Review: The Unseen

Steven Pounders and Stan Denman. Photo by Matthew Minard

Be on the Lookout for What Really is Hidden Here

By Lauren Yarger
Torture takes on a new meaning, not only for the two men enduring it in Craig Wright’s The Unseen playing Off-Broadway at The Cherry Lane Theater in New York, but for the audience members who have to endure the play.

The playwright, who has popular TV shows like “Lost”, “Dirty Sexy Money” and “Brothers and Sisters,” among his credits, tries to make us think we’re watching a slick psychological study about the nature of men and the concept of reality, but what’s really hidden in this American Actor’s Company production directed by Lisa Denman, is some anti-God, anti- religion thought masked as enlightenment.

Prisoners Wallace (Steven Pounders) and Valdez (Stan Denman) have been held by unknown captors for unknown reasons for seven years. Though unable to see each other, they can hear each other from their stark cells (nicely staged by set designer Sarah Brown and lighting designer Travis Watson) and they tell each other tales of the horrible torture they have endured while keeping each other’s minds stimulated by playing word games.

During their conversation, Wallace monitors a series of undefined, increasingly annoying and seemingly un-ending buzzes (sound design by Dustin Chaffin) by moving some items around on the floor (his food tin and a spoon are identifiable, the others are not). Suddenly he concludes that the buzzing is the key to figuring out a plan for the layout of the prison and a means of escape. His excitement is interrupted, however, by the arrival of Smash (Thomas Ward), their torturer. It seems he’s having a bad day. It’s really hard torturing people, you know, so he has come to talk about his frustrations with Wallace and Valdez who lend sympathetic ears. (Yes, you just read that sentence correctly. It gets worse). He’s also very upset about a birthday party he missed.

“We’re here for you,” Wallace tells Smash.
“We love you just the way you are,” Valdez adds.

Jump ahead three years. Valdez has a theory. He’s convinced a woman prisoner occupies the cell between the men and for more than a year, has been tapping out news of a 10,000-year struggle taking place in a world full of tunnels outside of their prison cells. It’s a good-vs.-evil story. The totalitarian regime in charge wants people to stay prisoners, but the resistance believes freedom is possible.

Wallace’s skepticism angers Valdez who demands he extend an ear to his theory the same way he listened to Wallace’s thoughts about escaping from a prison designed like a giant beehive of individual cells. Meanwhile, Smash, shares some thoughts he has for inventing little machines that would cut out his victims eyes and tongues so he doesn’t have to suffer by seeing their fear or hearing their screams while he tortures them.

While humor sometimes can be used successfully as counter to a horrible reality (take the television series MASH, for example) the attempts here fall flat, partly because they’re not funny and partly because it’s hard to take any of it seriously. The two men, though dressed in tattered, dirty clothes (costume design by Carl Booker), appear fit physically and in good spirits for two guys who have endured 10 years of the kind of torture we hear about in graphic detail.

The problem is that the play isn’t as much an attempt to study the characters, as it is propaganda for the theory that suggests that there is no reality or truth, that all beliefs, particularly those of a religious nature, are the result of stories someone made up. The intrinsic failure of such theories however, is that they negate themselves when they claim to be the truth. The result is a wasted 75 minutes watching the play fail to make its case.

The Unseen plays through March 28 at the Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce St., NY. For more information, go to http://www.unseentheplay.com/.

Christians might also like to know:
• Torture is described in very graphic detail, though not depicted. Blood makeup.
• Language.

Review: Guys and Dolls

This Revival Can’t Do, Can’t Do

By Lauren Yarger
It’s a musical with a terrific Frank Loesser score and decades of successful stagings from New York to the high school auditorium near you, but the latest revival of Guys and Dolls at Broadway’s Nederlander Theater just can’t do.

The first musical number, “Fugue for Tinhorns,” from which we alter the “can do” lyrics in the headline for this review, tells the story of the show’s problem right from the start: too many individuals without a blend. The three-voice popular song in which the characters speculate on the best bets at the race track sounds like three guys trying to make sure they stand out individually instead of working together to create one tune. And so it goes with the musical, as the four leads try to create characters different from those we’ve become accustomed to over the years.

The usually excellent Oliver Platt seems ill at ease and plays floating crap-game organizer Nathan Detroit as though he’s trying to do an imitation of Harvey Fierstein. Lauren Graham as Miss Adelaide, who can’t get Detroit to the altar, abandons the character’s traditional nasal accent and adopts one that doesn’t quite work. Kate Jennings Grant’s Sarah Brown is hardly retiring, rigid or naïve, as we've come to expect. Instead, she is brash and entirely capable of holding her own against the advances of Craig Bierko’s slick Skye Masterson (indeed, Bierko is the only one of the four stars who appears confident in the skin of his character), so it seems a bit silly that the whole plot revolves around a bet that Masterson can’t woo the Salvation Army prude and convince her to accompany him to Cuba for dinner.

The result is that there’s no chemistry and a show with a fill-in-the- gaps-around-the-great-songs book (Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows) needs chemistry. It feels as though director Des McAnuff has taken a hands-off approach and hopes that Robert Brill’s massive moving, ever-changing sets (made even more elaborate by Dustin O'Neill's video design), Paul Tazewell’s dazzling 1940s-era costumes with splashes of contrasting color, Sergio Trujillo’s choreography and Loesser’s wonderful music and lyrics (Ted Sperring, music director) will distract us enough to keep us from realizing that there’s something missing. One welcome addition would be additional vocal coaching for Graham whose voice sounds strained. A large ensemble cast of characters and dancers seems disconnected from the whole as well, except for Jim Ortlieb, who plays Arvide Abernathy, Sarah's bass-drum beating grandfather who gives a really nice rendition of "More I Cannot Wish You."

The musicians, housed in a three-story platform behind the action on stage and conducted by Jeffrey Klitz, are great and it’s wonderful to hear old classics like “A Bushel and a Peck,” “I’ve Never Been in Love Before” "Luck Be a Lady” and “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat.” The latter, led by Titus Burgess who plays crapshooter Nicely, Nicely and the Graham-Grant duet “Marry the Man Today” are the strongest numbers, but they’re also two of the last, so when things finally seem like they’re coming together, it’s time for the final bows.

The show plays at the Nederlander Theatre, 208 West 41st Street, NY. For tickets, call (212) 307-4100 or visit http://www.guysanddollsbroadway.com/.

Christians might also like to know:

• Scantily clad showgirls
  
• A large painting in a restaurant in Havana depicts a man and woman nude
  
• One character depicts masochistic behavior (in what is supposed to be a humorous revelation)

Review: Blood Type: Ragu

Frank Ingrasciotta "drives."

A Recipe for Reflection

By Lauren Yarger
Take a little family, add some humor, stir in 20 characters, flavor with a little dysfunction and you’ve got the recipe for Blood Type: Ragu, Frank Ingrasciotta’s one-man reflection on growing up in a Sicilian immigrant family trying to make its way in America.

Skillfully directed by Ted Sod, Ingrasciotta gives distinct personalities to the multitude of characters, including his overbearing father who works long hours to put food on the table (eating being an important “liturgy” in the home), his worrying, superstitious seamstress mother, a bunch of unflatteringly nicknamed neighbors, a host of Sicilian relatives and his non-Italian stepmother, who comically asks whether he’d like some more sorelli (mozzarella).

Bubbling just under the surface of the brew is a deeper story: that of Ingrasciotta’s coming to grips with and forgiveness of his father’s shortcomings. It’s this more poignant ingredient and Ingrasciotta’s vulnerability in sharing the not-so-comical memories of his family that provide a base for the show and keep it from deteriorating into a saucy ethnic parody.

Through clever staging (John McDermott) that incorporates projections of video and drawings (designed by Joshua Higgason), Ingrasciotta at times appears to walk through the rooms of his childhood home or dance in the fields of Sicily.

Written by the actor and based on his own experiences growing up in New York, the script is full of good humor as well as pathos and invites the audience in like guests encouraged to sit at the family table and manga! The script would benefit, however, with the chopping out of one lengthy and graphic description of Ingrasciotta’s first experience of manhood with a Las Vegas prostitute. It plays like an ingredient added to spice up the sauce, but which, in its deviation from the locales and flavor of the rest of the show, instead leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Blood Type: Ragu plays at The Actor’s Playhouse, 100 7th Avenue South (between Grove and Barrow), New York. For tickets call 212-868-4444 or visit www.BloodTypeRagu.com.

Christians might also like to know:
• Sexual dialogue
• Language

So, You Want to Be A Producer

The Commercial Theater Institute offers its three-day intensive program for prospective producers, general managers and investors in New York City May 15-17. A special discounted rate is available until March 27.

The program, which I attended a while back and highly recommend, is open to anyone interested in producing, co-producing or investing in the commercial theatre, Broadway, Off Broadway, Touring Broadway, and elsewhere. Each session consists of presentations and panel discussions with experienced producers, general managers, entertainment attorneys, and managing directors.

The program is of special interest to anyone exploring relationships between commercial and not-for-profit sectors in the development of a theatre project.

Additional sessions are offered in Chicago March 13-15 and at the O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, CT July 8-12

To register and for more information, click here.

Pulitzer Prize Winning Playwright Horton Foote Has Died

Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright Horton Foote died here in Hartford where his daughter Hallie is performing in an adaptation of "To Kill a Mockingbird," for which his screenplay won an Oscar. For the obituary in the New York Times, click here. For a review of the show at Hartford Stage, click here.

Review: The Savannah Disputation

Apologetics Without Apologies
By Lauren Yarger
Good and evil lock horns in battle for immortal souls in The Savannah Disputation, running at Playwrights Horizons in New York, but who sports the horns of the lamb and who has the horns of Satan? Well, that’s what the battle is all about.

Melissa (Kellie Overbey), a Christian missionary thinks she has all of the answers and sets out on her quest to “convert” Catholics. She arrives on the doorstep of elderly Savannah, GA sisters Mary (Dana Ivey) and Margaret (Marylouise Burke) and the battle begins. Margaret, as sweet and simple as they come, invites Melissa in and reads some of her pamphlets raising questions about whether the Catholic Church is the one true church.

“Your whole church is founded on a grammatical error,” Melissa says, citing original Latin text from the bible and Margaret starts to question her faith. Mean and feisty Mary wants no part of Melissa and her teachings and throws her out making Melissa question her calling as a missionary. When Margaret defies her sister’s command not to see the evangelist again, Mary concocts her own plan. She invites her unsuspecting priest, Father Murphy (Reed Birney), over for dinner on the same night Margaret invites Melissa back for another talk.

Mary fills the priest in on her plan minutes before Melissa arrives. “We want you to crush her,” she says with glee.

Uncomfortable with Mary's manipulation, he keeps quiet while Melissa begins her anti-Catholic instruction, but soon Murphy’s identity is revealed and he and Melissa engage in a spirited battle of apologetics. Before the evening is over, Mary seeks excommunication from the church and starts tossing statues and other religious relics in the trash while Margaret, who riotously flees the room at each warning shot of battle, can’t find anyone who can answer her questions.

Evan Smith’s play is full of humor and allows the debate to rage without anyone seeming preachy. Weapons of information fly from both sides as each makes a case for having the only straight shot to heaven. The characters are interesting and real without becoming caricatures of what they represent. Mary is both ornery and vulnerable; Margaret is naïve, yet unwavering; Melissa is abrupt, but caring and Murphy is tolerant, yet convicted. And in a nice turn, Mary keeps deleting phone messages from her doctor’s office reminding her that her test results are back. The possibility of a life-threatening illness gives the debate about the need for eternal salvation increased meaning.

The performances, under the direction of Walter Bobbie, are top notch. Ivey is irrepressible as the mean-spirited Mary who tangles with nuns and doesn’t care if she offends anyone because, as she reminds us, she doesn’t have any friends any way. Burke is thoroughly engaging as the sweet and humble Margaret who brings to mind a favorite aunt, school teacher or someone else whose kindness has touched you. Her questions, it turns out, don’t really stem from disbelief, but from concern about whether Mary will end up in heaven or not. Overbey and Birney hold their own against and fuel the performances of the powerhouse spinsters.

It’s a near heavenly production, enhanced by the technical elements (scenic design John Lee Beatty; costumes David C. Woolard; lighting Kenneth Possner and sound, Tony Meola). The apologetics are without apology and are the impetus for greater understanding of why you believe what you believe.

Christians might also like to know:• Good information on tenets of the Catholic faith and on original bible texts

The Savannah Disputation runs through March 15. Performances are Tuesday through Friday at 8pm; Saturdays at 2:30 and 8pm; Sundays at 2:30 and 7:30 pm. Tickets may be purchased by calling 212- 279-4200, online at http://www.blogger.com/www.playwrightshorizons.org or at the box office, 416 W. 42nd St. (between 9th and 10th Avenues).

Review: This Beautiful City

Marsha Stephanie Blake, Brandon Miller, Alison Weller, Brad Heberlee, Stephen Plunkett & Emily Ackerman. Photos by Graig Schwartz

Dreams Built, Dashed as 'Evangelical Capital' Emerges
By Lauren Yarger
The aerial view of rooftops, streets and other elements appears to represent any typical American city, but just like Colorado Springs, the real Evangelical Capital of the world represented in This Beautiful City running Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre, not everything is what it seems.

The rooftops in Neil Patel’s slick set suddenly become video screens or flashing lights in a youth service and the “city transformation” evangelical Christians hope will take place in Colorado becomes literal.

Created for documentary theater company The Civilians by writers Jim Lewis and Stephen Cosson (who also directs), Beautiful City is the compilation of interviews they and cast members conducted with residents of Colorado Springs. Their stories are intermingled with songs and lyrics from Michael Friedman who combines simple, pleasing tunes that disguise a vocally challenging score. The lyrics are atypical, from time to time offering email texts, and are more conversational than lyrical in nature:

“I just try to be friends with people who wouldn’t judge me for being like, not Christian, you know, but it’s not like I, ya know, go around saying, ‘Oh, I’m not a Christian, cause that would be like, you know, whatever,” sings one teen struggling with finding her identity.

At right, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Brad Heberlee, and Stephen Plunkett

What emerges are thoughts and dreams of the people of Colorado Springs, Christians and atheists alike with some focus on three larger churches: Ted Haggard’s New Life Church, Ben Reynolds’ African-American Emmanuel Baptist Church and Pentecostal Revolutions House of Prayer, aka RHOP. A superb cast of six plays a multitude of roles under Cosson’s direction.

Standing out is Marsha Stephanie Blake who plays the gamut from a confused teenager to Pastor Reynolds to his replacement (who delivers a terrific sermon complete with brow mopping) to a brief stint as President George W. Bush and a CNN reporter questioning him.

Emily Ackerman, Brad Heberlee, Brandon Miller, Stephen Plunkett and Alison Weller round out the cast of other church members and townsfolk who aren’t so thrilled about the Christian movement in Colorado Springs (the action takes place leading up to the 2006 election where both a ban against gay marriage and a proposition for gay rights were on the ballot).

Their stories unfold skillfully without apparent prejudice and with commendable attention to detail including lyrics projected on screens while the praise team leads worship and pinpoint lighting (designer David Weiner) illuminating the faces of the Pentecostals praying in tongues. A political battle fought with balloons is particularly creative. John Carrafa’s choreography and Alex Hester’s costumes complete the picture.

Colorado Springs does emerge as an evangelical headquarters, but not all of the dreams come true. Haggard eventually resigns as New Life’s pastor and as president of the National Association of Evangelicals when he admits to purchasing drugs and to homosexual behavior. Pastor Reynolds tells his congregation he’s gay and steps away from his pulpit and the leader of RHOP heads toward Kansas City and “Plan B” after things don’t go quite the way he envisioned in Colorado Springs.

This Beautiful City deals with timely topics set to music and invites discussion of the issues. It runs through March 15 at the Vineyard, 108 E. 15th Street, New York. Performances are Tuesdays at 7pm, Wednesdays through Saturday at 8pm and Saturdays and Sundays at 3pm. For tickets, call 212-353-0303 or visit www.vineyardtheatre.org.

Christians might also like to know:
• Language
• A panel discussion is planned to discuss issues of gay marriage and separation of church and state.