nytheatre Archive
2001-02 Theatre Season Reviews

Jack Kerouac—Last Call is a short, sharp, fever-dream of a play, in which the last moments of the famous writer are imagined and probed. Well, perhaps not so much moments as thoughts: here we have the final ramblings and yearnings, maybe, of a lost artistic soul. It's absolutely fascinating, and it's been given a wondrously spare production at 13th Street Rep under the direction of Stanley Harrison; the playwright is Tom O'Neil.

We first encounter Kerouac alone, drunk, and in pain, in a bungalow in St. Petersburg, Florida. It's October 21, 1969, and we know and the 47-year-old Jack knows that this is the end. He summons ghosts from his past to try to make sense out of a life that feels incomplete and yet incontrovertibly over: fellow "Beats" Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady turn up, as do Cassady's wife and a mysterious redhead who seems to forever inhabit a smoky jazz club in the Village. Kerouac also must cope with two less benign specters, a pair of writers who descend on his body (of work) before the corpse is even warm, eager and ready to assign value and meaning to it all. What's a life worth, O'Neil seems to be asking. What, finally, does a legacy amount to?

Harrison balances the two ethereal worlds of Jack's imagination with the stark "real" world of Jack's dilapidated bungalow. Shrewdly, he's staged the play with almost no set pieces of any kind; mood is evoked richly by Padraig Williams-Shipley's lighting, which creates distinct textures for each of the three dramatic threads that are at war inside Kerouac's head.

John Jordan grounds the action as the dying writer. Deirdre Schwiesow ("Red") and Kyle Pierson (Neal Cassady) do outstanding work; the other cast members (Tim Cox, John Kwiatkowski, Gavin Smith, and Meredith Faltin) were less assured on the night reviewed (admittedly the very first public performance). Note that two sets of players alternate in the play.

All in all, it's an intriguing bit of theatre, one that may pique your interest about Kerouac and the rest of the Beat Generation's lives and works. At the same time, playwright O'Neil's incisive examination of the ways that art gets appropriated and misappropriated makes Jack Kerouac—Last Call a valuable and thought-provoking cautionary tale.

Anybody with a yen for both domestic and social drama should high-tail it down to P.S.122, and catch Rinne Groff’s funny and insightful new play, Jimmy Carter Was a Democrat, which succeeds as both. It chronicles the historical and political events that led up to the Professional Air Traffic Controller Organization’s (PATCO) ill-fated strike in 1981 as seen through the eyes of two controllers (Carla Harting and Daniel Stewart), a by-the-book FAA administrator (Peter Ackerman), Bill’s forlorn wife (Molly Powell), and a rumpled historian (Steven Rattazzi). What starts out as a pro-union lecture by the seriously liberal Samuel B. Shostakovitz (Rattazzi) quickly turns into a semi-docudrama he uses to illustrate his points. Whether it’s all supposed to have really happened or not, or whether it only exists in Sam’s mind or not, is never answered, and doesn’t matter. The fantasia that Groff has crafted here sublimely charts the emotional place inside all of us where personal beliefs and social responsibility intersect.

Emily, the sexy vixen of the control tower, is having an affair with married co-worker, Bill, as well as urging him to strike. Enter Mike, the conservative FAA administrator whose job it is to make sure that PATCO toes the line. He and Emily quickly become involved as well, and pretty soon everyone’s life is in turmoil. Even poor Sam, who declares his unrequited love for Emily. But, can he love a character he’s made up? Is she made up? Is everyone in the play real or fictitious? That’s up to the audience to decide. But, that ambiguity is one of Jimmy Carter’s assets. There’s an unmistakable feeling, both on stage and in the audience, that one is watching (or, if you’re one of the characters, experiencing) enormous change take place, even though it’s hard to say why or point to a specific example. Groff’s sharp sense of dialogue and character building packs that kind of emotional wallop.

The cast is superb. All five turn in fiery, hilarious, and captivating performances, especially Harting and Rattazzi. Their teamwork as an ensemble is very impressive, and they are all-around terrific. Director Michael Sexton’s work is strong and focused without being obtrusive: he makes the play look not like it’s directed, but like it’s just simply happening on it’s own. Elizabeth Niemcyzk’s costumes enhance and reveal character as beautifully as Heather Carson’s lights add weight to the play’s events. And, Laura Hyman’s set design, which evokes several locations within the confines of a unit set, may be one of the best I’ve ever seen.

Jimmy Carter Was a Democrat hits all the right notes in making the personal political, and in making the political personal. Beautifully so, I might add. Go see this strange, sexy hybrid of a play for yourself, and let its mysteries lift you up.

Jitter begins at a trendy bar called Orson's, where about-to-be-married Paul and Lyndie are meeting their best friends Daniel and Jo for drinks and an announcement: they've decided to call off their wedding, at least temporarily, because Paul thinks he might possibly be gay. He's decided to try to have sex with a man, just to see how it feels; Lyndie says she's okay with this, though she's obviously a neurotic wreck. Paul asks Daniel, who is gay, if he wouldn't mind helping out with the experiment; Lyndie goes home with Jo, who is a lesbian, for tea and sympathy.

It sounds like the beginning of a giddy sex farce, doesn't it? That's certainly how it feels: Jitter's long opening scene is all "hook"--roping us into the play's central situation, which is an unusual one to say the least. The problem is, playwright Richard Sheinmel never delivers the knockabout bedroom antics that his opening portends. Instead, he switches gears and spends the rest of this long one-act bouncing back and forth among his five characters (Jo's former lover Alice is the fifth) and their romantic wants, needs, desires, and aspirations.

This would be probably okay, too, if we had more information about who these people actually are. Instead, all we learn is that both Paul and Jo are struggling with ambivalence (his about orientation, hers about whether she wants a family or not) and that Lyndie and Alice are the whiny victims of their lovers' confusion. Daniel is the stock gay best friend character, lovable but unloved, asexual despite occasionally having sex.

Alice and Jo's relationship--and, to a lesser extent, Jo and Daniel's (she wants him to be the father of her child)--upstage what we thought was the central conflict, Paul's belief that he might be gay. This is a shame, because Paul's story is the most original and compelling one in Jitter. I'd love to see Sheinmel give it the attention it deserves; I'd like to know more about Lyndie and Daniel, too: Paul says they are his best friends, and both claim to love him deeply and profoundly. What would the circumstance depicted here do to such people? (Alternatively, Sheinmel might want to expand Jitter into a full-length play, where he could give all five characters more attention.)

The present production, directed by Mark Steven Robinson, negotiates as well as possible the sea change from naughty farce to probing drama that follows that first scene. And it certainly hints at the material's potential. Michael Goldfried gives a strong comic performance as Daniel (I'd like to see what he would bring to a more fleshed-out version of the character); Meg Anderson is outstanding in the showy role of spurned lover Alice; and Jim Budig is appealing in the pivotal (though underwritten) role of Paul. Kate Gilligan (Jo) and Rebekka Grella (Lyndie) don't fare as well, but again the problem may be that their characters simply aren't fleshed out enough in the script.

Joe and Betty Brassman's is certainly one of the most loveless marriages to ever grace the stage. Joe (John Diehl) has a taste for underage girls, and an all-around aversion to coming home. Betty (Annabelle Gurwitch) is so consumed by despair that she lashes out at everyone around her for the bad hand she feels she's been dealt in life. On the rare occasions when they're both in the same room together, Joe and Betty do nothing more than hurl blistering insults and accusations at each other, all of which are well within earshot of their kids and neighbors.

Joe and Betty, Murray Mednick's new "comedy" (and I use the word "comedy" very loosely because, even though it bills itself as one, there's virtually nothing funny about this domestic drama), takes place in the Brassman's low-rent Catskills apartment during the winter of 1951. The family has just recently moved there from Brooklyn so Joe can be closer to his mother. He works as a projectionist at the local movie theater (that, and his lust for minors, earns him the nickname "Matinee Joe"). Betty resents being taken away from the city, as well as her family and friends, none of whom keeps in touch. She also resents having born more children than she wanted to (six in all—she preferred one or two), all of which leads her to conclude that God hates her. Before long, Betty starts to slip mentally—she refuses to clean the house, change her clothes, bathe herself or the kids—and it becomes clear that she's heading towards a world-class nervous breakdown.

Even though Mednick gets their marital discord down pat, he fails to take his protagonists any further than that. Joe and Betty do not grow at all during the course of the play. They don't learn, or come to any realizations about how to help each other or themselves, or how to save their marriage. They don't change into better or worse people. They stay exactly the same. And, because Joe and Betty have both already plateaued at the top of the play, the audience stops learning very quickly. Director Guy Zimmerman does little to help solve (or at least mask) this problem.

Another problem is exposition, which Mednick disposes of early in the first act and revisits only fleetingly thereafter. His characters speak in the sharp, staccato shorthand used by people who have a long history together. They always know what they're talking about, but, without benefit of explanation, it's up to the audience to catch up and figure out what's going on. On one hand, this technique adds a voyeuristic quality to the proceedings, making it seem very much like the audience is eavesdropping or spying on them. It's a device that has been used before by many other dramatists to great effect. However, Mednick's inability to impart seemingly important information this way suggests that he is not one of those dramatists. For example: I only know that Joe likes young girls and works part-time as a truck driver because I read it in the press release, not because of anything I saw on stage.

John Diehl does a good job conveying not only Joe's head-in-the-clouds attitude, but also his inherent nastiness. His Joe is a man who dreams movie house dreams, and follows his lascivious callings. Annabelle Gurwitch is a more mixed bag as Betty. She is emotionally truthful throughout, but her external manifestation of that—very mannered and cartoonish voice and speech, over-the-top gestures and behavior—stifles her. Sometimes she just seems affected, other times she comes off as mentally retarded. Either way, it's hard to take Betty's plight seriously. The rest of the cast, fortunately for them, doesn't even register.

Set designer Jeffrey Atherton does an excellent job of making the most of the small Jose Quintero Theatre. Lighting designer Rand Ryan and costume designer Bridget Phillips also do good work. Composer/sound designer Robert Oriol, however, errs badly with his original music, which is incongruous with the time period, and thus incredibly distracting. He would do better to stick with the period pre-show and intermission music (i.e. Charlie Parker's "Bird of Paradise"), even though it isn't always appropriate timewise, either (i.e. John Coltrane's "Countdown").

It seems that there's an autobiographical element to Joe and Betty also. Those were the real names of Mednick's parents, both of whom the play is inspired by. There's nothing wrong with art imitating life. That's another device that many dramatists have employed over the years. And, while I applaud Mednick for his bold stab at self-catharsis, there is nothing enlightening or enjoyable about it, in this case, for the audience.

Theatre festivals are like grab bags--you don't know what's inside, and at least half the fun comes from finding out. Screaming Venus has put together its second annual Kallisti festival and the sheer variety and ambition of the offerings is most pleasing. There are six short pieces, grouped in two programs, ranging from a conventional one-act play to an avant-garde self-described "pornographic vaudeville. None of them is perfect, which is the point of Kallisti in the first place: these evenings offer audiences and artists alike the chance to see new work on its feet for the first time. But there's evidence of talent all over the place, and that makes this festival a worthy event, for participants and viewers.

Series A consists of Bar Play by Alison Solomon, Mommy and Daddy are Doing Doing Dirty Things by Elizabeth Horsburgh, and Country Karaoke by Lucy Tom Lehrer. Series B consists of Monique the Mosquito Takes First Runner Up by Lisa D'Amour, Bodies are Floors by Ken Urban, and Tumour by Sheila Callaghan. (See above for the specific schedule.)

Series A: Alison Solomon's moody, enigmatic Bar Play introduces us to Helen, the bartender at an obscure Bowery dive, and Dave, the (presumably) alcoholic fellow who is, apparently, her only customer. Helen and Dave exist in a world of shared delusions that suggests the fragile symbiosis of, say, Harry Hope and Rocky the Bartender in The Iceman Cometh, though the roles are reversed, with Helen the needy, frightened one and Dave the streetwise enabler. Helen's got some of Blanche DuBois in her as well, as demonstrated by the arrival of a frisky 16-year-old named Bobby. Solomon evokes need and repressed passion and a host of other emotions here, but she doesn't finally provide a lot of meat for us to chew on. Daniel Asher (Dave) takes acting honors (festival-wide, I think) in a smart, nuanced performance of immense naturalness. Janet Amateau and Matt Lavin are effective and interesting as Helen and Bobby.

Elizabeth Horsburgh's Mommy and Daddy are Doing Dirty Things contains the festival's sharpest writing. It's a clever, quick, extremely well-crafted short play about the rise and fall of a romantic relationship, viewed at various times and places over perhaps twenty years in dozens of blackout vignettes that each last a minute or two: the artistic school that comes to mind is pointillism. Mommy and Daddy is a deliberately outrageous cautionary tale: the romantic interludes telegraph trouble so obviously that only those blinded by love (or the idea of love) can fail to detect it; scenes of the marriage to follow, frequently featuring unseen children trying to kill each other, flirt brazenly with burlesque without feeling forced. I'm not sure director Tania Kirkeman or actors Erin Walls and Ryan Edwards have a handle on the piece yet: it seemed to me that it needed to be about twice as fast and three times more over-the-top. But it's a howl already.

Country Karaoke by Lucy Tom Lehrer is Kallisti's sole nod to conventional narrative. Set in a Texas karaoke bar, it tells the story of Chanel, a frustrated single mom and would-be country music singer; Arlene, her self-consciously plain friend; and Lareda, another friend, who is a waitress at the bar and is waiting for her boyfriend Ron to propose to her. Stylistically and thematically, Country Karaoke feels like one of those sketches Carol Burnett used to do on her show every so often about a loud but lovable loser (think Eunice from "Mama's Family"). But those sketches were about fifteen minutes long and laced with broad comic shtick; Country Karaoke is three times that length and rather somber throughout. Because it's so familiar, it's also entirely predictable, so its only interest comes from characterization. Lehrer acquits herself reasonably well on this front, as do actors Katharine Hinchey (Chanel), Krista Rushing (Lareda), Heather Hayes (Arlene), and Troy Hall (Ron). But Country Karaoke is not the kind of play you expect to see in a festival like Kallisti, which says a lot, I guess, about the eclecticism of Screaming Venus's aesthetic.

Series B: Monique the Mosquito is an antic allegory about, I think, the way people waste time on stuff that doesn't matter. D'Amour uses a beauty pageant among insects, whose lifespans are measured in days rather than years, to make points about the ways human misplace their priorities by objectifying each other and getting high on drugs instead of life. It's an interesting concept, but it's spread rather thin over a piece that, at about 45 minutes, is about twice as long as it should be. Amantha May's staging is busy; the use of an Emcee character (think Bert Parks with wings and antennae) doesn't seem to work very well, at least as interpreted by Chime Day Serra. Fred Backus, Alyssa Simon, Deborah Carlson, and Elizabeth Horsburgh all score in the acting department.

Ken Urban's Bodies Are Floors is the festival's aforementioned "pornographic vaudeville." Actually, it's not terribly pornographic; in its way it is a vaudeville, however, incorporating a variety of theatrical styles and conventions to tell a story, of sorts, about a young, possibly-blocked playwright (coincidentally also named Ken Urban) whose anxieties about family and society and politics congeal in the broad, profane family drama that we are watching. (Yes, Bodies are Floors is about itself.) The writing is terrific in places, and the ideas reflect the author's originality and wit. (There's a bit about how critics are hunting down the people who create bad theatre; who could resist such a concept?) Director Julia Barclay has shrewdly interpreted the piece as playfully as possible, infusing it with energy that belies the piece's angst. Monica Siriginano is excellent as the family's wicked father; Margaret Cino (who seems remarkably in tune with the thing), Kim Justice, and Todd D'Amour play daughters and son.

Tumour, the final piece in Series B, is a theatrical meditation on maternity and parenthood. Playwright Sheila Callaghan explores the territory in all sorts of inventive ways, the most startling of which is the character of Pete, a pregnant man. Along with expectant parents Kathie and Richard, Pete guides us through a journey to doctors' offices, birthing classes, and baby supply stores, taking us into the active and conflicted minds of mothers- and fathers-to-be. The material alternates between a pair of narratives (one surreal, one hyper-real) and jokey vignettes; Callaghan and her director, Randy White, need to make these divergent elements of the piece into more of a cohesive whole. All five actors do fine work here, especially Ean Sheehy as the very edgy Richard and Scott Mendelsohn as the surprisingly grounded Pete.

Katmandu is the name Vincent Cercare gives to that place of perfect peace and restfulness that every grown-up who ever went through a midlife crisis wants to escape to. Vincent has just turned fifty, and he's beginning to wonder whether his life is ever going to add up to anything more than the stacks of empty cans in his garage, which trace the progress of his house-painting business as they get taller from Monday to Friday. He's married, but his wife has gone back to school and gotten a job--the special secret understanding they once had seems to have dissipated. There's a lady at a paint company he patronizes, Susan, who has offered him companionship and more; Vincent is conflicted about what he should do. At the moment, his main concern is his son, Paulie, who has landed in jail with pending cocaine possession charges. While Paulie stews in his cell for a little while, Vincent hovers outside, alone with his thoughts. Should he take Paulie's bail money and make his way to Katmandu, before it's too late?

Such is the thrust of Katmandu, the one-man play, written and performed by Robert Siegel, currently on the boards at the John Houseman Studio Theatre. Siegel has written a smart, incisive monologue that charts the mental journey of a guy in trouble. Vincent is grounded enough, and self-aware enough, never to fool himself; but his dissatisfaction with a lifetime of compromise and routine has brought him to the brink of change: what is he going to do? Siegel engages us with the details of Vincent's history and at the same time reminds us how much we each have in common with his protagonist. This is very much a story, not just of a particular man, but of a time of life that just about everybody goes through sooner of later.

Siegel himself takes the role of Vincent, as well as the other characters--Vincent's wife, his would-be-girlfriend Susan, his son Paulie, and his long-dead father--each of whom is rendered second-hand, filtered through Vincent's memory and sensibility. It's an effective approach to the solo play, and Siegel's work as an actor is commendable. Patricia Clark's staging is perhaps too static for the piece's good, but in its simplicity it hits all the right chords.

Kilt is terrific. It's warm, funny, smart, loving, romantic, touching, sexy, tender, and even a little bit wise. It's the most enjoyable evening of theatre I've had in many, many months; it's the kind of show that you want to see again as soon as it's ended. There's talk of a life on Broadway: keep your fingers crossed.

Kilt tells the story of a middle-aged woman and her grown son, who have disconnected somehow along the way; the death of her father helps bring them back together. Esther MacPhail Roberston, proud of her Scottish heritage, lives in Ontario, Canada where she supports herself teaching the Highland Fling and other traditional dances at a school that she runs. She hasn't seen much of her son in several years: after he gave up dancing, he came out of the closet, and now he works, unbeknownst to her, as an exotic dancer at a gay bar called The Ranch. Here he does a striptease act using the kilt that once belonged to his grandfather. Esther finds Tom in a particularly compromising position—with said kilt about to come off—when she tracks him down, setting the play's events in motion.

For Esther's father, Mac, has died, and Esther wants Tom to come with her to Scotland for the funeral. Tom reluctantly agrees. What happens on the trip proves cathartic and sublimely healing for both mother and son.

In Scotland, the pair stay with Esther's younger sister, Mary, a pragmatic, self-assured woman with a twinkle in her eye that makes her almost the exact opposite of dour, repressed, stolid Esther. Tom eventually meets a charming older gentleman named David who helps brings some clarity to a short life filled with damaged relationships. And, in flashbacks, we meet Mac himself, the now departed patriarch, depicted here as a life-embracing young private on the frontlines of the North African campaign of World War II. All have much to learn from him.

I don't want to give too much away, because I want you to see Kilt for yourself. All that you need to know is that playwright Jonathan Wilson does a masterful job spinning this engaging tale, taking his characters through some fundamental life lessons in genuinely surprising, original ways. Kilt turns out to be a beautiful story of understanding one's self and one's family, of being honestly proud and accepting of who we are and of the people we love. It's refreshing, vital, and resoundingly true.

It's also very, very funny: Wilson's portraits of the severe Esther, the pixyish Mary, and the rambunctious Tom are sketched with great affection and humor, with the comedy arising naturally from the only slightly extraordinary situations these people happen to find themselves in. Even better than that, Kilt brims with authentic joy: scenes like the one in which Tom and his aunt engage in a drunken dance to an old Tom Jones record can't help but warm the heart with their infectious happiness.

Directed with sharpness and sensitivity by Jack Hofsiss, Kilt boasts a first-rate cast. Tovah Feldshuh is fine as Esther, mining this complicated woman for all her charms and contradictions, and even kicking up a sprightly leg on a couple of occasions. Kathleen Doyle is delightful as Mary, making her the aunt we all wish we had. Herb Foster as David and Jamie Harris as Lavery, Mac's commander in the WWII flashbacks, lend solid support. Anchoring the piece is Chris Payne Gilbert, playing both Tom and Mac, in a  tour de force performance that doesn't ever feel like a star turn. Gilbert wears the eponymous kilt throughout, an emblem of the warm family feeling that Kilt is finally all about.

The unit set by David Jenkins, the homey costumes by Ann Hould-Ward, the evocative lighting by Ken Billington, and the very effective sound design by Peter J. Fitzgerald all serve the piece beautifully; this is one of those rare instances where all of the elements are entirely sympatico. Result: one of the happiest theatre experiences of the year. After a diet of bloated musicals and hyperventilating dramas, Kilt turns out to be the restorative we need. Don't miss it.

Kookamonga Falls, the latest bit of looniness from Danse Macabre Theatrics, is funny most of the time, silly almost all of the time, and over the top—and frightfully artful—practically every minute. Written by Todd Miller, directed by Michele Schlossberg, designed by Frank Cwiklik, Ian W. Hill and Youthquake!, and performed by Schlossberg, Hill, Bryan Enk, Josh Mertz, Moira Stone, and Peter B. Brown, it's irreverent satire-parody-kitsch, served up by masters.

The idea of the evening surrounding Kookamonga Falls is that, as we enter The Red Room Theatre, we have passed through a time warp and suddenly find ourselves in a cheesy TV studio in the cheesy 1970s. Here we witness a demented children's cartoon called "America 2.0," performed by The Ratzenkatz Puppets! (actually Hill and Berit Johnson, kneeling behind a couple of crates holding up paper cutouts). Next, warmup guy Jimmy Hooler (Josh Mertz) turns up with authentically awful patter to get us in the mood for the soap opera to follow. (Mertz is quick on the draw with clever ad libs as he chats with the audience.)

The main event is the "TV serial" "Kookamonga Falls," narrated by Hill at his smarmy, knowing best. The story this week is about Dr. Peter Von Hackemore and his evil twin, Rudolph. Rudolph, who is supposed dead, disguises himself as a female heart surgeon in order to win back his former lover, Dr. Ilse Gruenwald, who is currently Peter's girl. Meanwhile, a Mysterious Woman complicates matters, as does the curse of the dark, gorilla-infested forest conveniently located nearby.

I told you it was silly. The weakness of Miller's concoction is that it never feels like the soap operas it's supposed to be parodying; it feels, instead, like another bad Ed Wood script (cf. The Fugitive Girls, the last DMT show). That said, it's still good fun, especially whenever Hill is on stage. (What other narrator would turn up on Dr. Hackemore's bed—in the lotus position—eating from a box of cereal?) Schlossberg is appropriately shadowy as the Mysterious Woman and  Peter B. Brown is appropriately cardboard as the "good" Dr. Hackemore. Moira Stone and Bryan Enk are less consistently hilarious as Ilse and Rudolph, which may be due to the writing.

The program--a faux TV Guide from the period--is a masterpiece.

Post-Baby Boomers think of the Sixties as a time when everything seemed possible; but right before that romantic moment came a long period of Cold War when almost nothing did. Leslie Bramm's new play Leo Oscar's Backyard is set on the cusp of those eras, just before the Kennedy assassination and Vietnam mobilized and then galvanized the nation. Hard to say whether the American mood right now is exactly the same or exactly the opposite; either way, Leo Oscar's Backyard is a timely offering well worth taking a look at.

What happens in Leo Oscar's Backyard is that a young man, Leo Oscar, tries and fails repeatedly to be taken seriously as a political thinker and social activist. He appears on a TV interview show, but his attempts to speak seriously derail until finally he is forced to win the audience over with a song from Oklahoma. And normal discourse with the visiting couple from Texas is impossible, because it turns out that they are swingers who only want to indulge in a bit of wife-swapping.

Bramm gives his protagonist an intriguing and familiar resume: dissatisfied social agitator; a few years abroad in Russia; a Soviet-born wife named Rina; a broken-down house (complete with broken-down TV set) in New Orleans in 1963. The parallels to Lee Harvey Oswald are hardly subtle: is this a glimpse inside the mind of the man who set off the Sixties Revolution when he fired a gun into a Dallas motorcade?

Well, no, obviously; but also yes: a la Albee's Virginia Woolf?, Bramm juxtaposes his hero's mediocrity with the ghoulishly greedy decay that rots away at the idea of America (then and now?).  The visiting couple, George and Norma Jean, play a game of "Get the Hosts" that so disorients Leo that a violent act seems almost the next logical step.

Nothing in Leo Oscar's Backyard is necessarily real (by which I mean some or all of the events may take place only in Leo's head). But Bramm is wonderfully careful: nothing is random here; every moment of this shrewd and thoughtful play is fodder for provocative post-theatre conversation about where we are and how we got there.

Leo Oscar's Backyard is sharply directed by Pamela S. Butler and features a winning ensemble. Christopher Yeatts shows us Leo's sense of inadequacy as well as all the good reasons for it. Hadas Gil-Bar is affecting as his victimized Russian bride Marina. George G. Colucci is menacingly unctuous as the omnipresent TV interviewer, and Bart Mallard is steely and even a little scary as Leo's TV alter ego. Reggie Barton and Kymberly Harris Riggs are masterful as George and Norma Jean, offering richly detailed portraits of conspicuous consumption at its most dangerous.

Sets, costumes, and lighting serve the piece well. The program credits them to Seth Biltter, Ward Robesson, and Flip Oninov, respectively. (Say the names out loud.)

Dominic Orlando's new play, Life During Wartime, takes place during the two weeks following the attacks on the World Trade Center. Its two main characters are New Yorkers whose lives are irrevocably altered by that event. Leo Lewis is a TV standup comic known for his irreverence and political satire, but when he tries to do some material about 9/11 he finds himself condemned by the network and turned into a pariah by even his closest associates, all of whom try to explain to him why he doesn't "get it."

The young woman who calls herself Daisy turns up shortly after the attacks at the home of an affluent woman who believes she is Daisy's mother. Daisy doesn't think so: she tells the woman that she came to the home under false pretenses, having seen pictures of a girl who looks just like her, labeled "Missing" and hanging up on telephone polls and walls all over the city. Daisy has nightmares about an endless staircase of flames. And that's all she can remember.

It's clear that Daisy is in dire need of some healing; it's less clear, but eventually evident nevertheless, that what Leo needs is someone to heal. Their quests through post-9/11 Manhattan bring each false starts before they finally find each other in Union Square at an all-day/all-night vigil.

The two ends of Life During Wartime—the beginning and end, which I have just described—are by far the best parts of this play. Author Dominic Orlando is a pioneer in a genre that is going to explode during the next year, and he gets the guilt, the formless anxieties, the surreal suspended animation-existence that New Yorkers went through during the weeks following 9/11 exactly right. He's less successful with a third character, Dr. Stanley Bracken, a former Soviet expert on biological weapons now working for the U.S. government. Bracken's presence in the play introduces a set of issues—important, far-reaching ones to be sure—that feel out-of-place in a work that is otherwise exceptionally personal. What I particularly love about Life During Wartime is the way it explores one question that plagued so many of us after the attacks: how are we supposed to feel? Daisy and Leo offer us two ends of the spectrum; watching them move toward the center helps us all heal more.

Karin Bowersock's staging is efficient and sensitive. Mark Leydorf and Carla Tassara are ringingly authentic as the two main characters, and Darius Stone does fine work in the problematic role of Dr. Bracken. Two other actors, Kimberly Jay Thomas and Gerald Marsini, portray the other characters in the play, very effectively.

Playwrights Horizons’ latest offering, Billy Aronson’s Light Years, which chronicles the trials and tribulations of four college students from their freshman to their senior year, is a good example of why most adults should not write about young adults and modern youth culture. The author, whose age I don’t know, is clearly too far away from his own youth and college experience to write a relevant and insightful play about either. He might very well have done better by writing about the era he went to school during, but by setting Light Years in the present, Aronson proves that he not only knows very little about his characters, but thinks they’re fatuous. 

With help from director Jamie Richards, Aronson blatantly makes fun of his characters in the first of Light Years’ three scenes, mocking the various ways in which teenagers endow everything with the utmost importance and assert themselves in spectacularly inappropriate ways. This approach suits Aronson’s limited knowledge of the characters very well, and sets a precedent for the kind of show the audience thinks they’re going to get (i.e., a sharp satire about dumb college kids). Then, in the second scene Aronson throws in some drama (while still mocking the characters), and suddenly asks the audience to start taking Light Years very seriously. By the third scene, he has abandoned satire altogether, and transformed Light Years into a wistful play about lost opportunities and wasted time. Light Years would clearly work as a spoof or a yearning drama, if only Aronson would decide which one he wants it to be.

Aronson’s four characters—Courtney (Anne Marie Nest), the popular blonde; Daphne (Sarah Rose), the waifish wallflower; Doug (Paul Bartholomew), the insecure academic nerd; and Michael (Ian Reed Kesler), the moody bad-boy—are so underwritten that even the actors don’t have enough information to fill in all the expository blanks. A lot happens to the characters in between scenes, but, most of the time, the audience isn’t told what. Or, the characters ignore what’s happened to them in the scene before. At the end of Scene 1, one of the women receives a horrible piece of news that ought to mark the beginning of a significant change in her. But, instead of addressing of it, she completely ignores it for the rest of the play, like it never happened. Now, it could definitely be argued that Aronson decided that that was her way of addressing the news, but, instead, it just feels like sloppy writing.

Thankfully, the audience draws more conclusions about the characters from their clothes than from any other source. Costume designer Amela Baksic plays into stereotypes that are inherent in the script, and exploits them to her advantage, which ultimately gives the audience some idea about who these people are. Set designer Narelle Sissons also does spectacular work with the black box Theatre Three, as does lighting designer Michael Lincoln.

In terms of sheer ambition and epic sweep, Mephisto is probably unparalleled among off-off-Broadway shows right now: the play is BIG, and the production, from Reverie Productions and Theater of Necessity, is grandly expansive. The task at hand is nothing less than telling the story of the collapse of a civilization. Covering a period of nearly twenty years, the play chronicles the catastrophe of Weimar Germany, from its beginnings in the ashes of World War I, through the ascendancy of Hitler and the Nazis and the Final Solution. Considered along the way are the political philosophies of the Communists and the National Socialists; the economic problems of rampant hunger, poverty, and unemployment and the social problems of fear, injustice, and anti-Semitism. And at the center of it all is the moral question of responsibility: must one stand up to evil, or can one simply stand by?

It's quite a lot to manage in just a couple of hours in the theatre. I wish I could report that Mephisto succeeds at it: I was so rooting for it to do so! But--despite a host of really wonderful individual moments--all that emerges from this production is a cloud of good intentions.

The story of Mephisto comes to us, originally, from an autobiographical novel by Klaus Mann (son of Thomas), written in the late 1930s. (The novel was dramatized in 1979 by Ariane Mnouchkine; the play was translated into English by Timberlake Wertenbaker seven years later.) Mephisto centers around an ambitious young actor named Hendrik Hofgen, who rises from relative obscurity working in a provincial theatre troupe in Hamburg to fame and celebrity as the star and government-appointed administrator of the national theatre in Berlin. As we watch him forsake his Communist Party principles and his free-thinking wife to endear himself to the Third Reich, we observe the devastating impact of events on the people surrounding him. Magnus, head of the theatre company in Hamburg, is eventually forced out of his job by the Nazis because he won't renounce his Jewish wife; Otto, his radical Communist comrade (and fellow actor), loses his position and, shortly thereafter, is arrested; Erika, his wife (daughter of Herr Bruckner, the most famous writer in Germany, a character modeled on Thomas Mann), is abandoned and ultimately escapes (with her brother, Sebastien) to America.

Offering further contrast to Hendrik's dangerous ambivalence are characters like Lorenz, a desperate street hustler who insinuates himself into the local Nazi Party leadership, and Miklas, a dedicated National Socialist who nevertheless refuses to "name names" when called upon to do so by his government. We also encounter Alex, a dedicated and heroic young Communist; Myriam, Magnus's resilient and resolute Jewish wife; Carola, a Jewish actress whose star descends as the Nazis' rises; Knurr, a maintenance man at the theatre whose allegiance to the Nazis is shown to be as tenuous as it is cowardly; Ludwig, the long-silent servant of Herr Bruckner, who find their voices when the Fuhrer comes to power; and, believe it or not, nearly a dozen others.

For here's the central problem with Mephisto: it teems with material. This makes for a play that is not only very, very confusing--so many names and plots and circumstances to keep up with!--but also damagingly diffuse. What's gained in epic sweep is more than lost in focus. In particular, we never get close enough to Hendrik for his moral battle to resonate. Lacking that hook, the play flails--and it never recovers.

(One thing that might help, by the way, would be the inclusion in the program of a clear but detailed explanation of who each of the characters is. And I wondered more than once why Mann and/or Mnouchkline and/or Wertenbaker chose not to use the real names of characters who are so obviously based on real people: why, for example, must Klaus Mann himself be called Sebastien in the play?)

If the whole of Mephisto doesn't quite cohere, individual parts nevertheless dazzle. There are several cabaret sequences, depicting '20s-style avant-garde theatrical parodies supposedly staged in Hendrik and Otto's underground Communist nightclub, that are breathtaking--witty, stylish, and masterfully pointed. Music, by Kathy Hall (performed live!), features period tunes that establish time, place, tone and mood mightily. Sarah Lambert's unit set--effortlessly serving as posh restaurant, lavish garden, or the stage of the Berlin Opera House--is ideal; and Colin Young's expert lighting is invaluable.

Under Rachel Kranz's thoughtful direction, the ensemble is remarkable. Standouts include Joel Van Liew as Otto, Karin Bowersock as Myriam, David Palmer Brown as Magnus, and Tim Cusack as both Miklas and Alex. Mark Leydorf has interesting moments as Hendrik, but he's really prevented from showing us the turmoil of his character's journey because that aspect of the role seems oddly absent from the script. Centering the play beautifully is Matthew Pritchard's well-realized Sebastien, an observer who is unable to distance himself from the horrors he observes.

Seeing this production has inspired me to read the original Klaus Mann novel on which it is based--there's food for thought aplenty in this Mephisto, no doubt about that. Think of it as a feast gone askew: the courses are too small, too rich, and too plentiful to make a nourishing meal.

The subject of Miracles, Frank Higgins' gripping new play, is autism. In it, a sixteen-year-old girl named Eve who suffers from autism is recognized, suddenly, as a savant. Her teacher, Kate, has applied the controversial technique of facilitated communication to get Eve to "speak" to her, and what has come pouring out, lately, are simple but lovely poems. Kate wants to publish Eve's poetry in a book, and she's got a contract and radio and TV appearances lined up to help Eve share her gift of hope with the families of other autistic children. But before any of this can come to fruition, Kate must first convince Eve's father, Tom, that his daughter has at long last found a voice.

Which brings me to the theme of Miracles, which is the power of faith. Higgins sees faith as a kind of double-edged sword, on the one hand a sort of genuine well from which all manner of remarkable stuff can spring, but on the other a cruel enabler that can blind us to reality and allow us to see things that aren't actually there. Tom is a skeptic when we first meet him and when he first watches Kate hold Eve's wrist as she points to letters to spell out words. But as he sees the possibility of his damaged little girl at last being able to speak to him, he acquires faith. Holding her wrists himself, he believes—at least for a while—that Eve is saying what her fingers are spelling out.

Is Eve really talking? Is facilitated communication an authentic treatment or a sham: do Kate and Tom merely hold Eve's wrist or do they manipulate it? Finally, Higgins refuses to take a stand on this pivotal issue in his play, which is most unsatisfying, particularly because the central dramatic moment of Miracles—beautifully realized, by the way—turns on this point. I've been told that Higgins wants audiences to make up their own minds about what happens to the characters in the play: we each need to decide what kind of faith we believe in. That's his privilege, of course, but it still feels like a copout. What I want to know, after seeing this richly-detailed study of doubting father and open-hearted teacher, is what manner of miracle Higgins himself believes in.

The play is staged sensitively and insightfully by Rebecca Taylor on a simple, effective unit set designed by Ray Klausen. The cast of three is excellent: Reed Birney is sympathetic as the father, Angelina Fiordellisi is radiant and compelling as the questing teacher, and young Shana Dowdeswell is most affecting as Eve.

Miracles is a valuable play because it focuses on a topic that we still know too little about and does so with intelligence and wit and compassion. It certainly stimulated a good deal of post-show conversation among the group I saw it with.

The facts on which David Feldshuh based his play Miss Evers' Boys are harrowing and shocking: For nearly forty years, the United States government and a group of medical researchers perpetrated a base fraud on several hundred men, leading them to believe that they were being treated for syphilis when in reality they were being used as guinea pigs in a study of the effects of that disease when left untreated. The additional fact that a cure for syphilis—penicillin—was discovered some 26 years before the study was abandoned makes this blotch of history even more heinous. And the final detail that the so-called patients (victims?) were all African- American adds the specter of racism to the already ugly ethical morass that this highly amoral project represented.

And yet what lingers most vividly about Feldshuh's angry, polemical play is not the misguided choices made by the scientist/bureaucrats who ran the Tuskegee Study, but rather the squandered opportunities for honest human understanding among the men involved in it. The first act of Miss Evers' Boys introduces us to four of the men who eventually participate in the project, all of them undereducated black men working the soil in Macon County, Alabama to eke out a meager, hard living. In addition to their socioeconomic backgrounds, they have in common "bad blood," the local euphemism for syphilis; this is what brings them together at Possom Hollow Schoolhouse, where they meet Miss Evers, a smart, kindly, confident and reassuring young nurse whom the government has sent, quite unexpectedly, to provide them with treatment.

Genuinely ignorant and, consequently, fearful of doctors in general and white doctors in particular, the men are skeptical and reticent. But Miss Evers convinces them to join the program and accept medicine for their condition. In the play's best scenes, we watch her "boys" negotiate tentative relations with John Douglas, the white doctor from the North who has come to oversee their treatment: the youngest, Willie Johnson, breaks the ice first, finding a common bond with the stranger in the music of Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington. This tenuous, fragile trust feels sacred and extraordinary because the barriers erected by institutionalized segregation are shown so clearly to be nearly insurmountable. So when Dr. Douglas betrays that trust, it packs a palpable wallop: we wonder how this man, who overcame ingrained prejudice to stop thinking of Negroes as abstractions but rather as flesh-and-blood humans, is able to transform them in his mind yet again, this time into little more than lab animals.

The relationship between Miss Evers and her four charges is nevertheless the play's central one, and although Feldshuh departs from it near the end of the piece to try to parcel out blame among all the study's perpetrators, he renders the growing mutual respect and love among these people with honest insight and humanity. Scenes like the one in which Miss Evers and her "boys" take their first ride in her car together, or another, later, in which 57-year-old farmer Ben Washington gets his very first lesson in writing from the dedicated nurse, express the profound tenderness and joy that come from unabashed and unconditional love for one's fellows.

So the subtext of Feldshuh's script is an unwavering and fundamental truth that we too often forget. If the doctors and nurses and scientists and talking heads who ran the Tuskegee Study had remembered it, there may not have been anything for Feldshuh to write about.

Melting Pot Theatre Company's production is, somewhat surprisingly, the New York premiere of this piece; written more than a decade ago, Miss Evers' Boys has been seen all around the U.S. and as an Emmy-winning TV movie on HBO.  (One wonders how this play slipped through the cracks.) In any event, it's an excellent production, highlighted by an outstanding ensemble headed by Adriane Lenox as Miss Evers and featuring Terry Alexander and J. Paul Boehmer as the doctors (one black, one white) and Chad L. Coleman, Helmar Augustus Cooper, Byron Easley, and Daryl Edwards as the "boys." Kent Gash's direction is sound though a bit sluggish at times (and transitions between scenes are often downright awkward). Designers Emily Beck, Earl Jerome Battle, William H. Grant III, and Abe Jacob create a visual and aural environment for the piece that is most effective.

Miss Evers' Boys is important viewing because the story it tells needs to be heard, understood, and remembered. So, too, must the simple, universal truths that the play reminds us of never be forgotten.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has inspired so many adaptations that any new one necessarily begs the question "why." Neal Bell's Monster, which is being premiered at Classic Stage Company in an engrossing staging by Michael Greif, provides only a partial answer. Bell seems concerned principally with the big moral question that underlies the story, i.e., should man ever play God? But he gives us a monster that takes us to still thornier terrain: neither damaged nor innocent, this Monster kills to punish a creator who has brought him back to a life of infinite suffering. It's an intriguing notion, but at odds with the rest of Bell's recitation.

Bell also wrestles, unsuccessfully, with the conclusion of his play. The Monster's murders don't have the same temper as the rest of the piece: realistic characters start behaving like characters in a horror story because that's what required by the narrative. In a less probing account of Frankenstein, this wouldn't matter; but here, unmotivated action stands out starkly. Bell pushes Monster to its inevitable finish, with a too-short second act that feels both rushed and tacked-on. Once Victor Frankenstein and his creation stake their philosophical claims, there's really no place for Monster to go.

Greif's staging is intense, physical, and mostly abstract, which turns out to be a successful strategy. Smashing sound and lighting effects (by Jane Shaw and Kenneth Posner, respectively) contribute mightily to the ambience of the thing, although Posner doesn't deliver the spectacular final image that's wanted. Performances are fine, especially Christopher Donahue's raw, electric Monster. Donahue, literally naked much of the time (this production doesn't pander to its audience by imagining that Frankenstein built a man inside a suit of clothes), is also emotionally naked throughout in a remarkable and memorable turn.

Though finally unsatisfying, Monster represents the best of theatre in its willingness to challenge and shake up an audience with material that really probes the deepest, darkest issues facing humanity. With sharpening and clarifying, Monster could become genuinely great. Meanwhile, it's still a valuable addition to a theatre season that's been, so far, woefully short on substance.

Mr. Goldwyn is a pleasantly entertaining comedy about the life of movie mogul Sam Goldwyn. He's played here by Alan King, one of America's master comedians, who puts his own indelible stamp on the script by Marsha Lebby and John Lollos and transforms the famous film producer into a shrewd, dapper, sentimental businessman with a will of iron and a heart of gold. As history it's familiar and possibly dubious, but it's feel-good theatre that sends the crowd, which will inevitably include many of King's diehard fans, away with smiles on their faces.

Lebby and Lollos have essentially written a one-man show, albeit one with two characters. Each of Mr. Goldwyn's compact two acts depicts a (compressed) day in the mogul's enormous office at his Hollywood studio. Goldwyn interacts with his tough but caring secretary Helen (played with tremendous intelligence and warmth by Lauren Klein); he takes phone calls from luminaries like Farley Granger (whom he detests; this is the show's running gag), Lucille Ball (who wants to buy his studio for her new hit TV series "I Love Lucy"), and his wife Frances. The rest of the time, King-as-Goldwyn talks to us, who have somehow managed to wander into his office to listen to him reminisce about his long, eventful career and to cheer him on as he launches yet another comeback with a Danny Kaye musical called Hans Christian Anderson.

The show covers the basics of Goldwyn's life, from his emigration to the U.S. as a boy through his stormy relationships with Louis B. Mayer, Cecil B. DeMille, and other film industry pioneers, up to the present-day (i.e., 1952) conflicts over McCarthyism and television. Most of it will be familiar to anyone with even a passing interest in American movies or pop culture, as will be the many "Goldwynisms" tucked into the script (example: an oral contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on). The portrait is neither surprising nor particularly complex, though in King's hands it's eminently satisfying.

David Gallo's luxurious set, anchored by bookcases that seem to soar literally to the sky, is appropriately fabulous. And King looks elegant in a pair of Tony Maurizio suits that help us remember just how high up the ladder plucky Sam Goldwyn, ne Schmuel Goldfish, managed to climb.

Murray Mednick’s new play, Mrs. Feuerstein, is a noble misfire. It has a fascinating central idea that is, unfortunately, sacrificed for the sake of some vague writing, poor directorial choices, and an absolutely puzzling lead performance.

It’s 1965, and the title character (Maria O’Brien), a holocaust survivor who teaches at a Pennsylvania boarding school, is still haunted by the war. Enter Max and Freida Wohl (Daniel Ahearn and Lynnda Ferguson), two German colleagues of hers, who may or may not have been involved with the Nazis during the war. Mrs. Feuerstein’s feelings of paranoia, shame, and revenge eventually become so strong that she writes a play in which she and the Wohls are engaged in a sexual ménage a trois, with Mrs. F. as the dominant figure and the Wohls as the submissives.

This all sounds pretty straight-ahead and interesting, but it isn’t. For instance, I only know what the story is because I read the synopsis in the press kit. The story doesn’t make nearly as much sense as written by Mednick. Mrs. F.’s relationship with the Wohls in the play-within-the-play is crystal clear, but her relationship with them in real life is hazy, at best, making it difficult for the audience to see in them what drives her to write her play. Why does she do all of this? What’s really bothering her? Mrs. F.’s motives don’t necessarily need to be clear to her, but I do think they should be clear enough to the audience so that they can follow the story.

Director Roxanne Rogers doesn’t help matters much. She seems equally uncertain about the story, and does nothing to illuminate the play’s meaning. Her transitions are embarrassing, as she intentionally makes the actors set themselves on stage for their next scene in full light, as if that were part of the next scene! The entire cast looks uncomfortable doing this, as if they, too, know it’s a mistake, but still must dutifully follow their orders. And, Rogers seems very uncomfortable staging scenes any way other than with the actors standing center stage and facing out front. Her unwillingness to block much of the play in any other fashion not only fails to give clarity and meaning to the proceedings, it also makes for some pretty uneventful theater.

I also have no idea what to make of Maria O’Brien performance in the title role. She flutters about the stage in a tentative, neurotic way that suggests that Mrs. F. was discarded from a Woody Allen movie, but reveals very little about Mrs. F.’s motives. They seem to befuddle her as well.

The rest of the cast acquit themselves well. Samantha Quan, Martin Shakar, and Kevin Shinick each do good work, but their respective characters are so completely unnecessary to the story that it’s hard to notice them at all. Ahearn and Ferguson fare even better as the Wohls, not only because we see much more of them, but because their characters are crucial to the story.

It’s hard not to shake one’s head in amazement after seeing Mrs. Feuerstein. The play feels as if Mednick has some genuine feeling for and interest in the idea, but, unfortunately, he just keeps getting in his own way throughout. Here’s hoping that he fixes that the next time around.

Murder in Baker Street begins with a disagreeable rubber tycoon named Cecil Forrester calling on Sherlock Holmes because he believes someone is trying to murder him. Holmes decides that Forrester is in sufficient danger to keep that gentleman under wraps at 221B Baker Street. But next morning, when trusty housekeeper Mrs. Hudson tries to awaken Forrester for breakfast, she and Holmes discover his bloodied corpse, throat slashed from ear to ear.

Things turn even worse when Dr. Watson, Holmes' faithful companion, turns out to be the only suspect. Murder in Baker Street follows Watson's ignominious arrest and prosecution by Sir Charles Wormsley. Will Holmes be able to find the real murderer before poor Watson is hanged?

Well you probably can guess the answer to that question; but you likely won't figure out whodunit before Holmes does. Playwright Judd Woldin, who has written such musicals as Raisin and this season's Little Ham, has fashioned a suitably convoluted mystery for the great detective to unravel here. He's also populated it with such unlikely figures as an American rubber industrialist and a Japanese Ninja, each of whom adds excitement and color to the piece and could be, of course, the real murderer.

Woldin's script is filled with tongue-in-cheek good humor, too, so that he gently parodies Holmes' famous powers of ratiocination and other quirks at the same time that he faithfully serves them up to the audience. It's a breezy, entertaining piece, one that could well become a staple of high school and community theatres on the lookout for something new to produce.

Theatre By The Blind's production is generally fine, though it may not show the play to best possible effect. At the performance attended, actors still seemed uncertain about lines and business. Jerry Lee, as Dr. Watson, seems to have a handle on the play's lighthearted style, but other members of the cast do not. Ike Schambelan's staging is capital, though, replete with punched-up sound effects and pregnant pauses that keep the audience chuckling.

The only thing I felt after seeing Eve Ensler's Necessary Targets was manipulated. Ensler, who is also the author of the long-running Vagina Monologues, knows how to push her audience's buttons: after the inevitable climactic denouement, in which one of her five Bosnian characters recounts the details of her rape by soldiers, there were audible sobs throughout the house. I don't have anything against polemical theatre, but I resent soulless, witless propaganda, which is what Necessary Targets finally is. For though we must sympathize with the (presumably true) stories of the suffering and humiliation of the female refugees that Ensler presents us with here, that sympathy is hollow and meaningless without something actionable to take away. Necessary Targets indicts some vague and amorphous group of men for the crimes committed against these women, but fails to probe further the nature of the perpetrators or the forces that brought them into power. Is wanton violence against civilians heinous? Of course; but Ensler's lack of a clear agenda beyond her mistrust of men deprives Necessary Targets of true substance. All we're left with is generalized anger—a dangerous emotion, indeed.

Let me pull back for a moment and tell you what Necessary Targets is about. Melissa, a young, competent, self-assured "trauma counselor," and J.S., a middle-aged, affluent, self-doubting psychotherapist, have arrived in a Bosnian refugee camp to provide counseling to the women there. Their group consists of five residents who speak English; their "therapy" consists of engaging these women in talking about their feelings and "telling their stories."

It's a transparent, perhaps even idiotic, device: a way for Ensler to (a) dramatize the experiences of Bosnian refugee women, and (b) present the conflict between a selfish, acquisitive yuppie (J.S.) and a selfless, politically aware journalist (Melissa, who turns out to be writing a book about refugees, and heads off to Chechnya the minute she gets the rape story she's been waiting for). Ensler equips both of her protagonists with ample flaws; the play charts, rather clumsily, J.S.'s "growth" as she becomes  aware of the plight of her patients.

As for the refugees themselves, Ensler presents them, surprisingly, as inscrutable and clichéd. There's a young girl who longs to be modern and an elderly goat farmer who clings to the old ways; there's a lusty woman who longs for men and a damaged woman with a baby and a secret. And there's Zlata, the earthy doctor who is resentful and surly but obviously "right."

Shirley Knight works hard to make J.S. believable, but it can't be done; Catherine Kellner is similarly defeated by Melissa, a grasping opportunist whom we are somehow supposed to respect and admire. Diane Venora brings to mind Anna Magnani as Zlata in a performance as arbitrary and calculated as every word Ensler has written.

Neil's Garden, a first play by an interior designer named Geoffrey Hassman who specializes in decorating the homes of the very wealthy, is about an interior designer named Neil Perry who specializes in decorating the homes of the very wealthy. Neil is also very wealthy himself, as evidenced by the astoundingly lavish living room (by John McDermott, a professional set designer) that overwhelms the stage of the intimate Rattlestick Theatre. (Eventually, Neil will tell us that the lush red upholstery on his sofa cost $185/yard, just in case we had any doubts.)

The idea of the play–which I don't mean to suggest is any way autobiographical–is that Neil has a terminal illness of some sort and he has decided to, as he puts it, commit euthanasia on himself. He has invited his former lover and decorating partner, Timothy, to be with him on this last night of his life.

Though the show's press release (and common sense) suggests that Neil and Timothy will talk about something meaningful or profound, what they actually do is snipe at each other like a pair of overheated toy poodles. They also go over the arrangements for an extravagant picnic and dinner party, apparently to be held in lieu of funeral or memorial, for Neil's friends after his death. Neil has planned these affairs with the exquisite eye for detail that has earned him a living lo these many years; he wants to die, he tells Timothy, as he lived. Which is to say: opulently and self-indulgently–that's not the way he puts it, but it's definitely what he means–on that $185/yard couch.

And here, friends, is where Hassman lost me. How many of the survivors of the 3,600+ victims of September 11th would give anything just to have seen their loved ones' bodies again, on or off an elegant piece of furniture? Neil and Timothy's unsurpassed display of shallowness–which they may indeed share with their creator–seems particularly ill-timed just now. These rarefied old snobs have nothing valuable to tell us; shame on Rattlestick and co-producers Tony Caciotti and Valerie Harper, for foisting them on us.

Set in an insane asylum in Dublin, Nighttown depicts an abstract psychological struggle over memory between two men who’ve deliberately forgotten the past. Leo Kettle claims that he’s killed his wife’s lover, though no body’s been found and she maintains her fidelity. His roommate Caesar McCarthy makes the less-likely assertion that he’s James Joyce, and has decided that Leo must actually be Leopold Bloom, the cuckolded hero of “his” masterpiece Ulysses. McCarthy instills Bloom’s unbending fidelity in Leo, not quite curing him but nevertheless healing his pain. Leo, in turn, encourages McCarthy to reveal his true nature: a shapeshifter, an actor who murdered his own unfaictor Susan Mosakowski seems to have patterned her quiet, highly cerebral work after Euripedes’ Bacchae, the Greek classic in which Dionysus seduces his half-brother and drives him mad. But instead of mimicking that tragedy’s climax, Nighttown reconciles its pair by purging them of their pretensions toward sanity.

As Leo, Matthew Maguire wins over the audience early with his character’s befuddlement, and comes across as the more sympathetic lunatic. His costar, Michael Ryan, is more maniacal, but—putting aside his painfully bad Irish accent—captures his character’s desperation well. Nighttown is an esoteric exercise for the thinking theatergoer, but while Joyce would have admi’s in

Plays about teenagers in trouble are glutting the off- and off-off-Broadway marketplace these days: in rapid succession, I have seen Jessica Goldberg's Good Thing, Stephen Belber's Tape, and now Alexandra Cunningham's No. 11 (Blue and White). Cunningham puts an original spin on a familiar theme, but unfortunately her play is confounding and ultimately unsatisfying. In Daniel Aukin's striking production for The Play Company, No. 11 comes off as slick but incomplete. When I left the theatre, I was unsure what Cunningham was trying to accomplish.

The play takes place in what looks like a high school gymnasium, somewhat listlessly gussied up for a tenth anniversary reunion. Running across the middle of the stage is an elevated platform, perhaps eighteen inches high, which divides the playing space into two areas, one where characters interact and "confess" things to the audience and each other, and another where characters observe these confessionals.

People filter in and the play starts. Though they're portrayed by actors who are at least ten years beyond high school age, it's clear that the characters in the drama are teenagers, seen at first coping with the day-to-day trivialities of life at private school and later in the midst of some rather shocking violence that will presumably transform all of their lives. Aukin and Cunningham intend us to see the characters simultaneously "then" and "now," so we're always slightly removed from action that is by turns nasty, brutish, and profound and always adolescent; the one genuinely dramatic moment in the play comes when the nature of that violent act I alluded to is revealed, which is why I'm somewhat loath to tell you exactly what it is.

That act aside, though, No. 11 is mostly about loyalty, specifically its teenage protagonist Alex's loyalty to her best friend Reid, even after the heinous thing he has done becomes known to her. Unfortunately, Cunningham doesn't really provide enough information to explain Alex and Reid's relationship to us (and giving this young woman her own name clouds things up even more: is this autobiography we're watching?). Cunningham also provides Alex with a long monologue at what should be the climax of the piece that is interesting and fraught with drama but entirely unconnected with what's come before; it's a non-sequitur non-ending to a puzzling enigma of a play.

No. 11 is potent and watchable, in spite of its weaknesses; Cunningham is a skillful writer and Aukin is wizardly in finding interesting ways to stage a piece that is very talky and very static. The performances are generally fine and some are outstanding. I was particularly impressed by Joey Shea's shadowy, layered Reid, suggesting complexities and complexes that Cunningham's script merely hints at; and also by Nell Mooney's richly textured portrait of Paige, the pretty blonde airhead at the periphery of Alex and Reid's circle, finding unexpected depth and interest in what could have been a broad caricature. Katie Walder is intense but rather mannered as Alex; Robin Taylor and Adam Groves seem dangerously influenced by Anthony Rapp and Philip Seymour Hoffman, respectively, as two of Alex's pals. Hilary Edson, Shauna Miles, Liza Lapira, and Amber McDonald do good work in the play's other roles.

Finally, No. 11 (Blue and White)–the meaning of whose title, by the way, eludes me–ranks as a disappointment. Cunningham has things to say and a smart and original voice to say them with, but she hasn't made her talents and ideas cohere this time around.

Not in Front of the Baby is very funny most of the time, which is why we are so disappointed when it's not. What's worse, the unfunny part is the ending: playwright Stephen Gaydos strains credulity and squanders our goodwill with a finish that is both too outlandish and too irreverent for its own good.

But the rest of this comedy about a dysfunctional family in crisis is really pretty good. Not in Front of the Baby is shaped like Alan Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests: three siblings and their respective significant others wreak havoc on one another's lives when the planned dirty weekend of two of them (who are not married to each other) goes awry. Gaydos adds a fourth sibling (and mate), the (mostly unseen) focus of attention is not an elderly parent but a trio of infants, and the satirical barbs are not gentle Britishisms but broader American ones a la Paul Rudnick or Christopher Durang.

So, in a nutshell, what happens is that Katherine, the long-suffering, guilt-inducing, deeply religious eldest sister, suspects that something's amiss when Mary decides to leave her baby son with his father, Darren, instead of with her. Mary and Katherine's brothers, the cowering James and the screwed-up druggie Luke, both turn up before Mary can take off for her mystery weekend, as do, eventually, Katherine's passive-aggressive husband Michael, James' sexpot wife Susanna, and Luke's motorcycle-riding girlfriend Chopper. Chaos ensues; hilarity does, too, at least until Gaydos decides to forsake logic and makes the characters do something that is deliberately shocking but utterly ridiculous.

The play, which is directed with speed and spirit by Paul Zablocki, provides excellent opportunities for its cast. Best is Joe Feur as Michael, who underplays throughout with outstanding results: his comic timing in moments like the one where he removes a splinter from Chopper's thigh while she pretends to be in labor is splendid. Jeremy Peter Johnson (Darren) and Jeannie Noth (Chopper) do good work, too; Rana Kazkaz, a very capable actor, works hard in the pivotal role of Katherine, but she never quite convinced me that she was the terrifying harridan that the other characters seem to think she is.

The unit set by Chris R. Jones is terrific, serving the play very well. Costumes by Linda Ross feel oddly quirky.

Richard Vetere's new play One Shot, One Kill is about a young Marine sniper who has returned from his first mission and is unsure whether he wants to be assigned to a second. The play unfolds in the office of his commander, Major Mark Royce, at the U.S. Marine Corps Scout/Sniper School in Quantico, Virginia. Royce debriefs the younger man, whose name is Nick Harris, and tries to learn what's at the root of his ambivalence, which even stretches to relations with his wife, whom he refused to spend the night with upon his return.

What Royce discovers is something he already knows, from his own experience: the life of a trained killer is, by definition, filled with unease. Royce and Harris discuss the enormous fears, responsibilities, and consequences that come with the territory, including some rather horrifyingly graphic descriptions of young men—themselves—virtually alone in enemy territory, targeting and then assassinating individuals identified by unknown and unnamed superiors. Vetere really gets us under the sniper's skin, which is extremely unsettling, especially in light of recent events.

Ultimately, One Shot, One Kill (whose name is derived from the snipers' credo of accuracy) trades in two rather scary themes. First, the impulse to make war is programmed into mankind's DNA and won't be going away any time soon. And second, the specific circumstances of post-9/11 America make it necessary for young men like Nick Harris to risk everything for their country. As Royce says, somebody has to do this. Vetere gives us a clear look at the kind of people who eventually do.

As I watched One Shot, One Kill, I was disturbed that alternatives to government-sponsored murder, such as negotiation or diplomacy, aren't considered in the play. But I realized later that Vetere's scope necessarily excludes them: however uncomfortable his perspective, it's certainly a valid one. In any event, the production at Primary Stages is excellent, tautly directed by Joe Brancato and well-performed by Michael Cullen as Royce, Robert Montano as Harris, and, briefly, Andrea Maulella as Harris' wife.

I didn't feel emotionally ready to see One Shot, One Kill and left the theatre quite upset by it. Think hard about your own preparedness before you decide to see it. But know that the subjects and points of view presented in it are timely—unbearably so—which is precisely why they need to be borne.

Paradox Lust is Gary Lippman's first play, and it shows a good deal of talent. This cute, if imperfect, comedy is about two best friends, a man named Gurk and a woman named Gish, who are in the midst of a severe dating slump. In fact, "slump" puts it mildly: as Lippman reveals in several delicious montages throughout the play, Gurk and Gish are clearly in dating hell.

There's the guy who brings his father along to a blind date, and the lesbian securities trader who shows up only to try to make a sale. There's the buff male model/lawyer who unequivocally tells Gish that he has no interest in her other than to have a one-night stand. And there's the woman with a Bengali name who coughs without covering her mouth and commands Gurk to get to know her by not talking.

The best candidates for second dates turn out to be a Republican ophthalmologist with a strange aversion to Joe Lieberman and an aging Jim Morrison groupie with a thing for scars.  Daunted by these prospects, Gurk and Gish turn to their best friend Sal for advice. And then, suddenly, a stranger appears dispensing--well, not advice, but something that seems inevitable. He turns out to be the Playwright, who is determined to make sure that Gurk and Gish arrive at the happy ending he thinks they deserve.

This device is the weak link in Paradox Lust; Lippman (the real playwright) doesn't satisfactorily account for the presence of the phantom playwright in his play. But the travails of Gurk and Gish in the world of dating, and the wisdom that Sal finally gets to impart to them to help them along, are satisfyingly conceived and executed here. And a bravura ending that ties together more loose ends than we have a right to expect is rather neat. Lippman needs to keep at his craft; I will certainly be watching for his next opus.

Director Will Nolen keeps things moving snappily; he's aided admirably by Jennifer Revit's clever unit set, which enables seamless transitions between the play's many scenes. The cast of eight is fine, especially Elissa Lash, Jennifer Ward, Josh Conklin, and Jason Woodruff in the very showy multiple roles of Gish's and Gurk's various dates.

Something mysterious but probably horrible—possibly life-threatening—has happened. Bright flashes of light blaze in the night sky; on the ground there seem to be fires, and in the air there seem to be flying saucers.

The good news is that all of that has happened on the other side of the river. On this shore, six weary, disparate travelers converge. It's very late, and they've missed the last ferry. Given the remoteness of this way station and the uncertainty of recent events, they decide to camp out here for the night. To pass the time, they decide to tell each other stories.

Thus begins Len Jenkin's lovely, timely play Pilgrims of the Night. In short order Jenkin introduces us to an eccentric cross-section of humanity: a former lost soul on the path toward redemption named Mr. Samuel Sundown; a savvy urban business executive type, Lily Black; a slick, even slippery shyster with the moniker Ray T. Fox; the wife of the ferry's captain, an enigmatic woman called Viva; and the flim-flamming Professor Hubert and his street-wise, somewhat troubled niece/assistant, Zoe. Watching over them all is Poor Tom, the lonely but omniscient ex-con who runs the station  and narrates the play.

The stories these six tell each other (and us) feel, at first, like the campfire ghost variety: Ray's "Story of Nick Slick, Darlene, Rudy, and George the Cook" is a bawdy tale of a cuckolded husband; Lily's "At the Zombie Jamboree" fancifully places her supposed roommate Sherry in an empire of zombies masterminded by a fabulously wealthy sugar plantation owner; and Samuel's "Dr. Kremser, Vivisectionist" is a Twilight Zone-y narrative about a mad scientist and his possibly madder assistant. Speaking to our basic fears, the spooky stories are oddly comforting and entertaining, little semaphores of defiance to ward off the uncertainty across the water.

In the second half, the stories turn unexpectedly profound. "Olga the Headless Woman," Viva's contribution, is about a charlatan's exploitation of a sad, slow young woman who is, of course, not really headless. "The Story of Elmo March," narrated by Zoe, is a sweet-natured parable about an ordinary Joe who is enlisted by a silver fairy to spread the truth throughout the world—truth that no one will believe. And Hubert's final offering, "The Adventures of Bunny and Dick," is a creation allegory about an unlikely couple who set out to found a Utopia and end up becoming Adam and Eve.

The stories, brought to life with great charm and spirit by six actors in addition to the narrators, don't finally converge in a single spot; this troubled my companion at the show, who, seeing some of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress in this play, wanted some thematic closure. For me, Pilgrims of the Night is wholly successful, however, a celebration of the restorative power of storytelling, especially on dark, stormy, scary nights when other resources seem to fail us.

Director Joe Tantalo has done a splendid job bringing this simple yet complicated piece to life on the very intimate Manhattan Theatre Source stage. The play's fifteen actors (two of whom "appear" only in voice-overs) are excellent; particularly effective are Josh Renfree as Poor Tom and, in a variety of guises throughout the six tales, Catherine Dyer, Dave Epstein, and Rob Maitner. Andrew Recinos' soundtrack and music add much to evoke mood, as does Jason Rainone's lighting design.

Pilgrims of the Night was written ten years ago, but it resonates strongly in the post-September 11 world; Tantalo, who is the artistic director of Godlight Productions, the company producing the show, has chosen wisely and well. He's to be commended, also, for focusing on significant new but little-known work like this (Pilgrims of the Night has not been seen in New York before). The run is woefully short—there are but three more performances—but this is a gem worth discovering.

Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome is an earnest, honest, and absolutely necessary theatre work about race relations in the United States. At its heart is a steadfast desire to explore and acknowledge cultural differences between African Americans and what the production calls European Americans in order to effectuate tolerance, understanding, and unity. It's a beautiful idea.

Unfortunately, the good intentions of author Kamal Sinclair Steele and director Robbie McCauley can't, by themselves, ensure that Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome effectively satisfies its objectives. For me, the piece fails–albeit nobly–as both theatre and social science, and mostly because it never clearly decides which of those very different disciplines it wishes to be a part of. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome begins with two unnamed lecturers (referred to as "tour guides" in the program) initiating discussion–as in a college seminar–on the subject of  axiology, a field of research pioneered by Professor Christen Johansen. I'm no expert, so I have no sense of how accepted axiology is in the academic community, but it sure feels alarmingly reductive: its central premise, according to the "tour guides,"  is that Europeans formed an individualistic future-centric social order because the growing season was very short, while Africans created a communalistic present-centric society because the growing season lasted all year.

What's useful about all this, for Steele's dramaturgy, is that it sets the stage for accepting underlying differences between whites and blacks. These are then revisited, by the "tour guides" and by the full company, acting out vignettes and scenes, to explain the Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome theory of Dr. Joy DeGruy-Leary. Briefly stated, this hypothesizes that African Americans as a group are suffering from a form of post traumatic stress disorder, due to the common experience of slavery. Dr. Leary's ideas, at least as explained here, feel every bit as reductive as Professor Johansen's. I find it difficult to swallow explanations for human behavior that assume that members of a race or class or what-have-you all act the same way. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome failed to change my mind.

But it did give me plenty to think about, and for that we all should be grateful. Playwright Steele hasn't made the material sufficiently theatrical–too much of this piece feels like school. But in places, she's found vivid ways to illustrate points with real efficacy: a segment about Africans being captured and exported to American to become slaves is particularly powerful.

So we can learn a good deal from Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome–about people of other races and about people of our own. And we should all be able to agree on its over-arching message of acceptance and tolerance.

Don McLean once wrote, about Vincent Van Gogh, "This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you." That's the thought that leapt into my mind after I saw Evan Smith's new play Psych; it is, more or less, what Smith seems to be going for here, though I suspect that he intends his work more as a criticism of a society that can't handle beauty (or kindness, or compassion) than a tribute to one of its rarefied exceptions. This is an interesting play, but a flawed one; like Smith's last work Serviceman it feels like there was more on its author's mind than he was effectively able to communicate on stage.

The heroine of Psych is Sunny Goldfarb, a young woman who wants to be a psychologist but at present supports herself as a dominatrix. Though she's supposedly been in the S&M biz for three years, she's an unlikely practitioner: she's essentially Casper the Friendly Dominatrix, going through the motions of Mistressing when all she really wants to do is make everyone happy. Indeed, that's Sunny's "problem": she has an earnest desire to be liked and to be kind and compassionate and caring to people. Psych chronicles how such urges have become anti-social in contemporary life: Sunny's sunny temperament eventually gets her kicked out of graduate school and drives her best friend and roommate, Molly, to the opposite end of the country. Again, I'm positive that Smith is being ironic here: we're supposed to admire Sunny but identify with the people she kills with kindness.

But there are two things that prevent this from working. First, Smith embroils Sunny in improbable situations–her job, to name just one–which are maddeningly frustrating. Second, he surrounds her with some of the most unpleasant characters you're likely to encounter on any stage, effectively stacking the deck against his leading lady so baldly that she becomes almost pathetic. Sunny doesn't have the same equipment that you and I do to handle the Real World; why is it necessary for her to keep bucking up against its worst examples?

One other problematic thing: I told you that Sunny is the heroine of Psych; what's interesting about the play is that she's not its protagonist. Molly is; she begins the play by narrating the story of the year she spent living with Sunny in Brooklyn. Smith gives Molly the last word, but he doesn't give us enough information about what close proximity to an angelic entity like Sunny Goldfarb has done to her. I think Smith started to like Sunny too much, and forgot that his play was really about Molly.

Psych is quite funny, in a lot of places, especially in the scenes where Sunny plies her trade. But it's also often uncomfortable to watch, as Sunny is pitted against outrageously unpleasant people like Jennifer, a fellow student who goes out of her way to be nasty to Sunny, or Todd Cox, the egotistical and controlling chauvinist who is her advisor at graduate school. Smith gets the rhythms and rituals of these people down perfectly; but who wants to spend time with scum like this on their day off?

Jim Simpson directs the play too busily, with actors moving the few simple set pieces needlessly and endlessly all over the stage. Claudia Brown's costumes are appropriate; read your program carefully, though, and you'll discover that the memorable dominatrix ensembles come from places called www.innersanctum.uk.co and Demask. The company is generally fine; Enid Graham manages to be uptight and sympathetic as Molly, and Damian Young is believably scuzzy as Cox. Danny Burstein, Marissa Copeland, and Katie Kreisler display remarkable versatility in nearly a dozen roles; Burstein is a hoot as a milquetoast client getting a tour of the S&M agency where Sunny works, while Copeland is coolly over-the-top as Sunny's detached fellow dominatrix Mistress Dominique and her manipulative professor Barbara Stafford.

Gamine Heather Goldenhersh is appealing, if not downright irresistible, as Sunny, which may or may not serve Psych well. But it should serve her well: she's watchable and lovable, and certainly deserves more showy, interesting parts like this one.

Quake begins with its central character, Lucy, relating a post-natal early memory—direct address, via a microphone conveniently located in the wall of the proscenium arch. Immediately I thought, oh, it's going to be that kind of play: a quirky voyage of self-discovery, couched in feminist psychobabble, filled with feel-good one-liners, outrageous and outlandish characters and situations, and occasional mild flirtations with experimental/surreal theatre techniques.

And it is exactly that kind of play. Nothing wrong with it, per se, only for all its self-conscious Importance it's the furthest thing from Innovation or even Interest: we've seen this all before, lots of times.

Quake follows Lucy from questing childhood through dissatisfied early middle age, engaged in futile search for the elusive something that will make her life meaningful. The search mostly takes her into the arms/beds of various men, including a college classmate who evolves into a philandering husband and a hunky auto mechanic who evolves into a brutal rapist. Lucy's journey also brings her in contact with That Woman, first in dreams and then in real life. That Woman is a scientist-turned-serial killer who is supposed to be some sort of Empowered Feminist Ideal except it's murky what she actually stands for. (Clad in dominatrix boots and lacy lingerie straight out of a Victoria's Secret catalogue, she didn't look like a feminist to me, that's for sure.)

Playwright Melanie Marnich fleshes out the sometimes funny, sometimes harrowing sequences with genuine wit and originality; but it's never in the service of anything substantial. It's clear from the start that Lucy is going to have an epiphany that will cause her to become a self-reliant Whole Person. What's never clear is how or why it finally happens, or why we should care.

Dannah Chaifetz is likable as Lucy but the performance is, perhaps, a little too one-note: wouldn't we believe in her predicament even if she were less childish, less whiny, less at the end of her tether than she seems to be here? Jacqueline Bowman is appropriately commanding as That Woman. The real heroes here are Irene McDonnell, Matt Seidman, Jonathon Gentry, John Kevin Kennedy, and Robert Bowen, Jr., who play, to great effect, the many other characters who touch Lucy's life in this improbable play.