a delicate
“I wouldn’t want to be Frankenstein.” (Adam to Jenny in “Boy”) The Keen Company’s Mission is to create “theater that provokes identification, reflection, and emotional connection – enduring stories fearlessly told.” In order to fulfill that mission, there must be a master storyteller who knows how to create characters with conflicts (problems) that are not only engaging but connectable. The…
“The Human Brain is such a fu** up” says Craig, praising the elegance of a computer and lamenting his learning-disabled daughter. It’s a sad, if vexingly relevant, notion that fits right at home in “The Assistant, “written by Ashley Minihan. (The Sunrise Side, Remission) A show about the future, family, and faulty-wiring, her play is a beautifully delicate balance of…
Exiles from Europe’s last true dictatorship, the Belarus Free Theatre delivers a knockout punch with its monumental “Trash Cuisine”, now onstage at La MaMa. An amorphous dedication to capital punishment under the guise of an international cooking program, the show gruesomely highlights socially sanctioned killing from around the globe. Leather straps, machetes, and bulk food items are brought ominously to…
“Time it was /And what a time it was, it was/A time of innocence/A time of confidences/Long ago it must be/I have a photograph/Preserve your memories/They’re all that’s left you.” “Bookends” by Simon & Garfunkel The insidious sounds of “right now” that threaten to relegate the present to the past creep eerily into Hank’s Bar in Chicago in 1992. Hank…
A naked man, a disco ball, and a discourse on drunk moose sets the events of ‘Loveplay’ and it’s companion piece ‘Playmoney’ into motion. Written and performed (emceed, really) with loveable braggadocio by Sam Alper, the plays are a sequence of riffings on romance (Loveplay) and success. (Playmoney) With funky poetics, awkward vignettes, occasional improv and no fourth wall to…
(A second review of “A Delicate Balance” by David Roberts will be posted next week.) There might come a day when Edward Albee is treated like Shakespeare. A familiar foreign language with rhythmic underpinnings, Albee’s angst over the unattainability of human connection could be tantamount to The Bard’s dread of the Great Chain of Being. Artists and academics of the…
What could be more absurd than a talking black plastic bag once home to a six-pack of beer? Perhaps more absurd would be hearing the bag talking to Margarita Mariposa as she waits in Cedar Chips, New Jersey for the bus to Manhattan, or hearing Margarita talking to the bag and taking the bag on the bus with her to…