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59 E 59 Street Theaters (Primary Stages)
August 28, 2009
Morgan Wycks
mwycks@nyconstage.org
There is nothing wrong with a writer’s being in love with the sound of their own voice. I mean if they didn’t have a voice then where would they be? However, when the love of that voice sends the writer meandering and in search of an ending, the results can leave one exasperated. Such is the fault of dramatist Cusi Cram whose voice in her play, A Lifetime Burning, doesn’t allow much room for the characters to differentiate themselves as well as suffering from the problems mentioned above.
Living on a rapidly diminishing trust fund, Emma writes a memoir snapped up sight unread by a mega-publishing house – money problem solved. (Never let it be said that connections aren’t everything.) Advance word has her book ready to hit every best seller list across the country. There’s only one problem. Most of the memoir is totally false. More than anyone else, this small glitch maniacally upsets not the book’s editor, but Emma’s sister, Tess. The question arises did Emma write the memoir while off her meds for bi-polar disease. She asserts that her relationship with a youth whom she tutors and with whom she also sleeps has awakened her kinship with his Mayan ancestors thus acknowledging what is obviously part of her true heritage, or at least half of it.
The idea of a dishonest memoirist’s exposure is rife with dramatic possibilities not to mention lots of humor. Except for some funny and pithy observations about the American public and what is and is not reality spewing from the characters’ mouths regularly arriving like bus placards during rush hour, Ms. Cram chooses to step away from the crux of the conflict. The two sparring sisters let the immediate problem fall by the wayside to hash out old problems, y’know like, divorce and whom did mom and dad love best. There are stretches when we have no idea where the story is headed except for a resolution that we can see from far away.
The usually more than able director Pam MacKinnon (why did I think this was directed by Leigh Silverman?) allows herself to be trapped by the material using staging 101 tactics to relieve some of the more static arguments. The often referred to expensive apartment looks more like Ikea meets Pier One though I do not blame designer Kris Stone who obviously was working with a limited budget. But David Weiner’s lighting design could have helped more here.
The actors are a funny mix. As the hunky youth, Raul Castillo does what’s expected of him but that’s about it. As the powerhouse editor, Isabel Keating’s bizarrely accurate turn combines Tina Brown with Tiger Brown attired in Edith Head and earns the biggest laughs of the evening. The annoying Tess is played by the stridently annoying Christina Kirk who can’t resolve how to act the annoying repeated phrases given to her by the author. Then there’s the very attractive Jennifer Westfeldt as Emma. Here’s an actress with a lot of potential and she often rises to the occasion in several sequences of the play. But she has a terrible habit of posing as if some photographer in the audience kept saying “over here, Miss Westfeldt.” Had this tic added up to some character driven pathology I might have bought it. As it is she comes off slightly neurotic instead of bi-polar.
Ms. Cram clearly has issues that she vehemently wants to dramatize but writing about the dishonesty of a memoir has unfortunately discolored the honesty of her writing.
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July 22, 2009
Reviewed by VanLoan
vanloan@nyconstage.org
3! was part of the Underground Zero Festival at PS 122
Doris Mirescu’s theater company Dangerous Ground specializes in creating multimedia “experiments” often using art house film classics as source material (i.e. Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris). However, one is totally unprepared for the visual and aural onslaught upon entering the mainstage theater at P. S. 122 where her latest piece 3! is playing as part of this year’s undergroundzero festival (curated by Paul Bargetto). It is her stylistically dramatic reinterpretation of the prolific German filmmaker Rainer Warner Fassbinder’s 1979 film “The Third Generation“.
“The Third Generation“ is Fassbinder’s melodramatic meditation on the state of the German political system as the seventies come to a close. His despairing, mournful take on the scene is that political activism has become sanctimonious cant and its current practitioners are self-indulgent miscreants fueled by trust fund money. He uses a fictionalized version of the infamous Baader-Meinhof urban terrorists (who themselves were the German version of Italy’s murderous Red Brigade) to show the disillusion and fragmentation of the young German bourgeoisie. Because their political motives are unfocused if not entirely lost, the “third generation” is easily manipulated by the very factions they are seeking to overthrow. Thus, the situation becomes one of comedy which is how Fassbinder viewed his film.
That director Mirescu captures as much of Fassbinder’s genius in her extravagant theater piece is rather amazing. The density of the work draws its inspiration from the movie but is as much a product of her imagination. Mirrors are everywhere both reflecting and refracting the action (Fassbinder’s use of mirrors in his work is legendary), video screens inflate the action from various parts of the stage heightening the melodramatic aspects of the script. In a truly inspired touch, Mirescu has television sets showing various Douglas Sirk movies (Sirk was a German film director who Fassbinder openly emulated; his masterpiece “Written on the Wind” with Rock Hudson and Lauren Bacall is on a continual loop on one screen). Roving technicians follow the leading characters with boom mics which become octopus-like tentacles ensnaring them in their subterfuges while other reverences to Fassbinder’s movies abound such as bewigged mannequins and an operatic soundscape.
It must be said up front that without prior knowledge of the film (I have seen it about three times over the years), one will most likely be lost. The loose plot line follows the group of wannabe terrorists as they attempt to kidnap wealthy American industrialist Peter Lutz (Joel Repman). The base of operations is a large post-war Berlin flat that serves as a sort of command central for their operations. Sexual promiscuity and drug use are prevalent. Various codes and secret passwords are formulated to keep the authorities from becoming suspicious. The phrase most used (and most cryptic) is “World as will and idea” which comes from the philosopher Schopenhauer whose aesthetic held that art offered a way for people to temporarily escape the suffering of the world that the will entailed. Lutz’s secretary, Suzanne (an effectively overwrought Zoe Anastassiou) is secretly a member of the society and is instrumental in her boss’s abduction. The group leader of sorts August (played with superb menace by Florin Penisoara) is constantly donning women’s clothes to the point that it no longer becomes about disguise as about cross-dressing (his suitcase full of bribe money is shown to be from the Monopoly board game). Money begins to run out, boredom and infighting start to set in, the German police are under international pressure to find Lutz while the monitors show news clips from the Red Brigade’s exploits. And August is having trouble deciding which wig to wear.
Despite (or possibly because of) the pictographic blitz, we eventually grow a little weary. The eye is captured by the random prurient detail (a flash of nudity as characters change clothes on stage), the blatantly graphic (an onstage rape that is quite brutal in its intensity) or the silent Sirk movies “The Tarnished Angels ” is also shown). The fragmented story line and numerous characters becoming involved with the group (there is a subplot about an illegal Arab immigrant, Repman again) prove difficult to sustain over the three hour length. The same burst of intensity that eventually burned out the terrorists might be an apt description as regards Ms. Mirescu’s production. However, the fourteen actors are all both gutsy and courageous in their labors while the design team of sound editors, mixers, live camera feeders and art directors are to be thoroughly applauded for their contributions. No one is credited with costume design but the 70’s patchwork of paisley, polyester and patchouli is spot on. 3! is exactly the type of show that Bargetto and the undergroundzero festival should bring to the public eye and it provides them with a smashing conclusion.
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Ethel Barrymore Theater
April 16, 2009
Reviewed by Van Loan
vanloan@nyconstage.org
Somewhere in the middle of the revival of Eugene Ionesco’s absurdist farce Exit the King I was reminded of the John Donne’s Sonnet # 72:
“Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me”
Even after an ear-shattering thunderclap knocks him to the ground, King Berenger (the sublime Geoffrey Rush) springs to his feet railing against the inevitability of the final calling. Yet seeing that King is 400 hundred years old, one would think that enough is enough. Not in this case.
The plot of Ionesco’s seldom seen yet exceedingly witty black comedy is razor thin. After four centuries, two wives, several wars and other depravations too numerous to mention, the King is on his last legs (literally as well as metaphorically). His kingdom lies rotting and his subjects long fled; the few who remain are in near anarchy. Propping him up in his darkest hour are a bevy of women and his charlatan physician. His first wife, Queen Marguerite (Susan Sarandon) tries to comfort him with tough love (“The party’s over.”). His second much younger trophy wife, Queen Marie (Lauren Ambrose) plays upon Berenger’s denial and tries to act as if the party is still in full swing. The loyal (and lone) servant Juliette (Andrea Martin) still kvetches about her cleaning chores and the general disintegration of the palace. And of course the Doctor (William Sadler) has a cornucopia of pills to relieve any malaise especially those of the spirit. When all else fails, he turns his quackery to astrology. It’s just simply that the known world is at the edge of the abyss and its fearless leader is unable to do anything about it. If this sounds like the not so distant past, well, renowned Australian director Neil Armfield allows the parallels to speak for themselves. Mercifully, he doesn’t dwell on them (both he and Mr. Rush are credited with the adaptation from the original French) because to do so would shift the focus from Ionesco’s original intent. It’s the inexorableness of death (even at the farcical age of 400) and one’s acceptance or lack of that matter here. It’s the underlying theme of all the dramatic existentialists of the late 1950’s with Samuel Beckett leading the way.
Armfield allows the comic burlesque of the piece to flourish without ever loosing sight of its brutal nature of inescapability. Still the play is too long for its own good; it could easily be a 90 minute one act without sacrificing any of its potency. Due to the length, the actors are sometimes forced into raucous caricatures; this is especially true of Ms. Martin and Mr. Sadler. Ms. Ambrose is often humorous and affecting (if at times a little too emotive); masking her fear of Berenger’s death rattle with a childish petulance. Sarandon’s icy Queen Mother finally melts at the play’s end as she helps coax Berenger into a natural acceptance of his mortality. All are equally apt at making sense of Ionesco’s frequently absurdist dialogue. The production design is effective overall with Dennis Cooper’s lighting particularly noteworthy in acclimatizing us to the pervasive gloom of the piece.
But Exit the King is nothing less than a tour-de-force for its lead actor. Geoffrey Rush takes the part and wrestles it to the ground. Costumed in striped pajamas and a blue velvet robe, he is the perfect apotheosis of kingly and childlike. The pratfalls and bumbling are right out of Chaplin’s playbook while the vocal histrionics are suggestive of vaudevillian King Lear. It’s a performance that’s over the top without causing contempt; mannered without causing distain. It’s unexpectedly humane and devastatingly tragic. It’s a terrifically smart and witty approach to bringing an idea-laden French existential farce to the lights of Broadway. All hail King Berenger for it is he who is truly mighty.
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Brick Theatre
June 6, 2009
Reviewed by VanLoan
vanloan@nyyconstage.org
Written by Stan Richardson (and one suspects the unaccredited input of the company) with incidental music by Rachel Peters, this witty, tongue-twisting label tells us everything we need to know about the work. Of the three authors that are subversively alluded to in the title (Mark Medoff, Jean Giraudoux and Bertolt Brecht), it’s Brecht who gets the most mileage preparing us for the dialectical message to follow. It’s a little too clever, a little too self-referential and a little too long for its own good. This is not to say the show is preachy or uninteresting; quite the contrary. So much of the show is smart, persuasive and politically correct that it’s a shame that Richardson cannot meet a metaphor or allegory he doesn’t bring into play.
In the prologue that opens the show, a group of twenty somethings are smoking from a bong mourning the suicide attempt of John, one of their friends. There is some concern that the cause was overmedication. Reverend Cindy (a droll Joanna Parson) the local Christian minister stops by to offer some consolation via a story/parable. With her folk guitar (which speaks to her in only a voice she can hear), she relates a tale set in Belle Époque Paris about a capitalistic pharmaceutical engineer who has a reversal of conscience and decides to devote his work to the benefit of mankind not profits. Various complications ensue; insuring that no good deed goes unpunished.
Brecht’s masterpiece on war profiteering, Mother Courage and her Children serves as the template here. As related via three Greek gods (Matt Steiner, Sara Alvarez and Brandon Uranowitz who will serve as a first-rate comedic chorus throughout) from the “House of Courage”, Dr. Courage (pronounced with a distinct French accent) decides that the rich aristocracy should pay for their own medication while the poor should be subsidized. When his suggestions are presented before his board of directors (the chorus), Courage (an excellent Tim Cusack) is soon assassinated for his efforts (“the Gods will answer for not answering”). His mother, Madame Courage (an often strident Debbie Troche) is left to fend for herself and her three deaf mute children (you know who).
The production aspects are minimal (the lack of any set hurts the production) and director Jason Jacobs does what he can to keep the action from becoming too static in the Brick’s black box playing space. The energetic ensemble of actors carries the piece although they are often at the mercy of the material. The slickness of the writing is both its strength and its undoing. The big musical send-up of Les Miserables is a hoot while references to a goat named Sylvia (Edward Albee) are a groaner. Yet any show that can comically morph Mother Courage and her son Swiss Cheese into Auntie Mame and her ward Dennis must be doing something right. The show ends on a nihilistic, Brechtian note chastising the adolescents of 9/11 who have become the do-nothings of the “Great Recession”. With some judicious editing, this Caucasian Mother could pack quite a punch of black comedy.
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Company XIV
303 Bond St
May 23, 2009
Reviewed by VanLoan
vanloan@nyconstage.org
Hot on the heels (no pun intended) of this winter’s delightfully debauched The Judgment of Paris, uber-talented Austin McCormick returns with Le Serpent Rouge. Working out of his company’s home space, a converted warehouse in Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens (the non-gentrified section), McCormick’s latest dance-theater piece is subtitled A Titillating Tragedy. He and his gifted ensemble take on the story of Adam and Eve and nothing less than the fall of mankind.
After priming us with the impressive Davon Rainey’s erotic drag queen dance, the Ring Mistress (McCormick’s muse Gioia Marchese) enters introducing us to the lonely Adam (John Beasant III) in the Garden of Eden. Soon the whip-cracking Ring Mistress brings in Lillith (Yeva Glover) the original companion to Adam. Unable and unwilling to succumb to Adam’s charms, Lillith reinvents herself as the Serpentine Siren aka Le Serpent Rouge. Eve (Laura Careless) comes into the Garden and the rest is history. And just like Adam, we’re bewitched, bothered and bewildered over the proceedings.
As we wait for Eve to take the proverbial bite of the apple, McCormick gives us a decadent, carnival sideshow of the seven deadly sins that will result with Eve’s transgression (with vaudevillian footlights and period cue cards to boot). My personal favorite is the sin of jealousy which McCormick depicts as an Italian melodrama from the later 50’s. Gina Scherr’s lightning design is a cornucopia of reds, oranges and violets. The sumptuous production design is further enhanced by Olivera Gajic’s costumes which mix 1930’s decadence with 1990’s sadomasochism while the depth of the warehouse allows set designer Zane Pihlstrom to create a ‘backstage’ area worthy of another play. It also allows McCormick to stage scenes in “longshot” to further encourage the ‘tableau vivant’ effect. A large mirror is often used to reflect the action back to the audience.
McCormick’s true passion is dance so the choreography dazzles whether it’s the full splits of the drag queen to something as perversely simple as Adam walking over Eve’s back to get to Lillith. It lacks the manic energy of The Judgment of Paris but allows for the fall of humanity through its seductive movement. The “book” of Serpent credits such diverse influences as the Bible, Thomas Mann and Jean Cocteau but McCormick fuses the sources seamlessly into a magnetic whole. And any show that somehow manages to combine the mutually divine divas, Cecilia Bartoli, Peggy Lee and Nina Simone into the same soundscape is A number one in my book (actually the ingenious sound design also by McCormick is the highlight of the show).
Basically, the theme of the show is the oft-told conflict of woman as Madonna or Whore. As the Ring Mistress dryly notes,” We are women and must endure the fingers of men permanently pointing in our direction. To fall is to know the intricacies of life’s deepest joys and sorrows”. No one can show those colorful intricacies quite as beautifully as Austin McCormick.
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Ontological Theater @ St. Mark’s Church
March 8, 2009
Reviewed by VanLoan
vanloan@nyconstage.org
Once again, that avant-garde shaman extraordinaire Richard Foreman continues to shock and awe. His latest environmental theater piece (an annual event at St. Mark’s in the Bowery) Astronome covers new territory. Subtitled A Night at the Opera, Astronome is a collaboration with John Zorn, the musical composer who has been a pivotal player in the downtown music scene since 1975. He has created music in a variety of genres that defy easy categorization. A very suitable partner for Foreman it would seem. Upon receiving one’s ticket at the box office, we are also encouraged to take a pair of ear plugs. It’s wise to do so.
After exploring the use of video in his last three endeavors (known as the Bridge Project), Foreman seems to want to explore a more aural approach to his work. It works, I feel, better than the use of video. Foreman’s work is so highly and intensely visual in itself that the film techniques of the Bridge Project while interesting were often distracting. We were never quite sure where to focus our attention which is of course exactly what “le Maestro” wanted. However, Zorn’s contribution is a taped 34 minute aural assault that totally energizes Foreman’s visual pyrotechnics. The composition is an ear-splitting, heavy metal composition that while integral to the work never upstages it. It has definitely pushed Foreman towards the non-verbal. Usually his pieces are filled with cryptic, Jungian phrases that startle as much as intrigue. Astronome is almost wordless and his bizarre tableaux’s are punctuated with eerie moans, sighs and screams that compliment Zorn’s soundscape. These two MacArthur “Genius” winners are a match made in heaven.
True Foreman “junkies” like myself will not be disappointed however. The usual dense scenarios are all in place. A giant saltshaker takes a prominent place in the proceedings as does an oft attempted beheading. Some one named Mandel Schwarze is called for throughout the show while a green headed, one-eyed ogre evoking a devil stares down at us from stage right and makes several attempts to strangle himself. The seven member ensemble is outfitted in pseudo-Arabian style costumes with the ever present Fez headgear (a Foreman trademark). While never fully sure of Foreman’s intent (part of the innate satisfaction of his work), he seems to be striving for some reconciliation of the mind-body conflict or as he says in the show’s notes “urges inside us that are hopefully transcended”. In reality, it’s the audience that’s transcended in this delirious Foreman/Zorn heart-pounding extravaganza.
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Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre
October 10, 2008
Reviewed by VanLoan
There’s an awful lot of talent on the stage of the Jacobs Theatre in the current show 13. There are 13 gifted adolescents with an onstage band comprised of 13 year old musicians. The candy-colored pop-up set and costumes are by David Farley who did such extraordinary work on the recent revival of Sunday in the Park with George. The show is choreographed by Broadway wunderkind Christopher Gattelli (South Pacific, Alter Boyz) and the musical direction is by Tom Kitt, composer of the disarming Next to Normal. Finally, there’s the music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown a Tony Award winner for Parade. 13 is upbeat, energetic and eager to please. So why does it feel so bland and generic?
13 tells the story of thirteen year old Evan Goldman (Graham Phillips) who is about to celebrate his bar mitzvah. Uprooted from his native New York City to rural Illinois due to his parent’s divorce, it’s the classic displacement tale of wanting to be popular with the “cool” kids at school. As the sophisticated outsider, Evan needs to have the hippest bar mitzvah party in order to feel accepted (by a group of kids who are having their first exposure to Jewish customs no less).He is at first befriended by two other outsiders (read nerds), the bookish Patrice (Allie Trimm) and Archie (the show-stealing Aaron Simon Gross) who suffers from muscular dystrophy.
The high school is filled with the usual archetypes: Brett, the dumb, blonde jock (Eric M. Nelsen), his attractive cheerleader girl friend Kendra (Delaney Moro) and of course Kendra’s ‘best friend’ the scheming Lucy (Elizabeth Egan Gillies). The rest of the student body is of the quirky-perky persuasion. In order to recruit guests to his party, Evan finds himself playing Cupid to the love machinations of his fellow students. Archie secretly lusts for Kendra (as does Evan), Lucy wants Brett and of course Patrice has the hots (unrequited, of course) for Evan. These intrigues come to their climax in the one enthusiastic, show stopping number of the evening “Getting Ready” which takes place at the local Cineplex (expertly staged by director Jeremy Sams).
Brown acquits himself skillfully with songs than range from power ballads to rock-a-billy blues (the wonderful acappella “Bad Bad News”). Yet his message that for self-acceptance it’s better (in the long run) to be outside the mainstream rather than in the status quo doesn’t really register as anything exciting. It’s also not helpful that an another musical this season, the off-Broadway Saved, covered the same territory with much more interesting results (dealing with much edgier material such as same-sex attraction and born-again Christianity).
Ultimately, there’s nothing terribly wrong with 13 but there’s nothing terribly right either. One feels like a bit of a troll for not liking the production more (especially when it practically screams out for admiration). 13 feels like a nice sugar rush that ends up leaving you with a slight headache.
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Wild Project
July 23, 2007
Reviewed by VanLoan
vanloan@nyconstage.org
Listing
33 To Nothing is a terrific, tough little musical in the vein of Tick, Tick…Boom or Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Grant James Varjas has written the taut, aggressive book and composed the intense alt-rock score both to sensational effect (additional credit on two of the songs is given to bandmates/cast members Preston Clark and John Good). Even the location of the newly renovated, eco-friendly theater, Wild Project, at East 3rd. St. & Ave. B adds to its street credibility.
Ostensibly about a rehearsal by a garage band for an upcoming gig, this play with music is really about the breakup of a relationship which will cause (by the play’s end) the break up of the band itself. Gray (Mr. Varjas in a bravado performance) is the lead singer and songwriter for the group. He recently has broken up with Bri (Preston Clarke) who plays lead guitar in the band. He is also dealing with the recent death of his mother and his nascent alcoholism. All the songs that the band is rehearsing are about the soured relationship and their naked autobiographical pitch causes the rest of the band discomfort. This is especially true for the sympathetic Tyler (John Good) who is Gray’s longtime best friend and who’s wife Alex (Amanda Gruss) is also in the band. In his alcoholic, self-absorption, Gray has missed the fact that everyone else is beginning to move on to more adult pursuits. Tyler and Alex want to start a family while Bri has tentatively entered a new relationship. Only Barry, the drummer (a hilarious Ken Forman) although henpecked still wants the life of a “roadie”.
Despite the tensions of both ‘breakups’, there is a wonderfully relaxed feel among the players enhancing the experience of a “real” band (all the actors play their own instruments to exhilarating effect). There is also a genuine caring expressed for Gray’s emotional problems by the actors especially Bri. Even Ms. Gruss who is laden with playing the ‘heavy’ shows sufficient concern for Gray’s breakdown. There is also a humorous interlude about gay rock stars (both closeted and not).
As tight as the book and the performances are, it’s really the music and lyrics that the send the show soaring. Mr. Vargas’ sensational lyrics are just tart enough to sting but are passionate enough to move (even though Tyler attacks Gray with the accusation “Nobody pays attention to lyrics, anymore!”). In describing the failure of his relationship in “Too Late Now”, Gray sings that “you needed more than my silence while I thrived on the emotional violence” and on “28 Bars” he sings “take another Dramamine; it’s just another pill for the drama queen”. The rock score/rehearsal format provides the concert-like atmosphere of stopping the action while actually continuing it; credit director Randal Myler for the smooth transitions throughout. 33 To Nothing is an ambitious, powerful and ultimately moving new work.
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Atlantic Theater
June 26, 2007
VanLoan
vanloan@nyconstage.org
One year ago at this time (literally), the Atlantic Theater was presenting the spectacular Spring Awakening. The show eventually moved to Broadway where it claimed eight Tony Awards including Best Musical. Watching 10 Million Miles, one cannot help feeling the producers are hoping for lightning to strike twice. Despite having the same director (Tony winner Michael Mayer), it is unfair to compare the two productions. While the music and lyrics were satisfyingly integrated into Spring Awakening, 10 Million Miles, however pleasurable, has the feel of another ‘jukebox musical”.
The show is essentially the songbook of two-time Grammy winner and wildly popular country composer Patty Griffin. Where it stumbles is in its book written by talented playwright Keith Bunin. The author has jerry-built a bunch of book scenes to string together Ms. Griffin’s songs. Some of them work well and agreeably counterpoint the poignancy of the music. Others clunk along like a flat tire. This causes the show to have a fitful start and stop quality; allowing a certain boredom to creep in. Like Duane’s pick-up truck that is central to the story, 10 Million Miles constantly seems to be running out of gas.
Indeed, the story line is your classic road trip with all its’ geographical and emotional upheavals. Molly (Irene Molloy) is a recovering alcoholic and pregnant. She has decided to travel from her southern Florida home to her aunt’s home in Massachusetts to have the child and put it up for adoption (her family threw her out as a teenager for her wild drug/alcohol fueled adolescence). An ex-boyfriend Duane (Matthew Morrison) is a good ol’ Southern boy recently back from military service. He wants to revive his relationship with Molly especially since he is the most likely the father of her baby. He sexily cajoles Molly into accepting his offer to drive her north.
Still, there’s a lot to recommend here. First, Derek McLane’s clever set consists mainly of the beat up pick-up truck which inventively becomes a number of set pieces (including a roadside diner) along the trip up I-95. The lighting of Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer is either evocative or unforgiving as needed and Tim Weil’s orchestrations lushly complement Griffin’s music.
Second, it is the impressive cast that lifts the show above the mundane. Matthew Morrison is a standout as Duane continuing to show his chameleon-like ability in both music and drama. Irene Molloy is equally his match although her acting is a little superior to her singing. More importantly both actors have a great emotional and sexual chemistry; we have no doubt that despite all the accusations, threats and even a breakup, Molly and Duane are meant for each other (their duet “A Couple Fools” is a highpoint). Mere Winningham and Skipp Sudduth (both known for their exemplary TV work) shine in a variety of supporting roles. Their scene as Lois and Guthrie, a couple of soon-to-be-wed (again) loners is a heartrending comic gem. It is the effortless, comfortable work of these four pros that keeps our interest when we are often many miles ahead of 10 Million Miles.
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P.S. 122
March 11, 2007
Reviewed by VanLoan
vanloan@nyconstage.org
Innovative performance artist Tim Miller returns home to P.S. 122 (the celebrated downtown performance space he co-founded) for his latest solo piece 1001 Beds. The title refers to the number of hotel bedrooms he most likely will have slept in if he continues to be an itinerant performance artist for another 20 years (approximately 1/3 of his lifetime). In the small upstairs studio space with only a futon-style bed as the set, the ever genial, very boyish and of course ever political Miller begins his bedroom travelogue at the age of 18.
Since this is a performance piece by Tim Miller (a member of the notorious ‘Gang of Four’ of 1990 who took a lawsuit over First Amendment rights to the Supreme Court and eventually won) one knows it will deal with sex and so it begins with Miller’s loss of virginity. Anxious to explore his budding homosexuality, Miller has his first sexual tryst in a sleazy hotel room across from the Hollywood Bowl (after a classic middle class adolescence in Santa Monica). The next stop is Miller’s move to New York City and becoming a bellboy in the Hotel Navarro (now defunct) where he developed his Marxist principles while serving and bedding the elite. After launching P.S. 122 and developing the seeds of queer performance art, Miller takes his act on the road. A hilarious highlight of this period is his description of the Vernon Manor in Cincinnati, Ohio: a neo-Edwardian, pseudo-Disney hotel that is the “go-to” stop for everyone from the Beatles to Ronald Reagan when in the area. Miller points out that during this period even “John Lennon tried to stop a war from a bed”. In the section dearest to his heart, Miller meets and beds (in the same day) his future longtime companion, Alistair after a performance workshop in London in 1994. The narrative concludes at the Hollywood Bowl where Miller and others are arrested after protesting America’s involvement in Iraq. While in the holding cell with one mattress, Miller concludes with the description of a boisterous sex party among those arrested.
Tim Miller’s quality of a cock-eyed optimist (no pun intended) is his most endearing feature even when it extends itself to America’s questionable political future. His adventures in queer theory and performance have deservedly brought him a devoted following both here and abroad. His savoir-faire as a performer is equally impressive especially since the only material he is using is his own life experience. 1001 Beds is both an evocative look back and a hopeful look forward.
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