In some ways, On Second Avenue is quite a usual play: A talented cast, remarkably well-dressed, do a little song and a little dance, in front of an ever-changing backdrop.

What makes it not just a usual play is that fact that most of this production is in Yiddish.

Presented by the Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre at the Jewish Community Center, On Second Avenue works in a surprising way. It functions as both a review, and a revue, of the Golden Age of Yiddish Theatre in New York City. It works well as both. As a review, the play casts a backwards glance to the days when Jewish immigrants flocked to Second Avenue for their melodramas, their musicals, and their vaudeville—all in the language they understood, Yiddish. The play lovingly tells the story of the rise and the fall of the Yiddish theatre, and remembers some of its most worthy contributors. However, this text aptly resembles a revue more than a traditional narrative. In the midst of the stories about the Yiddish theatre, 20-some-odd songs and routines straight from its stages are interspersed—some in English, but most in Yiddish. (The Yiddish-skittish need not fear. Supertitles appear above the stage for all the lines that would otherwise be baffling to non-speakers.)

All of the actors are flawlessly well-cast. The play features strong performances from Lisa Fishman, Elan Kunin, Lisa Rubin, and Rebecca Brudner. The clarity of voice that issues forth from City Opera vet Robert Abelson is completely enthralling. The onstage presence of musical comedienne Joanne Borts is quirky and bustling with kinetic energy. But the best reason to see this show is, without question, Mike Burstyn. Famous for his roles on Broadway (Barnum, Ain't Broadway Grand), Burstyn has a history with the Yiddish theatre that makes his presence in this cast irreplaceable. Raised by two of the era’s greatest stars, he performed in the original Yiddish theatres as a child. His place onstage in this show that honors many Yiddish theatre stars, including his parents, feels a little bit magical—as though he stepped out of another time and place.

Director Bryna Wasserman brings forth a show with unusually high production values. There are dozens of intricate costumes, each as apt as the next. The set is clever and functional, with changes and surprises for nearly every scene. The lights are subtle, then explosive, in turn. There are also a number of well-placed and well-used film clips featuring stars from the Yiddish theatre's heyday. Authors Moishe Rosenfeld and Zalmen Mlotek also do a fine job, keeping the musical engaging, with just enough upbeat tunes to balance out the ballads.

Many in the audience were clearly enraptured by this show, but those most so seemed to be the elderly patrons—who looked engrossed as On Second Avenue revisited and captured something of the stages from their youth. The nostalgia in the house quickly ignited into an almost tangible joy, and soon into the production many audience members could be heard singing along to familiar tunes, or finishing the punch-lines to jokes they had forgotten they remembered. Like the one about the Jewish cannibals; or the one about the man whose mother-in-law wants to jump out the window.

But you don’t have to be nostalgic about Yiddish theatre to get excited about this show. It’s a little schmaltzy, but in a good way. Those who don’t know much about the Yiddish theatre are likely to enjoy this as much as, if not more than, those who know a lot, because they have the opportunity to be exposed to the material for the very first time. The show is playful and entertaining, and you might even surprise find yourself, picking up a word or two, here and there. Once you see it, you’ll probably kvell about it too.

The idea behind On the Banks of the Surreal is to give theatregoers a sampling of some of the works of seminal artists in the surreal / absurd / dada movements that influenced (though never really dominated) dramatic writing in Europe in the years preceding and following World War II. Director Shela Xoregos has put together a bill of five short works by Tzara, Ghelderode, Ionesco, Cocteau, and Magritte, along with a few other morsels, to give us a flavor of the style. I think the performance is meant to feel like a woozy evening at an avant-garde Paris cabaret circa 1950, and the second half of the evening actually kind of does.

Act Two consists of, first, a petite radio play by Jean Cocteau called The Practical Joke, in which an actor recounts the utterly surprising events of a particular evening that cured him of his habit of playing jokes on others. Rupak Ginn, the storyteller, is dressed anachronistically in 18th century costume—for no reason I could figure out, which I guess is the director's nod to absurdism. This is followed by a delightful three-act play called The Round Square by Rene Magritte that strikes me as the very epitome of the surreal: it's wildly ridiculous, it pokes fun at everything in sight, it's furiously fast, and it's childishly scatological. Performed by Christopher Berryman, Rachel Lu, and Dirk Weiler, it makes us laugh, makes us feel superior, and absolutely gets our attention.

Talented baritone John Rose appears next, to deliver a song for which no title is provided in the program (nor an author; all we are told is that it was published in Philadelphia in 1840). It's a little ballad told from the point of view of a young woman who is trying to convince her mother that she will not become a nun. Rose performs it without irony; quite beautifully, actually. The interlude is another exemplar of the subversive nature of the surreal.

The final item on the agenda is Ionesco's 1952 comedy Maid to Marry, a delicious non-sequitur dialogue punctuated by continuous irrelevant though very precise action. A man and woman play ball, ride in a car, paddle a rowboat, jump rope, and do any number of other ludicrous things whilst conducting a very serious conversation. This complicated piece is nicely executed by Dirk Weiler and Jen Arvay (with Ginn turning up at the very end for a surprise finish).

All of the foregoing happens in about a half-hour, and makes for quite a zany and provocative roller-coaster ride. Happily, these weird little pieces retain their capacity to entertain and surprise and even jolt, even after Monty Python and Rowan & Martin made their modus operandi de rigueur.

On the Banks of the Surreal's first act, however, is less successful in making its once-innovative content feel either accessible or interesting. It consists of two pieces, each about a half-hour long: Tristan Tzara's The Gas Heart, a nonsensical dada play in which actors portraying parts of a face converse and babble; and Michel de Ghelderode's Escurial, a surrealist drama about a king and his jester. The Tzara piece displays its avant-garde credentials proudly and obviously without appearing to amount to anything more than an experiment. It's worth seeing in an academic way, but I wasn't able to parse it meaningfully. Escurial suffers here from being played by actors not up to its formidable challenge: it's almost postmodern in its determination to refute meaning or value as the king and jester trade places back and forth and jostle to prove who will mourn the death of the queen more. Neither piece manages not to feel ponderous, I'm afraid. A nifty interlude with singer Rose is the act's high point; an intermission recitation by actress Niae Knight reminds us of Xoregos's intent and helps prepare us for the much more enlightening second half of the evening.

It's a worthy notion to put all of this work before us—as I've suggested, these playwrights have had enormous influence on theatre as we know it, and it's always good to discover more about our roots. I commend Xoregos for putting this ambitious and unusual evening together.

Remember the episode of The Brady Bunch where Greg Brady thinks he’s about to become a rock star on the basis of his talent—only to be devastated when he finds out it’s just because he fits in the sequined suit? Well, Once Around the Sun is pretty much a longer version of that episode, although The Brady Bunch had a more sophisticated plot with more complex characters.

Kevin Stevens ekes out a pathetic income playing weddings and bar mitzvahs in Queens with an orchestra led by his perpetually inebriated, embittered uncle/foster father Lane Stevens. On the side, Kevin obsessively pursues gigs and unsuccessful recording ops for his floundering rock band, B-Side, of which his true love and fiancée, Skye, is a part. Then Kevin catches the eye of Nona Blue, a glamorous pop diva-turned-businesswoman who wants to help him achieve the fame and glory he deserves. Only he has to relocate to L.A. and give up his girl, his band and all of his principles to do it.

This is a story so old-fashioned and banal that if any plot twists take you by surprise, you seriously need help. There is not an original moment, note, lyric, line or character to be found in the show’s two hours-twenty minutes. Further, Once Around the Sun is an unrelenting, unapologetic, orgiastic tribute to the best hits of yesterday and today on Lite FM. To sum up, there’s no other word for it but the cliché du jour: cheesy.

It was fabulous. One long grin, innumerable winces and groans, and several wild cheers. And that was just from me—although, fortunately, the rest of the audience seemed to agree. The production is blessed from behind the scenes to the front with talent, energy, benign cynicism, and audacity, as well as a great deal of shrewd practicality. The Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland “I’m gonna be a singing sensation, just you wait and see!” story, directed by Jace Alexander, is played straight with the kitsch and camp kept to a minimum. When, in all sincerity, smarmy, drunken lounge singer Lane Stevens croons swing lyrics like “Now time has flown and I’ve lost all my ‘druthers / See, I’m a fool like all the others,” and (my fave) “Don’t be a fool like I,” it’s that much funnier.

The cast of seven is superb and made up of some celebrated theatre and TV performers who really know the business and how to work a show. Plus, all of them are accomplished musicians, and their singing voices are not only incredible but blend beautifully. Everybody gets a moment in the spotlight, and it’s hard to say who—or what (a dress, for instance)—finally takes home the “stole the show” trophy.

As Kevin, Asa Somers (recently of Taboo and Dance of the Vampires) is the show’s workhorse and brings a lot of stray-puppy, gorgeous-rock-star charm to a vapid character that it’s hard to give a [bleep] about. Although he came off to me more like a surfer-dude (a la Bill & Ted) than a sharp kid from Queens, Somers has a great voice, and he sure looked like he was playing his own guitar throughout.

Just when it seemed that the embarrassingly beautiful, talented Maya Days (Aida, Rent) might actually be wasted in Once Around the Sun, she gets a dazzling Whitney Houston-meets-Funny Girl finale and stops the show not only with her amazing voice, but with her costume. (You have to see it to believe it.) As an alcoholic, gone-to-seed “shoulda-been,” John Hickok (Little Women, Aida) is, ironically, quite the heartthrob hottie playing Kevin’s uncle, Lane Stevens. Described as “born in a tux singing ‘Hava Nagila’,” Lane was the only character that I actually cared about, and the only one written with any real attempt at depth. In his solo, “Fool Like Me,” Hickok eerily manages to evoke Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Steve Lawrence, and, God help us, Wayne Newton all at once.

In a dual role, New York soap veteran Kevin Mambo first plays Ray, the B-Side’s malcontent who has a stick up his butt about Waldo, a rising, umm, “singing” star puked out from VH-1 and reality TV hell, who seems to beat B-Side to every label deal and public appearance. In Act Two, Mambo also plays aforementioned Waldo, a uniquely untalented but enthusiastic individual whose fame seems to be the result of his supreme confidence in his “giving over to his higher power,” and makes him almost endearing. The highlight of the night for me was Mambo/Waldo’s vigorous performance of the “genius” hit single: “G-I-R-L.”

Although deliberately derivative, Once Around the Sun nonetheless has a very tuneful score, with music and lyrics by Robert Morris, Steven Morris, and Joe Shane. Some of the songs, like the title song, are actually infectious. Kellie Overbey, who wrote the libretto, wisely keeps the formulaic plot simple. To remind us that it’s 2005, not 1947, she has included some scenes at a men’s room urinal, celebrity shagging, MTV references, and liberal use of the "f"-word. Costuming, including Nona Blue’s special guest star dress, is by Daniel Lawson. There’s little in the way of set furniture, but some of the scenery backdrops by Beowulf Boritt are pretty cool. The funky, nouveau atmosphere of the venue itself, the Zipper Theatre (a converted zipper factory), goes a long way toward contributing to the show’s cheeky pizzazz. Special mention should go to the sound technicians T. Richard Fitzgerald and Carl Casella for keeping the music to a manageable decibel level and not blasting the audience’s ears out, for which I was eternally grateful.

But, seriously, guys—"Don’t be a fool like I."?

For some time, I’ve wanted to check out Gallery Players, Brooklyn’s small but enduring 99-seat black box theatre, and I finally found a fine opportunity during its current run of Lynn Ahrens's and Stephen Flaherty’s musical Once on This Island, the jubilant celebration of Caribbean culture.

Based on "The Little Mermaid," the story hinges on the Faustian agreement of a peasant girl, Ti Moune, who restores the broken body of handsome young Daniel, whom she finds dying in a crashed car. Through islander storytellers, we see the couple fall in love, but objections from his wealthy father prevent them from marrying, and her pact with the devil to save Daniel’s life means that, ultimately, she must be sacrificed.

While Once on This Island is a rich combination of storytelling, music, and dance, this rendition misses some of the dramatic notes. There is not a sad moment, not a second of pathos in this two-hour performance. This is a difficult feat given the themes: rich versus poor, a Faustian bargain, and unrequited love. Perhaps Steven Smeltzer, the director, equates family fare with happiness, because there is little plumbing of emotional depth even when the opportunities arise as in the end when the protagonist Ti Moune dies. What Smeltzer does do well is maintain lively pace and beautiful movement among the 19 cast members, making the small stage feel expansive. Steve Przybylski directs the 22 musical numbers with a combo elevated above the stage behind a scrim. And while the music often feels more like a celebration in the park than a dramatic presentation, it is lively and enjoyable. A couple of the storytellers’ numbers stand out: “Mama Will Provide,” an energetic gift from Alicia Christian in the role of Asaka, and “The Human Heart,” sung with poignancy by Monica Quintanilla as Erzulie.

Lisa Nicole Wilkerson depicts the courageous Ti Moune. Her presence is lovely, and she adds dimension to this production in a memorable dance. The depth of her commitment in her dance is what is missing elsewhere in her depiction of Ti Moune—the character’s fears and sorrows are kept in check by the actor’s emotional safety net. Anthony Wayne is a standout as the Mephistophelean figure Papa Ge, and Lincoln Cochran, in the role of Armand, shows the power of a father’s curse on his mulatto son.

Colorful palm trees, vivid flora, and tropical grasses create a fitting mood. Designed by Joseph Trainor, the set manages to both fill the stage and leave plenty of room for the extensive movement of the actors. Niklas J. E. Anderson’s lighting also enhances the set. The costumes are fine, but it seems there is a missed opportunity for fabulous island color. Jill Michael’s puppets interpret the tension of the island beautifully, especially the hybrid mixing class and race—one half of its face painted white and the other painted black.

For all my pickiness, I still enjoyed the musical and its celebratory aspects. Mostly, I was impressed with the ambition and breadth of Once on This Island and I will certainly watch for other productions at Gallery Players.

What happens when one person stands up against authority? What happens when an established authority is corrupt? What is the nature of sanity and insanity? What is the nature of dependency? Dale Wasserman’s play One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, based on the famous 1960s subversive novel by Ken Kesey, seeks to answer Big Questions such as these by telling a story set in a hyper-institutional setting, the dayroom in a state mental hospital. Since the patients on the ward are declaratively “cuckoo,” and the staff and medical team are declaratively “sane,” the story gives Kesey a perfect opportunity to turn things on their head. In a lesser work, I expect that the sane would be revealed as loony and the crazy would be revealed to be sane, but fortunately, Cuckoo's Nest is much too complex and interesting for such simple binary thinking. Unfortunately, the current production at the Charlie Pineapple Theatre Company in Brooklyn seems undercooked; all the flavors of this complex play haven’t been fully explored and developed.

In the state mental hospital where the story is set, Nurse Ratched controls her brood of stuttering or tragically insecure or underconfident or hallucinating or mute and deaf or just plain catatonic cuckoo birds by keeping them in a very controlled cage, which she calls a “therapeutic environment.” Although she claims that the hospital is a democracy controlled by the patients themselves, the Nurse keeps her boys on a tight daily routine of taking medication, working, and participating in group therapy. Everything in their world is scheduled. Additionally, she requires them to write in a log whenever one of them says something controversial, and humiliates them in group therapy. To keep them from getting out of hand, Ratched holds the threat of electro-shock therapy over their heads. Even the ward’s doctor, Dr. Spivey, follows most of Ratched’s suggestions.

Nurse Ratched’s world changes when the hospital admits a new patient, Randall P. McMurphy, a convict who gets to escape a work farm as long as he is admitted to an asylum for treatment. In his mind, if he can pull it off—serve his time hanging out with the crazies—he’ll be a free man soon and won’t have to go back to jail or do manual labor. Unfortunately, while he’s in the hospital, McMurphy isn’t “sane” enough to know not to ruffle the other birds’ feathers, and he doesn’t do his time quietly. He discovers that Ratched’s methods of controlling her patients are more than he can bear, and he enters into battle with her for control of the ward.

It’s worth mentioning here that a strength of the script is that it’s not crystal clear whether McMurphy can’t stand seeing grown men being treated like children, or whether he needs to overthrow Ratched because she’s corrupt, or because he has a chronic problem with authority that works against him. It’s also not clear whether Nurse Ratched’s treatments are truly therapeutic to the other patients in the hospital; Ratched’s goal may be to keep them insane and under control, to clip their wings, not to help them fly confidently out of the nest.

As McMurphy and Ratched, Jerry Broome and Cidele Curo bear much of the burden of the show. They are at war for control of the ward and must be the leaders onstage for the entire play. As McMurphy, Broome works hard. He gives the part a lot of energy. His work pulls from famous performances by Jack Nicholson and Gary Sinise, something that didn’t bother me at all but annoyed the hell out of my companion. I suspect that when I saw the performance, he simply wasn’t there yet, hadn’t discovered all of the levels and nuances available to him. As Ratched, Curo takes on the challenge of being a believable villain. Smartly, she fully convinced me that she had her patients’ best interests at heart—or at least really wanted them to think she did. She also conveyed the frustration of a leader who has to regain control and will succumb to corruption to restore her power. Again, however, her moments were not all specific enough to make for a great performance.

As Billy Bibbett, the young, stuttering Mama’s Boy, Brian Leider doesn’t hold back. I commend his work as an actor trying to convey a physical and mental disability convincingly while maintaining the drama. His performance reminded me of Brad Pitt in Twelve Monkeys. I could see the actor behind the character, but I could also see the character clearly enough to get the point.

George Stonefish’s Chief Bromden, certainly the central loon of the play, and the character who makes the most dramatic transformation, always held my interest. Director Mark VanDerBeets’s choice to have his monologues to the audience delivered in voiceover makes later revelations about his disability more interesting. Visually, it’s disconcerting to see such a large man so powerless, so helpless and hopeless. Like all characters in this drama, Chief is a symbol as well as a specific man, and Stonefish rightly chooses to emphasize his relationship with McMurphy, his inner conflict, and his drive to regain his own strength.

So, what went wrong? From the first moments of the play, when two attendants, played by Michael Glover and Jesse Perez, enter the dayroom to mess with the Chief and establish the climate of the institution, I had a sense that the production was probably going to be unsuccessful. The pace is too slow from that first scene, and the play needs more action, more immediacy, to really work as a show. Under VanDerBeets’s direction, there is too much empty time onstage. The actors behave as if they have all the time in the world to make their point, a huge problem in a three-hour play. Because the piece lacks immediacy, it takes too long to get anywhere interesting.

To put it simply, despite the potential of the play and the exciting complexity of the story, for much of the time, I was, frankly, bored. Since I saw the play opening weekend, I hope it was simply undercooked at the time and will come to fruition during the run.

Solo shows are a staple of summer festivals. Usually easy to produce and rehearse, they are perfect for the frantic, set-it-up-and-tear-it-down-in-15-minutes pace that characterizes these events. Terra Nova Collective has embraced this by producing a festival of exclusively solo works. Like all New York summer festivals, the ONE Solo Arts Festival runs the shows back to back, jamming as many as possible into a single evening. The pieces spread across genres; primarily performance forms from puppets to music, but there are two solo visual art exhibits as well. And the funny thing about solo work is that it is always collaborative, joining inanimate materials, offstage presences, and the audience in often surprising ways. This was very clear in the two pieces I saw.

In Mrs. Barry’s Marriage, written and performed by Bronwen Coleman and directed by Jennifer Darling, you find yourself in the home of Mrs. Barry, who is every older relative you never wanted to visit. Her husband has left her, her son is gay, her mother is dead, and to top it all off, she’s got to entertain her second cousin once removed on the eve of moving out of her house. Cousin Charlotte, unexpectedly in town for business, is engaged to be married and Mrs. Barry takes every opportunity to give advice and dash expectations. With her perfectly out-of-date graying hair, long earrings, and awkward outfit (she proudly informs Charlotte that she maintains her looks by drawing on her eyebrows and “keeping everything waxed”), Coleman gives us a pitch-perfect portrait of this bitterly funny woman. Mrs. Barry realizes she’s never really given serious consideration to her life, and now she has to start it over based on what she knows, rather than what she fantasizes. And although the end shows a triumphant toss of her wedding ring into the ocean, we’re still not sure what will happen to her. Is it too late after all?

Meisterklasse means Master Class in German, and Meisterklasse is performed by pet students of German marionette artist Albrecht Roser. The piece retains the feeling of a school talent show as each puppet carefully sings, dances, and shows off for us. All the puppets are marionettes of some kind and most pieces feature puppet/puppeteer interaction in sometimes surprising ways. The puppets climb their puppeteers, shield them from nudity, fall in love with their legs. They find their puppeteers in the bathroom, they have them act as MC for them. And the puppets run the gamut from Nate Wilson’s orange ball at the end of a piece of twine to Robin Walsh’s delicate, exquisite gold opera singer, and everything in between. Heavy metal singers, wizards, dragons, an entire repertoire of hollow-eyed little creatures who are varying degrees of human. Between the intimate puppet/puppeteer relationship and the collaborative work of the ensemble, Meisterklasse proves solo work does not happen alone.

From the peephole into Mrs. Barry’s conversation with Charlotte to the great symphony of individuals that is Meisterklasse, it is clear that the ONE Solo Arts Festival is investigating every manifestation of solo performance. After all, a group of people telling and listening to one person’s story is really what theatre is all about.

In David Foley's compelling new play Paradise, characters spend almost all of their time talking—seriously, earnestly—about very essential and fundamental subjects. The question "Do you believe [in God]?" is repeated over and over; other questions about the nature of love, connection, responsibility, tolerance, and family ties surface and resurface and resonate as Foley's linked story lines, about seven disparate New Yorkers, intersect and interweave. The play has been given a smashing production by Blue Coyote Theater Group and Access Theater, directed by Gary Shrader and featuring a fine ensemble. If you're interested in a drama of ideas—the kind of thing that Lanford Wilson and Edward Albee used to trade in once a season or so—then Paradise may be just what you've been waiting for.

At the center of Foley's play is Robbie, a 30-something man who is trying to reconnect with life in increasingly desperate ways. When we first meet him, he's entertaining a pair of Pentecostal door-to-door missionaries in his home, seriously considering the rote questions about faith and God and Jesus that they pose. Next, we find him visiting his married friends Betty and Stu; Betty is trying to understand why Robbie has left Manhattan to live in "the country" (actually, a suburban community in Westchester County) and then is enormously surprised when Robbie reveals that his sister committed suicide six months ago and he's only just telling her about it now.

We never really find out much more about what may have triggered Robbie's anomie and inner turmoil, by the way; but we see it grow as he meets and enters a relationship with Carlos (a fix-up via Betty), and in a dinner party at Carlos's apartment with Betty and Stu and another married couple named Phil and Portia. A priest, Father Tim, also figures into the mix. Paradise tracks Robbie's path toward implosion and the inability of anyone around him to stop it. But it seemed to me to be even more about the disconnectedness of a very connected circle of friends: intellectual driftwood getting close to but never quite actually touching one another.

Foley's dialogue is often very funny and sometimes genuinely profound. He captures the surface shallowness of these people and the brooding selves malingering underneath; these folks feel like refugees from Chekhov, transplanted to modern-day urban East Coast America. As such, they offer grand opportunities to their actors, and there are indeed some extraordinary performances here, such as Tom Ligon's alarmingly unsteady Father Tim, a man who drowns not just sorrows but decades of uncertainty and misdeed in wine and banter; Brandon Wolcott's haunted, unfathomably sad Robbie; Joseph Melendez's warm but still-tentative Carlos; and Robert Buckwalter's steady, pensive Stu, reminding us that still waters do indeed run deep (though we seldom see such a clear-eyed manifestation on stage). Tracey Gilbert and Jonna McElrath are a study in contrasts as, respectively, the too-candid Betty and the poseur-cum-sophisticate Portia. Bruce Barton is spot-on as Phil, loaded with faux joviality, while John Koprowski and Michael Bell do fine work in very small roles as the Pentecostal missionaries.

I haven't told you yet about Linda, Ken, and Nancy (portrayed by Lana Marks, Gregory Northrop, and Nathalie Altman). They are a family breaking apart, in the background but clearly providing subtext to Paradise's main stories; it took me a while to decide exactly how they link to the rest of the characters, and I'm not going to reveal what I finally figured out. It occurs to me, though, after having an opportunity to read Foley's script, that this aspect of the play could be communicated more clearly than it is in this production. Foley also recommends some double-casting that hasn't been done here that I think might help shore up some of the piece's thematic riddles.

Foley is a talented, articulate, interesting writer, as previous plays such as Cressida Among the Greeks and The Last Days of Madalyn Murray O'Hair, In Exile have borne out. Paradise, like them, deserves much more life after this brief run. There's a body of work being built here to be cherished and explored. This is certainly a play that's worth at least a listen.

The principal attraction of New York City Opera's current production of Gilbert & Sullivan's Patience is the presence of Michael Ball in one of the leading roles. Ball, who is bound for the NYC debut of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Woman in White at the Marquis Theatre next month, hasn't been seen on these shores since Aspects of Love in 1990. He is, you will discover, a bona fide musical theatre star: his baritone is lush and effortless, his bearing is charming and charismatic and sexy without even trying, and his way with a comic line—not much tested in the shows he's best known for, such as Les Miserables and The Phantom of the Opera—is superbly funny. Ball is, in short, a splendid leading man, of the sort in very short supply these days (and it doesn't hurt that he's still youthfully handsome). Patience doesn't give him nearly enough stage time to satisfy his fans, but he's very good in it. When he's around, the energy level of this lesser work by comic opera's masters trebles or quadruples.

He plays Reginald Bunthorne, an Oscar Wilde-ish aesthete who has taken his local village by storm by being what Gilbert calls in the stage directions a "fleshly poet." His odes are languid, drawn-out, and full of ardor; so is his own person, which is framed by a mane of curly locks and clothed in a colorful ensemble of purple trousers, gold waistcoat, and fur-lined jacket.

All the women in town are in love with him—except for Patience, the milk maid. So naturally it is Patience whom Reginald has decided he must have, and the first act is an elaborate journey toward his winning of her, which involves, in Gilbertian fashion, a foolish misunderstanding of the nature of love and duty on the part of the young lady and a complicated and contrived scheme (a lottery) on the part of the gentleman. Reginald's rival for Patience is another poet, the rather lighter-weight Archibald Grosvenor. After Archibald fails to win Patience's hand, he becomes the new favorite of the local ladies, displacing Reginald. Much to his consternation, Reginald comes to realize that he'd rather be adored by the masses than saddled with the milk maid. All is sorted out by play's end, of course. Interestingly, Reginald doesn't even get the girl—not even the slightly grotesque Lady Jane, who has been his one faithful follower, as she is chosen by the wealthy Duke of Dunstable to be his bride. The chorus of "twenty lovestruck maidens" are complemented and courted by a chorus of soldiers.

Patience—a show I was not familiar with until this performance—does not strike me as the best of Gilbert & Sullivan: it lacks the superlative wit and satiric bite of the best Gilbert lyrics and doesn't really have a single hit love song or march. Nevertheless, it's breezily charming, and there's plenty of material here to start your toes start tapping and cause you to laugh out loud. Tazewell Thompson's staging is broad and colorful, giving the music more than its due and punching up the comedy (perhaps too much, at times). Thompson seems to have confused aestheticism—the target of Gilbert's satire here—with effeminacy; when the soldiers try to turn poetical in a second act attempt to win over their twenty maidens, they do so by mincing and vogueing rather shamelessly. Even Ball overdoes it: Gilbert intends these men to be fops, not flaming queens, but the difference is not much respected here.

Thompson's work is hampered by Donald Eastman's set, which is a huge white structure that looks like the facade of a manor house. It takes up a great deal of the New York State Theatre stage's real estate, forcing Ball to perform his one terrific solo from its roof, which is both illogical and unfair to his fans. It also limits rather dramatically what Tazewell can do with his large chorus, who are relegated much of the time to a blank area stage left, bunched together in uninteresting patterns for want of space.

But the costumes, by Merrily Murray-Walsh, are fabulous, from Bunthorne's deliberately garish display to Patience's modest but chic milk maid garb to—the piece de resistance—a gorgeous array of art deco fashions for the lovesick maidens, all blacks and whites with the occasional splash of an unexpected turquoise or lavender. These gowns are knock-outs, every one: a real triumph of stylish design.

The company is something of a mixed bag. Matching Ball note for note and laugh for laugh is the formidable contralto Myrna Paris as the too-steadfast Lady Jane. She sings masterfully and clowns like a latter-day Bea Lillie, which is to say with miles and miles of put-on dignity that contrasts with the silliness of her actions, especially during her show-stopping solo in Act Two, which involves her playing—and playing with—a cello. Bass Kevin Burdette sings Archibald nicely, but he's not able to keep up with Ball's exquisite comedy in their climactic duet, which hurts the piece. Soprano Kathleen Magee and mezzo-sopranos Jennifer Roderer and Heather Johnson do fine work as the three main lovesick maidens, but Tonna Miller, though possessed of a lovely and clear voice, brings almost no luster to the title role. Christopher Jackson is similarly handsome but entirely uninteresting as the Duke (and his diction is very badly garbled). Timothy Nolen, who has the showy role of Colonel Calverley, appears to be badly miscast, as he is unable to cope with the patter song he's assigned. It's one of those nimble-tongued list songs that Gilbert includes in just about every score (and the lyric has been updated wittily), but Nolen renders it incomprehensible. I was forced to read the supertitles, entirely against my will.

Patience is, all that said, a pleasing divertissement, and when Paris and/or Ball hold forth it's authentic powerhouse entertainment. And it is very easy on the eye and ear, thanks to Murray-Walsh's enchanting costumes and Sullivan's seemingly endless supply of melody (conducted here by Gary Thor Wedow).

New Federal Theatre’s revival of Phillip Hayes Dean’s Paul Robeson is a celebration of the life and achievements of one of the great cultural icons of America in the twentieth century. Peppering his words with excerpts of musical numbers that he sang throughout his career, Paul Robeson reminisces about his life from growing up in Somerville, NJ through the 1960s, when he largely retired from the public spotlight. Citing his brother Reeves’s advice to “never show fear” and to “keep a rock handy,” Robeson relentlessly achieves his dreams by accepting nothing but excellence in himself and by demanding that his abilities be assessed on their merits by those in positions of power. We see Robeson surmounting obstacle after obstacle with bravery, integrity, intelligence, and even humor. Dean’s play traces Robeson life as he goes on to become an All American college football star and Phi Beta Kappa at Rutgers, the recipient of a law degree from Columbia University, a celebrated actor starring in the longest-running American Shakespearean production in history, a world-renowned bass vocalist, a tireless and pioneering advocate of civil rights, and a citizen of the world who spoke fifteen languages and championed the cause of world peace.

Bass vocalist Kevin Maynor has stepped into the title role of this production, and his rich, deep intonations both evoke and live up to the famous voice of his subject. Maynor delivers a credible performance all around, capturing Robeson’s pride and dignity in the face of adversity. He also captures a smoldering fire underneath Robeson’s calm exterior that fuels him through this representation of his life. By the time Maynor gets a crack at “Ol’ Man River” at the end of the first act, playwright Phillip Hayes Dean’s homage to Robeson is a portrait of almost superhuman proportions, which is perhaps justified by the almost superhuman accomplishments Robeson achieved.

The second act of Paul Robeson does not have the clarity of the first, and this may be largely because the forces that drive Robeson’s life and activities are more complicated, as are the merits of his achievements. In short, one longs for some sort of analysis from the playwright. So while the show does a good job of repudiating the government’s harassment of Robeson for his public defense of the Soviet Union, we don’t know how or if Robeson reconciled his position to Stalin’s persecutions. We see that Robeson turns his attention to fascism and world peace and are given flashpoints as to what triggered his stances, but we don’t really get a sense of what truly motivated him. When the through-line shifts from Robeson as example to Robeson as advocate, Dean seems to lose the thread that drives the narrative so effectively in the first half. Predictably, it is in the second act that Maynor also starts to noticeably lose much of his command over the material.

The show seems a little rushed in general, and one gets the sense that director Shauneille Perry doesn’t quite have the answers to make Paul Robeson fully effective. Cary Gant, who acts as Maynor’s piano accompanist under the guise of jazz musician Lawrence Brown, also participates in the narrative and joins Maynor as a vocalist intermittently, but when and why those moments occur in some scenes and songs and not in others is rarely made clear. A stronger directorial hand in this bare-boned production would help this piece tremendously, and Maynor seems particularly poorly serviced in this regard. While he may have more experience as a singer than as an actor, Maynor has both charisma and presence, and it’s unfortunate that he seems left out to dry for the length of the show while he invariably paces back and forth from scene to scene. Maybe the greatest lost opportunity is the fact that the musical numbers too seem rushed and are almost never the complete song. We get a good sense of the breadth of Robeson’s songbook, but the short excerpts do not allow Maynor to plumb the depths of their emotional content. Given Maynor’s background and talent, one feels that one of the great assets of this casting has been lost.

Ultimately, this theatrical biography is not meant to be a thorough analysis of the man behind the legend. Robeson as penned by Dean is devoid of any quality that falls short of heroic. If Robeson had doubts or flaws we do not see them, and the only fears we see are the ones that Robeson conquers. Coming from the point of view of a devotee and not that of a critic, Dean portrays Robeson largely the way one would expect him to want to be portrayed publicly. Robeson’s merits, as well as his public positions and explanations, are taken at complete face value, and the piece therefore relinquishes any chance to draw its own conclusions. Because we never get to see beyond Robeson’s public image to look at the man himself, one comes away feeling that we are missing a more complete understanding than this seemingly authorized version provides. Even so, the show’s exaltation of Robeson is powerful and convincing enough to take us along for the ride willingly. Overall, Paul Robeson holds up as an effective and generally engaging tribute to a worthy subject.

Watching John Paulsen's one-man show Paulsen's Lonely Banquet is like sitting down to a drink and listening to a Tom Waits album with your closest confidant, who happens to be a talking mime. (If you're not sure, that's a high compliment.) Spanning the entirety of human history through the use of traditional theatrical style, dance-theatre, clown techniques, vaudeville, and Paulsen's own pure, innocent charisma—yet simultaneously staying intimate and small—Paulsen's Lonely Banquet is a special treat. Funny and melancholic, it elicits a stream of laughter while never straying far from the precipice of a very disturbing and existential contemplation of isolation and mortality.

The show itself is actually a compilation of two of Paulsen's solo work, doolymoog and The Tangle. They work so well as a unit, however, that the transition into a full evening of performance and skillfully wrought theatrical storytelling is seamless. doolymoog is a series of vignettes exploring moments in the lives of a motley assortment of characters that can best be described as the losers and the lost. Vignettes may be the wrong word here, though, as Paulsen and director George Lewis have gone to great pains to keep this show from being the typical guy-standing-on-a-stage-doing-different-characters shtick endemic to so many one-person shows. Instead, what they have created is a fully-realized world of their own making, in which what is presented is the equivalent of going to the weirdest part of town possible, strolling down the street, and peeking through every ground floor window and door that you come across and spending a few minutes watching the inhabitants. Even the transitions between pieces are smaller pieces unto themselves, often just as poignant as the main events, that serve to keep the show from ever flagging.

Paulsen and Lewis use every tool in their ample arsenal to give each element of doolymoog a personality all its own. The achingly eerie post-apocalyptic "A Town Somewhere" uses only a flashlight, a creaky chair, a few slips of paper, and the silence and darkness of the room itself to show us two pen pals who may be the only survivors of the end of time. "C.O.S.M.O.M.A.N." incorporates pure movement, guttural vocalizing, and a striking use of glow-in-the-dark paint to illustrate the entirety of man's prehistoric evolution from knuckle-dragging monkey to erect modern man.

I'm afraid that I might be making this show sound more dark or serious than it actually is, so let me point out that I missed most of the vignette "The Blue Cafe," a collection of grotesques doing open mike night at an empty local dive, because I simply could not stop laughing myself blue over Paulsen's depiction of shy sad little Gertrude at the mike earnestly singing about love and passion. Knee-jerk laugh fits like this aren't entirely uncommon in this show, but, as Henry, a Wonder bread delivery man who's going on his first date, existentially notes to his only friend (a raggedy stuffed bear) in the the light and funny "Henry," what you find when you look behind the desk is an empty void.

The Tangle fits right into the world that Paulsen creates with doolymoog. Beginning as a frenetic lecture on freedom and the imagination by a clown with paranoid delusions, The Tangle tells the story of how this clown came to believe in "the controllers," a shadowy Illuminati-esque group of individuals that, well, controls the minds of everyone. Beginning as a schlub on a Greyhound bus, Paulsen's clown reenacts his meeting with Butch Cassidy, who turns him onto the existence of the "controllers," that fittingly ends in a slow vaudeville dance of a gunfight with our paranoid clown acting as Butch's Sundance Kid in a showdown with the "controllers."

Paulsen's Lonely Banquet is a splendid example of a performer/writer and a director who collaborate like a well-oiled creative machine: Lewis working to Paulsen's strengths, and Paulsen putting his all into Lewis staging. The two work with a single-minded grace of execution that is unusual in today's dearth of one person shows, and is, in itself worth taking the time to see. Paulsen empathizes so strongly with the pathos of his characters that, as you laugh at them yourself, you can't help but share their lonely plight to survive. To quote one of Paulsen's many characters, you "don't really know who we are or what you are doing here... it is a drape of dreams and nothing else matters." If I have to look into that void, it's affirming that I'm looking into it with Paulsen looking over my shoulder and whispering sweet jokes into my ear, quite possibly while doing a little jig.

David Marshall Grant's new play Pen, which has just premiered at Playwrights Horizons, examines how much we owe to others. It's a big question, and Grant's exploration of it is often satisfyingly rich and challenging.

He does so, mostly, within the framework of a broken home. Matt, 17, is the only son of divorced parents. His father Jerry, lives in Greenwich Village; he's a psychologist who doesn't spend enough time with Matt and is, in fact, about to remarry. Helen, Matt's mom, has Multiple Sclerosis and is confined to a wheelchair. Matt shows signs of being troubled—his grades aren't great, he doesn't seem to have any real friends, and he's been arrested at least one time for shoplifting. But, as we meet him and Helen in the play's opening scene, he appears to be reasonably contented, cheerfully doing all the things for his mother that can't she do for herself (cooking dinner, helping her off with her coat, lifting her out of her chair and onto the couch). There's a compassionate pragmatism at play here rather than resignation. But Matt's situation is about to turn more desperate.

Matt's a high school senior, and he wants to go to college in California. His mother, however, wants him to go to SUNY-Stonybrook, located just a few minutes away from their Long Island home. Matt theorizes that Helen doesn't want him to ever leave; that she needs him to stay with her and care for her. Helen says that she's just thinking about what's best for Matt. Both are right, of course. But Matt's quandary remains central and unresolved: what's his obligation to Helen? Where are the boundaries? When does it stop?

Pen is most interesting, though, when it takes a broader view of these questions. Helen is a great believer in liberal causes. When does her righteousness impede on Matt's (or others') rights? Consider this exchange, brought on when they happen on a TV clip of Bob Hope entertaining troops in Vietnam (Pen is set in 1969).

HELEN: I can't watch this. It's wrong.
MATT: It's hilarious.
HELEN: It's not hilarious. It's wrong. Half those kids are going to be killed tomorrow and he's telling jokes.
MATT: He's a comedian.
HELEN: The Smothers Brothers are comedians. He's a company man.

Later, Helen is able to rationalize hating the car Jerry buys for Matt because it's German and she hasn't forgiven them for the Holocaust yet. She even finds a way to blame Matt, indirectly, for their (presumably black) maid's lack of education and status. She's right, of course; but as Matt explains, "I'm a high school senior. I'm not responsible for our maid's illiteracy." Grant manages a shrewd and subtle examination of social responsibility and its constant companion, hypocrisy, that gives his play real teeth.

What he doesn't manage, unfortunately, is a satisfactory arc for Matt's story. The first act of Pen concludes with a neat twist that I won't reveal here that I didn't find adequately accounted for in Act Two. The second half of the play mostly dispenses with the useful contextualization of Matt and Helen's issues within the larger world beyond them, focusing instead very squarely on Helen's self-actualization. This shift hurts the piece, I think, and it's accompanied by a change in perspective, from Matt's anguished but compassionate eye on two flawed parents to a more objective and adult view of a woman coping with betrayal and illness. Pen begins as a memory play, a worthy successor to coming-of-age plays like The Glass Menagerie and Broadway Bound, but it ends up feeling more like a Movie of the Week.

Nevertheless, there's plenty of food for thought here, as well as more wit, intellect, and compelling entertainment value than a lot of new plays can provide. Will Frears has staged Pen unobtrusively and thoughtfully, and Robin Vest's ingenious set works beautifully to create an appropriate environment for the piece. The three-member cast is flawless: as Helen, J. Smith-Cameron finds all the layers and dimensions of her complicated character, while Reed Birney is a likable heel as Jerry. Anchoring the play is Dan McCabe in a splendidly affecting performance as the conflicted Matt.

The four writers of Stone Soup Theatre ’s new play Penetralia offer a quote from the Bible that is taken from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians that states, “…for now we see through a glass, darkly.” Paul means that we have spent our lives believing that we are seeing things clearly—that we are seeing the whole picture—but in fact we are not seeing things as they truly are, only a murky outline and we compensate by filling in the details with what we already know. For me this quote is the active ingredient in this intriguing production.

The people in the world of this play see everything through the rose-colored glasses that they’ve created for themselves. In this sci-fi story, the folks in a small village (and possibly everywhere else in the world) have moved beyond a society where people are allowed to keep secrets. They’ve even gone so far as to have developed the ability to converse telepathically. So in this world you can’t even have private thoughts because your neighbor merely has to touch you and they instantly know everything that’s churning in your mind. As the plot unfolds we discover a member of the village who has even greater and potentially dangerous mental abilities. As he begins to develop these abilities the delicate fabric that binds the villagers together begins to tear, and paranoia like a virus spreads throughout the village.

The producers/writers make no secret of the fact that they are summoning the secret-keeping regime that is currently ruling this country. Early in the play they emphasize the damaging effects that secret-keeping can have on a society. Indeed, honesty and transparency are what we want from our leaders, though we have grown to accept the fact that our leaders will lie to us. At one point the Magistrate of the village even says, “You can’t lead by telling the truth all the time.” This may or may not be true, I can’t really tell because I too “see through a glass, darkly…” I do not see the whole picture and I probably won’t recognize or believe that I’m seeing the whole picture even if did. This is why I think the aforementioned quote is the foundation of this play. The people here don’t recognize the dangers of prohibiting private thought. They believe they see clearly—more clearly than their ancestors (us) who used to hide thoughts. However, as we’ve rediscovered recently, when you attempt to restrict individual freedom in the name of public safety you get neither. It is their belief in their self righteousness that leads to their downfall.

The writers, Randy Anderson, Stephanie Farnell-Wilson, Adam Hunault, and Joshua Tjaden, create a distinctive world and tell a great story. The dialogue has moments of poetic beauty and unexpected humor. Also, they cleverly cover the exposition of how their society came to be in a song that is played and sung live in a frame of teaching school kids about their history.

Director Nadine Friedman does a decent job creating the atmosphere in which the world of this play can live and I enjoyed the crisp pace. She also uses the minimal set very effectively. However, and this may very well be no fault of hers, the acting is very uneven.

The ensemble is good but there are some weak links which makes for some choppy and hard-to-watch scenes. However, there are some scenes that soar. For example, the final scene is absolutely unforgettable as are a couple others. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder what this production would be like had the cast been as strong as the script.

One final thing to note, the title of the play: Penetralia. It sounds like a combination of penetration and genitalia but actually it refers to the innermost parts of a building and can be used to refer to the secrets we keep, e.g., the penetralia of the soul. But I was not familiar with this word and when I told friends what I was seeing they asked if I had started reviewing pornography. That said, Stone Soup Theatre may want to consider a title that is more accessible because their show is worth seeing for its extremely relevant social commentary.

Language may be an imperfect tool of expression, but as a society we take it for granted that it will function properly in our everyday lives. We rely on it and forget about it, until such a time—perhaps in a foreign country—when you find yourself unable to communicate efficiently with someone because one or both of you do not speak each other's language well enough to be clear and fluid at the same time. But what if that was the way you talked to people in your everyday life, including those closest to you?

Peninsula, written and directed by Madelyn Kent under the development program of Soho Rep, creates a world where language does not function quite properly. The play begins with a husband and wife sharing a private moment together—a private moment infused with an uncomfortable feeling of detachment that manifests itself in a marked difficulty with speaking the same language. But while Peninsula begins as an eccentrically stylized meditation on the difficulties of communication and intimacy between a married couple, we soon realize it is attempting far more. The husband and wife soon split up for the day and it quickly becomes apparent that everyone in this world speaks the same way—revealing a language dysfunction that cuts across an entire society.

Welcome to life on the Peninsula, which in many ways seems rather removed from the society in which we live. A drab and apparently homogeneous culture, a mercantile economy devoid of slick and sophisticated advertising, and a police-state fighting what appears to be a populist insurgency all seem more reminiscent of a former Soviet-bloc country or a Latin American dictatorship than a modern society that is becoming globally interconnected and culturally cosmopolitan. But while it is perhaps true that more and more we are watching the same movies, drinking the same soft drinks, and competing for the same jobs, one can also make the case that we are becoming more provincial and insular, retreating into gated communities, splintering religious affiliations, and ideologically homogeneous interest groups. In this sense the Peninsula is as much a frame of mind as a geographical location, showing a possible evolutionary result of an inward-looking and self-sequestered society whose inhabitants are intellectually and emotionally detached both from each other and from an increasingly threatening outside world.

This detachment is eerily manifested in the broken English that is utilized throughout the play, and it is this linguistic choice that is the stylistic centerpiece of Peninsula. Words are used incorrectly, tenses are mangled, the forms of words are confused, and sentence structures are scrambled as we follow the wife through a secret life of sexual encounters with shopkeepers and priests, and her husband as he wrestles with his present social position and a yearning to return to his past. Kent apparently formed this aesthetic by writing Peninsula in Spanish—a language she is not fully fluent in—and then having her piece translated back into English, with all of her grammatical errors still intact. How she makes this approach theatrical is through a stark performance technique based on Japanese Butoh dance, creating a series of haltingly deliberate one-on-one interactions. These interactions, handled with wonderful skill by Peninsula’s uniformly excellent cast, are captivating and often poetic, resulting in a meditation on both the nature of language and the ineffable essence of the interactions themselves.

It also results in a world that struck me as almost despairingly grim, which is in large part due to the linguistic processing system that Kent has fed her script through. When two people who normally speak different languages try to communicate, there is the expectation that those people will eventually get better at it. But the society presented in Peninsula is basically a closed system where the communication breakdowns are not between cultures but within one, so the sense is one of a society that is not on the verge of breaking through to a new way of communicating—either verbally or nonverbally—but rather degenerating in its ability to do so. Characters do make changes in their lives, but because Kent’s linguistic machinery is so unyieldingly pervasive throughout every facet of the world she has created—including even members of the shadowy opposition—one gets little sense that transformative change in the social fabric is possible. The revolutionary group that threatens society seems like just an alternative program in a world whose operating system is irretrievably damaged.

If Peninsula suffers from anything, it is perhaps too much raw technique in the mix. In many ways Kent seems content to let her method dictate the show through what are seemingly random linguistic errors, and I found myself wishing at times she would more consciously and actively use her techniques as tools for exploring the compelling themes and questions that her piece poses. Nevertheless, Peninsula is one of the more intriguing theatrical discoveries I’ve happened across in a while, and credit must also be given to Soho Rep for the fantastic production it has mounted to support her work. In addition to a focused and talented group of actors (Louis Cancelmi, David Chandler, Tim Cummings, Curzon Dobell, and Marielle Heller, all of whom handle Kent’s style and techniques with both skill and grace), a first-rate design team has also been assembled. Theresa Squire’s costumes and Matt Frey’s stark lighting do much to set the mood, and even more striking are Narelle Sisson’s endlessly inventive set and Kenta Nagai’s stunningly effective sound design. The writing, directing, performances, and design are brought together beautifully, making Peninsula exciting in the theatrical possibilities it offers, the thoughts it provokes, and the experience it creates.

There’s little that I appreciate more than the rare occasion of walking into a room and having the cynical side of myself take a sound drubbing at the hands of the side of me that likes puppy dogs and daisies. Penny 4-Eyes Rock N' Roll Show supplies just such an occasion. Sound silly? I challenge you to go see Penny. If you walk out of this show feeling anything but fantastic, then we can talk.

Loosely based on the childhood experiences of writer/director/producer Jesse Cooper and his sister, costume designer Caitlin, Penny 4-Eyes is about an ambitious 14-year-old girl desperate to escape her abusive parents in order to find a brighter future. Presented as a therapy session on a rock and roll stage, we see Penny’s experience unfold, from abused and angry child to hopeful young woman.

Sound hokey? It is. Sound contrived? It is. Gimmicky? Yes. Sleekly manufactured? Absolutely. All of that pales in comparison to the pure and contagious joy that this wildly talented cast brings to the stage.

Front and center is teenager Christiana Anbri as Penny. Five feet and 80 pounds of pure star, Anbri manages to be both the lead singer of a five- piece rock band twice her age and a little girl having the most fun ever on stage. The play rests well on her small but able shoulders. Lucia Giannetta, playing Penny’s abusive and neglectful mother, has a powerhouse voice, part gospel, part '80s rock star screamer, that blows the roof off the place. Lady Altovise, as the therapist, brings the soul, musically and dramatically, coupling a rich deep voice with the “never let the world beat you down” message of the play. These two, along with the band supporting them, have an air that they spend their time away from Penny 4-Eyes doing much cooler things than this, but they’re here, out of what seems like pure pleasure and the love of the show.

Admittedly, this isn’t the artistic heir to Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Jesse Cooper’s songs are by-the-books and his script tends to spend more time on exposition than storytelling. His direction, however, is clean and skillful, allowing the performers to inhabit a space all their own with smooth precision.

The play, though, really is about the girls: Penny and her “echoes.” Teenage backup singers Sasha Toro and Vachelle Gil sing and move with the confidence and talent of women twice their age. When they’re playing on stage with Penny near the end of the hour-long show, you see three very talented young ladies just having the time of their lives.

Overblown and big and colorful, Caitlin Cooper’s costumes give the show just the right tone. The same can be said for Jesse Cooper‘s set, embodying all of the elements of a teenage girl’s room and a rock club at the same time. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to grab a drink, or break into a diary.

This show is specifically designed to create the reaction in an audience that it created in me. It’s obvious, and unapologetic about it; it’s sleek and market oriented, but the positive energy that it creates is the real thing. Add to that that a portion of ticket sales is donated to the Penny Lane Charitable Organization for abused and battered children, and you can’t find a better (dare I say it?) feel-good experience this summer.

Ryan Paulson's one-man show Pentecostal Wisconsin is both a very entertaining yarn and a splendid showcase for Paulson's skills as storyteller, performer, and actor. He's a most engaging host as he takes us back to some key moments in his childhood where he struggles to understand himself, God, and their relationship with one another.

Paulson grew up in a town in Wisconsin. Even though most of the folks there—hearty but dour Scandinavians, the kind we're used to hearing Garrison Keillor tell us about on Prairie Home Companion—are Lutherans, Ryan's parents converted to Pentecostalism when they were in college. So Ryan grew up as part of an unusual minority in his home town, attending church almost every single day. This fundamentalist sect believes in being born again and in speaking in tongues, and in humorous anecdotes, Paulson relates his own experiences with these singular religious phenomena. His story is centered mostly on how—after a visit to town by a celebrity pastor (he'd actually been on The 700 Club on TV)—the teenage Ryan suddenly and supposedly found his calling—as a minister of the Pentecostal Church.

Since Paulson himself is standing before us, in all his profane, occasionally blasphemous, East-Coast-liberal glory, the outcome of this autobiographical incident is never in doubt. But his journey from scared kid trying to find God to, well, the man we see before us now, is definitely worth the telling, especially because Paulson tells it so well. He conjures memorable events and personalities from his youth: the effeminate pastor at his Church, a pair of "slow" congregants who mangle the English language and Biblical precepts, a husband-and-wife gospel-singing team, a strapping and preternaturally devout teenager who says things like "Why isn't it 'heaven-o' instead of 'hello'?" It's generally hilarious stuff, but it's always told with affection and understanding: Paulson gives these folks their due and is ever mindful of how important their values are to them—even when they make little sense to him or (perhaps) his audience.

The play would have a bit more kick, I think, if some it reached some kind of conclusion about its subjects and themes—as it stands, Paulson finally has his catharsis and realizes that the ministry isn't for him, and then he turns up in New York City; but we don't really know how he feels about God or his new "calling" or what he thinks he's learned from the experiences he's related to us. A bit more closure, and a bit more of a mature perspective, might turn an entertaining and well-written monologue into a genuinely profound play.

But Paulson the actor is always engaging and fun to watch; his presence is enormously appealing and palpable, and I will be eager to see him perform in other works (his own or others'). Director Virginia Scott must be credited with tying the package up with professionalism and intelligence.

People Are Living There is one of only two plays by seminal South African playwright Athol Fugard that is not about apartheid or the black community and is instead about poor white folk living in a 1950s Johannesburg tenement. The fact that this play is not about apartheid opens the door to its universality. The play’s director, a longtime collaborator of Fugard’s named Suzanne Shepherd, recognized this fact and has moved the location to Elizabeth, New Jersey.

I think the new location and subsequent rewrites work well. Still I feel compelled to mention that when I think of South Africa I think of the struggles of the black majority against the oppressive white minority. I never really considered that there are whites struggling to make ends meet in South Africa. So the fact that this play is originally about poor whites in South Africa makes it much more unusual than a play about poor whites in New Jersey. That said, the move to Jersey does not detract from the dramatic impact of the play but it doesn’t add to it either. It is merely a lateral move. So the question is… why move it?

People Are Living There revolves around Milly, the landlady of a rundown bordering house, who has recently been cast aside by her long-term lover and is obsessed with revenge. She finds out that her ex-lover is going out on a date and decides to throw a birthday party for herself just to spite him. But this just doesn’t work out because her party guests/lodgers Don and Shorty are victims of their own ineptitude. Don is a cynical intellectual who can only validate himself by quoting other people’s wisdom and can’t seem to do anything to become the intellectual giant he wants to be. Shorty is a gentle simpleton who is training to be a boxer yet can’t seem to stand up to his wife Sissy or anyone else for that matter. Milly desperately wants there to a raging party going on, complete with roaring laughter and cheap paper party hats, when her ex-lover returns but instead she begins to reflect on her fifty years of life and truths about her become apparent.

Milly realizes that she has transformed into someone she doesn’t even recognize. Where she once believed that she’d always have happiness, now she sees that happiness has eluded her and she’s no longer the person she once was. Fugard provides us with a wonderful symbol for this in the form of silkworms that Shorty has been nurturing that at the end of the play transform into moths. Don, on the other hand, is terrified of being happy. He even refuses to admit that he can enjoy a singalong even though we see him tapping his toe. Shorty is in search of happiness in all the wrong places—the boxing ring, his mean-spirited wife, and friends who don’t respect him—but he’s too dim to realize it. The one thing that binds these characters together is their fear of being alone.

There is a bleak, melancholy shadow over everything and Fugard gives us few things to laugh at. (Though not necessarily from lack of trying) I have to admit that I began to lose interest in the first half of the play because it is light on plot and heavy on banter. However, things really pick up and become interesting theatre when the party begins. There is about ten minutes of fantastic theatre when all talking ceases and we only hear (and see) the characters attacking the party food. This scene had the most impact on me. Fugard shows us throughout the play what happens to us when we sit around and wait for life to come to us instead of attacking it. So I saw this scene as a futile attempt at attacking life and the one moment when the characters break out of their shells. This is very refreshing, but then immediately afterward Fugard falls back on dramatic speeches to reveal his characters' innermost feelings.

O’Mara Leary as Milly wraps her entire being around her speeches and overall delivers a truly memorable performance. Larry Silverberg is as natural as can be in the role of Don, the brooding intellectual. Ben Rauch turns out an amazing performance as Shorty. He is so endearing that I almost began to care more about what happens to him than the main character. Emma Myles is good as Shorty’s bitchy wife Sissy, who only appears at the very beginning and very end of the play.

Suzanne Shepherd directs with a delicate touch and her attention to detail is exquisite. Roger Mooney’s naturalistic set design also shows wonderful detail and Brenna McGuire bolsters Mooney’s concept with her unaffected costumes and props.

It is a real treat to see this rarely-performed Fugard play. Regardless of where it is set it rings true. You should not miss this opportunity to see it.

I had never seen Pericles prior to this production nor had I heard of Slant Theatre Project. However, there are two things I know for sure now: I will definitely go see another Slant production, but I doubt if I will seek out another production of this obscure Shakespearean tragicomedy.

I wanted to see this play because it is being staged in the belly of the historic lightship The Frying Pan, docked off pier 63. I’ve seen other performances there and I’ve always had a good time. This evening was no exception. The audience is allowed to mill about the deck and take in the sights of the mighty Hudson and listen to the DJ spinning for the outdoor café-goers on the pier. When house opens we descend into the depths of the ship, below the waterline, and take our seats along three sides of this level, looking down on the playing area. The heave-ho of the ship is a bit disorienting at first, but it doesn’t take long to get your sea-legs and before you know it you don’t even notice the rocking. However, the musty, basement smell is overwhelming (this ship was underwater for three years) and that I never got used to.

Pericles was popular in its time most likely because of its spirit of high adventure, twisting plotline, and melodramatic qualities such as the bad guys getting their comeuppance and the good guys being rewarded for their suffering. It is about a prince who gains a wife and child after surviving ordeals such as an assignation attempt, a terrible storm at sea, and a jousting contest only to end up losing his beloved family.

But Pericles is an uneven play. Many scholars believe that this is because Shakespeare only wrote the latter half of it. It does not delve into the minds of its main characters nor does it balance the point of view of the royals with the lower classes as in other Shakespearean plays. There are several double events in Pericles, some of which make the play interesting because Shakespeare seems to be trying to show the dual nature of love and virtue, while others raise the question, why was once not good enough? Also, there are some events that are simply hard to swallow, but I suppose that’s true of most plays in this genre.

Despite the issues I have with the play I loved Slant’s ensemble. They are like a group of traveling minstrels—so minimalist, and they creatively transform everyday objects into props. Some of the props and costumes are anachronisms but, thankfully, they make no attempt at modernizing the language. They also avoid making their characters into over-the-top caricatures and instead use their finely tuned Shakespearean acting skills and impeccable comic timing to create fun and memorable individuals.

Nick Capodice puts the master back in Master of Ceremonies in his portrayal of Gower, the play’s narrator (based on John Gower, the poet whose translation Shakespeare used as his main source material for this play). Robert Scott Smith is quirky and quite funny in every role he graces. His depiction of the five different horses and their riders for the jousting scene is absolutely hilarious. Matthew Dellapina is steady and unaffected as our hero Pericles, and Whitney Adams is endearing as his daughter Marina. Jennifer Graven pushes her characters to the edge of exaggeration and this works for the most part. Summer Shirey is striking in all of her roles, and finally Maggie Cantrick is good though she doesn’t have the grasp of the language that is on par with the rest of the ensemble.

Director Wes Grantom does an excellent job maintaining an even style for the entire production. His edit of the play cuts to the chase and Grantom keeps the pace moving along briskly so that the evening flows seamlessly, making the hour and 45 minutes fly by. He uses this unusual space resourcefully, dropping things in from above and bringing actors in from all directions. Derek Wright also deserves a mention for his simple yet effective light design.

I had an enjoyable experience with Slant’s production of Pericles and I think you will too. Pericles may not be one of Shakespeare’s best works but this production proves that a good company can take on any play and make it worthwhile.

There is much to admire in Phenomenon, the collaboration between director Alyse Rothman, playwright Gordon Cox, and composer Lance Horne that has just opened after several years of development at HERE. Horne's music would definitely sit at the top of my list: an ethereal, moody, evocative underscoring upon which sit a surprising set of songs, usually played on the guitar by Marshall York, that transform this piece from a routine play to a quirky sort-of musical where characters sometimes sing their inner thoughts for no other reason than that this is a very unusual day.

That, at least, is how Phenomenon seems at its beginning. It's May 17, 1980 in Southwestern Washington State, and all indications are that this will be a day like all others, as we watch the play's four characters emerge from sleep and go through their morning rituals of shaving, brushing teeth, and so on. They converge at a diner: Christine, whose mother owns the restaurant, is its reluctant proprietress and cook; Michael is her employee; Mark, a geologist, is involved in observations of nearby Mount St. Helens; and Mary, his wife, is a journalist in search of a big story and senses that her husband might just be sitting on top of one.

Then a mysterious, nameless Cowboy sidles in, with guitar but apparently little else to his name, singing. And soon Mary and Christine are singing too. A butterfly flutters nearby and Michael catches it inside one of the coffee pots; we "see" the butterfly in the form of a dancer doing ballet moves just behind the diner scene. We understand that, by any measure, this is no ordinary day.

It is, in fact, the day before the eruption, an eventuality that Mark and others have been tracking for a long time. Citizens in the area have been warned, but inadequately; a "caravan" has been organized to allow people with cabins around the lake near the mountain to clear out their possessions, but there's not the sense of urgency that hindsight tells us there should have been. The dancer turns into a seismograph at Mark's site near the volcano. There's lots of activity coarsing through her legs.

This is terrific terrain for theatre, timely in the aftermath of 9/11 and all the more so six months after Hurricane Katrina (which had not happened when Rothman conceived the piece three years ago). Even though we know how Phenomenon must climax, Rothman and Cox build suspense and interest very effectively. The geologist and his wife are having troubles in their relationship, which she attempts to rectify by following him to the (potentially very dangerous) site. Christine hates the diner and wants to run away to Seattle and become a singer; perhaps the enigmatic Cowboy is her ticket out?

And then It Happens, by which I mean Mount St. Helens erupts. And here's where Phenomenon falters, for It barely happens at all, doesn't even register. We're aware that the catastrophe has occurred and that at least one of our characters has been killed as a result, but a feeling of something bigger than any of them—a sense of a phenomenon, as the title infers—is absent. The denouement, which feels long in Cox's script, fails to supply this as well.

So I was left with a burning question: what about this event was interesting to the creators of the piece? I can imagine all kinds of resonances (and I've suggested two of them a few paragraphs above), but no leaps or connections get made here. Instead, the play caves in on itself, fretting about the fortunes of characters who, before the explosion, seem merely archetypal.

Now it occurs to me that the performance I saw, or the production that Rothman and Company have arrived it, falls short of what was planned. There's a credit for projections and animation in the program and much is made in press materials of a multimedia component, yet none of these was present in what I saw. Did stuff malfunction, or just not come to pass? [Note: A revised press release received from the show's publicist, after opening night, eliminates credits for costume design, sound design, properties, and projections and animation. - Editor]

The set designed by Michael V. Moore is spare, save the richly detailed diner; perhaps something a bit less abstract would have helped make the depiction of the eruption a less subtle experience.

As things are, I love the idea of the dancer (Becka Vargus is her name) serving as Mark's equipment; I love the songs (especially when performed by Rebecca Hart as Christine and Marshall York as the Cowboy); I love the blend of science and story in Cox's script. And York, Michael Lopez (as Michael), and especially Michael Urie (as Mark, in whom, alone among the characters, the conflict between trivial exigencies of life and massive unstoppable natural events is actually manifested) do expert, affecting work here.

But Phenomenon, despite the very evident enormous amount of time and effort expended on its development, does not achieve the transcendence that its promising concept portends, and that finally is a disappointment.

(Let me take this moment to tell you, Gentle Skimmer, that I enthusiastically recommend the following production, even if my initial two paragraphs do not seem to bear that out.)

I found the first scene of the Irish Repertory Theatre’s production of Brian Friel’s 1964 play Philadelphia, Here I Come! to be a little off-putting. Set in small-village-Ireland, the play documents 25-year-old Gareth O’Donnell’s last night at home before leaving for America—for good. Friel employs the conceit of having two Gareths: the Public (Michael FitzGerald), who gallops about the stage in eager anticipation of his departure; and the Private (James Kennedy), who is Gareth’s unspoken thoughts, his wild imagination, his constant companion, and his faithful audience.

Unfamiliar as I was with the classic play, I couldn’t pinpoint if it was the writing, the direction, or an indigenous style of performance to which I was woefully underexposed that I found so grating. Why is Friel spending so much stage-time on the dynamic but seemingly inconsequential fantasy life of his protagonist? Why are these two actors trying so hard and/or why has director Ciaran O’Reilly not tamed them?

It took me a scene or two to realize that everyone involved in the Irish Repertory Theatre’s production of Philadelphia, Here I Come! (not to mention the playwright himself) knows exactly what they’re doing. As the play progresses and we see Gareth interact for what may be the final time with his housekeeper, his best mates, and most significantly, his father, we begin to understand why he is making such a big deal of this major life-choice—because no one else is.

Madge is concerned with the tea, the mess in the kitchen, and visiting a neighbor who might name her new baby “Madge.” Ned, Tom, and Joe are preoccupied with the usual (skirt-chasing, pint-pursuing) and not with musing on how deeply they’ll miss the good times Gareth and they had together. And aside from discreet bouts of insomnia during the preceding few evenings, his widowed father, S.B. O’Donnell takes his one cup of tea and plays his checkers, betraying no sense of loss at his son’s decision to move abroad.

Friel shows us in flashback a few events that helped solidify Gareth’s resolve to move to the U.S. The most pivotal of these is also one of the very best scenes in O’Reilly’s revival: Lizzy, the sister of Gareth’s late mother, has arrived from Philadelphia with her husband to visit their homeland. Lizzy (conjured here by the exquisite Helena Carroll) is a dotty, drunk, motherly figure whose whimsical whiskey-soaked memories culminate in a desperate plea for her nephew (a perfect stranger) to move to Philadelphia and join their (childless) family.

Carroll, however, is not the only reason to see this excellent production (though she may be reason enough). The entire ensemble, composed and conducted by O’Reilly, is quite good, but I will go ahead and point out a few other outstanding performers: Paddy Croft’s Madge is deeply affecting as the quiet old maid who is plenty aware of the goings-on (or lack thereof) between Gareth and his father, but wise enough to stay out of it. FitzGerald plays his scenes with Edwin C. Owens (as Gareth’s emotionally opaque father) with an almost romantic fervor, which makes the interaction, from both ends, the very essence of heartbreaking.

Philadelphia, Here I Come! chronicles a young man’s pursuit of feeling important: from the showman to the soliloquist, who must learn how to be alone. To artists or any persons who have had to go far from home to find recognition and appreciation, Friel’s tale is uncomfortably familiar. And indeed, as directed by O’Reilly and enacted by FitzGerald, the play is pitch-perfect.

The Chocolate Factory's too-brief (just three performances) mounting of Picnic on the Battlefield is worthy of special attention because it gives New Yorkers a very rare look at the work of Fernando Arrabal. Arrabal, born in 1932 and still living (but, as far as I can tell from my Google search, not actively working) in France, is, like so many 20th century European dramatists, virtually unknown in the U.S. Yet his work in the '50s, '60s, and '70s marks him as a prolific and significant voice in the theatre; the evidence, from this production, is that his absence on our stages is our loss. (As far as I can tell, there have been but two other productions of Arrabal in New York in the last decade, both small-scale shows at HERE.)

So why should we care about a Spanish guy who wrote plays protesting, among other things, war in general and the Franco regime in particular? Sample the following exchange from this play for a taste of Arrabal's resonance in 2005:

MARK [a soldier]: Papa, why don't you take a photo of the prisoner on the ground and me with my foot on his stomach?
FATHER: Oh yes, that'd look good.
ORION [the prisoner of war, just captured by MARK]: Oh no, not that!
MOTHER: Say yes, don't be obstinate.

Shades of Abu Ghraib...

Okay, I need to backtrack a little; you're wondering what Mark's mother and father are doing, discussing photographing POWs with their son. Picnic on the Battlefield, as its name suggests, takes place on a Sunday afternoon in a war. Mark, on Our Side, is alone on a battlefield. When the play begins, a violent enemy attack has just ended. Suddenly, he hears some unexpected noise, which turns out to be his Mother and Father marching nonchalantly toward him, bearing a large picnic basket. Unfazed by the noise and dirt all around them (not to mention the occasional bursts of mortar and gunfire), these two have come to spend a lovely afternoon with their son. They pull out two big bottles of wine, platters loaded with ham and cheese sandwiches and other goodies, and a jolly red-and-white checked blanket that Mother spreads out on the ground.

Their bliss is interrupted, temporarily, by the sudden appearance of Orion, a soldier who is on the Other Side. Mark dutifully chases Orion and eventually captures him; at his parents' urging he ties the prisoner up. The photographs, which Mother intends to place on their dining room table at home, come next.

The point of this kinda-scary absurdist farce is admittedly obvious and hammered home without much subtlety by the time Arrabal's done with it. But there's more going on here than a simple anti-war parable. There's a great scene in the middle of the play, for example, in which a bombing raid from an enemy plane seems to threaten the picnic's continuation. Mark dodges for cover, but Mother—as undaunted as Winnie in Beckett's Happy Days—merely puts up her umbrella. Earlier passages have intimated, obliquely, that Mark's parents' generation may somehow be responsible for this purposeless war; now their seeming indestructibility in the face of real danger feels a lot like arrogance. It reminded me of our current administration.

Thomas Weitz's production of this short play is suitably off-kilter and stylized, juxtaposing the weird breeziness of Mark's parents with the brutal conditions of the battlefield. Weitz makes splendid use of space, pushing the action very close to the audience in places to ensure that the play's ideas don't get swallowed up by the Chocolate Factory's airy white-box stage. The actors all do excellent work, especially Jason Guy, who really grounds the piece as Father (his elegant footwork during a delightfully incongruous dance on the battlefield is particularly wonderful in terms of defining his character). The rest of the cast includes Doug Johnson as Mark, John Solomytis as Orion, Dawn Timm as Mother, and Mark Lindberg and Michelle Gough as a pair of medics who turn up a couple of times in search of the dead and wounded.

Design elements are all nicely executed as well, the standout being Mike Wagner's fine lighting design, which provides useful special effects to indicate bombings and rifle fire. Weitz's sound design, mostly emanating from a huge radio, also contributes mightily to the play's effectiveness.

Bravo to Weitz, the Chocolate Factory, and their collaborators for giving us a look at an obscure work that proves to have real pertinence. I hope this will encourage others to dig further into the works of Arrabal and his absurdist contemporaries, for they have many things to teach us.

What do sad people have in common?

It seems
They have all built a shrine
To the past

And often go there
And do a strange wail and worship.

What is the beginning of happiness?

It is to stop being so religious
Like
That.
        - Hafiz (translated by Daniel Ladinsky)

The poem above encapsulates perfectly what Jamie Carmichael's play Pilgrims is about. Carmichael has chosen—ill-advisedly, I'd argue—to end his play with it, and its beautiful simplicity undermines his work considerably.

Carmichael and his collaborators on this ambitious project are all relative newcomers to the theatre. So I think it's important for me to say up-front that there's talent and promise on display here: Carmichael can write, director Geordie Broadwater understands how to make compelling stage pictures and how to pace a difficult play, and actresses Emily Young and especially Catherine Gowl are able to create interesting, three-dimensional characterizations. But Pilgrims does not showcase these artists in a useful way, except in terms of their potential. It's an awkward, over-reaching piece, too full of ideas and techniques and artifices for its own good, and ultimately adding up to 75 minutes or so of self-conscious theatrics that, once summed up neatly in Hafiz's brilliantly concise verse, feels redundant and unnecessary. Hafiz has already said this: Carmichael and his collaborators need to find something of their own to say.

Pilgrims is about a young man named Alvie who enrolls in an expensive urban university where his one friend is Lauren, a free-spirited young woman who moves easily between the world of her monied, snobbish friends and his own, which is modest financially but richer intellectually. Lauren's older brother, Serge, works as a sort of spiritual counselor, using techniques from yoga to supplement his (undegreed) psychology practice. A woman, Tamara, comes to Serge to help work out issues following the death of her brother; they begin a relationship. When Lauren suddenly disappears, Serge and Tamara and Alvie come together to search for her.

Carmichael's idea here is that all four of these young people are "pilgrims"—searching for connection, or wholeness, or some kind of actualization that will negate their feelings of incompleteness and sadness. (To steal from Hafiz, they are stuck in their religions, and working on paths away from them, toward happiness.)

Carmichael even sets his play around Thanksgiving to make sure that we understand the nature of his eponymous characters.

The journeys these four make are interesting, but not particularly plausible. How exactly does Serge earn his living, and why hasn't he been arrested for fraud? Why does Tamara, who seems to have a good head on her shoulders, trust Serge? What's up between Serge and Lauren? Who is Alvie and how does he know Lauren anyhow? Carmichael feeds details to his audience very sketchily, and what he gives us doesn't always make sense. Nevertheless, he's skillful enough to make his characters into people we actually start to care about, and as we come to understand the bonds that they share and the paths toward fulfillment that lay ahead for them, he comes close to moving us.

But his writerly touch is everywhere in this play, and it ultimately damages the work badly. Everything, from the characters' names (Serge? Alvie?) to the studied air of mystery shrouding each dramatic disclosure, feels forced and imposed by a playwright stretching his muscles without restraint. Carmichael has the actors who portray his four leading characters also play everyone else in their lives, changing costumes and attitudes in full view of the audience: why? He has his characters break the fourth wall to introduce the play's "parts" and, inconsistently, confide in us about this or that ("Part 4" is the last line of the play; Carmichael likes to mess with us like that)—why? I was conscious throughout Pilgrims of an author audaciously and unabashedly trying lots of new things. That's a great way to learn how to write; but it doesn't necessarily produce a work that's ready to be put in front of an audience.

Broadwater's contributions seem similarly mired in academics and technique. The actors cope as best they can with the demands placed upon them—bringing well over a dozen characters to life, making changes in full view of the audience (some of which are mechanically difficult and slow things down badly), and trying to ensure that the play's elliptical main storylines are reasonably clear. Eric Murdoch (Serge) is unfortunately unequipped to manage all of this: his expressionless line readings consistently pegged him as someone in well over his head here. Gowl (Tamara), Young (Lauren), and, to a lesser degree, Rufus Tureen (Alvie), fare better.

Finally, the production feels like a workshop or classroom study more than a finished product. Let's hope that the artists involved with Pilgrims learn a lot from the work they're doing here.

When the press release tells you more about a show than the show itself does, there’s a problem. Franca Miraglia’s new play, Platinum Travel Club, has this problem in spades. The author squanders an excellent opportunity to examine the nature of both guilt and sexual obsession by leaving out crucial bits of information that would clarify the theme and the story, only to have much of that information surface in the press release—just enough, in fact, to help theatre reviewers make sense of it all. Most other theatregoers will be at a distinct disadvantage.

Sandie, a high-powered business executive who basically travels for a living, is on the run from her life. She is sad, lonely, and guilty over a deep, dark secret in her family’s past. To keep herself distracted on the road, she joins a business travelers' sex club and tries to comfort herself with anonymous sex. Naturally, Sandie keeps her on-the-road life and her off-the-road life completely separate. Playwright Miraglia does the same thing in her construction of Platinum Travel Club: the only thing both parts share are the specter of Sandie’s dead sister, Caroline (who figures prominently in the family’s dark past). But, Miraglia keeps them so separate that she fails to let one inform the other. I wouldn’t have known that the two halves had anything to do with each other if I hadn’t read the press release (and even then, a connection is made in only the most cursory fashion).

Sandie’s off-the-road time is spent dealing with family issues at the home of her parents, Jack and Maureen. There’s a clear rift between Sandie and Jack that goes back to Caroline’s death, but it’s never made clear what it is. Does Jack blame Sandie for her sibling’s untimely demise? Is she guilty because she feels responsible? Having clear-cut answers would help strengthen what could be a very effective subplot. As it is right now, the audience is left with too much guesswork to even care.

On the road, Sandie stays in a string of hotel rooms as anonymous as the one night stands she has. But, her reasons for having them remain cloudy. When the Executive, a fellow sex club member with whom Sandie has recurring liaisons, asks her why she joined, Sandie merely says, “I was curious.” That’s good enough for him, but not for the audience. Once again, a number of questions go unanswered. Who runs the club, and how did she find out about it? Why did she really join? Does she even like sex, or does she just use it to punish herself? I suspect Miraglia knows the answers, but unfortunately she never shares them.

The actors are game and do well even though Anne Beaumont’s lackluster direction strands them without urgency or momentum. (Kudos, in particular, go to leading lady Anne Winkles for having the guts to parade around in her underwear for at least half the show.) The designers also make nice contributions, especially set designer Casey Smith, who outfits the New Perspectives black box with a fractured white picket fence and a porch swing. Both are nice touches.

Metropolitan Playhouse's latest creative endeavor is Poe-Fest, a two-week celebration of the world of Edgar Allan Poe that includes some thirteen new plays and musicals inspired by the life and work of this great American author. Diversity and surprise are the trump cards here, I think: sample some of the seven "vaults" that artistic director Alex Roe and his staff have programmed and you'll find a comic monologue by Trav S.D., a mystery/parody by improv maven Laura Livingston, a biographical drama by Alexander Poe (who gave Kafka similar treatment at last summer's FringeNYC), and a great deal more. Poe-Fest includes entries from non-NYC-based writers, which is a treat; there's even a late night event in which Poe's characters supposedly gather together to surprise—and murder—their creator.

I caught one evening, "Vault A," comprised of three very different and unusual pieces. The jolliest is Quoth the Raven, a canny one-act written and directed by Dan Evans that postulates that the famous bird who supposedly only said "Nevermore" may in fact have been responsible for a great many more of the words that Poe put to paper. Chris Harcum is a dead ringer for the brooding, morbid poet, while performance artist LuLu LoLo (hidden most efficaciously behind black drapery) provides voice and very spirited soul for a muppet-like Raven, a fuzzy and feathery black bird that might be cuddly were it not so forbidding and bossy. Denise Montgomery, Ray McDavitt, and Kevin Draine complete the cast as three assorted visitors to Poe's rooms in this quirky, humorous play.

Eleanora, a musical by Tara Sophia Bahna-James (book & lyrics) and Jonathan Portera (music), is the evening's pleasantest surprise. Based on a lesser-known story by Poe, it tells of a young man named Edward (Cullen R. Titmas) who is haunted by memories of a lost love named Eleanora (Roberta Gumbel) , even as he tries to work out his relationship with his new love, Ermengarde (Culver Casson). (Eleanora is pronounced, charmingly, "El-e-a-nora"; that kind of unexpected lyricism pervades this lovely piece.) All three performers bring warmth and compassion to their roles, and Portera's music is served beautifully by accompanist Kat Sherrell. Only 20 minutes long, it takes us on a complete emotional journey free of irony and sentiment; it's a sweet piece.

The final entry on the bill, Stephen Peace's 101 Ways To Kill Someone And Get Away With It by The Famous Defense Lawyer HH Munroe, is the only one that takes place in the present day. A book with the same title as the play has become a best-seller and indeed has transformed society: evidently a lot more people than we might expect want to commit murder, with the result that the population has been decimated and the security surrounding the simple act of selling the book is enormous. There's a serial killer on the loose, apparently intent on finding and assassinating HH Munroe; Munroe himself is ensconced in his fortress-like home, seemingly unable to enjoy the riches that his book has brought him. (He's also clearly annoyed by his wife, who keeps going out and buying handbags.) Peace's idea here is a good one, and his ending is a peach; but the exposition takes considerably longer than it needs to, and overall the play, directed by Derek Jamison, exhibits a sluggish pace. There's also the question of precisely what all of this has to do with Mr. Poe. Andrew Firda and John Blaylock do fine work as author and killer, respectively; Lisa Barnes has fun with the whiny wife role, and David Lally is effective as a book store clerk. Erin Hunter and Jenne Vath, saddled with the too-long opening scene, fare less well as book seller and customer.

I had a good time at my evening at Poe-Fest. Whether you're a fanatic or just, like me, a more casual appreciator of the works of this great American writer, I think you'll find something to your liking in this inventive and ambitious mini-marathon of new theatre. Metropolitan Playhouse continually finds new and interesting ways to accomplish its mission of honoring America's literary past. This idea is definitely a keeper!

Sitting at a bar can be so boring. What better way to spice up this age-old pastime than to have over-the-top '80s movies acted out right before your eyes?!

Well, now you can have it! The 1991 Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze surfer cult-hit Point Break is in the process of becoming an off-off-Broadway hit with Point Break Live!, at Galapagos in Williamsburg! It’s a no-brainer, really. Take a movie that practically everybody has seen many, many times and throw the highlights up on stage with some quirky “special effects.” I wish I had thought of it!

The most genius part of all is in the casting—the role of FBI Special Agent John 'Johnny' Utah is played by a member of the audience, chosen by applause-o-meter by the audience. He is coached and fed cue cards by a gal who is dressed up as what looks like an American Apparel model. Part production assistant, part eye candy, she is an entertaining part of the show, a seeing-eye dog of sorts to the wide-eyed yet blindsided leading man.

Sounds great, right? Well, it is and it isn’t. A great idea is one thing, but a sharp execution is key. And this is where the production falls a little short.

On the night I attended there seemed to be a rash of unfortunate technical glitches. Either the sound system or the actors’ microphones didn’t work and it was impossible to hear some scenes over the din of a bustling bar. The scenes being shot on a live-feed video weren’t lit which left most of the audience staring at an incredibly dark screen while what sounded like action was going on in the Galapagos reflecting pool. Video feeds weren’t working either and although the actor playing the Patrick Swayze role was a real champ trying to cover it, the energy of the audience as a whole dipped when we sensed that things were going wrong left and right. One or two problems can be overlooked and forgotten; more than a handful makes me start to think they didn’t get in a lot of rehearsal.

While casting Johnny Utah from the audience is brilliant, there is another casting choice I just couldn’t get my mind around. A little girl, about 8-10 years old, plays the part of Tyler, played in the film by Lori Petty. She was cute and all, but kids in bars is just really strange to me. And they didn’t give her a microphone, or her little voice didn’t reach the ones being used.

But you know, all in all, it’s not a bad way to spend ten bucks and 90 minutes. The skydiving scene alone is worth the price of admission. Yes, I said skydiving scene. I told you there were special effects!

A quick Internet search indicates that there are places called San Bartolomé in Spain, Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru. Michael John Garcés doesn't say which of these countries (if any) is the setting for his play Points of Departure, and I suspect he's hoping in this way for a bid toward universality; I'm not sure, though, that that's such a useful idea.

The first act of Points of Departure is about a man named Marquez who has journeyed from his current home in an unnamed country that is certainly the United States to a small city in an unnamed country that appears to be in Central or South America. This country has systematically oppressed and eliminated the native culture in an apparent attempt to replicate, on a modern scale, the genocide/assimilation of Native American tribes by the United States. The "tongue" that Marquez knew as a boy (for he is from this country; grew up in a tiny village not far from this city) is obsolete; everyone speaks Spanish and has a Spanish name now; the injustices and excesses of the past that have made this possible are officially "forgotten" now as well.

Marquez, nonetheless, wants to get back to his village. He's not heard from family members still there in a long time. Much of what happens in this section of Points of Departure is Marquez's Kafka-esque struggle to get permission to go to the village from the local authorities, personified by a timorous bureaucrat named Cruz. Providing a thriller ambience to the thing are a local shopkeeper with a secret named Vargas and a hotel maid, Petrona, who seems to know (and to be bent on finding out) more than, strictly speaking, you'd expect her to. The ending is tragic, and not just in terms of the fates of the characters; the success of the government in completely eradicating Marquez's "people" is total and therefore chilling.

I found this first act to be provocative and pertinent (if a bit slow-moving under Ron Daniels's static and unimaginative direction); in fact, when the intermission arrived, I felt that Garcés had made his case effectively and had trouble imagining what more he would have to say in Act II.

And indeed, it turns out that he has little new to say at all. The second act, which takes place in a U.N. refugee camp "near the border" (of the same unidentified Latin American country and—where?), is about Petrona, and her struggles to get out of this place where her people are being persecuted. She's the only character from the first act who is also in the second; others involved in her story, which spans decades, are her husband Tumin, her father, her brother Xun, and a child named Leti whom she helps to escape. The stylized suspensefulness of Marquez's story is replaced here with self-conscious poetics: Petrona indulges, in between remembered incidents involving these other characters, in long, rambling monologues that feel nothing but (over)written. (Unfortunately, Sandra Delgado doesn't seem to have the technical expertise to manage the language, let alone make sense of them.) Points of Departure sinks beneath their weight.

This is a shame, because the first act has useful things to say about repression and collective memory. I think it would have even more to say, though, if it were more specific about where this is taking place: if these events actually happened (or are happening) somewhere, shouldn't we be given that information?

Alfredo Narciso (Marquez) and Mateo Gomez (Vargas) deliver expert performances in the first half, helping to wrap us into the intrigue and mystery that eventually unravels as the play moves forward. Cristian Amigo provides accompaniment on guitar that is appropriately sparse in Act I and, like so much else, overdone in Act II.