Hard Love @ The Beckett Theatre @ Theater Row

Written by Israeli playwright Motti Lerner, Hard Love, is an eye opening peek into the lives of a culture many of us have not had the chance to understand. Director Scott Alan Evans and The Actors Company Theatre(TACT) respectfully took the audience of the Beckett Theatre on an emotional journey filled with relentless passion and controversy.

The play begins 20 years after the divorce of childhood sweethearts, Hannah and Zvi. Reuniting becomes necessary when they discover that their children, from each of their second marriages, have fallen in love.The romantic connection of their two children however, is promptly overshadowed by a lot of unfinished business between Hannah and Zvi.

Right from the beginning, the play took the form of one giant, resounding argument. Many of the scenes felt awkward and rushed. In the beginning of the play there was a lack of chemistry on stage. However, Victoria Mack’s portrayal of Hannah brought the scenes back to a nice flow throughout the play. The passion thankfully amplified between Hannah and Zvi as they became more comfortable with one another, they allowed Lerner's writing style to shine. Lerner flawlessly adds a new detail in each piece of dialogue, adding a new twist to intensify the connection between the  two characters. Throughout the constant loud moments, there were a lot of beautiful quiet moments delicately delivered between both Victoria Mack and Ian Kahn. Their abilities really shown in the less violent moments of the play. It gave time for the audience to to get a much needed breath, and let the affinity Hannah and Zvi have for one another be the focus.

The scenic design by John McDermott was perfect. One act took place in Hannah’s simple, neat, and humble apartment in the Me’a She’arim district. The only thing that really decorated the room was a bowl of brightly lit apples, which we later learn connect to Zvi. The other act takes place in a drastically different apartment in the heart of Tel Aviv. The apartment is full of clutter and mess, clearly depicting the mind of a confused writer. People say

that you can learn a lot about a person by looking at how they keep their nest. McDermott seamlessly delivered that in his portrayal of Hannah and Zvi’s homes.

           

            Hard Love is a unique story and worth the trek to the intimate Beckett Theatre at Theatre Row. The show runs approximately 90 minutes with a ten minute intermission. Hard Love closes Halloween Night so be sure to get your tickets soon.

Review By: Kira Redzneck
Photos By: Clack Kim

Perfect Arrangement @ The Duke on 42nd Street

 Perfection is the only word that can describe Primary Stages’ Perfect Arrangement.  Somehow, a show set in the 1950s is fun, contemporary and completely relevant to today.  Topher Payne’s script engages, makes you laugh, and also cry, as you follow the lives of Bob and Norma and their seemingly perfect marriages.

Robert Eli (Bob) and Julia Coffey (Norma) play two U.S. State Department officials during the Red Scare, who are tasked with removing anyone from their ranks who is considered a “threat” to the U.S. government, ie: anyone practicing lewd behavior, sluts and homosexuals.  The catch? Bob and Norma are both gay who are living next door to one another in sham marriages.  During times when guests visit, it appears that Bob and his wife, Mikaela Feely-Lehmann (Millie), and Norma and her husband, Christopher J. Hanke (Jim), have ideal marriages, when in reality the couples are Millie and Norma and Jim and Bob who cross back and forth between the two houses seamlessly through a secret door hidden in their closet.  This provides a lot of room for hilarity as they constantly have to think quickly when someone asks about their supposed spouses’ whereabouts. 

The watershed moment comes when we meet the sexually adventurous, U.S. State Department translator, Barbara Grant, (Kelly McAndrew), and learn she is someone from Millie's past who knows about her all too well.  We see the families blackmailed; the worry of Bob and Norma’s boss, Mr. Sunderson (Kevin O’Rouke), who’s main argument for starting this crusade now coming to a sharp reality.  The lines get drawn once again as we see the dynamic between the societal advantages of men and women during the 50s come into focus.  The two couples come up with separate plans to stifle this blackmailer which only leads to more trouble and eventual destruction of everything they worked so hard to achieve.  

This show keeps you laughing until suddenly, you’re crying.  You start to scream silently in your head as their “perfect arrangement” becomes unraveled and the only thing you can do is stand by and watch.  The entire cast does a wonderful job of pulling you in and making themselves a part of your lives.  You leave, forever changed, viewing the world today just a bit differently than you did before.  

The Duke on 42^nd Street is an intimate black-box theater that has been transformed by Neil Patel into a beautiful stereotypical 1950’s home that reminds you just a bit too well of the room in your grandmother’s house where you couldn’t touch anything.  The hair and wig design by J. Jared Janas and costumes, by Jennifer Caprio, add the touch of authenticity this play calls for.  Kudos to the entire company and crew for a show that is nothing short of excellence.  Perfect Arrangement runs for a limited engagement through November 6^th so get your tickets today before it’s too late. 

Review By: Renee Demaio

Photo By: James Leynse

Barbecue @ The Public Theater

Barbecue. A welcome intervention.

Barbecue, written and hilariously introduced by Robert O’Hara was an utterly unique and thought provoking look into stereotypes, similarities and racial identities. Receiving its debut at the Public Theater, Barbecue was a real treat.

Jason Lyons and Clint Ramos brought terrific lighting and a masterfully colored stage to life, bringing the audience into a picnic/barbecue setting in a lusciously green forest. Paul Tazewell hit every cultural note with his costume design and Director Kent Gash, Artistic Director Oskar Eustis and Executive Director Patrick Willingham found a way to emulate O’Hara’s conveyance of the striking similarities between inner city black and trailer park white trash families with a severe plot twist in the middle.

Allow me to explain without giving away too much. Barbecue is a play about a family, the O’Mallerys, that is trying to stage an intervention for their “crack head ho” sister, Barbara or as they prefer to call her: Zippity Boom and just how far that story goes.

Barbara (Tamberla Perry and Samantha Soule) is the tail-end of any memory regarding a jail cell, running from the police, working a corner—she has gotten to a level in her life where her family, particularly her sister Lillie Ann, cannot handle. The caveat: both a black family and white family are performing the exact same story but with their own cultural twang, complete with “The Nae-Nae” graciously performed by the white family.  

Both Tamberla Perry and Samantha Soule took a character with generally un-relatable characteristics and made her relatable to almost any family at large. I found that I put Barbara right in with the “crazies” in my family quite easily and the rest of the O’Mallery family were no exception.

Opening the play was James T. (Marc Damon Johnson and Paul Niebanck), the sole brother of the family and not without his own problems. “Addicted” to weed and alcohol, James T. is upset about trying to convince Zippity Boom to do anything as she is volatile and dangerous. Johnson and Niebanck both allow James T. to culminate into the ever-concerned but wary of showing it brother.

Beginning the setup of the barbecue was Lillie Ann (Becky Ann Baker and Kim Wayans). Lillie Ann is the sister that has chosen to overcompensate for her family’s drug and alcohol addicted madness. Both Baker and Wayans brought to life a character that will stop at nothing to get her family back on track and the twist at the second act is worth a watch!

Her other two sisters, Adlean (Constance Shulman and Benja Kay Thomas) and Marie (Arden Myrin and Heather Alicia Simms) both added to the ruse-filled barbecue. Adlean, wrought with cancer and addicted to pain pills becomes the brother or sister that has fallen into our overwrought medical system. Both Shulman and Thomas were hilarious to watch bring so many stereotypes to life.

Marie was the sister that judges others but somehow finds herself under the radar of being judged. Also “recreationally addicted” to crack and quite the alcoholic, Marie tries to escape her own intervention by participating in Barbara’s. Yet again, Myrin and Simms made Marie that weird aunt that believes that canned corn causes cancer and that the Middle East is responsible for all of our problems.

Steppenwolf Theater Company did not miss a beat in commissioning Barbecue’s world premier. Not every family has these levels of issues and obstacles but this stereotypical and analytical look into the lives of two culturally dichotomous families in a side-by-side way is a look into the American Family and its values. If for nothing else, see the play for an evening of laughter and a real look at what the line between cultures is.

Review By: Alexandra Lipari

Photos By: Joan Marcus

Fool for Love @ The Samuel J. Friedman Theatre

Most Broadway shows run about two and a half hours. This time lets people escape from their lives into a well plotted story. But then there are shows that don’t just let you escape-they pull you into a crazy world and shove you back out again in half that time and leave you blinking. With 75 minutes of beautifully orchestrated tension, Fool for Love does just that.

Fool for Love, written by Sam Shepard is a simple concept – two people in a hotel room talking to each other. But that simple concept becomes so much more when those two people are Eddie (Sam Rockwell) and May (Nina Arianda) locked in a mess of emotional, sexual, and romantic texture that simmers under every word. Watching the scene unfold is The Old Man (Gordon Joseph Weiss), who has a secret connection to Eddie and May and is removed from the action (mostly) by time and space, and Martin (Tom Pelphrey) who just wants to take May on a date and has no idea what mess he is walking into.

Both Nina Arianda and Sam Rockwell are forces to be reckoned with. They weave in and out of the frenzy of emotions onstage with amazing specificity and total control. Their interpretations of the characters are very complementary to each other. Rockwell has Eddie live mostly in stillness and slow movements, but with a violent streak that bursts out like dynamite in a flurry of movement. Nina’s May is the complete opposite – May is almost constantly a whirlwind of movement and emotion, which makes her moments of stopping unbelievably powerful. It almost goes without saying that the chemistry between these two characters and actors is off the charts – if there wasn’t, there would be no play.

Gordon Joseph Weiss is almost all stillness in his role as a narrator and storyteller of the past. It would be easy to just sit back and watch, but Weiss is always raptly paying attention to the story unfolding with great focus. Tom Pelphrey injects a delightful mix of awkward, funny tension to the stew onstage, with his slightly dorky confusion at just what is up with these two other people.

Fool for Love’s pot of tension and drama is wonderfully guided and controlled by the direction of Daniel Aukin. The play is supposed to be relentless – and it is – but Aukin still is able to find moments of pause that let the audience breathe for just a second, before diving right back in. The scenic design by Dane Laffrey, lighting by Justin Townsend and sound by Ryan Rummery all work seamlessly together to create a tense, almost claustrophobic environment. Costume design by Anita Yavich is simple and yet speaks volumes about every character.

Fool for Love is a fast paced, high tension roller coaster of emotions that is immensely captivating. Do not miss this amazing production produced by the Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre at 261 W. 47th Street.

Review By: Chrissy Cody
Photos By: Joan Marcus

Cloud Nine @ The Linda Gross Theater @ Atlantic Theater Company

At its core, theater lifts one out of their own life and allows them to be immersed in a new world.  It inspires questions, dialogue and discussion relating to how it this piece of work relates to one’s own life and experiences.  Unfortunately, for  Atlantic Theater Company’s revival of Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine, the questions that we were left with had nothing to do with our lives, but instead, were about the subject matter, the direction, the casting and the writing itself.

Staged in the round, Cloud Nine tells the story of sexuality; coming to terms with it, acting out on it and what “roles” we must play in relationship to the time period.  Set in two different time periods, the play’s first act takes place in colonial Africa.  We subsequently meet the family, one by one, and realize that most actors are playing the opposite sex.  The story continues, very soap opera-esque, in which most of the characters are love someone that time period believes they “shouldn’t”.  From the neighbor, to the husband’s best friend, to the little boy (yes, statutory rape), the characters go through an exploration of their sexual desires finally arriving at their sense of honor, duty and what society deems is “right”.  Most is presented with a comedic tone, with the action happening so fast you forget to stop and think about what you are watching.  In other points, the play drags on and has such verbal diarrhea you have to stop and think about what you are watching, essentially missing the next point, since you are too busy figuring out the last.  

According to the script, the second act brings the play forward in time 25 years for the characters, however it is set almost 100 years later in physical time.  We see the characters have grown up and now the children are going through their own sexual exploration; what is means to be gay and sexual freedom in the 1970s.  While the same set of actors play the characters in the second act, they are now played by different people, which causes some confusion. The writing has the first set of characters visiting the characters of this time period near the end of the second act in an ethereal echo to the past.  This proves for some nice moments in which we see the connection to the past and how the present characters have become the person they are because of that connection.  

While there were some nice chances for the character’s connections to the past to be solidified through the casting, director James Macdonald missed the mark with most of them.  We were often left wondering “who is this person and what is their purpose?”  However, the stand out performance goes to Brooke Bloom.  As Edward, we see her as the young boy struggling with what it means to be a man in colonial times, his sexuality and his place in the world.  As Betty, we see her after she has left her husband, struggling what it means to be a woman without a man.  We watch her go from dutiful wife in the first act to the present character who is free to make her own money, do as she chooses and masturbate as many times as she would like without feeling guilt.  The echoes from the past really knock it out of the park with this character as she is visited by her mother, who gives her guilt and the final moment visited by her younger self in which nothing is said, but with just a look, you understood it all.  

Cloud Nine is currently playing through Nov. 1^st at the Atlantic Theater Company, Linda Gross Theater.  The stadium seating built to support the show in the round, although cushioned, can get quite uncomfortable for this lengthy play.  The seating is also a bit short, so anyone over 5’4” is cautioned to buy an aisle seat. Note that there is no late seating or re-entry.  It is also suggested to wear a light layer as the 100+ lighting package really heats up the intimate space.

Review By: Renee Demaio

Photos By: Doug Hamilton