Diatribes, at a Discount

Ah, the curse of finding success at the Fringe Festival. A reputed hit at last year's Fringe, the cheeky corporate-bashing musical Walmartopia has just commenced an open-ended run, and the results are not promising.

The critics have not been kind, and I can't say that I entirely disagree. Their main complaint is the cornucopia of styles and mixed messages that plague the stage. I was also irritated by the gratuitous shifts in emotional tempo and dramatic thrust, but I was more disappointed that the show didn't teach me anything new. With its "Wal-Mart is evil" message, the writers settle for preaching to the choir (assuming that choir is a liberal, educated bunch who are keen to sniff out social injustice). In catapulting its heroines thirty years into the future to simplistically and predictably solve the problems of the Wal-Mart-worshiping neo-universe, this production safely skirts around addressing the problems of the present.

I felt a bit of that chronological dissonance when I watched the classic film 9 to 5 for the first time recently. As Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, and Lily Tomlin fantasized about killing their boss and then cleverly spun corporate life for the better, I felt like I had opened a time capsule, a bit of nostalgia in a DVD. But as any smart woman (or man) knows, sexism still runs rampant in the workplace, even if it doesn't stare blatantly at your chest and ask you to fetch it coffee.

The point is, entertainment can be a tonic and a panacea for bigger, and always more complex, issues. Walmartopia wants us to unseat the world-dominating corporation, but does it really? Where's the action plan, and where are the specifics? When the solution is the homogenized maxim "think outside the big box," it's hard to take the show very seriously. This production might have an agenda, but it's definitely more "let me entertain you" than "do you hear the people sing."

Ironically, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the show's best moments are its show-within-a-show production numbers, such as "These Bullets are Freedom" (pictured above), the resolutely earnest call-to-arms in the Wal-Mart dystopia of 2037. A piece of straightforward propaganda, the skit trades in both ideology and commerce, inciting political loyalty while trying to sell a new gun model. Here, it's easy--and chilling--to see how the media attempts to brainwash us. It's unfortunate that the rest of the show isn't this in-your-face; instead, the creators fall victim to the very advice they give us: don't settle for a cheap and phony product.

Show Business Weekly review: Walmartopia

Moon Swimmer

One of my favorite things about New York City in the summertime is lap swimming at the fabulous Astoria Pool. Every summer, from the 4th of July through Labor Day, the City opens its pools and beaches to the public for free (!), and it also sponsors a lap swimming program, which is broken down into two sections: the Early Bird (7:00-8:30am) and the Night Owl (7:00-8:30pm).

After swimming competitively for nearly ten years (and lifeguarding for almost as many), the chlorine is thick in my blood. Nothing beats beginning the day with a refreshing workout in the icy water--especially in the dog days of summer. And the Astoria Pool is especially magnificent--where else can you swim between the Triborough and Hellgate Bridges, with glimpses of boats drifting by on the East River? The pool actually hosted the Olympic trials in 1936 (which also marked its grand opening) and in 1964.

Sadly, there are only two more (outdoor) swimming days this year, and this morning I glimpsed this beautiful view out my window before I walked over to the park. One morning as I swam, I watched both the morning moon hanging above the Triborough Bridge and the sun rising directly opposite.

Tonight I got to see another of the City's pools: Hamilton Fish, on the Lower East Side. The occasion? The end-of-summer party and celebration for the swimmers. This year's party was particularly festive, because it marked the 25th anniversary of the adult lap swimming program. Some 6,000 New Yorkers participated this summer, and I'm proud to report that the "Early Bird" women of Astoria Pool accumulated the most distance among the women citywide: 697.34 miles!

The evening began with a relay race (Astoria placed second), and awards were presented to anyone who swam 25 miles or more this summer (including myself, just barely). This is actually equivalent to swimming around the island of Manhattan--minus weeding through the debris of old Coke cans, beer bottles, and assorted garbage in the river.

There was a free buffet dinner sponsored by Katz Deli (platters of sausage, coleslaw, potato salad, pasta, and watermelon), but the highlight for me was Jackie Rowe-Adams, who sang two a cappella songs: "Moon River" and "The Wind Beneath My Wings." In her husky, emotive voice, she cleverly squeezed "swim" verbs into the lyrics when at all possible. For example:

We're after the same rainbow's end
Swimming 'round the bend
I'm swimming with my friends
Moon river and me.

You get the picture. It was quite endearing, as was the entire evening--a pocket of small-town camaraderie in the churning metropolis. I can't wait to jump back in tomorrow morning.

Play It Again, Fringe

This just in: Beginning August 30, you can catch some of the can't-miss-it Fringe Festival shows that you, well, missed at the Second Annual FringeNYC Encore Series!

The two-week engagement (the action winds up September 16) will feature two heaping handfuls of Fringe favorites, including two of the gems I reviewed, A Beautiful Child and Piaf: Love Conquers All (pictured below). The shows have been divvied up between the Bleecker Street Theater and the Soho Playhouse.

Click here for the complete schedule and more information. Showtimes for my faves:

A Beautiful Child: Sept. 4 at 9:30 PM; Sept. 5 at 7 PM; Sept. 7 at 7 PM; Sept. 8 at 9:30 PM; Sept. 11 at 7 PM; Sept. 14 at 9:30 PM; Sept. 15 at 3 PM; and Sept. 16 at 9:30 PM.

Piaf: Love Conquers All: Aug. 30 at 9:30 PM; Aug. 31 at 7 PM; Sept. 1 at 8 PM; Sept. 2 at 4:30 PM; Sept. 3 at 9:30 PM; Sept. 5 at 7 PM; and Sept. 8 at 5 PM.

Bucking the System

I'm doing a bit of freelance copyediting work for a fantastic, hip legal publishing company I used to work for in Houston, and I never cease to be amused by some of the mischief people get up to these days. Even funnier is the stern legal jargon conjured up to describe it.

I just finished editing a chapter on "Animal Actions," and as you can imagine, there were the requisite cases on dog bites, bee stings, and rabid hogs (this is Texas, after all). But most hilarious to me was this summation of one particular case:

"Owner claimed he had no knowledge horse named 'Buck' had propensity to buck."

I don't know the specific circumstances surrounding the case, but apparently the owner made a good one: it was deemed that he wasn't liable for Buck's bucking his rider. Hmmm. Good thing I didn't name my cat "Hiss." Or "Scratch." Thankfully, the sophisticated Bardot would much rather sit and look at the Empire State Building.

Voulez Vous?

I’m a sucker for a dark and stormy French chanson, whether it’s sung by an interpreter of Edith Piaf (I caught Maria Bill’s tour-de-force solo show when I was a student in Salzburg, Austria) or interspersed in a full-length production (as in last year’s gorgeously sung Off Broadway revival of Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris). There's something so wonderfully unsettling about a tempestuous tale of love sung by a wine-soaked voice as a cheerful accordion works in counterpoint to lift a layer of the gloom. This paradoxical mixture (happy & sad) creates a truly visceral experience for its listeners. Pain morphs into something both beautiful and painful: performance.

Lured by the pathos, I jumped at the chance to review a Fringe Festival show that celebrated the life and music of Edith Piaf: Naomi Emmerson’s strong and wistful une-femme triumph, Piaf: Love Conquers All.

Show Business Weekly Review: Piaf: Love Conquers All

It’s no easy task to collapse the infamous French singer’s tragic life: it’s really as eccentric and riddled with romantic woes as they come. But Emmerson (who also directs) and Roger Peace (who wrote the book) have created an evocative and entertaining look at Piaf’s life and love(s), primarily by hinging her story firmly around what ultimately mattered to her most: the music. Emmerson sings 13 of Piaf’s most beloved melodies; interspersed with vignettes (which are charming but not always perfectly natural), the music moves into a new dimension, textured and shaped by Piaf’s real life experiences. Angst often seems to be a requisite tool for singers who brood about love, but here it is all the more riveting (and believable) because we can, for the most part, see directly to the root of her complaints.

From the opening seen, in which Piaf enters in a cascade of joy, extolling the virtues of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” (apparently, he’s a composer she’s just recently discovered), we are presented with a girlish woman (or a womanish girl?) who always feels as if she’s the last one to arrive at the party--and is determined to make up for it. Now.

If Emmerson is a bit more convincing in the first act (Piaf's youth and rise to fame) than the second (her painful decline), it's likely the fault of the script, which pinches the final events of Piaf's life together a bit haphazardly and hurriedly. Stephanie Layton is terrific in a series of supporting roles, and she is a deft and dazzling musician; she flits between the accordion and the piano without missing a beat. John Doyle would do well to scoop her up for his revival of Sweeney Todd.

Unfortunately, the show has already concluded its brief run, but keep your eyes peeled for Emmerson: she’s been playing Piaf for nearly 15 years now, and after a successful run at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2005 (and, by all accounts, a successful one here as well), it’s likely this raucous pixie will pop up again in a neighborhood near you.

A Moving Moo-sical

Monday I reviewed the enormously charming and occasionally frustrating Farmer Song: The Musical.

offoffonline review: "Heartland Song": Farmer Song: The Musical

As a Nebraska native, I wanted to see the show immediately when I heard that it was set in Iowa, but at the time I didn't realize that the production had actually been brought in from Iowa. Yep--there were a truck and trailer with Iowa license plates parked in front of the New School for Drama--right in the middle of the West Village.

The show explores the "farm crisis" (low interest rates=poor farmers) through the love story of Carl and Becky, who decide--against her parents' advice and all good sense--to take up farming.

I brought my friend Amy along, who moved to the city with me from Nebraska nearly three years ago (and yes, we drove our Penske truck through Iowa on the way). We both felt like we were visiting home as we watched the show. The cast and production loudly telegraphs its "community theater" roots, and not necessarily in a bad way. With a cast made up of farmers, engineers, and other people with "day jobs," their earnestness and excitement to be on stage is immediately tangible (if often slightly ill-focused). And after living, working, and reviewing shows in New York for almost three years, this sort of down-home goodness was as refreshing as the cow manure I always smell in the little towns we pass on the two-hour drive to my hometown from the airport in Omaha. Don't laugh--any scent that heralds home is welcome to me (and it's an ephemeral stretch of road miles away from the house where I grew up).

According to its website, this little show has already made a big splash in Iowa (sold out shows and ample press) and will likely continue to entertain and move hometown audiences who will not only understand its message, but fully empathize with it.

At first I was frustrated with the show. I wanted more sophisticated direction and sharper tempos--in short, the slick production values I've come to expect in New York. But after a while I became fully absorbed by this tender, touching story, and it was delightful to watch people who are happy to do theater for theater's sake and not (as many critics of the Fringe have complained this year) in order to take their show to Broadway or become tomorrow's TV sensation.

If at various moments I've become worn out and bitter about theater and its place in the universe, Farmer Song did something to restore my faith in the community, collaboration, and charm of live performance. Just for the fun of it.

A few of the melodies are still in my head, days later. A bale-ful of thanks to this hardy group of Iowans for taking me back "home" for a few hours--not only geographically, but in wholesome spirit (the sweet woman passing out programs complimented me on my skirt with genuine kindness).

But how would the show be received by other (often exacting, crabby, and sassy) critics? Honestly, I felt a bit protective of my fellow Midwesterners. But I shouldn't have worried. One reviewer so far, at least, has gotten it just right.

All images courtesy of Farmer Song: The Musical.

Musicals! Are! Exciting!

I'm not sure when the craze for exclamatory musical titles began, but there are certainly a lot of them in this year's Fringe Festival. Whether it's Williamsburg!, Show Choir!, BASH'd!, or Bukowsical!, these musicals' creators have named their projects with all the subtlety of a sonic boom.

It would be interesting to poll audiences to see if there is a difference in excitement level and anticipation due to the use of punctuation. In my experience, it actually puts me off a bit, like those overeager people who stop you to take surveys on the streets who are, essentially, walking exclamation points themselves.

But I digress ... Day Two of the Fringe found me at two !!!! musicals.

The first, Williamsburg! The Musical, is a spoof of the hipster-infiltrated Brooklyn neighborhood. Good fun, with some exciting performances and interesting choreography, but waaaaay loud (I actually plugged my ears a few times). It's forgivable, given the Fringe's limited rehearsal time, but wow ... a lot of noise and grit for noon on a Sunday. The people sitting next to me and my friend Tauren had actually brought their two sons (under 10 years old) to the show, which was rather shocking, both because their attention started to fade towards the end and also because the musical featured a healthy heaping of profanity. The finale, for example, kept screaming "It's the F*$%ing Finale!", just to make sure we had gotten the message. It was interesting to note, though, that the boys started getting restless just as my own attention span was maxing out. Even when you're young, you have a sense of when they need to wrap it up. It's good that mature audiences have, for the most part, grown out of the outward signs of boredom, such as dropping toys, murmuring incoherently, and trying to stand up on one's chair to see better.

Anyway. One of my favorite performers I've discovered this year is the fabulous Allison Guinn (I reviewed her earlier this year in The Gallery Players' productions of Urinetown and Victor/Victoria), and she gets to sink her teeth into the leading role in this 'burg. And good heavens--she is a force to behold. Singing down to the gutters and back up to the sky, firmly planting each comic moment, stealing every scene, this girl is going places. I can't wait to see her next show. Even if it's another! exciting! musical!

A few hours later we visited the equally excitable Show Choir! The Musical and had a marvelous time. The audience was electric (and quite sweaty from the heat), and the show is a clever spoof of a genre (or "art form," they argue) that so many of us theater people love to hate--or, let's be honest, hate to love. Face it, there's really no better outlet for teenagers who want to get on stage and express themselves in myriad ways. The creators do a fantastic job capturing the essence of "music in motion," especially in the sparkly, gleaming production numbers ... hooray for jazz squares! The second act gets a bit drippy when the writers veer precariously towards Lifetime movies and their attendant syrup. I'd love to see the show cut down to 90 minutes and tucked into a nifty commercial run. I'd be first in line to see it again. Check out my review and the show's MySpace page.

Still to come: A review of the more sedately monikered Farm Song: The Musical.

Pictured: Shlomo (Evan Shyer) talks Piper (Allison Guinn) down off the (Williamsburg!) Bridge.

Tru-ly Marilyn

The Fringe is flying in New York, which for me means my yearly gorge on theater: I've reviewed five shows in three days, with another coming later this week.

My hands-down favorite thus far is A Beautiful Child, a sleek and delicate adaptation of an essay by Truman Capote. It chronicles an afternoon Capote spent trolling around the city with a certain insecure actress named Marilyn Monroe. Exceptional performances ground this simple, frothy, and ultimately moving theatrical treat. My review has been posted, and you can read more about the show at its official website.

I also caught The Jazz Messenger, a drama about an American jazz trumpeter imprisoned by a German officer in France during World War II. It's not the most stirring theatrical experience, but there is an excellent jazz quartet on hand to provide underscoring and accompaniment.

Look here soon for reviews of Williamsburg! The Musical, Show Choir! The Musical, Farmer Song: The Musical, and Piaf: Love Conquers All.

Pictured are Truman Capote and Marilyn Monroe and the actors who play them: Joel Van Liew and Maura Lisabeth Malloy.

Masterpiece Theater

Blame the heat, blame the humidity, blame Harry Potter (I'm almost finished with the final book), but no matter who you blame, I've been neglecting this blog. I haven't fallen off the radar completely, however, and I'll be posting reviews of several new shows in the next few days. And with The New York International Fringe Festival looming, you can bet I'll be a theatergoing freak for a couple of days, at least.

But the show that brought me back to the blog is a small jewel of a play called Opus that I reviewed at 59E59 Theaters Friday night. A production of Primary Stages, Michael Hollinger's tense and tantalizing riff on the histrionics of a string quartet is one of the best productions I've seen this year, if not since I moved to the city nearly three years ago. PLEASE go see this show!

Show Business Weekly review: Opus

I had never been to 59E59, and I was immensely impressed with the facility, to begin with. Designer James Kronzer has outfitted it to look like a sleek and spare concert hall (even more than it usually does), and Jorge Cousineau's sound design is absolutely impeccable. Although the actors mime (I hate to use that word, but it's true) their playing, they're so perfectly timed with the gorgeous music that you almost forget that it's not really a live performance.

The story, in brief: When the quartet's violist, a stormy soul named Dorian, goes missing, the other three musicians quickly recruit Grace, a brilliant viola player fresh out of grad school and thunderstruck with her good fortune. They decide to play Beethoven's difficult Opus 131 at their next gig (at The White House), and they begin to practice--and get to know each other.

One of my dear friends, Christine, happens to be a violist who recently played with a string quartet, and her tales of their squabbles echoed through my head as I watched the play. Being a member of a string quartet is like being married to three people at once, she told me, and that truth bore out on stage as well. Hollinger has concocted a spirited verbal shorthand between the characters, and their relationships are at once both extremely intimate and dangerously volatile.

The action flits between the newly formed group's preparations and flashbacks to the scenes that foreshadowed Dorian's departure. Terrence J. Nolen's precise direction brings everything together brilliantly in the end: When all of the threads converge, the results are nothing short of electrifying. Honestly, I can't remember the last time (if ever) I literally gasped in a theater; in this case, my mouth dropped open and stayed that way for at least a couple minutes, so surprised was I by the outcome.

The actors are all outstanding, and they deliver such natural, human performances that you'd expect to be able to walk up to them after the show and ask them more about their instruments. David Beach is particularly splendid as the stuffy, snarky first violinist Elliot--he was, we come to find out, romantically involved with the elusive Dorian, and Michael Laurence turns in an equally fine and complex portrayal of the MIA musician.

Working within a genre that is often drenched with heavy-handed metaphors and forced jokes, Hollinger has created a play that deftly and easily conveys the strife, solidarity, and sauce of musicians in search of the Holy Grail: the perfect performance.