Theater Review: The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Liking The Importance of Being Earnest
By Lauren Yarger
If you’re a fan of The Importance of Being Earnest, you’ll love the Roundabout Theatre Company’s Broadway revival of Oscar Wilde’s1895 farce about mistaken identity and absurd romance. If you’re not a fan, like me, you’ll leave the American Airlines Theatre saying, “Great production, but what is so funny?”

Brian Bedford directs this tale of a country gentleman, John Worthing (David Furr), who invents a troublesome brother named Ernest, whose troubles afford John the opportunity to leave his country life, dominated by his young ward, Cecily (Charlotte Parry) and her tutor, Miss Prism (a scene-stealing Dana Ivey), and go to more exciting London, where he assumes Ernest’s identity.

In town, he hangs out with friend Algernon (a very funny Santino Fontana), Archie’s cousin Gwendolyn (Sarah Topham), with whom John has fallen in love, and her mother, the formidable Lady Bracknell (played by Bedford). Archie, finds spending time with all of them a bore, however, and invents an invalid friend, Bunbury, whom he pretends to visit in the country to avoid the social obligations of town.

There are some other characters -- Lane, the butler (Paul O’Brien), the vicar (Paxton Whitehead) and a couple of servants (Tim MacDonald and Amanda Leigh Cobb) – thrown into the mix of mayhem which ensues and before it’s all over, Algernon impersonates Ernest, Algernon falls in love with Gwendolyn, both Cecily and Gwendolyn think they are engaged to Ernest, both women vow they could ever love a man not named Ernest and secrets about a baby left in a handbag at a train station come to light.

The fans were rolling in the aisle the night I attended, including the guy behind me who laughed loudly while kicking my seat throughout the performance (I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was unable to control himself, rather than think he was just a clod). Certainly, there's some humor here, but the guffaws, really puzzle me. A story that depends on not just one, but two women so shallow that they can’t love a man unless his name is Ernest (and there would be no second or third acts without this little plot twist), not to mention some other ridiculous storyline, just doesn’t do it for me when it comes to the rolling-in-the-aisle category of plays.

But to each his own, and this production certainly is one of the best I’ve ever seen of the play. The two hours and 20 minutes with two intermissions did not seem to drag as much as it usually does for me thanks to the engaging performances and bright pace maintained by Bedford’s direction.

Making the show worthwhile in their own right are the lovely sets and costumes by Desmond Heeley. Each of the three sets looks like a beautiful impressionist painting and the elegant dresses and formal wear are beautiful. It’s sumptuous and lavish and looks like everything a late Victorian piece should. The performances also are terrific – all of them across the board, including Bedford as Lady Bracknell, who is especially funny when he uses the lower range of his voice to register dissatisfaction.

While he does a fine job with the role, and simply plays the character rather than call attention to the fact that he’s a man playing a woman, it’s still noticeable and because of that, questionable. Why is it acceptable for a guy to play this role? There aren’t too many good roles on the stage for women over a certain age these days any way. Why should one of the juicier ones be portrayed by a man? There are plenty of gifted actresses out there who could have had a lot of fun with this character.

Well, maybe it’s part of a hook to get people to go see a play and if it works, I guess it’s worth it. Earnest has been extended at American Airlines Theatre, 42nd St., NYC through July 3. For tickets call 212-719-1300.

Christian might also like to know:
• No content notes

They'll Watch the Kids While You Watch the Show

Playwrights Horizons has launched PLAYTIME!, a brand new program offering affordable, professional childcare while you see a show. Playwrights Horizons has teamed up with Sitters Studio, a bonded and insured company made up of sitters who are working artists, which will provide and operate the program at Playwrights Horizons on 42nd Street.

PLAYTIME! will debut during the run of the theater company’s next production, KIN, the world premiere of a new play by Bathsheba Doran, which begins performances on Friday, Feb. 25.

With PLAYTIME!, while patrons enjoy a Playwrights Horizons performance, their children will be upstairs in a rehearsal space having his or her own fun, artistic experience – learning a dance or song, making a craft project or participating in a myriad of other artistic activities provided by Sitters Studio. The program is available for children ages 4-12 (potty-training required). All Studio Sitters undergo background checks and are CPR certified.

PLAYTIME! is free to Playwrights Horizons subscribers and available to non-subscribers for a flat fee of only $15 per child. PLAYTIME! care will be offered during the following three performances of KIN: Feb. 27; March 20 and April 2, all at 2:30 pm. PLAYTIME! is the first program of its kind among New York City theaters.

For more information, visit the PLAYTIME! web page at www.playwrightshorizons.org/playtime.asp, or call Casey York at 212-564-1235, ext. 3152. For additional information about Sitters Studio, please visit www.sittersstudio.com.

Commercial, Non-Profit Partnership is Panel's Topic

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) and Back Stage present the industry panel New Models for Success: The Commercial / Not-for-Profit Partnership on Thursday, Jan. 27 at 7:30 pm at The Roy Arias Studios, 300 W. 43rd St., OB Theatre, 5th floor, NYC.

The panel will include Doug Aibel, artistic director of the Vineyard Theatre (Avenue Q, [title of show], The Scottsboro Boys); Robyn Goodman, producer (off-Broadway: Bat Boy the Musical, Jonathan Larson's tick, tick...BOOM!, Our Lady of 121st Street, Red Light Winter; Broadway: A Class Act, Metamorphoses, In the Heights, Avenue Q, Steel Magnolias, Barefoot in the Park); RK Greene, producer (Room Service, Love Child); Kevin Kennedy, managing director The Peccadillo Theater Co. (Room Service, Another Part of the Forest, Talk of the Town); Randall Wreghitt, producer (Aesop and Company, Lieutenant of Inishmore, Grey Gardens, Little Women).

Doors open at 7 pm for networking and refreshments; panel starts promptly at 7:30. FREE for TRU members; $12 for non-members. Call in advance for reservations: 212/714-7628; or e-mail TRUnltd@aol.com.

Touring Shows Impact Local Economies

The economic impact of Broadway touring shows on the metropolitan areas where they played during the 2008-2009 season is estimated to be be $3.35 billion, according to a report released by The Broadway League.

“Touring Broadway adds to the quality of life in American cities, as well as their economic well being,” notes The Broadway League’s Executive Director, Charlotte St. Martin, “Moreover, we provide the funds that fuel many educational programs offered to the kids in America. Since our last report from the 2004-2005 season, we see that Broadway theatre has increased its impact by almost 17percent and attendance has increased by 7percent. We are happy to see that Broadway is alive and well in our country an that, coupled with New York City’s numbers, we are entertaining over 25 million theatergoers annually and are creating an economic impact to our country of over $13.15 billion.”

In the 2008-2009 season, there were approximately 40 Broadway touring shows traveling across the country, playing at 192 venues. Theatergoers who specifically came to an area to attend a tour spent $687.2 million on ancillary activities, such as dining and transportation, in addition to the $807.2 million spent to produce and run these tours in the places that presented them or in New York City, bringing the total direct spending due to Touring Broadway to $1.49 billion. This money then generated another $1.86 billion in secondary rounds of spending so that the full economic contribution of Touring Broadway totaled $3.35 billion, according to the report. From this money 87 percent($2.9 billion) supported the communities that presented Broadway tours. On average, Broadway tours contributed an economic impact of 3.5 times the gross ticket sales to the local metropolitan area’s economy.

Theater Review: Carnival Round the Central Figure

Photos by Deneka Peniston
Ted Caine as the Central Figure

Dancing Around Death
By Lauren Yarger
The wife is in denial, the psychologist channels positive thinking, the nurse keeps drawing blood for tests, the preacher and his choir think they can conquer it and a friend wants to confront it. The only one who doesn’t have any say in how to deal with death is the victim himself in Diana Amsterdam’s Carnival Round the Central Figure playing a limited engagement Off Broadway.

The “central figure,” a.k.a. Paul or Pamela (Ted Caine), painted a ghastly white and looking emaciated, lies on a black hospital bed slab in the middle of the stage while all of the various parties connected with the dying Paul, or already deceased Pamela, dance around death (sometimes, literally, with the choir, accompanied on keyboard, directed by David James Boyd, singing rousing renditions of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Amazing Grace.”). The simple, but effective set design is by Walt Spangler with Jisun Kim and Melissa Shakum, lighted by Eric Southern; costume design is by Katja Andreiev.

Sheila (Christine Rowan), Paul’s wife, is in denial and talking about what new appliances they will buy for their home when he returns there. “Doesn’t he look better than the last time you visited?” she defiantly asks his co-worker Kate (Danni Simon). Kate tires to speak the truth, but is stopped by her boyfriend Richard (Ed Stetz) and by a creepy nurse (Kori Rushton) who sits just to the side of the action in a rocking chair waiting to draw out Paul’s last drops of blood with her super-sized syringe.

Dr. Maryanne stops by each night to channel positive energy and to convince Paul that if he can only say, “I am,” everything will be all right. TV evangelist Bob (Shane LeCocq), however, views death as a punishment for sin and encourages his followers to “Speak Straight to Jesus,” the name of his television program. He tries to lead Becky and John Tupper (Cynthia Silver, David Michael Kirby) through the pain of a daughter, Pamela, who has fallen into sin. How Kate didn’t deal with her friend Pamela’s death then, affects how she wants to deal with Paul’s death now. She dismisses the preacher as hypocritical and annoys Dr. Maryanne during her lectures (complete with Power Point like video enhancements designed by Kaveh Jaerian) by refuting her claim that there is a chance someone might be able to overcome death.

It’s an intriguing play, if a little difficult to follow. There are a lot of people coming and going (direction by Karen Kohihaas) in addition to Amsterdam’s annoying use of repeated scenes. Instead of just repeating a line or two of dialogue to let us know we’ve come back to the present, we get most of the scene repeated again at length. The play would benefit from a good edit with better differentiation between past and present, but it does have a lot to say about how people deal with, or perhaps more to the point, don’t deal with, death and the people going through the process.

It plays at IRT Theater, 154 Christopher St., third floor, NYC through Jan. 30. For tickets, visit www.irttheater.org.

Christians might also like to know:
• Sexual dialogue
• Language
• God’s name taken in vain (by the preacher)
• Theological misspeak by the preacher who says the Lord turns Pamela from a beautiful girl into a beast after she chooses sin. He apparently also teaches Kate that God has hidden death in sex as a means to weed out the world’s sinners.

Theater Review: Blood from a Stone

Ethan Hawke, Ann Dowd. Photo: Monique Carboni

Dysfunction Gets Another Go-Round in Playwright’s Debut
By Lauren Yarger
Tommy Nohilly has reached for an old standby theme for his playwriting debut in Blood from a Stone – dysfunction – and finds it to such an extreme that he makes the folks over at August: Osage County look like the Brady Bunch.

The New Group’s Production of Blood from a Stone Off Broadway is enhanced by some fine performances, tightly directed by Scott Elliott, but because the play never really develops beyond “mother and father hate each other with every fiber of their beings” we never understand why this family is in such bad shape, or end up caring about any of the rather unlikable folks.

Ann Dowd gives a dynamic performance as Margaret, full of hatred and venom for husband, Bill (Gordon Clapp), but with a soft spot for favorite son Travis (Ethan Hawke, in a good, layered performance) who has stopped back home for a visit. His brother, Matt (Thomas Gurley), steels from the family members to support his gambling habit. He sides with Dad in the conflicts. The other sibling, Sarah (Natasha Lyonne) is caught in the middle of the messy household, where mother and father live on separate floors of their New Britain, CT home (designed in all its shabbiness by Derek McLane) and don’t even share contents in the refrigerator, so strong is their dislike for each other.

Meanwhile, Bill tries to manage his violent temper and keeps forcing his “friend,” Deborah, on the children who, with the exception of Sarah, who’s trying to make a go of normalcy with her growing family, have affairs of their own to worry about. Travis, addicted to his mom’s pain pills, has taken up with old girlfriend Yvette (Daphne Rubin-Vega) who lives next door with her unsuspecting husband. Matt is leaving his wife and kids to have an affair with a married woman and even Margaret has a “friend” on the side. Every-day occurrences in this house involve throwing kitchen cabinets, punching out windows and some of the darkest verbal threats family members ever have uttered to one another.

Believe me, no matter how bad you think your family is, there’s a good chance you’ll be glad you’re related to them instead of this clan. I don’t even want to know where Dowd has to reach on an emotional level to maintain such a dark and hopeless character. Margaret’s one outlet for love is her cat, but even the poor animal can’t escape the sadness that surrounds this family.

The dark interactions really are all that happen in this play, however, despite the promise of potential in the playwright’s first effort. Nohilly’s characters are interesting and lend themselves to some great acting, but without any explanation of how these folks got here (why is this venom-filled couple still sharing the same house, and what is the cause of such festering dislike?), the play fails to justify its almost three-hour run time.

It runs through Feb. 19 at the Acorn Theatre, 410 West 42nd Street. For tickets, visit http://www.thenewgroup.org/.
Christians might also like to know:
• Language
• Lord’s name taken in vain
• Sexual activity
• Partial nudity

Theater Review: A Small Fire

A Small Fire Rages with Emotions
By Lauren Yarger
Just how hard would you fight to stay in a world you no longer could smell, taste, see or hear? And how far would you go to reach out to your wife, mother or friend if she were the one losing her senses?

These questions are the kindling for Adam Bock’s A Small Fire, an inferno of emotions and a blaze of great play writing stoked by riveting performances as directed by Trip Cullman Off Broadway at Playwrights Horizons.

Tony Award winner Michelle Pawk is Emily Bridges, a woman who, in between living a settled-for life with husband, John (an excellent Reed Birney), running her construction contracting business with friend and colleague Billy Fontaine (Victor Williams) and planning a wedding she’s less than enthusiastic about for her estranged daughter, Jenny (Celia Keenan-Bolger), suddenly finds she’s losing her senses. Literally.

First she loses her sense of smell, then taste (a sample of the wedding cake tastes like chalk). She tries to hide the problems from her family and Billy, but as sight and hearing soon fail her as well, she reluctantly becomes dependant on them for every need. The play’s one weakness is that no explanation for the phenomenon is given. We’re left to wonder whether it’s a medical condition or a psycho-somatic withdrawal from her world. In any case, it doesn’t really matter, because the core of the fire comes from the characters’ interaction with each other.

As Emily’s senses fail, John’s become more acute and he assumes the roles of his wife’s eyes and ears as well as her caretaker. Birney is an explosion of talent. In a scene where he’s describing to Emily what’s happening at the wedding, he portrays every kind of emotion. A simple smile he gives his wife early in the play conveys love and devotion – and later – serves as an anchor of truth when he defends his decision not to abandon his marriage to his daughter, who increasingly finds it difficult to be around her mother and wants her father to be released from his existence.

Pawk is riveting as the woman slowly finding herself in a nightmare from which she can’t awake. Williams is excellent as Emily’s one true friend – and also lends some needed comic relief with his enthusiasm for racing “athlete” pigeons. The roles are demanding and require the actors to take the characters further than the mere words that are being said. Here Keenan-Bolger’s Jenny falls a bit short of the others, as we never fully understand why she’s so hostile toward her mother.

The creative team adds snap and crackle to the production as well. Loy Arcenas designs a set that easily changes from construction site to living room (helped by sound and music effects designed by Robert Kaptowitz and lighting design by David Weiner); Ilona Somogyi designs the costumes.

Bock stacks an amazing amount of wood to build a roaring fire in this play – incredible character development and swift movement of story build to a raging conclusion– all in just 80 minutes. It’s one of most engrossed times I’ve spent watching a play in a long time.

A Small Fire has been extended through Jan. 30 at Playwrights Horizons, 416 West 42nd St. For tickets, call (212) 279-4200.

Christians might also like to know:
• Language
• Lord’s name taken in vain
• Homosexuality (mentioned, but not central to the themes)
• Sexual Activity
• Nudity