this week in theater

20AT20 2014

DISASTER! musical parody is one of more than fifty shows taking part in 20at20 promotion

Multiple venues
January 21 – February 9, $20
www.20at20.com

In addition to Broadway Week (January 21 – February 6), during which two-for-one tickets are available in advance for such Great White Way shows as Matilda the Musical, Twelfth Night, No Man’s Land, The Glass Menagerie, and others, 20at20 is about to get under way, with twenty-dollar seats on sale twenty minutes before curtain for more than fifty off-Broadway productions. For twenty days, from January 21 to February 6, a Jackson will get you in to such shows as Bertolt Brecht’s A Man’s Man at Classic Stage with Justin Vivian Bond and Stephen Spinella, Bedlam’s versions of Saint Joan and Hamlet in repertory at the Lynn Redgrave Theater, Seth Rudetsky’s Disaster! musical parody at St. Luke’s, the true story Riding the Midnight Express with Billy Hayes also at St. Luke’s, Thomas Bradshaw’s sure-to-shock Intimacy at the Acorn, Jake Jeppson’s The Clearing at St. Clement’s, and the world premiere of Charles Busch’s The Tribute Artist, starring Busch and Julie Haltson, at Primary Stages. There is also such family-friendly fare as Angelina Ballerina the Musical, Fancy Nancy the Musical, Gazillion Bubble Show, and The Berenstain Bears Live!

LOOT

Rebecca Brooksher plays femme fatale Fay in Red Bull revival of Joe Orton classic (photo by Rahav Segev / Photopass.com)

Red Bull Theater at the Lucille Lortel Theatre
121 Christopher St. between Bleecker & Hudson Sts.
Tuesday – Sunday through February 9, $60-$75
212-352-3101
www.redbulltheater.com

Upon the opening of his revised version of Loot in September 1966 at the Jeanetta Cochrane Theatre, playwright Joe Orton told the Evening Standard, “I have many vices, but false modesty is not one of them. The best thing about Loot is the quality of the writing.” Indeed, the quality of the writing is once again what shines through in the Red Bull Theater’s inconsistent revival at the Lucille Lortel. As McLeavy (Jarlath Conroy) is getting ready for his wife’s funeral, her hot blond nurse, Fay (Rebecca Brooksher), tells him he must begin considering remarriage, offering herself as a potential spouse. Meanwhile, McLeavy’s son, Hal (Nick Westrate), and his very close friend, Dennis (Ryan Garbayo), have robbed a bank and must hide the stash — possibly in Mrs. McLeavy’s casket. But when the tall, foreboding Truscott (Rocco Sisto) arrives, poking around, claiming to be from the metropolitan water board, madness and mayhem take over, leading to a wild and wacky finale. The first act of this frantic over-the-top farce is fast and furious and very funny as Orton (Entertaining Mr. Sloane, What the Butler Saw) skewers the Catholic church, marriage, so-called proper society, family, the police (Orton had little respect for authority because of its anti-gay stance), and even aging. “What will you do when you’re old?” Fay asks McLeavy, who responds, “I shall die.” Her retort: “I see you’re determined to run the gamut of all experience.” But the play, directed by Red Bull founding artistic director Jesse Berger (Volpone, The Maids), slows down considerably in the second act: Numerous lines were flubbed the night we saw it, and some slapstick scenes with the wrapped-up corpse fell flat. The social satire that was so well done in the first act lacks the same poignancy in the second, the black comedy not quite as dark. Brooksher and Conroy work well together as the femme fatale and her mark, but Westrate and Garbayo never quite hit it off, and Sisto, in a role that earned Joseph Maher a Drama Desk Award for the Manhattan Theatre Club’s all-star 1986 revival (which also starred Kevin Bacon, Željko Ivanek, Zoë Wanamaker, and Charles Keating), is too often reminiscent of the kind of policemen Graham Chapman played in Monty Python skits. It’s a shame that after such a successful first act, this Loot doesn’t end up delivering the goods.

UNDER THE RADAR: BRAND NEW ANCIENTS

KATE TEMPEST / BATTERSEA ARTS CENTRE ON TOUR: BRAND NEW ANCIENTS
St. Ann’s Warehouse
29 Jay St. at Plymouth St.
Through January 19
718-254-8779
www.undertheradarfestival.com
www.stannswarehouse.org

On January 16 at St. Ann’s Warehouse, British poet, rapper, and playwright Kate Tempest prefaced her performance of her breakout hit, Brand New Ancients, with a heartfelt, off-the-cuff love letter to New York City, which has adopted the twenty-seven-year-old during her ten-show run in DUMBO. She then offered up her 2010 poem, “Balance,” a parable that deals with four kids, Ambition, Talent, Envy, and Pride, that could serve as a personal mission statement for Tempest, who started rapping when she was sixteen and has experienced widespread success. Casually dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a faded T-shirt, she then began Brand New Ancients, a compelling seventy-five-minute tale that earned her the 2013 Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry. Backed by Emma Smith on violin, Natasha Zielazinski on cello, Jo Gibson on tuba, and George Bird on percussion and electronics, Tempest tells the story of two middle-class families brought together by lust and violence as they search for connections in a lonely world. Childless couple Kevin and Jane live next door to Brian and Mary, who have a son, Clive; Jane and Brian’s affair leads to the birth of Tommy, triggering years of problems for all involved. Tempest transforms the melodrama into a lurid yet insightful fable of superheroes and villains where the gods are everywhere and in everyone. In gorgeous, rhythmic cadences that avoid the staccato bravado so prevalent in much of hip-hop, Tempest says, “The myths of this city / have always said the same thing — / how we all need a place to belong, / how we all need to know / what’s right and what’s wrong, / and how we all need to struggle / to find out for ourselves / which side we are on.” She soon adds, “We’re the same beings that began, still living, / in all of our fury and foulness and friction, / everyday odysseys / dreams and decisions, / the stories are there if you listen.” The rapt, sold-out crowd listened to Tempest’s every word as she passed no judgment and cast no aspersions on her characters’ sins. The strings were particularly effective in Nell Catchpole’s minimalist score, while the drum solos during Tempest’s short breaks felt mostly unnecessary. Brand New Ancients, which is part of the Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival, is a clarion call for people to take a look at themselves, and at the world around them, and become heroes in their own everyday lives.

BROADWAY WEEK 2014

Multiple venues
January 21 – February 6, buy one ticket, get one free
www.nycgo.com/broadwayweek

Tickets are now on sale for the winter edition of Broadway Week, which runs January 21 through February 6 and offers theater lovers a chance to see new and long-running shows for half-price, as well as have an opportunity to pay a $20-$30 fee to upgrade to better seats. More than two dozen shows are participating, but they’re selling out fast, with the most popular selections being Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and Kinky Boots. But you can still get either regular two-for-one tickets or upgrades to such newer productions as A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Matilda the Musical, After Midnight, The Glass Menagerie, The Bridges of Madison County, Bronx Bombers, Machinal, Outside Mullingar, No Man’s Land, Twelfth Night, and Waiting for Godot as well as such older favorites as Chicago, Jersey Boys, The Lion King, The Phantom of the Opera, Once, Pippin, Wicked, and Mamma Mia! Nope, sorry, but The Book of Mormon is not on the list.

COIL 2014: TYSON VS. ALI

Multimedia presentation imagines intriguing “What if” boxing scenario (photo by Paula Court)

REID FARRINGTON: TYSON VS. ALI
3LD Art + Technology Center
80 Greenwich St.
Extended through February 2, $20
www.ps122.org/tyson-vs-ali
www.reidfarrington.com

Two of the greatest heavyweight champions of all time never got a chance to go toe-to-toe in the ring, but Reid Farrington creates a dream match-up that never was in his multimedia presentation Tyson vs. Ali. Extended at 3LD Art & Technology Center through February 2 as part of PS122’s Coil festival, Tyson vs. Ali takes place in a full-size boxing ring, with the audience sitting cater-corner on two sides. The hour-long show is timed like an actual fight, with three-minute rounds separated by sixty seconds each. Actor and playwright Dennis A. Allen II, actor Roger Casey, athlete, actor, and dancer Femi Olagoke, and professional boxer Jonathan Swain continually switch up playing either Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali as the two champs spout off about their life and career and mow down opponents. In the early rounds, the men get in the ring two at a time and blast away at each other, mimicking the action in archival footage of Tyson and Ali, which is projected onto screens moved around by actor, producer, and Photoville cofounder Dave Shelley, who serves as referee (as well as several of Iron Mike’s trainers); video is also projected onto the two back walls. The movement is choreographed beautifully by Laura K. Nicoll, who has worked with Farrington on such previous shows as The Passion Project and A Christmas Carol, making it feel like a real boxing match, especially as the sweat flies. Although the performers may not be throwing their hardest punches, they connect with some pretty tough shots in this intensely physical performance that is sure to take its toll on them.

Ref tries to break up battle of heavyweight champs in TYSON VS. ALI (photo by John Hurley)

A longtime boxing fan, Farrington (Gin & “It”), with script writer Frank Boudreaux, does an excellent job bringing the sweet science to the stage, examining the hype surrounding the champs, delving into their backgrounds and religious beliefs, exploring why they fight, and displaying their unique styles in and out of the ring. Ali fought from 1960 to 1981, while Tyson battled from 1985 to 2005, so their careers did not overlap, although they did both fight Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick, and they have a father-and-son connection as well, as Ali went up against Joe Frazier twice and Tyson knocked out his son, Marvis. (They also fought the Spinks brothers, with Ali splitting two fights with Leon and Tyson destroying younger sibling Michael.) So it’s a thrill seeing Ali duke it out with Tyson with the gloves on and off, pounding each other with both physical and vocal jabs, body shots, and uppercuts and waxing poetic in between rounds into microphones that hang from the ceiling and are set up just outside the ropes. The rounds, which follow the slowly building pace and energy of a heavyweight championship bout, have such titles as “The Body,” “Beauty and Brutality,” “Origin Myths,” “Endurance / Strategy,” and “Race/Lineage,” as Tyson and Ali pay tribute to those who came before. They also pay tribute to themselves and, in a 1990 clip from The Arsenio Hall Show, each other. “Once I’m in the ring, I’m a god. No one can beat me,” Olagoke says as Tyson. “I know I have him. He goes down. He’s out. I’m victorious. The greatest fighter that ever lived.” To which Allen as Ali responds, “The stage is set for me to be ranked the greatest of all time!” Who really is the greatest? You’re going to have to see the show to find out.

COIL: AN EVENING WITH WILLIAM SHATNER ASTERISK

New Ohio Theatre
154 Christopher St.
Through January 12, $20
888-596-1027
www.ps122.org
www.newohiotheatre.org

“Right now I have something to tell you,” philosopher and starship captain James T. Kirk, as portrayed by the great William Shatner, says near the beginning of An Evening with William Shatner Asterisk. “You could call it a transmission. A transmission from the future. Your future. Where you are going. I’m sure you’d like to know. Do you want to know where you’re going? Or maybe you don’t.” Kirk then goes on to give a nearly sixty-minute lecture that examines art and science, time and space, savagery and civilization. He does so via an ingenious technique developed by director Phil Soltanoff (SITSTANDWALKLIEDOWN) in collaboration with writer Joe Diebes (I/O, Botch) and systems designer Rob Ramirez (I/O): Soltanoff cataloged every word spoken by Kirk on the Star Trek television series, then strung them together to create sentences and new words, sometimes syllable by syllable. (For example, Kirk never said “art,” so Soltanoff clipped if from “start,” while “ontologically” and “epistemologically” were made up from syllables from multiple words.) The audiovisual sampling creates a kind of new language, part classic Shatner choppy overemoting, part early electronic voice generation computer speak. The clips, mainly close-ups of Shatner’s face, appear on a video monitor pushed around the stage silently and deliberately by Mari Akita, as if Kirk is moving about, reminiscent of Shatner’s recent one-man Broadway show, Shatner’s World: We Just Live in It . . . For most of the performance, Kirk’s talk is translated via subtitles on two flanking screens, but by the end the subtitles go away; it is easier to understand because the audience has begun to recognize and associate certain words and pictures. The lecture is rather simplistic and repetitive, even when it occasionally mocks itself, although there are numerous funny bits. The show also includes several minutes of the Star Trek episode A Private Little War as well as a brief monologue by Akita, but they end up being more puzzling than enlightening. “This might seem confusing at first,” Kirk says at one point. “At first you might think I’m full of it. You might think I’m full of shatner.” And really, when all is said and done, is being full of Shatner ever a bad thing?

UNDER THE RADAR: THE ROOM NOBODY KNOWS

Kuro Tanino digs deep into the unconscious mind in THE ROOM NOBODY KNOWS (photo by Julie Lemberger)

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Through January 12, $28
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org
www.undertheradarfestival.com

Kenji (Ikuma Yamada) has quite a surprise in store for his older brother’s (Ichigo Iida) birthday in Kuro Tanino’s hyper-strange and fabulously entertaining The Room Nobody Knows. Running at Japan Society through January 12 as part of the Public Theater’s Under the Radar festival, the sixty-minute production is a surreal journey deep inside the subconscious and unconscious minds, a psychedelic Freudian trip through a phallic world built out of fear and desire, dreams and anxiety. A sculptor, painter, writer, and director from a family of psychiatrists who until recently was a practicing psychiatrist himself, Tanino (Frustrating Picture Book for Adults, Fortification of Smiles) sets his highly stylized, bizarre tale in a spectacular two-level horizontal apartment designed by Tanino and Michiko Inada. On the top, colorful Gaudí-style tiles line a room that a pair of worker elves with really bad teeth (Momoi Shimada and Taeko Seguchi) begin to furnish with penis-shaped chairs and flutes, while below, in a lablike white space too small for the characters to stand up in, Kenji, surrounded by scissors, experiment bottles, and four heads mounted on penises, studies for his university entrance examinations and awaits his brother’s arrival. When Kenji’s older sibling shows up, the two men give new meaning to the concept of brotherly love. Performed in Japanese (with English surtitles) by Tanino’s Niwa Gekidan Penino company — part of the name comes from his childhood nickname, Penino, which combines “Tanino” with “penis” — The Room Nobody Knows is a deeply personal and intimate piece, based on Tanino’s own life and memories. And what memories they are.