"About Alice"at TFNA is Calvin Trillin's gift to his late wife Alice Trillin. As directed by Leonard Foglia, the sturdy Broadway director of weepies such as "On Golden Pond" and "The Gin Game," Jeffrey Bean and Carrie Paff embody Calvin and Alice Trillin decently but they are hardly as dynamic as the real people they portray. I suggest you read Trillin's book of the same name instead.
"Minor Character" at the Under the Radar Festival at The Public Theatre is yet another telling (there have been several recently) of Chekov's "Uncle Vanya," this time incorporating three different translations simultaneously. A shout out is due to the dramaturg Elliot B. Quick for his skillful work melding together the three translations. Presented by New Saloon and directed by Morgan Green, the production is equal parts Richard Forman, Elevator Repair Service, and Bedlam: wacky and experimental but still true to Chekhov's original. The cast is uniformly excellent and up to the task but I must single out New Saloon member Madeline Wise who can currently be seen on the HBO comedy series "Crashing."
Also at The Public is "Sea Wall/A Life" which consists of two monologues given by Jake Gyllenhal and Tom Sturridge. Although I'm fond of the work of both actors who do an excellent job here, both monologues, by Simon Stephens ("Heisenberg") and Nick Payne ("Constellations") respectively, are slight and don't delivere the desired punch I imagine the playwrights intended. The subject of both is loss of a child. I have seen this addressed to perfection three times in modern literature, in Ian McEwan's "A Child in Time," in Richard Ford's "The Sportswriter," and in the little know "The Disappearance: A Primer of Loss" by Genevieve Jurgensen. Either play, directed by Carrie Cracknell whose recent heralded production of "A Doll's House" at The Royal Court was airlifted to BAM, might have been served better on their own in fleshed out full-length versions. But certainly go for the nuanced and deeply felt performances.
"Hurricane Diane" at NYTW is a hoot and a holler and pretty insubstantial overall but great fun to watch. This new take on a Dionysus story, written by Madeline George and directed by the always reliable Leigh Silverman, is set in Monmouth County, New Jersey with a cast that includes the transgender actor Becca Blackwell as Diane (read Dionysus). The four suburban housewives whose lives will be disrupted by Diane during the course of the play are types: Kate Wetherhead as the mousy one, Michelle Beck as the black, career driven one, Danielle Skrassstad as the Guido Jersey Shore type and Mia Barron (recently of "The Wolves" at Playwright's Realm and as Joan Didion in "The White Album" at BAM) as Carol the uptight take-no prisoners focus of the play. Diane, a landscape gardener, sets out to seduce each of the women and create chaos in their front lawns as well as their lives. Mission is predictably accomplished and the audience is greatly entertained.
My favorite theatre-going experience so far this year has been the premier of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's 40 minute "Verklarte Nacht" at the Barishnikov Arts Center. Dance, not theatre, but theatrical nonetheless. For me De Keersmaeker embodies what is best in dance at the present time now that Pina Bausch has passed on to that great dance studio in the sky. Think of her as Bausch with very little sense of humor. Her work jolts, eviscerates and constantly surprises. Her dancers are gorgeous to watch, beautifully trained, precise in their movements,and elegantly use the stage. I especially liked Bostjan Antoncic, a Slovenian dancer who joined De Keersmaeker's company Rosas in 2005. At first he comes off as being two big and brawny to be a dancer but slowly seduces us with the magic of his body and the fluidity of his movements. This is not to take away from the other dancers, Cynthia Loemij who has been with Rosas since 1991 and Igor Shyshko, a Rosas member since 2000. What I liked best about De Keersmaeker's choreography in this piece were the moments when the dancers almost touch, moments that are electric. I left the piece in a dreamlike state and have not been able to stop thinking about it. Come back soon Anne Teresa!
