Proof Positive

The Astoria Performing Arts Center has scored again with its excellent production of David Auburn's riveting math-play, Proof. I love having an honest-to-goodness theater just down the block from my apartment. While this production wasn't quite as superb as the other shows I've seen there (A New Brain and Picasso at the Lapin Agile), it has excellent production values (check out the glorious set in the photos) and a lot of obvious (if somewhat misplaced) heart.

offoffonline review: "Doing the Math": Proof

The main problem for me was the melodramatic style implied by the direction and, most gratingly, the lead actress. Auburn's drama is a taut, tense, piece of realism, and our heroine was rolling her eyes and mugging to the audience like a character actress in a 1950s musical. Although I had never before seen the play produced, I read it (and loved it) several years ago and saw the good, not great, film adaptation starring Gwyneth Paltrow. But there was an urgency missing from the APAC production--most likely lost in the over-emoting--that made me wonder, Would I have liked the play itself if this had been my first exposure to it? One of the difficult things about reviewing brand, shiny-new productions is that it's often hard to determine which element--writing or directing--is most clearly contributing to the show's success or demise. The quality of the acting, of course, is always easier to evaluate, since it's more exposed. Writing and directing dance a precarious sort of tango, however; when they're not completely in sync, someone's bound to end up flat on the floor.

Girl Gumshoe

The Ateh Theater Group has revived its production of The Girl Detective for the Crown Point Festival on the Lower East Side. An adaptation of a surreal short story by Kelly Link, the production follows the Girl Detective as she does a bit of sleuthing--but this time, instead of tracking down criminals, she's on the hunt for her own mother, who disappeared years before.

offoffonline review: "Glamour in a Gumshoe": The Girl Detective

I found the story confusing at times; Bridgette Dunlap (the talented adapter and director) doesn't always clearly denote time or setting, and the Girl Detective's journeys often feel like the elliptical, nonsensical pathways of a murky dream. Still, Dunlap has a gift for throwing splashy style onto the stage, from tap-dancing bank robbers to saucy flashlight sequences. She paints in wild, bright colors, but--as in her equally impressionistic adaptation of Aimee Bender's The Girl in the Flammable Skirt--the flimsy substance of the story is tinted in faint pastel shades.

Leaving a more potent impression was the short film that preceded the production: Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho's aptly named Eletrodomestica, in which the everyday domestic tasks of a Brazilian housewife ultimately give way (and abet) a thrilling climax. Filho uses banal household appliances (microwave, TV, vacuum cleaner, washer & dryer) to anchor the story, then uses them in surprising--and scintillating--ways.

Musicalizing Jane

I've seen plenty of film adaptations of Jane Austen novels (Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility, etc.)--and, yes, I've watched many of them more than once--but I had never seen Austen animated on stage. As part of the New York Musical Theater Festival, Joel Alden (book, music, lyrics) has cleverly adapted Emma for the stage. Unlike Austen, it gets a bit exhausting and long-winded, especially when untangling plot elements in the second act, but, happily, like Austen, it often deals in wit, spirit, smarts, and the pure pleasure of watching intelligent characters define and refine themselves anew.

"Poise and Prejudice": offoffonline review: Emma

The film incarnations of Austen's material often skew toward the gauzy and hyper-romanticized; on stage, I found something much more cutting in the social dimensions of Austen's ideas and, particularly, in the budding friendship between Emma (the excellent Leah Horowitz) and the lower-class, underprivileged, rough-around-the-edges Harriet (the fantastic scene-stealing Kara Boyer). There's something truly unsettling about watching Emma attempting to refine and transform Harriet into a "gentleman's lady"--it's truly proprietary, controlling behavior, and a dismal look at the possible roots of Emma's celebrated benevolence. In this setting, it appears that Emma's "helping" of others only helps her to feel more superior.

The hackneyed plot of the avuncular male transforming the ugly duckling into a swan has found its way from nineteenth century novels to contemporary reality TV. For a woman to chisel another woman in her own image feels fresh and a bit daring, but also dangerous--and not altogether removed from contemporary feminist debates on the ways in which women can often become each other's worst, and most limiting, enemies. Food for thought.

And on a side note, I love this fantastic promotional photo of Emma standing juxtaposed with the New York City skyline. This anachronism finds its way into the costumes as well--the women wear white dresses cut from white material that looks to be the same cotton as that used in T-shirts. The men, more unfortunately, wear jeans with their long, period jackets and boots. For some, their tight black jeans are hardly noticeable; for others, the obvious denim origins of their duds are distracting, making them look more like lumberjacks than lords of luxury.

Photo 1: Harriet (Kara Boyer), Mr. Knightley (John Patrick Moore), and Emma (Leah Horowitz) [Photo by Ken Howard]

Photo 2: Promotional photo by Steven Rosen

Frost Bite

The Yellow Wood has a lot going for it: A story that centers loosely on Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken"; a mostly superb cast, including the very likable Jason Tam (Broadway's A Chorus Line) as Adam, a high school student obsessing about memorizing the Frost poem (not to mention the flights of fancy brought on by his decision not to take his Ritalin), the uproarious Randy Blair (as his best friend Casserole), the savvy comic stylings of Jill Abramovitz (as the snappish English teacher), and Yuka Takara (as Adam's smartypants younger sister Gwen); and the direction of journeyman actor B.D. Wong, who also produces.

So what went wrong?

Like many NYMF shows, writers Michelle Elliott (book and lyrics) and Danny Larsen (music and lyrics) have tried to cram too many themes into their story. The adolescent fairy tale begins with the hyperactive Adam sitting at the breakfast table with his parents and sister: we learn that his parents are not getting along, his sister is transferring to his school because of unexplained problems at her old school, and that he denies his Korean heritage to his classmates (i.e., nobody thinks that he is Asian--and he'd like to keep it that way).

Interesting problems and conflicts, all, but they are never untangled or explored to any satisfying ends. Instead, Adam goes to school, where his overactive, Ritalin-free senses conjure up scene after fantastical scene. There's even an overextended video game sequence, in which the actors--in thrall to the erratic jerks of Adam's brain--stiffen their limbs and lurch around the stage to illustrate a story problem.

Other critics have found much to love in this unique story, and there is plenty of creativity on display. With a bit more focus, The Yellow Wood could be not only a story worth telling, but an incisive, dimensional look at an exceptional life.

offoffonline review: The Yellow Wood

Pictured: Randy Blair, Jason Tam, and Caissie Levy (photo credit: Lia Chang)

Mighty IT

The third annual New York Innovative Theatre (IT) Awards were held Monday, September 24 in the Haft Auditorium at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Chelsea. Created by enterprising theater artists Jason Bowcutt, Shay Gines, and Nick Micozzi, the awards are designed to honor the best of Off-Off-Broadway theater--the people, as one presenter quoted the legendary OOB patriarch Joe Cino as saying, "who make magic out of nothing."

I attended and covered last year's ceremony, and I'm happy to report that this year's festivities were just as exuberant and celebratory. If anything, the awards seemed to be distributed more evenly between the competing companies, and first-time host Julie Halston was predictably nutty, sarcastic, and hilarious.

There was some high-brow talent on hand to present the awards, including Speaker Christine Quinn, Tony Award winner (and Dream Girls star) Anika Noni Rose, lighting designer Natasha Katz (who described lighting as "a whisper you see"), costume queen Susan Hilferty, legendary actress Kathleen Chalfant, director Leigh Silverman, and composer Robert Lopez (Avenue Q).

If New York has "community theater" (which is to mean "theater of a community," not "amateurish") it's on the Off-Off-Broadway stages, where artists work for peanuts (or less: maybe peanut shells?) to put their vision on stage. Looking around the auditorium, I could see little "communities"--tight-knit groups of actors/directors/technicians who muscle through this city and support each other to get their shows up and running.

It was especially moving to see how seriously people have come to take these awards--there were the usual jokes and shout-outs to friends and God from behind the podium, but there were also genuinely honest tears, thanks to relatives who had traveled long distances to attend the ceremony, and tributes to departed parents and mentors.

Once again, I looked through the program and was mystified by the number of theater companies that I have a) never witnessed in action, and/or b) never even heard of. I made a list of companies to watch, and I'm looking forward to discovering what new creations they'll bring forth over the next year. I'm particularly curious to track Rising Phoenix Repertory, recipient of this year's Caffe Cino Fellowship Award. They took home the award for Outstanding Production of a Play for Daniel Reitz's Rules of the Universe, and Elizabeth West performed a dazzling and disarming monologue from the show, which took place on a series of toilet seats in a venue in the East Village.

I was particularly thrilled to see the Gallery Players' production of Urinetown take home the award for Outstanding Production of a Musical. I've reviewed many shows put on by this fantastic Park Slope-based company, and this one is easily the best I've seen.

Playwright Doric Wilson, a pioneer in gay theater and the first resident playwright of the infamous Caffe Cino, won the 2007 Artistic Achievement Award. As he reminisced about his eventful career, he scanned the crowd and pronounced: "You are the people who make the theater I believe in happen."

The IT Awards put a stamp of importance and pride on the Off-Off-Broadway world; I only hope that next year's ceremony will celebrate even more innovative companies and distinctive artists.

Pictured above: Tauren (member of the Urinetown cast) and I strike a pose before the show. Below: Host Julie Halston in action

Rock(ae) & Roll!

From the perennially popular Rent to the surprise success of Spring Awakening, it seems that the rock musical is not only in vogue, but is also here to stay. Prospect Theater Company's The Rockae mixes a punchy, metallic rock score with one of theater's most provocative protagonists: the powerfully petulant god Dionysus in Euripides' timeless tragedy The Bacchae.

Show Business Weekly review: The Rockae

Rock music is just as much about cultivating an aesthetic as telling a story, and director Cara Reichel has turned the stage of the Hudson Guild Theater into an emotional labyrinth. Certain songs come together better than others, and the sound system sometimes distorts the lyrics (it'd be wise to check out a synopsis before you attend), but at its best, the searing vocalizations of the gifted cast make The Rockae a screaming rock tour-de-force. And don't you love the rockin' artwork? It reminds me of my parents' old rock LPs stored away in the basement--blazing colors heralding a powerhouse feast for the ears.