OK!

"Oklahoma" directed by Daniel Fish at St. Ann's Warehouse is a mixed bag.  To begin with, the Rebecca Naomi Jones who plays Laurie is such a downer that none of it makes sense.  No Shirley Jones she. We have to fall in love with Laurie for the play to click.   On the other hand, I am absolutely in love with the actor who plays Curly, Damon Daunno, who was also rock-star magnetic in Hadestown at NYTW (but totally wasted in the dreadful "The Lucky Ones" at Ars Nova).  And Mary Testa brings much needed energy as Aunt Eller. The rest of the performances are pretty stock including the wheelchair bound Ali Stroker as Ado Annie.  Then there is the excruciating dream sequence, a ballet in the original production and movie but here a  modern dance number choreographed by John Heginbotham  that features lots of prancing and writhing around on the floor. No.  My heart went out to the lovely young dancer Gabrielle Hamilton.  I've also left out attributing the production to  Rodgers and Hammerstein because the current staging couldn't be further from their musical.  I did love the old-timey band of barn dance musicians on stage but much of the singing can only be described as caterwauling, a waste of some excellent vocal talent.  And the blood-splashed ending was more grotesque than I'm sure the original creators had in mind. The production dragged on in spots, specifically the darker moments with Jud Fry. We don't need to be literally kept in the dark for a long stretch, a few minutes would have done the trick. Or maybe the whole play should have been done in the dark?

A very slight play that I don't really recommend unless one is exploring ones queer identity is "Plot Points In Our Sexual Development" by Miranda Rose Hall at the LTC3.  The director Margot Bordelon made a lot of busy work for the two very fine actors, Jax Jackson and Marianne Rendon, for what is essentially a series of monologues about their growing and developing awareness of their sexuality and how it effects their relationship.

Daniel Alexander Jones as Jomama Jones in his "Black Light" at Greenwich House is pure cabaret. Jomama Jones along with her band and back-up singers entertain with a show that is pure camp.  It does addresse racism in the patter between songs  but I preferred Jone's full length autobiographical play "The Book of Daniel" which dealt with the same issues and felt more complete as a play.  But bravo!

I'm not an opera connoisseur but the staging of the 1981 Philip Glass opera "Satyagraha" BAM about Gandhi was nonsensical.  The opera is about Gandhi's years in South Africa, from 1893 to 1914 where he formed his guiding philosophy of "truth force" ( Satyagraha ) and fought for the civil rights of Indians.  This Swedish import incorporates the marvelous Cirkus Cirkor into the Folkoperan opera.  The circus acts are presumably meant to be an echo of the relationship between risk and payoff in Gandhi's life and the emphasis of the Bhagavad Gita on delicate balance but are ultimately distracting and ... no... not great. So much walking on balls and business with blocks of wood and a big pile of yarn. The libretto, adapted by Constance DeJong from the Bhagavad Gita, a classic of Hindu scripture and a foundational guide for Gandhi's activism, and, sung by Leif Aruhn-Solen(Gandhi), Karolina Blixt among others, was gorgeous.  There were many moments when I preferred to close my eyes to the business on stage and just listen.

And, finally, Theresa Rebeck's "Bernhardt/Hamlet" is an old-fashioned play with old-fashioned performances and it's just fine. It's kind of like sinking into a comfortable and well-worn armchair for 2 1/2 hours.  I'm not at all surprised that the director Moritz von Stuelpnagel is an old hand at directing Noel Coward.  Except for too much fluttering of the arms in Act I, Janet McTeer, an unlikely choice to play the sensual 5'3" Divine Sarah, delivers with a nuanced portrait of the aging actress attempting to revive her career by mounting a production of "Hamlet" with herself in the title role.  Much talk is given to her difficulties with Shakespeare's verse and hilarity ensues.  Dylan Baker as the hammy veteran actor Constant Coquelin is pitch perfect but the performance that really stands out is that of Jason Butler Harner as the playwright Edmond Rostand who was possible Bernhardt's lover.  He's the kind of actor who becomes the role almost as if by osmosis.  In looking at the program I see that he has been in numerous plays I have seen and loved over the years and I can't for the life of me remember having seen him before. Bravo!  My kind of actor.