Archive for the 'Theatre' Category

The independent theatre scene has received a real gift this year with the emergence of the Frigid New York Festival: a selection of 30 plays in the East Village in the month of March. These plays are alternative, under represented and finally getting some attention.

“We Call Her Benny” is certainly a stand out play in this innaugural year. The hour long play explores a woman’s relationship with her own identity and her own sexuality. The primary information we have about Anna is that she was adopted as a baby and suffers from bipolar disorder. Told through short, powerful scenes, we learn just enough to care about Anna, and to stand behind her in her difficult journey. As a teenaged girl, Anna (played by Anna Bridgeforth) is taken advantage of by an older man and rebels against her psychiatrist. As a married woman, Anna (now played by Anna Cody) confronts her inability to orgasm, her husband’s desire to engage in a group orgy, and her birth mother. All these scenes are beautifully written and superbly acted. With simple set and very little technical showiness, “We Call Her Benny” proves once and for all that a great script and talented actors are the ultimate recipe for excellent theatre.

All the actors are exceptional, shining in the light and dark moments of the script. Bridgeforth and Cody are both fully alive on stage, and are seamless in their portrayal of the lead character. The rest of the cast is vibrant as well, without a single weak link. Candice Owens is particuarly engaging as Anna’s quirky, disturbing birth mother. Scenes between Owens and Cody are the strongest in the show, balancing humor and tragedy with rare skill.

Every theme in “We Call Her Benny” is handled with delicacy, wit, and depth. Hopefully, Frigid New York Festival will act as a springboard for this piece and its cast and crew. With so much new material constantly arriving in the Manhattan scene, it can be hard to weed through all the options. “We Call Her Benny” is an easy choice, an honest, lovely piece that most certainly will win any audience member’s heart.

Did you ever have one of those Great Ideas? You know the kind.… it’s two in the morning and just for kicks you and your friends are taking turns finding obscure movies on the Internet. The weirder the better. You stumble upon a bit of ephemera so strange and heady it gets better with each viewing. And the more you watch it, the more you want to comment on it, to interject your own ideas. Egging each other on, you take turns reenacting your favorite scenes, pushing it to new levels of quirkdom. You are hysterical and utter geniuses. You have to bring your brilliance to the masses. Everyone loves it. —For the first twenty minutes or so, that is. Then the shtick wears thin. That’s the feeling you get watching The Wooster Group’s “Hamlet.” The concept is inspiringly innovative, and even the execution is praiseworthy—but the play goes on so long that the nuances that at first make it clever become wearing on your senses.

Here’s what The Wooster Group has to say about the weird ephemera that got their creative juices flowing:

We were drawn to Richard Burton’s “Hamlet,” a 1964 Broadway production which was recorded in live performance from 17 camera angles and edited into a film that was shown for only two days in 2000 movie houses across the US.

The idea of bringing a live theatre experience to thousands of simultaneous viewers in different cities was trumpeted as a new form called “Theatrofilm,” made possible through “the miracle of Electronovision.”

Cool. The Metropolitan Opera recently did something similar.

Okay, now take an aspirin ’cause here comes the difficult-but-smart concept behind The Wooster Group’s “Hamlet”:

Our “Hamlet” attempts to reverse the process, reconstructing a hypothetical theater piece from the fragmentary evidence of the edited film, like an archeologist inferring an improbable temple from a collection of ruins.

What this all means is that Burton’s legendary film is projected in the background while live actors simultaneously reenact it. Or at least most of it. Not meticulously faithful to the original film, the players repeatedly request certain parts of the film to be skipped or fast-forwarded. Still, the play goes on for three hours, with only a fifteen-minute intermission, so not too much of the film is missed. Given this room for deviation, it’s curious that Director Elizabeth LeCompte didn’t edit out a bit more of the play to create a stronger piece.

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Allow me to preface this review with some caveats. 1) I’ve never reviewed a play before, and 2) my personal experience with plays is limited to the many high school auditions I went to only to be rejected every single time. I am a bad actor and probably have a bit of a chip on my shoulder towards the theatrical community in general. That said, I have done quite a bit of writing and generally know my way around a good story, and have also done some fairly extensive research in the field of dating crazy women in New York City…which brings me to our topic: Sleep Over.


Written by Maria Micheles, Directed by Kitt LaVoie, and starring the actors Jennifer Curfman, Chris Stack, and Lucy Alibar, Sleep Over really, really tried to be whip-crack smart about sexual mores and the inner struggle all we sexy young things have with balancing the need to whore ourselves out to anyone with a pulse and yet come home to the emotional nest of a lover. In other words, it’s about really immature people all dressed up in their fancy adult trappings who almost pull off the trick of making the premise seem like a reasonable one. And in yet more other words, it’s about the kind of emotionally-vapid pseudo-artistic/intellectual city dwellers I generally try to avoid by making crass jokes during dinner parties.

The basic gist of the story is that the Girlfriend told her already cheating Boyfriend that he could sleep with a pretty girl to “save the relationship”, then she freaks out after the fact (can you hear the echoes of me slapping my forehead?). The girlfriend tries to leave, then refuses to leave. The Boyfriend wants her to stay, then uses wacky reverse psychology. There is much statuesque posing filled with “meaningful” pauses. The Other Woman suddenly shows up, and improbably manages to both save the play and end up in a weird maschistic threesome with the Couple. I won’t tell you how it ends, but I will say that it leaves something to be desired (like a satisfying resolution [or at least a little nudity to wake people up]).

As an exploration of sexual morality, I’d say it pretty much flopped. It’s really pretty simple kids; you either get to be a big slut, be in a healthy monogamous relationship, or agree to some sort of swinger arrangement, but no matter what you have to CHOOSE. The Girlfriend just kind of makes you want to slap her the whole time and the Boyfriend seems to love crazy chicks almost as much as himself, resulting in you, the audience member, just really not caring at all about these two idiots. Thankfully, when the Other Woman finally shows up, she’s believeably wacky, legitimately funny, and offers up a really wonderful character that the audience can sympathize with, if not empathize. It’s unfortunate we had to sit through so much actor-y awkward-pause stage direction waiting for her to arrive.

So, here’s my advice: Men, avoid this at all costs–you don’t even get to see boobies. Crazy Women, also avoid this at all costs because it will only give you more reasons to rationalize your craziness. Sane Women, definitely go see this if you intend to break up with your cheating boyfriend and are looking for a good way to make him feel really uncomfortable for an hour before you drop the hammer.

Sane Ladies with cheatin’ bastard boyfriends, you’ll be happy to know that Sleep Over will be playing at Theater for the New City (155 1st Ave., @ 10th St.) until March 25th. Thursday - Saturday at 8pm, Sundays at 3pm. Call ahead for tix at 212.254.1109.

The Light Inside is a 35 minute play with three actors with the narrative set in three different realms.

The first realm is a series glimpses into our protagonist Lily. (played by the deeply inpsired and very skilled playwright and producer of the show: Lindsay Wolf). Lily is a young girl in therapy sessions. Sessions that begin in early age, maybe 5 or 6 and progresses through early adulthood.

The second realm is Lily in her winter years. Rocking chair and sweater, with a photo album of joyous days and years past. Her loving husband Samuel pacing back and forth behind her muttering “Yes, dear.”

The third realm is a dance. A dream. The girl and some phantom boy, trying to engage, trying to be close, and in each repeatition of the dream they grow closer. Sometimes further away.

Something happened to Lily as a child. Specifics of it aren’t important, all we know is that she was abused by someone close to her. It’s hinted at early, perhaps as subtly as the playwright seemed to be able to muster. But as a focal point of The Light Inside, the audience needs to know: Lily is damaged, and can’t find her way out of the nightmares and the alienation that have come from it.

The “Elder” scenes however showed an old woman who could remember nothing but joy in her youth with her loving husband.

What bridged the gap between these two women? The dance-dreams hint at it, nudge us toward the answer through a series of silent steps. that gulf that at the end of the 35 minutes was filled with a comforting, inspiring revelation.

Lindsay’s performance as Young Lily, through three stages of her youth, growing up byt forever trying to eleviate her herself of the pain of her dark secret was marvellous.

Elder Lily, however was somewhat forced. With a grating, senility-tinged voice and her hunched, slowly pacing husband Samuel. It can be difficult for a pair of twenty-somethings to play octegenarians without it seeming like a mockery of old age. But in a brief, sweet play, we walk away from The Light Inside with the comfort that no matter how broken we may feel, there’s still the hope, and the determination that we can and we do get better.

Editors NOTE: It’s VERY IMPORTANT to support small community theater. Even when confronted with a “perfect storm” of bad PR.

By this I mean a Theater company called FRIGID, putting on a show at the end of winter in a black-box theater with bad heating. But it’ll be 50 degrees this weekend!! So get out there and support FRIGID

Festering with 80s lyrics and clever quips, Your Face Is a Mess makes a hackneyed plot about a tv producer, drug dealer, and soap star enjoyable. Of course, the success of the play hinges on Marc Spitz’s quick dialogue and the fact that the actors are undeniably believable, somehow making derelicts endearing. The hour-long play will be at the Kraine Theater (below the KGB Bar at 85 E. 4th St., NYC) Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8 PM through March 4th. Tickets are $15. FMI: www.horsetrade.info.

Denny (Tom Vaught) is yammering on the phone when the stage lights come on. In a series of eavesdrop-worthy conversations, the tv producer first pitches an idea about a bibliophile so enamored by books that he reaches for one during sex, but then, switching to another call, Denny finds out he has cancer. Perfecting the old adage “misery loves company,” Denny, who was a rageaholic even before he got the bad news, takes his fear of “retiring” out on others. He fires Bette (Camille Habacker), the star of his show, for being too old, and in true soap opera fashion, plans to kill her off with eels, blowfish, and Orcas; he verbally abuses his snooty therapist (Bradford Scobie); and attacks a blogger (yes, even uncool techies find a place in the limelight these days). Rather than getting treatment for the cancer, Denny seeks out his drug dealer to keep him high enough to forget his suffering.

What Denny doesn’t know is that his drug dealer, Moses (Ivan Martin), has recently quit selling and taken a job at the Sunglass Hut. When Moses gets nervous he quotes 80s song lyrics, and lately there’s been a lot of “Eye of the Tiger” dribbling from his lips. Seems Moses has a few demons of his own, and has “got a deal with God, like Kate Bush.” Turning all Holden Caulfield, the drug dealer, who admits to being “emotionally guarded” (his snarky reply to whether he uses protection during intercourse), decides to adopt a dog after hearing a story about Colombian drug smugglers that sew drugs into gold retriever puppies. He figures he’ll lay low, do some good deeds, till he gets the results back from his HIV test.

The wholesomeness of bad guys getting scared straight is admittedly stomach-turning, but Denny and Moses are complex enough to make the story worthwhile. More so, Vaught and Martin have such mesmerizing stage presence that you want to hug Denny and Moses and tell them, it’s alright, they’ll get through their problems. Bette’s role seems as shallow as her character in that the alcoholic has-been is merely a foil to the male leads, but Habacker makes you feel sorry for Bette more than you hate her—kinda in that way you can’t help but worry about Britney Spears’ desperate cries for attention even though you are by no means a fan. Of course the king of caricatures is Bradford Scobie, who so convincingly portrays a flippant clinic doctor, a squirmy principal afraid of the students, Bette’s gay personal assistant, and a host of other minor characters that it takes a moment to register that it’s the same actor playing a myriad of roles.

Your Face Is a Mess is the debut production of Actionman Productions, which was founded last year. It is Spitz’ eighth off-off Broadway play. His other works include The Name of This Play is Talking Heads and Shyness Is Nice. Your Face Is a Mess is directed by Carlo Vogel. Habacker starred in Spitz’s Shyness Is Nice, and hosts The Slipper Room’s burlesque shows. Martin has appeared in such films and tv shows as Neal Cassady, Sleepwalker, Hollywood Ending, The Sopranos, and Law and Order. Scobie has played such comic roles as—get ready for it—“Ukulele Lou, the self-loathing clown; Cousin Rooster, the chicken-fornicating hillbilly; and Louie LaPel, the fake French guy.” Vaught is a voice-over actor.

By Guest Reviewer: Eugene Slepov

Richard Foreman is the Woody Allen of experimental theater. Matching the great filmmaker’s prolific output, Mr. Foreman’s new play — the irresistibly titled Wake Up Mr. Sleepy! Your Unconscious Mind Is Dead! — is his 50th production in almost 40 years. Come to the Ontological-Hysteric Theater to see what the inside your mind looks like if your super-ego could dance with the id, and if your id could dance with the ego.

This is the third Foreman play I‘ve seen, and I feel confident saying that avant-garde theater doesn’t get much better than this. But what’s it all about? Sometimes it seems as if Mr. Foreman, like a good Dadaist, is mocking the idea of meaning itself. Sometimes the actors look like people on LSD playing charades. Relax, as Mr. Foreman writes in the playbill, and just enjoy the spectacle.

Wake Up Mr. Sleepy! is set on a claustrophobic stage, scattered with books, flower bouquets, and newspapers climbing up the walls. This is like something out of a Salvador Dali landscape or a Nine Inch Nails music video. Four actors dressed like Goth Catholic School students perform a kind of cosmic ballet. A fifth actor is dressed like a Charles Lindberg-era aviator. A toy replica of his plane is suspended from the ceiling, piloted by stuffed animals. The four Goth actors frolicking around the stage seem to be commemorating the aviator’s accomplishments. But are they really celebrating air travel or mourning its invention?

A sinister voice repeats “The invention of the airplane: a mortal blow to our unconscious.”

The message of Wake Up Mr. Sleepy! seems to be that modernity is destructive to psychic health. The invisible voice plaintively repeats things like “It could happen in my life time,” and “It’s broken and it can’t be fixed.” The performance becomes a re-enactment of the paradox–articulated long ago by Freud, whose name is also evoked– of how collective progress in the development of mankind requires psychic repression in the individual. But you probably knew that already. Just don’t forget to take your Xanax before the show starts.

Popular culture rarely gets more experimental than in the films of David Lynch. This is unfortunate because watching Mr. Foreman’s plays is the closest I ever came to having what some may call a religious experience. Even the simplest gestures are laced with transcendent significance. Mr. Foreman’s actors are always pointing to seemingly random things on stage: a book, a light bulb, moving images on the screen, a stuffed animal. A gesture as mundane as pointing, in this context, makes the actor seem like Moses on Mount Sinai accepting the Ten Commandments.

This is not everyone’s taste. A visit to the therapist is often less anxiety-inducing. While I enjoyed the play on the whole, I admit struggling to stay focused for the last half. Wake Up Mr. Sleepy is like a one-hour long Zen koan. If you’re not primed for a life of meditation, you may experience enlightenment sporadically at best. Still, Wake Up Mr. Sleepy! is bound to be the most beautiful nightmare you’ll ever have.

Wake Up Mr. Sleepy! Your Unconscious Mind is Dead! runs every Tuesday and Thursday-Sunday at 8pm. Tickets are on sale thru April 1.

If William Shakespeare, John Woo, Mel Brooks and the RZA ever dropped acid and decided to do a play in my backyard with Spanky, Alfalfa and the kids from Our Gang, the result would be “The Jaded Assassin”.

This is a 70 minute giggle filled, transcendently violent Kung Fu masterpiece that makes the most inventive use of stage space I’ve ever had the pleasure to experience. The story itself is an old one I’m sure you’re all familiar with:

Young, half breed orphan raised to be the greatest warrior of her generation heads out to seek her fortune after a mysterious plague wipes out her entire tribe. She kicks much ass, struggles with some MAJOR anger issues, and deals with love lost.

Along the way she finds herself embroiled with a nation cursed to wage eternal civil war, confronts a jealous nemesis, hangs out with a water boy with serious Daddy issues and continues to kick much ass. In the end there’s a Hitchkockian plot twist from outta nowhere and yet even more of the twice aforementioned ass kicking.

The plot unfolds through the voice of a narrator punctuated by the beats of a wicked talented Taiko drummer. They flank opposite sides of the stage and immerse the audience in a cozy campfire story intimacy.

Like all great Kung Fu there is little dialogue. The actors portray their characters through hilarious pantomimes and a series of fight sequences that unfold with all the grandeur of a ballet.

The staging of the battles was nothing short of artistic genius and truly stretched the boundaries of stage combat to a level I never imagined possible. (without a million dollar budget) One of the coolest effects was having actors behind a screen shadow dancing a sequence of stabbings, dismemberments, and a beheading. One memorable fight piece combined classic karate moves with blistering break dancing moves.

There was one beautiful sequences where the actors’ sheer physical virtuosity coupled with strobe lighting created a cinema like scene of flight and slow motion brawling. This play also displayed the kookiest use of props since a little show called: Puppetry of the Penis.

The choreography wasn’t perfect, like you would see in a film. Nor should it have been. What “The Jaded Assassin” gives to the audience is the giddy joy of indulging in a guilty pleasure. The whole thing is pure camp, an intricately structured joke without irony or mean spiritedness shared wholeheartedly with the performers and audience alike. Just, you know, with a body count higher than “Saving Private Ryan”.

One for the Perverts:

(you know who you are!)

If you sit in the front on either the extreme left or right you’ll get some sweet extended side boob action in the first few minutes. Oh, and spend $5 to get the hot apple cider with a shot of Bacardi- it’s a good time.

SEE THIS SHOW BEFORE IT CLOSES!
YOU’LL THANK ME LATER

Ah. There are some things that I think I may never, ever tire of.

A well cooked meal, a beautiful summer afternoon in Prospect Park, a well-written, well-drawn comic book and titties.

Titties!! With some many different shapes, sizes, colors, and jigglability, how could anyone ever tire from nice pairs’a juggs? But, with the proliferation of implants and internet porn, sometimes something is needed to enhance the appeal of a fine set of tetons.

Burlesque offers us real, tangible breasts, but with a classy, artistic veneer to cover up such a base desire. Some refer to it simply as Striptease but with fancy costumes and comic elements. Burlesque is said to have originated in France in the 1890’s with a woman slowly removing her clothes is search of a flea crawling across her body.
The art form has expanded and evolved a fair amount since the heyday of Gypsy Rose Lee and Mae West in the 20’s and 30’s. Here in New York in the past decade or so, Valentine’s Day Red-Headed Hunnies show at Galapagos Art Space in Williamsburg. Starring: Gal Friday, Ginger Fringe, Roja Rouge, and the organziner/manager of Monday Night Burlesque, Galapagos’ resident Red-hot Redhead: Miss Allison!

The girls were in top form. Gal Friday kicked off the night with a sultry old-fashioned long-hemmed dress with a hip-level split which she removed, revealing a Heart-Shaped “Box” (complete with a furry red bush) which she opened to reveal a delicious chocolate inside. An almost immaculate performace, if the box didn’t jam at the end and when she broke it open, the chocolate fell to the floor. It’s all right, happens to the best of us at times.

Ginger Fringe followed with one of her trademark jump-blues, fast-movin’ strip-teases. A pefect compliment to her kinky red curls and sparkle-red lipstick. Ginger’s moves are always fierce!

Miss Allison followed, offering us a classy, old-fashioned throwback of the classic days of burlesque: Her hair bobbed, her eyes done up in enormous fake lashes and sparkling eye-shadow. She offered to her adoring crowd, one of her personal classics: the feather fan-dance. Of course, her elaborate birds and skulls tattoo across her back reminded us that we’re definetely NOT back in the roaring 20’s.

Finishing off the first half was an act to remember! Roja Rouge blew the audience away, coming out on stage dressed as a naughty schoolgirl, and set to S.O.S. by Rihanna (that addictive “Tainted Love” dance

floor remix you may or may not hhve heard on Z100. . . What?) And engaged in a absolutely shameless ode to narcissism by writhing around stage practically making love to a mirror with professional stripper-level jumps and splits before whipping open an envelope full of headshots, signing one of them, and flinging them into the crowd! (complete with her myspace profile written on back.)
It’s amazing what some girls will do for fame. In this case, it’s awe-inspiring what some girls are proud to do for a little local celebrity.

Bravo ladies. And yes, the drapes match the carpet.

By Guest Reviewer: Billy Gordon

As always, Improv Everywhere agents received a somewhat cryptic e-mail a week before the mission, which simply stated the meet up point and time, and what items were required for participation. For this mission we would meet up at the monument in Madison Square Park and needed to bring watches. A little after 3:30 the mysterious figure known only as “Charlie” announced that we would be infiltrating the nearby Home Depot on 23rd St. between 5th and 6th.

He then divided up the group according to our birthdays, planning to station half the people on the ground floor and half the people in the basement. He then further divided us to which street we would approach Home Depot from, and told us to scatter our entrances, so we would not be a giant mass of people approaching all at once. Our mission was to enter Home Depot and pretend to be normal shoppers until 4:15, when we would all shop in slow motion for 5 minutes, then at 4:20 return to normal. Then at 4:25 we would all completely freeze for 5 minutes. We synchronized our watches, and were sent on our way.

I entered the building, and made my way to the basement scouting out an ideal location to do some fake shopping. After settling on the welding section, I patiently waited around for a few minutes, trying not to catch the attention of the Home Depot employees. At 4:15 every agent began moving in slow motion, I was in a somewhat abandoned isle so my view of the big picture was limited, however I did notice the other agents slowly reaching out for tools and other items. At 4:20 everything returned to normal except for the somewhat weirded out employees.

At 4:25 the real fun began. My watch was a few seconds behind, but as soon as I noticed a frozen agent to my left I also froze in position. A few minutes went by, with almost no activity in my isle, then at around 4:28 a Home Depot employee began calling out to me. Our instructions were very specific, don’t break character and stay as motionless as possible, so I tried to think of the best way to react to him calling me. I stayed motionless for about another 7 seconds while he was calling “Excuse me sir, sir, do you need help with anything, sir are you alright, sir, sir, is everything OK?”. I then turned to him, moving only my head, and stared at him for a second, before giving a slow nod (while never taking my eyes off him), and then slowly turned my head back to its original position, freezing again. In the second before I turned my head back, I noticed the somewhat creeped out look on his face. I suppose it would have been strange for him to not be creeped out, working in a somewhat busy store, when all of a sudden the majority of customers became mannequins.

At 4:30 everyone unfroze, and began filtering out of the store over the next ten minutes. We then met up back at Madison square park for interviews and sharing our stories.

This past Tuesday night I hit up the weekly artists group hosted by Naked Angels. The first thing I noticed was that the outside of the Tribeca Screening Room is now plastered with Tribeca Film Festival signs, like wrapping paper for the great gifts that must lie within if Robert DeNiro has anything to do with it. Major improvements have been made to the interior as well. The bar area is more spacious than I last remembered it, with cozy leather booths semi-circled around candle-lit tables.

There were only three people at the bar, but after several minutes, more began to trickle in. I used to joke that for an offbeat theatre group, the ensemble was city-fiably beautiful, with a handful of eternally wounded types mixed in…but to my surprise Tuesday’s crowd seemed approachable.  Joe Danisi, one of the directors of Tuesdays@9, mingled with the crowd. He looked tanned and handsome as usual, in that is-he-or-isn’t-he-gay sort of way.

A man sat down at my table, in the chair to my right, without speaking.  He looked alot like a larger Vern Troyer. (“Mini-Me”, for those not familiar with the actor’s name.) He removed a hardcover copy of American Democracy from his green messenger bag and began to read…and shift…and fidget…and squirm some more.

“Vern” grabbed his green messenger bag and rummaged through it, then turned it over and shook it furiously. Finally, a packet of Raisenettes spilled out of the bag and onto the table. But he had not found what he was looking for. He ran his hand throughout his bag again and started to curse.  Then he turned to me.

“Can I have a piece of paper?” he asked.

I was a little scared, so I gave him two.

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