of this secular society.
COMMUNITY COUNCIL LADY #1: Because of "free speech." .....
COMMUNITY COUNCIL LADY #2: Read it? No. No, I have not read it.
COMMUNITY COUNCIL LADY #1: You don't have to drink the poison if it says so on the label.
COMMUNITY COUNCIL LADY #2: You don't have to go to hell to meet the devil. The title was enough for me.

And he exposes some of the questionable tactics of same with searing wit (it would qualify as hilarious parody if it didn't ring so true):

PROSECUTING ATTORNEY: How many copies of this issue were printed?
MARCO: They weren't printed. We ran 'em off at Kinko's. ....
PROSECUTING ATTORNEY: How many were distributed?
MARCO: Seven.... I had one, Larry the storeowner had one, we sold four... oh, and the undercover agents bought one.

Of course BJC is very funny, throughout: Johnston deftly skewers contemporary targets from Starbucks culture to homosexual recovery groups with real aplomb. The play also has real substance apart from its activist content: when Marco reveals what he suffered, as a boy, at the hands of his brother (now a born-again Christian) it is harrowing and heart-breaking. And the relationship that starts to form between Marco and the Dazzle Cups manager feels real and heart-warming.

Gary Shrader's production is taut, intense, and smart, and the cast of ten is excellent. Vince Gatton is appealingly sympathetic as Marco, a young man who's already been through more than his share of difficulties and is enduring them with a compassionate humanity that we can only admire. R. Jane Casserly is on-target as the Dazzle Cups manager, particularly as she gets to know Marco better and lets her hair down a bit. Tracey Gilbert gets the Defense Attorney's self-serving mix of patronizing maternalism and harried overwork just right, while David Lapkin is appropriately slimy as the Prosecutor; John Koprowski is so perfect as the condescending, moralizing Psychiatrist that you almost find yourself trusting him in places (aargh!). Paul Caiola and Joseph C. Yeargain have fun as the Community Council Ladies and as the characters in Marco's comic book (the offending passage is re-enacted more than once—in the broadest and most cartoonish of styles, I might add). Brian Fuqua and Bruce Barton are hilarious as members of "Up from the Closet," a recovery group for "ex-gays." Michael Bell completes the ensemble as Marco's "saved" but indifferent brother, Jeffrey.

Busted Jesus Comix is uncompromising, and needs to be: this is a play about jolting us out of a complacency that's starting to get dangerous. It will make you think as much as, if not more than, it will make you laugh—but don't let that keep you away from it, because for one thing it makes you laugh a great deal, and for another thing, if you aren't already thinking about the stuff this play talks about, well, then it's time to start. Now how's this for an ending: Busted Jesus Comix is one of the funniest and smartest shows in town right now and, without question, the most patriotic. See it soon.

Christopher Denham’s gripping new drama, cagelove, does what few new plays do: it tells the truth, about a great many things. The truths it speaks are the dirty kind, so there’s little emotional uplift to be had. Which may not make cagelove popular with some, but those who seek it out will have a powerful and gratifying experience.

Sam and Katie, an attractive Chicago couple in their late 20s, are a month away from getting married. But their relationship has recently taken a turn for the worse. Katie is recovering from a rape, allegedly at the hands of an obsessive ex-boyfriend. Ever the dutiful fiancé, Sam has hired a lawyer and is trying to build an airtight case against the accused. But is Katie telling him everything about the events of that fateful night? And who exactly is making prank calls to their apartment, and buzzing the front door intercom? Suspicion and paranoia build, and slowly poison their relationship. Add to this fragile mix Katie’s older sister, Ellen, who may or may not have an agenda of her own at work in all of this.

This is confident, assured work by both Denham and director Adam Rapp. Their unified thematic clarity about the play builds tension right away. cagelove opens with a couple of minutes of silent action between Sam and Katie in which nothing needs to be said: the feeling that something is not right between them can be felt as clearly as a sharp blast of heat. But, their dilemma isn’t revealed right away: cagelove leaks information slowly and deliberately. Denham and Rapp never pander to the audience, trusting them enough to figure things out on their own (or at least to revel in the mystery of it all until the answers are forthcoming). cagelove is lean and evocative, without one bit of excess. Denham’s writing is sharp and focused, giving only what it needs to in order to get the audience’s imagination going, and then stepping back before it veers too close to overtelling anything. Every scene brings new surprises, and propels the story forward. And the things Denham has to say about jealousy, sibling rivalry, and the obsessive nature of love, while not exactly life-affirming, will feel uncomfortably familiar to anyone who has a brother or sister or has ever been in love.

Rapp’s direction follows in a similar vein, peppering informative little tidbits everywhere without drawing attention to them. This is theatre you have to pay attention to. Behavior speaks as loud as words (and, in some cases, louder), so the dynamic between the characters has to be considered as much as what they’re saying. In one scene, the key to understanding the dynamic lies in a two-thirds empty wine bottle, that is never looked at or referred to, sitting on a table. In another, it’s the way one character intently walks towards another in wordless response to a question. Other pieces of info follow slowly—like that aluminum bat next to the dresser, and that photographic equipment sitting in the corner (both of which you know will come into play later). Rapp uses all of these elements to create a foreboding sense of danger and uncertainty that serves cagelove well.

And, the actors are riveting. Daniel Eric Gold, Gillian Jacobs, and Emily Cass McDonnell all know how to explode a silence to their collective advantage, endowing cagelove’s quiet moments with behavioral communication that speaks volumes. The clarity and specificity of their work here complements Denham and Rapp’s efforts well, with each cast member giving a detailed and nuanced performance. Gold convincingly descends into Sam’s jealous suspicion, while Jacobs perfectly inhabits Katie’s frenetic placating. (They also make a very believable couple, I should add.) McDonnell, in the play’s trickiest role, is simultaneously driven and defeated as Ellen. Despite cagelove’s emotional squalor, all three actors successfully make their roles sympathetic: you want to like them, even though none of them is on their best behavior.

cagelove is an accomplished work by a distinctive new voice. Denham has the courage and conviction to be brutally honest—something always to be celebrated, and which we could use more of in today’s theatre. Let’s hope to hear from him again soon.

Jean Cocteau Repertory's revival of Candida, directed by Michael Halberstam, is as light-hearted an entertainment as, I think, it's possible for a Shaw play to be. Though there are some matters presented here that are worth tossing around after the play concludes, for the most part this production is pure divertissement—a playful, smart, and occasionally wicked comedy (or at least so it must have seemed a century ago in Victorian England).

The story revolves around its title character, a young woman of such grace, beauty, worldliness, and self-possession that everyone on stage—with the possible exception of the the play's lone other female, one Proserpine Garnett—is ardently in love with her. (Miss Prossy, as she's called, is perhaps a little jealous, but even she has to admit that she can understand what the others see in her.) One of Candida's admirers is her husband, the Reverend James Morell, a Socialist but otherwise quite a proper man of the cloth; maybe even a bit stodgy. Vying with him—literally, as it turns out, is a besotted 20-year-old poet named Eugene Marchbanks, who can't conceive why someone as wonderful as Candida would be willing to remain in what looks to be, from where he's observing, such a dull marriage.

I was struck, incidentally, by how little sex seems to enter into things, either for Morell or Marchbanks.

Morell's protégé Lexy is also clearly enamored with Candida, albeit necessarily from afar. And the final character in the play can't help but adore her, for he's her father, Mr. Burgess, a businessman/scoundrel of the sort that seems inevitable in a Shavian comedy (think Alfred Doolittle crossed with Andrew Undershaft).

What about the lady herself? Well, she's amused by all this admiration, at least at first. But when it becomes clear that James and Eugene have taken it upon themselves to duel for her affections—or at least to duel with words, the way that two fundamentally physically cowardly men must—she realizes she'd better step in before any real damage is done to either party. With a maturity and strength of purpose that we probably all wish we possessed, she sets things right by the end of Act III, though in a fashion that almost still feels as revolutionary as it must have done in Shaw's own time.

Halberstam and his talented cast play the piece with great warmth and feeling, a little broadly perhaps, nailing the significant humor and making a case for every one of the fascinating folk who populate the proceedings. Kate Holland and Seth Duerr are delightfully vivid in the smaller roles of Miss Prossy and Lexy, fleshing out their particular follies most impressively. David Tillistrand conveys the contradictions of Morell's flawed but likable character expertly, and Danaher Dempsey is splendid as Marchbanks, half swoony naif, half competent (if reluctant) adult. Amanda Jones, one of the Cocteau's rising stars at the moment, is a very appealing Candida, though she never quite convinced me she was 35 years old, as her character claims to be (she seems much closer to Marchbanks's age). And Angus Hepburn, who gave us a superlative Doolittle last season, comes close to once again stealing the show as Burgess; I found myself laughing long and hard at most of his line-readings, especially in the final scene.

It's all performed on an elegant set designed by Brian Sidney Bembridge; Cocteau regulars will be surprised to see the stage so transformed, with a lush hardwood floor in three levels hiding its normally pronounced rake. Joel Moritz's lighting provides gentle atmospheric touches throughout.

Halberstam probably should have exercised some restraint in his detailed program note—I think he's telling his audience too much about what the play means to him, when he ought to be letting his production speak for itself. (I suggest you wait until after you've seen the play before reading it.) That quibble aside, Jean Cocteau is giving us a lovely Candida, one whose glow can warm us on these cold winter nights.

Candy is Candy Darling: Warhol superstar, actress, partial transsexual.

Dorothy is Dorothy Day: pacifist, social activist, co-founder of the Catholic Worker.

Who'd have thunk they'd make such a capital co-starring pair, in a new play that is bound to be one of the very best of 2006 (and yes I know it's only early January)?

Well, playwright David Johnston did, and in his wise, funny, gorgeous play Candy & Dorothy he's put these two remarkable gutsy ladies into the spotlight. He's blessed with two terrific actors to bring them to life, too: the estimable Sloane Shelton, feisty and fierce as the formidable Ms. Day, and, as Candy Darling, Vince Gatton in a sensational, star-making performance that is nothing shy of spectacular perfection.

So how do Candy and Dorothy get together? It's Johnston's brilliantly imaginative conceit that they're in the afterlife together: Candy, who died in 1974, is earning her (metaphorical) wings as a caseworker for new arrivals; Dorothy (d. 1980), is her seventh and current client. Candy has to put Dorothy through some tests, which are often highly bizarre and include co-hosting a cooking show (Candy demonstrates how to make a canned Hormel ham; Dorothy explains how to make a few mashed potatoes feed hundreds of homeless people), giving impromptu lectures, and reviewing pivotal moments from Dorothy's life on earth.

But the crux of the play is really the test that Dorothy puts herself and Candy through: the rehabilitation of a broken soul, that of Tamra, a young woman living in the East Village today who is struggling to find something to live for. Dorothy, from her otherworldly perch, sees Tamra floundering in front of the Catholic Worker headquarters at the corner of First Avenue and 1st Street) and decides she needs to help her find her way. Near the end of her rope, Tamra's been through drugs, alcohol, and an abortion; suddenly, these two dead ladies invade her life and turn themselves into her mentors. Their mission: to help Tamra locate for herself the spark (fame for Candy, eradication of waste for Dorothy) that enabled both of them to invent themselves in the very particular ways that they did.

The story is beautiful, hilarious, and (perhaps unexpectedly) profound. Candy & Dorothy gives us scenes of these two spectral visitors popping up all overTamra's life, from the bedroom (interrupting a romantic encounter with Sid, the nice guy that Tamra has just started to date) to the picket line (Tamra is a librarian working without a contract). Dorothy expounds on "queer cinema" and Candy explains how glamorous movie stars like Bette Davis and Kim Novack became so influential to a gay boy growing up on Long Island.

No pat answers to the riddles and mysteries of life are propounded—Johnston's too smart for that—but an appreciation of what makes life worth living is ultimately realized. The play ends with a beginning (more than one actually), literalizing that frought address (First and First) where Dorothy, Candy, and Tamra's lives initially intertwined.

Joining Shelton and Gatton in the cast are Nell Gwynn, vulnerable and open-hearted as Tamra; Amir Arison, superbly sympathetic as Sid; and Brian Fuqua, mostly in voiceover as the guy "in charge" in the hereafter, and also in one excellent scene as Tamra's somewhat disaffected therapist. The entire package is sumptuously mounted by Kevin Newbury, whose staging is brisk and lively and thoughtful throughout. Robert Monaco's set is very effective, and Jessica Jahn's costumes—especially the glamorous wardrobe for Gatton as Candy—is spot-on. Lighting by D.M. Wood and sound by Jared Coseglia complement the proceedings appropriately.

Candy & Dorothy is a very intelligent play, and it's also a delightfully entertaining one: it's the kind of rich, rewarding, memorable theatre experience that comes along only a few times every season. I wish it a long and successful life!

There is no pulling the wool over the eyes of children, at least not in show business. A quiet theatre is an entertained audience. Such was the case for Captain Louie, the Stephen Schwartz/Anthony Stein musical revival based on Ezra Jack Keats’s children’s book, The Trip. There are a number of things to recommend this production—a young, energetic cast and excellent costumes among them.

Keats’s original story is very short and extremely focused. The story is about a young boy named Louie who moves to a new neighborhood and misses his friends. He builds a panorama of his old environs in a shoe box, hangs his toy airplane inside, and transports himself back in time to go trick or treating with them. Anthony Stein, who wrote the musical’s book, expands the story by developing the personalities of Louie’s friends and incorporating subplots that support Louie’s loneliness. One involves Julio, not quite part of the old gang. As it turns out, he is the new boy on the block, the one who moved into Louie’s old house, and he is having similar qualms about his new neighborhood. Another subplot focuses on Ziggy, who lives at the far end of a scary alley. The plot additions add liveliness and diversion, but they also distract from Louie’s loneliness, causing the production to lose focus. This may be the reason Meridee Stein, who directed this otherwise engaging musical, has a narrator read the simple primer to the audience before the action begins. While she reads, the book’s illustrations, soft and beautiful on the page, are projected on the back wall. They emit an overall warm feeling—washing the stage in pastels—and they prepare the audience for the costumes to come.

Jeff Subik’s sets and Elizabeth Flauto’s costumes are based on Keats’s illustrations. The sets fit nicely into the action of the play, and are scaled for the children who are performing. The costumes are lively and true to the book; particularly appealing are the large, pointy-nosed mouse and the huge golden sunflower on little Archie. One of the clever innovations is the shadows. Flauto dresses her shadows in black stretch sacks, and they deliver an appropriate interpretation of what could be scary but isn’t in Joshua Bergasse’s charming dance number “Shadows” Any child would be proud to haunt the neighborhood on Halloween in such costumes.

Stephen Schwartz’s music is spirited. It offers the cast an outlet for their energy. The best of the lyrics comes in “Looza on the Block.” It addresses the fears of both Louie and Julio and their loneliness as newcomers, and brings the audience back to the central issue of the play. A couple of the numbers roused the adults in the audience into rhythmic clapping, which says as much about the music as it does about the energetic cast.

Douglas Fabian as Louie shows diversity—first his quiet side when we first meet him playing alone outside his new house, then exuberance when he discovers that he has replicated his old neighborhood, trepidation when he finds houses that should be familiar-looking strangely different, and finally acceptance that he lives in a new neighborhood and is able to make new friends. Fabian commands a large stage and keeps a high-spirited cast grounded in his story, that is, as much as the story allows him. Stein has written strong personalities for Louie’s friends. Most notable are Katelyn Pippy as Roberta/Mouse, who exudes enough bossiness to challenge Charlie Brown’s nemesis, Lucy, and with a threatening New York accent to boot; and Ricky Smith as an endearing Archie/Sunflower, who is afraid of everything. Sara Kapner as Amy/Broom demonstrates an appealing shy side of a gang filled with Type A personalities. Ronny Mercedes, in the role of Julio, physically bounds around the stage at one moment and later stands in quiet discomfort when the others discover where he lives. Paul Pontrelli as Ziggy brings out the one distinguishing moment of heartfelt embarrassment and hurt when he explains to his friends why they have never seen his house. In an otherwise quiet theatre, the silence changed substantially, and one of the younger children in the audience noted it with a loud, “What happened!” Are moments like this too overwhelming for children or is this the kind of connection to strive for?

Captain Louie is a thoroughly enjoyable children’s musical, with enough energy to capture the young audience’s attention. The question remains whether the show could have gone from entertaining to engrossing by maintaining its focus. At the start of the production, the lights went down and one child yelled, “I can’t see.” The lights went up for the show and he was not heard from for the entire hour. Ah, kids. So willing and so eager.

When I go to see a pairing of one-acts I try to figure out why the producers paired these particular plays together—what themes the plays share. I have to admit that I couldn’t really put my finger on exactly why these two plays are paired, but that did not in any way detract from a good experience at the performance.

Both plays are wonderfully directed. Adam Knight directs the first selection, At Home, penned by Michael Weller. Knight immediately creates an atmosphere of light tension—not the edge-of-your-seat kind of tension, but the kind where you can sense right away that something is not quite right. A couple, Paul and Carol, are preparing for another couple to come over for dinner. Minutes before the play begins they have just had a great big fight. They said things in anger that they now perhaps regret—things like “I hate the things you say” and “Maybe we should split up.” The question is, once these things have been put out there, what do you do with them? Are things said in anger the truth? And if Paul and Carol are telling the truth, then what are they hanging onto in this marriage?

It would seem playwright Weller is trying to explore the co-dependent aspect of most marriages. Once a couple has been together for a certain amount of time, their lives become interwoven and pulling the individual strings out of this tight weave is as difficult and as painful as pulling your own tooth out. Most people would sooner avoid the subject, as in At Home they try to strike the mean things they say from the record, rather than face the truth that they may be holding onto a doomed relationship.

Actors Lawrence Dial and Emily Bohannon play Paul and Carol, respectively, with a good deal of sincerity. Dial is explosive in one of his final speeches where he shows his contempt for Carol, only to turn on a dime when he tries to seduce her in the same scene. Bohannon is endearing in her role but in the end I was waiting for her to break out of her shell.

The second play of the night is It’s Called The Sugar Plum by Israel Horovitz. Director Wes Grantom does an excellent job placing the building blocks of the odd relationship depicted in this play one atop another. The relationship goes a little something like this: The night before the play begins a young college student, Wallace, has accidentally run over the fiancé of a young co-ed named Joanna. Joanna comes to Wallace’s apartment to confront him but she finds Wallace to be too disarming and charming to be mad at. As they struggle to learn new things about each other they find a false love that may well be an easy solution for the current confusion in their lives.

Playwright Horowitz masterfully spins a story that borders on the absurd. His characters are over-the-top at some moments while very persuasive at others. He presents them as so deep at first, only to show that they are truly shallow once their layers of insecurity are peeled away. As the play progresses, Wallace becomes more and more childlike while Joanna slowly exposes her desire for notoriety.

Hannah Wolfe enters as Joanna at a breakneck pace. At first I thought she’d have nowhere to go, but she manages to pull new layers off her character as the play moves to its conclusion. Joachim Boyle commits to Wallace with the most likable sincerity of the evening. A third actor, Timothy Dietrich, enters only at the opening and closing as a one-man radio that is constantly being tuned to another station. His versatility is very impressive and one of the most entertaining moments of the night.

The themes of these two plays may have little to do with one another, but this evening of theatre is as enjoyable as a night of intense conversation with a good friend. We never set out to have this sort of conversation but when it happens we welcome it and when it’s done we’ve discovered a little about ourselves and our cohort.

Sometimes the triumph of theatre comes not in the story itself but in the telling. Though the three tales of China that comprise Ping Chong's stunning new theatre triptych, Cathay, are each compelling in various ways, it is the artistry, imagination, and beauty of their presentation that captivates us. Not to mention the precision and delicacy of the work of the artists who created this show: their attention to detail, their dedication to craft, is nothing short of awe-inspiring. See Cathay to regain that sense of wonderment that too many too-literal dramas and musicals often threaten to steal away.

The stories of Cathay span more than a thousand years, from the Tang Dynasty to the present day. "The Emperor and the Lady" is based on a famous Chinese folk tale, and tells the story of a great monarch who falls in love with the beautiful Lady Yang. He makes her his consort and elevates her family to high positions in the government as well. But when Lady Yang's brother, now prime minister, is revealed to be corrupt—and when the health of the nation starts to falter—the Yang family is blamed for the country's problems. The Emperor must either give up his beloved Lady or face defeat.

"Little Worm," the second tale, takes place during the World War II era. It's about a humble Chinese family whose lives are uprooted, tragically, by the Japanese attacks. The final story, "New," is set in an elegant hotel in the rapidly modernizing city of Xian of today. Bringing together themes from the two preceding pieces along with a number of disparate subplots, a la Grand Hotel, this third segment of Cathay juxtaposes the spectacular socioeconomic "progress" of contemporary China with its rich cultural and historical traditions.

Now what you need to understand is that all three of these pieces are performed in different styles of puppet theatre, realized in extraordinary detail by a remarkable design team consisting of Stephen Kaplin and Wang Bo (puppets), Stefani Mar (costumes), Randy Ward (sets and lighting), and Ruppert Bohle (projections). "The Emperor and the Lady" and "New" are mostly staged with rod puppets—dozens of lifelike dolls worked with astonishing precision by unseen puppeteers, dressed in elaborate costumes and "acting" on intricate sets. One unforgettable tableau depicts Lady Tang and her servant from a bird's-eye perspective; the climactic scenes of "New" treat us to a spectacular miniature of a glamorous hotel that looks suspiciously like the Marriott Marquis. "Little Worm" is done entirely with shadow puppets, two-dimensional drawings projected onto screens.

The transitions between segments are just as inventive, featuring a pair of oversized winged creatures who are standing guard at an ancient forgotten tomb buried deep in the earth.

In addition to the nine onstage performers (the versatile team of puppeteers: Liang Jun, Liang Yunru, Fang Mei, Song Dongqing, Wang Bo, Yang Qing, Dmitri Carter, Heather Carter, Yang Xie Zheng), there are twenty actors credited with the recorded voices of the many characters in the show, including Jenny Bacon, Jack Willis, and Ping Chong himself; the one I think I recognized is downtown actor Steven Rattazzi as one of the two wry guard animals who narrate the show.

I wish I could say that the Atlantic Theater Company production of Celebration and The Room, two one-act plays by Harold Pinter, is a timely, well-considered salute to the talent of one of the 20th century’s most influential playwrights. Between them, the two plays span nearly a half-century of dramatic work: The Room is Pinter’s first play, written in 1957, and Celebration his most recent, written in 2000, and though they both are characteristic of the innovations that Pinter brought to modern drama, they’re far from masterpieces. They do, however, deserve better treatment than they get in this production, which manages to hit nearly all the wrong notes.

Perhaps the lesser served by director Neil Pepe and the American cast is The Room, Pinter’s 1957 mystery play, and first on the bill here. It is, admittedly, a slight piece: a woman waiting for the return of her husband from work is visited by a variety of mysterious strangers and finally by a most mysterious black man who claims to have a message for her. She waits in a small, grubby apartment, rendered here in an extravagantly dressed set, severely defined by unforgiving right angles, by Walt Spangler.

And here’s the first problem with the production. Despite its realist trappings, Pinter’s play partakes far more of the absurdism of Ionesco; the text is a stylization of reality, not a mirror image of it. Setting it in a naturalistic space as Spangler and Pepe do here (there’s a working hot-plate and real boiling water, and every inch of the set is intimately realized, from the vintage radio on a shelf above the coat rack to the timeworn kitchen utensils above the sink) robs the play of much of its bizarre humor and mystery.

In contrast to the realism of the setting, the performances themselves seem to be beamed in from some other planet with a much higher gravity than our own. Every movement is slow and deliberate, each of Pinter’s notorious pauses and silences taken for what they’re worth, extended perhaps twice as long than is effective. From the moment the curtain rises, Mary Beth Peil plays the woman as victimized by her husband, by her visitors, by the room itself, which doesn’t really give her character much development through the length of the piece, but Peter Maloney as her landlord matches her for lack of subtlety: loud and distracted as the character is (he’s played here as somewhat deaf, not a bad choice in itself), Maloney plays him in a single, loud tone through the entire play.

The evening improves considerably with Celebration, a play which Pepe seems to find much more congenial, and in contrast to The Room, is fast-paced and funny. Three couples are engaged in various celebrations at a swanky, expensive restaurant: the first couple is there to celebrate their wedding anniversary, the second to share in the first celebration, the third to celebrate the success of a job interview. As the evening goes on, the couples become increasingly hostile to themselves and each other; the deteriorating proceedings are presided over by the unctuous man and woman who run the restaurant and an uncomfortable waiter (in a memorable, nervous, cringing performance from David Pittu), who interrupts the celebrations with long, hysterically funny memories of his own grandfather, who, according to the waiter, was a familiar of everyone significant in 20th century history, from Winston Churchill to the Three Stooges.

Ultimately, Celebration is a bitter, cynical portrait of a decadent Western civilization that has far too much influence in the world (two of the men, little more than thugs at first, turn out to be “peaceful strategy consultants” who eventually form an alliance with the third man, a banker), and Pepe stages this vicious political satire with considerable relish. Even here, though, Pepe tends to overstate the obvious (there’s so little “obvious” in Pinter's plays): the women are just this side of whorish, the men not far from the supporting cast of The Sopranos. But the speed and the wit with which much of the play flies by tend to compensate for the production’s faults.

The performers themselves are hobbled by their British accents, far too broad to be believable in a realistic sense and far too unnecessary in a linguistic sense. As we’ve grown used to Shakespeare, Wilde, and Shaw in the mouths of American actors with an American tone, little would be lost in rendering these plays similarly; and, in an American production, much might be gained, since the accents here tend to distract from the words themselves.

While Pinter’s masterpieces fall between these two bookends of his career, these plays are a notable reminder of what he’s contributed to modern drama. In this case, they also demonstrate the challenge to a directorial vision too crippled by naturalism to catch the poetry underneath.

The best way I can describe Cheeks is that it is a coming-of-age story that has questions to ask about the nature of mental health. But Guillermo Gentile’s play, which in its slower moments seems mildly disorganized and in its faster moments seems utterly chaotic, does not easily lend itself to characterization. That the playwright has elected to direct this production himself does not, I fear, clarify his intentions, but makes them even more obscure. What kept me involved was the magnetic central performance of Jesse Soursourian.

Soursourian plays John, a young man who has been told by his father (who calls him “Baby”) that he is retarded—the question becomes whether his retardation is mental or merely social. The archetypal outsider whose arrival calls this into question is Martin, a man whom we first encounter cowering like a fugitive just inside the front door of John’s home. John has decided that this surprise visitor is his friend; John’s father said he would never have friends because he is retarded; ergo, John deduces, he must not be retarded.

When Daddy returns home, he is at once overly hospitable and deeply suspicious of his houseguest, but lets him stay to make Baby happy. Over the next indeterminate amount of time, Martin gives John an education both literary (by way of a number of erudite books Martin has for some reason brought with him) and sexual (by way of a prostitute, Polonaise, who is for some reason named after the Polish dance), and ultimately Martin decides John is simply poorly socialized. Daddy maintains that his Baby is unable to function in society. The irony is that of these two arbiters of mental health, Martin is an escaped mental patient, and Daddy—who leaves for his night job dressed up like a call-girl—is… well, he has his own psychological problems above and beyond your run-of-the-mill transvestitism.

The style of the play is said to be Magical (or Fantastical) Realism, but magic must have the power to enthrall and Cheeks has not quite gotten the spell right. Some of this is the result of Gentile’s uneven direction. There are a few occasions in which farcical violence erupts, but the blocking is imprecise and I could not tell if any harm was done and to what extent. There are several interludes involving surreal infomercials on a large screen television, but though occasionally humorous, they sap whatever energy has been built up in the previous scene. As for the performances, Michael Camacho and Louis Vuolo, who play Martin and Daddy, are operating at an unpleasant, sometimes grating, intensity—would that they could find a more appealing way of conveying their respective insanities.

Soursourian, who could fall victim to the same fate, instead gives a performance that is calm, easy, and often adorable. He does not belabor John’s supposed (or actual) retardation, but uses it as an opportunity for playful spontaneity, capturing the spirit in which this entire production might be more successfully directed. In fact, his simple, grounded manner gives some indication of how the play might be more successfully written, if the playwright has an eye toward revisions. As it stands (or runs, as Cheeks, does at CSV throughout the next month), it needs a little more sense before the nonsense (which we are asked to examine) becomes compelling.