Tag Archives: Thomas Bradshaw

INTIMACY

A community takes a revealing look at itself in world premiere from the New Group (photo by Monique Carboni)

The Acorn Theatre at Theatre Row
410 West 42nd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Through March 8, $25-$65
212-560-2183
www.thenewgroup.org
www.theatrerow.org

So what’s all the fuss about? Thomas Bradshaw’s latest play for the New Group, Intimacy, is a clever and comical, if occasionally cringeworthy, exploration of contemporary society that focuses on three families living in a close-knit, unidentified wealthy American suburb. James (Daniel Gerroll) found Jesus after his wife’s sudden death, retired from his successful Wall Street job, and is raising his eighteen-year-old son, Matthew (Austin Cauldwell), by himself. James has hired his neighbor Fred (David Anzuelo), an independent contractor, to renovate his house. Fred’s eighteen-year-old daughter, Sarah (Déa Julien), dreams of losing her virginity to Matthew on prom night. Meanwhile, Matthew, who wants to be a filmmaker instead of going to college, is spying on neighbor and fellow eighteen-year-old high schooler Janet (Ella Dershowitz), whose mother, Pat (Laura Esterman), talks to her extremely openly about sex and whose father, Jerry (Keith Randolph Smith), is a mild-mannered gentleman who wants only the best for his little girl. They gossip about who’s cheating on who, worry about school, argue over money, and share lawn tips. It might not quite be Peyton Place, but there’s nothing particularly strange or different about this community. But when one of the characters’ surprising sexual secret is exposed, a whole lot of other exposure follows.

A pair of fathers (Daniel Gerroll and Keith Randolph Smith) aren’t sure where things went wrong in Thomas Bradshaw’s INTIMACY (photo by Monique Carboni)

Bradshaw is no stranger to graphic portrayals of sex and violence onstage, as evidenced by such previous works as Burning for the New Group in 2011 and Job at the Flea in 2012. But with Intimacy, the sex and nudity — and there is plenty of both, including frottage, masturbation, footage of real sex, and expertly simulated acts that will have audiences wondering what’s actually going on right in front of them — are only a backdrop for a story about people’s fears and desires, their desperate need to connect with one another, and their deeply embedded addictions and overwhelming sense of shame and guilt. Bradshaw takes on religion, education, racism, the economy, personal privacy in the surveillance age, and other social and political mores in the show, skillfully directed by New Group founding artistic director Scott Elliott. Most of the characters are usually situated in Derek McLane’s suburban interior all at once, with Russell H. Champa’s lighting zeroing in on the specific action taking place on a couch, a bed, a video monitor, a toilet (which does indeed get used), and a desk where many of the characters watch porn and, well, take pleasure in it. And there’s a lot of pleasure being had, judging by all the erections and orgasms. The cast, featuring several members making their professional stage debuts, is, er, clearly having a ball with the edgy material, bravely going where few non-porn actors have gone before. So indeed, what’s all the fuss about? Intimacy is likely to catch people’s attention because of the overt naughtiness happening onstage — the production proudly announces, “This show contains nudity, sex, and bad language. Enjoy!” — but it deserves to get noticed more because it’s damn entertaining, erotic and titillating, realistic and absurd, and very, very funny, coming off as surprisingly natural despite the surreal turn it takes as the climax nears. As an added bonus, select seats in the first two rows are only $25, for those who want to get even more up close and personal with this revealing tale.

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!

BLUES FOR SMOKE

Rodney McMillian, “Asterisks in Dockery,” mixed-media installation, 2012 (photo by Sheldan C. Collins)

Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Ave. at 75th St.
Wednesday – Sunday through April 28, $14-$18 (pay-what-you-wish Fridays, 6:00 – 9:00)
212-570-3600
www.whitney.org

In 1960, jazz pianist and composer Jaki Byard released his solo debut, Blues for Smoke, an improvisatory record that features on its cover a train puffing out dark clouds as it makes its way down the tracks. The album lends its name to an exciting multimedia exhibit at the Whitney that examines the impact of the blues on the arts. The show is highlighted by David Hammons’s extraordinary 1989 installation, “Chasing the Blue Train,” which greets visitors on the third floor. A blue train makes its way across tracks that take it through a tunnel covered in coal and a landscape with upturned piano tops as John Coltrane’s 1957 Blue Train album plays from a boom box, the work riffing on Coltrane’s name (coal, train) while celebrating the blues. Zoe Leonard’s “1961, 2002-Ongoing” consists of a row of suitcases of different shades of blue, evoking impermanence and creating a mystery about what might be inside; nearby, Martin Kipperberger’s “Martin, into the Corner, You Should Be Ashamed of Yourself” is a life-size replica of the artist standing in the corner, suffering from a case of the blues. Specially commissioned for the show, Kori Newkirk’s “Yall” consists of a shopping cart nearly completing a circle of blue on the floor, calling to mind exclusion, homelessness, and failed capitalism. Kira Lynn Harris lines a stairwell and entrance with silver Mylar in “Blues for Breuer,” paying tribute to the architect of the Whitney building, which will be taken over by the Met in 2015 when the Whitney moves downtown.

Installation view, Blues for Smoke (photo by Sheldan C. Collins)

Works by Martin Wong, Martin Kipperberger, Zoe Leonard, and others form a blues aesthetic at the Whitney (photo by Sheldan C. Collins)

Curated by Bennett Simpson in consultation with Chrissie Iles, “Blues for Smoke” also features works by Romare Bearden, Carrie Mae Weems, Glenn Ligon, Liz Larner, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Rachel Harrison, Mark Morrisroe, Alma Thomas, Beauford Delaney, Kara Walker, William Eggleston, and Lorraine O’Grady, all contributing to the overall examination of the blues aesthetic. A media room includes viewing stations where people can watch classic performances, while Stan Douglas’s “Hors-champs” plays continuously in its own space on the first floor, offering a unique view of a live recording on the front and back of a screen hanging from the ceiling. In addition, the Whitney is hosting a series of live events that continue through the end of the exhibition, which closes April 28, including “Blues for Smoke: Matana Roberts, Keiji Haino, and Loren Connors” on April 20 at 8:00 (featuring a solo performance by Roberts and a duo guitar improvisation by Haino and Connors), “Through the Lens of the Blues Aesthetic: An Evening of Short Films Selected by Kevin Jerome Everson” on April 25 at 7:00, the live concert “Blues for Smoke: Annette Peacock” on April 26 at 7:00, and the three-day “Blues for Smoke: Thomas Bradshaw,” in which the playwright will be creating a new piece that will be shown April 26-28.

BURNING

Andrew Garman, Evan Johnson, Danny Mastrogiorgio become an unusual family in BURNING (photo by Monique Carbon)

The Acorn Theatre at Theatre Row
410 West 42nd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Through December 17, $61.25
212-560-2183
www.thenewgroup.org
www.theatrerow.org

During intermission of the New Group’s Burning, which kicks off their 2011-12 season at the Acorn Theatre at Theatre Row, we discussed whether we thought Thomas Bradshaw’s multistory show was a bedroom farce, a sly send-up of theatrical conventions, a black comedy, a campy examination of love and sex, a self-reflexive absurdist narrative, a meditation on art and death, or a serious melodrama about different kinds of family. After the second act, we came to the conclusion that unfortunately, it is all of those things, and none of them, two and a half hours that cause nervous giggles, blank stares, and looks of confusion and disbelief. On a set divided into three sections — a bed, a living room with a couch, and a small table surrounded by a few chairs — three interconnecting stories evolve. In the early 1980s, Broadway producer Simon (Danny Mastrogiorgio) and his partner, stage star Jack (Andrew Garman), take in Chris (Evan Johnson), a fourteen-year-old wannabe actor whose mother has just OD’d. Simon and Jack are trying to get playwright Donald (Adam Trese) to turn his play about child sex trafficking into a one-man vehicle for Jack; meanwhile, all three men are interested in more than Chris’s woeful acting talent. In modern day, African-American painter Peter (Stephen Tyrone Williams) is preparing to head to Berlin for a solo show, not knowing that one of the gallery workers, neo-Nazi Michael (Drew Hildebrand), thinks he is a white artist who must certainly be a true believer. While Peter and his wife, Josephine (Larisa Polonsky), are going to have a baby, Michael is taking care of his half-sister, Katrin (Reyna de Courcy), who is confined to a wheelchair as the result of a car accident that claimed the lives of their parents a year earlier. And Peter’s young cousin, Franklin (Vladimir Versailles), needs money so he can give a proper burial to his recently deceased mother.

Bradshaw (Southern Promises, The Bereaved) goes all over the place with Burning, taking on the AIDS crisis, the neo-Nazi skinhead movement, drugs, pederasty, racism, prostitution, incest, and more, featuring a multitude of extremely graphic sex scenes that are at times funny, erotic, shocking, and heart-wrenching but eventually become overwhelming and boring. It’s as if Bradshaw had so much to say that he decided to put it all in one play instead of two or three, leaving director Scott Elliott, the founding artistic director of the New Group, with the impossible job of making it all come together. Burning has its moments, but not nearly enough of them, and the conclusion is hard to swallow, resulting in a lukewarm show with lofty ambitions that are always just out of reach.