twi-ny recommended events

HOW TO BE A DANCER IN 72,000 EASY LESSONS

The Dancer (Rachel Poirier) whips the Dance Man (Michael Keegan-Dolan) into shape in semiautobiographical show (photo by Teddy Wolff)

HOW TO BE A DANCER IN 72,000 EASY LESSONS
St. Ann’s Warehouse
45 Water St.
Through November 5, $39-$69
718-254-8779
stannswarehouse.org

“Don’t look back,” Michael Keegan-Dolan says near the beginning of the exceptional How to Be a Dancer in 72,000 Easy Lessons. “But I want to look back.”

The Irish choreographer and director takes a unique look back in his triumphant return to the stage after two decades, joined by his longtime collaborator and life partner, French dancer Rachel Poirier. The semiautobiographical ninety-minute show — the first dance-theater work to be presented by St. Ann’s Warehouse — starts and ends with a story about an egg, signaling birth and rebirth. Keegan-Dolan is the Dance Man and Poirier the Dancer as he relates episodes from his past. Driven by his deep desire to be a dancer, he walked a long road to success with his pigeon-toed feet that included being bullied by other boys for dancing like a “queer” and a bruising stint in musical theater, among other adventures.

Michael Keegan-Dolan returns to the stage in How to Be a Dancer in 72,000 Easy Lessons at St. Ann’s (photo by Teddy Wolff)

The Dance Man prefers Gene Kelly to rugby, ballet to musical theater. Across forty-one brief scenes, the character introduces us to his mother and father, his best friend, his choir priest, his ballet teacher, his first girlfriend, Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, his brother Paul, and a famous Australian conductor. He includes the high and low points, the moments that forged his future as he sought the freedom to be who he wanted to be, anchored by his meeting the Dancer, who moves about the stage and interacts with him in often outrageously funny and deliciously wicked ways as he shares his tales.

Each vignette features playful props that Keegan-Dolan and Poirier remove from a large wooden box and scatter about, from a child’s bicycle and a red balloon to a mirror and a helium tank, from cinderblocks and shoes to a dartboard and a ladder. A long white rope hangs down from the ceiling, offering danger and escape. White tape forms a large rectangle on the floor and back wall, but Keegan-Dolan, in a black suit and white shirt, and Poirier, in a black dress, ignore it, refusing to be contained.

The set and costumes are by Hyemi Shin, with lighting and direction by Adam Silverman and sound by Sandra Ní Mhathúna, creating an anything-goes atmosphere. Keegan-Dolan often carries a boombox with him, playing such songs as Jacques Brel’s “J’arrive,” Men Without Hats’ “The Safety Dance,” Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough,” Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and Charles Penrose’s “The Laughing Policeman,” in addition to pieces by Stravinsky, Strauss, Handel, and Verdi.

“Psycho Killer,” with its touch of French, plays a pivotal role, as the Dance Man points out, “If there is a place in the world for the Talking Heads’ lead singer and front man David Byrne, then there must be a place in the world for me.” Poirier brings down the house with an exhilarating and exhausting fifteen-minute solo to Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero in C Major” that is breathlessly exquisite.

Nearly every minute provides something singular and unexpected, running the gamut of emotions, as exemplified when the Dance Man runs around the stage. “I have a voice!” he declares early on. “And it’s not, the endless monologue in my head, in my head voice. This is my voice.”

Keegan-Dolan found his voice through dance; his latest show, subtitled “A Performance Ritual in Four Parts for Two Performers,” is a clarion call for everyone to seek out and find theirs.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

REVERSE SHOT AT 20 — SELECTIONS FROM A CENTURY: THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is part of twentieth anniversary tribute to Reverse Shot at MoMI

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON (David Fincher, 2008)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Friday, November 3, 6:30, and Sunday, November 5, 1:00
Series continues through November 26
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
reverseshot.org

Museum of the Moving Image is honoring the twentieth anniversary of the film publication Reverse Shot, which has been its in-house journal since 2014, with a two-month retrospective of twenty-first-century works touted by what was originally a stapled zine.

Among the films that have already been screened in “Reverse Shot at 20: Selections from a Century” are Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar’s A Lion in the House, Joel Anderson’s Lake Mungo, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse, and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village. On November 3 and 5, MoMI will present David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which fits in well with the name of the journal, Reverse Shot, considering what happens to the title character.

Based on the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is an unusual love story for the ages. As Benjamin (Brad Pitt) grows younger, everyone around him gets older, creating fascinating intersections among various characters, but primarily with Daisy Fuller (Cate Blanchett). It’s August 2005 in New Orleans, as Hurricane Katrina approaches. In her hospital room, an elderly, dying woman (an unrecognizable Blanchett) gives her daughter, Caroline (Julia Ormond), a diary that she begins reading out loud. It was written by a man named Benjamin Button, who was born an old man in 1918 and tells his life story as the years pass by and he ages backward, sort of a reverse Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman) in the great Little Big Man (Arthur Penn, 1970), with a bit of the overrated Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis, 1994) thrown in as well.

The film lags a bit as Benjamin and Daisy approach similar ages — actually, the closer they get to their actor selves — but the beginning is marvelous, with Fincher working magic as Pitt plays a tiny, withered old man, and the ending is heart-wrenching. Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac) and screenwriter Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close) wisely choose not to turn Benjamin into a human oddity that confounds the medical profession; instead, he just goes about his life, trying to do the best he can with a positive outlook and a lust for living. Alexandre Desplat’s score is among the best of the year, supported by a soundtrack filled with New Orleans jazz. The cast also includes Tilda Swinton as a diplomat’s wife who takes a romantic interest in Benjamin, Jared Harris as the randy captain of a tugboat who teaches Benjamin about the sea (and booze and sex), Taraji P. Henson as Queenie, the woman who raises the baby Benjamin after he is abandoned by his father (Jason Flemyng), and Mahershala Ali as Queenie’s husband, Tizzy.

In Reverse Shot, Andrew Chan wrote, “The unexpected harmony of extravagant price tag and minor-key mood is just the most obvious reason this film stands as an anomaly in the landscape of contemporary Hollywood cinema. . . . This is a masterpiece through and through, and not only the best thing I’ve seen come out of Hollywood in years, but also a film that deserves to stand proudly beside the work of contemporary masters Terence Davies and Wong Kar-wai in its evocation of what it feels like to be caught in the middle of time as it endlessly, imperceptibly slips away.”

“Reverse Shot at 20: Selections from a Century” continues through November 26 with such other gems as Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann, Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, Claire Denis’s 35 Shots of Rum, and Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset / Before Midnight / Before Sunrise trilogy.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

MEET MISS BAKER: PARTNERSHIP

Sara Haider (center) is mesmerizing in Mint production of Elizabeth Baker’s Partnership (Todd Cerveris Photography)

PARTNERSHIP
The Mint Theater at Theatre Row
410 West 42nd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 12, $39-$79
minttheater.org
www.theatrerow.org

The Mint completes its wonderful “Meet Miss Baker” trilogy with Partnership, another exquisite production of a work by early-twentieth-century playwright and office typist Elizabeth Baker, following 2019’s The Price of Thomas Scott and last year’s Chains. Born in 1876, Baker was a teetotaler raised in a strict, religious lower-middle-class family that was in the drapery business; she didn’t go to the theater until she was nearly thirty and didn’t marry until nearly forty. Her debut, Chains, is a 1909 working-class drama about capitalism and social convention, while Scott, from 1913, also deals with those issues, through a lens involving religion and a family’s clothing store.

A fancy women’s clothing store in Brighton is at the center of Partnership, which explores two types of alliances: business and personal. Kate Rolling (Sara Haider) is a young, single woman who owns a fashionable shop that is poised to make it big. Kate has impressed the fussy and ultrafashionable Lady Smith-Carr-Smith (Christiane Noll), who promises Kate she’ll recommend her shop to “the Duchess,” ensuring a steady, if demanding, stream of wealthy customers.

Kate’s staff gets excited by the possibility, including vivacious salesperson Maisie Glow (Olivia Gilliatt), cynical seamstress Miss Blagg (Gina Daniels), and mousey shop assistant Miss Gladys Tracey (Madeline Seidman), who is engaged to the hapless Jack Webber (Tom Patterson), who is jealous of another of Gladys’s suitors. Jack works for successful haberdasher George Pillatt (Gene Gillette), who has made a surprise appointment with Kate.

“I wonder what Pillatt wants. There’s one thing, I suppose, and that is, he won’t propose,” Kate says to Maisie, who replies, “And he’d be a catch if you like. It’d be better than fighting him, wouldn’t it?”

The space next to Kate’s store has become available, and Pillatt is interested in taking it over — joining forces with Kate, who has been considering leasing the space as well. Pillatt is a dry, grim, darkly serious man with no sense of humor; speaking to Kate privately, he offers, “I have a plan to put before you Miss Rolling, but I will say at the outset that if you don’t care about it, we can drop it and go on as before, without prejudice. It need make no difference, I hope, to our present friendly business relations. If it commends itself to you I shall be very much gratified. Has the idea of a partnership ever entered your head? . . . Your business and mine.”

Kate is flattered by his kind words about her store, but then Pillatt ups the ante in one of the least romantic proposals imaginable: “I want to suggest, to propose a partnership — in another sense, and that is — marriage. Being a plain businessman, I wish to be quite frank in the matter, and so I have not hesitated to put the business part of the plan foremost. I am sure you, as a business woman, thoroughly understand this. . . . I am not a sentimentalist, but then you, a woman of business, do not wish for any expression of sentiment.”

When Kate admits that marriage was not on her radar, Pillatt assures her, in his cold, dispassionate manner, “That part of it will make no more difference than the other.” He then presents her with a formal contract, relating to both the business and the marriage. He is not exactly bursting with love and affection when he tells her, “I have thought it out very carefully. If you can see your way to accept it, I am sure it would work out satisfactorily.”

It’s a phenomenal scene that beautifully develops the characters and sets the stage for what comes next, twisting societal gender conventions and the male-dominated power structure. It takes place in the back private room of Kate’s shop, which features fashion drawings, various materials, shelves of boxes and files, stairs to the upper apartment, and a sharply dressed, realistic-looking mannequin known as Sally that essentially represents how women should be seen and not heard, treated as objects and not free-thinking human beings.

Discussing with Kate and Maisie how all men are fools, Miss Blagg contends, “Dress anything up in a smart blouse and a coiffure and men will make love to it. I’d like to put Sally here just inside the door and see how many of the idiots would come in to have a look at her.”

Lawrence Fawcett (Joshua Echebiri), Elliman (Tom Patterson), Maisie Glow (Olivia Gilliatt), and Kate Rolling (Sara Haider) take a break in the South Downs in Partnership (Todd Cerveris Photography)

When Pillatt’s friend and former classmate, the shy and awkward Lawrence Fawcett (Joshua Echebiri), enters, he is startled by Sally. “Christopher! — I thought she was real,” he calls out. “She’s just ‘it’! I’ve met dozens like her in flesh and blood.” Pillatt, wearing a persnickety, upper-crust striped suit and wielding a cane, and Fawcett, in a plain, unimpressive brown suit and hat, are the same age, but Fawcett looks much younger and has more interest in the outside world. (The stylish costumes are by Kindall Almond, with lighting by M. L. Geiger and sound by Daniel Baker.)

Fawcett has given up his lucrative family corset business to get into dyes, specifically orange. Pillatt has no respect for his decision, telling him, “What fool’s talk is this? You mean, I hope — though I can’t say I follow you quite — that you’re investing money in a dyeing business?”

Kate, in a resplendent cutting-edge fashionable suit and vest with a lacy cravat, purple bowtie, and black buttons and trimmings, is intrigued by Fawcett. When Fawcett, who is on a monthlong vacation, mentions that he is on his way to the South Downs — a national park with diverse landscapes, rich wildlife, spectacular views, unspoiled areas, and small communities — Kate decides that she, Fawcett, Pillatt, and Maisie should have tea on the Downs, and Maisie promises to bring her friend Elliman (Tom Patterson), who has a motorcar.

Up on the Downs — Alexander Woodward’s simplified set for the second act consists of a few rocks in front of a re-creation of James Hart Dyke’s colorful, tranquil 2021 painting, Winter Evening Light on Windmill — Fawcett is in his element, while Pillatt is uncomfortable and perturbed. Kate is intrigued by the freedom Fawcett is experiencing; it’s like he’s a different man in these natural surroundings.

“You are one of the lucky ones who can do as they like,” Kate says, to which Fawcett responds, “Can’t you? I thought you were your own mistress?” The planting of that seed leads to Kate taking another look at her life in the third act.

Miss Gladys Tracey (Madeline Seidman) and Miss Blagg (Gina Daniels) gossip in Elizabeth Baker rediscovery (Todd Cerveris Photography)

Director Jackson Grace Gay (A Little Journey, Transfers) nimbly dances around a gaping plot hole surrounding the question of whether a woman can have it all, success in love and business. Daniels (Becomes a Woman, Network) and Gilliatt (Chains, Mother of the Maid) provide playful humor, Echebiri (Merry Wives) builds charm, Gillette (Pushkin, Orpheus Descending) could not be any more dour, and Tony nominee Noll (Ragtime, God of Carnage) has a ball chewing up the scenery.

But the show belongs to Pakistani singer-songwriter and actress Haider, who is mesmerizing in her off-Broadway debut; you can’t take your eyes off her as Kate, a strong, independent woman, weighs the different parts of her life and must choose which path to follow. We might not always like the choices she makes, but she has every right to follow her heart and mind, wherever they may lead her. Anyone who partners with Kate, or Haider, her has made a wise decision indeed.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

NOSFERATU, A 3D SYMPHONY OF HORROR

Theater in Quarantine’s Nosferatu is livestreamed right to your phone in 3D

NOSFERATU, A 3D SYMPHONY OF HORROR
NYU Skirball online
October 27-31, 7:00 & 9:00, $20
nyuskirball.org
www.youtube.com

My 3D glasses didn’t arrive in time but I still got chills from Joshua William Gelb’s livestreamed Nosferatu, a 3D Symphony of Horror, which is being presented by NYU Skirball through Halloween night.

During the pandemic, Gelb converted a 2′ x 4′ x 8′ closet in his East Village apartment into Theater in Quarantine, where he staged virtual dance and drama in the claustrophobic white space. He has now returned with a thirty-five-minute Halloween special inspired by Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, Dracula, and F. W. Murnau’s 1922 silent masterpiece, Nosferatu.

The show is meant to be viewed on your cellphone, your own private, portable miniature closet, and listened to on headphones that make it seem like the characters are moving inside your head. An early title card, in a creepy, old-fashioned font, explains, “Nosferatu: Does this word not sound like the deathbird calling your name at midnight? Beware you never say it — for then the pictures of life will fade to shadows, haunting dreams will climb forth from your heart and feed on your blood.”

Gelb portrays the eerie Count Orlock, Nick Lehane is the real estate agent who has no idea what he’s in for, and Rosa Wolff is the agent’s true love, who knows something dastardly is afoot. The scenography is by Normandy Sherwood, with scary sound by Alex Hawthorn and video by Gelb. The closet turns from bright white to deep black as such props as a cross-laden door, bed, window, and miniature ship spur the action. Be sure to stick around for the time-lapse behind-the-scenes montage after the story concludes.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

DIG

Roger (Jeffrey Bean) sees his easygoing life uprooted in Dig (photo by Justin Swader)

DIG
Primary Stages, 59E59 Theaters
59 East 59th St, between Park & Madison Aves.
Wednesday – Sunday through November 5, $65.50-$85.50
212-279-4200
www.59e59.org

Theresa Rebeck fertilizes the soil with a nearly endless stream of plant-based metaphors in her emotional, hard-hitting Dig, which is blossoming at 59E59 through November 5. Rebeck fills the dialogue with continual references to growth and growing, water, soil, roots, and pots, as characters dig deep to take stock of their lives. It’s not a question of nature vs. nurture so much as an exploration of the nurturing of nature, both foliage and family.

Inspired by a plant business co-owned by her husband, Rebeck’s play is set in a local plant store run by Roger (Jeffrey Bean), a persnickety man in his mid-fifties who is not in the habit of being agreeable with anyone, including customers and personal acquaintances. Roger lives alone in an apartment upstairs, caring more about plants than people. At the start, he is furious that his close friend Lou (Triney Sandoval) has nearly killed a plant he gave him. Roger had given him clear instructions on what to do with it, but Lou didn’t follow them.

“Okay, there was a period where watering was not my central focus,” Lou admits. “‘Focus,’” Roger repeats with scorn. “Focus is the wrong word,” Lou answers. “Focus is no word, it doesn’t apply at all; there is no indication that focus had anything to do with the care of this plant,” Roger argues.

In the corner by the front door, a woman listens to the two men quarreling. “I brought it to you for help. I understand this is not ideal. I did not neglect this plant,” Lou asserts. “I don’t want, I don’t — never mind. It’s fine. I will save this plant,” Roger declares.

We soon learn that the woman in the corner is Megan (Andrea Syglowski), Lou’s thirty-four-year-old daughter who has returned to town after an attempted suicide, a nationally publicized crime, and ensuing imprisonment. Lou and Roger are not so much squabbling over a plant as they are about Megan; Lou is unable to accept the idea that his child-raising could have anything to do with her situation.

Everett (Greg Keller) shares his thoughts on certain types of plants with Roger (Jeffrey Bean) and Megan (Andrea Syglowski) in Dig (photo by James Leynse)

Megan asks for a job from Roger, who is hesitant at first — he prefers things exactly as he has them, viewing change as some kind of enemy — but when Megan insists she doesn’t need to get paid, that she’s just looking for something to do to get her out of her rut, Roger essentially has no choice. The first lesson Roger teaches Megan is repotting, moving a plant to a bigger pot because it has outgrown its space. “It’s too healthy; it just kept growing. It’s something that happens to plants. The roots eat up everything around them. They take in the light and the soil and the air and the leaves, through photosynthesis,” Roger explains, calling photosynthesis “the most important chemical reaction on the face of the planet earth.” Once again, Roger opts for science over relationships with humans.

Meanwhile, Roger’s current assistant, Everett (Greg Keller), is a pot-smoking, video-game-playing dude who drives the delivery truck. Everett wants more responsibilities, but Lou, who does Roger’s books, thinks Everett should be fired.

“I love plants. And I love the truck, I love driving that truck,” Everett pleads with Roger. “You’re driving that truck stoned!” Roger proclaims. “Oh, now listen. The truck — that truck is a holy thing to me,” Everett argues, adding, “I’m good at selling plants, at talking to people about plants.” Roger responds, “You’re good at smoking plants,” to which Everett shoots back, “I don’t apologize for that. The organic world makes sense to me.”

Holiness also comes to the fore through Molly (Mary Bacon), a churchgoing woman looking for bulbs who gets into a tiff with Megan when she recognizes her. Molly returns later to offer forgiveness to Megan and invite her to join their prayer group. Although not religious, Megan checks out the group and finds some comfort there, which doesn’t make her father happy. Each character — including a late-arriving surprise figure (David Mason) — faces their own battle of being “pot bound,” in need of their own form of photosynthesis as they seek happiness in a world in need of cultivation.

Lou (Triney Sandoval) and Megan (Andrea Syglowski) have a tense father-daughter relationship in Dig (photo by James Leynse)

Over her thirty-year career as a playwright, the Ohio-born Rebeck has tended quite a garden; in the past dozen years alone, she has had five plays on Broadway (Dead Accounts with Katie Holmes, Bernhardt/Hamlet with Janet McTeer, Seminar with Alan Rickman, Mauritius with F. Murray Abraham and Bobby Cannavale, and the new I Need That with Danny DeVito) along with several gems off Broadway (Seared with Raúl Esparza, Downstairs with Tim and Tyne Daly). Dig, the New York City debut of which was delayed by the pandemic, is a splendid addition to her hothouse, a tense exploration of rebirth that Rebeck has admirably directed herself.

Christopher and Justin Swader’s cramped set teems with life, primarily green plants with occasional bursts of color. Fabian Fidel Aguilar’s costumes, Mary Ellen Stebbins’s sharp lighting, and Fitz Patton’s incidental music and sound design contribute to the overall realistic feel of the drama. The cast is exceptional, led by a revelatory performance by Syglowski (Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven, queens), who is a whirling dervish of rollercoaster emotions. Sandoval (The Thin Place, 72 Miles to Go . . .), Bacon (Harrison, TX; Women without Men), Bean (About Alice, The Thanksgiving Play), Keller (Shhhh, The Thanksgiving Play), and Mason (Seared, Trick or Treat) provide expert supportive landscaping as the roots of the shop start spreading at a potentially uncontrollable rate.

They all combine to avoid neglect, focusing on properly watering this germinating story of tragedy, responsibility, hope, and redemption.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

NEXT WAVE 2023: CORPS EXTRÊMES

Rachid Ouramdane makes his BAM debut with the high-flying Corps extrêmes (photo © Pascale Cholette)

CORPS EXTRÊMES
Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
October 27-29, $44.50-$84.50
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Choreographer Rachid Ouramdane and Chaillot — Théâtre national de la Danse make their high-flying BAM debut with the soaring Corps extrêmes, having its US premiere October 27-29 at the Howard Gilman Opera House. The sixty-minute multimedia piece is centered around a large climbing wall where eight acrobats from Compagnie XY (Joël Azou, Airelle Caen, Tamila de Naeyer, Löric Fouchereau, Peter Freeman, Maxime Seghers, Seppe Van Looveren, and Owen Winship) are joined on film and/or onstage by French tightrope walker Nathan Paulin, French rock climber Camille Doumas, and Swiss rock climber Nina Caprez. The work explores the relationship of the human body to the natural world, filled with possibility, danger, and fun. The original score is by Jean-Baptiste Julien, with costumes by Camille Panin, lighting by Stéphane Graillot, and video by Jean-Camille Goimard.

Corps extrêmes is part of BAM’s 2023-24 Next Wave Festival, which includes Geoff Sobelle’s Food, Lynette Wallworth’s How to Live (after you die), and composer Huang Ruo, director Matthew Ozawa, and filmmaker Bill Morrison’s Angel Island, as well as the citywide Dance Reflections Festival, which continues through December 14 with Boris Charmatz’s Somnole and Dimitri Chamblas and Kim Gordon’s takemehome at NYU Skirball, Ola Maciejewska’s Bombyx Mori at FIAF, and Dancing with Glass — The Piano Etudes at the Joyce.

NIGHTMARE DOLLHOUSE / TERRORVISION

Clybourne (Theo Frorer-Pinis) has an ax to grind in Nightmare Dollhouse (photo by Vanessa Lopera — JOCO Med)

NIGHTMARE DOLLHOUSE
Teatro SEA @ the Clemente
107 Suffolk St. between Rivington & Delancey Sts.
Daily through October 31, $45 GA, $60 VIP
nightmarenyc.com

As I recently wrote on Substack, I love being scared. And the best scares can leave me in stitches even as they make my skin crawl.

Every October, haunted houses and other frightening attractions come to New York City. Two of the most fun are Nightmare Dollhouse and TerrorVision, both of which had me roaring with laughter — solo, alas, as I couldn’t persuade anyone to join me. My only complaint: At about only twenty minutes each, they are way too short; I was ready for more chills and thrills.

Intended for groups of no more than six people at a time, Nightmare Dollhouse is the latest frightfest from Psycho Clan, purveyors of such fine fare as Full Bunny Contact, Santastical, and last year’s Nightmare: Gothic, all held at Teatro SEA @ the Clemente on the Lower East Side. Presented with ETR Ventures (Escape the Room), Nightmare Dollhouse is a haunted doll museum where dolls come to life — or, perhaps more truthfully, rise from the dead, jumping out at you from nearly every direction. Pediophobes, beware.

You can do that voodoo that you do so well to a frightened captive in Nightmare Dollhouse (photo by Vanessa Lopera — JOCO Med)

Before you enter, you will be asked what is okay with you and what is not — for example, light touch — and how to get out if it’s all too much for you. I was ready for anything and everything as long as they could assure me my head would still be attached to my body at the end.

You first meet a sweetly deranged Raggedy Ann, who leads you into a room filled with cases of classic dolls, including Chuckie, Slappy the Dummy from Goosebumps, and Talky Tina from the classic Twilight Zone episode “Living Doll” with Telly Savalas. (I did have to explain to the ill-fated attendant that it’s “Talky Tina,” not “Talking Tina,” as the signage said.)

There’s a different scenario in each room with unique surprises, ably embodied by Kirsten Freimann, Lily Natal, Theo Frorer-Pinis, Ozzy Angulo, Asia Valentine, Gwendolyn Torrence, Red Reine, Scott McPherson, and others in a rotating cast. The cool troupe was willing and able to improvise as I interacted with them and nearly laughed my head off several times, especially at the fabulous finale.

Beware of a young woman (Gwendolyn Torrence) offering you tea in Nightmare Dollhouse (photo by Vanessa Lopera – JOCO Med)

A clown and ballerina (yes, there is a clown) reminded me of another TZ episode, “Five Characters in Search of an Exit,” in which Rod Serling introduces, “Five improbable entities stuck together into a pit of darkness. No logic, no reason, no explanation; just a prolonged nightmare in which fear, loneliness, and the unexplainable walk hand in hand through the shadows. In a moment, we’ll start collecting clues as to the whys, the whats, and the wheres. We will not end the nightmare; we’ll only explain it — because this is the Twilight Zone.”

The same can be said for Nightmare Dollhouse, which was written and directed by the one and only Timothy Haskell (The Rise and Fall, Then Brief and Modest Rise Followed by a Relative Fall of . . . Jean Claude Van Damme as Gleaned by a Single Reading of His Wikipedia Page Months Earlier), with creepy production design by Paul Smithyman, sound by Zoe Stanton-Savitz, lighting by Yang Yu, costumes by Brynne Oster-Bainnson, and video by Charnelle Crick, all of whom deserve kudos for making me laugh so satisfyingly from start to finish.

All aboard for a dark journey into TerrorVision (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

TerrorVision
Horrorwood Studios
300 West Forty-Third St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Through November 5, $41.70-$69.50
facetheterror.com

Co–artistic directors Will Munro and Katie McGeoch and executive producer Dalton M. Dale follow up last year’s Terror Haunted House, set at the Bedlam Institute, with TerrorVision, another haunted house in Times Square, this one promising you will “live screaming your nightmares.” Munro and McGeoch cut their teeth with Six Flags Fright Fest, so they know their way around chills and thrills.

The premise is that visitors are auditioning for a role in the new horror film by Bobby Castle, who is seeking his next muse. There are three levels of fear: General admission offers “the standard level of scary, heart-pounding fun,” the Chicken ticket comes with “a special amulet to become ‘invisible’ to the monsters,” and Ultimate Terror “ensures you’re targeted throughout the experience.” I chose Ultimate Terror and went through it alone.

One of the main props is an old television showing nothing but static, a throwback to the sets on which I first saw The Twilight Zone (in reruns) and such horror flicks as the 1935 Werewolf of London and, later, Bad Ronald, Burnt Offerings, and Trilogy of Terror, back when we had only channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, and sometimes 21, all of which shut down shortly after midnight, leaving us with scary test patterns, the National Anthem, or eerie static.

Upon meeting Mr. Castle, I asked him how his cousin, William Castle, was. He said, “Ah, you know Billy? How is he?” I responded, “Feeling a little tingly these days.” (William Castle was the legendary director and producer behind such low-budget marvels as House on Haunted Hill, 13 Ghosts, and The Tingler, which featured a vibrating Percepto! electronic buzzer under some seats; he also produced Rosemary’s Baby.)

As I made my way through some twenty thousand square feet of rooms, each with different scenarios and props, dozens of ghoulish characters (there are 140 actors total) jumped out of windows and doors and approached me threateningly from around dark passages. One decrepit woman was trying to find her baby. A zombie was looking for a lost loved one. A sexy creature attempted to entice me into a small space. A woman munched out on some fresh innards.

I loved every second of it. And I couldn’t stop laughing.

I wasn’t laughing at the production; I was hysterical because, like Nightmare Dollhouse, it was so much fun.

And funny as hell.