nytheatre Archive
1998-99 Theatre Season Reviews

The plot can be summarized in a sentence: Jim and Judy are good-looking and popular and in love; Kimberly and Neechee are the awkward, introspective, misfits who love them. It happens that Kimberly is in love with Judy and Neechee is in love with Jim; this gives Stupid Kids a good deal of its edge. But Kimberly and Neechee's sudden awareness of who they are is less the point than their sudden awareness of their need for each other and, even more important, their ability--together--to survive and thrive. Stupid Kids has a terrific positive message for gay teens, but it's one that should be extrapolated by all teens, something along these lines: whatever you're going through will pass; be true to yourself and you'll be fine.

Stupid Kids was written several years ago by John C. Russell, who died in 1994 of AIDS; this is a tragic loss to the theatre, because this really is an excellent play. All four characters are beautifully, lovingly drawn, and the incidents surrounding the aborted love quadrangle are sharp and funny and believable in spite of--or maybe because of--their intrinsic hokiness. The play is loaded with attitude and style: a dizzy, giddy, MTV-cum-punk sensibility that fizzes with the restless energy of youth. It zips along frenetically but effortlessly to a conclusion that manages to be both surprising and uplifting, followed by a coda that's as satisfying as it is inevitable.

Michael Mayer, whose Side Man and A View from the Bridge are current Broadway hits, directs Stupid Kids with a verve that seems true to his friend Mr. Russell's vision. All four of the young actors are splendid, especially Mandy Siegfried as the angst-ridden Kimberly and Keith Nobbs as the downright neurotic Neechee. David Gallo's cartoon-y sets, Michael Krass's dead-on costumes, and especially Kevin Adams's vivid lighting--sometimes garish, sometimes moody, always appropriate--provide exactly the physical production Stupid Kids needs.

It's called Love's Fowl, and it's an opera--in Italian--about Chicken Little (La Pulcina Piccola), enacted by Il Teatro Repertorio della Mollette (The Clothespin Repertory Theatre). It sounds precious, but in fact it's a supremely entertaining and sublimely witty divertissement: a miniature grand opera about the life and adventures (mostly amorous) of a larger-than-life bird. The story begins with the familiar part of Chicken Little's story, when the acorn falls on her head and she imagines that the sky is falling. But the rest of her story is just as eventful and just as absorbing, including her forays into politics and  the theatre (where she triumphs as Richard III), and--always, always--romance.

The love of her life, it turns out, is a handsome fellow called Cock Robin; Chicken Little's anguished aria after he is struck by an arrow ("Who has done this?") is practically worth the price of admission.

Love's Fowl manages to twit the conventions of Italian opera and contemporary opera production, and everything we thought we knew about Chicken Little, in grand style, and all at the same time. The text is projected as supertitles on a screen above the actors' heads, all brilliantly rendered as badly translated Italian. The music is emotive and feverish but never complex. The performances--by the humans Susan J. Vittuci and Henry Kreiger, and especially by the styrofoam-and-clothespin puppets who take the roles of Chicken Little, Cock Robin, Turkey Lurkey, and dozens of others--are heartfelt and serious. This of course makes them even funnier than they otherwise would be.

In fact, the laughter is pretty much non-stop once the talented Ms. Vittuci takes her place center stage and begins to make her little repertory company sing and dance. Best of all, her play has a wonderful, uplifting moral: Chicken Little, like, say, Zorba the Greek, is a grandly life-embracing and life-affirming character. Her message: enjoy today, for the sky may fall tomorrow. I can't think of many better ways to enjoy an evening than in her company at a performance of Love's Fowl.

A New Brain marks the triumphant return to the New York stage of composer-lyricist William Finn, whose best-known work is Falsettos. The story, which is loosely autobiographical, begins with composer Gordon Schwinn working at his piano, irritable because he's up against a deadline. He's supposed to write a song about spring for his boss, a dictatorial children's TV star named Mr. Bungee (he's a frog). Gordon goes to meet his friend Rhoda for lunch, passing a tart homeless woman on the way. At the restaurant, Gordon suddenly clutches his head in pain, falls face-forward into his pasta, and then collapses.

At the hospital, Gordon learns that he has a rare condition called arteriovenous malformation, which causes fluid to build up on his brain. An operation is needed, but it's potentially dangerous; there's a significant chance that Gordon could die, or never recover his faculties. Surrounded by his tiny but supportive family--Rhoda, his mother, and his lover Roger--Gordon nonetheless must face this crisis alone. And what haunts him the most are the songs that he fears he will never write if he doesn't survive.

And so--from his hospital bed, from his wheelchair, from the depths of an MRI, and even while comatose--Gordon writes them. They flow out of his imagination and his subconscious breathlessly and uncontrollably. Little remembered snatches of reality crop up surreally in these weirdly magical musical numbers: the homeless lady, for example, keeps appearing, and when Gordon's doctor mentions just before surgery that he has tickets to see Chicago that night, the spirit of that dark, brittle show pervades a long nightmarish sequence that Gordon hallucinates (dreams?) while in a coma.

This stuff if magnificent: wise, sad, compassionate, funny. Gordon conjures up a racetrack where the horses are played by convalescing patients with walkers. He gives his mother a stunningly sharp torch song in which she wonders why, with heartbreaking directness,  she has outlived both her husband and her son. And he devises a show-stopping comic song about Murphy's Law and genetics: "the bad trait will always predominate," goes the refrain ("why is the smart son always the gay").

A New Brain is so good that I want it to be perfect. It's not, and, Gordon Schwinn-like, I started to obsess about its flaws: the theme suggested by its title--of rebirth following such brutal trauma--isn't really dealt with here; the reality scenes don't feel real enough, as though Mr. Finn is pulling away from us; the music, especially in these reality scenes, is too reminiscent of Falsettos. But the more I think about A New Brain, the less inclined I am to quibble: I believe this show may be a masterpiece, even if flawed. I'm planning to see it again; frankly, I can't wait.

The production is superb, by the way. Malcolm Gets, who is best-known as Caroline in the City's boyfriend Richard, does a star-making turn as Gordon. He's on stage for virtually the entire length of the piece, delivering an intelligent, emotional, well-sung performance.  Mary Testa, who was so good in From Above last season, almost succeeds in stealing the show away from Mr. Gets as the sassy homeless woman. Her way with a bluesy song or a piece of comic business is priceless.

Chip Zien is a hoot as the dreadful Mr. Bungee; I can't imagine anyone else doing justice to the role. Penny Fuller provides class and emotional heft as Gordon's mother. And speaking of heft, Michael Mandell, a delightful mountain of a man, scores as Gordon's nice nurse Richard, projecting a happy amalgamation of Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller. Graciela Daniele's staging of the book and the almost-continuous musical numbers is ingenious and wondrously quick-paced. Considering the potentially depressing subject matter, A New Brain never lags and never feels like a downer.

That triumph--to make such an innovative, uplifting work of art out of such awesome adversity--belongs to William Finn. I sincerely hope that A New Brain will have a life after its limited engagement at Lincoln Center.  In the meantime, don't delay: I predict that tickets are going to be hard to find.

Soon the lecture begins, and Mr. Foster comes forward tentatively to relate the story of his life and in particular these objects. His foster father Homer Phinney used to have a permanent flea market set up in his garage, he tells us, not so much to make money as to make new friends. Mr. Phinney became famous in his hometown for his flea markets, especially for his tendency to tell an imaginative story about whatever object someone brought forward to purchase. These stories were eventually written down, Mr. Foster informs us, and those that survived a recent flood are here today, ready to be told again.

Next Mr. Foster brings forth a toy truck which he calls his "story ark": Mr. Phinney used to gather his many foster children around him and place items inside this truck; they would pull the items out, one at a time, and Mr. Phinney would regale them with the stories that went with them. This Mr. Foster proposes to do for us now. He feverishly selects a dozen or so objects from the tables behind him, and then offers the ark to his audience, who will select in random order the stories that he will tell us.

If the foregoing description makes The Race of the Ark Tattoo sound either precious or pretentious, then I've not done it justice. What it is, is fascinating, compelling, utterly elemental theatre. W. David Hancock, who created it, has imagined a world around Messrs. Foster and Phinney that is so detailed and complex that it's almost scary. But he's chosen the most ephemeral of media--a one-act play--to share this world with an audience. Just like an hour passed at a real flea market gives one a fleeting glimpse into a life--that is, if you take the time to look for it--so the hour passed in Mr. Hancock's play reveals an array of startling truths. In a flea market, Mr. Foster tells us, every item is either a castoff or a collectible, but you can't know which. Piecing together the puzzle of a life in just such a random, distant way is the essence of The Race of the Ark Tattoo.

The hour and a quarter passes by so brilliantly and so quickly--not to mention ephemerally--that already I have lost track of some of the discoveries I made in this amazing flea market. I recall a story about one of Mr. Phinney's pals whose finely-developed conspiracy theories included the notion that magazines are sold not because of the pictures on the cover but because of subliminal messages contained in their bar coding. Even Mr. Phinney's eccentric melange know that the world consists of patterns and signals: if only we could understand what they all mean. (The seemingly perverse title of this play, by the way, signifies just such a signal.)

Matthew Maher is so convincing as the lecturer Mr. Foster that I almost hated to applaud at the end of the show; his utter conviction in portraying this strange fellow seems to me to be best rewarded by our believing that he really is the entrepreneur of a flea market. He sustains belief in Mr. Foster's world with an almost supernatural fervor that rubs off, or at least rubbed off on me: re-entry into the real world of New York's East Village when The Race of the Ark Tattoo is over was like awakening from a vivid dream.

First, a quick round-up of the plot. Valentine is a handsome, roguish, intelligent ne'er-do-well who is currently working as a dentist in a seaside resort in England. He is visited by Dolly Clandon, a vivacious and insatiably curious young lady who quickly befriends him and immediately thereafter manages to invite him and his next patient, a surly old man called Crampton, to lunch with her family at a nearby hotel. Dolly's family consists of her equally pixilated brother Philip, her captivating older sister Gloria, and their mother, an independent and strong-minded woman who left their father years ago and now makes a career of writing treatises on the impact of the twentieth century on Victorian society. Valentine is immediately smitten with Gloria and spends the remainder of the play scheming to win her hand despite her considerable objections. Crampton, meanwhile, turns out to be the Clandons' long-lost father, and, abetted by a masterful waiter and two nosy solicitors, he manages to make amends with children and wife before the final curtain goes down.

The writing is, well, Shavian, which is to say that it's eloquent and clever, occasionally overbearing, often surprising, and always fascinating. You Never Can Tell is character-driven, and what a bunch of characters they are! Shaw has provided his actors with a veritable gold mine here; happily, the players at the Roundabout make the most of their opportunities.

Take Charles Keating, for example. He plays the waiter, a man at once entirely reasonable and fetchingly whimsical who is both our guide into this cockeyed story and its gentle deus ex machina. In Mr. Keating's hands, he is appealing and memorable and, above all, human; he centers You Never Can Tell even as he wryly expounds its (eponymous) theme.

Saxon Palmer and Catherine Kellner are utterly delightful as the youngest of the Clandons. Their interplay is so well-timed and well-executed that it's hard to believe they're not brother and sister in real life. With their breezy, un-self-conscious ingenuousness, they make Philip and Dolly downright lovable, no mean feat when you consider how easy it would be to make them hatefully precocious.

Jere Shea appears only briefly, near the end of the play, but his cameo is so well-executed that he almost steals the show from his excellent confreres. He plays Buhon (pronounced like "Boone"), a smug, self-absorbed, egotistical lawyer who gets away with his exasperating arrogance because, as he puts it, "my specialty is being right when other people are wrong." Mr. Shea's turn is a miniature masterpiece: watch how he flings himself halfway across the stage onto the top of a short staircase, managing to look like a spoiled child and a haughty aristocrat in the same moment: this is an hilarious performance.

And then there's Robert Sean Leonard, who, incidentally, inspired this particular revival of You Never Can Tell. Mr. Leonard proves once again why he's one of the finest actors of his generation, capturing all of Valentine's insouciance, intelligence, playfulness, and zest for living. In his climactic scene with Gloria, she asks him what gifts he was born with; he replies "lightness of heart," which is precisely what he embodies, effortlessly, throughout the play. Observe his exchanges with Helen Carey (as the formidable Mrs. Clandon), or, especially, his effervescent initial seduction of Gloria: he makes such scenes into gossamer flights of fancy, as baldly charming and joyous as Gene Kelly splashing in a puddle in Singing in the Rain.

That's five superb performances--along with, I should add, seven others that are just as effective though not so flashy--in a serious comedy written by a master at the height of his powers. All that, plus a smashing gown (worn by Ms. Carey) that is so elegantly designed and well-constructed that, for a moment, it almost stops the show itself. There's no doubt in my mind about You Never Can Tell: it's splendid: a fizzy, funny respite from the summer heat.

What is Side Man about? A young man, the narrator Clifford, finding his way out of a dysfunctional family into independence. "There are no clean breaks," he tells us; and then he tells us about his parents and his childhood to try to finagle one anyway. Side Man is about perspective, about struggling to understand one's parents; about, more importantly, finding a way to forgive them. Clifford's father Gene, a jazz band sideman who only comes alive when he is playing music, is an emotional cripple; his mother Terry, a bright woman who allows herself to self-destruct inside a doomed marriage, is an emotional wreck. Clifford, at once the raison d'etre and stabilizing influence in this unhappy family, grows old far too soon, coping with his father's eccentricity and his mother's hysteria.

Terry eventually literally goes crazy; in a way, her need for constant care from her son bonds her to him. It is absent Gene whom Clifford must come to terms with before making his break; Side Man is a portrait of him. Gene is a sideman, a world-class one, meaning that he can play in any band and blend in perfectly. His improvisations are sublime, his trumpet solos are magic. He breathes music. And he withdraws, emotionally and intellectually, from just about every other aspect of life. Yet we learn that, in his later years, after he has more or less been banished from the family, he plays a song called "I Remember Clifford" at every single gig.

Those gigs are an important part of Gene's life and consequently this play; Side Man is also, finally, a valentine to a profession that has become extinct. Gene and his fellow musicians--nerdy Ziggy, womanizing Al, and hip junkie Jonesy--are the last of their kind, rendered obsolete by rock & roll and television. While they lived and worked, though, they were ageless: Clifford tells us that they kept time so well that time seemed to stop for them.

Nothing I write will ultimately do justice to this miraculous play: Mr. Leight's blend of nostalgia, memory, pain, humor, sweetness, and understanding is too layered and too deep to adequately convey here. It's also superbly constructed, and beautifully written, with language that is as unexpectedly wise as it is evocative of time and place. Director Michael Mayer has staged this work flawlessly, and it looks even better on the stage of the John Golden Theatre than it did at the Roundabout. Neil Patel's impressionistic sets, Tom Broecker's simple but savvy costumes, and Kenneth Posner's atmospheric lighting all serve the play well.

The performances, with one exception, are superb. Christian Slater has now joined the cast as Clifford; he does a fine job, especially in a lovely scene in which, as a ten-year-old version of himself, he shares a sweet, brief moment of happiness with his dad. Michael Mastro, Joseph Lyle Taylor, and Kevin Geer offer stalwart support as, respectively, Ziggy, Al, and Jonesy. Angelica Torn is a warm and reassuring presence as Patsy, a shrewd and compassionate waitress who makes a habit of marrying horn players. (Wendy Makkena, as Terry, is doing some shameless overacting, however, reducing moments that should be heartfelt to mere shtick; her work is the only jarring note in an ensemble that is otherwise splendidly in tune.)

First among equals, though, is Frank Wood, whose towering portrayal of Gene sits at the center of Side Man, a feat all the more remarkable given Gene's distinct lack of character. Mr. Wood and Mr. Leight feel to me like soulmates: here is a rare but perfect union of actor and role that is a privilege to witness. Nowhere is this more apparent than in a scene that comes midway through Side Man's second act, in which we get our only real glimpse into Gene's private world. At a gig late one night, Al shows up with a tape of a legendary performance by another brilliant trumpet player by the name of Clifford Brown. We watch Mr. Wood's Gene as he listens, enraptured, his fingers embracing an invisible instrument in time to the music. Somewhere in the middle of this dazzling sequence, we become aware that Gene has gone someplace else, to a private place inhabited by just himself and his passion. We--and Clifford--can never get there. But at least, at last, we almost understand.

Many of the songs in Mamaloshen are authentic Yiddish folk music: "Rozhinkes Mit Mandlen" is a famous lullaby, for example, while "Belz" is a nostalgic tune about a town in the Old Country. Others, though, put Yiddish lyrics to popular American songs, like "Mayn Mirl" ("Maria" from West Side Story) or Paul Simon's "American Tune," which closes the show. The most accessible numbers intermingle music from the Old World and the New. There's a marvelous courtship sequence that begins with a sweet song called "Tsen Kopikes" (Ten Kopeks) which merges seamlessly into a Yiddish version of "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"; this leads to a wedding (complete with the smashing of a glass under Mr. Patinkin's foot) and then, inevitably, to the reception, where Mr. Patinkin, in Yiddish, persuades the audience to join him in the "Hokey Pokey."

Later there's another wonderful sequence titled simply "A Day in the Park," which includes Yiddish translations of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and "God Bless America." The piece de resistance is a song called "Der Alter Tzigayner" about an old gypsy fiddler, featuring some stunning work by the violinist Saeka Matsuyama. Mr. Patinkin has a ball in this playful number; I won't tell you the "unforgettable tune" that Ms. Matsuyama ultimately plays in the guise of this magical old gypsy, but it's a wonderfully wry choice.

Mr. Patinkin sings movingly and effortlessly, using simple gestures and body language to help us grasp the essential meanings of the songs. While listening to a beautiful piece called "Motl Der Opreyter," and figuring out that it's about a union organizer who is killed in a strike, it occurred to me that my experience in Mamaloshen must be something like a new immigrant's experience was a hundred years ago, trying to make sense of a foreign tongue with no one around to help; I suspect this is one of the reasons why no translations are provided.

At that moment, and during the wedding sequence, and especially when everybody stood up to sing "Got Bentsh Amerike," Mamaloshen touched me deeply. This is an enormously theatrical show, providing a striking reminder of the enormous courage and faith possessed by people who journey to a far-off land in search of a better life.

Mr. Herman is the author of Hello, Dolly!, Mame, and La Cage aux Folles, along with the less well-known Milk and Honey, Dear World, Mack and Mabel, and The Grand Tour. His is a body of work equalled by only a few in his generation: a set of tuneful, heartfelt scores written for the likes of Carol Channing, Angela Lansbury, and Joel Grey; a collection of theatre songs that tell the amazing stories and evoke the larger-than-life characters of Dolly Levi, the Madwoman of Chaillot, and Auntie Mame. This Evening with Jerry Herman gives us a chance to recollect this body of work, and if it's really just a glorified "and-then-I-wrote" songfest, it's also a glorious one.

All of Mr. Herman's Broadway shows are represented; here are some of the high points:

• Lee Roy Reams' electric recreation of "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" from Hello, Dolly!, followed in short order by his dazzling tribute to some of the most famous interpreters of that show's title song (he segues effortlessly from imitations of Carol Channing to Pearl Bailey to Ethel Merman to Louis Armstrong, all on the money, all hilarious)
• Florence Lacey's flashy rendition of "If He Walked Into My Life" from Mame, followed, right after intermission, by a touching and thoughtful "I Don't Want to Know" from Dear World
• Mr. Reams and Mr. Herman joining forces for a somewhat daring "Bosom Buddies" from Mame
• Ms. Lacey turning back the clock about twenty years to recreate--beautifully--The Grand Tour's "I Belong Here" (which she introduced)
• Mr. Reams, with a pink boa, in a tour de force performance of the title song from La Cage Aux Folles, evoking the spirits of Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, and Tallulah Bankhead ("Am I the only one here old enough to have ever heard of me?")

Mr. Herman and his co-stars are superb. Mr. Reams, in particular, is in absolutely top form, especially on the comic numbers and during a too-short, wonderfully nimble tap dance during the second act. They're accompanied, by the way, by Jered Egan on bass; he's terrific too.

An Evening with Jerry Herman is undoubtedly first and foremost an entertaining trip down memory lane. But it also provides us with the opportunity to re-evaluate the work of the theatre's most cockeyed optimist since Oscar Hammerstein. The upbeat simplicity of songs like "Mame" and "The Best of Times" makes what Jerry Herman does look easy; this smorgasbord of songs proves that it's not. What I like best about this show is that--with Mr. Herman unassumingly on hand--it gives us in the audience a chance to thank him for all of the unabashed happiness he's given us during the last four decades.

No Exit takes place in a hot, airless room containing three lushly upholstered benches and little else. Into this room are ushered, in succession, a man and two women. The man, Garcin, is a deserter from the French Resistance (the play was written during World War II); the first woman, Inez, is a lesbian postal worker who betrayed her lover; and the second woman, Estelle, is a rich, haughty beauty who tossed her newborn baby out the window because its birth was inconvenient. They are in hell, and it doesn't take them long to understand that they have been brought together on purpose to punish one another. Garcin really does say "Hell is other people," and he means precisely that: Inez and Estelle and Garcin have come to this room to torment one another for eternity.

And that's essentially what they do for the hour and a half running time of this play; presumably, it's what they'll continue doing forever, for in this bleak, bitter afterlife imagined by Mr. Travis there doesn't appear to be any hope of redemption for this trio of soulless, selfish sinners. Issues of responsibility and accountability are raised: Inez pronounces that we are nothing more than the sum of our actions, and therefore, based only on our actions are we to be judged by others or--more importantly--ourselves.

A taut, claustrophobic piece like No Exit depends heavily on its actors to succeed. Fortunately, Mr. Travis has cast Elise Stone as Inez, who brings her usual gritty, self-reliant energy to the role and pretty much walks away with the show. At the performance I attended, Charles Parnell still seemed to be finding his way around Garcin, nicely capturing the moody moroseness of the guilty deserter but failing to show us the passionate egoist who must lurk within. Tracey Atkins is, alas, somewhat at sea as Estelle, missing her driving vanity and selfishness, rendering it instead as mere flightiness. But Tim Deak is fascinating in the small role of the porter. His vivid portrayal made me wonder just who this man is: it occurred to me that he might be someone whose deeds in life had led him not to heaven or hell but to a kind of purgatory, in the employ of a meticulous and exacting bureaucratic Satan.

Indeed, what most intrigued me about this production of No Exit is its detailed, diabolical conception of hell. Clearly, a great deal of care and effort has been taken to provide these three with the least comforting surroundings and the most incompatible companions for their journey through eternity. Here is, for me, the single best thing in this production: in the center of the room, set designer Giles Hogya has provided a statue of a fan. What better way to torment three brutally self-centered people boiling in hell? Brilliant!--it's one of several terrific touches in this interesting though uneven production of Sartre's difficult, repelling classic.

Alan Ayckbourn is known for writing plays around a structural gimmick: the trilogy The Norman Conquests, for example, featured the same characters during the same weekend in three different rooms in a country house; Bedroom Farce had four different married couples play out their broadly comic situations simultaneously on the same bedroom set. Mr. Ayckbourn's contrivance here is that a set of communicating (i.e., connecting) doors, just off the richly appointed hotel suite where his play is set, can carry his heroines backward and forward through time. The rules of this time travel are fairly rigorous: it only works for certain people, and these people can only move in twenty year increments. This, as my college English professor would say, is Mr. Ayckbourn's donnee, and you easily surrender to its bizarre logic. But once you do, the riches of Communicating Doors are wondrous and many.

For it happens that the first woman to make the trip backward in time through these communicating doors is Poopay, a young, good-natured, generally ineffective dominatrix. Poopay has come to service a rich old gentleman called Reece Welles. When Reece tells Poopay that he merely wants her to witness his deathbed confession--in which he describes, among other horrendous acts, the murders of his two wives--she balks. But Reece suddenly collapses, his menacing employee Julian appears, and Poopay finds herself suddenly the intended victim of a third murder.

This all takes place in 2018; escaping from Julian, Poopay rushes through the communicating doors, and finds herself in the exact same hotel suite twenty years earlier, in 1998. Here she meets Ruella, the second Mrs. Welles, on the very night of her murder. Ruella and Poopay eventually sort out their admittedly confusing circumstances, and decide to work together not only to save their own lives, but to warn the first Mrs. Welles, Jessica, and try to save her as well.

You'll have to see Communicating Doors yourself to find out how all of this gets sorted out. For now, I will simply tell you that it is, by turns, grandly farcical, broadly comical, and chillingly suspenseful; there are moments in this play when everyone in the audience audibly gasps with surprise and fear. Poopay and Ruella are marvelous creations; I'm particularly partial to Ruella, a crisp, efficient, and intelligent woman, boundlessly inquisitive, kind and spirited. She is played to perfection by Patricia Hodges, an actress whose work before this is unfamiliar to me. As Ruella, she proves herself adept at both high comedy and low.  Ms. Hodges centers the play simply and beautifully with this warm, smart portrayal of this remarkable lady; she's unforgettable.

Wonderful, too, are Mary-Louise Parker as the naif Poopay and Candy Buckley as ditzy Jessica. If you saw Ms. Parker in Prelude to a Kiss then you know how magically and effortlessly she can transform herself right before your eyes; she has such a moment here and it's lovely. The three men, especially David McCallum as an endearingly bumble-headed hotel security man, acquit themselves nicely as well.

But ultimately it's the exciting and enchanting twisted path that Mr. Ayckbourn takes us along that makes Communicating Doors so splendid a ride. This is the best time I've had in a theatre in months; see it for yourself, and enjoy.

This is the show that we are at: Part cathartic confessional, part self-righteous rant, So, I Killed a Few People is Archie's final defiant gesture of hostility toward a society he has never been able to fit into. He tells us, frankly and matter-of-factly, about conditions on Death Row, but his account of systematic degradation and humiliation, though harrowing, doesn't move us the way that, say, Dead Man Walking does. Archie's cynical view of the world doesn't include concepts like justice or due process: he has dealt with his oppression in prison with sardonic detachment, trying to make life as miserable as possible for his tormentors by playing the American games of bureaucracy and civil rights with enormous skill. So he got a court order to be served kosher food, claiming to be a "born again Jew"; and he got another court decision--written by Judge Souter of the United States Supreme Court, no less--allowing him to perform this show.

Archie also tells us, eventually, about his childhood, and about the first horrible murder that made all of the others possible, maybe even inevitable. Throughout his narrative, he returns over and over again to television. He is a child of the sitcom age: his friends, he tells us, were Aunt Bea and Mary Richards and Ralph Malph and Ouisey Jefferson and dozens of other familiar characters from '60s and '70s TV. Did the constant bombardment of banal images help warp this mind, desensitizing it so much that compassion and love got squeezed out? As Archie would say, you do the math.

So far in this review, I have talked about So, I Killed a Few People as if Archie Nunn were a real person and the events described really happened. This is because of the verisimilitude of this skillfully crafted performance: in the sensationalistic, media-obsessed society that is the United States in 1998, everything in Archie Nunn's story rings true. David Sommers's creepily compelling portrayal of Archie is equally on target, a canny mixture of America's favorite serial killers from Charles Manson to Jeffrey Dahmer and from Norman Bates to Hannibal Lechter. We love to get this close to evil, and Mr. Sommers' Archie knows it: he mesmerizes.

So, I Killed a Few People is intense, harsh theatre, clearly not for everyone. But it's enormously effective, not just as a sort of one-man horror show, but as a thoughtful examination of aspects of society that we generally prefer not to examine. It's honest, riveting, and scary: you will ponder, afterward, just how a man comes to be an Archie Nunn.

Stunt Man is a one-man play, and so Mr. Cusack presents us not only with sweet, conflicted Flip but all of the other characters as well. Part of Mr. Cusack's brilliance here is that he is able to bring them to life so vividly and perceptively. The relationship between Flip and his boyfriend Warren is particularly well-drawn: Warren is a professional psychic living in an East Village loft but somehow seems older and more centered than Flip. Warren tells Flip that he must kill something inside himself in order to be free; I kept wanting that something not to be Flip's need to be an actor.

But, alarmingly, fascinatingly, it probably is: Stunt Man is most fundamentally about a man who must act but can't; a vivid illustration of the old saw about how actors are the only artists who can only practice their art when someone lets them. The anger and frustration and pain of not being able to do what he was born to do have turned Flip into a human pressure cooker on the verge of exploding; when he does, in the play's surprising and stirring finale, he achieves a kind of catharsis. But the deliberate ambiguity of the ending makes it difficult for us to tell whether Flip has--or ever will have--a chance to fulfill his dreams.

As a result, though Stunt Man is well-written it feels a bit incomplete. It is beautifully served, though, by Mr. Cusack's deeply-felt, enormously intelligent performance. He is commanding, compelling, and charismatic; also funny and explosive and dangerous and eminently watchable: Mr. Cusack is an actor who seems to love to take risks on stage and they almost always pay off. Watch how he illustrates anecdote after anecdote with the accoutrements of an unfinished meal with ferocious, savage zest. Observe, too, that although Mr. Cusack almost never rises from his seat throughout the nearly two-hours of Stunt Man--providing, incidentally, a neatly claustrophobic universe for this piece--our attention remains focused--riveted--on him, and his fascinating portrayal of this appealing, sad, doomed romantic hero.

So Jeffrey comes on to Robert rather strongly, though perhaps only to ensure that Robert comes through with the screenplay he wants (in which the character based on Malcolm will be changed to a woman). And Elaine logs onto an Internet chat room and begins a cyberaffair with Robert, pretending to be Malcolm's spirit, communicating with Robert from beyond. And, when Robert discovers all of this duplicity, he finds a way to trump both Jeffrey and Elaine that is as surprising as it is cold-hearted.

That more or less summarizes the events of The Dying Gaul; but it's not doing justice to the play Craig Lucas has written. The trouble is, as provocative and provoking as The Dying Gaul is, it's ultimately elusive; it fascinates and it troubles, but it fails to resolve itself and consequently fails to satisfy. What is this play about? Is it a dark, angry companion to Mr. Lucas's previous work God's Heart, matching the profound sorrow of that play with its own bottomless well of rage; railing at the cosmos for the devastation that AIDS has wrought upon Mr. Lucas and his world? Is it a modern retelling of the Faust story, where an essentially good man sells his soul and finds himself irrevocably damned thereafter? Is it a philosophical consideration of man's place in the universe, postulating that in a society where truth and compassion have been devalued in favor of money and power, any path to survival is justified? Is it an exploration of a new social order comprising the "disembodied souls" of the users of the Internet; a glimpse into the future that comes up finally and despairingly empty?

Yes to all of these, I think; and so unfortunately no to all of them as well, because what two-hour play could possibly address so many great questions, let alone do justice to them?  The Dying Gaul leaves them unanswered, but in its profound pessimism clearly expresses its author's point of view. That the first three quarters of this play do nothing to prepare us for its brutal finish is, I think, as much an expression of Mr. Lucas's bitterness as it is a deliberate swipe at dramatic convention. This is not a well-made play; but it's hugely compelling, wickedly funny, refreshingly creative (especially in its treatment of the Internet), and utterly and entirely surprising. Be warned: it's also, at times, rather graphic in its depiction of what goes on in a gay chat room.

The Vineyard Theatre's production, under the assured direction of Mark Brokaw, is exemplary. Tim Hopper is excellent as poor, conflicted Robert, while Linda Emond is so sympathetic and compelling as Elaine that you almost overlook the truly terrible things that she does. Tony Goldwyn proves himself once again to be a virtuosic actor here; he came in as a last-minute replacement for Cotter Smith, who injured his back, as Jeffrey. Against the odds, he has created a three-dimensional, enormously likable sleaze-bucket of a man. Robert Emmet Lunney is effective as the play's only other character, Robert's therapist Foss.

Allan Moyer's set of sliding panels and spare, contemporary furniture, Christopher Akerlind's stark lighting, and Jess Goldstein's appropriate, casual clothing give The Dying Gaul precisely the look it requires. They're as perfect--and as cold and sterile--as the Roman sculpture that gives the play its name.

"You can do anything you want," Jeffrey tells Robert, "as long as you don't call it what it is." Robert tells us that the statue of The Dying Gaul was erected by the victorious Romans as a monument to the fallen dead of the enemy; a seemingly beautiful gesture of remembrance, and--just maybe--the physical embodiment of Jeffrey's credo.

But this doesn't diminish Candida's theatricality: this play is great fun to watch. Act One belongs to James Morell, the steadfast, self-important preacher who is deeply in love with his wife but even more in love with the sound of his own voice. Act Two belongs to young Eugene Marchbanks, a poet and a dreamer in love with Morell's wife but even more in love with the longings of his soul. And Act Three belongs to Candida, the sensible, knowing, pragmatic, and maternal object of all this ardor. We watch the balance of power shift from Morell to Marchbanks to Candida and we are amused, because the dialogue is literate and clever, and because Mr. Shaw has peppered his stew with three other diverting individuals, Candida's salty, working-class father (think Dolittle from Pygmalion), Morell's admiring young curate, and Morell's secretary, a down-to-earth maiden lady with the unlikely name of Proserpine Garnett.

The ending is never in doubt: As a true Shavian heroine, Candida will stay where she is needed, nurturing the earthbound body and mind of the stalwart but unimaginative preacher who is her husband, while freeing the soul of her poet-admirer to create beautiful and passionate art. See Candida to be startled and delighted by the thoughtful exchanges about socialism and religion and poetry and romance; don't see it for the plot.

This production, well-staged by the British director Clare Davidson, is entirely satisfactory. The setting by Beowulf Borrit is appropriately, comfortably homey, featuring a functional but dully-upholstered settee and a handsome blue velvet chair that can swivel a full 360 degrees. The acting is all fine, with Joanne Camp's warm, motherly Candida and Martin Kildare's confident, rugged Morell the standouts. I very much liked Kia Christina Heath's spunky take on Proserpine, and Pearl regular Christopher Moore makes much of the small role of the curate Lexy. Edward Seamon's somewhat restrained performance as Candida's father misses some of that gentleman's humor; Daniel J. Shore's broad portrayal of Marchbanks, on the other hand, perhaps goes too far the other way, making a caricature of this soulful boy who is, in fact, the soul of this play. Mr. Shaw ends the text of Candida by telling us that Candida and Morell do not understand the secret that Marchbanks carries in his heart. As played by Mr. Shore--more quivering teenager than grieving poet--we do not understand the secret either.

But if Culture of Desire is a little skimpy in terms of content, it overflows with stylish form. And if you've seen any of SITI's previous work (Bob, Martini Ceremony), then you know what I'm talking about. Ms. Bogart and her designers (Neil Patel, James Schuette, Mimi Jordan Sherin, and Darron L. West) create a netherworldly environment of shifting columns of steel and space and light, set against an evocative and alarming soundscape of music and noise. The images are endlessly arresting, like Warhol's initial descent into hell (pictured above), where he is greeted by a demonic Diana Vreeland and a grouping of chic clones armed with shopping carts.

As Warhol descends deeper and deeper (Culture of Desire is modeled after Dante's Inferno), the show moves from one eerily provocative setpiece to another. There's an astonishing ballet with six humans and three shopping carts; a weird tap number featuring Warhol, Dick Tracy, and Shirley Temple; biting deconstructions of some of Warhol's most famous paintings by the arch Miss Vreeland; and several beautifully conceived, rich and rapid-fire dialogues composed entirely of product slogans and catch-phrases. All of this is performed with remarkable proficiency by the cast of six: these actors can apparently do anything, and never cease to amaze with their dexterity, concentration, intelligence, and technique.

The problem, though, is that it's often not at all clear why these performers are doing whatever strikingly memorable thing they're doing. The text, as far as it goes, supports the show's concept; but much of the time the actions do not. In Bob, the stylized staging exemplified the work's theme, which was to force an audience to really see and hear what was happening on a stage. Here, the relationship between form and content is less overt. Consequently, Culture of Desire, though fascinating to watch, is finally unsatisfying.

But--especially if you've never experienced one of SITI's works--don't let this turn you off: Culture of Desire is also the most accessible piece I've seen from this troupe. With its esoteric combination of erudition and theatricality, it is endlessly interesting to watch; let me add that it's also quite funny and, at times, startlingly beautiful. No one else does what SITI can do, and what they do can touch an audience in astonishing and unexpected ways.

So begins the powerful, magical revival of Dark of the Moon, currently being presented at the T. Schreiber Studio under the masterful direction of Marc Geller. This haunting, mournful work, written by Howard Richardson and William Berney in 1944, tells of the doomed romance between John the Witch-Boy and beautiful Barbara Allen, a free-spirited, intelligent woman living in a poor, backward community in the heart of Southern Appalachia. But that's not all: Dark of the Moon is equally about that community, and how superstition and ignorance and fear conspire to turn a town into a mob, with horrific results.

Mr. Geller has captured both aspects of the play expertly in this sensitive, enormously watchable production. He has cast two very attractive young performers, Charlie Romanelli and Christina Lynne Smith, as the lovers, and so their triumphant marriage against seemingly insurmountable odds is a joyful occasion, and the inevitable tragic aftermath is bitterly sad. Mr. Geller has also managed here to evoke the life of this small-minded town. The pious people who populate this play--Barbara Allen's parents and brother, her admirer Marvin Hudgens, her jealous neighbor Edna Mae Sumney, meddling Miss Metcalf and wily old Uncle Smelicue--are all given vivid life by a flawless group of actors. In a brilliantly conceived succession of scenes, we meet them at play and at work, as they connive--perhaps unknowingly--to destroy one of their own.

Every one of the play's nine scenes is superbly done, but two stand out. One comes early in the second act, when Barbara gives birth to a child. Her neighbors have long been suspicious of John, the strange foreigner she has married; when the newborn looks more like a witch than a human, the midwives react with savage efficiency. Even more shocking is the play's penultimate scene, at a church revival meeting, the objective of which is to get Barbara Allen to repent her sins (i.e., marrying John and bearing his child). We watch as the various congregants let the spirit take hold of them--talking in tongues, convulsing, rapturously throwing themselves on the ground to confess their own sins. And then we watch as the congregation forces Barbara to do the same, culminating in the brutal, vengeful act that propels Dark of the Moon to its tragic conclusion.

Mr. Geller, in addition to his superb direction, is responsible for the production's costumes, all beiges and greys except for Barbara's brilliant red dress: like the simple unit set by Leonard Cossari, and the evocative lighting by Frank DenDanto III, they serve the play well. The nineteen actors involved all do splendid work here as well. Allow me to single out, in addition to the previously mentioned leads, Beverly Bartlett as the spindly Miss Metcalf, Howard Wesson as the hypocritical old Smelicue, Eve Alexander as Barbara's stupid but well-meaning mother, and Mary Strehl as the spooky, pouty Edna Mae. Best of all, I think, is Greg Jackson as the town's charismatic preacher Haggler: watch him explain to his flock how the Bible condones the manufacture of moonshine, for example, and then watch later how he stirs them into a frenzy at the revival meeting. It's an unforgettable performance in an unforgettable production of a play that, alas, seems to have been forgotten. But let's hope not for long: see Dark of the Moon and revisit this classic look at the dark side of simple American life.

Take Jeffrey Eiche, for example, who takes the role of Charles Vandergraff in the best and funniest of the plays, "The Three Thrice Muses." When we first meet him, he is dressed somberly in a long, black, vaguely clerical robe, hurriedly arranging all manner of religious paraphernalia in the living room of his apartment. We get our first taste of Vandergraff--and of the brilliant Mr. Eiche--when his wife appears bearing a bag of groceries and the news that they were out of cream-filled donuts. Mr. Eiche veritably collapses onto the ground in anguish, letting out a shattering howl of pain. This is a man in crisis: this is an unemployed actor.

It seems that Vandergraff hasn't worked in nearly a year, and during that time he has turned to religion for comfort: all of them, in fact. Judaism didn't work out because he couldn't bear to give up BLTs; Hare Krishna was no good because the shape of his head was wrong for baldness; Islam was rejected because he has no sense of direction and consequently could never be sure whether he was facing Mecca. But now Vandergraff has found his way: he has founded his own religion. And, even though it's three o'clock in the morning, he has invited three of his friends over to perform on this most unusual of opening nights.

You'll have to see Crunching Numbers to find out how this mad and inspired event turns out. I will tell you that "The Three Thrice Muses" is the funniest short play I've seen in years, absolutely brimming with dexterous wit and originality. When Vandergraff's wife and friends intone his oh-so-appropriate liturgy, for example, writer-director Lynn Marie Macy has brought us to comic nirvana. And with his monumental egoism and his outsized and overwrought demeanor, Mr. Eiche brings to mind a younger version of 3rd Rock from the Sun's John Lithgow.

While "The Three Thrice Muses" is superb, the two plays that precede it are merely outstanding. "Twice Blessed," well-directed by David Scott, is about two old friends comparing notes about their lives on a long-distance telephone call. It contains some sharp observations about roads taken and not taken; and its deliberately ambiguous ending is bittersweet and jarring and a little sad. "Once in a Blue Moon," which opens the evening, is a farcical look at four young people sorting out a complicated love-career triangle. Well, three young people: the fourth, tough beauty Candy O'Connor, spends most of her time fishing yet another Brookstone product out of her mammoth black pocketbook and applying, spraying, or rubbing its contents on her person. Candy is played by Jennifer Lynne Marcal, who is so hilarious that she practically steals the play from her three talented co-stars (watch her brushing her hair while holding two mirrors and you'll see what I mean).

The real find in Crunching Numbers is playwright Lynn Marie Macy, who has gives us here three winning, wise, and very witty short comedies that will resonate with anyone who has ever had to figure out whether to go for the bucks or to go for the gusto. Structurally the three plays are alike: the protagonist, having just turned 30, spends a crisis-filled night with friends and family deciding whether to dramatically alter his or her life, with epiphany and/or catharsis coming with the light of day. But stylistically the plays could not be more different: Ms. Macy's versatility proves she that is a talent to be reckoned with. And here's a neat touch: she has linked the plays, and not just thematically, in a deft and surprising way.

Keep your eye on Distilled Spirits: Crunching Numbers is an impressive debut for this young company. If there's any justice in the world, some producer will snatch up one or more of these bright comedies, or find steady employment for some of these engaging performers. In the meantime, hurry to the Trilogy Theatre and prepare to laugh and cry and laugh--in that order--as you enjoy this inspired trio of original comic theatre.

The plot concerns Miss Amelia Pickles, the proprietress of a small boarding house in London during the latter years of the reign of Queen Victoria. Into her house one day comes Captain Josiah Wickett, retired and in search of a sedentary existence, as determinedly a bachelor as Miss Pickles is a spinster. One afternoon, Captain Wickett informs his landlady that he will be away for several days. It seems that the rent comes due in the middle of this period, and an arrangement must be worked out to address this difficulty: it hardly seems fair to Miss Pickles that she should have to wait for her money until the Captain returns, but it likewise seems improvident that Wickett should have to pay in advance.

I won't tell you how they manage to resolve the matter, but I will tell you that the meticulously written scene in which they do so is one of the most hilarious in recent memory. It also serves as a perfect introduction to these two kindred souls, and their romance--such as it is--is as inevitable as it is ill-advised. These two are not only irredeemably difficult, they are also unsurpassingly litigious. When Miss Pickles mistakenly concludes that Captain Wickett wishes to marry her, they wind up in court as principals in a breach of contract action. And then, as they say, complications ensue.

Some of these complications involve Wickett's handsome but simple-minded nephew John Darlington, and his attempt to woo Miss Pickles's spirited niece Alexandra Crosbie (described as the most sought-after young lady for the last eleven seasons). There is also a resourceful barrister called Edward Cagebee who, among other feats, represents both Miss Pickles and Captain Wickett in their misbegotten lawsuit. All are given sparklingly witty dialogue to speak as they play out the improbable yet utterly plausible twists of Mr. Smith's inspired plot. With its literate tone and its fussy attention to matters of style and propriety, The Uneasy Chair feels like a throwback to the great comedies of Oscar Wilde or Bernard Shaw. It is in every way their equal.

All five members of the ensemble do outstanding work here: Paul Fitzgerald is delightfully inept as Darlington, Michael Arkin is unspeakably pompous as the Gilbertian lawyer, and Haviland Morris is a radiantly beautiful and funny Miss Crosbie. The show belongs to Mr. Rees and Ms. Ivey, though; if you saw her in The Last Night of Ballyhoo, for example, or him in Indiscretions, say, then you know what brilliant comic actors they are. Here I believe they surpass themselves: watch Ms. Ivey attempt to be coy and helpless as she awaits Mr. Rees's proposal of marriage, or listen to Mr. Rees as he, arguing his own case in divorce court, cross-examines Ms. Ivey. These two formidable talents compliment one another spectacularly; there may not be a better pair of performances anywhere in New York.

Indeed the entire production, richly and tastefully designed by Derek McLane and Jess Goldstein, is exquisitely executed. It's precisely the production that Mr. Smith's dazzlingly original work deserves: The Uneasy Chair is the best new American comedy in years.

It's every movie cliché you've ever seen, and it all plays out with brilliant lunatic precision in the hilarious new comedy Duet! which has just opened at the Actors' Playhouse. Author-director-stars Gregory Jackson and Erin Quinn Purcell are letter-perfect in this sequence, recreating scenes we know by heart with such animated sincerity that, even though they are sitting on a tacky white couch and holding a metal bar in their laps (see the photo, above), we know they're on a scary roller coaster and--what's more--we know where on the roller coaster they are at any given moment. It's all done in pantomime, which is just as well because the roar of laughter that overtakes the audience as soon as this scene begins doesn't let up until after it ends. I haven't laughed so hard or so long in ages, and neither, I would guess, had any of my neighbors.

On the basis of that evidence, I hope you will immediately make plans to see Duet!, which is unquestionably the silliest, happiest, and most fun theatrical experience currently on view in New York City. I don't want to tell you too much more about the plot or about the endlessly inventive gags that fill its 78-minute running time from end to end. I will say that its story, in which struggling young singer Mike meets and falls in love with mild-mannered office worker Marcia, is reminiscent of any number of romantic movies of the 1950s. And the singular experiences that befall these lovebirds as they attempt to court and woo--which include a walk through a forest where the trees not only talk but also do standup comic shtick, a visit to the tackiest nightclub floorshow imaginable, and a climactic discussion with a talking frog--echo hoary film cliché after hoary film cliché.

And yet Duet! is wonderfully original, using our knowledge of how its story is supposed to play out and then gleefully subverting it with campy, kitschy bravado. Except for hapless Mike and Marcia, every character is way over the top, from Kathryn Langwell's hopelessly untalented cigarette girl-chanteuse (who sings a rendition of "Anything Goes" in Mandarin) to Frank Ensenberger's immovable lump of couch potato (as Marcia's father), and from Henry Caplan's greasy, sleazy nightclub operator to Derin Basden's incomparable turn (in drag) as Marcia's harpy of a mother (she's the kind of woman whose specialty is a high-octane concoction called a Zombie Zinger, which she serves in a pineapple, complete with an umbrella hanging over the side). The endearingly tacky sets and costumes enhance the show, which is staged environmentally anyway, though not in any way you've ever seen before: so the cigarette girl strolls listlessly through the audience, but so too do Mike and Marcia after their first date. At one point, Mike and his conscience, or alter-ego, quarrel and Mike storms out of the theatre, and for an amazing moment there's nobody on stage at all.

It all works, winningly and ecstatically: Duet! is a triumph of comic imagination. It marks my introduction to the Adobe Theatre Company, who originally produced this show last season off-off-Broadway; under the guidance of artistic director Jeremy Dobrish (who co-directed Duet!), they will be staying for the whole season at the Actors' Playhouse. This can only be good news. But don't wait for the next Adobe production: buy tickets for Duet! immediately, and be prepared to laugh until it hurts.

Gerard Alessandrini gets fresh inspiration every season for his perennial parodistic revue Forbidden Broadway, and so the show stays fresh, too, wittily and good-naturedly blasting the good, the bad, the ugly, and the downright ridiculous productions that find their way to Broadway each year. The just-ended 1998-99 theatre season provided Mr. Alessandrini, who created this show almost twenty years ago and who writes all of the song parodies that comprise each edition, with lots of swell opportunities.

So we see The Lion King reduced to its Mickey Mouse essence, with a faux Rafiki (brilliantly costumed in found objects by Alvin Colt) celebrating the "Circle of Mice," and then a few of the hapless actors-cum-puppeteers bemoaning their existence in "Can You Feel the Pain Tonight?"  We hear Mandy Patinkin mangle the children's song "I've Got a Little Dreidel" in a (dead-on) paean to his Yiddish song cycle Mamaloshen. And we watch the youthful cast of Footloose bounce mindlessly to the tune of their title song, as they ask the deathless (and necessary) question "Why is our poster puce?"

Forbidden Broadway is where we go after we shell out seventy or eighty bucks for a big Broadway musical and then wonder why. When Mr. Alessandrini and his wicked cast and collaborators get things right, the show soars: take the Cabaret segment, for example, which mercilessly gives Tony-winner Alan Cumming the pummeling his super-heated ego deserves. Even when a piece lacks such an obvious target, Forbidden Broadway does its best to find the jugular anyway (cf., The Civil War). The results are sometimes uneven, but you'll never have a bad time.

You don't have to be an aficionado of theatre to appreciate Forbidden Broadway, but it helps. You do need to be aware of what's happening on the Great White Way to get the most from its sometimes too-inside satire.

The best thing about Forbidden Broadway is that it's always changing, right along with the Broadway scene that it celebrates. This season's crop of musicals--Kiss Me, Kate, Marie Christine, Saturday Night Fever, Martin Guerre, Disney's Aida, and Carol Burnett (not to mention Kathie Lee Gifford) in Putting it Together--should keep Mr. Alessandrini plenty busy. And consequently give us a reason to pay yet another visit to Forbidden Broadway next year.

Ms. Uggams plays Elizabeth, a fifty-ish spinster living in Harlem during the second World War. Years of living alone have toughened Elizabeth and at the same time made her vulnerable: she finds solace in church and, especially, in the music on her radio. As The Old Settler's action commences, Elizabeth's sister Quilly, recently separated from her husband, has just moved into the apartment. Quilly is as crotchety and feisty and difficult as Elizabeth is gently resigned, but, although they quibble and bicker, their devotion to one another is palpable.

The sisters' relationship is tested, though, by the arrival of a boarder, to whom Elizabeth has rented the spare room to raise some cash. Husband Witherspoon is a strapping and woefully naive young man from a place called Frogmore, South Carolina, who has come to New York with a sizable inheritance to make his fortune and find his girlfriend, Lou Bessie Preston. When Husband discovers that Lou Bessie has left her Frogmore roots far behind her, and has evolved into a tough-talking, hard-living party girl known as Charmaine, he turns to Elizabeth for comfort. The two have a brief love affair, over the strenuous objections of Quilly, as well as--eventually--those of vengeful Lou Bessie. I won't tell you--but you can probably guess--how this May-December affair resolves itself.

The success of a domestic drama like The Old Settler is often in the details. Mr. Redwood provides them lovingly and thoughtfully, filling out the lives of these two middle-aged sisters--and the two young interlopers--sharply and insightfully. Almost in passing, gossiping at the kitchen table or over some sewing in the living room, Quilly and Elizabeth delineate their world for us, revealing not only their sometimes bitter personal histories but also the society that helped shape them. Life for African-American women, even relatively well-off ones like these two, was harsh and sad in those days. Quilly recounts, for example, a catastrophic train trip taken by some friends of hers, bound for Georgia for Mother's Day: the train was so crowded that the blacks were packed like sardines into just two cars, and eventually most were forced to leave the train--stranded in Washington, D.C.--to make room for white passengers.

Stories like this help us understand how Elizabeth and Quilly became who they are, and why they make the sometimes foolish choices that propel the events in The Old Settler. Mr. Redwood is sentimental about his characters, but he's also unflinching: the portrayals of slutty Lou Bessie and stupid Husband are far from positive, giving truth rather than lie to some of the stereotypical images of blacks from that era.

And Mr. Redwood and Mr. Scott do some ingenious things in telling this story: the climax of The Old Settler, for example, is a wordless scene that is breathtaking in its beauty and simplicity. All four performers are effective, and the three ladies are more than that. Rosalynn Coleman is deliciously raw as trampy Lou Bessie, and she looks terrific in the garish floral prints provided her by costume designer Debra Stein. Lynda Gravatt is magnificent as Quilly, throwing away line after line with good-natured deadpan humor, then suddenly locating the emotional center of this gallant but difficult woman as her sister's romance starts turning sour. And Leslie Uggams, handsome and chic as ever, is quietly powerful as Elizabeth. Watch her as she comes to life at the beginning of Act Two, in the throes of infatuation and intoxicated by the music on the radio: her legs kick up behind her, her bright smile warms the theatre; thirty careworn years vanish from her face.

It's a pleasure to have The Old Settler on the New York stage at last (it's been seen in regional theatres all over the country over the last several years). (A quick pause to praise the brilliantly evocative set by Bob Phillips and the excellent lighting design of Frances Aronson.) Sure it's old-fashioned, but what's wrong with that? Moving, funny, and poignant, The Old Settler is a play to warm the heart and touch the soul.

Visit Leslie Uggams's official website here.

Footloose is a happy, entertaining, and entirely successful enterprise. There aren't many musicals in town that can boast even one or two genuinely show-stopping numbers; Footloose has four, delivered one after another at the start of its exciting second act. The crowd eats them up, and the more than three dozen talented performers on stage respond with zest and vigor. A good time is had by all.

Sure, it's a victory of showmanship over material. The book, based on the very popular 1985 film, concerns a small American town named Bomont where dancing has been made illegal because of a tragic car accident a few years before which resulted in the deaths of four teenagers. The local preacher, an earnest but reactionary fellow named Shaw Moore, is behind this ordinance; his authority is unchallenged by the good people of Bomont until a young man named Ren McCormick arrives in town. Ren is a high-spirited teenager from Chicago, and as he tries to deal with his new surroundings and the recent divorce of his parents, he finds himself at the center of a controversy that culminates in his appearing before the town council to urge the repeal of the no-dancing law.

It's pretty trivial stuff, but authors Dean Pitchford and Walter Bobbie are successful in making a few key points about the importance of communication among parents and children, and the need for young people to indulge in fun but wholesome activities (like dancing). The book's most important function is to provide a framework for a succession of high-energy musical numbers, many of them familiar to us from the movie. The show opens with the title song, and quickly pulses its way through "The Girl Gets Around," "Holding Out for a Hero," and "I'm Free," which closes the first act with an exciting dance sequence set in then high school gym.

Act Two blasts us with those four show-stoppers that I mentioned. First comes "Let's Hear it for the Boy," soulfully sung by the big-voiced Stacy Francis and funkily danced by loose-limbed Tom Plotkin. "Mama Says" (which is not from the film) follows, a broad comic specialty for the delightful Mr. Plotkin. Footloose climaxes with the sticky Eric Carmen ballad "Almost Paradise," beautifully sung by Jennifer Laura Thompson under an impressively mammoth railroad bridge which has been exquisitely lit by Ken Billington to show its pair of young lovers reflected in the water below. And then there's the inventive new rap-flavored number "Dancing is Not a Crime," in which Ren argues his case against Reverend Moore to the City Council.

The score also includes a terrific choral number called "Somebody's Eyes," which has a haunting melody and inspires some arresting staging by director Walter Bobbie and choreographer A.C. Ciulla.  And there are a couple of pleasant standard-issue ballads for Dee Hoty, who plays Reverend Moore's smart but put-upon wife.

Ms. Hoty, by the way, has a fairly thankless role but is nevertheless a classy, elegant presence in the show. Watch her kick up her heels (at last) in the final scene and you'll understand how invaluable she really is. The other standouts in the company are the aforementioned Ms. Francis and Mr. Plotkin, who are fun to watch and listen to; they ought to have more to do in the first act. At the performance I attended, Jeremy Kushnier, who stars as Ren, was out; his understudy, a fine young singing actor named Jim Ambler, did a fine job, though he lacks Mr. Kushnier's teen-idol looks and charisma.

There's stuff that's wrong with Footloose, and plenty that's pedestrian. But there's so much that's right and so much that works that I have no cause to quibble. This is a musical that grabs its audience from the start and never lets go. So we may as well all give in--and cut loose.

What a delightful suprise Over the River and Through the Woods turns out to be! For some reason, I never got around to seeing it until last week, about nine months after it opened at the John Houseman Theatre. Well, don't make the same mistake I did: go at once to see this warm and thoroughly enchanting comedy by Joe DiPietro. This happy, sweet-natured American play is like a breath of fresh air amid the acrid, cynical smoke being blown our way by all those bad-tempered Irish and English playwrights.

As its title suggests, Over the River and Through the Woods is about a visit with the grandparents--both sets, in fact--of a 30-year-old marketing executive named Nick Cristano. He spends every Sunday with them in the comfortable Hoboken, New Jersey home of Frank and Aida (his mother's parents); Nunzio and Emma (his father's folks) live just a few doors down and are always in attendance as well. Nick's parents have retired to Florida and his sister has moved across the country to San Diego and so his presence is particularly valued by these four. Which is why his announcement of a promotion at work that will require him to move to Seattle, Washington is greeted less than enthusiastically.

Eager to keep their beloved grandson in town, the grandparents conspire to give him a reason to stay. Their plan takes the form of Caitlin, a pretty and intelligent young woman who is a relative of one of Emma's canasta buddies. Caitlin turns up unannounced at one of Nick's weekly Sunday dinners, setting in motion an unlikely series of events that ultimately brings Nick and his progenitors closer together. I won't divulge the particulars because although Over the River at first feels entirely predictable and conventional it turns out to be neither. The final outcome--and the twisty, occasionally implausible route to it--is unexpected, but assuringly and satisfyingly nice. There's even a wise little moral to take away with you at the end.

Most of the time, though, Over the River is mostly just funny. Very funny. The dinner scene in Act One, in which the unwitting Caitlin is sprung on the unwilling Nick, is a riot; the "Trivial Pursuit" scene in Act Two, in which Nick, recuperating from a mini-nervous breakdown, tries to play a game with his four elders, is even more hilarious. Watch particularly as Grandpa Nunzio (played masterfully by veteran comedian Allen Swift) turns the trivia game first into a weird variant of "Clue" and then into an even weirder test of stream-of-consciousness memory: the laughs build and build until it almost hurts.

Mr. DiPietro, who is also the author of the hit revue I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, writes broadly and breezily. The characters feel at times a bit too much like stock figures--Nunzio is cute but crotchety, while Frank is distant but deep; Emma is a busybody, while Aida is always cooking a giant portion of fattening Italian food. But, particularly as played by the expert company assembled here, they emerge as real and loving people. Over the River is a wonderfully affirming play about a family who care about and for one another. And--this is the best thing about it--at the same time, it portrays the American urge for families to split apart with uncompromising honesty.

Joel Bishoff directs the proceedings, which are mostly comic and often touching, with a deft hand. As mentioned, Allen Swift practically steals the show as lovable old Nunzio, but all of the senior players--John LaGioia as Frank, Marie Lillo as Emma, and Vera Lockwood as Aida--are effective. Heather Raffo is refreshingly quirky and self-assured as would-be fiancee Caitlin. And Paul Urcioli, whose resume would tend to suggest that a domestic comedy such as this is the last place he'd be working, provides the appealing, slightly neurotic center that the piece requires.

The homey living room/dining room set by Neil Peter Jampolis and Jane Reisman is exactly right. It's just the sort of place you would want your own grandparents to live in; indeed, the people inhabiting Mr. DiPietro's play are very much the kind of grandparents we all wish we had. We get them, vicariously, for a couple of hours anyway, in this delightfully entertaining comedy about growing up and growing old.

The talent responsible for this magnificent production include many of those involved in Theatre Ten Ten's terrific Hamlet last season. Along with Mr. Fuller, director Rod McLucas is back, as well as fight choreographer Joe Travers and several fine actors including Janice Johnson (a fiery, sexy Goneril) and Nicholas Martin-Smith (a strong, willful Cornwall). Mr. McLucas has once again provided a clear-eyed, accessible, and eminently exciting staging. He comes to King Lear as to a new play: he treats the text with respect but not with reverence, and interprets it on its own terms rather than imposing some gimmicky concept to make it his own. As I have said before, this is Shakespeare as it is meant to be done, made fresh by fast-paced and passionate playing. King Lear is a great story, and Mr. McLucas tells it beautifully.

As for Mr. Travers, well, he is invaluable: the production is peppered with several thrilling fight sequences. The climactic duel between Edgar and Edmund is probably the most dynamic I've ever seen, particularly because it plays out so close to the audience (we are seated in a single row, encircling the intimate playing area). The duel is fought--authentically, one presumes--in a style suggestive of ancient Britain, with the two opponents tethered together by a long leather strap, each armed with a brutish dagger. It's like wrestling with knives, and its primitive savagery provides the perfect climax for a tragedy about the relentless evil wrought by powerful warriors. As fought by the sinewy Andrew Oswald (Edgar) and the robust Jason Hauser (Edmund), it's breathtakingly exciting. Even if you know the play by heart, you'll find yourself wondering which combatant is going to emerge victorious.

Mr. McLucas has set the play in the dark ages, when the real King Lear is supposed to have lived. The simple but very effective unit set by So Young Kim and Si Joong Yoon evokes the violent moors of England; the costumes (which, alas, are a bit unwieldy and occasionally distracting) are primitive robes and skirts and animal skins. The lighting by Douglas Filomena is artfully unobtrusive.

All fifteen actors do fine work here. Judith Jarosz is memorably nasty as Lear's second evil daughter Regan; watch the utter distaste with which she repels her loving father's overtures. Steven Mallory is a virile Albany, though he doesn't really come alive until the end of the play; Lear's Fool is played, simply and effectively, by petite Jeanine Serrales. As Lear himself, David Fuller is, as I have suggested, nothing short of brilliant: his rich, sonorous voice makes Lear's curses more bitter, his madness more terrible, and his suffering more anguished than I had ever dared imagine. This is a Lear who, as his Fool tells him, truly has become old before he became wise, and as he wretchedly and wrenchingly loses his reason but regains his soul, his pain is palpable. Mr. Fuller bares the heart of this tragic hero, and that hollow, horrible cry is catharsis for him and for us.

The Death of Griffin Hunter tells the story of the tragic downfall of a Great Man, and tells it in grand, classic style, with all of the commensurate murder, betrayal, intrigue, and lust. Griffin Hunter is a handsome, famous, and powerful diplomat, and when we first meet him he is on his way to San Francisco for what will be the pinnacle of his career: the signing of the Hunter Accord which will regulate the proliferation of weapons throughout the world and effectively put a stop to warfare. Hunter, naturally, has enemies who would put a stop to this treaty, notably Semion Rockwell, a shady illicit arms trader. Semion is also in love with Hunter's wife, the glamorous French actress Sophie Berceau, who, conveniently enough, is starring in a new play directed by Semion's mercurial wife Vivian. This play is premiering in San Francisco the very same week as the signing of the Accord.

Hunter also has a past, littered with several secrets he would prefer not be made public; and he has a lost love, a beautiful young woman named Miyumi who is in San Francisco now, too, running a small bookstore. Rockwell dispatches one of his henchman, a troubled misfit named Leveret, to murder Hunter; it turns out that Leveret knew Hunter and Miyumi years ago. And so the web of intrigue begins spinning. The plot plays out in convoluted ways, some predictable and some unexpected, until reaching its violent--and inevitable--conclusion.

At nearly three and a half hours, The Death of Griffin Hunter is longer than it should be, and there are stylistic devices and plot sequences that simply do not work. But the beauty of Mr. Bromley's poetry is breathtaking: his characters use language the way that Shakespeare's do, loaded with startling images, and in love with the sound and sense of the spoken word. At its best, Mr. Bromley's verse is dazzlingly original and up-to-date:

There's no excuse for oversight in a world with instant access to information. Rockwell brings Sophie to San Francisco, Sophie stays at Rockwell's house, Griffin gets here, takes Sophie, and I am stuck the snuffer. The hyperlink? Love.

The Death of Griffin Hunter uses language pyrotechnically; it's an enormously complicated and complex work. This premiere production, mounted by Mr. Bromley's own Inverse Theatre, hints at the greatness of this piece. But there are problems with it: the directorial concept doesn't seem to be fully fleshed out, with a color scheme that doesn't quite work and an arresting set design that nonetheless never quite feels integrated with the action. This is clearly a difficult piece to act, and some of the actors don't have the technique to manage it yet; some of the last scenes play more like shouting matches than cathartic confrontations. Indeed, as stunning and evocative as its language is, Griffin Hunter is never totally involving; right now, this is a play that you feel awed--but not transported --by.

There is one brilliant performance, that of Matthew Maher as the operative Leveret; a sad and tender Iago to Griffin Hunter's Othello, but with a damaged brain rather than a damaged heart, Mr. Maher's Leveret is by turns funny, foolish, profound, dangerous, and wise.

Among the other actors doing fine work here are Millie Chow as the pure-hearted Miyumi, Bill Coelius as Leveret's colleague Boa, and Sarah K. Lippmann and Hank Wagner as a sort of clownish chorus who pop up in different guises in various scenes to do--often to great comic effect--whatever is at hand to be done to move the story along. They reminded me of the gravediggers in Hamlet; indeed Mr. Bromley invokes the Bard regularly in Griffin Hunter: this work, more than anything else, is an attempt to create a contemporary equivalent of Shakespeare.

That it succeeds as well as it does is cause for excitement, and the reason why you may want to witness this remarkable theatrical event first-hand. The Death of Griffin Hunter has, as of this writing, only been publicly performed three or four times: this challenging and exhilarating new work has the potential to help transform the modern theatre.

All of the characters in August Snow and Night Dance talk like this, in a poetic kind of speech that imbeds itself into your consciousness, rich and ripe with beauty and wisdom and pure, sacred truth. Roma's line--my favorite one in these two plays, by the way--isn't just a passing observation, after all, it's practically the whole history of the country, neatly packaged in two dozen surpassingly choice words. Reynolds Price, the author of these works which are now having their New York premiere at the Mint Theatre Company, writes shatteringly beautiful dialogue. The characters who speak it in August Snow and Night Dance are endlessly interesting and maddeningly enigmatic: so much like real people, I guess, that they are impossible to know. These plays, the first two of Mr. Price's trilogy New Music, are eminently watchable--and utterly frustrating. They make compelling, memorable theatre, the kind of drama that lives with you for days afterward.

August Snow happens on a day in late summer, 1937; Night Dance takes place on a summer night eight years later, just after the end of World War II. Both plays center around Neal Avery, a golden boy who has badly lost his way: in the first, he and his wife Taw must decide, one year after their wedding, whether their marriage is to survive; in the second, the two reckon with a future that looks empty and barren unless important changes are made. Vying with Taw for Neal is his stern mother Roma, a smart, sturdy woman who is as constitutionally averse to being happy as she is to being weak; and also there is Porter Farwell, Neal's oldest and best friend, a man who knows and loves Neal better, probably, than anyone else. What binds the three in their rivalry is their unconditional devotion to Neal, something that is shared by the plays' fifth character, Genevieve Watkins, who is the Averys' landlady and friend. (For the record, Genevieve's husband and father-in-law make brief appearances in the second play, Night Dance.)

The Mint Theatre's artistic director Jonathan Bank has staged August Snow and Night Dance forthrightly and with admirable directness and simplicity. But these are, first and foremost, actors' plays. Lisa M. Bostnar's complex portrayal of Genevieve is excellent, revealing the vulnerable romantic beneath her almost shellacked, pragmatic exterior. Chris Payne Gilbert is appealing as Neal, although, at least at the performance I attended, I'm not sure he captured enough of the character's desperation. Patricia Dunnock and Donna Davis do well by Taw and Roma, respectively, showing us above all that Neil has found in his wife a dead ringer for his mother.

The play's richest performance comes from Michael William Connors as Porter: a thoughful and heartfelt portrayal of a sad, lonely man possessed of deep emotion and surprising inner strength. Exactly what Porter and Neal shared before Taw came on the scene is only hinted at, but Mr. Connors makes it clear that, at least from Porter's perspective, this was a great and glorious love that will not be repeated.

Cataclysmic events and decisions occur throughout August Snow and Night Dance, but nothing conclusive ever really happens: Mr. Price's art mirrors life too faithfully to be entirely satisfying. But Porter, Neal, Taw, Roma, and Genevieve--with their beautiful language and their unabashed hunger for nourishment and life--are indeed people to treasure and to cherish.