nytheatre Archive
1999-2000 Theatre Season Reviews

The surprising thing about Aida isn't that it's not as good as The Lion King; it's that it's not even as good as, say, Saturday Night Fever or Footloose. Indeed, if it weren't for The Wild Party, Aida would have been hands-down the worst new Broadway musical of the season. With its idiotic book, thuddingly inappropriate and unoriginal score, bizarrely off-kilter sets and costumes, and--with a couple of exceptions--misfired performances, Aida is as ineptly awful a show as any I've seen; without the powerful Disney production and marketing teams behind it, I can't imagine that it would have survived past opening night. Oh, and one more thing, probably the most important thing at that: it's a crashing bore.

Am I being too hard on Aida? I think not. Let's start with the book, which has been fashioned from the legend of a Nubian princess who is captured by an Egyptian warrior, becomes handmaiden to his betrothed (who is also Pharaoh's daughter), and then finds herself torn between her love for the warrior and her duty to her people. Nothing inherently wrong with this story; but as developed by Linda Woolverton (Beauty and the Beast) and then fixed by director Robert Falls and playwright David Henry Hwang (Golden Child), two significant problems emerge. First, there's the Disney movie syndrome, whereby humanity is eliminated and replaced by anthropopathy. This is nowhere more noticeable than in the character of Mereb, a Nubian slave in the Pharaoh's household who helps Aida at various key moments. In a cartoon, he'd be a chipmunk or an aardvark or something; here, he's hopelessly, cloyingly unbelievable as a sexless dullard of a human.

The other, more fundamental, problem is with the character of Aida herself. She's constantly presented as a grandly noble princess, one whose subjects willingly die for her, one for whom the Egyptian soldier Radames will willingly give up his chance to be Pharaoh and, ultimately, his life. Yet she's oddly repellent, this Aida, and petty, and selfish, and cowardly: she allows herself to be protected by her subjects when she's in danger, and indeed bemoans (though does nothing to rectify) the fact that her capture by the Egyptians was caused by her own capriciousness and led to the capture as well of dozens of her people. And she jeopardizes her father's rescue from an Egyptian prison (and certain death) by lingering too long with her boyfriend.

So, noble?--again, I think not. The trouble with Aida is that people constantly tell us how wonderful Aida is, but no tangible proof is provided. This despite the spirited work of the talented, charismatic Heather Headley in the title role, by the way: try as she might, she can't make her character into a human being anyone could remotely care about, and she can't salvage this sloppy mess of a show.

And what a mess it is! The score is a string of Elton John-Tim Rice ditties that sound exactly like Elton John-Bernie Taupin pop hits of the last three decades; pleasant enough on their own terms, but hardly the stuff of grand tragedy (cf. Verdi) or even musical theatre poperetta. The sets, by the enormously talented Bob Crowley (Carousel, The Iceman Cometh) are abstract and ungainly: sometimes they are cheaply realized (e.g., a chintzy cheesecloth Nile reminiscent, but in no way the equal, of Heidi Ettinger's glorious Mississippi for Big River); and often they aren't there at all: long stretches of Aida happen on a bare or nearly-bare stage, as if the producers had taken Crowley's budget away from him when they realized what a dud they had on their hands.

Crowley's costume designs are just downright strange, evoking almost every region and epoch except Ancient Egypt. The Nubian slaves look like chic versions of Civil War-era American slaves; the soldiers look like Russian Cossacks in Act One and then like Nehru-jacketed Hindus in Act Two; the Pharaoh's daughter and her handmaidens look like Vegas showgirls.

Director Robert Falls, quite apart from his utter inability to keep Aida interesting for even a few moments at a time, commits numerous errors. My favorite was the staging of the Pharaoh's big scene: a long litter of slaves and lackeys carry the ruler in grandly, but after the scene is done (and the Pharoah has been poisoned, no less), they exit blithely, leaving him to stagger foolishly offstage by himself.

As mentioned, Heather Headley is not to blame for the low quality of the show she's stuck in; neither should we blame Sherie Rene Scott, who plays the Egyptian princess Amneris and struggles gamely to make something of this thankless role. But Adam Pascal, so terrific in Rent, reveals a disappointing lack of acting ability in his turn as Radames; and John Hickok (a fine actor who was memorably good in last season's Parade) gives the most willfully awful performance of the evening as Radames's father Zoser. To Hickok and the male chorus (of warriors) fall the two most ludicrous numbers of the evening, by the way, "Another Pyramid" and "Like Father Like Son," truly rotten theatre songs augmented by worse choreography. Wayne Cilento, Aida's hapless choreographer, has had most of the rest of his work excised from the show.

None of this would matter very much--and I wouldn't have gone on so long about it--if there weren't a couple of disturbing, larger, cultural issues surrounding Aida. One of them is the fact that despite its obvious lack of merit, Aida has not been laughed off of Broadway by the people who shape tastes and opinions in this town. The other is the weird, vaguely offensive subtext of Aida, the same one that exists in The Lion King, by the way: a patronizing, possibly racist embracing of the Noble African Savage that feels insidious, maybe even dangerous.

Let me close by saying that I honestly expected to enjoy myself at Aida: some of the vitriol contained in this review stems from very real disappointment that so many talented (not to mention well-funded) folks have failed so miserably to deliver the goods. When Big New American Musicals come only once or twice a year, hope cannot help but spring eternal. Let's hope next season something a lot better put-together than Aida comes along.

The subtitle of House Arrest is "A Search for American Character in and around the White House." It suggests that she's going after the Presidents of the United States, especially the current one, whose character has come under such scrutiny during these past several years. And sure, Mr. Clinton (and Mr. Roosevelt, whose affair with Missy Hands was such an open secret; and Mr. Jefferson, whose affair with Sally Hemings has been speculated upon for, literally, centuries) are absolutely called on the carpet here. But the real subject of House Arrest is the American Character, period; and Smith has zeroed in on it with remarkable insight and accuracy.

Her search has brought her--and now, thanks to this miraculous, important work of theatre, brings us--face to face with an ugly reality: we have become a nation of observers, bombarded (and bombarding each other) with trivia, incapable of rousing ourselves to action. This play, for which Smith interviewed hundreds of Americans, celebrated and otherwise, about their feelings about the presidency and the media, takes us right to the heart of today's American Tragedy. We see it in the horrifying story of a young crack addict who watches as her boyfriend beats her daughter to death. We see it in the appalling farce of Monicagate, as a prosecutor asks President Clinton "If Monica Lewinsky says that you used a cigar as a sexual aid with her in the Oval Office area, would she be lying?"  And we see it--expressed with chilling succinctness--in the words of news photographer Brian Palmer, who tells us that his job is to be there in case the unmentionable happens: "I mean just in case POTUS gets, you know, POTUS gets waxed." (POTUS, he explains, means President-of-the-United-States.)

Is this the American Character? We spend our days wired and tuned-in: are we all just waiting for POTUS to get waxed?

House Arrest is the most important play to reach New York this season precisely because it raises these questions. And many, many more--all provocative, all compelling, all resonant. Smith has brought the collective wisdom of the likes of Ben Bradlee, Studs Turkel, Ed Bradley, Anita Hill, George Bush, and others to House Arrest. You won't agree with everything these people have to say, but you need to hear them: this work captures the cynical, defeated spirit of our country at the turn of the millennium with such painful fidelity that it demands to be seen.

A word, now, about the particular theatre wizardry of House Arrest's creator and performer, Anna Deavere Smith. What she does here is enact the roles of the very people she talked to, using their words to tell her--our--story. She doesn't mimic them; she conjures them whole, though: the famous ones are instantly recognizable by their mannerisms and their manner (she has Bill Clinton down cold, for example). But even the unfamiliar people are fully-fleshed-out characters in Smith's seething human drama. That's precisely the point, you see: in House Arrest, Smith is Everyman (and Everywoman)--and every man and woman--all at once: our surrogate on this journey to ourselves.

We need to be grateful for Smith's intelligence and artistry, which make this journey so extraordinarily compelling. (We need also to pause and acknowledge director Jo Bonney, composer Julia Wolfe, and designers Richard Hoover, Ann Hould-Ward, Kevin Adams, Ken Travis, and Batwin + Robin, all of whom contributed significantly to the excellence of this production.) Finally, we need to answer the implicit challenge that Smith has made to us: to begin, get out of your chair and rush to the Newman Theatre and immerse yourself in House Arrest. This is theatre at its best: the finest kind of medicine for the heart, mind, and soul that I know of.

The sister, Patsy, is also trying to comprehend what happened to her brother: how did the twin she thought she knew turn into this sinister, drugged-up stranger who became, for a while, a darling of the late night club crowd? Goldberg hints at some possible answers, including a frustratingly unpersuasive one related to the nature of holograms (each part contains the whole) that gives the play its name but not, alas, a viable theme. I think Goldberg wants to indict us all in the murder of this club kid, but The Hologram Theory doesn't convince, at least not yet: some clarifying and tightening are needed in order for Goldberg to make her case.

The script tantalizes us with its power and promise; but the production at Blue Light Theater Co., I'm sorry to report, is a bit of a mess. The performances are scattershot, ranging from the superb work of Chris Messina as a Manson-like addict-guru-psychopath who calls himself Joe Buck to the nearly catatonic underplaying of Joie Susannah Lee in the pivotal role of Patsy. Daniel Bess and T.R. Knight have some good moments as two of Joe Buck's "disciples"; but Bill Torres and Kellie Overbey are miscast (and are far too young) as the play's emissaries from the establishment, and Michael Alexis Palmer, entirely the wrong physical type for the murdered club kid Dominic, is implausible and unconvincing. Ryan M. Mueller's lighting is dramatic and appropriately showy, and the simple unit set (by Mueller and Scott Spahr) is generally effective; but director Ruben Polendo has the characters spend far too much repositioning themselves and the few pieces of furniture on the postcard-sized stage: a sparer, more abstract approach would almost certainly better serve the piece. Costumes (Carol Bailey) and hair (Richard Stein), especially for the kids, are exactly right.

Indeed, Notice of Default is, in its way, a wake-up call to humanity. Its title and ostensible subject are taken from a legal document that The Present Company received from its landlord at the beginning of this year. The effect of this notice was to instigate a fiscal crisis for Clancy's company (which he runs with managing director Elena Holy); and also an identity crisis for Clancy himself. Both of these crises--especially the latter--became the subjects of Notice of Default; and the passion and insight that Clancy has applied to them are what make this piece so entertaining and so valuable.

I picked that last word very deliberately: "value" is at the very heart of Notice of Default, the concept that gives it both raison d'etre and vast resonance. During the course of this long monologue, Clancy relates the story of the The Present Company's "$100,000 Or Bust Campaign" (the solution that he and Holy eventually found for their theatre's immediate difficulty). He also tells us a lot about himself, as a young downtown theatre artist, trying to balance his very real artistic success against the equally real fiscal pressures that once led his father to tell him that he "would be poor in Bolivia."

But beyond the story-telling is rumination, with surprising depth, on the whole nature of what theatres and theatre artists do, and how (and why) society attempts to place--here comes that word again--a value on that. The journey that Clancy takes us on in Notice of Default--including that memorable moment when those ghosts I mentioned earlier come floating out of the ether--consistently brings us back, again and again, to one central question: how can the worth of artistic endeavor be measured in a currency that finally has nothing to do with art? That question leads Clancy to perform a ritual that will undoubtedly cause you, depending upon your personal feelings about money, to either cringe or celebrate. More importantly, it leaves us to ponder the implications of this Notice of Default (and its accompanying Opportunity to Cure): how do we, as a society, ensure that the creation of art persists and endures in an increasingly materialistic and commercialized culture?

I fear that I've made Notice of Default sound hopelessly polemical and serious; it is neither. Clancy has written a very accessible, very funny play (or sort-of-a-play), and he performs it with restrained elegance and good humor. That it manages to resonate and rankle is a bonus. 

Here's a quick synopsis: we are in a remote spot in the Arizona desert, at The Pastures Recovery Center, an exclusive (i.e., expensive), probably controversially cutting-edge mental health facility. It's family week, which means that the relatives of some of the patients are visiting to participate in treatment and recovery. We are concerned with Claire, a woman whose numerous psychological problems range from suicidal tendencies to eating disorders; her son was murdered a year ago and the aftermath of that tragedy eventually brought her here. Claire's family, or some of it anyway, has come for family week: her self-involved, emotionally distant mother Lena; her brilliant but irresponsible sister Rickey; and her spoiled, heartbroken sixteen-year-old daughter Kay. (Claire's other sister and--more importantly--Claire's husband have chosen to stay away.)

In Family Week, we witness a day-by-day account of some of what Claire and her family are asked to do in order to help Claire get better. The Pastures methodology (which is, I presume, based on some actual psychiatric or psychological liturgy) identifies six basic emotions: anger, fear, hate, shame, loneliness, and guilt. Claire and each of her family members are made to prepare a list of five sentences with which to confront one another, like this: "When you did _____ [fill in the cathartic event from the past here], I felt ____ [fill in one of the six emotions from the list here]." The reading of these lists provide the three climactic moments of the play, and serve to demonstrate, without drawing any conclusions, the pros and cons of the Pastures recovery paradigm in particular and the whole societal obsession with recovery in general.

The women of Family Week are terribly damaged, their pasts and presents littered with harrowing stories of addiction, abusive relatives, and so on (not to mention the cruel and horrible, seemingly random murder that drove Claire over the edge). The stories seem personal, but I suspect that Henley intends them to be emblematic of our culture rather than a particular individual's (or set of individuals') literal truth. The villain in Family Week is a society that looks to institutions like the Pastures for comfort and help because it lacks the vocabulary (and the will?) to provide those things for itself. Claire has to re-read the list of six emotions every time she is asked how she feels--a vivid representation of the emotional barrenness of her life and of those around her. Like Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive and David Lindsay-Abaire's Fuddy Meers, Family Week is an exploration of the ways we cope, for better or worse, with a world where the people closest to us behave in ways we can't comprehend. Henley's fails to make a clear argument one way or the other on this point, but the notions she raises here make Family Week rich and compelling nevertheless.

She's been extremely well-served by this production, which has been sharply directed by Ulu Grosbard and smartly designed by John Arnone (sets) and Paul Gallo (lighting). The ensemble consists of four fine, accomplished actresses (one of whom, though, is miscast: Julia Weldon, as Kay, fails to convince us that she is just sixteen years old). The others--Rose Gregorio (Lena), Carol Kane (Rickey), and Angelina Phillips (Claire) are all terrific, and each has at least one moment where we get an insightful, aching glimpse into her character's soul.

Family Week has gotten poor reviews and is closing after a run of just one week. This is a shame: Family Week is not the best play of the season or of Henley's career, but it raises issues that are important to us (and does so in a thoughtful and intelligent way); it deserves a wider audience.

"Jesus Christ Superstar is so stunningly effective a theatrical experience that I am still finding it difficult to compose my thoughts about it. It is, in short, a triumph."

That's what Douglas Watt (of the New York Daily News) wrote about Jesus Christ Superstar when it premiered on Broadway nearly thirty years ago. Now this mother of all rock operas is back, and I can only echo Watt's words--in a nutshell: wow. For sheer awesome excitement and energy; utter visceral, pulsing, thrilling passion; nothing can match this show. Not since the early days of Rent and, before that, Tommy, has Broadway seen a musical with the power to set an audience on fire like this. Forget Contact, forget Aida: this is the must-see musical of the season.

Whence comes such an extraordinary explosion, you ask? Well, for starters, there's the score, something of an underrated masterpiece, I think: a remarkably accomplished work of musical theatre whose innovations can only now be fully appreciated, looking back through the Phantoms and Cats and Les Miserables that wouldn't be here now had Jesus Christ Superstar not been there first. The lyrics are surprisingly literate (and rank among Tim Rice's finest): compare the drivel that fills Aida with the sharply-etched irreverent economy of a line like this, from "King Herod's Song":

So you are the Christ, you're the great Jesus Christ
Prove to me that you're no fool--walk across my swimming pool

As for the music, by the so-easily-maligned Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber, the flashes of melodic greatness--in songs like "Everything's Alright," "I Don't Know How to Love Him," "King Herod's Song," and, of course, "Superstar" (whose climactic refrain never fails to give me goosebumps)--more than make up for any lack of invention or originality. (Lloyd-Webber was just 23 when he wrote this score, too.)

That said, however, it's absolutely true that the show that Lloyd-Webber and Rice created is fraught with problems: it's so resolutely hip (in 1971 terms) that it manages rather successfully to avoid committing to a specific point of view. This is where director Gale Edwards comes in. Her contributions to this production are miraculous, and amount if not to a reinvention of the piece than certainly to a reconsideration of it.

The question Edwards asks here is simple: if a man like Jesus Christ were living among us right now, what would happen to him? Her answer is resoundingly unoptimistic: in, particularly, the three startling, show-stopping set-pieces that propel this production toward greatness, her disillusionment with humankind at the turn of the millennium is brutally apparent. Consider the scene where Christ encounters the Moneylenders at the Temple. Here, the Temple has been re-imagined as a shrine to the twin gods of war and money--towers of TVs (all broadcasting CNN battle scenes) and nuclear warheads frame it, while slot machines and electronic ticker-tapes rest on its altar. It's a literally breathtaking visual metaphor: a triumph of ingenuity on the part of Edwards and her set designer, Peter J. Davison.

Yet they go on to top themselves in the heart-stopping final moments of the play, as Jesus is rejected first by King Herod and then by his own people. "King Herod's Song" is set, here, on a blazing white set, complete with light-up staircase and a gigantic neon "Herod" sign framing the stage. It's danced by three elegant black women in sparkly red gowns who might as well be the Supremes and a chorus line of Fosse-esque male dancers. The choreography and the insouciance of this number are instantly recognizable as "Broadway," and indeed can be seen at any of a half-dozen or so of Jesus Christ Superstar's near neighbors in the Theatre District. But the shock of recognition afforded by this sequence is nothing compared with what follows in "Superstar": leather-clad rock idol Judas, backed by the same three ladies now attired in trendy mini-skirts and dark glasses, working the crowd into a frenzy, simultaneously filmed and broadcast (on a giant screen across the top center of the stage).

That screen may as well be a mirror: Edwards implicates us all, young and old, in the willful abandonment and misunderstanding of the man at the center of this show. When the circus ends abruptly with Christ's crucifixion, we become aware that the teachings of that man have hardly been mentioned at all; and we pause to reflect as the final notes of Lloyd-Webber's "John 19:41" fill the silent theatre.

I'm aware that some of what I've tried to capture here will probably not bear detailed scrutiny: believe me, though, when I tell you that the immediate experience of this production, particularly its astonishing second act, is almost unbearably powerful. Jesus Christ Superstar is a masterful blend of showmanship and conscience; it brings its audience to catharsis, which is as splendid a purpose as any theatrical enterprise can hope for.

I've already told you that set designer Peter J. Davison is one of this production's heroes; let me add here that Mark McCullough's lighting design is equally exquisite. The cast is exemplary, led by the phenomenal Glenn Carter in the title role and buffeted by the angel-faced, big-voiced Tony Vincent (as Judas), the imposing bass Frederick B. Owens as Caiaphas, and the magnificently layered performance of Kevin Gray as Pilate. Paul Kandel stops the show as the razzle-dazzle lost soul Herod, evoking memories of the great Joel Grey in Cabaret. And Maya Days is nothing short of perfection as Mary Magdalene, singing the role with devastating simplicity and purity.

The sound is occasionally harsh and often muddy; hopefully that can be fixed. And, sure, there are lots of problematic details--about the work itself, and this production of it--on which one can fixate. My advice: don't. Go to Jesus Christ Superstar with an open mind and an open heart and let the show's spirit engulf you. Genuine theatrical rapture, like the religious kind, is a sort of miracle. But it only happens if you allow it to.

Which takes me to reason number two: if you are a student of human culture, or history, or sociology, then The Oresteia will be a remarkable artifact for you as well. In the course of the three short plays that comprise the evening, Aeschylus charts the progression of a primitive people from the terrifying uncontrollable darkness of superstition and fatalism to the splendid enlightenment of law and reason. In the first play, The Agamemnon, the people of Argos suffer unchecked from the whims of the gods and their representatives on earth who rule them. This is a world of savage acts, such as King Agamemnon's sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia to the gods (in order to win the Trojan War); or the one depicted here, Agamemnon's murder at the hands of his bereaved wife Clytemnestra as retribution. By the time of The Furies, however, at the end of the trilogy, the cycle of violence is over and Orestes (who has killed his mother Clytemnestra to avenge the murder of Agamemnon) is tried by a jury of Athenian citizens and granted absolution by his peers.

Sobel, using the excellent new translation by Peter Meineck, renders the significance of these seminal plays with clarity and forcefulness. An evocative set by Beowulf Borrit compliments the production beautifully, as does Robert Williams's lighting. Given the style and form of The Oresteia, there are fewer opportunities for the actors here than in the other piece currently in the Pearl's repertory (The Way of the World); I was impressed by Robert Hock's work in the Chorus of two of the plays and by Joanne Camp's fearless and majestic Clytemnestra.

This one, alas, is almost completely the opposite. It's inert and lifeless, saddled with a directorial concept that doesn't work and a complex (and lackluster) score that doesn't fit. It features one of the ugliest and least appropriate set designs in recent memory; and it's performed by a cast of enormously talented folk who, with one significant exception, all seem to have given up on this dreadful material and are now merely counting the days until the inevitable closing notice gets posted.

That exception is the amazing Eartha Kitt: the second thing you need to know about this Wild Party is that the only pleasures to be had in it emanate from her larger-than-life presence. Ageless and indomitable, Kitt is a force of nature; she slinks and skulks around the stage, often in the background and in shadow, commanding our attention and worship with every sultry, calculated move. She's now the grande dame of survivors as well as of over-the-top man-killing chanteuses, and she makes the most of her well-deserved legend in a role that would be valedictory if only the material were any good. It's not, but Kitt keeps us interested through a lame would-be show-stopper called "Moving Uptown" and a lamer eleven o'clock number called "When It Ends": for a few minutes, she gives The Wild Party the illusion of genuine quality. Of course as long as she's around it's not an illusion; but she's the only thing remotely worth watching or listening to on the sad, lonely Virginia Theatre stage.

Speaking of which, that stage has been decked out as the improbably large and lavish apartment occupied by The Wild Party's central characters, Queenie and Burrs. They're second-rate vaudevillians but they live in a place that looks like a ballroom in the Plaza Hotel--heavy, wood-paneled walls decorated with elegant sconces and an enormous antique mirror. This set, by Robin Wagner, doesn't even make sense spatially: it took me almost the length of the play to realize that the large door at its center was meant to be to Queenie and Burrs's bedroom. 

Occupying this set are, in addition to Queenie, Burrs and Kitt's character Dolores, a dozen invited guests: this gathering, not so wild, isn't even all that much of a party. They are, in order of appearance: Jackie, a self-described "ambisextrous" dandy who apparently lives on cocaine and booze; Miss Madeleine True, a brassy lesbian, and her date, a wigged-out "postmodernist" zombie called Sally; boxer Eddie Mackrel, his floozy girlfriend Mae, and her floozy-wannabe baby sister Nadine; effete songwriters Phil and Oscar D'Armano; fish-out-of-water Jewish producers Gold and Goldberg; and stylish vamp Kate with her sleek kept man-of-the-moment Black. After an underwhelming "Promenade of Guests," in which most of them are perfunctorily introduced, the guests mill around Queenie and Burrs's place in search of liquor and drugs and diversion. Eventually there's an orgy (sort-of), but mostly this party has the energy and excitement of, say, a town meeting on the old Newhart TV show.

Meanwhile, the melodramatic chronicle of Queenie and Burrs, is in fact played out, albeit without much clarity or motivation. The story is roughly this: Queenie is a slut and Burrs is a brute; they've thrown this party as a temporary diversion from the calamity that is their life together. Burrs wants to impress Gold and Goldberg so they will hire him to be in their new musical revue. Queenie wants to impress Black, after she meets him, and perhaps even flirts with the idea of running off with him. Burrs becomes jealous; there's a scuffle and a gunshot and someone dies. 

It would be compelling if it felt like the authors cared about it; as it is, The Wild Party's plot gets no more than a quarter of the running time. As we watch the meager crowd drift through their ghastly dark surroundings, though, it starts to dawn on us what Wolfe and LaChuisa probably do have in mind: yes, it looks just like Follies, the classic Sondheim-Goldman-Prince-Bennett show about middle-aged people coming to terms with the desperate illusions of their lives. But that show took place in a decaying old theatre and was filled with authentically interesting characters and a passel of ghosts. All this one's got is just the one living dead girl Sally, plus the redoubtable Eartha Kitt threatening every so often to burst into a chorus of "I'm Still Here."

If only we could figure out what LaChuisa and Wolfe were trying to tell us! I'm hard-pressed to guess. There's a wan attempt at framing the whole affair as a vaudeville show (a la Gypsy or Chicago); there's some blather at the end about how Queenie needs to take off her mask (or, in her case, her lipstick) in order, presumably, to be true to herself. Huh?!?

Musicals can be forgiven everything if they have great music in them; The Wild Party has, instead, an eclectic mishmosh of thirty songs, most of them that shapeless, tuneless pseudo-recitative stuff that seems to fill out so many new works these days. None of the material struck me as memorable and practically all of it felt out-of-kilter with the piece's period and tone. This is, remarkably, LaChuisa's second Broadway score this season: how does this guy keep getting hired?

Before closing, I need to mention the show's other high-profile stars, Mandy Patinkin (who plays Burrs) and Toni Collette (who plays Queenie). She barely registers; he registers as a low-energy, high-strung caricature of himself (he even dons blackface, twice): Forbidden Broadway couldn't make him any more weirdly repellent than he is here. 

And so now here's the third, and final, thing that you need to know about The Wild Party: it is, unquestionably, the least entertaining musical that I've ever seen: long and limpid and boring. The incomparable Eartha Kitt notwithstanding, I've got to warn you off this one: catch her the next time she's at the Carlyle Hotel, and avoid this turkey no matter what. 

The utterly far-fetched plot of Cowboys! concerns the fate of the ironically named Straight Arrow Ranch, a remote Texas hacienda run by Aunt Rosie Ritter (a cross between Oklahoma!'s Aunt Eller and caustic film second banana Thelma Ritter). Aunt Rosie is behind on her tax payments, and her pal Judge Sassafras Devine warns her that she could lose the ranch unless she comes up with the tax money quickly. For a moment it appears that snivelly villain Boston Bart Black and his partner-in-crime Lovely Lilly Luscious might steal the place away from Aunt Rosie; but then Rosie's gay farmhands Buck, Sidewinder, and Colt come up with the winning idea to put on a show to raise the needed cash. Somehow Boston Bart and Lovely Lilly wind up involved in the show, as does handsome Ranger Rick Rowdy, who finds himself torn between his fondness for the dim but cute Colt and the theoretically straight (but also cute) Boston Bart.

Believe me, very little of this actually matters: in the best tradition of  the'40s Fox musical comedies that Cowboys! artfully parodies and resembles, the convoluted plot exists only as the merest frame on which to hang a succession of comic scenes and glossy song and dance routines. These Cowboys! has a-plenty, cleverly devised by librettist-lyricist Clint Jefferies, with cheery melodies supplied by composer Paul L. Johnson. Luscious Lilly's specialty is a faux country ballad entitled "I Fall to Faded Pieces After Midnight When Your Sweet Dreams Make Me Crazy" (think about it; hint: think Patsy Cline). Colt gets an un-subtle duet with a visiting Indian called "Everything's Bigger in Texas," while Aunt Rosie and Judge Sassafras cut up in a lighthearted tribute to bisexuality called "Make the Switch." And then there's the "Whatever Lola Wants"-ish seduction number "Girl from Texarkana," sung by Sassafras in outrageous drag to Black Bart; a deliciously silly "Apache Dance" performed by Lilly and Buck the ranchhand; and yes, even an earnest love ballad for sweet-faced Ranger Rick called "Ain't Never Had a Kiss Like His."

All of this is put over with infectious good spirits by a company of nine actors plus the incomparable Winnie the Wonder Horse (who actually manages to steal a couple of scenes herself). Daniel Carlton and Jim Gaddis score strongly as Black Bart and Colt's friend Injun Joe; John Lavin is handsome and likable as Ranger Rick; and Kirsten Witsman (as Lilly), Stephen Cabral (as Sassafras), and Judy Krause (as Aunt Rosie) each make the most of their big numbers. The real find here is probably Steve Hasley, lately of Power Strokes, here smartly cast as an Ado Annie-ish ranchhand who apparently has never even heard the word "no." Hasley is engaging throughout, registering most strongly in the comic "Apache Dance" number which ends, characteristically, with Buck taking a heart-shaped brand on his momentarily exposed bottom.

Credit director Jeffrey Corrick and choreographer Kate Dowe with providing a tone and pace that never lets up and never lets us down: along with the show's creators, these folks understand their material and their audience and succeed admirably in serving up the one to the other with consummate skill and good humor. Cowboys! knows what it wants to do and does it well: how many other musicals in this misbegotten season can boast the same? 

So what's this got to do with Medea, you ask? Everything, as it turns out. I don't think director Eve Adamson had Elian in mind when she staged this piece, but his story resonates wordlessly through her gripping, harrowingly clear production. There's a scene, near the climax of the play, where Medea, inflamed by the injustices done her by erstwhile husband Jason, retreats into her home to complete her awful revenge and kill their two children. Outside the house are the three ladies of Corinth who comprise the Chorus, and as Medea carries out her terrible plan the three of them fret and worry and judge. We should do something about this, they say, to each other and to us; we should march right into that house and stop that crazy woman from murdering her children.  I thought: poor kids, caught between an opportunistic relative on the one hand and a scary foreign one on the other, and getting no help from these three nice, normal ladies who hover so noisily on the sidelines. If only we could stop being a chorus and actually start participating in the dramas around us...

A leap, admittedly; and one that I might not have made on a different, less inflammatory day. But the strength of this play, especially as directed by the ever-talented Adamson and acted by the versatile Jean Cocteau Repertory players, is that it really is eternal. The concerns of the Greeks two thousand years ago are still our concerns today; that's why these seminal tragedies are timeless and why it's so valuable for them to be produced--respectfully, diligently, and thoughtfully--by companies like this one. Adamson does Euripides (via Philip Vellacott's excellent, very accessible translation) a great service by rendering him for us with compassion and clarity: there are no directorial tricks or surprises here, just a sturdy, simple reading of a legend that challenges and repels us with every telling.

I saw this production with my two nieces, ages 9 and 14; they both asked, afterward, how it was possible for Medea to do what she did, i.e., murder her own children just to punish Jason. We decided that we can't finally ever understand Medea's act: certainly Elise Stone, who is, I think, brilliant in the title role here, can't find any rational explanation. Watch, instead, how she transforms, almost instantaneously, before our eyes into a being possessed by demons.  We see, in her twisted, contorted movements, and we hear, in the pitiless bleakness of her voice, that inhuman forces have taken hold of Medea, shoving aside natural impulses of love and mercy and replacing them with the pure, monstrous evil that allows her to commit her final heinous act. I won't soon forget this extraordinary performance, the finest I've yet seen by this remarkable, versatile actress.

The rest of the company provides vital support for Stone's towering work. Craig Smith has a great moment when, as Creon, he admits, steadily and firmly, that he is afraid of Medea; and Jason Crowl has one too when he cries a huge, anguished cry to alert Medea of the first casualties of her murderous plot. Adamson's crisp, economical staging ensures that the audience stays on the edges of their seats from first to last, even though we know how the familiar story will play out. The simple, brooding set by Robert Klingelhoefer, the stark, appropriate costumes by Susan Soetaert, the raw, angular, evocative lighting by Adamson and Harold A. Mulanix, and the minimalist, dissonant score by Ellen Mandel all contribute to Adamson's clear-eyed vision, letting us see, in the flesh, the darkest reaches of mankind's imaginings.

Great, cathartic theatre, this; and grist for an interesting discussion among uncle and nieces afterward. Medea as cautionary drama? Don't underestimate it: for better and for worse, people haven't changed all that much in the last two thousand years. 

So Blessing could have written about Henry Ford or Thomas Edison or any number of self-made men; but the one he settled upon, Ty Cobb, turns out to be a terrific choice. Cobb's story--a young Southern kid who managed, against extreme odds, to rise above a fairly squalid family background to become the richest and most celebrated baseball player of his time--has plenty of resonance. There's Cobb the savvy smart guy, reminding us how, while other ball players were guzzling beer at the local bar, he was hobnobbing with the executives of Coca-Cola and General Motors and making himself a fortune. There's Cobb the racist, confronted by the "Black Ty Cobb" Oscar Charleston, the only ball player among his contemporaries who may have been his equal--only we'll never know, because Georgia-born Cobb refused to play in a game with him. And there's Cobb the maverick, looking back on a career that earned him respect but never love: it was homerun king Babe Ruth rather than the more versatile Ty Cobb who captured the public's fancy and became the first mega-sports star in American history. Willy Loman-like, Cobb was liked but not well-liked by the fans; for all his wealth and fame, the unqualified American ideal of success seemed to elude him.

Blessing shows us Cobb at three stages in his life here: the young, aggressive baseball hero-on-the-rise (played expertly by that fine young actor Matt Mabe); the embittered ex-star, forced into a frustrating and fruitless early retirement by the onset of middle age; and the old, recently-dead  icon, grudgingly accepting his place in the hearts and minds of a public that only dimly remembers him and a posterity that is likely to prove less than kind. It's a useful and generally effective device, allowing us to glimpse our hero--and ourselves--coming and going, as it were. The only other character in Cobb is the spirit of Oscar Charleston (the whole thing takes place, by the way, in some sort of purgatory where the just-deceased Cobb is reviewing his life), whose presence here makes for much pointed commentary on the Great American Tragedy of racism but perhaps ultimately makes too much of it: the central tragedy of Cobb's life wasn't his bigotry against blacks, which was an accepted social attitude during the time when he lived, but rather his lack of accountability--to himself and to others--as he amassed material signs of "success" while ignoring more the intangible, spiritual affairs that finally matter more. That said, the journey that Cobb takes its audience on is an important and valuable one: that slippery ideal called the American Dream needs to be revisited over and over again.

The premise of Taller Than a Dwarf is simple. Howard Miller (Broderick), on the cusp of middle age and living in a small apartment in Queens at the dawn of the new millennium, has woken up this morning suddenly aware of his mortality. What's more, things seem to be conspiring against him today: the alarm didn't go off and he's fifteen minutes late; his wife drops the coffee pot on the floor; the shower breaks; his lunch falls out of its brown bag and onto the street. Suddenly, Howard reaches his breaking point: he marches back to his apartment and resolves to drop out of the rat race. He takes off his suit and slides into bed, where he begins working on a jigsaw puzzle that he inadvertently swiped from a neighbor kid.

The trouble is, unlike the protagonist of, say, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, Howard hasn't really had all that bad a day; there's no calamity here at all. (The playwright anticipates this problem by having Howard chide the audience that we have no business giving him advice; it doesn't work.) It's just possible that May is taking a sly swipe at the fragile constitutions of yuppies, except I'm not sure that cash-poor schlemiel incarnate Howard actually qualifies as a yuppie. And anyway, the rest of the play confirms that well-motivated characterization and plot is not a concern of Taller Than a Dwarf.

So here's what happens next: Howard has a fight with his wife and she leaves him; he insults the building superintendent's wife; he battles his mother and father (who show up, conveniently, because they can't reach him on the phone); he wrestles with his mother-in-law on the floor of his bedroom; he calls the building Super "dirt" and, refusing to apologize, finds himself in a fistfight with that gentleman until, improbably, his boss sets the Super's jacket on fire and the Super rushes into the bathroom (where the shower is still running) and falls through the weakened floor into the apartment below.

I left some stuff out, but I think you get the idea. There's the glimmer of a satirical concept, but it's not a very good one and it's not working out; so May hurls farcical situations pell-mell at it, hoping no one will notice. That's the way Taller Than a Dwarf feels to me, at least: it's stupefyingly devoid of common sense and logic, gleefully (willfully?) intent on self-destruction. Howard's character, for example, varies wildly almost from scene to scene: sometimes he's an earnest little schnook and other times he's a wily manipulator, abusively terrorizing his wife; sometimes he's a philosopher, pondering the similarities of his own situation to that of Jesus Christ (I'm not making that up), while other times he's as dim-witted and stupid as Homer Simpson. Who is he?

Nobody I know, that's for sure; and though Broderick gives it a game try, Howard is nobody he knows either. Broderick gets through Taller Than a Dwarf by reaching periodically into his bag of tricks and supplying some shtick that will serve the moment at hand. Most of the times, he earns--and gets--his laughs by doing this. So does Joyce Van Patten, as Howard's monstrous Jewish mother, and so does Marcia Jean Kurtz, as the equally gruesome mother-in-law. (I laughed in spite of myself when she staggered up the apartment house steps on the arms of Howard's boss, who is nicely underplayed by Sam Groom.) 

But what Broderick and company are doing has very little to do with whatever May and Arkin set out to prove in this play. Unless, that is, one decides--charitably--that all they've hoped for is a little diversion. But I doubt that, given the heavy-handed, front-loaded exposition (for which recorded TV soundbites about Internet success stories and multi-million-dollar lawsuits serve as the soundtrack; and given the amoral non-surprise ending (which I'll nevertheless respectfully not give away here). Twice, the title is explained for us: being better off than poor people (i.e., what Howard is) is like being taller than a dwarf. I'm sure something is meant by that.

Once upon a time, producers would have given May and Arkin and the rest of the creative team advice (and time) to help fix the mess they've gotten their play into. (Or, alternatively, they would have closed the thing out of town.) They also would have noticed that Tony Walton's rather cheesy-looking and obviously low-tech unit set creaks noisily as it slides in and out of position across the Longacre stage. And they might have realized that the sullen, cool film star Parker Posey cannot possibly be believable cast as someone named Selma.

But that was once upon a time; this is Broadway in the year 2000.So: here lies New York's newest comedy. It's better than Wrong Mountain. (But that, of course, is like saying that it's taller than... you get the idea.)

At its best, the new production of this classic work of American musical theatre roars and shines as thunderously and gaudily as Hill's imagined band-to-end-all-bands: it's impossible not to be thrilled by irresistible numbers like "Lida Rose" and "Pick-a-little, Talk-a-little," and--the source of that quoted lyric--"76 Trombones."  I have some reservations about this revival, which I'll talk about in short order, but the revival is certainly among the more entertaining musicals currently on Broadway. And it's ideal for families with kids.

The story, if you don't know it, concerns a con man named Professor Harold Hill, who makes his living traveling from town to town selling the unsuspecting inhabitants boys' bands--instruments, uniforms, and lessons in something called the "Think Method"--for which payment is merrily absconded before anyone has time to realize that no band exists at all. Of course, Hill does give his customers things they earnestly want and need--things like excitement and glamour and anticipation and hope; when he gets caught, as he does in the town of River City, Iowa, it's by the wise and knowing librarian Marian Paroo, who understands Harold's dreamweaving business better than he does.

The Music Man is all about finding music in the everyday, mundane trappings of small-town American life: that's what Professor Harold Hill really sells. Meredith Willson's endlessly inventive score is filled with songs based on the rhythms of a moving train ("Rock Island"), a child's piano exercise ("Goodnight, My Someone"), the cackling of hens ("Pick-a-little, Talk a-little"), and the clip-clop of horses' hooves ("Wells Fargo Wagon"). Plus there's the ingenious musical language Willson has assigned his main characters: the spirited rhythmic patter of Hill's "Ya Got Trouble"  and "76 Trombones"; the straightforward melody of Marian's "My White Knight" and "Will I Ever Tell You?"; the barbershop quartets, almost throwaways, assigned to Hill's nemeses on the River City School Board; the heightened sing-song braying of Hill's real enemy, anvil salesman Charlie Cowell. (Note that the only person in The Music Man who never sings is River City's Mayor Shinn, a Frank Morgan-esque pantalone who is too clueless to keep time or carry a tune.)

The point is, this show is as perfectly crafted, musically, as any ever created: as the foregoing hopefully demonstrates, this is a veritable feast for the ear. (And I haven't even mentioned a couple of the show's most charming numbers, "The Sadder-but-Wiser Girl" and "Marian the Librarian"; nor its most famous, the love ballad "Till There Was You.") It's a score to cherish, and it's performed well here, especially whenever Rebecca Luker (Marian) and the "Hawkeye Four" (Bruce Dow, Jack Doyle, John Sloman, and Michael-Leon Wooley; as the sweetly harmonizing members of the School Board) wrap their vocal chords around it.

Hearing Willson's music in a Broadway theatre ought to be enough to satisfy anybody, and I guess it is, mostly; but there's more to The Music Man than its songs, and it's here that the current revival fails to satisfy. First, there's the unsolvable problem of a more-or-less definitive filmed version that's pretty much imbedded in my consciousness, at least. Ensemble members like Ruth Gottschall, Kenneth Kimmins, and Katherine McGrath can't hope to compete with invaluable pros Hermione Gingold, Paul Ford, and Pert Kelton--performers who inhabited characters that the current Broadway cast can at best only approximate.

More troubling, though, is the sloppy, passion-less way that the show seems to have been assembled. Director-choreographer Susan Stroman delivers her trademark energetic, over-the-top musical numbers, but they all feel oddly disjointed: the internal logic of the story has been mostly jettisoned, as far as I can tell. When the Mayor's Wife leads her ladies dance group in forming "two Grecian urns," shouldn't they try to form two Grecian urns? The big numbers--"Marian the Librarian," "76 Trombones," and "Shipoopi"--don't build to any sort of climax and they don't advance the story either; they just ramble noisily and then end. Even the show's ingenious opening, "Rock Island," in which a group of salesman deliver most of the necessary exposition to the pulsing rhythm of a railroad locomotive, gets dumbed down: the train's lurching is exaggerated so broadly that the sense of the scene is sacrificed for a crowd-pleasing joke.

I love the theatre, but after two trips to The Music Man I remain convinced that the best way to see this show is by renting the video or waiting for it to air on TV. But that's just me: most of the members of audience at both performances I attended left happy and satisfied.

But Groff never quite demonstrates what makes her exotic subjects tick. What is signified by their devotion to this most abstract and conceptual of sciences? Or, to put it another way, why are these particular people the people Groff has chosen to write about? What's missing here is some connection between the esoteric but elegant pursuits of these mathematicians and the human condition; without that link, The Five Hysterical Girls Theorem, while often entertaining and almost always intriguing, feels purposeless and remote.

This absence is all the more disappointing because in places in this play Groff comes very close to making that requisite but elusive leap. Her demonstration of how the theorem that gives the play its title came to earn its name, for example, is marvelously accomplished: a gradual transformation of enigmatic sounds and symbols into a pattern that the audience suddenly understands as the cries of five hysterical girls and, at the same time, as a representation of a perverse but lovely mathematical concept. Numbers are, after all, the ultimate metaphors: if only Groff had mined this territory more thoroughly and more profoundly!

As it is, what Groff gives us in The Five Hysterical Girls Theorem is a snapshot of genius at work and play. We laugh at the studied eccentricity of Moses Vazsonyi, the man responsible for the hysterical girls; we ponder the tragic foolishness of the Veronese Brothers, who have apparently dedicated their lives to a mathematical principle that has suddenly been invalidated; we gape and titter at the perverse duplicity of three men, all called Nikolai Nikolalovitch (though none seems to be Russian), who are the Veroneses' rivals. Vaszonyi's family captures some of our attention as well, especially his shrewd wife Vera and his dysfunctional but brilliant daughter Hypatia. Hypatia spends much of the play solving enormous arithmetic problems on a giant blackboard at the back of the stage, a pair of which disprove the Veroneses' hypothesis. Like the hysterical girls, Hypatia's work is all about different (superbly complicated) ways of representing the same thing. But, again like those girls, Hypatia never feels organically part of the play: here as throughout, Groff teeters at the edge of genius, peering at it from the sidelines rather than getting under its skin.

Some words about the production: it's enormous, eye-filling, and very busy, probably too much for its own good. Director David Herskovits has imposed a post-modern style on the piece that hinders more than helps it: stage managers appear periodically, for example, to make announcements like "This isn't real" or "This isn't part of the play": why? More than once, simultaneous dialogue and action turns the play into cacophonous muddle: if mathematics imposes simplicity and order on chaos, Herskovits's staging threatens to do the opposite. The performances are competent or better, with the best work coming from Ron Piretti as the sanest of the mathematicians and Peter Ackerman in several small roles. Steven Rattazzi mesmerizes as the genius Vazsonyi.

I would love to know how much the play is based on real people and events (unfortunately there's no documentation provided in the program or press materials). I would like to read this play; I hope Groff will go back to it and strengthen it, because there's more than just talent evident here, there's a spark of greatness.

Beckoning to us just beneath the surface of this confused, fascinating play is the pure, abstract beauty of mathematics: the promise of fulfilling mankind's desire to express everything around us in numerals and equals signs. I hope Groff can clarify her vision and allow that beauty to burst through and--at last--astonish us. 

Greenhouse has created, in Belle, a fascinating character--a bright but useless woman, frustrated in all her attempts to make something interesting out of her life, destined, it seems, to a bitter and futile existence. What makes Last Chance for Happiness such a powerful play, though, is how well-realized the other family members are: Belle's is the central, but not the only, crisis simmering in the Ginsberg household. So we come to know, vividly, Belle's husband Leo, a kind-natured but ineffectual nebbish whose lack of ambition and attachment to his mother have kept him from achieving any real success; her mother Fannie, a sour but supremely competent survivor from the Old Country; her daughter Loretta, an attention-starved teenager who longs only to feel normal and loved and who has concocted her own plan of escape (to run off with a 40-year-old Italian); and her nephew Marshall, a mildly flamboyant, obviously gay young man who is dreading having to go to military school in the coming fall. Greenhouse takes us under the skins of all these people, creating an affecting, compassionate portrait of a time and place that is long gone (but capturing, deftly, feelings and frustrations that are timeless and enduring).

This is a lovely script, one that deserves a more extensive production that the Schreiber Studio can provide. As it is, under Lester Thomas Shane's careful but slightly strained direction, most of the personalities and conflicts inherent in Greenhouse's play are given full reign, but the melancholy moodiness doesn't always feel authentic (in addition to Neil Simon and Tennessee Williams, count Anton Chekhov as a key influence on this play). Performances are generally good, with excellent work by Brian Deutsch as the appealing but confused youngster Marshall, Robert Pusilo as plodding underachiever Leo, and Stephanie Schwartz as the difficult grandmother Fannie. Lisa Altomare, however, is at sea in the key role of Belle: the character feels too centered and sensible in her portrayal to truly convince us of her very real failings as wife and mother. (For example, in the very first scene we are told that Belle is incapable of cooking anything properly, but Altomare's confident efficiency in front of the stove suggests otherwise.)

Some of the design touches are perfect: the costumes, especially, by Maria Kenny are dead-on (don't miss the garish ensembles provided to Belle's neighbor Pearl, nicely underplayed by Wendy Charles, and the hilarious get-up for Fannie when she decides to get some sun: plenty of laughs of recognition here). But Hal Tiné's grimly naturalistic sets probably harm the piece more than help it, placing us rather squarely in, say, Ralph Kramden's apartment; instead of in someone's (Marshall's?) memory, which is where Last Chance for Happiness really seems to be taking place.

Split Second, written by Dennis McIntyre in the early '80s, is a strong dramatic work, and it's been well-directed here by Max Daniels for HAI Theatre Festival, featuring outstanding performances by Michael Puzzo (Willis), Arthur French (Val's father Rusty), and Daniel Whitner (Val's friend and fellow cop Charlie), as well as excellent sound design by Brian Hallas. (Eugene Key seems a bit at sea as Val, in a performance that is too low-key to signify the explosion that must be occuring within this character; also a single fashionable gold earring in one ear feels jarrringly out of place here.) What's best about this production, though, is the discussion that follows each performance, facilitated by a the very skillful Rhonda MacLean Nur, providing the audience with a chance to talk about the issues suggested by Val's story. The black-white dichotomy presented by Split Second, particularly in the context of the killing of a defenseless man by a cop, feels ripped from today's headlines: this topic is ripe for this sort of treatment. During the discussion on the night I attended, Nur asked the audience how they themselves could address the issues of racism posed by McIntyre's play. One way, the audience agreed, was to open lines of communication and to foster understanding among blacks and whites; which is precisely what Nur and the folks at HAI make possible, every night, as the racially and economically diverse audiences react and interact following this powerfully provocative play. Bravo!

All that, yet it's as simple as it's possible for a musical retrospective to be: It starts at the beginning, in this case in Berlin, where in the 1920s the young Kurt Weill met up with the radical playwright Bertolt Brecht and embarked on an extraordinary and history-making collaboration. The resulting work was of course The Threepenny Opera, with Weill's cool, jazzy score grafted onto Brecht's ironic, broadly satirical pastiche of Victoriana. We get several samples of this remarkable first endeavor here, from the darkly detached ballads "Barbara Song" and Pirate Jenny" to the rousing "How to Survive" and "Useless" (portents of both Brecht's future politics and his vision of epic theatre). And of course we get the most famous Weill tune of all, "Mack the Knife," rendered here in the familiar Eric Bentley (i.e., Bobby Darin) translation--until, just as we've melted into the easy languor of the lyric's obliquely elusive riddles, we're jarred awake with a sudden switch to the original German: something nasty about "sieben kinder" in Soho.

And therein is the key to the strength of Berlin to Broadway: this is not just a happy, celebratory songfest--this is an exploration of the journey that a great thinking artist made, from the high-energy postwar squalor of burned-out Germany in the 20s, to the uncertain, grimness of Paris in the mid-30s, to the long-dreamed-of safe harbor of freedom and liberty, America, during and immediately after the second World War. Weill's work was informed by his world and his surroundings and also by his collaborators, who were almost always playwrights and poets rather than lyricists. The work from the Berlin period, mostly with Brecht, is audacious and unwieldy and overarchingly brazen; the work from the Broadway period, with Maxwell Anderson, Ira Gershwin, Ogden Nash, Langston Hughes, and Alan Jay Lerner, is more mature, graceful, and thoughtful. All of it is infused with a love for liberty and liberal thinking: the political arc from, say, "Moon of Alabama" to "Lost in the Stars" is astonishingly straight-arrow.

Act One of Berlin to Broadway is Berlin: Threepenny Opera, followed by selections from Happy End, Mahagonny, and Marie Galante. Such energy infuses this work! Highlights include a thrilling medley of "The Bilbao Song" and "The Mandalay Song," breathtakingly performed by Michael Winther and Bjorn Olsson; the unexpectedly moving "Deep in Alaska" (Winther); a stark, bitter, impassioned reading of "Surabaya Johnny" by Lorinda Lisitza; and the company, led by full-throated Judith Jarosz, in "Moon of Alabama." (Not to mention all the Threepenny selections, which are terrific.)

Act Two is Broadway. We begin with some unfamiliar titles from the short-lived anti-war musical Johnny Johnson, and then we come to the Weill standards. Olsson, a young man, smartly approaches the glorious "September Song" more as art song than character song, and his gorgeous baritone makes it work beautifully. Lisitza, backed by Winther and Olsson, goes full throttle on the lusty show-stopper "The Saga of Jenny." Jarosz makes us laugh and cry with a sweet, reflective take on "That's Him" from One Touch of Venus. And Winther does a tender, evocative job with Street Scene's "Lonely House."

None of which quite prepares us for the impact of Olsson's magnificent, powerful "Lost in the Stars" which brings the show to its emotional climax. Actually, it's the dramatic climax as well, because this was Weill's last show; he died, too soon, just a few months after it opened on Broadway. The brilliance of his output--so well-demonstrated in this revue--makes us grieve all the more at his untimely passing.

But the only thing you should be grieving about right now is the fact that you haven't yet bought your tickets for Berlin to Broadway. To reiterate: this is the genuine article--glorious theatre music, beautifully performed by four exciting, enormously talented individuals. Some final thoughts: musical director Jason Wynn is superb; and director/choreographer Hal Simons has done a splendid job of mounting the show with elegance and simplicity. I hate to think of this show closing: original cast recording, anyone? 

Anouilh's Eurydice follows, in broad outline, the classic legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. Here, Orpheus is a young street musician, a fine accordionist who makes his living traveling with his blustery, ne'er-do-well father from town to town. While waiting to board the train to their next destination, Orpheus encounters Eurydice, a beautiful and mysterious young woman who is traveling with a theatrical troupe. They instantly fall in love and plot to run off together. In Act Two, the young lovers, having spent a euphoric night together, find they must deal with Eurydice's past, about which she has heretofore been less than forthcoming; will Orpheus be able to cast aside jealousy and suspicion, and trust--and love--Eurydice unconditionally? Suddenly word comes that Eurydice has been killed. A mysterious man called Monsieur Henri appears and offers Orpheus the chance to spend eternity with Eurydice, in exchange for his own life.

Anouilh's hero makes the same choice as his mythological namesake; but if you don't know the story I won't spoil it for you here. Suffice to say that the decision that Anouilh's Orpheus has to make--idealized romantic love versus earthly care and responsibility--is at once (and paradoxically) the most important decision in the world and the most trivially simple: such are the stakes in a world where things seem to mean, alarmingly, less and less. Anouilh provides a beautiful penultimate scene in which M. Henri and Orpheus's father ruminate about the nature and value of human existence. Hearing this, it would seem that Orpheus almost has no choice to make at all.

Eurydice is a very special, very delicate play, that has thankfully been placed in the hands of a splendid director, John Regis, whose staging of the piece is near-perfect. Anouilh has filled the tale with numerous stylized, atmospheric touches that are realized beautifully by Regis: there's the shadowy silent restaurant cashier, for example, played here by the willowy Kim Bendheim as if she had just popped out of a Lautrec painting; and the two waiters, one noble and one suspect, played with admirable economy by Larry Picard. These characters create a netherworldly, carnival-esque theatricality that informs the world of Orpheus and Eurydice's love story and of the play itself: there's nothing real here, save the deep and honest passion of the two young people. Certainly the pragmatic prattling of Orpheus's father and the hyperbolic blathering of Eurydice's grandiose mother are all to be discounted as lacking substance or heart.

Or are they?: Regis and Anouilh keep us blissfully off-balance in Eurydice. Regis begins and ends the play with a pair of dancers who look and move like marionettes, enacting a timeless pas de deux of love and romance. (Maryanne Chaney and Peter Mantia, who devised and perform this lovely choreography, are excellent, by the way.) But who's holding the strings?

The company is generally fine, with several standout performances worthy of mention. Jeremy Johnson is wonderful as Orpheus's foolish old father, conjuring in places memories of the suave and assured devil-may-care of a Maurice Chevalier as he chats up a lovely young passerby or recalls a long-ago rendezvous with wine and/or women. Lesleh Donaldson and Stephen Thomas Kaiser are delightfully over-the-top as Eurydice's hyper-theatrical mother and her valiant, though perhaps slightly over-the-hill lover, Vincent. Stephen Logan Day plays the villain Dulac with his customary relish. Christian Conn is a touching and appealing Orpheus; Tiffany Weigel has the requisite gamine look for Eurydice but at the performance reviewed seemed too contemporary to be entirely convincing.

Perhaps the most invaluable member of the company, though, is Peter Soave, who provides glorious and virtuosic accompaniment on accordion and bandoneon. This music provides a perfect, moodily restless milieu for Eurydice, at once as specific and as timeless as the concerns--both monumental and intimate--of this play. 

Shakin' the Mess Outta Misery tells the story of an African-American girl and the amazing wise women who raised her. It's structured as a series of reminiscences by Daughter (as she is called), now herself grown up into a smart, self-sufficient young woman; returning from the funeral of the last of her surrogate "mamas," she recalls moments from her childhood, especially the sage advice passed down to her by this remarkable circle of ladies who helped shape her. First and foremost is Big Mama, tough, pious, and pragmatic, guided by faith and common sense to lead a good and proper life. Daughter lives with Big Mama and with her sister Mae Frances, a spirited purveyor of homemade liquor who dallies with local gentlemen at her "factory" every Sunday afternoon.

The other, equally colorful characters remembered with affection by Daughter include Miss Lamama, a loving mountain of a woman with a gift for storytelling; Miss Corrine, a hard-working, lusty lady who runs a beauty shop in her kitchen; Miss Mary, an exotic woman of Caribbean origin who sees the future in her dreams; Miss Tom, a carpenter who lives with another woman named Miss Lily and teaches Daughter about different kinds of love; and Miss Rosa, the dour local undertaker. All provide Daughter with a family unit of love, encouragement, comfort, and advice: whatever their own differences (and they have these aplenty), they are united in their commitment to bring Daughter up right.

The anecdotes that comprise the play are alternately funny, sad, magical, and touching, revealing the hearts and souls of a generation of women whose lives, though difficult, were led with dignity, pride, and courage. Happily, the characters from Daughter's memory are brought to vivid life by the company assembled here. Everyone in the cast has at least one moment to shine: I won't soon forget Geany Masai (Miss Lamama) thundering onto the stage in pursuit of Johnnie Mae (Aunt Mae), caught more or less flagrante delicto with Miss Lamama's husband Otis; or Melody Cooper, as the maverick Miss Tom, teaching Daughter to fish in a nearby creek; or Betty Vaughn as the redoubtable Big Mama, chiding her sister for her liquor business or slowly and elegantly regaling her young charge with yet another wonderful story from her remarkable past.

And then there's Kimberly "Q" Purnell, in a magnificently layered performance as Miss Corrine. For my money, the comic highlight of the show belongs to her, when, following Aunt Mae's assertion that a person can go without sex for a long time, she ponders the notion in a perfectly-timed take that brings the house down: truly thoughtful consideration followed by a knowing rejection of the idea: exquisitely funny and deliciously revelatory of character.

Cheryl Simone is the winningly appealing Daughter at the center of this play: she's onstage for virtually the entire play, convincingly aging from twelve to twenty-five without changing costume or makeup. When her "mamas" reveal the secret of her own real mother's disappearance, or when they take her "to the river" to explain the mysteries of womanhood, we feel what she feels--the warm, loving embrace of people who honestly and deeply care. It's a really nice feeling: the best reason of all for wanting to spend time with the extraordinary women who, nightly, are Shakin' the Mess Outta Misery.  

Rita is concerned about Jeannie's condition, especially about her giving up her chance for a college education. Years ago, circumstances  were such that Rita couldn't go to college and had to settle for marrying Asa. Now, surrounded by people who enjoy her cooking and housekeeping but not her conversation or ideas, Rita is feeling terribly alone. The only person who actually seems to be interested in her is Jimmy, one of Warren's classmates, a frequent visitor to Rita's kitchen for coffee and pie and a confidante, of sorts, to whom Rita can talk about her dreams for her own business. Rita longs for a way out of the rut she's in, onto an unfamiliar but possible path toward self-actualization. And, for a strange and amazing moment, it looks like Jimmy might actually be able to help her get there.

What Rita actually does about pursuing her ill-defined dream, and what happens afterward, are for you to discover when you see When They Speak of Rita at Primary Stages. Like real life, the events of this play always feel both surprising and inevitable: playwright Daisy B. Foote (whose father is Pulitzer Prize-winner Horton Foote) has a clear-eyed, unsentimental capacity for presenting unfettered and unflinching truth on the stage. She has a poet's ear for dialogue, too, perfectly capturing the stark speech rhythms of her stern New England  characters. And she has the dramatist's gift for unearthing the souls of her creations, especially poor, lost Rita, stranded so helplessly by the circumstances of a life that she can't find a way out of.

Foote's sister Hallie takes the role of Rita in this production and she's invaluable to it: this is one of the most finely-tuned, keenly realized portrayals I've ever seen. Every detail of Foote's performance feels exactly right and provides new, remarkable insight into the character. By the end of the play, Foote has revealed Rita's soul to us with a clarity and forcefulness that feels almost invasively intimate. It's a triumphant piece of acting that, for all its subtlety and delicacy, is nevertheless entirely unforgettable.

Foote's four co-stars are doing excellent work here as well. Ken Marks brings great feeling and nuance to the role of Rita's remote but troubled husband Asa; the bond between these two--and its innate irreparability--is clearly and strongly etched. Margot White is enormously sympathetic as Rita's daughter-in-law Jeannie, while Jamie Bennett is by turns appealingly self-involved and brutally detached as her son Warren. Rounding out the company is Ebon Moss-Bachrach, outstanding as the well-meaning but confused Jimmy, on whose clumsy actions so much of the play's plot ultimately turns.

All are directed sensitively and thoughtfully by Horton Foote: the fabric of life among these gallant though uncommunicative souls is brilliantly delineated in the numerous carefully wrought details of Foote's superb staging. Sets (Jeff Cowie), costumes (Debra Stein), lighting (Deborah Constantine), and sound (Fabian Obispo) all work together beautifully to support the visions of both Footes, father and daughter: indeed, this is as near perfect a mounting of this play as I think we can expect to see.

So go, now, and see and hear When They Speak of Rita. Modest and focused in its aspirations, this moving and thoughtful play succeeds admirably in letting us into the heart and soul of its despairing heroine. We leave it understanding just a little more about the human condition than when we came in, which is as noble a purpose for drama as I can think of.

Goldstein's leading man bears watching as well. His name is Jesse Hawkes, and according to the program he is just out of Harvard University. As Shimek, the narrator and protagonist of this sad little tale, he is nothing short of remarkable, growing before our eyes from a restless little boy wrestling with feelings of longing that he doesn't understand, to a wandering young man, grown wise beyond his years with melancholy and loss and regret.  Hawkes also has a beautiful singing voice--this is a musical, remember, though hardly a traditional one (it feels a lot like the recent James Joyce's The Dead stylistically). Hawkes's work here is extraordinary; he and Goldstein are two young talents to keep your eye on.

Others in this worthy company deserve mention: ensemble members Cormac Bluestone, Kathryn Blume, and Vivien Weiss, for example, who provide the musical accompaniment for The Song of Songs as well as take on a variety of roles; Rachel Jacobs, who brings a refreshing authenticity to the role of Shimek's long-suffering mother; and set designer David Korins, costume designer Melissa-Anne Blizzard, and lighting designer Ben Stanton, who have devised a brilliant physical realization for Goldstein's vision of this piece. Rather too brief and special to stand on its own as a fully satisfying evening of theatre, The Song of Songs is nevertheless a terrific showcase for all of these fine young talents. I look forward to seeing what they create next.

To be sure, there are a few missteps in this Twelfth Night. The comic performances aren't nearly funny enough: Chad Smith's Sir Toby Belch feels malevolent instead of good-naturedly cynical and brittle instead of buoyant, and Dan Truman simply pushes too hard as a very buttoned-up Malvolio; both actors should let Shakespeare's supple (and unserious) language guide them to more congenial interpretations of their roles. Likewise Ron Riley's Feste, who seems much influenced by David Patrick Kelly's in the recent Lincoln Center revival of Twelfth Night, is perhaps rawer and edgier than he needs to be. Antonio's very evident sexual interest in Sebastian feels jarring and contributes to a dispiritingly dark tone that undermines the play's second half. Oh, and one final quibble: costume designer Madeleine Dorsey has correctly dressed Sebastian and Viola/Cesario identically; but she has also put the same uniform on Orsino's other servants: a small but noticeable error.

To the extent that I found some new things in the play that I hadn't noticed before--especially in the words of Criscuolo's Orsino and Benedict's Viola--this Twelfth Night must be counted a success. Hats off to Jordan and his ambitious young company for tackling such a complicated an delicate work and for acquitting themselves so decently.

In the program, the ISC's manifesto is clearly stated: "We gave ourselves certain limitations. Minimal lights, no elaborate sets or costumes to create a location and era, sound effects generated by the performers themselves." The objective is to provide audiences with an experience as fresh and immediate as the one playgoers had in Shakespeare's day (and, indeed, still deserve: hear, hear, I say). At the same time, the actors are challenged to hold our attention armed with just their voices and the glorious words that Shakespeare has provided for them.

It's a challenge that would daunt many, but the seven individuals who inhabit this Macbeth--taking some twenty-one roles among them--rise to it splendidly. It's rare to find acting of such consistent high quality off-off-Broadway (come to think of it, it would be a gift to find a cast this good on Broadway). David Melville, the ISC's co-founder, delivers a solid and intriguing take on Macbeth himself, portraying him as growing progressively more mad as his crimes and paranoia pile up. Melissa Chalsma (the company's other co-founder) is a compellingly ambitious Lady Macbeth, convincingly beyond redemption in the sleepwalking scene; she also plays, briefly but memorably, Macduff's young son with a wonderful childlike innocence that is exactly antithetical to the Lady's guile.

Each of the other five actors shines: Kelly AuCoin is a thoughtful, virile Macduff, at his best in the exciting duel with Macbeth that caps the play; Carole Healey is a refreshingly intelligent Lady Macduff and excellent in various other small parts; John Keating is terrific as Banquo, able, as the spirit of the murdered soldier, to convey more with his doleful dark eyes than most actors can with their entire bodies; Carine Montbertrand has lovely moments as Malcolm and as the most eager of the murderers engaged by Macbeth; and John Thomas Waite manages impressive shadings on sage stolidness as Duncan, Lennox, and the Doctor.

The witches are played with artful simplicity by Healey, Montbertand, and Waite; their scenes--shrewdly reduced to their essentials--are staged with refreshing straightforwardness: no bizarre directorial conceits are in evidence here or elsewhere. That's the hallmark of this production, in fact: true to their mission, the ISC actors concentrate on delivering the timeless poetry of Macbeth and for the most part push everything else out of the way. This is a production where the apparitions conjured by the witches exist spookily only in Macbeth's (and our) imaginations: sometimes the most obvious choice is the best one. Effects, when used, are spare and appropriate: some stirring, mood-enhancing music (played by the actors when needed); some impressive sword-fighting, well-staged by Roy Guill; and yes, some vividly red stage blood, employed in the just right quantity, especially during the scene where Macbeth imagines he sees Banquo's ghost (I won't tell you exactly how--you'll have to see the show for yourself).

The program tells us that The Independent Shakespeare Company is taking this production to France after the run ends here in New York. I wish them well, but hope they'll be back soon: I will look forward eagerly to their next effort. These folks are doing Shakespeare the way it should be done, focusing squarely on what makes these plays great (i.e., the text) and leaving most of the rest to the audience to conjure in their mind's eye.

The Laramie Project is the most significant new work of this theatre season; and it's the most significant work of theatre currently playing in New York City. Artistically, it's magnificent--a thrilling and adventurous blend of story-telling, documentary journalism, and spellbinding theatrical showmanship. Thematically--culturally, socially, politically--it's monumental: an exploration of how we, as individuals and as members of a society, can find meaning in a world from which meaning is being progressively and systematically stripped away. The Laramie Project asks how America at the turn of the millennium can make sense of experience, and offers itself as a sublimely compelling answer to its own question. If you care about the theatre--if you care about the world you live in--The Laramie Project will speak profoundly and directly to you. It is not to be missed.

The Project begins, as it began, on November 14, 1998, about a month after Matthew Shepard died in a hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, following a brutal and senseless attack by two young men who claimed he had come on to them sexually. Moises Kaufman, who gained attention with his play Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, and ten members of his Tectonic Theatre Company, set off for Laramie, Wyoming, where Shepard had lived and been murdered, in search of understanding and in search of a play. Over the course of a year---an eventful one that included the trials of both of Shepard's assailants and numerous media-grabbing brouhahas in Laramie and elsewhere protesting, pro and con, the hatreds and bigotries that underlay the crime--Kaufman and his collaborators interviewed dozens of people in Laramie, recorded personal observations about the case and the process in journals, and documented the facts and artifacts related to the Shepard case that were blazing a trail through the national media and into public consciousness and posterity.

And they made a play: this play, which charts the journey of ten questing souls in search of--not truth, exactly--insight about the human condition. The Laramie Project tells the story of the Shepard killing and its dramatic aftermath, but that's not what it's about. No, The Laramie Project is a living testament to tolerance and learning: a chronicle of bearing witness and of gaining understanding. The Tectonic team comes to Laramie as prepared to judge as we come to this play--there really does seem to be an overriding plot, here, that separates right from wrong, that identifies the good guys and the bad guys. But human contact--manifestations of this profound business of living--makes for more complicated theatre than the media circus that we and they lived through just a year and a half ago. Sure there are a few villains--institutional ones, mostly, like some organized religions and, especially, the international media complex. But mostly there are stories--sometimes guileless, sometimes self-serving, always astonishingly personal--of human beings struggling to make sense out of something that makes no sense. And doing so in the face of a cultural establishment that seems determined to reduce it all to soundbite-sized nonsense.

Act Three of The Laramie Project begins at Matthew Shepard's funeral. As the lights come up, we see a few rows of simple, hard-backed wooden chairs, on which are seated members of the company, all dressed in black, some holding umbrellas. (It snowed the day Shepard was buried.) The immediate connection is to Our Town, and it's not at all accidental: The Laramie Project, like that earlier play, is very much a celebration of the spirit of ordinary people. Faced with a tragedy of incomprehensible horror, how does a family, a community, a culture deal with their experience? What is learned? What survives?

The remarkable third act of this play focuses squarely on these questions, moving us from the more simplistic interpretations of political and religious leaders to the more lasting, complex conclusions drawn by the people of Laramie who actually lived with the Shepard case day in and day out. The most emotional moment in The Laramie Project is not one of the obvious climactic ones drawn from the public record, but instead the one where Laramie policewoman Reggie Fluty, who was exposed to Shepard's contaminated blood while tending to his wounds, learns that she is HIV-negative. "I stuck my tongue right into my husband's mouth," she cries jubilantly in a burst of spontaneity a thousand times more compelling than any prepared plea for mercy or hospital pronouncement could ever hope to be.

I can't imagine the kind of visceral impact that seeing this show must have on the people whose voices are so faithfully recreated in it. I can't imagine, either, how the actors, writers and other creative people who built and shaped The Laramie Project can manage to perform it night after night: the emotion in this play is absolutely palpable, and it builds to a heart-stopping climax as the piece progresses and then ends. Writer-director Kaufman, who is a character but not a performer in the show, must now be regarded as one of the key visionary creators of theatre in America today. His collaborators--Leigh Fondakowski (also a character but not a performer), and Stephen Belber, Amanda Gronich, John McAdams, Andy Paris, Greg Pierotti, Barbara Pitts, and Kelli Simpkins (all participants and actors in the piece)--are all doing astonishing work here, deserving of the most lavish commendation. Kudos, too, to performer Mercedes Herrero, set designer Robert Brill, costume designer Moe Schell, lighting designer Betsy Adams, video/slide designer Martha Swetzoff, and composer Peter Golub, all of whom have made important contributions to the seamlessly brilliant work of art that The Laramie Project finally is.

As someone who attends theatre almost every day of his life, I ask myself frequently why theatre matters. The Laramie Project reminds us, exhilaratingly and compellingly, why it's so necessary for us to come together, as an audience/community, to share stories that help us understand who we are. What happened to Matthew Shepard can never be fully understood or explained. But what happened to the people who created and who have been touched by this extraordinary show gets reaffirmed, powerfully, every night that The Laramie Project is performed.

You can almost certainly guess how all of this plays out (and if you know the play The Guardsman by Ferenc Molnar, on which this show is based, than you won't have to). The charm of Enter the Guardsman is watching how these lovers--the most extravagantly actorly actors imaginable, by the way--negotiate their way through this perilous enterprise of their own making; and enjoying, with the playwright and four other backstage denizens, the vicarious delight of this folly of love.

Scott Wentworth has fashioned a serviceable and sometimes witty book for this musical, and Craig Bohmler and Marion Adler have written a score that, if a little on the dark side, is filled with genuine theatre songs, including two quite lovely ones--the title song, which provides a rousing climax for the show's first act, and "Art Imitating Life," a pretty waltz that serves as the evening's valedictory and finale. The collaborators seem to have decided early on that Enter the Guardsman needed to be an intimate chamber musical, and they've mostly succeeded in making it so. But every so often the material feels like it's ready to burst out of the modest confines of its genre and become the full-fledged, big-budget Broadway spectacular that they almost certainly in their heart of hearts wanted to write. In a more hospitable era, Enter the Guardsman, with its two big-voiced, high-profile leading men in tow, would be in the big Broadway house where it belongs.

Which brings me to Robert Cuccioli, best-known as the original star of Jekyll and Hyde. His work here is a revelation: he's actually a fine comic actor, along the lines of, say, Kevin Kline, and he brings to the role of the actor an appealing bravado and hangdog foolishness that suits the character perfectly. Cuccioli is the best thing about Enter the Guardsman, and indeed one of its failings is that he has so little to do (and sing) in the second act.

Marla Schaffel sings prettily as the actress but her acting is less assured than her co-stars': she never really succeeds in making us believe that she is the sought-after worldly sophisticate that the story suggests. The other four company members do fine work, particularly Derin Altay as the actress's dresser and Rusty Farracane as a flamboyant wigs master, but their presence in the piece is problematic: if the show is to be truly intimate, then these characters don't need to be in it; and if the show is to be as explosively grand as its creators really seem to wish, then a chorus of four is simply too small. Indeed, Enter the Guardsman suffers from the same schizophrenia that afflicts its hero. Unfortunately, this fundamental problem never really gets resolved here. Neither hit nor miss, Enter the Guardsman is a pleasant enough diversion. But it's hard not to wish that it were better. 

Safe, comfortable, and free here in the USA, it's hard to watch, let alone accept, the harrowing events recounted in Closet Land. That's why this play is so very important for us to see: if indeed such things as the systematic degradation and torture practiced on Closet Land's heroine still happen somewhere in the world--and they do--we must open our eyes and ears and hearts to observe, listen, and care.

Here's what occurs in Closet Land: a woman, author of several popular children's books, is assaulted and brought to some kind of prison. Eventually she learns that she has been arrested as an enemy of the state: her new story "Closet Land" (a draft of which has somehow been acquired by her questioners) is thought to be subversive and to contain coded references to an underground  opposition movement.  The writer swears she is completely apolitical, but it doesn't matter and anyway it's too late. What follows is her brutal torture, intended to compel her confession: a horrible and terrible program designed to break her body and her spirit, all the more awful for its calculated deliberateness.

Along the way, issues of moral responsibility are raised. The writer recalls a time when she stood by silently while people who lived in her apartment were taken away in the night, presumably to a place very much like the one she now finds herself in. The resonance of her memory is not lost on us in the audience, forced here to become observers of acts that run counter to the most fundamental precepts of humanity.

Director Jeremy B. Cohen has staged Closet Land expertly, keeping the show taut and focused without ever falling into sensationalism or monotony. Rana Kazkaz gives a harrowingly intense performance as the imprisoned writer; Allyn Burrows's portrayal of her enigmatic torturer is a deeply layered, scary portrait of moral ambiguity. The deceptively spare set by Ted LeFevre, the spectacularly tricky lighting by Jaymi Lee Smith, and the techno-wizardly sound deign by Lindsay Jones all contribute much to the effectiveness of the production.

Closet Land would be powerful stuff even if it were not blessed with a superb production. That it is makes it all the more required viewing for those who care about the theatre and the world around them.

The first--what?--movement of A Place Like This reminds us of the C.J. Hopkins we know from Horse Country and other works: a sardonic, funny harangue about who we are and where we are, ontological rumination disguised as playful shtick that makes us laugh but also, ever so subtly, disarms, maybe even dislodges us. The ten people on stage, whoever they are, keep talking about what they're going to do and what they're not going to do. They keep alluding to an unspecified moment when they're going to start doing and not doing, but it never comes. Fine: we've seen Godot; we've read our Artaud: we know where we are.

And then, suddenly, we're somewhere else. Essentially, we're in a Place like That, the alternative to the Place like This (i.e., where we're actually sitting). That Place is the sanitized, sterile world of the Shopping Mall, beachhead of millennial American life, captured to perfection by Hopkins in all its gross, colorful colorlessness:

Those little fountain areas.
All that chrome.
All those little colored lights reflecting off those walls of glass.
And all that metal.
And all those people.
Walking around.
In a happy daze.
Almost sleepwalking.
Like in a haze.
And it was nice, really. Wasn't it?

And then, swiftly and without warning, we're back to a Place like This: this very Place, in fact; which is to say a theatre, this theatre, where we and ten ghosts are witnesses to this, possibly last, play. The sorrowful valedictory of this final movement of A Place Like This is heartbreaking, conjuring thousands of general and specific memories and images of the vital essence of theatrical experience with brilliantly evocative and economical language. With breathtaking, startling, painful clarity, Hopkins reminds us of "what could be done here....and can still happen."

If it at all sounds hopelessly abstract or precious, then that's my fault: A Place Like This is emphatically none of those things. It's a raw, emotional, powerhouse of theatre, the sort of experience that builds and builds until you think you're going to explode. It's densely packed, not only with the main thematic thread that I've followed here, but with savagely ripe reflections on subjects ranging from consumerism to popular culture to the fundamental nature of social organization. It's kept me up part of both nights since I've seen it, which is perhaps not the most remuneratory recommendation for a play but, for me, says everything about how essential and compelling A Place Like This turns out be.

Hopkins serves as his own director on this piece, and his staging is taut and intelligent. His writing is, if anything, more specific and more vivid than it's ever been: pieces of A Place Like This sound like poetry--music, even: as clearly and resoundingly emotive as aria, sometimes. The ten actors who perform A Place Like This are Frederick Backus, Dan Berkey, Rachael Biernat, Nicole Higgins, Dan Hope, Frank Anthony Polito, Emmanuella Souffrant, Eva van Dok, Kate Ward, and Malachi Weir, and they are as cohesive and dedicated an ensemble as you're likely to see anywhere. (That said, I would be remiss not to make special mention of the incredible and incomparable Dan Berkey, whose every moment on stage reflects, with thundering intensity, the galvanizing themes of this play.)

A Place Like This is, then, either a wake or a wake-up call for people who care about theatre. (Beginning on May 31, it will play on a double-bill with John Clancy's Notice of Default and Opportunity to Cure, an entirely different variation on some of the same themes.) It confirms C.J. Hopkins's place in the pantheon on emerging new theatre writers.  It's unlike anything you've ever seen; and it absolutely demands to be seen.