Awake and Sing!
by Clifford Odets
directed by Stephen Brown-Fried
The Public Theatre
July 8, 2015 Production website 💉💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
Here’s a crazy idea! Let’s take the American classic Awake and Sing!, written by Clifford Odets, that tells the story of three generations of an immigrant Jewish family struggling with economic, political and familial issues – – and let’s take this oh-so-Jewish story and cast it with an all Asian cast. Crazy, huh? That is exactly what the Public Theatre did with the combination of Awake and Sing! and the National Asian American Theatre Company!
I came in expecting to hate this play and simply found myself riveted. The plot is simple: four couples of varied sexual backgrounds get together in a beautiful beach home to have a swingers sex party! I was thinking I was going to hear a lot of provocative talk and some, if not a lot of deliciously gratuitous nudity. But, no! The sex party turned out to be as strained and mundane as you might imagine your parents would give. Yech! I get it. Condoms are thrown around as confetti but never used for their given purpose. Lots of sex talk resolved itself into talk of parking difficulties outside the beach home and thoughts on food delivery in the area. Continue reading The Qualms→
Wow! Expressionism simmer down! The theatre company Elevator Repair Service never to be blamed for making safe choices, is tackling The Sound and the Fury? Come on! Adapted for the opening section, the one told by the “idiot” — a man who had been “3 years old for 30 years.” This incredibly dense play demands a reader’s patience as a character picks up an actual copy of the Faulkner novel and begins to read it – – and from the reading comes character – and from the character we going on an epic expressionistic roller coaster. Imagine expressionism through the eyes of a three your old child?! Continue reading The Sound and the Fury→
Gloria
written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
directed by Evan Cabnet
The Vineyard Theatre
June 20, 2015
Production website 💉💉💉 out of 5.
Talk to any wanna-be actor and they will tell you that his/her number one fear is to spend out their youth in the confines of a cubicle, answering the phone, shuffling paper and dreaming of their next concoction at Starbucks! Gloria gives us such a cruel and competitive cubicle where twenty-somethings fight for the attention of their boss to get better jobs that they will equally disdain!
Office humor can be quite caddy and funny and then, of course, it can become quite crude, as lines are drawn and a feeding frenzy begins on all of the weak and disconnected employees. To avoid going out for drinks with the gang on Friday after work is to risk being the butt of the joke for a long, long time. Continue reading Gloria→
A Human Being Died that Night
by Nicholas Wright, based on the book b y Pula Gobodo-Madikizela
directed by Jonathan Munby
Brooklyn Academy of Music – Fishman Space
June 19, 2015
On a Sunday afternoon after spending ten days with high school students and seeing thirteen shows in ten days, I don’t think my mind was ready to deal with police brutality in aparteid South Africa. Not really the best choice for exhausted teenagers before a flight home. Me bad. This two-hander in a jail cell; some very clinical dramaturgy and acting; and we were off and running. A Human Being Died that Night is adapted from the book by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, a psychologist hired by the South African government to hold all the of the perpetrates of apartheid responsible for their enormous violence and human rights violations. Continue reading A Human Being That Night→
loria
A Human Being Died that Night