Women’s Mysteries 

Review by S. A. Holland

When I first heard that William Considine was going to have a reading of his play, Women’s Mysteries I was more than a little intrigued.

As a classics aficionado, with a long-standing interest in ancient Greek religion, I wondered how he would be able to pull it off, given that, to this day, the Eleusinian Mysteries remain enveloped by an impenetrable shroud of secrecy that all initiates, ever, adhered to rigorously.  My other reaction was a minor twinge of jealousy, as the displacement of chthonic matriarchal goddesses,  has been a topic of active research for me for the past year or so.  However, eventually I found out that this project has been in gestation in the writer’s mind and on paper for almost  three decades.  William Considine also wrote The Furies, a trilogy of verse plays,   published by The Operating System, 2017, as well as the contemporary play about family dynamics, Moral Support, which was produced this year at the Medicine Show Theatre.

Prior to  attending the reading, given at Polaris North, I had been advised by William Considine to revisit Plutarch’s story of Solon, the Athenian lawgiver.  And indeed, that was how William Considine solves the problem of writing about the unknowable Eleusinian Mysteries – he focuses on an historical figure – Solon – who had contact with the cult initiates.   He does not pretend to reconstruct or confabulate the ceremonial rites for twenty-first  century eyes.  Instead, he ingeniously structures scenes around the Mysteries while incorporating only certain known elements: such as the sacrifice of pigs,  the execution of men who were foolish enough to stray into the sacred precincts, and the use of a barley and mint drink, the kykeon, which may or may not have included an hallucinogenic drug.   Rather than risk potentially inaccurate speculation about the Mysteries, he instead shows the female characters attempting to re-establish the rites after a twenty year hiatus.

Women’s Mysteries, was performed at a staged reading Thursday night, June 20^th, 2019, 7 pm, at Polaris North, 245 West 29^th Street, New York, N.Y.   The reading was expertly directed by Rose-Marie Brandwein, and the cast was composed of Polaris North members, most of whom took on multiple roles in the production.

Very little has come down to us about what actually occurred at these rites at Eleusis – the initiates, after days of purification and preparation, would make their way from Athens to the sanctuary building, or Telestarion, on foot, a 14 mile journey from Athens undertaken both in the spring (Lesser Mysteries) and the fall (Greater Mysteries).  The initiates, who came from all classes, (even slaves), were sworn to secrecy, and nothing of what was shown in the sacred precincts is known to us.  References to the experience were deemed both forbidden and unspeakable.  The participants in these profound spiritual experiences , which had two stages of initiation,  myesis and epopteia, seemed to have emerged from their experiences  with a profound sense of personal connection to the goddesses, and henceforth lacked a fear  of death.  The religious experience was transformational – eventually, men were allowed to take part in the Mysteries.  Socrates, Plato, and Augustus were all initiates.   Despite intensive efforts to reconstruct these rites, we  have only an outline and informed scholarly speculation.

As noted above, the focus of the play is on Solon. Solon lived in Archaic Greece around the time of Hesiod, a time, as the playwright puts it, which was  “prior to the classical period. It’s a poor, primitive world.” Not only was this world primitive, but there were temporary restraining ordinances: talk of war was verboten, punishable by penalty of death. And yet Solon, following the dictates of the oracle of Apollo, a comparatively “new” god whose oracle at Delphi he pledged to protect, yet simultaneously viewed with deep skepticism, managed to find a way around this restriction.  In the play, he risks death,  pretending to be mad so that he will not be penalized, and recites an incendiary poem entitled  Salamis,  designed to foment war between the Athenians and Megarions.

For those who are unfamiliar with Solon, or need a quick refresher, he was an Athenian statesman, lawgiver, and poet.  His life’s work prepared ancient Greece for democracy.  As portrayed in Women’s Mysteries, he is boundlessly curious, eager to make money, and wants to rectify disparities between the wealthy and the poor.  (Prior to his reforms, those who owed money could literally be taken off and  enslaved for their debts.)  He successfully restructured debt in Athenian society, and moreover was able to accomplish this in a way that  the economy of Athens did not crash and burn.

According to the director,  Rose-Marie Brandwein, the actors in the play all have backgrounds in  Shakespearean productions, which explains the ease and aplomb with which they handled this verse play. Many of them undertook several roles, although Eric Diamond (Pisistratus), John Payne (Solon), and Carla Torgrimson (Chorus) all had solo parts. Cam Kornman was extraordinarily enthusiastic and commanding in each of her roles, as Basilinna, Python, and the Chorus.

In staging the reading, the director incorporated certain understated elements that made it simple yet extremely effective: the men, the war-fomenters, wore dark clothing, and the women wore white or light clothing, to emphasize their purity and devotion to spirituality. No masks were used in the production, which is just as well, since the actors were reading from the scripts, and the costumes were limited to wreaths and scarves for the Oracle of Pythian Apollo and the female worshippers of the Double Goddess.

As Considine writes of Demeter,  goddess and mother in  mourning  for her daughter, Persephone,  brutally abducted by Hades:

“Only Hecate, stirrer of witches, heard

A startled cry from the girl pulled to hell…

Persephone, a child, was stranded

In eternal darkness, at the side of death.”

The poetry of the play is by turns beautiful, stark, and evocative, particularly in the scenes that depict the worshippers trying to revive the cult at Eleusis, and  it is in these scenes that William Considine manages to evoke the cadence and gravitas of ancient poetic funeral inscriptions found on steles at the sites of Eleusis and Delphi.   There are also moments of humor and absurdity, and at times the character of Solon displays a sort of meta-consciousness about his situation and that of his companions and/or detractors.  This made the reading absorbing to watch, especially in the moments when the language and acting attained a solemnity that allowed the audience an immersive experience in the ancient world of the play.

To my knowledge, there is no extant play, ancient or modern, that  depicts Solon.  An account of the Eleusinian Mysteries is recorded in a chapter of Apuleius’ The Golden Ass, and there are numerous scholarly books that painstakingly aggregate and analyze what is known about the cult, from the literary fragments, relics, and archeological remains throughout the ancient world, such as Carl Kerenyi’s  Eleusis or the works of Walter Burkert.  This makes William Considine’s play a novel and interesting experiment that tries to convey a sense of what was a profound religious experience for many in the ancient world, one which endured for well over two thousand years.

This is not to say that there are no issues with the play in its current form.

While the attempts of the women to revive the Eleusinian Mysteries contains some of the most moving parts of the play, its focus is nonetheless on Solon, specifically his transformation from itinerant poet and trader to an Odysseus-like schemer who devises an elaborate ruse to make war on the Megarions in order to reclaim Salamis for Athens, despite the stringent prohibitions against war talk in Athens.   The transition from dreamy poet to war-monger needs somewhat more delineation, because we are never shown anything, other than Solon’s desire to follow the oracle of Apollo, that would impel him to risk his life to abet a war.  We lack an understanding of the elements of his personality which would  allow for the radical turnaround from ardent wandering poet to deceitful determined warrior.     Further exploration by the playwright would be beneficial.

Leaving aside the character development of Solon, the women in this play are portrayed as resolute, dedicated to serving the Double Goddess, diligently working to revive the cult of the Mysteries after the too-long hiatus brought on by the disruptions of an exhausting war. They are so focused on this mission, that they tend to be mostly archetypal.  The cult of the mother Goddess is disparaged by the men, as well as by the female Python, Oracle of Apollo:

“I won’t do the snake dance again.

I’m clean of the snake.  It’s a goddess rite,

As old as the women’s mysteries.

It’s a lie to people of clear mind.”

Despite the machinations and maneuvers of Solon,  the last word is given to a woman, in the  persona of the goddess Persephone, daughter of Demeter and Queen of the Underworld.  The ending is oracular and devastating. I would love to see a full scale production of this play – the verse flowed well from scene to scene, alternating smoothly between lyricism, discourse, and action and the subject matter is well-handled and inherently fascinating.

Guest reviewer, S. A. Holland lives in the Hudson Valley. She  studied ancient Greek language, literature and history while at Princeton. During her time there she was the producer of Euripides’ “The Bacchae,” in ancient Greek.  She worked in publishing for several years as an editor, and then began to work in the computer industry as a consultant and technical writer.  Currently she writes poetry in Filip Marinovich’s writing group “Motley College” at Page Poetry Parlor in Chelsea and regularly keeps up with scholarly works on ancient Greek religion, in addition to running her own business full-time.  

What the Fandango?!

written by and starring Robert Hofmann

Just in time for Pride Month, Australian opera singer and cabaret star Robert  Hofmann brings his abundant talent and saucy attitude to New York City in his intimate club show, What the Fandango?!

His watchcry is “The opposite of courage is conformity,” and to polish his non-conforming credentials, he adopts five different characters involving costume, wig and voice changes without leaving the stage during this one-hour cabaret. Call him New York’s latest “slow change” artist. Tall, with an owlish face and big eyes, Hofmann speaks with a quivery voice, accompanying his delivery with fluttering hands and sly, sidewise glances at the audience.

For this, his American debut, Hofmann applies his baritone to a Whitman Sampler of songs, some familiar, some original and new, all accompanied by master accordionist Will Holshouser, billed for the evening as “Ben Dover.”They share their versions of the Stephen Sondheim standard “Losing My Mind,” and his novelty song “The Boy From….” Also, Cole Porter’s “Too Darn Hot,” which Hofmann certainly earns, having departed the just-ending Aussie summer to run smack into the just-starting Manhattan summer.

Among the delightful and less predictable choices: Noel Coward’s “Nina,” about a Latina who finds nothing romantic about Latin America.

Hofmann also includes several of his original songs, including the tango-flavored title number, which offers an alternate rhyme for the likes of luck, buck, and duck.

His patter is only mildly naughty, consisting of gentle, nougat-centered jokes about gay life that would be familiar to the fans of Bert Savoy. If he wants to make a splash with the West Village crowd, he’s going to need to concoct material with more of a wicked edge.

What the Fandango?!
plays through June 29 at
the Revelation Gallery
at St. John’s in the Village,
in Greenwich Village.

A Therapy Session With Myself

By Anthony J. Piccione

Reviewed by Robert Viagas

A young man who suffers from crippling social anxiety and depression splits into multiple selves as part of a journey of self-discovery in Anthony J. Piccione’s drama, A Therapy Session With Myself, being presented Off-Off-Broadway.

Recent college graduate Alex (Nick Roy) sits cloistered in his apartment drinking beer after beer and pot after pot of coffee, trying to write a script for an unnamed play, and trying to resist the notion that he is devolving into a recluse.

His obsession with the mess he’s making of his life causes Alex’s mind to splinter off a whole other self , named You (Shane Zimmerman),  a relentless nooge, who hectors Alex to take a hard his life and figure out what he needs to do to get back on track.

In flashbacks, yet a third Alex, named Me (Nathan Cusson) is shown being a successful student in college, a promising actor, working as a volunteer in a soup kitchen, surrounded by friends, half of a love relationship. Yet Alex persists in the belief that he is a failure at all these things and that somehow all of them are now beyond his reach. It is stated that Alex suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome, but his secondary self seems to feel that Alex could heal himself simply by trying a little harder to engage with other people.

The promising premise takes ninety intermissionless minutes to work itself through. Dialogue between Alex and You gets repetitive after the first few flashbacks. Without some sort of dramatic modulation in the second half, it could benefit from trimming.

The dour script rises to humor only once, when two of the Alexes have a fight, and one says, “You shouldn’t beat yourself up about this.” The play would benefit from more of that kind of self-awareness.

In most real-life therapy, the patient is asked to dig deeply and confront who they really are. Alex needs to move past glib, obvious answers and bring himself to a more profound catharsis.

Also featuring Emma Romeo, Louise Heller, Tony Bozanich, Sonya Sagiev, Travis Martin, Alexander Pepper, Rosie Coursey,  Lizzy Moreno, and Nicholas Capriotti, A Therapy Session With Myself  is playing an unusual schedule—the third Saturday of every month at 2 PM only—at the Kraine Theater in Manhattan’s East Village.

Bill Bowers is a mime … who talks … about his adventures … around the world, ALL OVER THE MAP. This is a featured event of the special Stonewall50 Fresh Fruit Festival, at The WILD Project 195 East 3rd Street (between Aves. A & B) New York City. Limited Engagement: Wednesday 7/10 @ 8:30 pm and Sunday 7/14 @ 2:30 pm. https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/527

For a mime, Bill Bowers has a lot to say. He’s studied with the legendary Marcel Marceau; performed on and off Broadway; at the Kennedy Center, for the president (a different one) at the White House; throughout Europe and Asia; and in-between, at some of the finest grade school cafetoriums in America. In All Over the Map, Bill brings us to 50 states and 25 countries, where we get to share some of his more memorable moments over a 30 year career on the road. Powerful stories that will make you laugh and cry – and even gasp as Bill takes you places so unbelievable they could only be TRUE! Did we mention the hookers and the bunny? Bill’s indelible memories and characters will stay with you long after lights come up.

We took this rare chance to chat with a mime.

Tell us about yourself.

I am a mime and actor, based in NYC.  I perform autobiographical solo plays.  Originally Montana, much of what I write about is inspired by growing up as a gay kid in the 60’s-70’s in a small western town.  

What inspired you to create this unique autobiography?  

I have been touring my solo plays around the world for the last 20 years. As of now I have traveled to 35 countries and all 50 states.  I have had extraordinary experiences, some of them unbelievable.  I keep a journal, and decided to make a solo show about touring a solo show. 

In terms of that, once the idea is there … what’s the creative process?

I work with an amazing director named Martha Banta, who has a great ability to hear the overarching story in my stories.  She keeps me honest, concise, and basically doesn’t like mime!

You’ve done this many times. What realizations or epiphanies (if any) did it give to you?

I have performed ALL OVER THE MAP all over the map, and I am continually struck with how similar we all are as human beings.

What will your audience take away from this?

I hope the audience will have some great laughs, and I hope they see themselves in the stories I share.

What’s next?

I have been commissioned to make a new solo play, with no words.  A true MIME play.  I have been working on it for a year so far, and hope to premiere it in 2020.  

Sleep at Your Own Risk by Matthew Ethan Davis

Reviewed by Robert Viagas

Cabaret and theatre artist Rick Skye plays a man whose nightly journeys to dreamland are full of terror and violence in the surprisingly comic solo show, Sleep at Your Own Risk.

His problem is that he sleepwalks. Did I say “sleepwalks”? I mean he sleep-sings, sleep-messes his apartment, sleep-relocates houseplants to his refrigerator, sleep-wanders the halls of his co-op, sleep-pees on computer equipment, sleep-chokes his lover Dan, and sometimes, in a terpsichorean mood, sleep-performs the choreography toWest Side Story.

Dan is endearingly patient with all this (including the choking) but urges his somnambulant sweetie that it may be time to get some professional help. The bulk of the play chronicles the resulting odyssey through the world of therapists and sleep specialists with wildly varying degrees of helpfulness and effectiveness. “Enchantingly,” he narrates at one point, “things get worse.

Skye, a winner of MAC and Bistro awards for his cabaret work, presents a high-strung, quaveringly nervous stage persona, characterized by persistently shaking his hands to illustrate his anecdotes. But he brings the his character’s chiaroscuro midnight misadventures to life, and vividly portrays how very much he loves Dan and wants to get better to save his relationship—and Dan’s life.

Sleep at Your Own Risk runs a brisk 50 minutes and treats a potentially serious affliction with gentle humor and a great deal of love.

Presented as part of the Queerly Festival 2019 during Pride Month, Sleep at Your Own Risk completed a limited run at the Kraine Theater in Manhattan’s East Village.

Much Ado About Nothing

By William Shakespeare

Director Kenny Leon fills the Delacorte Theater in Central Park with energy and laughter in his new all-African-American production of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy, Much Ado About Nothing, set in the American South in 2020.

The first of two summer 2019 free Shakespeare in the park productions, Much Ado is the Bard’s story of several crisscrossed love stories that play themselves out at a country estate. Central to the plot is the relationship of Beatrice and Benedick, two sharp-tongued combatants who troll each other with witty insults, when it is clear to everyone around them that they are actually in love. Strategems to trick them into finally avowing their true hearts occupies much of the action of the play.

It’s not easy to steal a Shakespeare production, especially one likeMuch Adothat boasts a half dozen major characters, but The Color Purple Tony nominee and “Orange Is the New Black” TV star Danielle Brooks doesn’t just walk away with the production in the role of Beatrice, she struts away with it, like a princess showing off her crown. She delivers her sick burns with evil delight, making them sound like they’d been invented on the spot rather than 400 years ago. Grantham Coleman is an adorable Benedick, and does his best to keep up with Brooks.

They and the supporting cast deliver the Bard’s lines with wonderful clarity, wisdom and humor. High on the list are Chuck Cooper as Leonato, Billy Eugene Jones as Don Pedro, Tiffany Denise Hobbs as Ursula, and Lateefah Holder as the malaprop-plagued (and gender reversed) police chief Dogberry.

The gallivant across Tony Award-winner Beowulf Boritt’s elegant outdoor country manor set that only gets more beautiful at evening performances as the sun sinks and lights come on in the windows (courtesy of another Tony winner, Peter Kaczorowski).

The program states “Our modern-dress production in set in the near future, 2020, on the eve of the election, in the American South,”  but there is no reference to that premise (except in some of the costuming) anywhere in the show, except for a prominent poster reading “Stacey Abrams 2020” (a reference to the Georgia House minority leader who lost a hard-fought race for governor of that state in 2018). Despite the sign, it’s all backstory that doesn’t change the play’s many references to princes, dukes and other European royalty/nobility. Oddly, given its prominence, poster is never alluded to in the show.

Nevertheless, given its high fun level, this production would make a great first Shakespeare for audiences who may never have tried one before.

Much Ado About Nothing is playing a limited run at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Admission is free.

Dirty Laundry Theatre opens its door with the inaugural showing of BORDERS premiering at the Hudson Guild Theatre and running June 25, 26, and 29. the play is written by international playwright Nimrod Danishman. Acclaimed actors Eli M Schoenfeld and Adrian Rifat, appear in this love story for the online age directed by Michael R. Piazza.

“We start with Israel,” says Founding Artistic Director, Maera Daniel Hagage. “Airing Israel’s ‘dirty laundry’ allows us to create a mosaic based on the less familiar perspective of day-to-day Israeli life, allowing us to overcome cultural differences and prejudice. The Israeli stories, very much like “Borders”, are both personal and universal. We invite our audience to open their minds and hearts and experience a new narrative that might be, surprisingly, more familiar than they expect.”

Boaz and George meet on Grindr. They are attracted to one another instantly and want to meet in person, but something prevents them from doing so. One lives in Israel, the other- in Lebanon. Will history and its prejudices prevent this union?

Nimrod Danishman has crafted an intriguing and timely drama about love in the 21st century. Danishman shows us the two worlds in which we exist – fantasy and reality – each containing its own set of “borders” governing love and tolerance.

Israeli Playwright, Nimrod Danishman, discussed the play, the players and world affairs with us briefly.

Tell us about yourself.

Shalom 🙂 My name is Nimrod Danishman, and I am a theater director, playwright and teacher from Tel Aviv, Israel. I grew up in a kibbutz in the north of the country, to a single mother who came from an ultra-Orthodox home.

“Borders” is my first play. Since then I have written 2 more plays and another 2 in the development process, and I notice that so far the characters in all my plays are characters from the LGBT community. I was not going to be a gay playwright, but I try to write about things I can understand and imagine myself, and because I’m gay, so are my characters.

Tell us about this play … where do you get your inspirations? Is it just from life or do you have a “plan?”

I wrote the first scene of (what then was called) “The Wall” following a conversation I had with a guy from Lebanon on Grindr. I visited a friend who lives on a kibbutz by the border with Lebanon, and because the app shows men who are close to you, suddenly the physical border was breached through the virtual space. The first scene in the play is very similar to the original conversation we had.

I returned to the same scene at the end of my studies at the School of Performing Arts without a final project. I wanted to direct a play by my favorite Israeli playwright, Hanoch Levin, dealing with refugees, but I couldn’t get the rights for the play. When I looked for another play, I remembered that scene and decided to develop it for the play. In the process I tried to explore the life of gay men in Lebanon – not very successfully. Suddenly it was very difficult to communicate with people from Lebanon. When they heard that I was an Israeli, the talks suddenly stopped. Some claimed it might harm them in Lebanon. Some did not give reason. I understood that, of course. In the reality I grew up in, the person on the other side of the fence was a monster. But it was also disappointing, I wrote a play about the ability of people to connect even if they are defined as “enemies,” but in reality it didn’t work.

Apart from that conversation with the guy from Lebanon, another inspiration for the play was a relationship with my partner. It was a long- distant relationship, since he is Italian from Rome and I am in Israel. Despite the distance, we were able to meet many times, nevertheless, most of this relationship took place in the written space of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. When I wrote the play, I understood that it makes sense to us, but apparently many relationships exist like this, even when the couple lives in the same house. We live in an age where most of our communication is paved and arranged in an endless dialogue. It’s as threatening as it’s amazingly shown in the Black Mirror series, but I chose to tell a different story about this written dialogue.

In terms of that, once the idea is there, how do you write … what’s the creative process?

So part of the answer is already in answer to the previous question. I can add that the process itself is light years away from the romantic image of the playwright writing into the night. To create a model of work rather than a hobby, I created a routine for writing. I read about writers and playwrights that I admire and discovered that they organize their day very well, so I imitated them: I woke up early in the morning, ate well, wrote, went out for an afternoon walk and then went back to writing until evening. I wrote a lot. I say in conversations after the show in Israel that the final play has almost 4000 words. The file in which I kept all the dialogues I chose to delete from the play has 25,000 words. I had the privilege of doing it because at the time, a play I was supposed to direct fell through. Nowadays I pray for such an opportunity, to allow myself to just sit and write.

Who do you feel is your “audience?”

I think the Y generation I’m part of is my first target audience. It’s true that this is a love story for two men, but I think my Y-generation friends will be able to see the story behind sexual orientation and geographical location. The story of the dating app, of a relationship in correspondence, of falling in love with a guy who is in a place I can not reach, and the only place we can meet at is online.

In a way that is perhaps not surprising, we see that many adults come to the show in Israel. I think there is such a great thirst for LGBT characters in the Israeli theatre that they are not the same ole’ type you see in musicals.

What’s next?

I’m very happy about the connection with the Dirty Laundry Theatre. They create a cultural bridge in the United States to the culture of a strong local community, and through it opens to a geographical area that attracts a lot of attention. I am very excited that they chose my play as the theatre’s first play, and I hope that this cooperation will produce new projects.

This year I wrote two other LGBT plays: the first about the relationship between a high school teacher and the student, the second about a group of Tel Aviv gays that goes from the bachelor stage full of parties and drugs to the stage of institutionalization and the desire for children. In Israel, we still gay marriage are still illegal, same as adoption. I felt that I had to make another voice in the community’s struggle.

Tickets are $25 and available online at www.newyorktheaterfestival.com/borders/ or at the door. Performances take place at the Hudson Guild Theater, 441 W 26th St, NYC, between. 9th and 10th ave. Additional information can be found online at https://www.dirtylaundrytheatre.org/show/borders/”