Eclipsed @ The Golden Theater

An eye-opening event, Eclipsed is something that will leave a lasting impression on you. Set in 2003, it tells the story of five different women’s survivals during the Second Liberian Civil War.  

Each woman’s experience is different, but at the same time, the core value of persistence and preservation thrives.

You enter the Golden Theater to be met with a minimalistic set that looks like a broken down hut.  The show begins and you are instantly transported to war.  We meet Wife #1 and Wife #3 who show fear and strength when the unseen Commanding Officer comes to select who will be joining him that night. We are then surprised when out from an unsuspecting set piece, comes Lupita Nyong'o, playing The Girl.  

The story continues and you learn that these women have been abducted and collected as the “wives” of the CO who he uses for his pleasure when he pleases.  The wives try to keep The Girl from being seen, but she is found and soon becomes Wife #4. Here, we see one of the ways women survived this brutal war.  Next, we meet Rita, who is a peace officer (with her own motives) who goes from camp to camp urging the COs to end this conflict.  She befriends Wife #1 and urges her to abandon her CO and become a peace officer, learn to read and have a chance of survival on her own terms.  Finally we meet Wife #3, who has left her place as wife and rapee, to become a solider.  She tries to sway The Girl to join her and take control of her destiny, putting a machine gun in her hand and promising her that anything she wants can be hers for the taking.  The Girl must choose between life of protection but no control of her body, or taking a place in the army and leading other girls to the same fate.  

A play about women, by women and starring all women, Eclipsed truly shines.  While the dialect and accents are can be hard to follow, you eventually settle in and have no trouble following along, empathizing and yearning for resolution.  While Lupita Nyong'o does well in the role, it was Pascale Armand, playing the wise-cracking, but all truthful, pregnant Wife #2 who really stole the show.  With her own battle of survival based around her unwanted pregnancy, her feelings about the CO and her eventual unwavering mother’s love toward her child, you cannot help but want the best for her.

Overall, Eclipsed gives a wonderful insight to a war that many, including myself, were completely unaware about.  You empathize with the women, even if you do not agree with their choices.  You are transported to their land, their homes and their turmoils through the skillful use of lighting (Jen Schriever) and the powerful sound design (Broken Chord).  You are exposed to a world that is unlike your own.  Kudos to Danai Gurira for her writing and to Liesl Tommy for her direction on a play that is unlike anything you have seen before.  Eclipsed is running on strictly limited engagement through June 19th.

Review By: Renee Demaio
Photos By: Sara Krulwich

The Gin Game @ The Golden Theater

D.L. Coburn’s play The Gin Game is story of never giving up. The wonderfully stoic James Earl Jones as Weller Martin opposite the great Cicely Tyson as Fonsia Dorsey provides the audience with enough chemistry that the room may have exploded. Champion Casting hit a gold mine with these two actors, and they were  enough to have the audience on their feet at the beginning of play. However, these two actors truly earn their early applause. Leonard Foglia directs these two to the moon and back.

Set in an old folks’ home, two elderly characters find themselves alone on their visitor’s day again and again. Weller sees Fonsia, sitting alone and offers, or should I say, demands that she play gin with him. Throughout the many games of gin the two entail, we learn that Weller and Fonsia were both looking for some answers as to how they ended up in this low-end elderly facility, and with no visitors to boot. The audience is gifted time and time again with winsome witticisms delivered impeccably by James Earl Jones, and the captivating comedic timing of Cicely Tyson. Their characters wistfully take turns calling each other out before their time on this Earth is up. Its up to Weller and Fonsia to help each other learn that they only have themselves to blame for the way things turned out.

Truthfully, The Gin Game could be set with James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson performing on an empty black stage, and the play still would be a smash. However, by the graces of set designer Riccardo Hernandez, the audience is enriched with an alluring set that transforms the Golden Theatre into the backyard porch of an old rural farmhouse. There are piles of useless items on the back porch, which give Weller many entertaining places to lose his gin rummy scorekeeping sheet. The set design reiterates from the dialogue of the play, that there is more to life than all of the material things you collect in your life. Those objects mean nothing without you there to describe them and eventually those materials will end up abandoned at the bottom of someone else’s junk pile. Ricardo Hernandez helps deliver that  message with his beautifully intricate set design, which even includes the rain of a Summer afternoon thunderstorm glistening off the porch roof (illuminated beautifully by Lighting Designers: Peggy Eisenhower and Jules Fisher). It feels like a place we’ve all visited before, and sets the mood for reflection while mirroring the many people inside the home left behind by their loved ones.

The set may stay the same through both acts, but the stage management and crew deliver seamless costume changes throughout the play and deserve to be commended. Each day that Fonsia grows fonder of Weller, so do her adorable costumes.

The only complaint was that the audio was too loud at moments of the play, and it takes away from the importance of the lines. Tyson's voice is very soft and delicate compared to the booming voice of Darth Vader and Mufasa. Other than that one small detail, the play is phenomenal. The cast and crew give us an endearing journey into the lives of two beautiful characters who teach us that you are never too old to stop living your life. Now go visit your parents and grandparents, hug them, and thank them by taking them to see The Gin Game at the Golden Theatre!
Review By: Kira Redzneck
Photos By: Joan Marcus

Seminar @ The Golden Theatre

Fame.  Seduction.  Sex.  Love.  Temptation.  Words.   Stories rely on powerful words to captivate their audience’s attention.  Without a strong lead and emotionally moving events, a story can fail to win over the heart of its reader.  Seminar, the new dark comedy from playwright Theresa Rebeck, tries to unveil the truths behind writing the perfect piece of fiction.  With strong acting, a modern and compelling design, and raunchy rumor, this new piece is smart, sexy, and highly entertaining; however, several hours after the audience leaves the theatre and begins to reflect on the meaning of the piece, it might be hard for them to find an answer.  This issue is a small problem for a piece that centers on writing the perfect story - developed characters, strong plot, and a message that reaches out and attacks its audience.  Seminar, while funny and grand in the moment, fails to live up to the potential of the perfect story.

In the heart of New York City, a group of five people meet each week.  Some are rich, while others have recently lost their apartment.  Some have family connections, and other sleep their way to the top.  One is the master, and four are young writers desperately trying to impress the master - by any means necessary.  Kate, a young woman who has put love aside to write one great story, lends her apartment out for a fiction writing master class led by the prestigious Leonard.  Douglas with family connections, Izzy with a sex appeal, and Martin with a complex join Kate to make up the class.  Before long, it becomes clear that Leonard hits below the belt and does not give two shits whether you like what he has to say or not.  Writing is not easy.  It requires you to pour your whole body and soul into pieces of paper.  As four ambitious writes start this journey in fiction writing, they soon learn that Leonard is about to give them a seminar in the importance of words, love, and life.

An ensemble of five pushes this piece to the brink delivering performances that are passionate despite the wordiness of the piece.  Alan Rickman (known around the world for his portrayal of Professor Snape in the Harry Potter film saga) takes top billing for his portrayal as Leonard, the balls to the wall seminar leader. Rickman is considered one of the best actors of this generation; while this performance will not go down as one of his top five, he still shines in a role that others would not even begin to know how to create.  Leonard is written extremely fierce, unloving, and almost inhuman; however, Rickman finds this characters heart and little by little allows it to shine through to the characters surrounding him, especially Martin the timid played by Hamish Linklater of The New Adventures of Old Christine fame.  Linklater is the true shining star in the piece.  While the others came off as characterizations at times, Linklater always kept Martin based in reality - always feeling human and vulnerable.  His strong compassion for his work drives each and every move he makes, relationship he starts, and page he types.  While the character might come across as crazy, jealous, and insecure, Martin is the silent but deadly type brought into full reality by shining star Linklater.  Lending out your space only to be crushed by person after person is no easy task for Kate, played by Lily Rabe (Tony Award nominated for The Merchant of Venice).  Rabe plays the “’every girl” - the one that people can easily see themselves in.  Love just never comes knocking; family ties leave false impressions; and, work just never appears to be good enough.  Rabe takes this part and runs with it, pulling on the hearts of the audience; however, with no fault to her own, the character takes a strange nose dive in an awkward direction leaving the audience to feel lost and confused as to who Kate really is as a writer and person.  Rabe battles again this strange plot point to develop a character that shows the daily life of most Americans.  Tagging on for the master class of their lifetime is Douglas the arrogant, Jerry O’Connell (films Jerry Maguire and Scream 2), and sexy Izzy, Hettienne Park (Public’s production of Tiny Kushner’s The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide…).  O’Connell is full of energy and life upon the stage, bringing his character boyish charm mixed with sophisticated arrogance.  Park, however, lands a little flat (excluding when she flashes the entire audience only ten minutes into the piece) in her performance.  Taking the laid back approach to Izzy, Park consistently stays at one level.  While this level is strong and captivating, her character never travels anywhere to have the journey that the others do.  Seminar relies on a cast that can gel well together; this ensemble works extremely well with one another to take a piece that could easily land face down in the dirt and make it a master class in ensemble work.

Theresa Rebeck (The Understudy and Omnium Gatherum) brings the underground scene of fiction writing into the world of theatre, creating a dark comedy that is funny, but ultimately goes against what the piece is about - writing the perfect story, or play.  With extremely wordy dialogue and underdeveloped characters, Seminar coast through as a fun show to watch, but not one to stop and reflect on.  This fun 90 minute piece is driven by director Sam Gold (Drama Desk nominated for Circle Mirror Transformation at Playwright Horizons).  While Rebeck delivers a fast moving script, Gold at some points went against that allowing for longer sifts in scene leaving the audience edgy and a bit bored.  The movement of the actors was crisp, but never really allowed for charter choices to be made.  Pretty picture were created by Gold, but there never felt like there was strong motivation behind the movements.  Creating the atmosphere around and on the actors is scenic and costume designer David Zinn (costume design for the current Other Desert Cities).  Creating the world of upper-class New York, Zinn does a nice job of bringing together modern style and color to create a space that most people in the audience wish they had to call their own.  Lighting this world is designer Ben Stanton (Off-Broadway’s recent production of Angels In America - Parts 1 and 2), who used bright light mixed with cooling blues to give the feel of New York City nightlife.  This lighting, however, quickly sifted to extremely dark and ominous when the action shifts to Leonard’s apartment for the final scene.  While the intent of the design is creatively thought out, the stage is simply to dark for such a crucial final moment in the play.  Bringing the design together is an original score written by John Gromada (the current Man and Boy).  With sharp notes that blend jazz and pop, the score fits the style of the piece perfectly; however, it is over showed by the long shifts in scenes that damper the production.

Seminar works hard to deliver a piece of theatre that will make you think; however, it simply makes you laugh.  While this is not a bad quality, the show needs some more care and attention before it will impact the lives of the audience each night.  If you think Alan Rickman is super cool, you want to see a bright young actor form in Hamish Linklater, or you simply want to enjoy a laugh at the theatre, then Seminar will definitely entertain, it might not move to become the next best fiction writer.