nytheatre Archive
2000-01 Theatre Season Reviews

The title of the new Amnesia Wars show Psycheroticproviholicyesand- somthinvoodoo is exactly accurate: the show really is psycheroticproviholic; and yes, there is somethin voodoo about it as well: that credibility-defying way these four performers have of knowing, seemingly extrasensorily, what each of the others is about to do. The best improv is part great acting, part brilliant comic timing, and part raw psychic energy. Rob Reese, Jason Evans, Jennifer Nails, and Jared Robinson possess these traits in greater quantities than practically any human beings I know of. Their show, an hour-and-a-half of unscripted theatre, is as dynamic and thrilling and surprising as a great amusement park ride; or, shifting metaphors, as jaw-droppingly adrenalin rush-provoking as a netless highwire act. 

Okay, so what exactly is this new Amnesia Wars show? Well, it's a two-part tour de force that uses teeny slips of suggestions from the audience to craft off-the-wall, high-energy, high-intelligence improvised comedy. It starts with a request for an everyday household object (at the show I attended, the one named was a blender). We then witness the troupe's warm-up: mental and occasionally physical gymnastics, as the four players wrap their minds and funny bones around the concept of a blender. And then comes the first long-form improvisation, spun magically just from that one word; here, a seriocomic look at two roommates throwing a party. The scene, surprisingly, is in two parts; it's broken up by a series of hilarious blackout sketches, all created on the fly--not exactly variations on a theme, but a linked stream-of-consciousness that reminds us of a long, weird dream: off-kilter but entirely pleasant.

Part two starts with three locations called out by the audience (a manhole, an igloo, and purgatory were the ones provided at the show I attended). The actors then improvise something called "The Lola," which turns out to be a fugue of sorts, of linked stories set in each of these strange places, played out a total of three times, as the invented characters try to improve or enhance their destinies.

If it all sounds precious or abstract, then I haven't done the show justice (if it sounds odd and unlike any other theatre you've ever seen, then I have). The thing is, there's structure to what Amnesia Wars does, but it's hardly at all like the more rigid "theatresports" routines that dominate the improv of shows like Chicago City Limits or Whose Line Is It, Anyway? This is looser, more spontaneous, and way more dangerous: as challenging for the audience as it is for the performers. Expect death-defying turns and giddily weird developments: a married couple in an igloo obsessing over a video of The Music Man, perhaps, or a rock icon named Jack scratching his autograph onto a dead fan's arm. You have to be there, or more accurately, you have to go there: Amnesia Wars, in all its superbly witty splendor, has to be experienced to be fully appreciated.

The thing about real spontaneous theatre--the kind that's practiced so deftly by Centralia--is that it's actually spontaneous. As in: spontaneous combustion. You never know when or how the combusting will happen, but in the course of an hour-long Centralia show, explosive stuff always occurs. I love to watch these guys because they're smart, they're witty, they're genuinely funny, and they're perpetually on the edge. The danger and the joy of the creative process are continuously in evidence: what could be more exhilarating to watch than that?

What happens in a Centralia show is that the lights go down and then three guys--Matt Higgins, Jay Rhoderick, and Kevin Scott--appear on stage in the darkness. And then they create the show, off the cuff. No audience suggestions, no scripted sketches; no rules, particularly, except an unstated one that, to the extent possible, all loose ends will be securely knotted together before the performance is over. Vulgarity and cheap laughs are generally eschewed; offbeat, nonlinear, non-sequitur humor is embraced; insane, apparently risky physicality is encouraged. Think the Flying Karamazov Brothers, except there's no juggling--and there's no script.

I will try, now, to convey some of the delicious and invigorating lunacy of the most recent Centralia performance I attended: The opening sally ("I'm going to tell your sister!") leads to a minor fracas between two construction workers, quickly broken up by the foreman, who proceeds to demonstrate the futility of violence in the workplace by roughing up one of the workers. One of the guys climbs up the scaffolding, which is transformed into a "cage" where a "stop-less" dancer is entertaining a client. The dancer gets some useful romantic advice from one of her co-workers ("You have to set boundaries") before embarking on a weekend trip to the mountains with her client and one of his buddies.

From the mountains we move to a backyard where a strange but kindly old woman hanging up her laundry decides to give college money to the local grocery delivery kid (he winds up with a vice-presidency at Exxon). Next thing we know, we're on board an oil tanker, making its final voyage under a crazed commander who decides to run it aground in St. Louis. And now we're in St. Louis, a hundred years or more in the past, enjoying the adventures of Dude Feldstein and his wonder horse Phineas. (Turns out Phineas really is a wonder: in the next scene, he and Dude bilk a tourist out of fifty bucks playing Three-Card Monte--with Phineas dealing the cards.)

A noisy, spontaneous Stomp-like demonstration on a pickle tub and a ladder turns out to be the fanfare for the dedication of the St. Louis Arch. And then the stories start to resolve themselves: the "stop-less" dancer's client turns out to be the husband of that sweet, weird old lady with the laundry. They reconcile over a pie filled with flies (you had to be there). And then, suddenly, we're back at the construction site, where the adversarial workers have a reconciliation of their own. Curtain.

I have no idea if the foregoing reads as funny as it played the other night (probably not). Apart from the humor of it, though, it's essential to communicate the sheer fun of the process at Centralia: when the actor scampered up that scaffolding at the beginning of the show, he didn't know what he was going to do next until he reached the top. Observing and experiencing the continual, magical interplay--watching the decisions about the performance get made in real time--is every bit as rewarding as laughing at the improvised jokes and shtick.

Mark Levenson creates appropriate musical accompaniment throughout, invaluably. Wavetek is credited with the spontaneous light design, which is also mystifyingly, miraculously awesome.

Diversity is the hallmark here, both in terms of content and form. The seven short works included in Eve's Apple run the gamut from monologue to avant-garde cut-up text to out-and-out performance art; topics covered vary from the most intimate feelings about language and gender to blatant socio-political satire and commentary. What they have in common is the unstoppable desire to get our attention and make us listen. Some deliver their messages more effectively than others, but there's never any doubt that the women responsible for these pieces, onstage and off, have something significant to say.

So here's a quick rundown on what they're saying: Series A, first, consists of four pieces. Don't just do something, sit there is Julie Blumenthal's meditation on meditation, which begins cleverly self-referential and climaxes in a call-to-arms for the ecologically and socially conscious that's commendably earnest but perhaps a bit facile: I would have liked the piece to delve a bit deeper into the underlying reasons for the behaviors it abhors. Anna, the KGB and a Chocolate Lab by Alison Solomon is a defiantly oblique and angry piece about the lengths a woman will (must?) go to succeed in the corporate world; loaded with device and symbolism (phallic bananas everywhere, for example), it's intriguingly performed by Beth Tapper but at least to this observer doesn't amount to much once you get the point. The Ice Lid, by Thea Emily Nelson (with co-writer Michael Stock) is a pretty poem about achieving awareness of nature and self, nicely performed by Nelson in the guise of an inquisitive and indomitable eight-year old. There's some really neat imagery here, and with some editing and tightening this has the potential to work some real magic.

Angry Little People is the strongest piece in Series A, at least in part because its text, taken from work by the late Philip-Dimitri Galas, is so evocative and powerful; but also because it's performed beautifully by Margaret Cino, under the sensitive direction of her collaborator Carolyn Raship. Angry Little People is hardly a play in the traditional sense, yet it's the most fully-realized dramatic work in the festival. It's the internal monologue of a desperate woman, examining her stifling existence as she sees it and as it's seen by others. With extraordinary delicacy and subtlety, Cino gets under this woman's skin and lets us experience the tragedy of her life almost from within. Very special stuff indeed.

Three pieces comprise Series B. Julia Barclay's Cut Up is a moody stream-of-consciousness monologue of a woman contemplating (defining?) her identity in terms of gender, language, and religion. It's nicely directed by Barclay and beautifully performed by Monica Sirginano. Cut Up is, indeed, a cut-up text, which means it's a kind of collage of various found texts; Sirignano's careful, studied delivery suggests how this almost-randomly concatenated prose gets acquired by and assimilated into the woman's consciousness.

Next up is Alice Starr McFarland's Monster, which is the slightest piece in Eve's Apple. It's a contemporary woman's angry rumination on the Marilyn Monroe mystique: interesting and well-argued but lacking real bite or spirit (it feels more like a term paper than a show).

But the last piece, America's Royal Miss, is the strongest and, I think, likeliest break-out hit, among the festival offerings. Sharply written and performed by Rachel Solomon, it's a scathingly funny exploration of contemporary American society, filtered through the eyes of baby beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, here not killed but growing up, cruelly dysfunctionally, into a very messed-up 16-year-old. Solomon and her director Tania Kirkman have conceived JonBenet as a crucible for the misguided obsessions of the culture around her, with brilliantly satiric results. This piece is marred only by occasional interruptions by an unneeded narrator. I hope America's Royal Miss has a life after Eve's Apple: it's a canny, well-crafted work of theatre.

So there you have it: a couple of solid hits, lots of intriguing experimentation, expression, and innovation; no real misses. Not bad stats for a festival; really impressive ones when you know that Screaming Venus is a brand-new company, less than a year old. They've already positioned themselves as a group to keep an eye on; Eve's Apple offers more tantalizing evidence of the interesting work that lies in their future.

What does it mean to be a woman today in America? Barbara Blackburn, an accomplished writer and performer, answers that huge and complicated question in her smart, incisive, extremely funny one-woman show Extreme Girl. Blackburn shows us women trying to live up to unattainable expectations--of society, the media, men, and themselves; and she shows us women who have found successful ways to negotiate through or around them. Filled with passion, rage, embarrassment, indignation, and hope, Extreme Girl is ultimately upbeat about the prognosis for womankind. It's at once a bitingly satiric and warmly human show, brimming with enormous humor and goodwill.

Extreme Girl is structured as a series of vignettes, each built around an exemplar of contemporary American womanhood. We meet Cynthia, a teenage girl trying to figure out how to grow up and how to keep a boyfriend and her self-respect. We listen to the leggy spokeswoman for the Bimboists, a kind of living "dumb blonde" joke who starts to dance when she can't remember what she's supposed to say next. We watch Chanel, a "recovering centerfold," re-enact an embarrassing moment when, picking up an earring, she got stuck on the floor in one of her Playboy photo spread poses. And we pay strict attention to a professional Disciplinarian who advises women to empower themselves by standing in the middle of the street and daring buses to run them over.

There's also, briefly, a woman who speaks in a high-pitched cartoonish Japanese whine--poster girl, it seems, for the "Geisha Syndrome" afflicting American women. And, in Extreme Girl's funniest sequence, we learn about what men really want in a woman: a lifelike facsimile, manufactured by Mercedes-Benz--one that can't talk, can't gain weight, and never has a headache.

Our guide through this post-feminist morass is Extreme Girl's most together character, an American woman who has decided to become French because it makes her feel more empowered. With her, we explore the conflicting messages and images that today's women are forced to process and cope with: have it all, satisfy your man, satisfy yourself, be thin, be beautiful, be young, be powerful, and so on. This utterly confident, comfortable, self-invented lady knows that the answer is to be yourself: her autobiography, she says, will be titled "Don't You Wish You Knew What I Meant."

This is the third production of Extreme Girl (earlier versions played at the Atlantic and Currican Theatres in 1998 and 2000, respectively). It's exciting to see how successfully the work has evolved: Blackburn the writer has solved earlier problems here to create a tight, unified play about the State of the American Woman. And Blackburn the actress just gets better and better personifying her characters, each of whom is outlandish enough to be interesting but humane enough to be real.

Well, here's the niftiest surprise of the season: Game Show is terrific. This is the audience show we've been waiting for; it feels like a giant hit, and absolutely deserves to be. I had a better time at Game Show than at any show currently on Broadway.

Obviously we're not talking high art here. But there is a kind of art to creating a high-energy, high-spirited entertainment, and Game Show's creators Jeffrey Finn and Bob Walton are practitioners of the first order. Smoothly directed by Mark Waldrop and sharply cast with a crackerjack ensemble of actors who are also gifted at stand-up comedy and improv, Game Show is as well-oiled a theatrical machine as anything in town. It's also one that looks deceptively simple; but be assured that the magic being worked by Finn, Walton and their collaborators is the real thing.

What makes Game Show so good? To start with, there's an actual game show at the heart of it, a relaxed yet compelling trivia contest that would probably work just fine on TV. Game Show's game show features a dozen contestants, selected more or less randomly from the audience, who compete for prizes by answering a series of questions--questions, by the way, that are challenging enough to keep things interesting. Three of these contestants move on to the final rounds, which feature neat variations on the quiz show theme, until one of them wins the game (and a reasonably nice prize: at the show I attended, it was a DVD player). Throughout the program, a few other audience members are awarded t-shirts or gift certificates as well. All in all, not a bad deal.

But quite apart from Game Show's neat spin on interactivity, the show grabs us with its brilliantly executed verisimilitude. Seeing Game Show is almost exactly like seeing a real TV game show: it's got a snappy theme song, a gaudy but agreeable set, snazzy lighting effects, and cool computer graphics (visible on monitors framing the stage). Best of all, it's got an ideal host in Michael McGrath's Troy Richards--a quizmaster par excellence whose egoism is matched only by his professionalism. McGrath/Richards is unfailingly on-the-ball, ready with snappy comebacks or helpful directions as required by the contestants before him. 

Backing up this simulated live TV show is a simulated backstage drama that is surprisingly involving. The premise is that emcee Richards is threatening to quit the show unless his contractual demands are met; spicing things up are producer Ellen Ryan, who may or may not be on Troy's side, and Steve Fox, the warmup guy who is angling for Troy's job. In the mix, also, are various backstage personalities such as cameramen Joe McGuire and Gerry Smith, production assistant Johnny Wilderman, and Ellen's secretary, Penny. There's also a spectacularly wonderful surprise that will wow you when you discover it.

All the backstage types are remarkably well-played. Cheryl Stern is a one-woman soap opera as the conniving producer Ellen, while Jeb Brown is just this side of smarmy as the opportunistic warm-up comic. Joel Blum, Brandon Williams, and especially Dana Lynn Maura are outstanding in multiple roles. And Jeremy Ellison-Gladstone practically walks away with the show as earnest, naive Johnny, who brings fandom to new levels with his worshipful adoration for Troy and the show.

Enough said: head over to Bleecker 45 and enjoy Game Show for yourself. I have a feeling it's going to be the talk of the town for quite a while.

Ironic references to iconic popular culture are so pervasive these days that you hardly notice them anymore. That's one of the reasons that I like Marc Maron's one-man show Jerusalem Syndrome so much: he replaces the empty irony with genuine curiosity and brings these modern-day idols of ours into proper focus. What does "Coca-Cola" mean; more to the point, what does Coca-Cola mean? Like a millennial McLuhan, Maron turns his sharp comic sensibility and his sharper intelligence on the images that bombard us every day, trying to ferret out the messages inherent in them. And he succeeds, too: loaded with penetrating insight, immense heart, and devastating humor, Jerusalem Syndrome is a splendid entertainment and a tremendous achievement: the best show of its kind since Lisa Kron's 2.5 Minute Ride. 

Jerusalem Syndrome is, according to Maron, an actual psychological diagnosis: a condition whereby a person believes that he or she is receiving instructions from God. In the hilarious introduction to this 90-minute monologue, Maron quickly catalogues the boyhood of privilege that gave him the chutzpah to consider himself one of these anointed few; and then during the even funnier body of the show he recounts some of the extraordinary journeys he has made to fulfill his presumed promise. Tongue-in-cheek, to be sure; but Maron delivers, in heartening, thought-provoking style, what amounts to, for want of a better word, prophesy for the Information Age. You'll laugh your head off during his show, and then think about and discuss what you heard feverishly for hours afterward.

Keen and incisive observations about the world we live in abound in Jerusalem Syndrome. Maron compares Hollywood to Jerusalem (both built by Jews in the desert to house the religious dogma of their respective ages); and he contrasts Jerusalem with his Queens apartment building (Jews, Christians, and Muslims co-exist in both, but in Queens when there's a conflict they rise up against the Dominican landlord). He takes us on a tour of the Philip Morris factory (where he rides in a motorized theme park trolley whose cars are named for cigarette brands), and on a pilgrimage to the grave of Jack Kerouac. 

The centerpiece of Jerusalem Syndrome is Maron's account of his trip to Israel, ordained, he says, by God, who appeared to him one night in a vision instructing him to buy a Sony camcorder. Maron takes us first to The Wiz, where the holy object is on sale for $899, deftly recreating the commonplace yet dreaded experience of buying electronic equipment at a chain store. Having secured the object, Maron and his wife embark for Israel, where they will tour places like Tel Aviv, Masada, the Golan Heights, and Jerusalem itself; and where, Sony camera firmly fixed to arm and eye, Maron will fail to experience anything, determined instead to capture it all on videotape. It's this disconnectedness from the world that Maron's been chosen to warn us against, you see; listen to him talk about his Job-like struggle to maintain that disconnectedness, literally embodied by the Sony, in the face of a near-Biblical run of wanton camcorder destruction. This is a man who has learned something from his wanderings in the desert.

Maron's material is matched by his delivery, which is manic yet enagaging, and by his quick and ready wit. He connects palpably with the audience; Jerusalem Syndrome, though not at all interactive, feels less like stand-up or theatre than an intense discussion with a very articulate friend. 

This is a provocative work, in the very best sense of that word: Maron means to jolt us out of our fashionable ironic detachment. I advise you to get jolted as soon as possible: there's not a funnier or smarter show in town. 

Lackawanna Blues is a tender, touching look back at a community and a way of life that's probably extinct nowadays. In this one-man show, which is at least as much storytelling as it is drama, Tony-winning actor Ruben Santiago-Hudson recounts tales from his childhood, spent in a boarding house in Lackawanna, New York in the late 1950s and '60s.

In those days, Santiago-Hudson tells us, Lackawanna was one of dozens of booming industrial cities along the Great Lakes, attracting Southern Blacks to its factories with promises of regular work and good pay. Many such migrants are depicted in Lackawanna Blues, including one Rachel Crosby, called Nanny by just about everyone, the formidable woman who ran the boarding house and raised Ruben more or less single-handedly. Santiago-Hudson paints a vivid and loving portrait of Nanny, and in many ways Lackawanna Blues is his loving tribute to her.

But the piece is actually at its best when it focuses on the eccentric, colorful characters who lived with Nanny and young Ruben: people like Mr. Lemuel Taylor, a one-legged fellow whom Nanny rescued from a local mental hospital; or Numb Finger Pete, who lost all but two fingers to frostbite in a bitter snowstorm; or Ol' Po' Carl, veteran of the Negro baseball leagues, who "was what they called a 'Eva' handed pitcher. I could pitch with Eva hand, left or right." Santiago-Hudson has written these men with great humor, warmth, and insight, and he does a wonderful job bringing each of them to life.

Lackawanna Blues doesn't finally accomplish much beyond its recreation of a particular time and place. But it's clear that its creator has a need to get these stories told, and we're fortunate to hear them.

Blues guitarist Bill Sims, Jr. provides evocative accompaniment throughout. 

Lipstick Traces by Greil Marcus is an amazing book of cultural criticism, and the Rude Mech's adaptation of Marcus's messy and marvelous analysis is a wonder to behold. It is intelligent, fun and wonderfully staged, making it a must-see for lovers of punk and the historical avant-garde alike. 

Director Shawn Sides and writer Kirk Lynn hone in on the central concern of the unwieldy tome. Punk's penchant for negation, Marcus discerns, has far-reaching roots: the cabarets of the Dadaists during the '10s and '20s, the spectacles of Guy Debord during the Paris riots of '68, and perhaps even as far back as the ramblings of an aptly named 16th-century heretic John of Leyden who saw work as "unnatural." But rather than stage the argument, Sides and Lynn make it live by turning the book into a burlesque of events, all held together by a manic narrator clad in leather pants. It is a theatrical treat to see a staging of a Dadaist evening complete with a performance of a Hugo Ball sound poem. And the recreation of a Debord film, where a majority of the film is taken up by nothing more than a black screen, is amazingly funny. 

The cast does a stellar job, with enough piss and vinegar to pull the whole thing off, and there are some fabulous dead-on impersonations to boot. David Greenspan does a great David Greenspan-as-Malcolm McLauren, the Sex Pistol's "pervert" of a manager. And James Urbaniak gives his Debord the right amount of French ironic earnestness. T. Ryder Smith is suitably creepy and compelling as Dada headmaster Richard Huelsenbeck. Jason Liebrecht, to his credit, has the hardest job: the near-impossible feat of playing Johnny Rotten. But Liebrecht pulls off Rotten's audition for the Sex Pistols with great aplomb. Alice Cooper was never this scary when he sang "I'm Eighteen." 

There is so much to admire about this production, and much of the credit needs to go to Sides's flawless direction: tight and economical, yet far-reaching in scope. The script itself, however, could use some further thought, as it repeats some of the problems found in Marcus's argument. Where the hell did any discussion of class go? The Dadaists and Debord were hardly the working class kids that made up the British punk scene, and such a distinction is important to recognize. And in a book dominated by men, it seems a strange choice to add a sole female character, Dr. Narrator, only to make her a hysterical sexpot in tight pants, Ph.D. or no Ph.D. 

But such thoughts are, in the final analysis, only a testament to this smart and fun show. Your ears ring and your mind is spinning when you leave the Ohio Theatre. The Rude Mechs take a near-impossible book to adapt and transform it into a theatrical spectacle of the highest-order.

As Stephen Sondheim once said, you either got it, or you ain't. Well, boys, Jennifer Macaluso most definitely has got it; and you don't need to take my word for it, because for the next few weeks she's showcasing her prodigious talents in a likable musical revue called Making the Best of It at the Trilogy Theatre. Macaluso is loaded with charm and energy and charisma, and she's a good singer and a splendid comedienne. The show, which she has written and produced herself, is lots of fun.

She shows herself off to best advantage in a sketch called "Bereavement Entertainment," about a company that provides, well, exactly what its name implies. (The deluxe package features a Vegas style revue for your wake, along with six pallbearers who look like Brad Pitt.) The writing is sharp, but it's Macaluso's characterization as receptionist Maureen that really makes the sketch work: a cross between Carol Burnett's Mrs. Wiggins and her own Candy O'Connor (from Crunching Numbers)--complete with a silly, endearing laugh--Maureen is a delicious and original comic creation.

Almost as effective is the character Marjorie Kirnenbaum, a self-help guru turned superstar whose ascent, rise, and tragicomic fall are played out in three separate segments of Making the Best of It. The funniest of these is the last one, in which the used-up and drug-ridden Marjorie waits in her dressing room in some low-rent dive. She looks as if she'll start singing "He's just my Bill" at any moment; what she actually does sing is much funnier: a medley of show tunes with new lyrics about the joys of taking pills ("Red pills and green pills/I've seen 'em all and my dear/I'm still here"). The lyrics for this and the rest of Macaluso's special material, by the way, are provided by Michael Sartor, a very clever writer whose work would be indispensable on a TV variety hour like The Carol Burnett Show if only such things still existed.

Sartor and Macaluso are great collaborators: the high point of the show is undoubtedly the number "You Made Me Eat You," a paean to Ben & Jerry's ice cream that starts with a hilariously sincere verse that you will recognize as "Dear Mr. Gable" if you're a Judy Garland fan. Musical director John Bowen and director/choreographer Claudia Asbury also make invaluable contributions, like the "All That Jazz Medley" which manages to salute Bob Fosse and a whole string of musical theatre divas at the same time. This number ends with Macaluso falling out of step with her "boys" (Barry Brown and Matthew Napoli--kudos to them, while we're on the subject) and reveals her to be the sort of clown that Barbra Streisand was when she ruined "Swan Lake" in Funny Girl. 

Video segments (by Cathy Riva) make for fun transitions between sketches and numbers; a couple of monologues and a knockout finale ("I Will Survive") fill out the evening.

Michael Moschen has been the subject of several TV specials (including one that hails him as a "genius") and the recipient of numerous accolades and grants. I was very curious to experience him in the flesh. 

Having experienced him, I conclude that one's liking for Moschen's work is probably directly proportional to one's taste (and tolerance) for terms like "visual art" and "conceptual juggling" and "kinetics continuum," which are a few of the phrases Moschen uses to describe what he does. I'll try to be more precise: what Michael Moschen does in his new show, now playing at the Joyce Theatre, is an amalgam of exotic juggling (like The Flying Karamazov Brothers, only artier) and abstract modern dance. Some of it is quite beautiful, some of it is intoxicatingly lively, and a good deal of it is bewilderingly high-flown. It's artful but, for this observer at least, never transcendently so: I found myself wondering, especially during the less-variegated second act, what all the fuss is about.

The show consists of nine pieces with titles like "Light" and "Three Balls" and "Sticks/Vectors." Many of these pieces are as pretentious as their names suggest; but some are actually fascinating demonstrations of scientific and mathematical principles. A few exemplify the spirit of juggling, which Moschen says is the application of order over chaos and which I say is the effortless flouting of gravity (same thing when you think about it). When Moschen falls into graceful one-ness with half-a-dozen crystal orbs or three bright red ping-pong balls and a big wooden triangle, the results are pure magic.

Most of the time, though, Moschen is going for something less instinctual and more complexly emotional. Most of the time, I didn't feel what he was doing at all, though I daresay some spectators did. A family with two young children, sitting near me in the audience, exited after about 40 minutes: Michael Moschen in Motion should not be considered fun for all ages.

I'm not even sure it can be called fun at all, for Moschen takes it all so seriously--he made that clear in the symposium that followed the performance I attended. He means to find truth in the new "vocabularies" of juggling he is developing. Call me unsophisticated, but it all feels a little high-falutin' to me. Especially when some kind of truth sits right in his remarkable hands, every time he makes objects seem to float in the air.

Marc Salem's powers--I can't think of another word that more aptly describes what we observe in Mind Games--are thrillingly awesome. He can tell you which number between 50 and 100 you're thinking of. He can call out the serial number of a twenty dollar bill while securely blindfolded. He can stop his pulse at will, as well as an expensive watch provided by an unwitting audience member (don't panic: he is able to restart both as well). 

More elaborately, he can build, one person at a time, a complex collection of obviously random data--a favorite food from the lady in the back, a time of day from the gentleman on the left, a particular date in the month of May from my companion--and then prove, by extracting a printed card from a sealed, notarized envelope, that he had predicted that the audience members would come up these exact responses prior to the show: caviar--check, 5:32 pm--check (well, 5:31; off by one minute), May 28--check.

And so we gasp some more: how does Salem do it? The mystery is the raison d'etre for this show, obviously; Salem's showmanship is the icing on the cake. He's a very funny, very smart man, and even if he's wont to indulge in a few tired puns at every show, he's also quick-witted and commandingly professional, always able to keep his show as entertaining and fun as it is amazing. The addition of the Vibrations trio is a plus, bringing some expertly-played light jazz into the performance mix. They also enable Salem to venture into new territory, transmitting an audience member's favorite song directly from his brain to the band's instruments without uttering a word.

I don't know how he does any of this stuff, and I don't want to know. I prefer to simply watch, amazed and astonished, at Salem's wizardry. We know too darn much about everything: let's leave the secrets of these mind games to the master.

Zohar Tirosh, the 24-year-old writer and performer of Pieces, deserves our admiration and respect. She's created a one-woman show about her two-year stint in the Israeli Army and has brought it, abetted by director Kathleen Powers, before audiences; for a young actress who has neither written nor appeared in a solo theatre piece before, this is no mean accomplishment. Pieces is part personal journey, tracing Tirosh's army service from her anxious early days as a new recruit to her final blossoming as a commander. But it's also about Tirosh's political and philosophical journey: as she experiences, up close, the banality of daily military life and the honest terror of soldiers at the frontlines, the glamour and patriotism of her calling start to come into question. The  assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a militant extremist, which signaled the unraveling of years of peace efforts with Israel's Arab neighbors, proves to be the pivotal event in Tirosh's political development. In Pieces she is searching for a purpose and a dream--for herself and for her country--as glorious and unblemished as the original promise of Zionism once seemed.

So this show, then, raises deep and important issues about the future of Israel and the nature of life during wartime. Tirosh clearly is passionate and earnest about her subjects. But it would be unfair to her, her director, and her audience if I didn't report here that Pieces, though an intelligent and thoughtful work, is barely a play at all. Almost resolutely untheatrical, Pieces tells us rather than shows us what's in Tirosh's heart and head: vivid narrative descriptions conjure clear images in our heads, but the flat, repetitive, didactic exposition never engages us. Pieces winds up finally an appeal to the intellect rather than the senses. That's not a bad thing--but it is bad theatre.

Director Powers could help Tirosh improve her piece by providing more action. The show begins with Tirosh changing from her civilian clothes to her Israeli Army uniform; but after that, save lighting a candle to commemorate Rabin, Tirosh has nothing to do save sitting down or standing up. Lighting designer Joshua Allen mitigates the feeling of inertia with a design that is all extremes: it's dark, it's bright, it's dark. All of this is hard on the audience and makes Pieces feel more like a lecture than a  performance.

Tirosh's words deserve to be heard and understood; it's possible that this material will someday be shaped into an effective work of theatre. In the meantime, though flawed, Pieces is compelling and provocative, and those interested in the state of Israel today will find much that's of value in Tirosh's show.

How can you not like a show whose finale consists of a member of the audience getting a pie in the face? Well, sort of, at least: no actual audience members are harmed during Six Characters in Search of a Working Title. And believe me, I know; because at the performance I attended, it was yours truly who was the hapless sucker dragged onto the stage to help these Six Characters wind up this entertaining, highly energetic, and dizzily funny show.

I first encountered these loopy loons (who call themselves Mr. Theatre Co.) nearly a year ago at the New York International Fringe Festival. Then, their show reminded me of an embryonic music-performance piece, a la Squonk or Blue Man Group. Well, as we all know, a lot can happen in a year, and in the case of Six Characters, a lot has. The current edition of their show, playing every Sunday night at the Kraine Theatre, is punchier, cartoon-ier (if that's a word), and funnier than ever. Abetted by producer Adam Forest and director Suchan Vodoor; and outfitted with costumes, sets, and a very game stage hand, the folks at Mr. Theatre Co. have dispensed with some of the artier aspects of their program and beefed up--big time--the comedy. And I think they've found their niche: forget Blue Man Group: Six Characters are on their way to being the next Kids in the Hall.

For offbeat sketch comedy--some of it breathlessly original, all of it blissfully giddy--is what Six Characters is about these days. The best stuff is contained in video segments (directed by John DesRoches) that are interspersed with (and occasionally interact with) the live-action portions of the show. Watch for the bit where a careless young couple accidentally lose their baby stroller, which ends up careening all over Central Park; the one where a custard pie goes on a sightseeing tour of Manhattan; and the one where stagehand Alan Ostroff, cleaning up after one of the messier sketches, find himself being watched by... himself. There are shades of Ernie Kovacs, Monty Python, Laugh-In, and the aforementioned Kids in this material; these Six Characters are developing into six very solid and professional clowns.

Live-action stuff is actually spottier: a few segments fail to register at all (the "Big Rock" scene, for example); while others land very nicely indeed, such as a neat, vaguely surreal ballet called "Zuzu vs. Cool Jazz," a zingy black-light dance number, and the hilarious "Things We Couldn't Use" bit. The funniest (and silliest) piece in the show finds the performers arrayed as if in a classical choir--but instead of singing, they emit meows and quacks and cackles in absurd, delicious counterpoint.

Kym Bernasky, Devin Assuncao, James Ford, Alexandra Gray, Seth Trucks, and Sarah Wilson--the high-spirited sextet who are Mr. Theatre Co.--are as energetic and game a troupe as we're likely to see. There's no cheap theatrical trick that they're above; no pie that they're afraid to throw or have thrown at them. Their mission is to make us laugh and have a good time, and when the show is over, it's safe to say that everyone in the Kraine--including the performers--has done exactly that.

Jono Mainelli claims to have auditioned for a job playing at Adolph Green's 80th birthday celebration by telephone for Jeanne Kennedy Smith--singing the Comden/Green/Styne novelty number "If You Hadn't But You Did"--all three verses. If you know why that's funny, then you're going to love Sixteen Bars!: Notes from an Audition Pianist, the new show at the Triad by Jono Mainelli. (If you don't you're still going to enjoy yourself, so please read on.)

Mainelli delivers anecdotes about his career, deliciously witty set pieces about the grueling audition process (one of them is a zingy medley of "I Hope I Get It" from A Chorus Line and "Something to Dance About" from Call Me Madam, an unlikely pairing that turns out to be entirely felicitous). He also hands over the spotlight to a guest star, who reminisces about his or her own days on the audition circuit. At the show I attended, the guest was Celeste Holm, who kept us spellbound with tales of William Saroyan and Lunt and Fontanne and Cole Porter and Richard Rodgers. She even sang a bit of a song that she introduced with Frank Sinatra in the movie High Society, a song that has the same title, she pointed out, as the most popular show on TV: "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"

Mainelli also performs some showcase material of his own: lovely, heartfelt renditions of several nearly-forgotten gems from obscure shows like Birds of Paradise and Legs Diamond. My favorite was "Watching the Show," a fine dramatic character song by Brad Ross and Joe Keenan from The Times. Another winner was "Let's Join the Ladies," whose wicked Marshall Barer lyric revolves around a joke who absolutely don't see coming.

Even if you're not a musical theatre insider, you'll find plenty to enjoy in Sixteen Bars! Mainelli is an engaging, ebullient fellow with a ready wit, a slightly cockeyed camp sensibility, and an encyclopedic knowledge of musical theatre. He's the sort of accompanist who puts singers at ease during the most stressful moments of their careers: one young lady he played for at an audition announced "I'll be singing 'Something Wonderful' from The King and I" and he retorted, "Good. Which song?"

Sixteen Bars! is scheduled, at this writing, to play one more Monday (June 26) at the Triad; hopefully a longer engagement is in the offing, though, for this a truly delightful entertainment. 

Anyone who grew up with The Archies, Josie and the Pussycats, and a certain perpetually hungry dog detective should have a blast at the new late night weekend show at the Kraine. It's called Spooky Dog and the Teenage Gang Mysteries, and as you've probably figured out it's a parody of a super-popular Hanna-Barbera cartoon from the '70s. Written by Amy Rhodes and Eric Pliner and staged with blissful felicity by Pliner, Spooky Dog is a happy nostalgic trip to a very silly time and place. It's as tasty and howlingly satisfying as a Scooby Snack.

The show begins with Ted, Thelma, Tiffany, Scraggly, and Spooky Dog preparing to go on a camping trip. Suddenly, word comes that their friend Richard Gere, who was scheduled to appear at the local county fair that night, has disappeared. (Note: portions of Spooky Dog are improvised. One of the things the audience is asked to supply prior to the show is the name of a celebrity--hence, Mr. Gere.)

Immediately, the gang springs into action. Before you can say "Jinkies," they've driven to the the fairgrounds, met up with its suspicious proprietors Mr. and Mrs. Woodhaven, and encountered the mysterious Fairground Phantom. It's not long before they're amassing absurd clues and following obscure hunches, pausing long enough for a garishly awful song break ("Love Will Keep Us Together"--what else?--performed by Ted & Tiffany with Spooky, Scraggly, and Mrs. Woodhaven's identical twin sister singing backup decked out in Hawaiian leis; kudos to Beth Portnoy for the spot-on choreography).

Roughly two-thirds of the laughs in Spooky Dog are laughs of recognition: Pliner, Rhodes, and their colleagues get the ambience of '70s cartoons exactly right and it's hilarious to see it recreated so faithfully on stage. The other third come from Rhodes's razor-sharp improvised riffs (e.g., an involved explanation of how Gere's latest film Autumn in New York provides clues to the mystery) and some fun (if sophomoric) sexing-up of the hopelessly two-dimensional Ted, Tiffany, and Thelma. (Is Ted gay? Is Thelma a lesbian?)

All of this is performed with a precise blend of detachment and conviction by Rhodes (Thelma), Travis Dean Bellichi (Spooky Dog), J.C. DeVore (Scraggly), Kate Hess (Tiffany), Adam Rose (Ted), and Rodney Lane Holland and Jennifer Plante (the Woodhavens).

Erik Ehn's Swedish Tales of Woe uses dance, stylized movement, music, masks, video and projections, puppetry, and other special effects to recount two very strange stories. The first one concerns a young man's encounter with a Giant who spins gold into mud and straw; he also does battle with a fox who, eventually, eats a pigeon egg that (I think) is supposed to be the first-and-a-half coming of Christ. The second one--even weirder, believe it or not--is about a man who falls in love, but cannot win his bride until he dies. The Moon and The Sun figure prominently in this piece, which ends with them playing cards at the end of time.

As the foregoing suggests, Ehn's work--and presumably his authentically Swedish source material--is both abstract and bizarre: theatregoers in search of straightforward narrative or cogent meaning are going to be disappointed by this show. But those in search of an adventurous performance experience may not be: Swedish Tales of Woe is nothing if not variegated, with intriguing modern dance movements giving way to sometimes beautiful effects (like the Giant, in the form of an enormous wooden puppet, loping onto the stage and then melting away; or a gypsy princess mixing potions over a gorgeous fire made of brilliantly-lit pieces of cloth).

The production is scored throughout, with live music performed on guitar, mandolin, and synthesizer. (The program credits just the composer, Bruce DuBose.) Six actors--Nick Brisco, Marina Celander, Cameron Cobb, James Garver, Newton Pittman, and Julie Plumettaz--take on the various human and non-human roles.

 I can't say that I understood--or even always followed--everything that Ehn and his colleagues are doing here. But there's talent at play here, and genuine craft; for those attuned to its Zen-like spirit, Swedish Tales of Woe may prove to be a satisfying experience. 

Tallulah Hallelujah! is principally a showcase for its author-star, Tovah Feldshuh, a formidable actress and singer whose thirty year career on stage and screen has not brought her the level of recognition she deserves. I can still remember her performance in the television mini-series Holocaust, more than holding her own opposite powerhouses like Rosemary Harris, Fritz Weaver, and Meryl Streep; or on Broadway in Lend Me a Tenor, ditto, opposite Victor Garber and Philip Bosco.

But stardom and the great roles haven't come to Feldshuh, so who can blame her for devising a vehicle like this one? And, as vehicles go, Tallulah Hallelujah! is well beyond serviceable. In it, Feldshuh, as Tallulah Bankhead, gets to sing, dance, joke, recite bawdy limericks, ogle a handsome G.I., banter with the audience, and even recreate brief scenes from a couple of classic American plays (The Little Foxes and A Streetcar Named Desire). It's generally pleasant throughout. If it weren't for some awkward missteps near the end--in a misconceived segment in which she suffers something like a nervous breakdown on stage and indulges in some bitter (and possibly homophobic) rage against her fans--Tallulah Hallelujah would be an entirely satisfying show.

In any event, I won't be forgetting any time soon Feldshuh's Tallulah interpreting--that's the only word to describe it--Ella Fitzgerald's signature song "A-Tisket A-Tasket." The conceit of this show, I should tell you, is that Bankhead has appeared at a 1956 USO benefit to introduce headliner Fitzgerald to the crowd. But Ella is stuck in a traffic on Long Island or someplace, and so Bankhead has to step in and save the evening. She does so with aplomb, especially when she decides to essay this particular number: it's a brilliantly funny set piece.

There's also a remarkable occasion when Feldshuh-as-Tallulah actually cartwheels across the stage.

Other songs include "Bye Bye Blackbird" and a delightful novelty number called "Corns for My Country," both of which come off beautifully; and "Lost in the Stars" and "Rockabye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody," which do not.

Tallulah Hallelujah! can hardly be said to offer the last word on a life and career that remains fascinating more than half a century after it peaked. (So fascinating that there's another Bankhead bio off-Broadway right now, and a third headed for Broadway next year.) Feldshuh describes her show as an "imagination" of Bankhead's life, which is about right: she channels the persona and renders it accessible to a contemporary audience without delving too deeply into what her subject actually did or what made her tick.

It begins with a few handfuls of dirt tossed onto the huge mound of earth that dominates the theatre at Classic Stage Company, like ashes flicked off a giant unseen cigar from up above. And then a man comes sliding down onto that same mound: a difficult birth, you might say. This is Texts for Nothing, a contemplative hour of questions and answers, enormous and trivial; Samuel Beckett on the nature of existence, distilled through that quintessential master showman and questing innocent Bill Irwin.

For it is he who comes sliding down that chute, inimitably and haplessly; and it is he who holds us spellbound through unsolvable conundrums and baffling silences: so spellbound, indeed, that the stillness in the auditorium is palpable, even eerie. Irwin is clad in slightly oversized clown/tramp gear, complete with trademark bowler hat--a muted version of the lovable character we recognize from Largely/New York and Fool Moon. There are brief bits of gravity-defying physical comedy, especially at the beginning of the piece; even a second when he almost does that celebrated hat trick of his. And there's a moment of unparalleled bliss when Irwin actually cuts the rug, so to speak: sheer joy for us and for him: the exquisite--and too brief--experience of heaven on earth.

Which takes me right to the heart of Texts for Nothing: this is a distillation, more or less, of a lifetime of trying to figure out what It's all about. Two lifetimes, actually, because imposed on (or added to) Beckett's remarkable dense, concise, and well-considered prose is a vocabulary of gesture and movement and performance that is just as remarkable and just as revelatory.

There are four parts to Texts for Nothing, which I think can be titled, loosely, as follows: "Get me out of here"; "I'll go/I'll stay"; "Who made me?"; and "I won't leave." Familiar, to be sure, if you know Waiting for Godot, which Irwin says he views as a companion to this piece. But Texts for Nothing, especially in its latter two sections, carves out different, more advanced terrain than Godot. The sight of Irwin's lone figure railing against an unknown creator, or, later, tenaciously holding onto life while being literally buried alive, is at once more penetrating and more pessimistic than anything Gogo and Didi get up to.

There are, of course, no answers to be found here; just riddles, and questions, and doubt. But Irwin's performance gives us memorable images to grab onto even as Beckett's slippery text keeps evading us: I won't soon forget the final moments of the play, with Irwin sinking into the earth at a constant though imperceptible rate, chattering desperately and ceaselessly because the second he stops, so must his life. To see the life snatched away from such an affirming spirit is to have your heart broken, at least a little.

Such moments are what the theatre is made for. There's nothing easy about Texts for Nothing, but its rewards are substantial and, I expect, lasting.

P.S. I'd be remiss not to mention the contributions of Irwin's collaborators: Douglas Stein's intractable mound of earth is astonishingly right; Anita Yavich's costume is perfect; and Nancy Schertler's palette of light and shadow is invaluable. Bravo.

Sketch comedy groups seem to be proliferating these days, so it's always a happy surprise to discover one that's authentically original and unabashedly funny. Three Jews and a Persian is just such a troupe: their current show, at Surf Reality, features far more hits than misses, and quite a few bulls eyes. And, at about ninety minutes in length, it's a honest-to-goodness bargain (tickets go for just seven bucks).

The lineup is different every week; here are some of the highlights from the show I caught, to give you a flavor of 3JnP:

  - The Long Island Railroad announcer at Penn Station goes haywire, revealing intimate secrets about a pair of would-be travelers
   - An office temp and a boss square off in the Corporate Olympics
   - A hapless man and his Mafioso wife are audited by the IRS
   - An office worker's daily routine is disrupted by his co-worker's secret life in international espionage

As I said, the sketch ideas are novel and clever; they're also extremely well-executed (and that applies even to pieces that are obviously works-in-progress).

Geoff Kirsch, Jason Reich, and Alexander Zalben are the three Jews of the title and Negin Farsad is the Persian: they're a multi-talented, inventive, appealing foursome. Their ethnicity, by the way, has very little to do with the show. But their shared background, as off-the-wall but levelheaded Gen X New Yorkers, informs almost everything they do. Their writing blends a bemused appreciation of the foolishness of everyday life with a sharp and quirky sense of the absurd. At its best, it is reminiscent of  some of the sophisticated nonsense of Monty Python or the Kids in the Hall.

3JnP are preceded by a brief opening act. Their engagement at Surf Reality lasts through the end of April; look for them to turn up at other venues in Manhattan after that. 

Urban Zulu Mambo consists of three short monologues, connected together into a sort of apocalyptic theatre poem by Regina Taylor to create a vision of African-American woman at the turn of the millennium. Because the monologues are written by Suzan-Lori Parks, Kia Corthron, and Ntozake Shange, it's a very particular vision; and because they're delivered by the extraordinary Taylor, it's also a potent and powerful one.

The first piece, which is far and away the strongest, is "Talking to Jupiter" by Suzan-Lori Parks. In it, we meet Hettie, a homeless woman who lives on a bench in Central Park, and her faithful canine companion Jupiter. The piece chronicles Hettie's relationship with the dog, who somehow manages to help her stay sane on New York's mean streets; and also her relationship with another black woman, one who has a job and an apartment and plenty of money, which she shares with Hettie on a regular basis.

Inevitably, both relationships end tragically; but that's not really the main point of "Talking to Jupiter." Just as she did in In the Blood, Parks makes us really look at her forgotten heroine--really see her. We never understand how Hettie came to find herself on the streets, and we can't expect her to find anything approaching happiness after the play is over. But her humanity becomes essential: I actually dreamt that I became homeless the night after I saw Urban Zulu Mambo, and since then I've been looking at Hettie's all-too-common, all-too-real compatriots--in doorways, on the subways--with a little more compassion.

The second piece is Shange's "Liliane--Everytime My Lil' World Seems Blue, I Just Haveta Look at You and Learn Eye-Hand Coordination." Liliane, Shange's heroine, couldn't be more different from Harriet: she's a well-put-together, utterly self-aware artist who's lately become obsessed by a good-looking man she's been sketching. "Liliane" is beautiful to listen to, full of eclectic imagery and non-sequitur observations about sexuality, gender, sex, and love. It's deliberately obscure: a fascinating and affecting piece that never touches the ground.

Completing the triptych is "Safe Box" by Kia Corthron, a hyperactive politically-charged work about a woman called Rame who is suffering from ovarian cancer that was probably caused by her home's proximity to a toxic waste site. Corthron's writing is urgent and purposeful, but it's also diffuse and occasionally inelegant, with the result that "Safe Box" is often overwrought and difficult to follow. Corthron's social consciousness is commendable, but this piece simply lacks sufficient focus to fully engage our attention.

Taylor is remarkable throughout, bringing Hettie, Liliane, and Rame to life viivdly and compassionately. Urban Zulu Mambo doesn't in any way attempt to offer the final word on African-American womanhood in 2001, but it triumphs in its depiction of three very special women coping with the worlds in they find themselves.

VELO/CITY is forty minutes of sheer joy: unadulterated theatrical magic at its blissful best. True, it's not quite long enough to fill out an evening. But I'm convinced that what we're seeing now is just a delightfully tantalizing preview of the full-length version that will, in the right producer's hands, become the next sensation of off-Broadway theatre. You see, VELO/CITY is, or should be, the next Stomp, or Blue Man Group, or Bomb-itty of Errors.

Why? Because it's hilarious, inventive, surprising, exhilarating, and beautiful. It's a Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd silent film come to life; a living Bugs Bunny cartoon inhabited by three pliant clowns who each possess the anarchic zaniness of a David Shiner, the mellifluous grace of a Bill Irwin, and the awesome dexterity of at least one Flying Karamazov Brother. (Their names are Scott Ardizzone, John Socas, and Brian Torrell, by the way, and they're utterly amazing actors who can clown and dance and be relentlessly silly without ever missing a beat.)

Without uttering a word, these guys keep us in stitches every moment they're on stage. Identically dressed in black suits, white shirts, neon green ties, and black shoes, they're three guileless innocents disguised as urban office drones. We meet them first on the street, where they juggle their briefcases while waiting for a cab. Giving up on that mode of transportation, we find them next on the subway, pretending to read newspapers and eventually doing battle with an enormous invisible flying insect.

At the office, they sit at desks outfitted with pencils, paper, and various other everyday accoutrements, which they use to perform a hilarious and glorious percussive fugue of scribbles, staples, rubber stampings, and so on. Half-slapstick and half-ballet, this sequence is the soul of VELO/CITY and never fails to delight. Next, the trio is off to lunch (struggling to eat a giant hero sandwich), and then they're back at their desks, now modernized with laptop computers and telephones. Their childlike glee at encountering this new equipment is joyous and infectious, and leads to another memorable scramble that culminates in one of them getting tied to his chair like the hapless diction coach in Singing in the Rain.

The penultimate scene finds our heroes at a bus stop in the rain, which allows them to do an umbrella dance that is miraculously artful, what Busby Berkeley might have come up with if he'd had a sense of humor. Our boys end their day in a bar, where they indulge in some corny but funny buffoonery involving shotglasses and too-spicy chicken wings, and then tap and kick their way into a thrilling and happy finale dance.

Have I possibly done VELO/CITY justice here? Almost certainly not: I hope, though, that I've tantalized you enough so that you'll see it for yourself. Let me mention now that the genius (and that's exactly the word that I mean) behind the show is the young director Mark Lonergan, an awesomely talented showman at the top of his form. I've seen two earlier versions of VELO/CITY and this is the first one that really reflects a consistent and mature artistic vision: what once was an amalgamation of satire and physical comedy has been transformed into an ultra-contemporary tribute to classic movie clowning: a sweet, smart, hilarious juxtaposition of slapstick and vaudeville traditions with today's fast-paced urban lifestyle.

Steve Lucas and Ron Boyd have fashioned a whimsical and witty black-and-white set that serves the piece beautifully: watch for the backwards clock in the rear of the office where the three fellows spend their day. Lauren Cordes's costumes are appropriate, and Steve Gordon Marsh's soundtrack of old tunes and silly effects is exactly right.

Call it a romp, call it a ride on gossamer wings, call it an explosion of comic genius: VELO/CITY is all of these things. Go see it: you won't be sorry. 

Suppose an actor were doing a one-man show about the artist Vincent Van Gogh, when suddenly his body was overrun by an alien from outer space. Would you want to see that?

If the actor is Dan Castellanetta, your answer ought to be a resounding yes. Castellanetta is best-known as the voice of TV's Homer Simpson, but, as he proves here, he's a prodigiously gifted actor in addition to being a man of, literally, a thousand voices. The hook he has written for himself in this one-man show, Where Did Vincent Van Gogh, enables him to bounce in and out of dozens of human specimens, which are supposedly being sampled and evaluated by the alien for scientific reasons not necessary to repeat here.

The point is, we get to watch Castellanetta create--with almost no props or costumes to speak of, and entirely without a net--a whole stageful of memorable characters. Among them: a nun who teaches art appreciation and who seems more than naturally obsessed with sex; a professional bicycle messenger who befriends strangers in fast food restaurants; a florist who literally speaks the language of flowers; a little girl (more than a little reminiscent of Lisa Simpson) who tells her family history in cartoon drawings; and a dummy whose ventriloquist partner is having some mental problems.

Most wonderfully, there's the guy who has written a Broadway musical about a man who loves dogs and a woman who loves cats. He performs a 15-minute version of the show all by himself, including its pricelessly hilarious would-be breakout hit song, a duet for a pup named Butch and a kitty named Mittens.

Where Did Vincent Van Gogh shouldn't be taken too seriously as a play about art and aliens; but it deserves every accolade for showcasing its remarkably talented comic writer-star. And don't miss, by the way, Castellanetta's Lust for Life getup as Van Gogh (complete with dead-on Kirk Douglas impression): it's a huge and hilarious joke all by itself.

Kurt Brungardt's new one-man show White Meat is out to demonstrate the many ways that men are pigs. In particular, Brungardt is concerned with straight, privileged, white men--the kind that coast through Ivy League colleges when they're young and run the country when they're grown. He takes us to a frat party and to a cigar club; he introduces us to one guy who tries to transform himself into a macho Latino and another who spends his days watching the Emergency Broadcast System on television. Almost all of the material is bitterly reflective of the cockeyed way that power is distributed in America these days. Some of it is quite funny.

A lot of it is also somewhat alarming, especially if we assume that it fairly represents the way that Brungardt's white male subjects actually think and behave in real life. Alas, I think that it does: college hazing rituals still perpetuate homophobic hatred; businessmen still objectify women; and rich, powerful white men still think that they're somehow getting a raw deal whenever a less empowered group of "others" cuts a break.

White Meat says something important, and mostly says it in a clever and entertaining way. I don't know much about Brungardt except that he's the author of the successful book The Complete Book of Abs; I wondered during the show whether his observations about the white male power structure come from time spent on the inside or on the outside. In either case, I suspect that with this piece Brungardt will mostly be preaching to the converted: it's hard to imagine George W. Bush and his cronies taking the time to watch a show as subversive as this one.

Brungardt is introduced by a Vegas showgirl-bimbo type who serves as hostess and chanteuse; she's very wittily portrayed by Beth-Anne Arentsen.