Gotham Gal

Russian Transport

The Russian Transport is the current production playing at the New Group right now. 

An interesting play.  Set in the Russian community of Brooklyn (Sheepshead Bay).  A family who came here when their kids were seriously young since they can barely speak Russian anymore.  The idea was to make a better life for their children.  The family is struggling to get by on a taxi service they run from their home.  Both of their kids help out.  Their kids are American teenagers, the parents are Russian immigrants.  That is what happens.  Their Moms brother comes for an extended stay dropping in on the family who has not seen him in 15 some odd years and everything changes.  He isn't a criminal but he is a more like a gangster.  He pulls in the whole family and everything shifts.

Doesn't exactly show a good side of the Russian immigrant life.  One parent is trying to create a new life for the next generation while the other parent is ok with remaining a criminal in a new land just to feed the family. 

The acting is fantastic.  I have always been a fan of Janeane Garafalo but Sarah Steele who plays the daughter is amazing.  She just graduated from Columbia University with a serious resume already in tv, film and theater.  Watch out for this actress.  She made her mark on me. 

As much as I was intriguqed by the writing and this slice of life in Brooklyn, the ending just really left me hanging in a way that I prefer not to be left at the end of a play.  Kind like a Tolstoy novel.

Wit

We went to see WIT at the Manhattan Theater Club this past week.  I didn't love the play but there is certainly something about the content that is thought provoking. 

The play is about a college professor who is an expert in the poetry of John Dunn.  Dunn being a metaphysical poet who mastered the english language.  Cynthia Nixon plays the professor who has stage 4 ovarian cancer.  Not a warm and welcoming woman with few friends or any and takes absolute pride in her intellect. 

Over the course of the play she is given eight intense doses of radiation.  The doctors know that the chances of success are abysmal but in essence use her for research to understand cancer.  She knows it and is willing to go along with it until the end. 

When my Mom got sick, I saw the same thing in regards to research.  There is a fine line between being a doctor and saving lives and also gathering as much data to understand diseases so that cures can eventually be found.  My Mom was diagnosed with brain cancer and within one week of that diagnosis she had surgery.  Two weeks later when she was going to go into chemo they took another MRI to pin point the right spots for treatment.  The tumor had already grown back, bigger. 

I found myself with a new surgeon at another hospital who basically told me that he could do surgery again and could prolong her life.  Really?  Why do you think that you can do any better than the last doctor when her cancer is obviously aggressive.  I do...research. 

The other thing is that the pain that the professor was in at the end was terrible.  Is that necessary that people who know that the end is near have to go through that? 

Did I like the play?  No.  Did I appreciate how the playwright was trying to educate the audience?  Yes.  I have lived it and they really did hit the experience spot on. 

Seminar

Last night we went to see the play Seminar at the Golden Theater.  This is the second play we have seen recently where I am not so sure I loved the play as much as I loved the acting. 

The majority of the play takes place in a sprawling upper west side apartment that has been in the family for years, aka massive rent control.  Four friends put up money for a ten week course with a supposedly brilliant editor/writer to help each of them in their writing careers as novelists.  Alan Rickman plays the famous teacher and he is absolutely fantastic.

The students are played by Lily Rabe, Hamish Linklater, Jerry O'Connell and Hettienne Park.  All excellent.  As the play unfolds we learn more about each of their writing ability as they have to share their stories with the teacher who in turn rips them to shreds. Each of these characters represent a stereotype.  Rabe is the wealthy white girl, Linklater is the brilliant dark writer who comes from nothing, O'Connell is wealthy and comes from a literary family that he can easily use as a stepping stone to success, Park is gorgeous and uses her body to shimmy up the ladder. 

There are many laugh out loud moments.  A small window into the literary world of NYC where the competition is rough and where the publishing industry has changed with the advent of the Ebook. 

Good theater, an enjoyable night.  90 minutes, no intermission and keep in mind that the seats in this theater as tiny!

Once

A few years ago the movie Once made its way in to the theaters.  A total indie flick about a local Irish man and a refugee from Czechoslovakia who come together to create music and learn about love.  The movie got rave reviews. 

I saw the movie with my good friend who turned to me during the first music performance and said "are they really going to play the entire song"?  She didn't love the movie but it obviously stuck because when it was announced that they were bringing the movie to the theater she bought us tickets. 

We both went to see the play Once at the New York Theatre Workshop this week.  She really loved the play.  As a rule I am not a fan of musicials but the performances are really good.  Set on one stage with a variety of performers who also play instruments on the sidelines.  Well choreographed with quite an impressive cast.  It is really amazing the wealth of talent walking the streets of NYC.

Steve Kazee who plays the main male character is fantastic.  A gorgeous voice and a gorgeous face to boot.  If you like the soundtrack or the movie it is absolutely worth buying tickets.  Just something of note is that this is the same theater that Rent was performed in before it went to Broadway.  You never know. 

Venus in Fur

We went to see Venus in Fur Saturday afternoon.  Thinking we will do more afternoon theater this year. I like it.  

The show is being put on by the Manhattan Theater Club.  The play is dark, funny and sexual all wrapped into one.  An budding actress shows up hours late to an audition to find herself alone with the playwright.  Eventually they act out the play over the course of the production as their interaction swings back and forth from the play to the present.  Both almost become the same. 

There was a recent article in the New Yorker about the young woman, Nina Arianda, who plays the main female character.  The article was about how what a gem Nina is and the talent that literally oozes out of her body.  I can confirm that article.  I felt like I was watching a star being born.  She not only has a killer body she is confident, funny, sexy and honestly just brilliant as an actor.  Hugh Dancy who plays the male lead is no slouch himself.

I didn't love the play as much as I was just wowed by the performances.  I am sure that years from now I will say that we saw Nina when she first came on Broadway.  This woman is going to be a star. 

We Live Here, Zoe Kazan

This is the first play of the season we have seen.  It is also the first MTC production this year.   I was particularly interested in this play as the playwright is Zoe Kazan.  This is the second play she wrote and she has also acted in films and theater.  Zoe Kazan comes from a family of screenwriters including her grandfather Elia Kazan who is legendary.  After seeing her perform over the last few years and watching We Live Here, I guarantee that you will be seeing more from Zoe Kazan.

The play focuses on a family who has swept the loss of one of their children under the carpet.  Nothing can stay under the carpet for long.  On the eve of wedding of the surviving twin sister, the family comes home to get ready.  The younger sister arrives with a new boyfriend who has history with the family creating an even stranger atmosphere. 

As the play unfolds Kazan does a great job of cluing us slowly into each character and their connections.  There is always that elephant in the room of the sister they lost.  The mother is overwhelmingly passive aggressive and the father is dismissive to everything around him.  At one point the father begins to explain a book he is writing to the boyfriend and fiancee which is about a Greek tragic hero. That is the pivot in the play where everything begins to fall into place for the audience and the family begins to crumble. 

The play is far from upbeat yet I can't get it out of my mind.  All families have something in their closet from a selfish parent to a crazy relative to someone with depression.  For some people those stories can be swept under the carpet as they move through their lives while for others their sadness or anger seeps to the surface in every aspect of their life.  I am not sure who Kazan is writing about but We Live Here is an impressive play about family. 

One Arm, Tennessee Williams

My friend and I have been going to see the plays at the New Group for the past two years.  Always a nice evening and I love that we block out a few nights a year to do this together. 

Currently, the play is One Arm, an un-produced Tennessee Williams play.  The play runs an hour an 20 with no intermission which is always a bonus. 

The entire play takes place on one set that moves according to the scene.  Really well done.  There is a narrator who has an incredibly soothing voice so that just as you start to drift, he pulls you back in.  The play is incredibly depressing. 

It is a story of a young boxer from Arkansas who loses his arm in an accident.  It is the 1960's.  His ability to get a job or do anything with his life after losing his arm just goes down hill.  He becomes a hustler and over the course of a few years travels throughout the country meeting many men, hustling, to feed and drink himself eventually finding himself in jail for murder.  A story of human despair and loneliness.  A life gone wrong.

The acting is pretty amazing.  The main character, Ollie, goes through a series of emotions through out the play.  There is also something disconnected about him, like the character he is playing. 

Not sure I'd run out to get tickets but it is just another event happening around NYC until July 2nd. 

By the Way Meet Vera Stark

This is not the first play I have seen from the playwright Lynn Nottage and hopefully it will not be the last.  By the Way Meet Vera Stark is well written, funny, clever, layered and smart. 

The play is about racism.  We meet Vera Stark, in the 1930's, who lives in Los Angeles working as a maid of a major Hollywood starlet while trying to break into acting herself.  The roles for black women at that time were minimal and the ones available had no lines or they played the hired helped.  This takes place during the Depression. 

Eventually Vera lands a role in a major Hollywood play, a break out role for black women.  The second act shows her actual movie role on film.  Very clever how Nottage uses different mediums in this play.  We learn that Vera, after her last TV appearance on a talk show in 1973, basically vanishes.  This scene is particularly clever.  Nottage has two themes going at the same time.  Vera on stage at the talk show in 1973 and then 3 people at a talk show in the present day analyzing Vera, this show and her life. 

The acting is fantastic.  Every single actor gives an incredible performance and plays multiple characters.  The last scene gives you an insight into the insanity of talking heads attempting to analyze Vera and then the audience sees Vera for the choices she had to make based on her race.  What was available to her as a black woman in the 30's was minimal.  She took the role which ended up being a pivotal career move because she so wanted to act but the reprecussions of being a black woman at that time were huge. 

Super smart, well written and a really thought provoking play with a lot of laughter as an added bonus.  The fact that this is a comedy makes the viewer think even more.  The content isn't so funny, it is a part of our history that certainly wasn't easy for the African Americans who struggled through those times and made the most of the few opportunities they were given all because of the color of their skin.

 

 

Sleep No More, Interactive theater in Chelsea

I went to an event at The McKittrick Hotel this week for the latest production put on by Punchdrunk Theater called Sleep No More.  Not so sure that this kind of thing is for me but I will say it is interesting, brilliant and totally different all rolled up into one. 

It is interactive theater.  Think of a haunted house with Macbeth being acted throughout the house although you probably wouldn't realize it was Macbeth unless someone told you. At least I wouldn't of.

You walk into a very dark place and you are given a mask.  A mask must be worn at all times.  Then you are to wander through out the five floors.  Conceptually the idea is to follow one of the actors as they interact with the space and the other actors.  I admit, I did not do that.  I just wandered in as many rooms as possible including closets just to see what was there. 

The set design is incredible.  Apothecary shops, graveyards, childrens clothing hanging off the ceiling, blood stained beds, naked actors, lots of smoke and low lights, offices, bedrooms, etc.  Just wild.  At the end you find yourself at the bar where they are now serving punch ( liquor license coming ) with quite an amazing jazz band.  Not so sure people should be drinking and strolling here.

Bottom line, not for me but if it is your kind of thing, don't miss it.  BTW, picture above is a no-no but I couldn't help myself. 

Related articles

• 'Sleep No More' Finds Room in Chelsea (artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Punchdrunk NYC: Sleep No More (farisyakob.typepad.com)

Good People Manhattan Theater Club

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. 

We went to see Good People last night, the latest production at MTC.  Great acting.  An incredible cast.  Always love seeing Frances McDourmand in theater or on the big screen and Estelle Parsons is hilarious.  I just didn't enjoy the actual play.

Perhaps there are times when you don't like the content or it makes you uncomfortable are the times you should consider sticking it out.  Thinking about what makes you uncomfortable about the content.  Many lessons are learned by putting yourself in a position where you have to listen to characters you just don't like.  But last night, at intermission, Fred turned to me and said "the acting is great but I can't stand any of the charcters and I know you hate them too....want to stay or go"?  Well based on the weeks that I have been having, all good but extremely busy, the thought of crawling into bed and falling asleep before 10pm was much more appealing than sitting through the rest of the play.   And so we went home.

The play is about a middle aged woman from Southie (Boston) who never got past a HS education, was knocked up and has a severly retarded daughter.  She finds herself without a job.  Making a visit to an old flings office who is now a very successful doctor thinking she can get a job.  Lives take many turns from High School and watching this woman, played by Frances McDourmand, pursue this doctor who was someone of the past to help toss her a lifeline just didn't do it for me.  There are more layers to the play but the characters and content just annoyed me. 

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.