Click here to read this article on the www.csmonitor.com

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Click here to read Ward’s article on www.csmonitor.com

The post 5 really good off-Broadway shows (Article in The Christian Science Monitor) appeared first on Broadway After Dark.

Theater  Close-Up on  PBS brings Off-Broadway center stage and provides a treat for theater devotees.

Hosted by esteemed actress Sigourney Weaver, the series offers plays, not adapted for TV, but rather filmed live. Sitting in one’s living room one sees just what the audience in the  theater sees.  The series comes about as the result of a rare collaboration of Ch. 13 and the Off-Broadway community—particularly the non-profits. The initial stint runs through Nov. 27.

Although Ms. Weaver describes the Off-Broadway scene as a cauldron of creativity, the choices for the series, so far, have been safe. The opening offering (Oct. 2), a 1931 John van Druten play, “London Wall,” could be seen as an early feminist play. While not up to his later work—“Voice of the Turtle,” “I remember Mama,” “I Am a Camera,” and “ Bell Book and Candle,” among others, it was worth a look. “London Wall” was a Mint Theater production.

From the Public Theater comes the quartet of Apple Family plays by Richard Nelson. Each of these works takes place on the anniversary of a historic event and deals with the family situations that  emerge during the commemorations.

The Abingdon Theatre’s production of Hellman v. McCarthy, which included Dick Cavett gamely playing himself, dealt with the famous feud between Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy and the lawsuit that ensued. The riveting play by Brian Richard Mori seemed to be over in the blink of an eye. Two of the Apple Family plays, “Sorry,”  and “Sweet and Sad,” while intermittently interesting, seemed interminable.

The works were well directed and the casts were uniformly excellent. From the women navigating terra incognita—the then man’s world of the office—and the men coping, some more honorably than others in “London Wall” to the crackling no-holds-barred battle between Hellman (Roberta Maxwell) and McCarthy (Marcia Rodd) and the lawyers who attempt to retain a small bit of civility, one’s attention is held. The real burden is on the cast of the Apple plays: these splendid performers,  Maryann Plunkett, Jay O. Sanders, Laila Robins, Jon DeVries, Stephen Kunken, and Sally Murphy are charged with infusing the mundane dialogue with life. Yes, people really talk that way but that’s not a reason for others to endure the tedium.

When the facts of the suicide of a daughter are made known, “Sweet and Sad” becomes gripping. In “Sorry,” when the dilemma of what to do about a beloved dementia-afflicted uncle and whether he will act out his sexual fantasies becomes central, the tension is agonizing.

Still to be shown:  Hamish Linklater’s “The Vandal,” presented by The Flea Theater; Denis O’Hare and Lisa Peterson‘s “An Iliad,” presented by New York Theatre Workshop;  and an encore presentation of The Flea’s “Looking at Christmas” by Steven Banks.

The series can be seen on Thursdays at 9:00 pm on Ch. 13 and Sundays following Masterpiece Theater. It is repeated on Ch. 21 on Mondays at 10:30 pm.

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I recently had the pleasure of attending a Saturday matinee of “The Fantasticks” at the intimate ‘Off Broadway’ location of the Snapple Theater Center. The production was charming, witty, well done and did not disappoint.

The story is a whimsical twist on girl meets boy and fathers plotting them all into funny situations that never seem to turn out as planned. Throw in a charming ‘have to love him’ hired villain and a pair of humorous side kicks who literally pop in and out of scenes with slapstick fun and fumbling and the story proceeds through twists and turns into a happy ending.

The cast was well chosen for this fun filled musical. Samantha Bruce, as ‘The Girl’ gave a wonderful performance with fantastic vocal range and credible acting skills. Her ‘fainting falls’ were so realistic that the audience stretched out of their seats gasping with concern every time she did one. ‘The Narrator/Hired Villain’ was played by Dave Schoonover whose voice singing the old hit song ‘Try To Remember’ had several people in the audience discreetly wiping tears from their eyes. Pierce Cravens as ‘The Boy’ gave a performance that had you rooting for him throughout the whole show and ‘The Fathers’ played by Ray DeMattis and Kevin R. Free, evidently were exceptionally pro actors that were the glue for the whole performance. Providing comic relief throughout, another pair of obviously talented actors were MacIntyre Dixon playing ‘The Old Actor’ and Michael Nostrand playing ‘Mortimer- The Man Who Dies.’ They got the laughs exactly when they were supposed to. Last, but not least, Rita Markova as ‘The Mute’ a.k.a. ‘The Wall’ leant a fun and yet functional element needed for the success of the whole performance.

I must say you never missed a full orchestra because of the excellent musical skills of Robert Felstein at the piano, who was also the Musical Director, and Maria Banks at the Harp.

In conclusion, the ‘below the line’ costume design by Ed Wittstein, Lighting Design by Mary Jo Dondlinger, Sound Design by Domonic Sack and Musical Staging by Janet Wilson all worked well to add to a seamless performance. I must say, for a visitor from California, it was quite a lovely way for me to spend a Saturday afternoon experiencing ‘The Fantasticks.’ Thank you all for a great performance.

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Starring Al Pacino, “Arturo Ui” is the thinly veiled story of the irresistible rise of 1930s Nazism in Germany as seen through 1920s gangsterism in Chicago. Under Simon McBurney’s direction, Mr. Brecht’s haunting and sometimes sardonic lines, as interpreted by a star-studded cast of 32 actors playing more than 50 roles, reinforce one another in a kind of theatrical symphony rarely seen on the New York stage these days.

The opening scene – introducing a motley group of gangsters – sets the pattern for the ensemble’s acting, and the virtually seamless scene changes as Arturo Ui and his cohorts become increasingly menacing and powerful. Their unfolding grip on Chicago crime is set against black-and-white film projections of events in Nazi Germany, adding immeasurably to the play’s poignance and pathos.

Ruppert Bohle’s projections of old film clips, Paul Anderson’s dramatic lighting, and Christopher Shutt’s sound effects all help to take the audience on a roller-coaster ride of suspense and emotion.

A scene reconstructing the St. Valentine’s Day massacre, for example, with its explosion of machine gunfire, is presented against the backdrop of Hitler consolidating his power. The Chicago-Berlin parallel, which could have become strained, is interwoven beautifully.

Of course, playwright Brecht, who wrote “The Threepenny Opera” and “Mother Courage,” often seasons the darkest of his plays with humor, and “The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui” is no exception.

When Pacino, as the youthful Ui, woos local merchants to his lair with the words, “Something’s rotten in the state of Illinois,” a variation of a famous line from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” he gets a lot of laughs. But when he becomes the absolute ruler of the Chicago mob, the once awkward and even clownish Ui assumes such a fiendish “Richard III” evil majesty that you could hear a proverbial pin drop.

The National Actors Theater, which was founded by actor Tony Randall, has had a checkered production past, with some complaints that Randall tended to showcase himself prominently in some of the nonprofit theater’s shows. But like almost everyone else in “Arturo Ui,” Randall is perfectly cast as an old Shakespearean ham actor who teaches Arturo Ui elocution. The entire cast, including John Goodman, Chazz Palminteri, and Charles Durning is excellent.

Despite the fact that everyone, including Pacino, is working for what is called “scale, or the minimum pay required by the Actors Equity union, ticket prices for the show are $100, the highest price in off-Broadway history. But there were few complaints about the price of the seats at the preview performance this reviewer attended.

• ‘The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui’ is being presented at the 750-seat Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University through Nov. 3.

First published in the Christian Science Monitor on October 11, 2002

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