The Right Kind of People, Charles Grodin's new would-be comedy of manners and social conscience, is a disappointment. It's pretty obvious what it wants to accomplish, but I don't think it does so with much art. Throughout, I found myself unwilling or unable to believe what was happening on stage. And in the play's final moments, when Grodin has his protagonist/alter ego wrap the story up by, for the first and only time, addressing the audience directly and delivering an epilogue, I was genuinely distressed that the playwright had simply not worked very hard at his craft.

It takes place in a swank and expensive (but not astronomically so) apartment house on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, where the trials and tribulation of the co-op board are followed over the course of a tumultuous year or so. The very likable Robert Stanton plays Tom Rashman, Grodin's stand-in in the play (we know this not only because he has the largest role and is the most sympathetic character on stage, but because Grodin gives him, word-for-word, a scene that he's included in his program note that he says actually happened when he (Grodin) was on a co-op board himself).

Tom is a 30-ish theatrical producer who has just moved into this building at the insistence (and with the behind-the-scenes assistance) of his Uncle Frank, a wealthy entrepreneur who backs most of Tom's shows. Tom, orphaned at a young age, was raised by Frank and his wife and loves him like a father. Frank is one of the leading lights on the building's co-op board, and when a vacancy opens up, he urges Tom to join.

What Tom discovers, not particularly to my surprise, is that the board members are snobbish and self-interested. They relish the power that their positions bring them, and they seldom hesitate to use it in order to make their own lives more comfortable. So when one of the older conservative gentlemen on the board gets nervous when he has to ride up the elevator with a strange African American man (who turns out to be another tenant's employee), he argues that all service personnel must be relegated to the service elevator. And when a rich but unsophisticated Texas couple tries to buy into the building, the screening committee feels entirely justified in turning down these nouveau riche upstarts on the grounds that they won't "fit in" (ergo the play's title).

The moral seems to be that everybody is more bigoted and intolerant than they're willing to admit. A tenants' revolt results in the arrival of a new board midway through the play, and they prove to be even worse than the first group: not just racist, but anti-Semitic as well. What all the board members presented in this play have in common is a robust small-mindedness and a herding instinct that makes them stick together even when it seems counterintuitive that they would do so (this is why I had trouble believing, much of the time, in the reality of these characters).

Troubles between Frank and his wife and, eventually, Frank and Tom, complicate the play without adding much thematically. A never-explained feud between Frank and another board member, the liberal Doug Bernstein, fuels much of the story as well.

The piece is briskly directed by Chris Smith on a unit set that serves, not as comfortably as one might hope, as several different apartments plus the board meeting room (it's decorated in smart, conservative furniture donated by Bloomingdale's that, too, is not as exciting to look at as one might hope). A cast of ten veteran players performs the play confidently, with the standout being Doris Belack, who is terrific in two different roles; her delivery of just two words ("What fun"), in the guise of an elderly waspish busybody on the board, is on target and hilarious, maybe the best line reading anywhere in NYC at the moment.

But even the worthy opportunity of seeing good actors strut their stuff wears thin in Grodin's unsubstantial script. The Right Kind of People's simplistic message is clearly stated by the author in his program note (and pretty much telegraphed by its title)—the 90-minute script is almost beside the point.

The year is 1927. In a boarding house in Indiana, Ruby is throwing herself on the mercy of her not-entirely-sympathetic aunt—Ruby’s father has just died, she says, and she needs someplace to live for four months, so she can finish constructing a prototype of an invention that’s going to mean the end of war. Her invention is going to make it possible for every person in America to see war, up close, in their living room, and who could bear to wage war after that?

It is only one of the many ironies of The Ruby Sunrise that Ruby is talking about television. Television does get invented during the course of the play, of course, and in fact the latter two-thirds of the play are set in a New York City television studio in 1952, where Ruby’s daughter, Lulu, strives passionately to get the teleplay of her mother’s life written and aired. Lulu shares her mother’s idealism about television, and one of the many accomplishments of Rinne Groff’s play is that it makes the audience mourn the gap between that optimism and the realities of a thoroughly commercialized medium.

The Ruby Sunrise is a complicated, challenging play, sometimes requiring great patience from the audience—but that patience is rewarded with a thought-provoking and rich theatre experience, one I can’t stop thinking about. It’s a risky play, whose various set-ups don’t really start paying off until about two-thirds of the way in—but once the payoffs begin, each new twist brings another new pleasure, capped off by a stunning final scene (the pleasures of which I will not reveal here). And it’s a play that revels in the power of theatre; both Groff’s tightly constructed script and Oskar Eustis’s elegant direction make effective and witty use of all the tools at their command.

Both Groff and Eustis have fun with period conventions (from both the 1920s and the 1950s), stylizing dialogue and imagery. All the production elements are stylized in a way that’s almost tongue-in-cheek, calling to mind Hollywood clichés of the two periods, but never crossing the line into parody; Bray Poor’s music choices and Eugene Lee’s stunning set stand out. The double-casting here is resonant and meaningful. Eustis uses the very deep stage and all the possibilities of Lee’s set to create striking, layered visual compositions.

The first third of the play, set in the Indiana boardinghouse, represented by a conventional turntable set that shifts from barn to kitchen, can feel a little contrived and melodramatic, as Ruby struggles to achieve her dreams in the face of potentially overwhelming opposition. Her family doesn’t support her (Aunt Lois, who runs the boardinghouse, keeps threatening to throw her out), and the person she counts on to help her, fellow boarder and college student Henry, is really more interested in Ruby romantically than scientifically. But just as one’s patience might be wearing thin, the whole play cracks open, leaping forward 30 years in time and revealing the first act’s conventionality to be just that: a consciously chosen set of conventions, which will come back to life, with a twist, later in the play.

The second two thirds of the play take place in a television studio, in the shadow of the Hollywood blacklists. Producer Martin Marcus has hired hotshot writer Tad Rose to give him a brand-new teleplay. Charmed by Lulu and her stories, Tad begins to write "The Ruby Sunrise," a teleplay based on the life of Lulu’s mother, Ruby—but, like the audience, Tad has only heard act one by the time the script goes into rehearsal.

The convolutions of getting the script written in a way that will satisfy Lulu, the network censors, Tad, and the budget department form the story of the second half of the play. The actors who played Ruby, Lois, and Henry in Act I return as actors, hired to act their own roles in the teleplay, in Act III. There are further complications, one of which results in a Marilyn-Monroe-esque dumb blonde, Suzie Tyrone, playing the part of Ruby with giggles and simpers. In the end, the show goes on, and we do get to see at least a commercially sanitized, emotionally softened (made for television, in other words) version of the end of Ruby’s story, which picks up more or less where Act I left off.

The performances are both committed and stylized, again calling to mind Hollywood icons of the play’s two eras, while walking the fine line between homage and parody. Two standouts, to me, are Jason Butler Harner as screenwriter Tad Rose and Anne Scurria as Aunt Lois/Ethel Reed. Harner is nervous and suave all at once, a bundle of conflicting impulses who wants both to succeed and to do the right thing. Scurria is pleasingly sardonic as Lois, and has a grand old time as Ethel Reed, aging diva of stage and screen, who plays Aunt Lois in the teleplay.

The teleplay-within-a-play is perhaps worth a review in itself—tightly constructed, cleverly and subtly weaving together references from Acts I and II of the main play, commenting on both story lines and also commenting with poignant irony on the gap between reality and the media-sanitized version of it we like to view as entertainment. Without ever preaching or even commenting in a literal way, Groff and Eustis make us think about our media-saturated world, about whether or not to trust the images we see on television, and about how those images could be used for a better purpose.

The Ruby Sunrise, above all, is a very smart play—smart writing, smart directing, consistently thoughtful choices made by actors and the design team. It takes risks, it challenges its audience, and it’s so carefully constructed that I’m still figuring out things about it, three days later. And with all that, it still packs an emotional punch.

Brokenwatch Theatre Company’s new show, The Safety Net asks the question, “What makes us who we are?” David, played by Jason Pugatch struggles with this question in the aftermath of his adopted brother’s death. Written by Christopher Kyle, The Safety Net is a brilliant and unwavering look at the issues of American race, class, and family.

Gene, David’s troubled (and adopted) younger brother, has been killed while driving drunk, leaving behind his pregnant and equally troubled African American girlfriend, LaShonda. At first, David wants to make sure LaShonda isn’t trying to make any monetary claims on his parents, but soon he finds himself drawn to LaShonda and her life, which is so very different from his own. First he brings her groceries, then sends his friend Rick to check up on her, and finally sends her money to replace the car his brother wrecked. “You’re family,” David finally tells her. David places his career and his marriage in serious jeopardy as he struggles to bring LaShonda into his life, to “fix” LaShonda, and to reconcile his complicated relationship with his brother, which also means tracking down Gene’s biological mother. While working to create one family, David neglects the other.

As David gets to know LaShonda, he starts to delve into Gene’s life. What made Gene the troubled alcoholic he was? Was it because he was biracial? Or was it the stress of never feeling like he truly belonged to his adopted family? Or was it because he felt abandoned by his older brother? David wrestles with these questions and his own possible culpability as he also faces up to his own uncertain future.

Kyle has written an amazing and unflinching play that deals with difficult subjects in a compassionate and humorous way. Happily, the cast is more than up to the challenge of playing these flawed and fully human characters. Tinashe Kajese gives a gripping performance as LaShonda, as does Eva Kaminsky, as David’s insecure and needy wife Sonya. Caught between these women, Jason Pugatch does a splendid job as David. We can see him try to balance his roles as son, husband, and brother, yet feels wounded when he doesn’t get the gratitude he expects for his hard work. “It’s not me you want to talk to,” LaShonda succinctly tells him. “You want to talk to Gene.” Mark Setlock, Maren Perry, and Peggy Scott round out this wonderful cast with their subtle and finely tuned performances.

Martha Banta’s direction is uncomplicated and she has made her job look effortless. She brings a great play to life, refusing to shy away from the tough questions the material asks of both her and the cast. She clearly illustrates the struggles of families as they try to hold onto their concepts of what a family is, and how feeling safe and loved is a tenuous and fragile commodity.

J. Wiese’s set is absolutely stunning: a simple black stage is turned into a bedroom, an upper-class New York City apartment, and an apartment in a seedy part of Indianapolis, all with the elegant turn of a panel. It’s marvelously inventive, and the lights, sound, and costumes bolster this collage of a family photo album.

Brokenwatch Theatre Company has mined a brilliant gem of a show, one that is not to be missed.

Sylvie Tansey is dying. We don't know this for certain until midway through Act One of The Salvage Shop, but we sense it as soon as the play begins. It's in the desperation of a strong and proud old man shaking his fist at looming mortality by pretending he can drink and cuss and raise as much Cain as he ever did. And it's in the sorrowful, dutiful restraint of Eddie, Sylvie's middle-aged son, as he returns to his childhood home to run the family's eponymous business and handle all that needs to be handled in preparation for Sylvie's imminent demise.

But of course what most needs handling is the ruined relationship between father and son. Sylvie's vocation, salvage shop notwithstanding, is music, and for decades, having followed in his father's footsteps, he's been "captain" (conductor) of a small band here in this remote Irish town of Garris. Eddie was in the band; played the cornet like an angel, we're told. But twelve years ago, he failed to turn up for an important competition, much to his father's consternation. Eddie had an excuse—he'd just learned that his wife was having an affair with a local entrepreneur called Josie Costello—but Sylvie was unforgiving about Eddie's absence. And so the prodigal son abandoned the disappointed dad for more than a decade, until now, when circumstance and necessity has brought him back home.

All of this has occurred, of course, before the action of The Salvage Shop. It's revealed to us, in dribs and drabs, as the main story of the play unfolds. The central conflict of the drama is, what can Eddie do to make up to his father for that long ago failing. He eventually comes upon an outrageously fantastical solution to assuage his heavy heart, which in the doing leads him on a path toward redemption. Playwright Jim Nolan doesn't pull us far from our comfort zone in delivering a conclusion that's perhaps too pat and unsurprising; but The Salvage Shop does sketch a convincing and compelling tale of familial recrimination, regret, and rebirth.

Peter Dobbins has directed the show with a firm and unsentimental hand, finding the natural comedy and tragedy that commingle in a story as homely and straight-from-the-heart as this one. It plays out on a richly detailed set by Todd Edward Ivins that depicts the shop of the play's title; it's filled from floor to ceiling and from end to end with junk, junk, junk, almost none of it ever used, touched, or even acknowledged during the drama's duration—that's a fit metaphor for the waste that men make of their lives too often, don't you think?

David Little gives a triumphant performance as Sylvie, marshaling his energies for a series of emotional scenes in the second half of the play that bare this man's soul in small, and therefore remarkable, ways. Paul Anthony McGrane, at least at the performance reviewed, seems less in tune with his character of the repentant son Eddie—I didn't feel the frenzy of misapplied industry that I thought would mark this man as he races the clock to win back the respect of a father that he's sure he's lost.

Filling out the tale are Eddie's girlfriend, Rita, and his college-age daughter, Katie, both of whom try, in different ways, to help Eddie repair the bridge he burned a dozen years before. Kristen Bush is luminous as Katie, and also fierce and intelligent. Karen Eke is, appropriately, somewhat shadowy as Rita—we don't really get to know her except in terms of her relationship to Eddie. Ted McGuinness has a single memorable scene as Eddie's sometime rival Costello, who proposes an unlikely alliance that, predictably, Eddie can't even dream of considering.

The finest performance of the evening, though, is undoubtedly that of Roland Johnson, who plays Sylvie's good-natured comrade (and band member) of very long standing, Stephen Kearney. Johnson's grace reveals what a rock this man has been for Sylvie all these years. I enjoyed watching him in repose, listening; or working on a project as audacious, in its quiet way, as Eddie's—restoring a set of stained glass church windows depicting the Stations of the Cross that were originally created by his father.

The Salvage Shop doesn't finally break any new ground, but it's a well-crafted and involving story of how relationships falter and how they're mended. It's never really a question which of the Tanseys is going to be salvaged in the play. But thanks to the firm guiding hand of Dobbins and the fine work of all his collaborators at The Storm Theatre—who, incidentally, are giving this play its New York premiere—the reclamation of the Tansey soul makes for a touching and ultimately rewarding theatre experience.

There are several companies in New York City that specialize in unearthing the buried treasures of our theatrical past, and the results of their digging are almost always edifying and/or entertaining. But only once in a great while does something authentically golden turn up—usually the gems rediscovered in these theatres are less valuable or more rarefied. So the revival of Percy MacKaye's The Scarecrow at Metropolitan Playhouse is cause for more than the usual amount of excitement and celebration, because this charming, touching play, written in 1910, is no mere curiosity or period piece: it's a neglected American classic. Bravo to Alex Roe, Metropolitan's artistic director (also at the helm of this production) for putting this splendid work back on the New York stage.

Based on a story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarecrow takes place in a Massachusetts town in the late 1600s, about the time of the Salem witch trials. Here, Goody Bess Rickby operates a blacksmith shop; she's something of an outsider, thought by many to engage in the black arts. Nevertheless, her beautiful and pure (but willful) neighbor, Rachel Merton, turns up at Goody Rickby's to buy a mirror from her—a "glass of truth" that holds, behind its curtain, secrets that will help Rachel know that the man she loves and is about to marry, Squire Richard Talbot, is honest and faithful.

Goody Rickby has a history with the Merton family: 20 years ago, she was romantically involved with Rachel's uncle, and though unmarried they had a child together. Merton abandoned them; the boy died while still an infant, and Goody Rickby's grudge against her faithless lover has grown across the years into an obsessive desire for vengeance. Rachel's purchase starts the wheels turning for a scheme designed to exact just that from Merton, who has since become a judge and therefore an important personage in the town.

Now here's the thing I haven't yet told you, the thing that makes The Scarecrow so delicious and so atypical for its era: Goody Rickby is, in fact, a witch. She's in league with a demon named Dickon (who, when we first meet him, has a pair of tiny horns on his forehead); this fellow, who may be Satan himself, helps Goody Rickby hatch the plot that will bring about Justice Merton's downfall (and, true to devilish form, wreck a number of other more or less innocent lives as well). Dickon animates the pumpkin-headed scarecrow that Goody Rickby has just finished building for her garden. Christened Jack, the scarecrow comes to life and becomes the son that Goody Rickby lost two decades before. Jack's mission, under Dickon's firm guidance, is to woo Rachel away from her squire, to precipitate the downfall of the hypocritical Merton.

To give away more of what happens here would be shameful—see The Scarecrow to find out how this supernatural tale spins itself out. Because MacKaye has filled his play with very modern characters, a lot of what ensues is actually quite surprising. A few authentically heroic figures emerge and most wicked thoughts and deeds are indeed punished; but the Devil is the Devil, and his ways are ultimately both inscrutable and implacable.

Roe's production is probably the most ambitious ever undertaken by the theatre, with loads of special effects (some of them quite niftily effective), impressively rich costumes (designed by Rayna Smith), and a serviceable and relatively complicated set by Ryan Scott. The ensemble includes a dozen actors, with several Metropolitan veterans on hand in supporting roles, such as the very funny Jeff Pagliano (as Squire Talbot's rather foppish second) and the invaluable Matthew Trumbull (as two servants, Goody Rickby's sly helper and Mistress Merton's rather dim one). Ian Gould, last seen here in The Devil's Disciple, is terrific as the Devil, conjuring fire and mischief out of thin air with a combination of glee and unmitigated malice that almost feels melancholy. Avery Clark and Melissa Miller, both new to the company, make as appealing a pair of leads as one could hope for: Clark in particular is quite a find, beautifully negotiating Jack's tender journey from a newborn (but fully grown) man adjusting to his suddenly human legs and arms, to a mature individual learning responsibility and morality as he adjusts to the pain that comes with a human heart.

The production is not without its imperfections, but these can easily be overlooked—simply for giving us the opportunity to see MacKaye's play (it hasn't been done in New York, as far as we know, for more than 30 years), Roe and his colleagues have earned their place of preference in this busy fall season. The Scarecrow offers a sharp and occasionally whimsical glimpse at our past—not just the superstitious days of the Salem Era, but the buoyant optimism and innocence of both Hawthorne's time and MacKaye's (the character of Squire Talbot, well-performed here by Andy Macdonald, is cut from the same cloth as the classic "Yankee" of American popular mythology, from Johnny Appleseed to George M. Cohan). It's also funny, heart-warming, and occasionally even wise. What more do we ever need from theatre than all of that?

A show such as New York Theatre Workshop’s current offering, The Seven, is difficult to review. I want to simply write: “Go see it. Really.” But though I myself will go see anything I might suggest, you, gentle browser, are not me and therefore may require a bit more convincing. Here goes:

The Seven is Will Power’s adaptation of Aeschylus’ feel-good miss of 467 B.C., Seven Against Thebes. Perhaps not the most familiar-sounding of all extant Greek drama, S.A.T. starts with perhaps the most well-known tragic figure, Oedipus—killed his father, married his mother, had two sons with her before she hung herself, then plucked out his eyes, a gesture indicating that he understood the gravity of his situation. Charges of incest and murder not only forced Oedipus to abdicate his throne, but deeply embarrassed his two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, who kept him locked up. Their father’s response to this, not unsurprisingly was a curse: that they would never quite agree on who was to take his place as ruler of Thebes. The mutually-admiring pair, however, quickly agreed that they would take turns ruling every other year, so Oedipus further refined his curse: that neither would rule in a way that was suitable to the other, and that they would shortly each die at the other’s hand.

Power begins with the curse and sees the heretofore ridiculously harmonious duo through to their gorgeously-staged fate (choreographed by Bill T. Jones, but I’ll get to that—him). However, his particular take, literally “spun” on-stage by a DJ, is a hip-hop one: Oedipus is a cane-wielding Mack daddy, his sons Baby Macks (“Mack: 1. a pimp; or a man who is popular with the ladies”; there’s a glossary containing this and other terms more obscure to an enthusiastic but hopelessly Caucasian viewer such as myself). The ensemble is a more traditional Greek chorus (wearing clothing made by and for the hip-hop community, obvio), tripling as citizens of Thebes and members of the ominously-eponymous “Seven” (warriors assembled by Polynices to siege Thebes when Eteocles refuses to give up the throne).

Whether or not this conceit strikes you as astoundingly innovative is immaterial to me; I am telling you that the entire piece—from Power's text to Jo Bonney’s direction to Jones’s dances to each of the designers' contributions to the performances of the solid 11-person ensemble—is saturated with wit and is utterly winning. The play’s wisdom—about the folly of hubris, of fighting against nature / fate, of shirking civic responsibility for the illusion of personal security—is there for us in bright wicked relief.

Rap is not the first thing on my iPod—my limited experience with the style suggests to me that its practitioners tend to “write to the rhyme,” giving their lyrics a certain nonsensical quality that I find neither charming nor clever—but Power's libretto has it both ways: smart, sleek lyrics that at once reference the ancient and the contemporary (e.g. “Homer,” “Trojan,” “(The) Apollo”). Ya know, like if Oscar Wilde and 50 cent had a baby….

Now I am not one to read the program and ignore my theatre-going companion while waiting for the house lights to dim so my first thought when I saw the elegant, brooding, tarantula-like choreography was: “This show is going to be a hit and give this choreographer his/her big break!” However, the words “big break” to a modern dance icon such as Bill T. Jones probably mean little more than an extra two minutes to go fetch your leg-warmers. (Does anyone still wear a leg-warmer?) Needless to say, Jones’s dances equal the freshness of Power's script and make corporeal the grim, deteriorating state of the brothers and their subjects/citizens.

Bonney keeps both the physical actions and thematic intentions crystal clear, assembling an imaginative and capable bunch of designers (Darron L. West’s sound design is particularly excellent), and a fine cast; all of the actors deserve paragraphs of praise, but every time Edwin Lee Gibson hobbles on as Oedipus (and, in flashback, his father Laius), you might not realize that anyone else is onstage.

Is that enough information? Seriously, get over to New York Theatre Workshop now. Fo real. And don’t forget your bling!

I haven't seen a production of The Mikado since I was a kid, and I've never seen it live (just on TV); it feels ubiquitous, but in fact Pirates of Penzance is the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta that gets revived all the time, not this one. So Theater Ten Ten's current mounting is more than welcome, and to hear it sung unmiked and unamplified by a congenial and generally big-voiced ensemble makes the pleasure still greater.

What a score this is! I'd forgotten what a collection of hits is contained here: "A Wandering Mistrel, I," "I've Got a Little List," "Three Little Maids from School," "The Sun, Whose Rays Are All Ablaze," "He's Going to Marry Yum-Yum," "Here's a Howdy-Doo," "The Punishment Fits the Crime," "The Flowers that Bloom in the Spring," "Tit-willow"—my goodness (and please forgive the gushing) but as the standards kept floating out at me last night I was thinking how Gilbert and Sullivan had enough great numbers here for three or four shows. What we have here is truly an embarassment of riches.

But why would I want to quibble about that? The melodies by Sir Arthur Gilbert are unerringly delightful and the lyrics by W.S. Gilbert are amusing and clever but never arch.

Some context, now: The Mikado, as you probably know, is a comic opera ostensibly set in Japan, though it's a version of Japan very much like Victorian England. The complicated plot involves Ko-Ko, a ne'er-do-well who was sentenced to death for flirting but, in a moment of peace-loving whimsy, was reprieved and raised to the exalted title of Lord High Executioner, the assumption being that no one can ever be executed if he cannot first execute himself. Pooh-Bah, a nobleman with an ever-oustretched hand (for bribes, that is) is Lord High Everything Else. Ko-Ko is about to marry his lovely ward, Yum-Yum, but complications arise when Nanki-Poo, a second accordionist, turns up in town—for he is in love with Yum-Yum and she with him. Nanki-Poo turns out to be the son of the Mikado (the emperor of Japan), on the run from a proposed marriage to the imposingly terrible Katisha. That personage and the Mikado himself eventually put in appearances; Nanki-Poo is supposedly executed and it looks for awhile as though Ko-Ko might be, too; but all is put right by the end.

The libretto is hilarious; I confess to laughing loudly at least twice: once when David Tillistrand, as the unflappable Pooh-Bah, staged what amounted to a one-man cabinet meeting, hilariously (and literally) sidestepping the issues as he metaphorically added and subtracted hats from his swollen head; and another time when the great singing colossus Cristiane Young, as Katisha, announced that though her face may be unattractive, her right elbow "has a fascination that few can resist."

POOH-BAH: Allow me!
KATISHA: It is on view Tuesdays and Fridays, on presentation of a visiting card. As for my circulation, it is the largest in the world.

Funny stuff.

Now you've noticed that the title of this production is The Singapore Mikado, so I need to now explain what that's all about. Director David Fuller (who originally conceived this production with Charles Berigan) has placed this Mikado in Singapore, "the Gibraltar of the East," on December 10, 1941. That's just three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and also the date when the Japanese—the very nation being poked fun at in The Mikado—continued their assault on the West by sinking two British battleships stationed here at the tip of the Malay Peninsula. (Fuller provides a truly fascinating program note explaining the historical background of his concept, well worth reading when you see the show.)

So the rollicking time that everybody at the party is supposed to be having (the conceit is that this Mikado is being staged by Sir Evelyn Estebrooke, a head honcho of the British forces here in Singapore, as the entertainment at his annual Christmas soiree) is undercut by what's happening out there in the real world. The effect is alternately jarring (magnified whenever Estebrooke's Malay valet, Malphal, performs one of his myriad production tasks of moving scenery, etc.) and stirring (a sense of the old-fashioned "stiff upper lip").

Most of the time, though, the innate charms of the operetta prevail, and as I've said they are many. The score is very nicely sung; some standouts in addition to the aforementioned Young include Martin Fox as Nanki-Poo, Emily Grundstad as Yum-Yum (offering a very nice rendition of "The Sun, Whose Rays Are All Ablaze"), and Bianca Carragher as Pitti-Sing. The dancing, when it happens, is comely as well, choreographed sharply by Judith Jarosz. The production design features Japanese-y robes that don't quite fill the bill (costumes are by Viviane Galloway), but the omnipresent fans are gorgeous and invaluable.

The Skin Game, written in 1920 and being given its first New York performance in a very long time by the Mint Theater, is an old-fashioned morality play wrapped around an old-fashioned melodrama. Neither of those titles should be taken as anything but complimentary, mind you: soap operas about the tribulations of rich people are great and popular fodder, and this one is especially skillful; and the moral that playwright John Galsworthy leaves us with—that so-called principles amount to little when they lead to disregard for human decency and integrity—is nothing if not resoundingly relevant.

The plot concerns two wealthy families, neighbors in a country town in England, whose enmity evolves into a blood feud. The Hillcrists have lived here for centuries (since the time of Elizabeth I, one of them casually remarks); they're lords of the manor, so to speak, endowed with a sense of entitlement and the concomitant spirit of responsibility known as noblesse oblige. At present, the family consists of Jack, the patriarch; his imperious wife Amy; and their 19-year-old daughter Jill, a bright, horsy sort who will indulge from time to time in free thinking. The Hillcrists live in elegance and splendor but they're not as rich as they once were: Jack was forced, some years ago, to sell the tenants' cottages to the upstart Hornblower. As the play begins, word comes that the Hillcrists' view is imminently threatened by their neighbor's desire to purchase an adjacent piece of property, where he intends to erect some unsightly additions to his pottery works.

I need to introduce you to the Hornblowers now: in addition to the father, a wealthy self-made industrialist, they include his two sons Charles and Rolf, and Charles's wife Chloe. Charles is as gruff and grasping as his dad, but Rolf is more sensitive; like the Hillcrists' Jill, he hates that the two families are feuding (and indeed we sense that he would like to be friends, or more than that, with the comely Jill).

The families' bitter rivalry would appear to have its roots in snobbery, pure and simple: Mrs. Hillcrist has snubbed Chloe at every occasion, and is unremittingly opposed to socializing with or even acknowledging "those people." But Hornblower occasionally lets slip another element of the truth, which is that economy is the guiding principle here: his potteries—unattractive as they are—have brought a prosperity to the region that the Hillcrists' can't possibly match. There's a Darwinian struggle underlying the social one; Galsworthy focuses on the latter, but the implications of the former are unavoidable to a viewer of this play in 2005.

At an auction, Hillcrist tries to defend his way of life by preventing Hornblower from buying the contested bit of property, but ultimately he lacks the funds to do so. Whereupon, Mrs. Hillcrist takes command, plotting a far more ruthless attack. It seems that she has certain information about Hornblower's daughter-in-law Chloe that would simply ruin the family. Will she use what she knows to get back the land and uphold the family's cherished way of life? And if so, at what cost?

I won't divulge more, because though the incriminating fact turns out to be breathtakingly quaint, much of the fun of The Skin Game comes from Galsworthy's slow and determined tease of the audience as he sensationally reveals it. And the coda that follows, ending the play, is entirely foreseeable but absolutely necessary. Suffice to say that the character assassination proves a most unsatisfactory plan for all concerned.

Under Eleanor Reissa's steady directorial hand, the plot unfolds with stately elegance. The ensemble is, with just a couple of exceptions, very evenly matched, providing a nice unity of style and concept that serves the piece well. Particularly interesting performances are given by Monique Fowler who, as Mrs. Hillcrist, very firmly establishes the manner and custom of a class far too used to having its own way, for whom appropriate ends always justify ruthless means; John C. Vennema as her husband, a man whose conscience and reason have perhaps been spoiled by too much privilege; and James Gale as Hornblower, who makes that dangerous fellow more even-handed and sympathetic than might seem possible.

Reissa and Mint artistic director Jonathan Bank should be especially proud of their play's genuinely impressive set, by Vicki R. Davis, a well-appointed study in the Hillcrist house that transforms, via folding panels and other architectural magic, into an auction room and Chloe's spare but luxurious boudoir. Sliding panels at the front create a lovely "show curtain" framing each of the acts.

Tracy Christiansen's period costumes—lots of them, for the women—also contribute nicely to the ambience.

The Skin Game proves a gripping and satisfying entertainment: there's always pleasure to be had in indulging our vicarious moral superiority to people who fancy themselves our "betters." (And for those in the audience who would view themselves, socio-economically speaking, as equal to the Hillcrists and Hornblowers, one hopes there is a life lesson to be gleaned instead.) I was struck by the very Englishness of the piece: in an American play written in 1920, Hornblower would have been the unabashed hero, flouting and twitting the lazy aristocrats at every step.

The Mint has once again provided us with a clear-eyed look at another time and place, one whose resonances in our own should not be overlooked.

My sensible side tells me that The Debate Society couldn’t have arranged for this weekend’s blizzard to coincide with their opening; but after seeing their enchanting new work The Snow Hen on that first night, it almost seems possible.

The show’s creators and stars, Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen, were inspired by a Norwegian folktale from the time of the Black Plague. In the folktale, a young girl is the only survivor of a plague-ridden village; before her mother left her and went to die, she tucked the girl into bed, calling her “my little snow hen” as she said farewell. By the time the girl was found years later, the story goes, she had sprouted feathers.

Bos and Thureen, under the direction of Oliver Butler, set the story closer to our time and begin by imagining just how the girl, now older, spends her days alone. Following instructions left by her parents long ago, the girl, played by Bos, starts an electric generator each morning, fetches water, and finds food. She explores the deserted country around her cabin, bringing back random odds and ends—an old hair dryer, a globe, a tuna can—and carefully examines each one like an archeologist, cleaning each find with a rag and a plant mister before measuring it and then tagging it with a slip of paper. She entertains herself by listening to an old motivational audiotape, or by putting on sunglasses and watching the Northern Lights outside. But she is clearly lonely—she pretends she has guests when she eats her dinner, and dreams each night of long-past birthday parties.

As lonely as she is, it is still a shock when Thureen, playing a similarly solitary wanderer, bursts into her cabin one night and collapses from exhaustion. At first the girl is terrified of him and hides behind her bed; then she curiously tries to tag him as if he were one of her finds. He’s just as unsure of her when he wakes up. But their craving for company eventually makes them warm to each other; they invent games, they watch a clip of an old movie on a discarded film projector, and one night he gives her a treasured necklace from his own collection of things he’s found. After some time together, though, both are reminded of the plague that has touched their world, and of how much those losses hurt—and he begins to wonder whether he can stay with her after all.

The production has a wonderful dreamlike quality, in that it’s not completely fantastical—it’s just fantastical enough, grounded with enough of the real to lull you in. Sydney Maresca’s costume design gives Bos a scraggly chicken tail, but also gives her a tattered girl’s dress with a hole in the back, right where a little girl would cut one if she really were suddenly growing a chicken tail. The girl’s one-room cabin is a riot of detail, but is also tiny as a Hobbit’s hole. When threatened, the girl arms herself not with any sort of magical weapon, but with ordinary things like toy axes or wooden spoons.

Then there are the performers. Bos and Thureen impressively carry the bulk of the play without speaking—aside from a recorded introduction to the story, and a bit of the girl listening to her tape, the first half of the play is wordless. Even after their first meeting, the pair don’t speak much, due to either shyness or just not being used to talking; they prefer to communicate through gestures, or just looking at each other and guessing each other’s thoughts. Fortunately, both are wonderfully evocative even without saying a word; Thureen has a haunted look that hints at some of the things he’s seen in his travels, while Bos has the endearing naïveté of a curious child left to invent her own way of being in the world.

In fact, Bos is so good at playing “childlike” that for most of the play I thought the character actually was a child—something that gave one of the later scenes between the pair a briefly uncomfortable (and probably unintentional) undertone until I realized how old her character actually might really be. One other scene towards the end also had me confused—I wasn’t sure whether it was supposed to be a shared dream, one of their memories, or something that actually happened to the pair.

But these become minor points when compared to the strength of the rest of the work. Like most dreams or fairy tales, there’s a good deal of truth in the tale woven here, about how strong our need for companionship is, and how hard that can sometimes be to sustain. It’s the sense of wonder that drew me in, though; and did so strongly enough to make me feel that the city’s biggest snowstorm was all somehow part of the story.

The easiest way to measure the worthiness of theater for children is by the behavior of its young audience. At The Snow Queen, the world premiere of Stanton Wood’s contemporary adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s classic fairy tale, the audience is engaged for the full hour. Hats off to an ensemble effort: clear storytelling, an energetic cast, easy yet magical sets, and whimsical costumes.

The story follows Gerda, a young woman who lives with her doting grandmother, and her best friend, Kay, who runs away from his bickering parents. Driven by her love for Kay, Gerda sets out to find him. Perilous adventures plague her along the way. She is taken by the River in New York, and swept into the sea, where she is embraced by Giant Squid in the Lake. Washed ashore in Brazil, she meets Yojaba, who presents her with a magic jacket. She puts it to good use in Patagonia, Argentina, where the evil Robber Maiden threatens her. She meets Reindeer, who is enslaved to the Robber Maiden and who, years before, was cursed by the Snow Queen to talk in silly rhymes when he told the Queen that her daughter had drowned. Gerda learns that Reindeer is the only one who can lead her to Kay. She promises to get the Snow Queen to lift the rhyming curse if he will take her. With some persuasion, both the Robber Maiden and Reindeer agree, and by the time Gerda reaches the South Pole, she finds Kay under the watchful eye of the Snow Queen, who is now numb to emotion since her loss years ago. With each passing day, Kay loses more of his capacity to feel. The sadness is almost gone, but so too is his ability to show affection. But, of course, this is a fairy tale and Gerda’s love and determination save the day.

Susan Heyward gives Gerda youthful energy, the kind of urban New York liveliness so familiar on the subway at the end of a school day. Her compact, neat movements make it seem like she is nearly bursting at times. Utkarsh S. Ambudkar offers a nice contrast in his interpretation of Kay. He is tall, gangly, and sad-eyed. He conveys his unhappiness in small, but meaningful ways, such as a shrug of his shoulder, his willful posture once he decides to run away, and his refusal to make eye contact when he is emotionally frozen. Lanna Joffrey delivers icy benevolence as the Snow Queen, firm guidance as Yojaba, and the necessary enthusiasm for evil in her frequent use of a whip as the Robber Maiden. (This was the only time a child cried and was dutifully taken out of the theatre—maybe it was only a tantrum.) Joffrey also gracefully manipulates the swathes of fabric that are the River.

But it is Ned Massey who has the best parts. As Gerda’s grandmother, he is wise, kindly, shuffling, and speaks as if his teeth were less than firmly set in his mouth. As a puppeteer, he manipulates a monkey, beautifully designed by Eric Wright, with marvelous dexterity. My favorite, though, is the Squid—an enormous monster who Massey endows with sluggish personality and moves with terrific nuance and humor. Simon, my six-year-old companion, voted for the Reindeer as his favorite. Sympathetic, downtrodden, and indecisive, the Reindeer is the play’s ‘Everyman’ and the only one with the power to deliver its happy ending.

Nadia Fadeeva’s costumes add immeasurable satisfaction to the visual experience. Layers of white fabric lift and flow from the Snow Queen. They sparkle even against her rhinestone tiara. Reindeer is covered antler to hoof in soft brown, and even Kay is covered in a ‘snow suit’ during his stay at the South Pole. Again, thumbs up for the costume (or is it a puppet?) of the Squid, which consumes half the stage.

Mikiko Suzuki’s use of fabric in the sets is effective. A river easily turns into the ocean when bolts of fabric flow from slots in the back wall. Appropriate projections keep the audience focused and support time and place in Gerda’s journey. One in particular gives the impression that Gerda is really riding on Reindeer’s back through the sky. At the outset, audience members receive a map of Gerda’s journey along with the program so they can follow along. It’s a nice touch and one that encourages a slight geography lesson later on.

Director Daniella Topol keeps the pace brisk. Wood’s story is clear and engaging. He offers several moments for audience participation and the peanut gallery accommodates, hurling encouraging words at the characters or clapping and moving to music. In his script, Wood incorporates the words “Shut up” a little too liberally for my taste. I find them harsh under any circumstances, but particularly for children. The only other criticism is for the person at Urban Stages who decided to delay the sold-out performance for the arrival of three people caught in traffic. That aside, The Snow Queen gave a solid afternoon of entertainment.

Marjorie’s daddy died right in front of her. Her momma says that this is the root of all of Marjorie’s problems; and her problems are many, including a penchant for fast cars and a fast man who introduced her to speed.

She and Lamont fell in love fast, moving in together after only a 19-day courtship. A little fast lovin’ and fast drivin’ led eventually to mainlining speed, a lesbian tryst with Natalie, and an amphetamine-riddled killin’ spree in Oklahoma that ultimately killed Lamont, injured Natalie, and landed Marjorie in the slammer.

The Speed Queen brings Marjorie to us on what is expected to be her last night on earth. She sits in her jail cell, awaiting a verdict on her appeal as well as a well-ordered last meal. Performer Anne Stockton’s adaptation of Stewart O’Nan’s novel is spot-on; the book, written in first person address, practically begs to be performed. The character has got moxie, and the story is fascinating: ultimately a twisted twist on a woman who was done wrong and did wrong in return.

Unfortunately, there are a few things about this staging that miss the mark. First, there’s a stack of index cards. See, Marjorie has somehow gotten a deal with Stephen King—he’s purchased the rights to her story and she’s gonna tell it to him from death row. On tape. He has sent a list of questions, brought to the stage in the form of a stack of index cards that Marjorie goes through one by one, answering the questions into a tape recorder and thereby relaying the story to the audience. This works for a bit, but that stack of cards ultimately becomes a game of “the prop countdown”—we know that once the cards are done, so is the play. Were there more for Marjorie to do (and I know it’s just a jail cell, so there’s not much) my focus would not have stuck so much to that seemingly never ending stack of cards.

Much of this might be alleviated if Austin Pendleton’s direction didn't keep Stockton so largely stationary. She moves only from sitting to standing, which speaks to her confinement, but not to her internal struggle. There is a necessary tension absent from the piece. In the end, the piece rests on exposition: Marjorie, the tape recorder, and a conversation with Stephen King.

Anne Stockton, though deep and precise in her characterization, reads as too sophisticated and refined a performer for the lost and trashy Marjorie. She has obviously done her work: her accent and physicalization is everything you’d expect from a woman bent on saving her life down to the last few minutes. But this drug-addicted inmate she paints through her words is more reminiscent of Charlize Theron’s Aileen in Monster. Even a sloppy ponytail, a prison-issued green jumpsuit, and an occasional snort from a hidden stash of smack can’t mask Stockton’s delicate facial features and lush auburn locks.

There is a great story here, though, and a great role for a woman. I hope that the creators of The Speed Queen revisit this presentation, pack it with more streamlined punch, and put it up again.

Stefo Nantsou and Tom Lycos wrote The Stones ten years ago and have been producing it around the world ever since. The play depicts two young teenage boys who look for trouble and find it. The theme is so universal that it has been performed in 20 countries in Dutch, Welch, Hungarian, Danish, and German. Now at the Duke on 42nd Street, New Yorkers, too, can see the havoc that overzealous mischief-makers wreak in this serious entertainment for young adults. To the play’s credit, Nantsou and Lycos ask a lot of relevant questions and leave the answers to the audience.

The two men set the stage for the drama, based on a sensational murder trial in Australia, by playing energetically on electric guitars. Easing into their parts as two teenage boys, 15 and 13, they engage in exuberant pranks: breaking into a warehouse, fiddling with a Ferrari, playing with gasoline and fire, and dropping rocks onto passing cars from an overpass. Spurred on by his older friend, the younger boy reluctantly engages in the illegal and dangerous activities rather than appear cowardly in his friend’s eyes. When a rock hits a car, killing its passenger, the boys are stunned. The event hits the front page of the newspapers, and the younger teen, not able to live with his secret, confesses. The subsequent trial provides the playwrights with a platform of thought-provoking questions about personal responsibility as two detectives discuss the counts against the defendants. Should they be found guilty of manslaughter? After all, one man is dead. But, they are only 13 and 15. Should they be locked up because of youthful mistakes? One detective says, "What if it was your kid?" The other responds, "What if it had been your father or wife in the car?" One of the detectives turns to a member of the audience to ask what he thinks.

Dressed in polyester sweat suits, both actors slip seamlessly between their roles as youthful offenders and detectives, using posture, facial expressions, and voices to create clarity in their characters. They also draw on a nice mix of other skills, particularly in the first half, such as mime, tumbling, and pratfalls, and, again, their voices for a large range of sound effects. Nantsou creates a belligerent bully as the 15-year-old teen, hurling epithets every time his friend resists his ideas. He looks large and bulky, particularly against Lycos’s slight frame. Nantsou knows how to maximize a prop. His use of a lighter helps him transform from young instigator to potential career criminal. He is at once immature and threatening, a dangerous combination.

Lycos gives his 13-year-old a nervous, insecure demeanor. Incredibly agile, he moves in and out of small spaces and falls with the ease and scrappiness of the adolescent he plays. He, too, has one effective prop—his knit cap, which he uses to distinguish his young character from his detective. During the trial, Lycos gives a palpable performance in fear and its effects. By the end of the play, when the verdict is delivered, he is so distraught that he appears to have shrunk into his cap, diminished by half. There is no happy ending, regardless of the verdict. Both boys must live with their actions and we are left to guess how those lives might play out. The mellow music reflects this.

The set, composed of two saw horses and a metal ladder, proves enough to create a tunnel, an overpass, and more. The ladder is especially effective in a disconcerting dream sequence that takes Lycos higher than anyone in the audience wants him to go. Two large amps and foot peddles to control sound and sound effects complete the stage design.

Although there is no intermission in this one-hour drama, there are two distinct parts: the mindless adolescents and their shenanigans, and the trial. There is ample opportunity for laughs in the first part, much of it missed, because Nantsou and Lycos are often overzealous in their teenhood to the point of phoniness. The tone changes dramatically during the trial, however, enabling them to visibly incorporate the consequences of the boys’ actions into their characters. The Stones is a fine play for teenagers with a talkback following each performance, and it gets everyone thinking about taking responsibility for their actions—no small feat in today’s environment.

The rollicking new production of The Taming of the Shrew by the all-female Queen’s Company is an endearing outing. Without straying far from Elizabethan theatre practices, in which a bare stage and a few props must pass for the streets of Padua, a suburban stable, and several other locations, director Rebecca Patterson updates the sensibility of this early Shakespeare comedy to subvert its misogynistic message and emerge with a hymn to the pleasures of sex play and the sensual imagination.

The Taming of the Shrew may have the clearest plot of the early comedies, and that’s saying a lot. Baptista, a respected resident of Padua, is possessed of two marriage-age daughters: Bianca, a delicate young thing whose self-effacing sweetness attracts suitors like flies to honey, and her older sister Kate, a hot-tempered, willful firebrand, whose hostility and hard-headedness repels them like poison. Baptista won’t marry Bianca off, however, until a husband is found for Kate; the suitors convince Petruchio of Verona, who loves a romantic challenge, to woo and marry the stubborn sister. They are married, much against Kate’s will, which Petruchio then seeks to break in a series of lessons at his own property outside of town, where he tries to reduce her to the level of his ill-treated servants, chief among whom is the hapless Grumio.

The play’s conceptual and physical imaginative space in the Queen’s Company production is earthy through and through. Jeremy Woodward’s set design is a palette of warm earth tones, deep reds and browns evocative of a Mediterranean Italy, illuminated with spacious floods of bright sun provided by lighting designer Aaron Copp. With the exception of a few directorial flourishes (again, Shakespeare’s frame-story featuring a deluded Christopher Sly is cut here, replaced with a musical prologue lip-synched to a Cyndi Lauper song), Patterson doesn’t stray far from a traditional rendering: Sarah Iams’ period costumes set the play quite firmly in its 17th-century Paduan environment.

And then, of course, there’s that feature of the production that makes it unique. This appears to be the month of the single-sexed Shakespeare, the all-male Winter’s Tale from Britain’s Propeller theatre company just having closed at the Next Wave Festival. Here, the Queen’s Company flips Propeller the aesthetic bird by provocatively casting the Shakespeare tale exclusively with women—evocatively so, in this case. These single-sex productions of Shakespeare deepen our understanding of the characters in rendering them individuals rather than representatives of a gender, a daring decision in the case of Taming of the Shrew, which is all about traditional sex and gender roles. It speaks well to Patterson’s insight that, in this concept, Petruchio, Kate, and the other characters no longer take part in a battle of the sexes, but explore the ability of role-playing to fuel rather than stifle the sensuality of a sexual relationship.

Speaking of that all-female cast, it’s a delight, gratifyingly at home with Elizabethan tone and diction—not surprisingly, given the troupe’s experience in the past with Marlowe, Sheridan, and Webster. Of the eight human members of the company, Carey Urban’s petulant Kate (quite the ventriloquist, as it turns out), Samarra’s self-assured Petruchio (who gets a form of happy sexual comeuppance at the close of this production), and especially Natalie Lebert’s eternally put-upon Grumio are stand-outs, though Karen Berthel, Amy Driesler, Terri Power, Beverley Prentice, and Gisele Richardson all have their well-deserved time at center stage as well. So far as the performance of the one non-human member of the company, let’s just say that Little Sweetie Doll, in the role of Bianca, presents the best performance by a sex toy I’ve seen this season.

There are missteps; this is not a perfect Taming of the Shrew. “Kate’s Dream,” a musical sequence featuring Tina Turner’s “I Don’t Wanna Fight,” serves its purpose of providing Kate with an epiphany, but doesn’t entirely overcome a sense of anachronism; and just from a personal point of view I wouldn’t mind a moratorium on the use of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” as a feminist anthem—not that I have a problem with the sentiment, I just think it’s an annoying, terrible song. (I know, I know, it’s a blind spot. So sue me.) But these are minor blemishes on an otherwise well-conceived production.

Shakespeare’s early comedies are all too often period pieces, lacking the broad humanistic strokes of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the plays that came after, and you have to do a lot of pushing to get plays like The Comedy of Errors and Two Gentleman of Verona into the 21st century. The Taming of the Shrew has always been a controversial play as well, especially following the women's rights movements of the 1960s and onward. It says something wonderful about the Queen’s Company that they’ve been able to avoid ideological grandstanding and agitprop by recasting The Taming of the Shrew as a call to imaginative sexual freedom for everyone, regardless of sex or gender (whatever that might be)—that the shifting balance of power between two individuals, whether male or female by biological determination, can open up an erotic world, not shut it down. It’s not what Shakespeare intended, perhaps, but it’s what the Queen’s Company takes from him now, and it’s what they give to us. Let’s be grateful.

As accompaniment and counterpoint to Larry Loebell's excellent and incisive La Tempestad, Resonance Ensemble is presenting an interesting, streamlined production of William Shakespeare's The Tempest, adapted and directed by Victor Maog. About an hour in length, Maog's version focuses on the ideas of imprisonment that are explored in Shakespeare's play—not just the different kinds of incarceration experienced by many of the story's characters (i.e., Prospero's willful exile and Miranda's wholly unwitting isolation, the captivities of Ariel and Caliban, the faux prison sentence given Ferdinand), but also the more metaphorical walls that are built in the name of  love, requited and un-. It's certainly a workable notion, but it's an exceedingly academic one: this Tempest, especially given its short running time, feels more like an intellectual exercise than a fleshed-out drama, and so while it's provocative to watch, it's never as involving or engaging as this deeply-felt play generally can be.

The conceit seems to be that "Prospero," in prison (wearing the familiar coveralls and unlaced shoes), is reading, or imagining, the story of The Tempest, alone in his cell. Or perhaps he's reading it aloud somehow with two other prisoners: two other men, also in what look like cells (trapezoids of light, discretely etched on the stage), are reading/enacting the play with him. They do not wear the prison uniform however, so I wasn't sure if they were in Prospero's reality or just conjurations of his (the latter feels more appropriate to the play, but it's not entirely supported by the production). All three of the men play multiple roles: "Prospero" also portrays Stephano, while the Prisoner at stage left plays Miranda, Ariel, Trinculo, and others, and the Prisoner at stage right plays Caliban, Ferdinand, and others. (At first, it seemed that the division of roles might be based on who was a stranger to the island versus who was native to it, but that's not how it ultimately played out; that would have been interesting, however.)

The three prisoners/actors perform an abbreviated version of the script, I think moving around the text in non-chronological order, spinning the main stories of Prospero entrapping and then tormenting his longtime enemies; his daughter Miranda's first encounter with a human male other than her father, the handsome young Ferdinand, whom Prospero jails in order to test the young lovers; the fairy Ariel's promised freedom after completing her loyal service to Prospero; and the slave/monster Caliban's attempt to overthrow his master with the aid of the drunken Stephano and Trinculo. Both my companion and I agreed that the events depicted here would probably be pretty hard to follow by someone not familiar with the play; as it was, I was challenged frequently to figure out which characters were in which scenes (particularly because there's no convention used here, save the actors' voices and posture, to introduce or differentiate them). Some of the most famous lines are missing too, which is off-putting (Miranda's lovely speech that begins "Oh brave new world" has been excised, for example).

On its terms, the piece nevertheless works, and even allows some sharp insights into some of the aspects of the play (i.e., the themes Maog is explicitly examining). This is not, however, the same thing as a full-blown presentation or even deconstruction of The Tempest; by focusing narrowly on just the pieces that support the desired thesis, much reduction of a masterly whole necessarily ensues.

Maog's staging, which is on an almost completely bare stage with the space mostly divided (or, in some lovely fantastical moments, unified) by Aaron Copp's excellent lighting, maintains our interest and focus throughout. The ambitious division of the play among just three actors challenges the performers significantly, and only one, Daniel Larlham, really seems to have mastered his roles. (He benefits from having as one of them Ariel, who gets to move around in many more interesting ways than any of the other characters.) Orlando Patoboy is generally convincing as Prospero but we don't really feel the shift in his attitude from vengeance to forgiveness; that's a problem in the adaptation as well. Rasheed Ernesto Green's work here is problematic: his diction just isn't clear enough to make his lines understood, let alone enable him to develop several distinct characters.

This Tempest, then, is an intriguing but not particularly essential take on a great play. I'm not sure that it informs, in any significant way, La Tempestad; but those whose appetites for this timeless story are whet by this minimalist production of The Tempest will do well to see Loebell's wholly original riff on the play during this fall's Resonance season.

The Territory, a new play by Tanya Krohn, is in two parts. The first part is terrific: a man arrives home from work; goes through his evening ritual of putting away groceries, calling his mother, picking up his mail, and so on; and then discovers, in his mail, a very friendly letter from—apparently—his local shopping district. You know the sort of thing: "Dear Neighbor," it begins, and then it continues—somewhat presumptuously, one might argue—to tell you all about the great opportunities and bargains available on Main Street at such-and-such beauty salon and so-and-so's pub: how your life will improve if you only would take advantage of this offer.

Well, this man does with this letter exactly what most of us would: he throws it away.

But then, he gets another one. And another one. And then several in the same day. Is the strip mall stalking him? Does it really need him?

Krohn manages the surreal quality of this everyday modern occurence gone haywire beautifully, and actors Andrew Firda as the increasingly curious man and Alana McNair as the personified (?) mall/letter bring this piece to life masterfully under Cris Buchner's direction. Nick Francone's set—very simple representations of the same house over time, framed by an electronic billboard that is both inviting and menacing—is enormously effective. This part of The Territory is smart satire and intriguing cautionary tale, and makes us hungry for what's to follow.

The second, longer part is about a company that sells alarm systems. This post-9/11 super-duper security system is doing spectacular business everywhere, except in District III. The regional sales manager, Mr. Billings, takes over the district himself, but he can't make headway there either. What is it about this district that makes it different from the others, resistant to the obvious advantages of this product? And what is it about Mrs. Armstrong, the (stereo)typical housewife who becomes the symbol of District III for the increasingly frustrated and obsessed Billings, the makes her such a beguiling object of obsession?

Alas, The Territory does not satisfactorily answer either question, though it seems about to tackle both as it moves compellingly toward its thought-piquing climax. Catastrophe strikes the town and of course District III isn't prepared; and in the midst of the catastrophe, Mrs. Armstrong tells an eerie story of her husband's experiences as a prisoner of war in Iraq. It's good writing, but it doesn't solve the puzzle, instead just throws more pieces at us that don't fit together. In the end, I wasn't sure what Krohn was going for in this second segment, apart from the obvious reinforcement of themes in part one (about relentless modern marketing techniques and the alienation effects thereof).

Buchner has added a very stylized staging to Krohn's piece (I saw an earlier version of part two in the Artists of Tomorrow festival that had none of this stylization); I'm not sure that it adds anything useful to the overall work. The actors are fine, including Kit Behun as Billings's put-upon secretary, George Demas as Billings, and Lethia Nall as a marvelously assured and enigmatic Mrs. Armstrong.

Every production of The Threepenny Opera that I've ever seen before this one has been divided into three acts; the first two acts conclude with rousing "Threepenny Finales" whose themes, respectively, are "The World is Mean" and "How to Survive" (I'm using Marc Blitzstein's translation here; Ralph Manheim & John Willett put the same ideas as "The World is Poor" and "What Keeps Mankind Alive?"). These overtly political commentaries were meant very purposefully by Bertolt Brecht, I believe, to gnaw at the audience as they went off to drink or smoke during the intermissions.

In the present version, stiffly and poorly translated by Wallace Shawn and disastrously staged by Scott Elliott for Roundabout Theatre Company, there are just two acts, and the first one ends with a plaintive ballad about lost love. And that, friends, is pretty much all you need to know about this Threepenny Opera. It's been completely stripped of its social relevance; that sound you hear is Brecht turning over in his grave (and probably Kurt Weill, too; his landmark score has been disrespected pretty rampantly here as well).

The story of Threepenny Opera, taken from John Gay's Beggar's Opera, is about a viscious gangster named Macheath (nicknamed Mack the Knife) who weds Polly Peachum, daughter of London's "king of the beggars," Jonathan Peachum. When Peachum takes issue with his daughter's choice of a husband, he contrives to have Macheath captured (his wife convinces a prostitute named Jenny to betray Mack) and arrested by the police. Of course, the chief of police is the corrupt Tiger Brown, an old friend of Macheath's who is on the take, so Peachum's initial plan is foiled. However, Peachum threatens to sabotage Queen Victoria's coronation by having his beggars fill the streets of London unless Brown does his duty and sees Macheath hanged. In the final caustic minutes of the play, a royal messenger arrives with the news that Macheath has been reprieved by the Queen and raised to a peerage.

The meaning of all this is extremely clear, I think: Threepenny Opera is about how the rich and powerful repress and exploit everyone else, and how that circumstance turns men into selfish savages struggling to survive. Brecht fills his text with diatribes and with ironical satire—there's the ending, of course, but there's also, more fundamentally, the notion that the master criminal Macheath and the beggar king Peachum are both inveterate (and enormously successful) capitalists, stepping all over their underlings with the unconcerned panache of any Gilded Age magnate (of this or any other Gilded Age).

This would seem to be, then, an extremely propitious moment for Threepenny to mount its assault on an audience. But, alas, the opportunity is entirely squandered by a creative team that seems unsure of what the nature of that assault should be. So all that we have here is a long and ultimately very boring stream of coarseness hurled at us: songs that have the ability to move us emotionally and intellectually are corrupted by performances that are loud but un-thought-out; scenes that should anger or jolt fail to do anything except—and this only rarely—bemuse.

I'll give you a few examples to explain what I mean. Let's look at "Pirate Jenny," one of the signature songs of the show, a ballad about a barmaid so exhausted by the indignities and humiliations of her so-called station that she longs only for bitter revenge and escape. Nellie McKay shrieks and shouts the song's final verses in the wild cries of a dying animal, which not only fails to serve Weill's remarkable music but also subverts the intention of the song. Similarly, Mrs. Peachum's knowing solo about sex, in which she muses that Macheath is so arrogant that even when he's about to be arrested he will still stop for a quickie at the neighborhood brothel, is here transformed into a vulgar prank: Shawn replaces Brecht's philosophy with a series of dirty rhymes (featuring words like "vagina," "dicks," and another too ugly for me to repeat here or anywhere).

Meanwhile, Macheath's soliloquy "The Ballad of the Happy Life" (Blitzstein called it the "Easy" Life) is embellished, if that's the term, with a chorus line incongruously dressed in T-shirts bearing the logos of large corporations such as Target and Coca-Cola. It means nothing, but presumably lets the creators feel they've accomplished something Brechtian.

Derek McLane's set is a gawdy impression of Weimar decadence that would have been suitable for the Roundabout's recent revival of Cabaret but makes little sense in a play ostensibly about Victorian England; ditto Isaac Mizrahi's costumes, which do nothing but call attention to themselves and range from a tight and too-short mini-skirt for Mrs. Peachum to a Mrs. Haversham-esque wedding dress for Polly to (most appallingly) a pair of glittery-glam skimpy briefs for the royal messenger at the end. Macheath speaks with a Scottish accent and Jenny with a Bronx accent: what period and place are the creators going for, exactly? Lucy, Macheath's other "wife," is portrayed by, and as, a man; and indeed Mack the Knife seems ambisexual in his tastes, while Tiger Brown appears to be in the throes of deep infatuation for his buddy. What do Shawn and Elliott think they're accomplishing with this?

The cast, an eclectic and often famous assemblage, is ill-used. Alan Cumming underwhelms as Macheath, blending into the background the way Julia Roberts does in Three Days of Rain; Macheath needs to be a powerful and charismatic presence and Cumming, who was certainly that as the Emcee in Cabaret, oddly fails us here. Jim Dale, as genial a performer as there is, fights against Peachum's relentless pragmatism every step of the way; in his last solo, he even does a music-hall-style dance turn whose charm is only exceeded by its utter inappropriateness for the character and situation. Ana Gasteyer belts out her songs in much the same fashion as she must have done in the leading role of Wicked (which reminds me: the sound system didn't seem to be working all that well at the performance reviewed). Pop singer Nellie McKay appears to have no clue how to deal with any of the material she's been handed, walking zombie-like through her book scenes and careening around the songs rather desperately. Onetime pop star Cyndi Lauper is perhaps the most catastrophically cast of the production's headliners, barely able to even be heard during her numbers (and I was in the seventh row of the orchestra).

What it amounts to, more than anything else, is a long, painful evening: not even the original orchestrations by Weill, nicely rendered by Kevin Stites and the orchestra, can salvage this misguided, sloppy show. It's proof that even the most blatant and focused of attacks on our social, political, and economic institutions can be defanged if only someone puts their mind to the task. We can only hope that the folks at Roundabout didn't intend to accomplish such a dubious objective as that.

The Trachtenburgs are a family you simply must meet. Jason (the father) is the songwriter, Tina (the mother) is the slideshow projector, Rachel (their 11-year-old daughter) is the drummer, and collectively they form The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. A self-described “indie-vaudeville conceptual art-rock pop band,” The Trachtenburgs have quite a novel gimmick: they rummage through garage sales and the like to acquire collections of slides (most are at least two decades old), write songs about them, and create a unique audio-visual-theatrical presentation that you won’t soon forget. The family has toured internationally with their friendly, low maintenance, and genuinely bizarre act and has now settled (briefly) at the Lamb's Theatre for an off-Broadway run. You don’t want to miss them.

Shawn Patrick Anderson’s charming set is reminiscent of the basement of a suburban home where a teenager starter band might “jam” if the garage were already occupied. Jason (who plays the guitar, piano and keyboard, in addition to singing) and Rachel (who sings back-up in addition to her masterful drumstick-wielding) are both dressed in vintage '70s outfits selected by Tina (who is perched proudly at the slide projector). Their set consists of nine songs, such as “Mountain Trip to Japan, 1959” (a family or tour group’s collection of just that) and “Super D Presentation” (a pre-PowerPoint presentation, circa 1979, informing McDonald’s shareholders about the need for increased advertising to beat out competitors).

Jason’s lyrics, directly related to the text or “story” of each slide (or series thereof), are purposefully cumbersome to guide our sense of irony to his intended targets, be it corporate camaraderie or domestic complacency. His musicianship is sloppy, but intuitive and funny. Not so for Rachel, a beautiful, placid girl whose percussive talents nearly steal the show.

The space between songs is filled by Jason’s witty mumblings about… whatever occurs to him—say an epiphany about a Neil Diamond lyric, or perhaps this nascent epidemic of jukebox musicals. This patter, as engaging as the songs themselves, feels conversational and might be, if your mind-mouth connection is as unobstructed as his. There is a point rather early in the show when the houselights come up and the audience is invited to ask questions of the family “both about the songs and slides, and our health and fitness regimen.” Not surprisingly, most of the questions are directed to Rachel, who fields them like a pro. By the end of this segment, you will totally want to be her friend.

In fact, there seems to be a mutual affection between the Trachtenburgs (including Tina, a silent, but glowing presence) and their audience. This warmth and availability—this sense of, well, family—makes their show transcend the Clever and the Shticky. Jason, Tina, and Rachel are absolutely worth an hour of your time; let them cleanse your theatre-going palate and make you feel genuinely at home.

M. Stefan Strozier's new play The Tragedy of Abraham Lincoln might perhaps better be titled "The Tragedy of John Wilkes Booth." For it's Booth's story, more than Lincoln's, that's really told here, and it's his belief in a lost cause at all costs that suggests the stuff of tragedy. The Great Emancipator, by contrast, gets relatively little stage time and his passions and/or demons remain relatively unexplored.

Strozier's script spans about a year and a half, from the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg (the play begins with the famous Address) to the killing of Booth following his assassination of Lincoln at Ford's Theatre. The Tragedy of Abraham Lincoln takes a panoramic view of the period, with scenes depicting Generals Grant and Lee at their headquarters in the field, Booth performing Julius Caesar with his brothers Junius and Edwin and plotting Lincoln's kidnapping and then murder with his fellow conspirators at Mary Surratt's tavern, and various other events. Historical personages such as Frederick Douglass and General Phil Sheridan get cameo roles, and near the end Lincoln's wife Mary makes an appearance as well.

Strozier's writing is often repetitive and pedestrian, unfortunately, so less ground gets covered than might otherwise be the case. What's interesting about his script is its emphasis on Lincoln's perception—by his enemies and by a variety of journalists and others—as a "tyrant": Booth and other characters cite his suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, his contravention of the rules of war by ordering the execution of captured Rebel officers, and his censorship of the press, among other (true) occurrences. It occurred to me that Strozier might be trying to point up similarities between the current administration and Lincoln's (there's also a lot of discussion in the play about the illegal and immoral treatment of prisoners of war by the Union Army, echoing the Abu Ghraib affair). I wasn't sure which side Strozier wants us to take, however: is he elevating President Bush by comparing him to a man who is often cited as one of the U.S.'s greatest presidents, or is he providing perspective to help us understand why Booth did what he did?

The production, directed by Alan Kanevsky and featuring a cast of 20, is only fitfully effective. Kanevsky stages the episodic script straightforwardly but not particularly imaginatively, with longish interludes between scenes to rearrange chairs and tables into new configurations (there's no actual set to speak of). The actors' general lack of experience often tells on them, though a few create solid characterizations—notably Josh Stamell, who makes Booth the most complex and interesting man in the play, and Justin Ellis, who, as Lincoln, delivers the Gettysburg Address with real eloquence and gravity, permitting us to hear it as if for the first time.

The production is also undermined by what looks like inattention to detail—though the costumes (uncredited) are mostly appropriate to the period, General Grant drinks from a new Jack Daniels bottle with 20th century dates clearly printed on it and Mrs. Lincoln writes in what looks like a daytimer with a plastic ballpoint pen. In a space as small as the Where Eagles Dare Studio—about as tiny a venue as there is in Manhattan—errors like this are noticeable and distracting.

Ensemble Studio Theatre’s revival of Horton Foote’s The Traveling Lady, a tribute in honor of the esteemed playwright’s 90th birthday, tells the tale of Georgette Thomas (Margot White), a young mother adrift and alone—desperately hoping to find the husband and home she so longs for but intuitively feels is forever out of her reach. Unfortunately, the situation is just as she fears; the young man she married in a youthful fever is neither capable, nor interested in living up to the responsibilities of a family. Traveling with her young daughter, Margaret Rose (Quincy Confoy), to the fictitious Harrison, Texas, the childhood home of her husband Henry (Jamie Bennett), she finds that not only has he been released early from the penitentiary, but he has been living there for the past month with no apparent intention of contacting or even acknowledging his young family.

Desperate and embarrassed by her lack of resources, Georgette is befriended by the townsfolk, most notably Clara Breedlove (Rochelle Oliver) and her taciturn brother, Slim Murray (Stan Denman), who, although haunted by a painful secret, cannot help responding to the young mother’s plight. Foote peppers the play with various neighbors and characters including the town’s gossip Sitter Mavis (Carol Goodheart) and her runaway mother (Lynn Cohen), whose one delight is to vex and worry her dutiful daughter. Into the mix comes Mrs. Tillman (Alice McLane) who has never met a soul she couldn’t save, and whose current crusade is prying the errant Henry from the evil, vile clutches of whiskey. When Henry’s past and present worlds collide, he panics and falls back in with his old habits, betraying and damaging everyone around him.

While well-staged by Marion Castleberry, with a nice set—simple and evocative of a small-town, designed by Maruti Evans—and containing nice moments, the production was marred on this particular night by dropped lines and hesitancy with the dialogue. Like so much of Foote’s work, this piece depends on an almost musical ear and sense for each character's tone—from chattering gossips to slow-talking loners, there is a distinct rhythm inherent in the language. To lose this is to miss so much of the nuances of the piece. One should note that there is no intermission in this particular production.

Signature Theatre Company has mounted a lovely, immensely satisfying, and (as far as I can tell) just about flawless revival of Horton Foote's play The Trip to Bountiful. Everything about the production, from the nuanced performances to the sensitive (but not sentimental) direction to the superbly evocative design bespeaks great care, respect, and attention for a play that most of us aren't too familiar with. At $15 apiece (as they are priced through the beginning of January), tickets for Bountiful are indisputably one of the great bargains in NYC theatre.

The play, which was written in 1953, tells the story of Mrs. Carrie Watts, a widow living with her son, Ludie, and his wife, Jessie Mae, in their cramped three-bedroom apartment in Houston. Ludie, employed in some nameless office job, is just getting by: the combination of a recent illness that kept him out of work for two years and his own listless lack of ambition/suitability for desk work have made him less of a success than he or his relatives had hoped for. Jessie Mae doesn't work; doesn't do much of anything, actually, except flit around their tiny home, hovering over her mother-in-law, who cooks and does most of the household chores. The two women do not get along: specifically, Jessie Mae abhors Carrie's hymn-singing (which is the devout Mrs. Watts's one great solace in life), her running around when walking would do, and her "pouting," which really amounts to tuning out Jessie Mae's nagging.

Of greater concern is Mrs. Watts's propensity for running away from home. Feeling pretty much imprisoned in the claustrophobic apartment, Carrie longs for the pastoral environment of her youth, in her hometown of Bountiful, about three hours away by car but—under the present circumstances—as distant as the moon. Nevertheless, every so often Mrs. Watts takes it into her head to try to make her way back to Bountiful. Ludie and Jessie Mae have always caught up with her at the train station, but this time, she decides to take the bus. She's able to elude her son and daughter-in-law at the Houston bus station, and before long she is at long last on her way, heading to Bountiful after two decades away.

The play, with deft economy, charts the situation, the trip, and what happens when Mrs. Watts get there. I hate to spoil things by giving away the details, so suffice to say that on the way to Bountiful, Mrs. Watts meets up with a very kind-hearted and polite young woman named Thelma who offers a good deal of support and company on her journey; and that when she finally arrives at the Harrison bus station (for no buses go in to Bountiful anymore, the town having receded in size since Carrie's time there), the adventure is only just beginning for Mrs. Watts. In the end, it starts to look like Wolfe was right, you can't go home again; and then it appears that perhaps you can—indeed, perhaps you must. This quixotic trip supplies something like the life force for both Carrie and her son: the cure, when you lose your way, is to remember where you came from.

What's beautiful about Foote's writing is the careful layering of details to reveal, oh so eloquently, a character and a way of life that is quintessentially American. Almost in passing, we're called upon to consider the tragic consequences of urbanization to an agrarian people; the uselessness that comes with leisure, privilege, and boredom; the congenial but ultimately entirely detached attitude of a populace whose twin credos are to Love Thy Neighbor and to Mind Their Own Business.

The details of the play's time, place, and mores are artfully evoked by Martin Pakledinaz's always-on-target costumes, E. David Cosier's naturalistic sets, and John McKernon's similarly realistic lighting. Under Harris Yulin's excellent direction, the entire ensemble feels spot-on, from the roughhewn, plain-spoken station agents of Frank Girardeau, Gene Jones, and Sam Kitchin to the weathered, reticent Sheriff of Jim Demarse to the helpful but reserved Thelma of Meghan Andrews. In the three principal roles, Lois Smith (Mrs. Watts), Devon Abner (Ludie), and Hallie Foote (Jessie Mae) do splendid work, showing us the complexities of these characters with conviction and depth. Smith anchors her portrayal with tenacity, resourceful, and strength; the luxuries of emotions like love and warmth only emerge sparingly, as in the gorgeous final scene when she has a climactic and cathartic talk with her son. Abner builds Ludie's character slowly and steadily, blossoming at last in that same final scene. Foote, the playwright's daughter and interpreter non pareil, gets right to the heart of Jessie Mae, letting us see the good as well as the shallow foolishness of this well-meaning but mostly empty woman.

It is, in sum, about as perfect a production as one could wish for; kudos to everyone involved for bringing Foote's play—surprisingly sturdy and resonant despite its intimacy and specificity—to such vivid life for contemporary audiences. In this Signature production, The Trip to Bountiful proves as fertile, generous, and lush a theatrical experience as its title promises.

When I opened the program for The Tutor and found there a list of musical numbers—you know, like in the old days, before the advent of the sung-through show—I felt eager and happy about what was to come. And when the four-person orchestra, led by Ray Fellman at the piano, struck up Andrew Gerle's sprightly, tuneful overture, I was even more ready to embrace this show: an old-fashioned musical comedy would feel really good just now.

But then the opening musical number presented us with three of the show's four main characters: a spoiled, bored, careless Park Avenue momma named Esther who's only interest is to get her "very special" daughter into Princeton; her husband, Richard, who sings his dissatisfaction with his life in counterpoint ("In my dreams / I have sex"); and the novelist they're about to hire to train their daughter for the SATs, Edmund, who smugly sings about the "Stupid Rich Kids" who make him beaucoup bucks for very little effort.

I have to tell you, all of my anticipation melted away. I understood instantly that we were in for 2+ hours in the company of shallow people I didn't like and couldn't care about. I thought: surely at least the hero—the tutor of the title—shouldn't have "sold out" before the show even starts!

Alas, my prediction was borne out by what followed; and alas, nothing that the talented Richard Pruitt (Richard) and Gayton Scott (Esther) could do made the characters or material more palatable: they emerge eventually as kind of an Upper East Side Ropers, she self-involved and leeringly begging for sex, he good-humored but detached and ineffectual. Eric Ankrim, whose resemblance to the young John Ritter reinforced the Ropers image in my head, fares even less well.

There is a great performance buried in here nevertheless, and that's Meredith Bull's turn as the daughter, the unfortunately named Sweetie. Bull sings like an angel in the show's best number, "Feels Like Home," and works hard to make the sullen 16-year-old teenager she's saddled with playing into a living, breathing young woman.

For the record, the story of The Tutor proceeds as follows: Richard and Esther hire Edmund to be Sweetie's tutor. Sweetie shows no interest in studying, but eventually becomes intrigued by the novel that Edmund is writing and quickly becomes his muse. Edmund's novel takes off under Sweetie's influence (it's not clear whether she ever actually learns anything useful for the SATs, however), until one day when Edmund accidentally brings in an old journal in which he described his prospective student (Sweetie) as a "stupid rich kid" and a "cash cow." She is crushed, runs away from home, goes to live with "Vegan people" with whom she eventually attends an animal rights conference in upstate New York where she makes a stirring speech to the crowd and then gets arrested. Edmund travels by bus to find her and take her home, but is arrested for littering; the two wind up in the same jail cell and reconcile. Richard and Esther, whose marriage was on the rocks during Sweetie's absence, also reconcile, and take a bicycle tour across Europe.

To their credit, composer Gerle and lyricist Maryrose Wood know how to write songs for a musical, and several of them are charming. But some feel very misguided: the big second act number, indebted to Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" and Jonathan Larson's "La Vie Boheme," urges us not to eat our friends (it's a Vegan anthem); and there's a whole sequence built around a bogus Princeton "fight" song that feels like a very lame copy of "Grand Old Ivy" from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

Wood's libretto is riddled with improbable and/or unexplainable oddities, such as why a budding novelist would keep his journal on yellow legal pads, or why very rich parents would send their child's ex-tutor on a Greyhound bus to bring her back from an animal rights rally in upstate New York. The book also fitfully makes use of a gimmick whereby the main characters of Edmund's novel (played with verve by Lucy Sorensen and Raphael Fetta) interact with Edmund in his imagination. Except this is mostly dropped during Act Two; except that they reappear, acting out Richard and Esther's trip to Europe, at the very end of the play. Huh?

Sarah Gurfield's staging is generally competent, though the decision to move Edmund's apartment from its first act location on a platform, above the orchestra, to a different spot in Act Two (stage left, on the ground level) is confusing. Christine O'Grady's choreography is nearly non-existent, which is unfortunate, because the show could use some movement and dancing.

Ultimately, The Tutor is a musical comedy about caricatures of archetypes that we stopped being interested in decades ago; its creators don't even seem to care much about their characters, so how are we supposed to give a hoot? Gerle's music and Bull's earnest, unfettered talent make me eager to see their work in more fortuitous circumstances. But the rest of The Tutor is of very little import indeed.

The Values Horror Show, part of Dixon Place’s HOT! Festival, is written and directed by Argentinean butch-dyke political performance artist, Susana Cook. It is billed as “the real story behind bigotry and terrorism.” It is what it promises, but, strangely, The Values Horror Show is everything it says and nothing like it sounds.

The show begins with a series of slides—short (and mostly familiar) instructions in the vein of: “Beware of suspicious packages” and “Alert authorities if anyone seems dangerous.” The paranoiac instructions on the slides, combined with a tense soundtrack of strings, give an immediate sense of imminent and all-too-possible danger. Soon, following those slides, come other messages, these more religious in nature: “Pray” and “Be rapture ready.” And so the tone for the show is set; the world is a dangerous and strange place.

Just after the slides, a group of women collects onstage, all dressed as men in the army. They discuss, and fight over, religious contradictions, coming to only more contradictions. Emerging from the group, gaunt and muscular in fatigues, Susana Cook almost resembles a long-haired Willem Dafoe. She proves immediately that she has the onstage intensity to warrant the comparison too. Her slightly accented voice is hypnotizing, and her presence magnetic.

The women of the company (who appear throughout) cannot all match Cook’s presence on stage (it is a near impossible feat), but all seem passionate about the material, and each brings a particular strength. But it is when writer-director-performer Cook appears, between scenes, alone onstage, and delivers monologues about everything from political activism to Santa Claus (not as unrelated as they may seem) that this piece is at its best.

The world according to Susana Cook is an interesting one. She lets the audience know immediately that the world is a dangerous place, but Cook interrogates why it is dangerous and who is making it that way. She draws a quick relationship between fear and God, but focuses more on how fear controls us, keeping us paralyzed from revolting against that which is revolting.

What distinguish Cook most as a performance artist are her generosity and warmth. Though the material is political, and her outrage palpable, she refrains from being confrontational or cruel to her audience. Cook’s work is amiably inclusive. She doesn’t seem to preach, but rather to invite you into her world of concerns. With all the intensity of a terrorist, she also sometimes exhibits the heart of Mother Teresa.

The Values Horror Show feels a bit like a family experience. Technical difficulties on opening night were easily forgotten and forgiven because of how gracefully they were dealt with. The space and the show have a satisfyingly low-tech, living-room feel. Sounds are made onstage; the dressing room is visible. There isn’t a lot of illusion offered here, but illusion-making isn’t the point: disillusioning is.

A plea for activism is especially moving coming from Cook. She describes her experiences as a teenager in Argentina, observing—and suddenly shaken by—her country’s quick change to a dictatorship. It is frightening as she explains how quietly the right wing Christian leadership of her country morphed into the efficient killing machine that left 30,000 of its own citizens missing. When the government criminals behind the abductions appeared in court for their crimes, Cook recalls, "They came with the Bible in their hands." Her quick comparisons to the Bush administration and the Iraq war don’t feel forced or glib, but seriously heartfelt. Cook’s voice, as one who lived through the genesis and effects of a dictatorship, is not only steady and relevant—it is irreplaceable.

Susana Cook’s introduction to the Patriot Act? Essentially an absurdist dance number to “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” Santa sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good… Cook’s message is crystal clear. Be good, do as your told, because someone is always watching you. But as she says, tongue firmly in cheek, “Only the terrorists should be afraid.”

And, for the record, Susana Cook is funny. Sometimes hysterically funny. From lip-synching Christmas carols to delivering comic monologues about dog balls, Cook is sharp-witted and her humor quickly turns conventional wisdom about men, women, politics, and “nature” on its head. The last few minutes of the show are somewhat garbled in their imagery, and seem a bit tacked-on, but this doesn’t detract from the overall effect of the show.

Those who shy away from performance art, for fear of being alienated or embarrassed, need not fear to tread here. Cook says, “I’m not going to tell you of the horrors I grew up with, you have your own. We are horror brothers and sisters.” And this seems essential to understanding her work. Cook doesn’t try to trump the audience’s horrors, or to shock them. She sets before them the honest version of how she sees the world, complete with humor and horror. And, she brings it the audience not as her enemies, but as her family. Even those who don’t agree with what Cook has to say are likely still to find themselves listening.

It’s not particularly subtle. The concept—our society’s obsessive drive to find satisfaction from material possessions, electronics, and success—is not particularly original. Anyone who reads the press release can guess the basic subject matter that The Waltz of Elementary Particles covers— a progression from innocent childhood to frantic adulthood and a question of where we go from there.

But, sometimes, it’s all in the execution.

In The Waltz of Elementary Particles, conceived, choreographed, and directed by Jessica Lanius, ten dancers work together to tell a very universal story about how humans get caught up in values (success, money, clothing, technology, etc.) that, when they are not put in proper perspective, take away the pleasure of life. Using movement vocabulary developed as an ensemble and strongly influenced by different theatrical styles, including Viewpoints, the company members have created characters, storylines, text, and dance to explore their theme.

The lights (designed by Michael A. Reese) and sound (designed by John LaSala, who also wrote original music) complement the piece, sometimes increasing or decreasing the tempo of the action. There are also video sequences (directed by Alexander Bruehl and edited by Ben Fraser) with images, such as close-ups of a person’s face or people walking, that add context.

The first section of Waltz seems to be about the calmness and innocence of youth. Dancers emerge from the audience wearing beautiful firefly-lights and flowing costumes (designed by Deirdre Wegner). The performers move in a way that is slow and ethereal. Their movement becomes more playful. They spin and jump and form groups. They create rhythm, synchronize their movements, and seem to be having a grand time. Under Lanius’s direction, they use all parts of the stage and also the balconies on either side.

The second section introduces technology and begins to comment on how people are changed by it. The dancers gather around television screens and move from group to group in blue television light.

From here, the piece progresses to a frantic pace. Actors speak in monologues, creating short scenes addressing particular desires—from success to money to something as simple as a taxi. Related images and video sequences appear on a screen behind the actors. The music builds, becoming louder and faster. The performers repeat each other’s key phrases and movements, which creates an interesting effect of uniting them. The show builds to a climax and crashes down and then ends with a surprising denouement, which I will not reveal.

The danger here is that it sounds rather predictable when you read about it.

What makes this piece extraordinary is the genuine emotional experience it elicits. (I hesitate to say that, because I fear that giving that expectation to audience members may ruin it for them.) Watching the dancers explore the human drive for success, the modern belief in technology, the loss of free time, the constant drive for more, I eventually saw that I was watching myself on stage. I realized the universality of the theme and how this rare show successfully fulfills one of the original purposes of theatre: catharsis.

The Wedding Singer is my favorite musical of the season; it's a feel-good, crowd-pleasing hit. Sweet-natured, silly, romantic, and tuneful, it's the kind of show that takes you away from your everyday for a couple of hours and makes you grin and grin—and the grin stays with you after the curtain comes down. It's also deceptively skillful, featuring expert staging and production design and a top-notch cast who seem to be having as good a time entertaining us as we're having being entertained. It might even be something of an innovation in musical theatre craft; I'll talk more about that a little later.

It's based, as you probably know or have guessed, on Adam Sandler's hit movie comedy of the same name. It's about a young man named Robbie Hart who is the lead singer of a band called Simply Wed (that's the first of oodles of '80s in-jokes in this thing; The Wedding Singer takes place in 1985 in Ridgefield, New Jersey). Though Robbie and his bandmates—the dim but genial Sammy and the lovable but sexually ambiguous George—aspire in their dreams to rock star success, they've gotten used to earning their living here in the suburbs playing at weddings; as Robbie tells us in the show's dynamic opening number, "Love is what I do."

Of course, that doesn't mean that Robbie's own love life is going so well, and indeed by Scene 4, which takes place at Robbie's wedding, we learn that his fiancée Linda has stood him up at the altar. Robbie goes into a deep funk (which he takes out on the next wedding party he performs for, in the hilariously raucous number "Casualty of Love"). He also meets a pretty young waitress named Julia at the catering hall, with whom he falls in love at first sight (we know this because heavenly music starts to play as soon as they lock eyes, but it takes the two of them most of the show to figure it out). The outcome is never in doubt, though the fact that Julia has herself just gotten engaged to a hot-shot Wall Street stockbroker-type named Glen (and the information, available to us in the playbill, that Linda will be returning in Act Two singing a song called "Let Me Come Home") indicate that The Wedding Singer is going to be a wild ride through a series of romantic complications.

The trip is full of surprises (even if you've seen the film, I'm told); and it's loaded with charm and humor and '80s nostalgia. Regarding the latter, there are references to most of the popular music artists of that decade, everybody from Madonna to Cyndi Lauper to Billy Joel (whose anthemic "We Didn't Start the Fire" is paid tribute in the Act Two opener "All About the Green") to Michael Jackson (whose glittery glove appears, inexplicably, on Sammy's hand at one point).

Sammy has a love interest, by the way—Julia's (self-described) slutty cousin Holly; their on-again/off-again affair forms the show's main comic subplot (it's the kind of relationship where they wear matching "I'm with Stupid" t-shirts). Robbie has a grandmother, Rosie, who provides additional comic relief. And the sequences throughout the show all have a cheerful, goofy wit, as when the band plays at a bar mitzvah as a change of pace:

There's a gift from every guest
Today you are a man
The cocktail franks have all been blessed
Today you are a man

Julia sings a duet with Robbie while he's hiding out in a dumpster; Robbie and his bandmates sing and dance with a bartender and a bum in a rousing number called "Single"; and the finale, whose precise nature should not be given away, involves a variety of celebrity impersonators at the White House Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. It all zips by so fleetly and happily that you don't have time to think about how ridiculous most of it is. You just sit back and relax and let The Wedding Singer do its giddy, zany magic on you.

Credit Matthew Sklar (music), Chad Beguelin (book and lyrics), Tim Herlihy (book), and John Rando (director) for this; they've tuned their show so finely that none of its considerable craft shows; they make one of the hardest things to do in the theatre—i.e., creating an original musical—look really easy. They have also accomplished something that I'm not sure has been successfully done before: The Wedding Singer is the first original musical I know of that incorporates the popular music styles of my generation seamlessly within the traditional musical comedy format. This is a show that Baby Boom/Gen X cuspies can love without compromise.

Rob Ashford's choreography is funny and exciting and absolutely invaluable: right from the first moments of the show, when a tuxedoed groom flips his begowned bride over his head in a high-octane dance sequence ("It's Your Wedding Day"), the rules of engagement for the show are impeccably delineated. (The rules are: there are no rules! This isn't reality, it's just fun. Have a blast.)

Gregory Gale, the show's witty costume designer, gets the delicious task of designing not one but four over-the-top retro wedding parties, and he supplies gown after gown for bride and bridesmaids that bespeak the delectability of that particular assignment; his contributions to the rest of the show are equally gawdy and senstaional. Scott Pask's sets are colorful and versatile, zooming on and off the stage with remarkable speed and seemingly a mind of their own; they are splendidly simpatico with Rando and Ashford's vision of the piece, giving them the space they need to move their actors and dancers. Other production elements (Brian MacDevitt's lighting, Peter Hylenski's sound, Joe Dulude II's makeup, and David Brian Brown's hair) do their jobs admirably as well.

The Wedding Singer's onstage talent is just as terrific as its backstage team. Laura Benanti, as Julia, is enchanting, delivering the star performance she was born to; I've seen pretty much everything this young lady has done in the theatre, and she's never been better. My only quibble is that she doesn't quite have enough to do. Rita Gardner is a hoot as Rosie, while Matthew Sandivar and Kevin Cahoon are hilarious and lovable as Robbie's bandmates (Sammy and George, respectively). Felicia Finley emits sparks in both of her numbers as the hopelessly shallow Linda, while Richard H. Blake is Michael Douglas-smooth as the closest thing to a villain in the show, Julia's rich boyfriend Glen.

Amy Spanger deserves her own paragraph for another breakout performance, as Holly. She leads the company in the show's two big dance numbers, "Saturday Night in the City" and "Right in Front of Your Eyes" and she turns both into bona fide show-stoppers thanks to her boundless sex appeal, energy, and fancy footwork.

At the center of it all is Stephen Lynch in an appealing star turn as Robbie. He's as likable a leading man as you can hope for, plus he can sing, dance, clown, and woo with the best of 'em.

Sheer fun, that's what it amounts to: I had a ball at The Wedding Singer, and I'm betting you probably will too.

And I didn't even tell you about the revolving restaurant scene, or the musical number in the shopping mall, or the silly breakdance that Rosie and George do at her 50th anniversary party. (Yes, Rosie breakdances.)

This is a pleasure you don't have to feel guilty about: check it out.

It's amazing what smart, talented people can accomplish in 90 minutes.

The Whore of Sheridan Square, the spectacular, timely, and deliciously funny new play written and directed by Michael Baron, manages in that short span of time to: (a) parody—precisely and hilariously—the classic movie Sunset Boulevard; (b) tell the story of and pay tribute to legendary playwright/director/actor Charles Ludlam; and (c) remind us of the necessity of risk, challenge, and subversion in theatre, especially in the quasi-repressive environment that today's artists are living and working in. This is an enormously entertaining work, and also an important one. It's not to be missed.

The Ridiculous aesthetic—which has in many ways become systematized and even routine in this post-everything world of ours—pervades every aspect of The Whore of Sheridan Square, which means that pop culture is gleefully appropriated and misappropriated, gender is blithely crossed and/or ignored, and camp/gay iconography rules the roost. The Ludlam canon is mined, along with key works of his artistic heirs (Kushner's Angels in America, for example, fuels a particularly witty gag). That said, familiarity with the famous Billy Wilder flick about Norma Desmond is probably the only real reference point required for proper enjoyment of this show.

After a scantily clad woman introduces the evening with a series of cheesy cardboard title cards, the play proper begins—as its source does—with a dead body submerged in water. The murdered party turns out to be Joe Glassman, a sometime off-off-Broadway experimental playwright who got in too deep with a Legend named Norma Charles. He climbs out of the bathtub where he was shot dead and begins to narrate his story. Baron hews closely to Wilder's script while spinning a fantastic and fabulous tale of a Ludlam-esque figure who, rather than dying of "artists' plague" in the late '80s as everyone thought, instead lives reclusively in an apartment on the 4th floor of a Greenwich Village walkup, with his "servant" Jane Evers, a man in all-black drag. When Joe first arrives at the Charles residence, quite by accident, he is mistaken for the man who is supposed to bury Norma's just-deceased parrot, which is held out for our inspection like a discarded prop from an old Monty Python sketch.

Hopefully you're already getting the idea of the thing. Norma, who just to be clear is a man in drag, believes that she is going to be one of this year's Kennedy Center Honorees. When she discovers that Joe is not a parrot undertaker but in fact an off-off-Broadway playwright, she decides he is the perfect person to help hone her life story into a manageable tribute for the telecast. (They want three minutes; Joe is able eventually to prune it down to 13 hours.) Joe, having nowhere else to go, takes the job.

All of the complications that you expect from the movie are reproduced here, almost always in delightfully unexpected fashion. Highlights include the visit from Norma's old pals Lolatta Polasky, Honeysuckle Rose, and Methyl Gassenberger (whose names should remind you of famous actual members of the Ridiculous Theatre Company); they team up to do Norma's brand-new 10-minute play, "Salami," which resets the Salome story in the household of a prosperous deli merchant in Gary, Indiana. There's also a train trip from New York to Washington, D.C to the strains of "On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe"; a reunion scene with Norma's one-time "NEIA" funder Didi St. Holt; and a subplot in which Joe gets involved with a kinky artist named Dick Schaefer who used to be Robert Mapplethorpe's assistant on a rewrite of his failed script "Antigone Goes to Hell."

It's consistently hilarious and on-target. Whore manages to yearn nostalgically for a more innocent day when subversiveness was easier, sexier, and edgier; and it applauds the courage of every artist then and now who is willing and able to take risks to make the art that matters to them.

The six-person cast is nothing short of brilliant. Led by Eric McNaughton in a bravura turn as Norma, it includes Harris Doran as Joe, Doug Brandt as Dick/Methyl/Others, Ginger Eckart as Lolatta/Didi/Others, Vanessa Hidary as Honeysuckle Rose/Salami/Others, and the scene-stealing Ken Barnett as Jane Evers. Baron's staging is a perfect blend of the Ridiculous with film-noir. The design—an amalgamation of opulence and cheesiness—is terrific; the designers are Erminio Pinque (set), Lora LaVon (costumes), Brian J. Lilienthal (lighting). Joemca provides a dazzlingly appropriate soundtrack, complete with faux sound effects and clips from stage and screen favorites including both versions of Sunset Boulevard itself. Special mention must be made of Norma Charles's costumes, which number perhaps a dozen, and all appear to be more-or-less faithful recreations of the elaborate ensembles donned by Gloria Swanson in the film; they've been created for McNaughton by The Ladies of Chesson Court—brava to them.

At the performance I attended, Ellen Stewart (La MaMa's founder and guiding spirit) introduced the evening with a quick reminiscence: Ludlam himself premiered one of his most famous plays, Bluebeard, in this very same space 34 years before. We are probably more fortunate than we know that his torch is still being carried, by Baron and other adventurous theatre artists, under the auspices of this remarkable pioneer who—like  Norma Charles!—has yet to get her own Kennedy Center Honor.