FringeNYC 2005 Reviews - Page 9

Three Ring Circus
reviewed by David Reinwald

Daniel Thau-Eleff is a neurotic Jew. He would not take offense to that statement—he even says it himself in his one-man biographical show, Three Ring Circus. Thau-Eleff has a lot in common with Woody Allen. Like Woody, he is clearly very opinionated, very forthright, and not afraid to do things in his own manner.

Thau-Eleff’s hour long performance is like a long-winded conversation comprised of three “rings”—the Jewish religion, Middle East activism related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and girls. Though, at the Thau-Eleff circus, it is the second of these rings that becomes the Main Event. As an activist, Thau-Eleff has a lot to say and he is very well-educated on the issues with which he is engaged. Thus, there are many moments in his performance connected to this theme that work very well. Most of these occur ironically when he steps out of his own shoes and takes on the personalities of the many individuals with whom he has come face to face. He assumes the identities of Israelis, some of whom yearn for a recognition of Israel’s plight, while others, as “refuseniks,” have stepped away from mandatory military service out of a refusal to dirty their hands in the political melee. It was in these moments that I was able to see through Thau-Eleff’s eyes without any additional deliberation.

However, there are many places in the performance that feel more like a rant, and it was more difficult for me to become engaged in what seemed to be an utter explosion of his thoughts. It was at times like these that I wondered, who are we as this audience? Are we here to watch a show or are we supposed to be playing the role of the silent therapist? I wish we somehow could help to piece together Thau-Eleff’s outbursts.

I have not given much attention to the other two “rings,” and similarly, these are not given as much weight in the focus of the play. However, Thau-Eleff declares that these other elements are essential, including what he calls “the fiction of his love life.” Yet there is a lack of detail to support such a conclusion, and I was left wondering what specifically connected his love life to his activism and his Jewish identity.

Three Ring Circus also includes a couple of asides, in which the actor takes on the vicious role of a suicide bomber and, later, takes a comic dive at Yasser Arafat. The first of these is particularly ineffective, because its purpose in the show is entirely unexplained.

I think there is potential in Thau-Eleff’s work, especially if he draws on the strengths aforementioned. The direction by Chris Gerrard-Pinker, however, needs some work. Too often, the actor is pacing frantically from side-to-side or in circles on the stage, standing in the shadows, or facing the back of the stage. There are also many uncomfortable pauses throughout. There needs to be more motivation in the physical movement and verbal expression of the performance—a solid grounding to support the important messages that Thau-Eleff wants to deliver.
 

A Certain Level of Commitment
reviewed by Gyda Arber

At the beginning of the performance I caught of A Certain Level of Commitment (an actor prepares), solo performer Brandon Wolcott had to make a curtain speech. There had been some technical difficulties, so could we please bear with him as he tried to set things right? Though this was an unusual occurrence, Wolcott is an engaging and affable fellow, and I definitely felt for the guy. It’s hard to put a show together, and even tougher in the Fringe, with some less-than-desirable venues and little-to-no tech time. Little did I know that his brief speech would set the tone for the rest of the performance.

Wolcott’s play explores the powerlessness that most actors have. Unless you’ve hit the big time, performers are really at the mercy of casting directors, agents, directors, and other industry professionals, waiting for them to give you your big break. He explores this theme in two ways: as himself, discussing his passion for the theatre and his plans for this showcase, and through a funny monologue and song about a drag queen who’s hanging up her hat. The drag character, sandwiched in between Wolcott’s musings on the process of building a career as an actor in NYC, herself muses about many of the same issues as Wolcott, blurring the line between Wolcott playing himself and Wolcott playing her. She is being interviewed for an HBO reality show, a fitting premise for A Certain Level of Commitment, for as the play continues, performance and reality come together and the show literally crashes to the floor.

Though the character he creates is interesting, Wolcott is at his best playing himself, a dedicated actor whose frustration at not yet having “made it” is palpable. Ever hopeful, however, Wolcott eloquently expresses the dissatisfaction so many performers feel as they endlessly attempt to get the attention of agents, audience members, anybody, really, just so they can get an opportunity to perform. Wolcott presents his show as a showcase for “industry professionals,” but it was disappointingly clear by the end of the performance that no industry professionals had come.

I’m reluctant to reveal too much about the show; the surprising way in which it plays out is compelling, and I’d hate to spoil it. But A Certain Level of Commitment is definitely worth checking out, especially for us performance-types spending an eternity in showcase purgatory, constantly wondering when that big break will finally come.

Love is in the Air
reviewed by Anthony Pennino

I am going to begin my review of Love is in the Air, conceived by Dustin Helmer and produced by Pig Brooch Inc., with a paradox: I did not enjoy my time at this show, and I am going to recommend highly that you go and see it. Clearly, an explanation is called for. Love is in the Air is a piece heavily dependent upon the conventions of silent films (more Charlie Chaplin than Buster Keaton). And the truth of that matter is, I find little to no enjoyment in the form. Were Chaplin himself on the stage performing, I would be bored to tears.

That said, there is no reason for those who created this piece to suffer because of my aesthetic bias. First, the story works well within the Chaplin-esque frame. Helmer himself plays Henry, a Little Tramp-like character. The Devil (Seth Powers) decides he wants Henry’s soul and sets before him a series of temptations and disappointments. One such temptation is in the form of Aimee LaBlatte (Thessa M’loe Klocke), after whom Henry lusts. His advances are thwarted by her wealthy boyfriend Valentino (Justin Tyler, the company’s artistic director). While Henry is occupied with Aimee, he does not fully appreciate the affections of Plain Jane (Jennie Smith). Moving throughout is the Man of Many Faces (Kyle Knauf) who seems to end all of his scenes with a heart attack. While much of the sentimentality in the show has its roots in Chaplin’s work, the ending of the piece does not.

Second, a great deal of effort went into this production. Often shows in the Fringe are under-rehearsed. However, Pig Brooch has presented a highly polished, thoroughly rehearsed piece. Helmer and Paul Peers, the director, have created a strange but consistent world that has its own working logic. All of this work and preparation is a necessity since so much of what they do is dependent on physical comedy. Only one character speaks during the entire show, and then only rarely.

The cast is uniformly excellent as well. Again, a problem one frequently confronts at this level of production is that smaller parts are poorly cast (often because it is difficult to get talented actors to take roles with little stage time). But everyone here is right for their roles, and gives all of their inspiration and perspiration to the performance. That they all connected with the audience is especially impressive given that they do not speak. As the Devil’s familiars, Peter Harmelin, Sasha Kaye, and Jordan Wishner perform their roles with great physical grace. Knauf plays his multiple roles well, and Tyler is appropriately over-the-top as the snobbish suitor. Both Smith and Klocke occupy the opposite ends of the Madonna/Whore spectrum extremely well. And Powers brings gusto to his role of the moustache-twirling Devil. Special attention must be paid to Helmer who is the show’s center. He is an extremely talented performer and will be someone to look for in the years to come.

There is much to recommend Love is in the Air. And if this style of theatre is your cup of tea, I am sure you will have a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

Kegedawan (The Gift)
reviewed by Kyle Ancowitz

Anticipating a gift, I splashed down East 4th Street through a furious summer downpour to explore a Philippine rainforest onstage at the Connelly Theatre. Creator/director Denise Montgomery, choreographer Ruffy Landayan, and the athletic ensemble of Kegedawan (The Gift) expend a lot of energy in this dance-theatre bio-play, but after 60 minutes I still felt like I’d missed out on the title’s promise.

Kegedawan is based on Wisdom From A Rainforest, the memoirs of Stuart Schlegel. A clergyman and part-time ethnographer, Schlegel took a break from his calling and his family to document the culture of the Figel Teduray, an isolated but peaceful rainforest-dwelling tribe. Montgomery is emphatic that Schlegel’s life and experiences are a rebuke to Western individualism and its resultant materialism and violence, going so far as to call him the greatest inspiration of her life and share his “quest for compassion, peace, and social change.”

Schlegel’s depiction in the play is not entirely uncritical. The audience has a number of opportunities to wonder if he’s got his priorities straight. The very first scene shows him risking his six-year-old son’s life for his fascination with the Teduray, and I’ll always wonder—until I read the book—why his wife put up with him. Still, Montgomery regards his determination to reconcile one calling with another, to document the world of the Teduray and restructure his Christian faith to match what he’s seen, with real reverence. The Stuart character, played with unblinking earnestness by a masked G. Ivan Smith, politely tells his bishop to take his Lord and shove it (twice!) because he doesn’t need some pencil-neck ecclesiastical bureaucrat to show him the Christ in his own heart.

I can’t doubt that Schlegel’s personal convictions are inspirational since he’s inspired his own show in the Fringe, but I’d like to have seen a little more of what really turned him on. Apart from a retelling of the Teduray creation myth, there isn’t much in Kegedawan that feels particular to those people. The image of a Motown diva is utilized for a sequence in which our “civilized” Western horror of transsexualism is laughingly dismissed by the Teduray…but what’s rainforest about Gladys Knight? Coarse masks designed by Kat Lasky and worn by each ensemble member serve to generalize the characters more than distinguish them. I’m sure that Schlegel has a finely delineated notion of how the Teduray are different from any people he has or ever will meet, but I haven’t grasped it yet.

But wait, what about the gift from the title? It’s not the Teduray, because there sadly aren’t any left. It isn’t Schlegel himself, though you can purchase his book from the website in the program. If you catch this play based on Wisdom From A Rainforest, staged by the Wisdom Theatre Company, you may find some gift to take away, but you’ll have to search a little harder than I could.

Faker
reviewed by Leslie Bramm

A pianist and a dyke.

Say that ten times really fast. Faker, a one-woman musical sketch comedy show, is that and more. Welcome to the hilarious, often sad and self-mocking world of Karen Weinberg. With the use of slide projections, she takes us on a journey through her ugly duckling—or perhaps better said, ugly Jewish duckling—adolescence. We travel through her teen years, where she experiments with both boys and girls, up to and through her decision to have a nose job. Weinberg plays ten different characters ranging from her mother and grandmother to a Catholic priest; Sophia, her teenage object of desire; and Hava, her megastar alter-ego.

Oh, did I mention that she sings and dances as well?

Faker is about the people who believe that they can’t be who they are or ever be what they really want to be; that who they are growing into, must undergo radical change in order to be accepted and loved by the world (but really just loved by their mother). While the idea of an actor wrestling with her identity, only to come back around to her original self, is hardly a new concept, Faker handles the subject matter boldly. Weinberg is the target of most of her cutting humor and yet she makes it very easy to sit there and laugh at her, to her face. Which is quite lovely, as are her breasts, which she offers to the audience for approval.

Did I mention the songs? There are six of them, as a matter of fact, which Weinberg co-composed with musical director and aforementioned pianist Jonathan Wagner. Here is where Weinberg adds another dimension onto the idea of the one-person show. Another character. As I write this, I’m just now getting the joke.

Her pianist, in addition to being a versatile player and talented singer, also serves as her conscience, stopping her in the middle of bits to question her honesty and/or why she’s doing a story of her life to begin with. Atop his piano is a buzzer which he buzzes whenever Weinberg ventures into dishonesty or exaggeration. The two have a great rapport and Weinberg is generous with the amount of stage time she shares with him. In fact there were a couple of points where his acting and playing came close to stealing the show. His post-operative rendition of a nose job is worth the price of the ticket alone.

Direction is by Norm Holly, who was able to reel in Weinberg when necessary, no easy task to be sure. Faker takes us into the heart of a talented woman, but more important a person who has learned to survive. Not only from the crap that life threw at her, but from herself as well.

Sandy Takes a Break
reviewed by Richard Hinojosa

Sketch comedy is always a mixed bag. One person’s belly laugh may be another’s blank stare. Watching Sandy Takes a Break, I experienced a little of both. I think what I liked most about this show is its commentary on the media, the war, and, to lesser extent, relationships. However, taken as a whole, the show does not live up to its potential.

The opening sketch is about a heckler in a criminal court. It is funny but I had the feeling like I’d seen it before. The next sketch is where the show gets its name. It’s about a correspondent named Sandy Vancour whose reporting style is to string together colorful aphorisms and pithy expressions. This scene had me laughing and is an example of the sort of commentary that I found so appealing in this show. We revisit this character and his daughter later in the show.

Next we see a young man who is being driven home by the enigmatic and effeminate father of his girlfriend. This sketch is hilarious and has the most interesting character dynamic.

Skipping past some scenes that I just didn’t get, we have a sketch that is most brilliant in its concept—a marine liieutenant is giving notes to his troops as if they are an acting troupe and he is their director. This scene is funny, poignant, and at times made me feel like maybe I shouldn't be laughing at it. For me, that’s what defines the best in sketch.

My problem with Sandy Takes a Break is that it is very uneven. The performer/writers, Ben Seeder and Chris Lee, are at very different levels in the development of their talents. There are moments and entire sketches that have the makings to be a lot funnier if they were put in the hands of other performers. The writing is not all as funny and/or poignant as it could be. It has a lot of good hooks but (for the most part) no punch. Also, there are no good buttons on the end of scenes. However, as I’ve mentioned the show has some truly hilarious moments and has the potential to be very entertaining.

Perhaps the creators of this show should consider constructing something that ties these sketches together. It was interesting when Sandy would reappear in another scene. He is a very funny character and could work as a focal point (the title of the show already implies that he is).

I can’t say that I completely recommend Sandy Takes a Break but I do hope to see these guys back here next year with something new and better.

Extra Virgin
reviewed by David Pumo

Every year brings to the stage a handful of plays about gay couples who meet in online chat rooms. Usually they are light, sexy comedies, often with a serious twist or two as the couple, post-coitally, get to know each other. None I have seen is as surprising or intense as Howard Walters's Extra Virgin, and none I have seen is as well-written or acted.

The play begins when the two are still having sex, and it is quite explicit. Afterward, hunky Elias (Kevin Creamer) wants to relax and be affectionate. But the frailer-looking Noah (Jimmy King), who won’t take his shirt off even during sex, is suddenly moody and pensive. Eventually he suggests that the two do a little soul baring, that they share some emotional intimacy as intense as the sexual intimacy they had no problem sharing with a total stranger. Sounds a bit contrived, but the script makes it happen quite organically. Eventually it is revealed that the two men actually know each other from the far past, and that their meeting tonight was no accident.

Without giving anything away, the play takes a jump here into some very serious areas including destructive self-images, bullying, child abuse, and rape. It is a lot to handle in an hour, but director Michael Melamedoff and the cast make it all ring true. The physical contact between the two actors, some of it violent, is very real. Both men handle a broad range of emotion in a short time without ever seeming forced or unreal. The more intimate moments are natural as well, without all the awkward squirming to avoid actual contact or exposure that breaks the reality of many scenes like this. Creamer and King are comfortable with each other, and unconscious of the audience. Their characters, Elias and Noah, each have reasons for not walking out on this painful encounter. The audience will too.

My Father's Son
reviewed by John Samuel Jordan

Jennie Contuzzi’s play My Father’s Son is a fascinating and disturbing drama about a very dysfunctional family. Unfortunately, Not a Toaster Productions’ performance of this piece falls short on a couple of levels.

What does work is the story itself. It’s compelling, frightening, and I left the theatre feeling as though I had been punched in the stomach. First, we encounter Scott and Will, sitting on a car seat on a rock (not until the end of the play was I able to ascertain that this represented the cab of a pickup truck). Will, a graduating high school senior, has been accepted to Duke University and Scott is ending his junior year of high school. We also learn that there is a love/sex connection between these two young men, though this is not fully recognized by Scott as he has not come to terms with being gay.

Next, Scott’s older brother Jonah arrives on the scene, hootin’ and hollerin’ all over the place. After Jonah exits, Scott confesses to Will that a few gay magazines had been found in the trash by his father (a fantastically-written, ominous offstage character, never seen or heard), who then proceeded to hit Scott. Scott has told his father they were not his, leading the father to believe they belonged to Jonah, who is sure to get the beating of his life.

Will continues, to no avail, to get Scott to open up about their relationship. That’s the last we see of Will. Jonah then returns, after being beaten to a pulp by his father. This is where the story really picks up as we learn of the abuse Jonah has encountered through his life, the absentee mother’s role, and the throwing around of blame for the years of abuse.

The problems with this production are twofold: the direction and the acting. I must give props to Joe Tuttle (Jonah), who takes his character to heart and gives as honest a performance as possible. Mark Souza (Will) also has some very fine moments, notably during the pre-show (make sure you get there early). Doug Singer’s interpretation of Scott, however, seems to be to over-dramatize every emotion, which takes away from the truthfulness. The direction by Adam R. Perlman is overflowing with long and choreographed dramatic pauses, which seem better suited for a film than the stage.

The scenic design, once I figured out what the pieces represented, is perfect for the space. The costumes are fine, except for one particular shirt: as the storyline unfolds, Jonah presents Scott with a t-shirt from their youth; Scott puts it on and it fits almost perfectly (perhaps he was a large child). The lighting design by Kevin Hardy is appropriate.

My Father’s Son is a very good script. With solid direction and confident actors who have the inner depth to tackle such characters, it has the potential to be a very affecting and necessary play.

Places Like Here
reviewed by Pamela Butler

Written and directed by Robert Attenweiler, Places Like Here was developed as part of the Playwrights’ Workshop at the Lark Play Development Center here in New York City. It is a brutal and gritty tale of a road trip from Rapid City, Iowa to Miami, Florida taken by two American misfits—Lonnie, an old drifter with a serious medical condition, played with finesse by Peter Davies, and Cab, an angry, lost, and confused teenager with a gun who is played with nervous intensity by Josh Heine.

We meet them in a diner attempting to order coffee, hash, and dessert. They are on the first leg of their trip, indicated by a tiny car affixed to an impressionistic map of the USA serving as a backdrop to the action. Each time they move, the car moves as well so we follow their trail.

Cab is billed as a serial killer but this isn’t quite accurate. He is a going-through-puberty killer, who is quite random about his victims. He has met Lonnie on the road, and Lonnie, like drifting debris, picks up such flotsam and jetsam and takes them along.

Between meals and sleeping in fleabag hotels with bad sheets and one bed, they run into waitresses, townies, and other drifters, all deftly portrayed by Ryan Jensen, Becky Benhayon, and Lolita Foster. Cab sometimes shoots and kills them.

What is going on here? An old, ailing man and a misguided youth? It is a murky father and son kind of bonding that happens in a dark current of lost, broken souls drifting at the bottom layers of our culture.

Sometimes it’s effective for the playwright to direct his or her own work, but often, even with the best writers, they haven’t the skill or objectivity. The action here has a grinding sameness, and what could be great black humor in the diner scenes is lost for lack of good staging, pacing, and character dimension. To make matters worse, the scene transitions are amateur and clumsy and, last night at least, there were problems with the light cues. The original music by Brian Finke does enhance the bleakness and despair.

But this is FringeNYC, a place to try things out. Tighter production values and direction may serve to aid the playwright in making Places Like Here a place we want to revisit.

Beyond
reviewed by Ross Peabody

Beyond, A Little Night Opera: a simple title with pretty vast implications. It’s a fitting title for Danny Ashkenasi’s modern opera. Both simple and with vast implications, these two aspects of Ashkenasi’s newest work are handled with a subtle, forceful, and deft hand.

Beginning with a car crash and the imminent demise of a world renowned opera singer, Beyond is the story of how this soprano, near death, is guided through the events of her life by two angels who become husband, lover, son, even therapist and plastic surgeon. Ultimately, it is about a woman looking back on her life and appreciating the simple things, and finally laying down at the end of that life after seeing the terror of the world and of living and choosing not to return. It sounds a little familiar, but it is in this familiarity that this piece finds its strength.

In opera, even of the chamber variety, only two strategies work: an opera must be produced on an epic scale, or on one that is spare as spare can be. If the choice is anywhere in between, you lose either the power of the spectacle or the power of imagination. The spare environment of his empty stage and his simple story underscore the fact that Ashkenasi fully understands this. The audience is lucky here, because this show is all about Danny Ashkenasi’s remarkable abilities as composer and director. Catherine Gayer carries a voice to be envied by those blokes on microphones at the Met, and both David L. Carson and Lance Olds as the angels are competent singers and actors who bring a great humor and humanity to their roles (although neither really has the discipline to pull off Ashkenasi’s rigorous direction). Ashkenasi’s repetitive, melancholic, joyous, and, at times, darkly hilarious composition, as reflected by the specificity, discipline, and occasionally tongue-in-cheek range of his direction, suffuses the show with the operatic, and cosmic, spectacle that is in Ashkenasi’s own imagination. It, in turn, is then shared with us.

There are moments when the story veers from the simple life of a woman into the more clumsy complexities of the nature and purpose of therapy and other cosmic conundrums of a more philosophical nature. Things get a little muddier than I would appreciate in these moments, but when writer Helga Kraus and Ashkenasi allow the simple straight lines of this soprano’s life to be simple, the universality and beauty of Ashkenazi’s imagination shines through.

Shakedown Street
reviewed by Rachel Macklin

Sidle up, cats and kittens, and take yourself back to old San Fran in the time of jazz and booze, broads and brass. You’ve just turned onto Shakedown Street, a lackluster new musical written by Michael Norman Mann that integrates the songs of Robert Hunter and the legendary Jerry Garcia (of the Grateful Dead) with classic1940s noir. This ambitious production boasts a cast of 17, a seven-piece orchestra, and numerous other artists working behind the scenes.

The premise of Shakedown Street is a familiar tale—down-and-out (and downright dashing) gumshoe Duke Bishop (Michael Hunsaker) is hurting for cash 'cause he’s into Mister Charlie (Kevin Alan Ramsey) for a grand. Detective Harry Gordon (Marshall York) throws him a job out of pity—he’s to tail blonde bombshell Lana Lavelle (Alyssa Rae), a looker eerily reminiscent of Bishop’s dearly departed main squeeze, Bonnie. Lavelle is suspected of finagling some rather compromising photos of everyone’s favorite municipal mind, Judge Midford (Michael Sheraton). But all is not as it seems, and with the help of his Gal Friday, Helen Mars (Tara Taylor), Bishop wades through a scintillating story of art, riches, and robbery amidst the shadowy streets of San Francisco’s Mission district. Naturally, our enterprising P.I. gets caught in hot water and must fish himself out before he ends up floating in the harbor.

Because the basic plot elements of Shakedown Street are so second nature (we’ve been spoon-fed this style since Humphrey Bogart first uttered “The stuff that dreams are made of”), writer Michael Norman Mann already had a tough job at hand in steering Shakedown clear of the normal archetypes and caricatures. Adding to this difficulty was a score comprised of existing work that was not originally intended for musical theatre. That said, Mann has done a credible job, but this Shakedown is a befuddled street.

Garcia and Hunter’s music is beautiful in its own right (“Stella Blue” and “You Remind” are especially memorable), and between George Croom’s lush arrangements and the wonderful vocal talent singing them, you would expect Shakedown to be mesmerizing. Unfortunately, the songs do little to illuminate the plot or its characters. The result is incoherent overall —brief scenes are followed by songs that fill a few minutes with music, then we resume the story, which continues to grow more convoluted and is at times difficult to hear. Noir is deliciously deceptive, and it is not surprising that Shakedown Street falls into the trap of relying on stock characters to create and drive the drama instead of honing the specificity of its scenario.

On the whole, however, Shakedown’s capable cast works incredibly hard, and director Jeff Griffin is to be commended for his clean and clever staging. Ryan Scott’s simple set features rotating projections that set the scene, and Maggie Lee-Burdorff’s costumes nicely root the piece in period authenticity. Hunsaker is terrific, turning in a performance that stretches beyond the limitations of his role. His tenor is well suited to the material, and glides from note to note with quiet and compelling intensity. Taylor is also excellent, transcending the Girl Friday stereotype to give Helen a lancing humor and disarming sincerity. Rae and York give solid performances, though they don’t quite move beyond the confines of their characters. The talent represented in Shakedown makes it worth seeing, but the narrative probably won’t sweep you off your feet.