Much as I would like to report that I loved Ariane Mnouchkine's 3 1/2 hour "A Room in India" at the Park Avenue Armory, I cannot. I am a great champion of her work with Theatre du Soleil having been blown away by the Oresteia (Agamemnon, Choephori, and The Eumenides) at her space outside of Paris, the Cartoucherie, in the early 90's and extremely moved by "Le Derniere Caravanserail" (about the immigrant crisis in Europe) at the Lincoln Center White Light Festival several years ago. But I found "A Room in India" to be shrieky and self-indulgent. Presumably it is autobiographical. Although titled, "A Room in India" the room could have been anywhere. It's really about the room in the mind of the creator and her central question "Of what worth is the theatre I am creating?" although once again she addresses the immigrant crisis. While normally I have had no problem, even enjoyed, the length Mnouchkine's productions, in this case I would have preferred some trimming, especially of the Indian dance sequences. There are enough ideas ping-ponging around during the play for several plays and it feels like everything get short shrift here. On a side note, the Indian pre-performance dinner was wonderful.
"Farmhouse/Whorehouse" at BAM Fisher is a one-woman show with Lily Taylor. This "Artist Lecture," as it is called in the program, is by Suzanne Bocanegra and directed by Lee Sunday Evens takes us to the author's grandparent's farm in Texas which was across the road from the infamous "chicken farm" on which "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" was based. The story is interesting and well constructed although I could have done without the playwright feeding lines to Lily Taylor over a monitor throughout the play. Taylor is a charming stage performer, something I did not expect having never been overly impressed by her film work.
"20th Century Blues" at The Pershing Square Signature Center by Susan Miller is essentially chick-lit for women in the over-60 bracket. If you fit that category then you will find the two hours pleasant enough. Four women who met at a protest in the 70's have continued to meet every year to catch up and have their picture taken by the central character, a photographer. Each character is a type that we know well and the play addresses all the issues we expect: marriage, divorce, career, children. A niggling complaint was with a discussion of plastic surgery, as will happen when women of certain age and class get together. Polly Draper in the central role claims to eschew it although her face lifts and other work are clearly evident. This is an example of middling play wasting the talents of a great director, in this case Emily Mann. The performance to note is that of Kathryn Grody, a veteran New York actor and Mandy Patinkin's wife.
Bedlam, as always, strikes home with their production of "Peter Pan" at The Duke theatre. I wouldn't put it at the top of my list of Bedlam productions (the honors go to "Hamlet," "Sense and Sensibility," "Twelfth Night," and "What You Will" in that order) but the company is always inventive and pushing the boundaries with cross-dressing actors and sometimes overtly sexual insinuations. This is not a "Peter Pan" for the young set. Directed by company founder Eric Tucker who also plays
Father among a slew of other characters, the ensemble cast includes Bedlam regulars Edmund Lewis, Kelley Curran and Susannah Millonzi as well as newcomers to the company Zuzanna Szadkowski and Brad Heberlee(as Peter Pan).
Who am I to write a review of the Broadway production of "SpongeBob SquarePants," based on a popular cartoon I have maybe seen two episodes of? I don't know what got into me (Perhaps because the book by Kyle Jarrow was directed by the experimental director Tina Landau and the songs by Steven Tyler, Cyndi Lauper and David Bowie were straight out of the 80's rock pantheon. Was this enough?) but I coerced my 21-year-old son into attending with me with an offer of Black Tap and off we went. Ethan Slater is indeed a find for Broadway as the title character and the sets are Rube Goldberg fun. I did get a little head-achey as the play went on but the Ziegfeld-inspired number performed in Act II by Gavin Lee as Squidward, "I'm Not a Loser," conjures up the great Tommy Tune. Go for that.
An overhyped "Today Is My Birthday" at Home. Written by Susan Soon He Stanton and directed by the reliable Kip Fagan there is really not much to recommend here. The main character Emily, who, by the way, does not have have a birthday during the course of the play, is portrayed by another downtown stalwart Jennifer Ikeda. I found no fault with the performances and was especially taken by Nadine Malouf who plays a distraught mom but the devise of having the characters only interact on the phone felt tired and there was nothing unique or special in this story of a young woman coming home after a failed relationship and career.
Playwrights Horizons finally delivers with "Mankind." Perhaps not to everyone's taste, this futuristic tale of a society where there are no women is cleverly conceived and entertaining. The premise is that men can get pregnant and are subject to the same societal dictates that women are now so, when one of the main characters get pregnant and wants to have an abortion, he and his partner are sent to prison. However, when he gives birth to the first girl since the extinction of women he becomes a god to the new wave of male "feminists." The play which was written and directed by the queer black playwright Robert O'Hara is broad but original and moving and addresses the question "Has man EVER been kind?".
