this week in theater

TICKET GIVEAWAY: A PERSISTENT MEMORY

a persistent memory

A PERSISTENT MEMORY
The Beckett Theatre at Theatre Row
410 West 42nd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Previews begin May 27, opening June 1, runs through June 18, $49.50 ($29.50 with code TRBI29)
www.apersistentmemory.com
www.theatrerow.org

A 2009 Scientific American article explained that “remarkable recall power, researchers believe, is a big part of how elephants survive.” Playwright Jackob G. Hofmann (The Speed Date, Tracking Gertrude Treadwell) makes recollection and elephants central issues in his latest work, The Persistence of Memory, having its world premiere at the Beckett Theatre at Theatre Row later this month. The play travels from New York City to Uganda, following the exploits of David Huntington as his memories start disappearing and his past begins to haunt him at the same time “a mysterious phenomenon is plaguing the world’s elephant population.” The ninety-minute play is directed by Jessi D. Hill and stars Drew Ledbetter as David, Ariel Estrada as Kasem, Claire Warden as Carly, Lisa Bostnar as Marie, and Richard Prioleau as Elijah, with scenic design by Parris Bradley, costumes by Valerie Joyce, and lighting by Greg Solomon. For further information about elephants, the play’s official website includes links to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, the African Wildlife Foundation, the Elephant Sanctuary, the Performing Animal Welfare Society, the Wildlife Conservation Network, the World Wildlife Fund, and the wildLIFE Project.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: A Persistent Memory begins previews May 27 and opens June 1 at the Beckett Theatre at Theatre Row, and twi-ny has three pairs of tickets to give away for free. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and favorite play or movie that involves elephants to contest@twi-ny.com by Friday, May 20, at 12 noon to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; three winners will be selected at random.

PORT CITIES NY

Nathaniel Ryan and Elizabeth Gray hold tight to crates in PORT CITIES (photo by Kelly Stuart)

Pier 11, South St. at Wall St.
Waterfront Museum Barge, Red Hook
Wednesday, May 18, and Thursday, May 19, $20-$27
www.portcitiesproject.org

Port Cities NY is the ambitious first presentation in Talya Chalef’s five-part project investigating the sociocultural and –economic impact of the seventeenth-century Dutch trade routes, relating history and legacy to contemporary hot-button issues. The Brooklyn-based South African / Australian multidisciplinary artist wrote, directed, and choreographed the work, which ends its short run on May 18 and 19. The audience of up to sixty people for each show gathers at Pier 11 on South Street and takes a ferry across the East River to Red Hook. During the journey, they listen, individually on their own headphones, to a New Agey soundscape by Cameron Orr that can be downloaded in advance or streamed online; it also includes an introductory ghost story recited by modern-day archaeologist Katie (Leah Barker). “Things which may seem unreal to some become very real. Maybe too real,” she ominously says. The crowd then walks over to Lehigh Valley Railroad Barge No. 79, which is docked at the Conover Street pier and houses the Waterfront Museum. Katie and actors Marcus Crawford Guy, Elizabeth Gray, and Nathaniel Ryan, who play multiple roles, lead the audience inside, where Orr is performing his score live. At this point, the intriguing and promising journey turns abstract as the increasingly esoteric narrative unfolds over forty-five minutes.

Marcus Crawford Guy points the way as Elizabeth Gray stands tall in play set on waterfront barge (photo by Kelly Stuart)

Katie is guided into a game, “The Settlers of Manahatta” (based on the Dutch game “Catan: Trade Build Settle”), hosted by Hans Van Brunt (Guy) and Lottie Van Brunt (Gray), that introduces her to four historical figures from the 1600s Dutch settlement that became New York City: prostitute and entrepreneur Grietje Reyniers, butcher Asser Levy, execution-surviving slave Groot Manuel, and Director-General Petrus Stuyvesant. Among the other characters in the time-and-place-shifting play are the white Katie’s African American boyfriend, Kevin; Jane, a commodities broker who once believed that she was “the messiah of the money world”; and Prison Man X, who gives a soliloquy that brings up Barack Obama and Eric Garner. Chalef also includes references to Dutch tulips, the color mauve, colonialism, the Triangle Trade, the ship discovered under the World Trade Center, the African Burial Ground unearthed in Lower Manhattan, and lots and lots of numbers. Port Cities NY explores some fascinating events and makes some clever observations but gets lost in many a head-scratching moment; in particular, Horus Vacui’s projections are hard to make out, Gray’s occasional robotic movement comes out of nowhere, and the use of milk crates to stand in for a multitude of physical objects is downright confusing. It possibly has something to do with shipping containers and perhaps sustainable packaging, but it’s never made clear. In fact, in a postshow discussion, Chalef understandably was reluctant to give away too many answers, but judging from the questions that were asked, there was a significant amount of befuddlement, especially with the gaming aspect. And because the ferry and water taxi do not run past 8:20, you’ll have to find your own way home from Red Hook, either sharing an Uber or taking a bus. But Port Cities NY is still a unique adventure, even if it’s not wholly satisfying or successful. Chalef’s grand, operatic project will travel over the next several years to Cape Town, Jakarta, and Perth before culminating in a multimedia installation in Amsterdam.

FULLY COMMITTED

Jesse Tyler Ferguson plays a harried restaurant reservationist in one-man Broadway show (photo by Joan Marcus)

Lyceum Theatre
149 West 45th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 24, $45- $147
fullycommittedbroadway.com

Becky Mode’s Fully Committed has been one of the most produced plays in America since its debut in 1999 at the Vineyard Theatre and subsequent transfer for a long run at the Cherry Lane. But the one-person show set at the reservation desk in the dingy, ramshackle basement of a hotter-than-hot New York City restaurant gets lost in its Broadway bow at the Lyceum Theatre. Five-time Emmy nominee Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) takes over the role of Sam (originated by Mark Setlock), a struggling actor working at a hip “molecular gastronomy” eatery where tables must be reserved three months in advance. On this particular day, his manager, Bob, and coworker, Sonya, are not in, leaving him to man the phones alone, a nearly impossible task. In addition to fielding calls from people either making reservations or complaining about various problems, Sam has to deal with his father, who wants him to come home for Christmas; his friend and fellow actor Jerry, who is up for the same role in a show at Lincoln Center; and the crazy chef, who contacts him via a special red phone. The conceit is that Ferguson does all the voices on the other side of the line while running across the stage, from his central desk to the chef’s corner phone to finding a hot spot where his cell phone can get service for personal calls. Among the more than forty characters Ferguson gives voice to are his gentle-speaking dad; demanding VIP customers Bunny Vandevere and Carolann Rosenstein-Fishburn; Mafioso Dominic Veccini; Mrs. Sebag, who insists she has a reservation despite Sam finding no record of it; and the cheerful Bryce, Gwyneth Paltrow’s assistant, who is arranging a party at the restaurant with some very special requests.

Sam (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) deal with some rather strange customers in FULLY COMMITTED (photo by Joan Marcus)

Sam (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) deals with some rather strange customers in FULLY COMMITTED (photo by Joan Marcus)

It takes a while for the show to get cooking as the audience acclimates to Ferguson’s ever-shifting voices and the distinct rhythm of the show, but then it goes on far too long and is annoyingly repetitive as the ultraslim plot erodes like a stale piece of bread. It might work in small, intimate theaters, but on Broadway it feels more like an interesting comedy sketch that never ends. (The running time is ninety minutes.) Director Jason Moore (Shrek the Musical, Avenue Q) can’t come up with quite the right recipe, despite Ferguson’s best efforts. And McLane’s set, which was inspired by the reservation room at Danny Meyer’s Union Square Café and installations by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and features a glut of chairs hanging from the ceiling and a back wall that holds more than nine hundred bottles of wine — feels cold and distant. In our ever-growing foodie culture, this Broadway version of Fully Committed — a term the chef insists the reservationists use instead of “booked” — is merely half-baked, a promising meal that ends up disappointing on the plate and the palate.

IDIOT

Prince Myshkin (Daniel Kublick) looks at the world with wide-eyed innocence in creative Dostoevsky adaptation (photo by Carl Skutsch)

HERE
145 Sixth Ave. at Dominick St.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 21, $25, 8:30
212-352-3101
www.here.org

Robert Lyons and HERE artistic director Kristin Marting have previously collaborated on experimental theatrical adaptations of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Demons, called The Possessed, and three short stories by the nineteenth-century Russian writer in The Fever. Now Lyons (text) and Marting (direction and choreography) have turned their attention to Dostoevsky’s 1869 novel, The Idiot, streamlining it to its central love quadrangle. Prince Myshkin (Daniel Kublick) is a wide-eyed Christ-like figure who suffers from epileptic seizures, has an almost blind devotion to the good in life, and is not nearly the simpleton many assume he is. “For some reason, people think of me as an idiot,” he says early on. “At one time I was so ill that I must have seemed like an idiot; but what kind of idiot can I be now, if I am aware that people consider me an idiot?” He is besotted with Nastasya Filipovna (Purva Bedi), a former sex slave and self-proclaimed “student of the apocalypse” who is considering marrying the wealthy Rogozhin (Merlin Whitehawk), a hardy bear of a man with a large appetite for women and drink. Meanwhile, the socialite Aglaya (Lauren Cipoletti) appears to be a much better match for the prince. “The prince fell in love with you the first time you met. He called you: ‘the light,’” Nastasya tells Aglaya. “I also know that you love him. I like to think of you two together as one.” Over the course of seventy-five minutes, the four engage in discussions of love and jealousy, innocence and experience, social position and honor, and the very meaning of existence. “Surely a single moment of such boundless happiness is worth an entire life,” the prince declares.

Prince Myshkin (Daniel Kublick) is torn between two lovers in IDIOT (photo by Carl Skutsch)

Expanded from its original presentation at HERE’s 2014 CULTUREMART festival, Idiot takes place in Nick Benacerraf’s immersive cabaret-style environment, arranged as an X that crosses at the center in a carpeted circle with four tilted mirror/monitors above that show the audience, close-ups of the characters, and the maelstrom that goes on inside the prince’s head when he suffers from his seizures. (The video design is by Ray Sun Ruey-Horng.) The audience, referred to as “guests,” sit in four triangles consisting of chairs arranged relatively randomly. The four paths lead to a stage where Aglaya and Natasya perform Russian karaoke, including a song about escape; a photo-booth room where characters make reality-show-style confessions; a table in a bar where they can down vodka and champagne; and a curtained exit. There is also a DJ playing music by Blue Man Group founding member Larry Heinemann; the period costumes are by Kate Fry. Kublick (Trade Practices, Health Insurance) is adorable as Prince Lev Myshkin, his doe-eyed positivity infectious, beginning when he leads ticket holders to their seats and continuing as he makes direct eye contact with the audience throughout the show; you just want to get up and hug him. Bedi (Assembled Identity, East Is East) has an innate sex appeal as Natasya, imbuing her with a lurking danger, while Cipoletti (Heathers: The Musical, How Alfo Learned to Love) and Whitehawk (Privatopia, Red Wednesday) provide solid support. Of course, Idiot lacks the epic scope of its source material, eschewing social commentary and Russian politics in favor of exploring the nature of love, and it does so with an adroit sense of humor and a playful freshness leading up to its poignant finale.

WHETHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT

Lucy Shelby and Ariel Lauryn form a wacky comedy duo in WHETHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT (photo by Christopher Duggan)

The Tank
151 West 46th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves., eighth floor
May 12-14, 21-23, $15, 7:00
www.thetanknyc.org

Ariel Lauryn and Lucy Shelby make quite the comic duo in their screwball farce Whether We Like It or Not. The two-woman show was first presented at Dell’Arte International and then at the New Orleans Fringe and now can be seen in an updated version as part of the Tank’s Flint & Tinder season, a program that focuses on physical, risk-taking theater. In the chaotic sixty-minute comedy, Lauryn, as straight man Stella, and Shelby, as the campy Blanche — yes, they are childhood friends named after the two main female characters from Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire — channel such dynamic duos as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Lucy and Ethel, Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Carol Burnett and Vicky Lawrence. It’s Stella’s birthday, and Blanche has a big surprise for her — she has gathered many of her friends, relatives, and professional colleagues in a black-box theater where the two women are going to do a reading of Marsha Norman’s ’night, Mother. Of course, Stella is not quite prepared for a This Is Your Life moment, especially with her hated ex-husband in the audience, as well as a high-profile Broadway producer. But Blanche, the spokesperson for a national insurance company, is putting on the show to make sure that Stella continues her acting career; she suspects that Stella might otherwise give up on what she loves doing so much and return home to Indiana, wagging her tail between her legs. However, Stella has no such plan, refusing to put the kibosh on her dream, and as the evening goes on, the two women make some rather serious revelations that threaten their friendship.

Lauryn and Shelby, who created the show together, do a terrific job of improvising as they slip on props, trip over dialogue, and use a wrong name; no matter what happens onstage, they just keep going in impressive fashion. Also fashionably impressive are their glittering costumes, which evoke Monroe and Russell. Although the show is not interactive, it does have immersive qualities, as Stella and Blanche identify specific audience members as characters from their lives, either from their hometown or from the New York City theater community. At one performance, when a cell phone in the seats went off, it turned out to belong to the audience member they had labeled “Oscar,” an agent, and Shelby cleverly worked in an ad lib about how he should answer it because it might be about a job for her. It’s all rather silly yet endearing, occasionally overly ridiculous and sometimes inexpert, but still a lot of fun. Plus, there’s cheap popcorn, beer, and wine available before the show to get you in the right mood for all the wacky shenanigans.

LA VERITÀ

Jean-Philippe Cuerrier and Erika Bettin perform an acrobatic pas de deux in LA VERITÀ (photo by Max Gordon)

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Peter Jay Sharp Building
230 Lafayette Ave.
May 4-7, $25-$80
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
finzipasca.com

Compagnia Finzi Pasca returns to BAM with La Verità, a wild and wacky production worthy of its inspiration, Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí. Previously at BAM in November 2012 with Donka: A Letter to Chekhov, the Swiss troupe created La Verità around the large-scale backdrop Dalí painted for the Metropolitan Opera’s 1944 ballet, Mad Tristan, which was offered to them three years ago by its owner. (The original is now being restored, so a replica is being used in its place.) The two-hour show is a broad mix of elements that recall Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal, Cirque du Soleil, Eugene Ionesco, Fuerza Bruta, STREB, and vaudeville, having a ton of fun with aerialists, juggling, acrobatics, roller skating, Bunraku puppetry, and clowns. Writer, director, and co-lighting designer and choreographer Daniele Finzi Pasca incorporates images from the mural into the show, including a wheelbarrow, dandelions, crutches, and eggs with absurdist glee while displaying the many talents of the twelve-member cast, consisting of Moira Albertalli, Jean-Philippe Cuerrier, Annie-Kim Déry, Stéphane Gentilini, Andrée-Anne Gingras-Roy, Erika Bettin, Francesco Lanciotti, Evelyne Laforest, David Menes, Marco Paoletti, Felix Salas, Beatriz Sayad, and Rolando Tarquini. A bare-chested Cuerrier shows remarkable strength holding up Bettin by the foot with his hand, Salas contorts his body into mind-blowing positions, a rhino-headed performer plays the piano, Menes dances en pointe, ballerinas with dandelion headdresses stumble about (on purpose), and various men and women lie down under the treacherous Zig Roller. Tarquini and Sayad also impress in a tour-de-force costume-changing bit. There’s not much of a narrative plot; it seems to essentially be about an upcoming auction to help the theater, but it’s often hard to understand Tarquini because of his thick accent. But La Verità is essentially just about the chaotic craziness of Dalí’s bigger-than-life persona, in a dreamlike world that melds the real with the surreal.

WAITRESS

Becky (Keala Settle), Jenna (Jessie Mueller), and Dawn (Kimiko Glenn) serve pies and more in WAITRESS (photo by Joan Marcus)

Brooks Atkinson Theatre
256 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 1, $69-$159
877-250-2929
waitressthemusical.com
www.brooksatkinsontheater.com

Tony-winning star Jessie Mueller has quickly become one of those Broadway sensations you can watch do just about anything, even when she serves up a dish of lukewarm Lifetime schmaltz like Waitress. Mueller, who has risen well above her material in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, does the same in this American Repertory Theater musical, an adaptation of Adrienne Shelly’s 2007 film, which was accepted to Sundance shortly after Shelly was murdered in Greenwich Village at the age of forty. Mueller plays Jenna Hunterson, a waitress in Joe’s Pie Diner, where every morning she makes such delectable, original delights as Marshmallow Mermaid Pie, Fallin’ in Love Chocolate Mousse Pie, and Jenna’s First Kiss Pie. “You want to know what’s inside? Simple question, so then what’s the answer?” she sings. “My whole life is in here, in this kitchen baking.” Desperate to escape an abusive marriage to Earl (Nick Cordero), she is distraught to learn she’s pregnant. When diner owner Joe (Dakin Matthews) suggests she compete in a pie contest with a prize of twenty thousand dollars, she thinks she may have discovered her way out, but her life gets even more complicated when she becomes attracted to her new gynecologist, the married Dr. Pomatter (Drew Gehling). Her coworkers, the sharp-tongued Becky (Keala Settle) and the wallflower Dawn (Kimiko Glenn, in the role played by Shelly in the movie), provide emotional support and comic relief, while Jenna’s coping skills include memories of baking pies with her late mother and imagining what she’ll make next, creating in her mind such telling desserts as I Don’t Want Earl’s Baby Pie, Betrayed by My Eggs Pie, and I Can’t Have an Affair Because It’s Wrong and I Don’t Want Earl to Kill Me Pie. But Jenna can’t stop spending time with Dr. Pomatter despite knowing better. “It’s a terrible idea me and you,” they sing in a duet. Jenna: “You have a wife.” Dr. Pomatter: “You have a husband.” Jenna: “You’re my doctor!” Dr. Pomatter: “You’ve got a baby coming.” Both: “It’s a bad idea me and you / Let’s keep kissing till we come to.” Unfortunately, by the time they come to, it’s too late.

Dr. Pomatter (Drew Gehling) and Jenna (Jessie Mueller) seek a sweeter life in adaptation of Adrienne Shelly’s 2007 romantic comedy (photo by Joan Marcus)

Mueller shines once again in Waitress, making the most of what is essentially a hard-to-believe contemporary bodice ripper disguised as a romantic musical comedy. She has a comforting stage presence, blending confidence and vulnerability in charming ways, even as we watch her character make absurdly ridiculous decisions. She, Settle (Hands on a Hardbody, Priscilla Queen of the Desert), and Glenn (Orange Is the New Black, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots) share a warm camaraderie, recalling the trio of waitresses from the television series Alice, along with Eric Anderson (Soul Doctor, Kinky Boots) as Cal, the gruff cook. Christopher Fitzgerald (Young Frankenstein, Finian’s Rainbow) nearly steals the show as Ogie, going all out as a stalker-like major nerd who is interested in Dawn and is not afraid to let everyone know about it. His stirring rendition of “Never Ever Getting Rid of Me” is a genuine showstopper. The songs, by five-time Grammy nominee Sara Bareilles, are relatively harmless, mixing in multiple genres, but former waitress Jessie Nelson’s (I Am Sam; Corrina, Corrina) book never really gets cooking, jumping around too much while taking underdeveloped or overdone turns. Director Diane Paulus (The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, Hair, Pippin) does what she can with the mediocre material, wisely making sure that Mueller is front and center as much as possible on Scott Pask’s set, which changes from the diner to the doctor’s office to Jenna and Earl’s home. Waitress serves up a few very tasty slices, but it takes more than that to make a wholly satisfying pie.