New York Critic

The subject of Jupiter (a play about power) is fossil fuels – and their absence. Accordingly, the production uses a solar-cell/battery-powered LED system to power a portion of its lighting. And there’s a digital display on stage telling us how many kwh’s and how much CO2 the production has used; it tallies up the sums as the evening progresses. This is a really very interesting sort of contextualism, and it’s wrapped around a really very clever conceit: someone has removed all fossil fuels from the Earth “in one fell swoop”. Naturally, all activity has ground to a halt, and the planet rots in a post-Apocalyptic waste. The miscreant is now “confined in a pod” near the planet Jupiter. The play is a dialogue between this fellow, Joe, and a nameless woman representing humanity, “the accumulation of all voices.” “I ate too much, didn’t I?” she says. “…and I was so naïve.” Her initial reaction to him is a cry of pain. But the relationship between the two is complex. She calls him ...

The genesis of Imagining the Imaginary Invalid was a small project based on Moliere’s The Imaginery Invalid . It was intended for the actress Ruth Maleczech, her daughter and a few dancers, and intended for audiences of small handfuls in the actress’ living room. The work was interrupted by Ms. Maleczech’s death. The concept, however, was enhanced, and developed into a major production involving well over a dozen performers. It comes from Mabou Mines and Trick Saddle, presented by La MaMa. Moliere himself played the leading role in his company’s production; he died during the fourth performance. Imagining the Imaginary Invalid has at its center the conceit of a terminally ill performer in the role. Moliere's The Imaginery Invalid is the kernel of the show, but we see very little of it. There are three levels of stage reality in the production. The cast presents us with Moliere’s characters, and they present us with the members of Moliere’s company as they produce his pla...

Of all the holidays’ manifestations of The Nutcracker , Nutcracker Rouge , from Company XIV and AMDM Productions, has to be one of the most delicious! Ballet with pasties and thongs! There are a lot of other features as well – modern dance, tap, song, gymnastics, burlesque… It’s racy, risqué, delightful, a Nutcracker like no other. The dance centers on Marie Claire, danced by Laura Careless, who receives a gift of the familiar nutcracker. We watch as she passes through a series of scenes, a riff on The Nutcracker , combining high culture and pop culture. We hear The Waltz of the Flowers and The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy , but we also hear We’ve Got your Love To Keep Us Warm (Irving Berlin’s I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm ) and the barbershop song Lollipop (“ Lollipop, Lollipop, Oh Lolli-Lolli-Lolli Lollipop”). Not to mention the scatting! The production is conceived, choreographed and directed by Austin McCormick. He keeps things moving deftly through the various ...

Trish Harnetiaux’ play How to Get into Buildings jumps around in time – backward and forward (of course). New Georges produced it recently at The Brick in Brooklyn. The main story – it’s not a plot, really – concerns a motivational speaker, Roger, who meets a woman, Lucy, at a convention center where he’s speaking. Her distinguishing characteristic is that she gets call-back phone calls from a new age psychic. The second story is even more insubstantial, merely a portrait of a couple who end up, for some reason, in a duel with each other, pistols in hand. The play is set in several locations – a roadside where there’s a car accident, a conference center where Roger meets Lucy, a restaurant where the partnered couple exchange resentful banter. There are a few other places, ill-defined, and the final duel seems to take place nowhere in particular. The set consists of red curtains and some folding chairs leaning against the wall. The script is enormously creative. In this ...

Determined - An Intimate Evening of Influence and Prophecy written, produced and performed by Kent Axell At the LATEA Theater Kent Axell bills himself as a mentalist, a mind-reader and a liar. His show Determined is a remarkable collection of sleights-of-hand, a series of superb tricks couched in theatricality. Much of the material shows his powers of clairvoyance. The evening I attended, at the top of the show, Axell instructed a fellow in the audience yell to yell “Stop!” during the show at whatever time he chose. Then Axell set a clock and placed it in a large envelope. Our audience member yelled “Stop!” at 8:42. Nothing extraordinary so far. But at the end of the show Axell took the clock out of envelope and showed us that he had set it at 8:42. Great! Much of the show, in fact, was reviewed at the end. At the beginning of the show he showed us a scroll that he placed in a box that was lifted up to the flies. At the end of the show he unrolled it and we could see that...

An Intolerant Vaudeville Presented by The Secret Theatre as part of the Unfringed Festival Written by Wendy Biller, Chris Hawthorne and Sam Viverito Original music by Ronnie Lawson Lyrics by Ronnie Lawson, Wendy Biller and Chris Hawthorne Conceived and directed by Sam Viverito An Intolerant Vaudeville is a variety show exploring stereotypes and prejudices. It has jugglers and singers and a one-act play, among other acts. They all make for an interesting show. It begins with one of its best acts, The Juggling Act – “The Fat Lady don’t Sing”. It presents, along with the jugglers and The Fat Lady, The Dwarf and The Transvestite. It has the show’s best song, in which our friends are given predictions at birth: “You’re going to be fat”, or “short”, or “strange”, as the case demands. Fortunately, The Fat Lady does sing, and we’re treated to Robin Lounsbury’s extraordinary voice. The next act is a parody a job interview. The Interviewee is smart enough to give all the answers...

The Submarine Show created and performed by Jaron Hollander and Slater Penney presented as part of the New York International Fringe Festival As soon as Jaron Hollander and Slater Penney walk on stage in The Submarine Show , looking goofy in their striped shirts, suspenders and glasses, we can see that the show is going to be fun. It’s an elaborate mime with tumbling and vocalizing. The two nimble performers fill up the stage for 75 minutes as if they were a whole company of actors. We follow their story as they crash in their submarine, surface to the jungle, machete their way through the brush, hunt, fly and have a series other adventures. One of them even has an out-of-body experience. The audience isn’t left out. The performers coax us to put on our imaginary regulators so we can breathe underwater. When they turn into birds, they sidle through the aisles picking up our accessories with their beaks. They’re remarkably expressive; their faces register relief, satisfa...

Shake the Earth Written and performed by Lousine Shamamian Presented by Arev Productions, Inc., in association with The New York International Fringe Festival – FringeNYC Directed by Misti B. Wills Nothing’s more interesting than a dramatic juxtaposition. One of the best sorts is the abutment of the personal and the historical. It can put our lives in perspective. It throws the ordinary into a sort of dramatic relief. In her interesting one-woman show Shake the Earth , presented by Arev Productions in association with The New York International Fringe Festival, Lousine Shamamian stands on stage and tells us about coming out as a lesbian to her Armenian mother. Pretty standard for the form, which used to be called performance art. But she does something more interesting as well: she talks about the Armenian genocide, relating her great-grandfather’s experiences in 1915. She begins with her personal story. “There are no gay people in Armenia”, her mother tells her after read...

Songs for the Fallen book by Sheridan Harbridge Lyrics and Music by Basil Hogios and Sheridan Harbridge directed by Shane Anderson with: Sheridan Harbridge Simon Corfield Garth Holcombe Marie Duplessis, French, lived in the mid-19 th -century. It’s the old story: poor girl becomes a courtesan, climbs the social ladder and then dies of consumption. Sound familiar? She was the inspiration for La Traviata , the movie Moulin Rouge! and any number of other works. Alexandre Dumas, fils, based La Dame aux Camélias (first a novel, then a play) on Marie, and since then she’s been found in – according to the program for Songs for the Fallen – 19 films, 16 plays, three ballets and “an endless list of musicals” Songs for the Fallen is the latest in this endless list. It’s a cabaret musical – elaborate as a cabaret, simple as a musical. It comes from Australia, and it’s just been produced by The New York Musical Theater Festival. Running 80 minutes without intermission, it’s an ou...

Behind the Mask by Feng BaiMing and Huang WeiRuo adapted and directed by Chongren Fan presented by Yangtze Repertory Theater Behind the Mask , by Feng BaiMing and Huang WeiRuo and from the American company Yangtze Repertory Theater, presents us with a troupe of actors in China. They’re rehearsing a play based on a myth, well-known to the Chinese, about a cruel king who orders his sword-maker executed after he’s forged his strongest sword. 16 years after the swordmaster’s death, his young son sets out to avenge his death by killing the king. But he’s too timid to do it. After failing in his attempt, he finds himself in the company of a compulsive assassin who wants to decapitate the king – he has such a nice neck, after all – but in order to gain access to him he needs the boy’s head. It’s an interesting conundrum. The two of them come to an agreement, the boy sacrifices himself, the assassin kills the king – and then himself. The script alternates between showing us the...