War of Words Part I
Art is more than imitating life – as the expression goes – it facilities; it communicates, it combats it. Articulate Theatre Company explores the role of the artist’s role in activism with the Art of Protest.
ArtsIndependent joins all the sites of Five Star Arts Journals in sharing the thoughts of the soldiers of Articulate Theatre as they declare war…
Articulating The Arts: The Art of Protest: April 3 – 6 (April 3 – 5 @ 8pm; April 6 @ 7pm) at TADA Theatre 15 W. 28th St, NYC, 2nd Floor. Tkts: http://www.articulatetheatre.com/ata-5-the-art-of-protest.html
We asked the entire company one question:
Why are you doing this?
Articulate will team playwrights with visual artists to create a signature benefit event examining other art forms through the lens of theatre. It brings together the ATC ensemble and guest artists with unique works of art to use as a springboard and source of inspiration for new theatre works.
Participating Playwrights: J. B. Alexander, Jaisey Bates, Thomas C. Dunn, Jeff Dunne, Elizabeth Gordon, Liv Matthews, Robin Rice, Scott C. Sickles, Judd Lear Silverman, and Bara Swain
Bara Swain – Playwright (Yearning for Peace)
Why am I doing this project? Like all of Articulating the Arts (AtA) programming, the call for submissions on a specific theme is simply too challenging to ignore. I enjoy finding inspiration from a topic that isn’t in my comfort zone, and then finding a way to be true to my voice as I craft a response.
Elizabeth Gordon – Playwright (Perversity)
I’m doing this project because it honors two of the noblest activities humans can perform: protesting and art-making. And when those two passions come together, the result can change people’s minds, and as such, the world. As a playwright, I’m interested in telling stories about people who are moved to take action, to question authority and tradition, to act according to their deepest beliefs. Protest artists do that. They wake us up to our better selves. We damn well ought to listen.
Scott C. Sickles – Playwright (#Bastille)
I am doing this project because I’m pissed off. I’m pissed off at the government for taking corruption to such great new heights that people on the far left are not only looking back wistfully at Bush/Cheney, but they’re also longing for the halcyon days of Richard Nixon! I’m pissed off that on the opposite end of that archconservative white supremacist blight, people on the left are driven by a crippling misguided idealism and an absence of pragmatism. In the middle of all that, I’m pissed off that over the past two and a half centuries (almost) we’ve created a technological arsenal so powerful that, in the wrong hands, it could make 1984 look like a Peanuts cartoon… all of which only feeds the power, corruption and lies on one end and the half-assed idealism on the other. I AM PISSED OFF! That said, I also wanted to work more closely with Articulate after being a member for over a year and, like all playwrights, crave attention and applause. I mean at this point, why lie?
Jaisey Bates – Playwright (Eenie Meenie Miney NO)
It is Wednesday – response deadline day – and I am writing a paragraph about why I wrote. Idk how I learned of the submission but it caught my eye with its specificity and as an eternal student wired to meet assignment deadlines with my utmost effort but at the final possible moment the structure and limited time spoke to me and it was the day before the deadline I think so I studied each image carefully held it up to my words’ heart and said See this art – does it speak to me – does it speak to we who walk through words and worlds so differently? And each image spoke stories but then last on the list was if we wished to suggest other protest art and our shared heart leapt with sudden fevered hope wanting and unleashed oceans of pleas and prayers: There. That image. That image that haunts us still with hope grief horror wonder awe: The Grim Reaper. The children. A warrior child between them – she stands rooted ready. She looks up. She says No. Even now, to write of this image I weep. And so I wrote to ATC and they (rapidly thank goodness) responded to me Yes. And my words and I on fire wrote. We made the deadline. Barely, if I recall. Why are we – my words and me – doing this project? Because children in school are writing last wills and I love you goodbyes during lockdowns cowering in closets and corners crying. Because children are dying. Because we’ve written a world where children are unwritten – it’s all in the language of our lives – how we learn to read our world. Because if we wish our children and ourselves and our world to survive we have to open our language’s eyes and so we — my words and me — shared words in response to protest art and said Here, our heart. The place where our heart beats. We hold this space for you. “Why are you doing this project?” Because ATC read these words and found them worthy, and we are so grateful our heart – our grief hope faith and fire – will have a chance to speak to others.
Robin Rice – Playwright (Before Yesterday Was Better)
Why am I doing this project?
*Because Articulate Theatre Company productions are creative, exciting, and beautifully executed.
*Because Articulate Theatre Company’s Articulating the Arts productions are unlike any other productions of short plays inspired by a theme. Their themes are meaningful. They challenge playwrights (that’s me), designers, directors and actors to rise to material that has heft and depth. And audiences are left with something to think about.
*Because decisions must be made. Thousands of theater companies and competitions are soliciting short plays and there’s only one of me with only so much time. I have to pick and choose how to use my time and where to direct my energy. Although I mostly write full-length plays, the Articulate theme of Protest Art is right in my wheelhouse. I was a visual artist before I began writing plays, and I’ve been an activist all my life. Clearly, this is a project I needed to tackle. I’m very grateful that my play, which examines some of the many ramifications of gun ownership, was chosen for ATA.
Judd Lear Silverman – Playwright (Consequences)
In an age where public action seems legislated by politics and the almighty dollar versus the will of the people, it is vital that artists stand up for human values, leading the way to a finer, more inclusive and considered society. Art is the surest form of protest, for it awakens an emotional response and encourages a change in the status quo. It is our job to get people to think and to feel, to recognize our common humanity—and to help that humanity lead us to respond with compassion. Playwrights in particular can lead, not only by dramatizing a specific incident (or in this case a particular image), but by showing how the reflection of a public statement has a ripple effect, stretching out in unexpected and unanticipated ways. Articulating the Arts: The Art of Protest examines how both graphic art and theatrical art can make people pause and think, to guide how they react to an issue, perhaps, but more importantly to make sure that they are stirred to participate, to get involved on a personal level. Art stirs emotion, which in turn produces action.
Thomas C. Dunn – Playwright (Triggered)
Every day, the citizens of the United States play Russian Roulette. Approximately 100 people die each day from gun violence. Annually, we average 12,830 homicides. 487 accidental deaths. 22,274 suicides – all of which are exponentially more likely with a gun in the house. So we know today in the U.S, there were 100 gun deaths. Tomorrow there will be 100 more. And the next day… But we, as a society, are still willing to let the triggers be pulled, simply hoping the gun barrel is not aimed at someone we love. Rather than pass sensible gun legislation, we roll the dice. And there is nothing that seems to be able to change us from this course. Mass shootings with high-powered rifles? No. Kindergartners gunned down in classrooms? No.The deaths of Abraham Lincoln, JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King Jr,, Marvin Gaye, Tupac Shakur, John Lennon? No. Is there anyone we love enough where our overwhelming grief would actually foster change? There is. And that is why I wrote my short play TRIGGERED. When it is a gun supporter’s child, one they are raising and love and would sacrifice their life for who is directly in the line of fire, I think they would want change at that moment. They would trade their gun for their son or daughter. Just not for yours.
Room for Improv-ment
Tammy’s Bachelorette
Conceived by Nannette Deasy
Reviewed by Robert Viagas
The Improvisational Repertory Theatre Ensemble opened its 2019 season Off-Off-Broadway with a new show, Tammy’s Bachelorette, which aspires to be the latest in the semi-scripted, largely improvised, mock ethnic-family event, audience-immersive shows in the style of Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding and Grandma Sylvia’s Funeral.
The company has some work to do.
Tammy’s Bachelorette introduces Nannette Deasy (also credited as conceiver of the show) as working-class New Jersey girl Tammy, who is engaged to one man while secretly still carrying a torch for another. Her sister Becky (Claire Kraus) is the sexy (and tipsy) maid of honor who has organized the whole event featuring a meddlesome bridesmaid (Izzy Church), a not-very-helpful waitress (Evie Aronson), plus the groom (in disguise), the groom’s disapproving mom, and a dubious male stripper. The audience is sometimes called upon to participate in the roles of guests and friends who call out suggestions for the improvisational segments that are performed in the party framework.
On the performance caught, the cast seemed at a loss when trying to improvise such target-rich scenarios as why the bachelorette and her intended would wind up in a bathroom together, or when the waitress became upset that she was working at an event where she felt she should have been a guest. Considering that there were only eight members of the cast, several were given very little to do.
The cast was at its best when riffing on characters suggested by the audience taking part in a naughty party version of “The Dating Game.”
David Jay played the sepulchral male stripper as a lounge singer equivalent of Florence Foster Jenkins. It wasn’t clear why a bachelorette party stripper would do so much singing and so little actual stripping, but, small blessings. He was actually more scary than funny.
Directed by Randy Baumgardner, Tammy’s Bachelorette ran through March 16 at The Producers Club on West 44th Street in Manhattan, where its season will continue with other improv shows in the coming months.
“TALKING IT OUT:” A TOUCHING VEHICLE OF EXPRESSION
Review by Michael D’Antoni
As I sat back to enjoy this afternoons performances I recalled to mind that over the past few years I’ve noticed that the media profile of mental health and it’s related awareness has been raised significantly, partly due to the campaigning from mental health charities and in part due to high-profile people and celebrities speaking publicly and candidly about their own mental health problems. All of this welcome exposure removes the stigma around mental health and encourages people who are suffering in silence to seek the necessary help.
I further noticed that the awareness movement is not without its pitfalls. As I was doing research for this very review it was brought to my attention that sometimes the movement has been co-opted by people who wish to advance their own agenda by grabbing media time using this very serious topic as their personal platform.
Likewise, the elevated awareness movement has also, at times, been hijacked by politicians and bureaucrats, who publicly declare their commitment to raising awareness, drawing obvious plaudits for their sensitivity and bravery, while simultaneously under funding or shelving quality proposals that would only benefit the mental health services community.
Well, today’s fundraiser was none of that! Just the opposite. With all the hyperbolic noise on the sidelines this event without question, circumvented the empty chatter and got right to the heart of the movement using pure live theater as its vehicle! The audience was treated to, through a series of minimalist short plays, all of which raised true awareness of the issue. All the presentations possessed nothing less than pure, unadulterated, genuine, unpretentious focus on the agonies and anguish of mental illness, while also celebrating the triumphs and accomplishments over those living with, or those living with someone who suffers from mental health issues.
The special fundraising event known as “TALKING IT OUT” is a collection of dramatic readings of short plays in support of mental health awareness as presented by award winning playwright and producer ANTHONY J. PICCIONE featuring artistic works by CLAUDIA I. BASS “Alice, Pursued by a Bear”; EDWARD PRECHT “Bipolar (A Workplace Comedy); KEITH ECKERT “No One Returns”; DWAYNE YANCEY “Veronica’s Doll”; ED VELA “Honor”; ENILY HAGEMAN “The Orchid”; MICHAEL TOOHER “Hit Men”; DANIELLE VINITSKI MOONEY “Puddles and Ash”
“Alice, Pursued by a Bear” A girl named Alice who has worked at keeping her an anxiety at bay. But something deeper lurks. The more she tries to squelch it, the stronger the “Bear” gets. Alice is finally forced to face the bear head on.
Starring, EMMA ROMEO, HOLLY PAYNE-STRANGE, TRAVIS MARTIN
“Alice, Pursued by a Bear” was cute, warm and charming. A welcome introduction to this afternoons readings.
“Bipolar (A Workplace Comedy)” Two employees of a company that they enjoy working for are called into a conference room and receive news that will shake the very foundation of their employer as well as, their tenuous relationship.
Starring, HOLLY PAYNE-STRANGE, GEMIA FOO, EMMA ROMEO, ANDRES GALLARDO BUSTILLO. “Bipolar” was linear and compelling as the playwrights wise choice to give the characters generic monikers allowing their individual dialog to stand out and make an impact. GEMIA FOO’s overt anxiety gave the character just what it needed.
“No One Returns” A soldier returns from war. Suffers severly from PTSD that overcomes his very being.
Starring, NATHAN CUSSON, GEMIA FOO, EMMA ROMEO, ANDRES GALLARDO BUSTILLO. “No One Returns” dealt with death from the very first line and that’s what made this piece a success. NATHAN CUSSON delivered nice voice inflections during his monologue as EMMA ROMEO’s read was most commanding.
“Veronica’s Dolls” A teenagers dolls come to life in a desperate effort to save her life after she attempts suicide.
Starring, LOUISE HELLER, EMMA ROMEO, NICK CAPRIOTTI, GEMIA FOO, TRAVIS MARTIN. “Veronica’s Dolls” was most innovative and creative what with its conveyance of human feelings vis-a-vis inanimate objects. This piece happily was reminiscent of the popular Twilight Zone episode: “Five Characters in Search of an Exit”. EMMA ROMEO gave a nice characterization while NICK CAPRIOTTI was well in command of his lines and performance.
“Honor” During a therapy session a young patient is prompted by his psychologist in an effort to discover why he attempt suicide in the wake of his younger brothers accidental boating death.
Starring, ANDRES GALLARDO BUSTILLO, NICK CAPRIOTTI. “Honor” was touching, heart warming and embracing. Both NICK CAPRIOTTI and ANDREA GALLARDO BUSTILLO did rather nice work here conveying the intensity of the piece.
“The Orchid” When Ryan tried to commit suicide, his friend Jake visits him in the hospital. The Orchid deals with strength, masculinity and enduring friendship as well as the fact, that it’s OK to be fragile in the heat of what is ordinarily a “men must remain strong” world. Starring, NATHAN CUSSON, NICK CAPRIOTTI. “The Orchid” used awkward yet simple chatter conversation throughout and it works quite well, as the characters try to find common ground in their close friendship. Both NICK CAPRIOTTI & NATHAN CUSSON were in control of the characters and the piece as a whole.
“Hit Men” Family members are reminiscent about their dad, a victim of suicide. Starring, LOUISE HELLER, NATHAN CUSSON, EMMA ROMEO. “Hit Men” gave us a nice platform and a vast juxtaposition whereby members of the same family weighed in on their relationships with their deceased man who was their husband and father.
“Puddles & Ash” One character is in mourning over a death, while one continues to insist that she still exists. This short play deals with loss, regret, love as well as missed loves.
Starring, HOLLY PAYNE-STRANGE, ANDREA GALLARDO BUSTILLO. “Puddles & Ash” dealt with denial as well as, the dealing with the stages of a lost loved. Eternal and difficult nonetheless an interesting dichotomy. At some point we all must deal with the reality of death and the actors served it up well.
The spotlight shone bright on all these pieces. Collectively the works should be praised for bringing real sensitive attention to the very serious subject of mental illness.
Hot “Chill:” Robert Viagas at BE MORE CHILL
Be More Chill
Music and lyrics by Joe Iconis, book by Joe Tracz
Reviewed by Robert Viagas
“C-c-c-come on! C-c-c-come on!” Those are the inviting opening lines and the continuing motif of Be More Chill, the new Broadway musical in which the millennial generation fully comes into its own on Broadway. The show is loud and fun, even though its boundless energy occasionally becomes relentless and even assaultive.
Chill doesn’t necessarily belong in the same category as Broadway’s other Millennial high school musicals, including Mean Girls, The Prom, and especially Dear Evan Hansen, in terms of quality, but I suspect it will get a special embrace by Millennials because the wisecracking book by Joe Tracz and the pop score by Joe Iconis speak the generation’s social media-inspired language even more fluently than those others.
Be More Chill tells the Faustian story of Jeremy Heere (wonky Dear Evan Hansen alum Will Roland) a hopeless high school nerd who discovers something called a Squip, a super-secret nanocomputer from Japan that can be ingested like a pill. The voice of the Squip (the sinister Jason Tam) advises Jeremy on how to be more cool, be more sexy—in short, be more chill. The inevitable evil downside to the Squip emerges in Act II.
Endearing Stephanie Hsu plays the show’s object of desire Christine Canigula, who wins over the audience early with the song “I Love Play Rehearsal.” George Salazar, as the hero’s equally nerdy best friend and videogame partner, gets the show’s best song, the paen to shyness “Michael in the Bathroom.”
Directed by Stephen Brackett and choreographed by Chase Brock with pell-mell zest, the show benefits from a seemingly endless stream of wildly imaginative and often hilarious costumes by Bobby Frederick Tilley II. Other tech credits are first-class as well, notably Beowulf Boritt’s wacky and fluid sets, and Tyler Micoleau’s retina-zapping lighting.
Following a sold-out Off-Broadway run at Signature Theatre, Be More Chill is playing an open-ended run at the Lyceum Theatre on Broadway. Down the road, when amateur productions begin popping up at every high school everywhere, Be More Chill will become the Bye Bye Birdie of the 2020s.
Wild West
True West
By Sam Shepard
Reviewed by Robert Viagas
Which is the true American West? The West of cowboys and outlaws living off the land? Or the West of pampered screenwriters weaving their dreams into cinema blockbusters? Or are these both the same West?
Those are the central questions asked urgently again in Sam Shepard’s Pulitzer-finalist 1980 drama True West, currently getting a punchy but slightly off-kilter revival on Broadway.
Back in 1980, Sam Shepard’s saga of a pair of brothers, one a screenwriter, one an outlaw, clashing and eventually switching places provided a career launching pad for two major actors, John Malkovich and Gary Sinise. Those roles have been inherited for this production by Ethan Hawke and Paul Dano, but it’s not a fair fight. As the tough, threatening outlaw brother Lee, Hawke dominates this production. He gives a menacing performance like a dark storm cloud about to explode into thunder, lightning and associated violence at any moment. He does it so convincingly that it throws this play about sibling rivalry off balance. Dano gives the role of the milquetoast Austin his all, but there’s really no contest.
Speaking of toast, Hawke and Dano are at their best in the scene where Austin fills their mother’s kitchen with stolen toasters and proceeds to cook up a mass of fragrant toast on stage, just to taunt Lee.
Director James Mcdonald [CQ] has his actors play every scene for audience-pleasing laughs, especially the Act II scene where their mother (Marylouise Burke) turns up unexpectedly to find her home in shambles.
There are very few plays that you can call a little TOO much fun, and this True West is truly one.
True West is scheduled to play a limited run at the American Airlines Theatre on West 42ndStreet through March 17.
Deep Down
Moral Support
By William Considine
Reviewed by Robert Viagas
Playwright William Considine tears the bandage off the unhealed wound of his family’s disintegration in the unsparing memory play Moral Support, having its Off-Off-Broadway premiere at the Medicine Show Theatre in Manhattan.
Directed by Félix Gardón, the drama takes us deep into the broken heart of a dysfunctional family torn apart by alcoholism and emotional abuse. The mother (Cynthia Shaw) is desperately needy and manipulative. The father (David A.P. Brown) was a sometimes violent drunk. Their son Mike (Richard Keyser) is now a grown man, but is drawn back into serving as a reluctant ping-pong ball doomed by misplaced guilt to bounce forever between his two divorced parents who still have an unhealthy emotional hold on one another.
Brown gives the strongest and most centered performance as a father who understands what he did wrong and what his weaknesses are. He is trying to move on. Shaw, who still needs to work on her timing and grasp of her lines, still manages to create a rounded portrait of a woman whose expectations in life were never fully met, and who blames her ex-husband and her children for her disappointments. As their vacillating and guilt-ridden son, Keyser is a little too easily pushed around by these two emotional bullies.
Playwright Considine, who has said that Moral Support is frankly autobiographical, takes his audience on a sometimes harrowing tour of a very private place.
Also featuring Norah McCarthy, Moral Support runs through March 3 at the Medicine Show Theatre, 549 West 52nd Street, in Manhattan.
Still Dancing All Night
My Fair Lady
Music by Frederick Loewe, book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner
Reviewed by Robert Viagas
The 2018 Lincoln Center revival of My Fair Lady benefits greatly from its new brace of leads, with Tony winner Laura Benanti joining the cast as a sweet and strong Eliza Doolittle, and Danny Burstein taking the role of her hard-partying father, Alfie Doolittle, and the formidable Rosemary Harris in the cameo role of Higgin’s mother in Bartlett Sher’s lavish Tony-nominated revival of the perennially popular 1956 Broadway classic.
They join Harry Hadden-Paton (as Henry Higgins) and other members of the original revival cast who opened the show last spring.
When she’s the cockney-speaking Eliza in Act I, Benanti sings her numbers like “Just You Wait” in a sturdy chest tone. But as she transforms to the upper-class Eliza following “The Rain in Spain,” she rolls out her loverly upper register, beautifully showcased in “I Could Have Danced All Night.” The actress who appears regularly as First Lady Melania Trump on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” burnishes her reputation as a master of accents in this musical about the social importance of accents.
As he did with his sterling revivals of The King and I, South Pacific, and other shows, Sher leaves the classic script alone, but manages to find all sorts of charming, comic and telling moments to stage and put new spins on certain scenes. Perhaps the most dramatic change comes in the last moment of the show, when Eliza gives a tougher and more contemporary response to Higgins’ curtain line, “Where the devil are my slippers?,” than audiences may be used to. Without spoiling the surprise, let’s just say that Sher moved the show more in line with the source material, George Bernard Shaw’s politically-themed Pygmalion.
For all its beauty, this is a tougher, leaner My Fair Lady, less focused on the elegant costumes and ambivalent romance, and more focused on the question of how externals like accent and class often mask what’s truly important in the way people ought to regard and treat one another.
That said, Sher never loses sight of the fact that this is a musical. The high point of the show comes in Act II when Burstein brings the house down, leading the chorus in a high-kicking and uproarious tribute to British Musical Hall, “Get Me to the Church on Time.”
Master conductor Ted Sperling wields the baton over a majestic 29-piece orchestra throughout the show, putting a high polish on the original Robert Russell Bennett and Phil Lang orchestrations for the classic Lerner & Loewe score.
My Fair Lady continues its open-ended run at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center Theater in Manhattan.
Henry 5 Alive
Henry V
By William Shakespeare
Reviewed by Robert Viagas
Mary Lou Rosato, Broadway veteran and longtime co-head of the CalArts acting program, has directed an energetic and exciting staging of Shakespeare’s rousingHenry V at the Off-Off-Broadway American Theatre of Actors, under the aegis of Quisqueya Productions.
Henry V is the fact-based history of a young English king who unites his nation and leads his badly outnumbered army “once more unto the breach” to win an unlikely and smashing victory over their traditional foes, the French. This limited-run production takes liberties with the script to tighten the action and focus on the stirring speeches and the most vivid moments of character.
Rosato and the 19-member cast seem to relish the many messenger scenes filled with lustily-phrased defiance and counter-defiance, and the testosterone-soaked battle scenes that send the two armies galloping through the aisles and up and down ramps and staircases on the two-level set.
Among those who deserve special mention are Joe Penczak as a steely Exeter, Julian Evans as a preening Dauphin, and Mark Guerette as a comic Fluellen. Emma Elle Paterson captures the audience’s heart as the sweet French princess who, in anticipation of the Henry’s victory, is trying to fast-track learning to speak English. Laris Macario shows steely resolve as the title monarch, while also giving some hints of the unruliness his character had shown in the play’s prequels, Henry IV parts 1 and 2.
The only scenes in Henry V that seem out of place are Mistress Quickly’s accounts of the health of the star of those two plays, the character of Falstaff, who remains offstage in this play (Shakespeare’s choice). If you don’t know who Falstaff was, this production isn’t going to tell you.
The familiar Bard quotes—“Oh for a muse of fire,” “A little touch of Harry in the night,” and the stirring, noble St. Crispin’s Day speech (“we few, we happy few, we band of brothers”) are given ample due in this low-budget but high-ambition production.
Henry V ran through February 24 at the American Theatre of Actors, 314 West 54th Street, in Manhattan.
Arts Independent 