¡El Conquistador!

NYTW is very much my favorite theatre in NYC - more and more I love it. I always usher for shows there and the house manager is just great. This show in particular is the free-brownie show, and who doesn't love ushering for a show and then getting a brownie for free? The red velvet chairs in the theatre and the space itself just make me very happy. And their first show of the season - ¡El Conquistador! - is an entirely new concept for theatre that I've yet to see on any stage.

It's described as a simultaneous foreign film, theatre play, epic history and Telenovela (a Latin American soap opera/mini-series). The show was created on-location in Colombia, and the lead actor + director both hail originally from Colombian. The audience is greeted on stage by the lead actor - Thaddeus Phillips - who delivers an "informal prologue" telling us about telenovelas and a few other things that will be important to the story (e.g. Pony Malta drinks and specifics to the job of a doorman in Colombian cities). Most importantly (at least now looking back), he warns the audience that this story has the frivolity of classic work - such as Shakespeare - and to remember the classics when the level of frivolity gets pretty high within the story.

So, Thaddeus Phillips plays Polonio, a peasant from a rural village who decides to leave his town and chase his dream of becoming a soap opera star. He ends up in Bogota, Colombia's capital, and takes a job as a doorman. Now doormen have it pretty tough in Colombia, especially in Polonio's building. They are the only people with keys to the front door - not even the residents have keys - and they are pretty much called on by all residents at all times to bring up Diet Cokes, cigarettes, let their cars in and out of the garage, etc, etc. Poor Polonio has to cover his doorman station all alone. Just when he tries to catch up on his favorite telenovela - he can't get reception or he is constantly interrupted by any number of tenants. We are taken through his daily routine and relationship with his tenants purely through video form. All tenants have been captured on film in Colombia and Polonio is the only actor on the stage. Some pretty crazy things go on - and it gets very silly towards the end. So silly that a package is sent to the front desk, only to turn out to be Christopher Columbus' journal. The elevator opens and Polonio seems to see the ocean on the inside. It's discovered that he has this package - and one of the tenants also thinks that his girlfriend has been cheating on him with Polonio. He hires a hit man to take out Polonio. The hit man shows up as a Pony Malta delivery man - shoots Polonio (who has put a metal plate in his chest) and then turns out to be Polonio's twin brother...and so on and so forth - with much more silliness.

So my qualms with the show - I saw it in its fourth preview and it is a VERY technical show. The video elements and subtitles (did I mention the show is performed in Spanish) as well as Polonio's moving of the set piece to match the video have to be timed EXACTLY to work - and the show just wasn't there yet. It's a tough show to do with only one actor - Thaddeus really works hard and he did a good job - but it just wasn't polished. I think it could be on its way.

Overall - I LOVED the idea of the show, but thought it lacked a bit in execution. The set was under-utilized and one or more staff could have helped Polonio greatly on stage by moving things away, taking away less of the audience's focus every time a scene changed. Regardless, I applaud the creators for their effort and for NYTW for bringing this type of show to the NYC stage.

Richard II

Classic Stage Company is re-imagining Shakespeare's historical play, Richard II - which I saw this past Thursday. The play stars Michael Cumpsty, who just last season played Hamlet, also at Classic Stage. He made a great Hamlet - and received many accolades for the role - making me want to see this show very much.

I didn't know anything about the story - and probably should have done a bit of research, which always helps with Shakespeare. However, it was about 2 1/2 hours long and the action probably could have been revealed in about 45 minutes..

I did just learn, after doing a quick search that this play is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's successors: Henry IV, part 1, Henry IV, part 2, and Henry V, and may not have been written as a stand-alone work. Interesting - and probably a good idea to see all of these shows. I did see Henry IV at the Public in 2003 starring none other than Liev Schreiber.

Okay - onto this play itself. The Duke of Gloucester has been killed as the show begins. Richard, the king, is thought to be the murderer - but no one will say this, obviously. Two men come before the king and Richard tries to settle the dispute over which one of these men has killed the Duke. One man, Bollingbroke has to leave the kingdom for six years and the other, Mowbray is banished forever. Richard makes a series of bad mistakes - angers the nobility - and they in turn help Bollingbroke to usurp Richard's power. As Richard leaves to monitor the war in Ireland - Bolingbroke takes over power in England. He crowns himself king Henry IV. After being imprisoned - Richard is murdered by one of the men loyal to Henry...and that's where this adaptation of the story ended. I did read that Henry repudiates the murderer and vows to travel to Jerusalem and cleanse himself of Richard's death.

So as you can imagine - this story, without a great cast, costumes, or set could be quite boring. Brian Kulick - the artistic director at CSC and the director of this show - tries hard not to let this happen. The set is FANTASTIC. It's painted with red walls (the deepest red you can imagine) and gold floors. There is a giant blown up photograph of Richard (Cumpsty) which acts as the backdrop to symbolize his kingdom. The floor is lined with red carpet - which gets rolled away to reveal turf (for another scene outside of the castle), then rolled away once more to a dirt floor to symbolize the English soil. As Richard's kingdom is tumbling, and Henry is seizing power - the giant photograph wall lowers and tumbles as dramatic music plays. We start to see the peasants in the background replacing Richard's photograph with Henry's. The costumes are impeccable. The queen's first dress is something you'd see in a design showroom. All of the men are dressed to the nines throughout the show as well. It's all these little touches that help to re-imagine the play and I think this would make Shakespeare himself proud.

The show's not great - due in part to the nature of the writing - but I give CSC and Kulick a lot of credit for their effort.

The Treatment

The Treatment is Eve Ensler's new play about this traumatized military guy going through therapy. So I'm not gonna lie, I'm not a huge fan of Eve Ensler, and this kind of backed those thoughts up. I'm not going to say it was a bad play, but I was definitely underwhelmed.

The dialogue was so awkward and forced, I thought. It was presented fine. I think Dylan McDermott and Portia did a fine job (the latter grew on me; I wasn't too keen on her in the beginning). It's a very loud and forceful play, and it intends to convey a strong message. I think how I'd best describe it is that it's very emotional, but I didn't find it very moving. There was a lot of yelling, and screaming, and crying, and I thought the actors did a fine job with it. I just thought the characters were not developed enough to feel it and the dialogue was just not all that impressive. The dialogue was even kind of sedating. It was just not actiony or moving or convincing. Ultimately, I thought the message she was trying to get through could have been just as effectively conveyed if we only saw the last ten minutes of the play. For those interested, Dylan McDermott is in tighty-whities for a significant amount of time.

So if you want to see a lot of crying and yelling and screaming and hear some overextended commentary on our war situations, check it out. It's not awful, but I'm not going to tell you to run to the theater now.

subUrbia

It's me (Kevin)! I'm posting! I was in New York last weekend, so I crammed in some good theater. The first of which was Eric Bogosian's subUrbia at 2nd Stage Theater. First off, I really like Eric Bogosian. And this play was phenomenal. Just totally great. This play was originally written in 1994 I think, but it's definitely been updated significantly to fit the times. In any case, let's talk about this play.

First off, you walk in, and the set is incredible. It's like they just completely put a seven-eleven into this theater. Took out the stage, and put a convenience store in. Like what. It's pretty amazing.

The play is pretty much great Bogosian. It's driven by character and dialogue - a bunch of kids hanging out in a convenience store parking lot, living life in, you guessed it, suburbia. They're looking for direction, figuring out relationships, and dealing with stereotypes and life in general. The thing I love about Bogosian's writing is that it just doesn't seem like a playwright writing about theater, but like dialogue. It doesn't seem contrived and forced, but just great. It was funny and dark and pretty powerful and a bit disturbing, and that's how I like my plays. It's just great.

The cast I was a little bit apprehensive about at first, but they definitely grew on me. Kieran Culkin was pretty much my favorite of the large, young cast. He was definitely a healthy dose of humor. I thought the males of the cast were stronger than the females. I liked Daniel Eric Gold from The Paris Letter, although Lydia thought he didn't seem natural. I also thought Peter Scanavino was quite a bit better then he was in Shining City. The direction I thought was also quite good (Jo Bonney, Eric Bogosian's wife).

So basically, the play was great. Go see it!

The Pain and the Itch

Playwright's Horizons is a fantastic theatre - with great work, a great space, great house managers - overall....it's....well, great!

Their new play, the first of the season, is called The Pain and the Itch, and it's set around a family's Thanksgiving dinner. Stop and consider the title for a moment - pretty much comes right to mind that something not too pleasant is going on. Well that's about right - this isn't your ordinary Thanksgiving. I like what Charles Isherwood says in the NYT review today so much that I'm going to include it:

"During cocktails, crudités are on offer, accompanied by onion dip and assorted ill-disguised insults. The main course is turkey, basted in bile and stuffed with chestnuts, onions and long-held grievances. Side dishes include braised Brussels sprouts sprinkled with shaved almonds and hypocrisy, and cranberry sauce spiced with orange zest, racism and recrimination. Dessert is pumpkin pie of course, accompanied by lengthy discussions of pornography and disturbing hints of pedophilia. Anyone for seconds"

He sums it up right there.

I'm just going to go all out and discuss the plot - so if there's a chance you might see the show - stop here.......The play starts with a couple, the perfect, organic-living type of couple that's stereotyped so often in sitcoms and movies, discussing the events that took place in their home over a particular Thanksgiving dinner. They're talking with a man, dressed in garb that would suggest he's from the Middle East - he just doesn't seem to fit in with the picture. As they talk, he asks questions about what has happened and the scene jumps back in time to re-hash the events, all while this man is watching along the sidelines. It's very odd, because for the first half and most of the second - the audience has no idea why this man is here. We learn that this couple has a young daughter and that the husband's mother and brother and his young Russian girlfriend have all joined at their house for Thanksgiving. The two brothers talk in private about a certain inflamation that the young girl has - that they hide from her mother.

Events unravel and we learn that this is far from the perfect family - that they all have major qualms with one another. Hints are thrown in here and there about certain things - i.e. the family's nanny has diabetes and she keeps her things in the house. Towards the end - when we're still not really sure what's going on - has the daughter been abused? why are they hiding this? where is they play going? ..... everything comes to a halt and the huge secrets are revealed. These secrets are as follows....(be prepared for the craziness) - the brother's girlfriend was raped as a young girl by a group of soldiers in Russia, who gave her Chlamydia - while the wife was pregnant, she had an affair with the brother, who gave her and her unborn child Chylamydia... e.g. the Pain and the Itch. This we learn in about five minutes of dialogue....and yes, my mouth dropped. We also find out that the man watching the story unfold is the husband of the dead nanny. Throughout the re-telling of the story, the family had been insinuating that the nanny had played some part in the daughter's sickness. Unknowingly, the father had been on the phone with 911 while saying these things. The police, in turn, headed to the nanny's house - arrested her and her family - and took them away. They refused her food and drink, and because she was diabetic, she went into a coma....and passed away... Deep breaths...yes, this did all unfold, very quickly, at the end.

Well - that's the plot. The cast was mostly good - Jane Houdyshell (of Well fame last season on Broadway) was the standout. All the others seemed pale in comparison. I really liked the shock-value of the writing more than the cast, direction, or set - but overall it's a good night at the theatre - quite the social commentary...and makes me remember how good most of us really have it.....

Seven Guitars

Seven Guitars is a revival of the August Wilson play now at the Signature theatre. This was the first AW play that I've ever seen - so I'm a little green as to his style but I've read that this play fits into his "Pittsburgh Cycle" which is an anthology of African American life in Pittsburgh over the span of a decade.

The story focuses around a host of characters - quite a strong ensemble cast. As it opens, we are drawn into a scene centering around the death of one of the characters, Floyd "Schoolboy" Barton. The cast of characters includes, Vera - Floyd's on-again, off-again girlfriend, her roommate Louise, Hedley - a religion-obsessed, white-man oppressed fanatic, a late appearance by Louise's niece, Ruby and lastly his two bandmates, Red Carter and Canewell (my favorite). Everyone's gathered in Vera's backyard after just coming home from the funeral.

We switch back the the present and the story unravels. We learn that Floyd has just come back from Chicago to beg Vera to come back into his life. He's pretty convincing and it doesn't help that his record is starting to really break-through and get radio play. In the three hours during which the play unfolds, we see that Floyd has done some terrible things to get ahead but ultimately pays for what he's done. The story is strung together by pieces of blues music, which I know is truly Wilson's style - it draws you in and makes you feel like you're part of that time period.

The actors were great and put so much into their performances. The audience I was with was quite receptive (minus the crying baby!) to all the little details of these performances and lavished the actors with applause at every notable occassion. The story was a bit long and slowly-paced, focusing more on the period of life and character study than placing great emphasis on plot. I suppose I'll have to do a bit more research to see if that's reminiscent of Wilson - which I strongly suspect that it is.

Interestingly enough, when I was on the subway platform late late Saturday night, Kevin and I ran across two of the actors from the show - and one of my favorites - Kevin Carroll who plays Canewell. He had his harmonica in hand (the instrument he plays in the show) and played the entire time we waited for the train - a good 15 minutes. Such energy! I was really impressed by him and loved seeing him continue his character in real life.

Bottom line - good performances, slow play, but nice commentary on the time period and African American culture.....but not sure it was worth the Brantley recommend (the pinnacle of critical success in my opinion).

Here's looking forward to more August Wilson productions and improving my knowledge of his style...

Illyria

Illyria - the musical version of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night - is a show that I saw in conjunction with the New York Musical Theatre Festival this past Monday night.

It was a concert reading, meaning all of the actors perform with scripts in hand and you are required to use a bit of imagination to envision the production. I have to say, I love readings - I find them to be the purest form of theatre and just really enjoyable.

The cast is delightful. Steve Wilson as Duke Orsino is hilarious! He seems like he could have walked off the pages of a fairy tale, a la the prince in Beauty and the Beast. Jonathan Groff is great as Sebastian (it's pretty impossible not to like him after seeing Spring Awakening) and the remainder of the cast is just as great. All of the music is easy to listen to and quite funny. My favorite number was a song that Viola sings about her love for Orsino called Patience.

Hopefully this show gets staged again in full form - it's fantastic!

Mother Courage

I was incredibly lucky to get my hands on tickets to (what I think is)the best show this summer - Mother Courage. For those of you who don't know, it's the second show from the Public's summer line-up of "Shakespeare in the Park." And although this isn't Shakespeare, it's still in the park, and it's every bit as magical.

Where to begin - oh, probably with the fact that the show stars Meryl Streep, which is really enough to get me to the theatre for anything. This was the first time I've seen her on stage, and wow was it worth it. She co-stars with Kevin Kline and a cast of other very talented actors.

This version of Mother Courage was translated by Tony Kushner. I had lost my faith in Tony after the oh-so-disappointing Munich last year - but he really delivers here. George Wolfe directs masterfully - and Oskar Eustis is officially my favorite artistic director.

The story centers around, of course, Mother Courage - Bertolt Brecht's famous character who is fighting for survival with her three children during the Thirty Years War. She travels back and forth throughout Eastern Europe during the war selling goods to everyone she comes across. The war is both good and evil for Mother Courage - it provides her a living but ends up taking all of her children from her. I found the story extremely poignant for today's political situation, strikingly so to Brecht's story which takes place hundreds of years ago.

I was amazed by Meryl Streep's energy throughout the entire three-hour play. She prances about the stage, sings lovely songs, and never misses a beat. It's the perfect balance of technical perfection and impulsive detail. I can't say enough good things - I only wish everyone could have the chance to see it.