Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.
Elizabeth Birkelund’s The Runaway Wife is an unusual little tome about the joys of individualism and independence as much as it is about the things we sometimes think we must sacrifice to maintain the status quo. The titular wife is not the main character, but it is her disappearance into the Swiss Alps that catalyzes the plot and moves the narrator onto his own voyage of self-discovery.
There are a lot of frightful and scandalous politicians in the news right now, and there is one in The Runaway Wife as well—in fact, he’s the reason for all this running away. We learn about him through the eyes of his wife, Calliope, and their three thematically named daughters—Clio, Thalia and Helene. These modern muses are a lovely bunch, but they’ve lived unusual and difficult lives as well as having grown up in privilege. Now they’re using what tools they have at hand, beauty and flirtation, to make an appeal for one last shot at a rescue attempt.
To combat her regular ennui, Calliope disappears into the mountains to rediscover her true self. Her dutiful daughter always find her in the same place, except this time. After two weeks of searching, they must return home. So what do they do? Enlist the assistance of a big, strong, and thoroughly inexperienced holiday hiker named Jim who, reeling from the simultaneous losses of love and livelihood, has made his own escape into the mountains.
The whole scenario of sending a stranger after their mother, over one night’s conversation and with early snows threatening, feels quite contrived. All of the background information and Jim’s decision to undertake the endeavor happens within the first two short chapters, and with so much happening so quickly it didn’t reel in as much as test the limits of the suspension of disbelief. The search is the proverbial needle in a haystack, not to mention what should be an exercise in futility. However, much like Jim’s perception of the world and its workings, the whole thing takes a dramatic turn when we finally meet Calliope.
Warrior, Earth mother, eccentric, vivacious—all words to describe what Calliope is and what she seems to represent when we finally meet her. And, like Jim, the world of the book becomes much more fascinating and enchanting with her in it. There are certainly moments in which it might be easy to suspect things are about to descend into romance novel territory, but Birkelund keeps everything on the up and up, the conversations between the two almost-strangers are intimate and caring, but also accepting. They’re the kinds of conversations many people just don’t experience, with parties forced to look clearly at themselves but without judgment.
With oncoming storms on one hand and Calliope’s husband’s powerful wrath on the other, it’s a wonder Jim can get her to do anything. As they reveal more about their experiences and get to know one another, the tug-of-war-of-wills continues on. He is earnest and concerned for her safety, but there are all different kinds of danger and what he begins to realize is that sometimes the physical kind isn’t the worst.
All of this works to make it that much difficult to see what’s happening to Calliope, the tough choices she has to make, that Jim has to make, knowing the consequences but also knowing there’s no other way. What started as a slow trudge into the Alps turned into a story I would have liked to see go on. Birkelund’s characters are enjoyable, and the few we spend the most time with are worthy of note for their complexity. Knowing they have made unorthodox decisions and have highly uncertain futures ahead of them makes it all the more frustrating that they live in only 246 pages. For now we will just have to let them be in their world of imagination.
The Runaway Wife, by Elizabeth Birkelund, published by Harper, is out now.
It stands for “Big Friendly Giant,” and though he’s older than history can tell, this is the only name he has. The redundant nomenclature is care of an insomniac orphan who sees something she isn’t meant to see and that changes her life — and the world. On the surface The BFG is a simple yarn for children. However it also presents opportunities for audiences of all ages to look at their positions in the world and decide whether or not things are as they should be. That this very British movie should come out at a time when Britain is facing some real, potentially history-changing turmoil is clearly a coincidence, but a serendipitous one.
Based on Roald Dahl’s book of the same name, The BFG the movie follows the tale of a little girl named Sophie, played by 12-year-old newcomer Ruby Barnhill. Sophie’s parents died when she was even younger, leaving her in the care of a negligent caretaker, Mrs. Clonkers. Very little time is spent addressing the nature of Clonker’s shortcomings, though we see Sophie locking up the house at night, making sure the clocks are on time, and telling off the loud drunkards who stumble out of the nearby pub at 3 a.m. It is during such an exchange that she notices an overturned trash bin, and then the giant hand that sets it right.
Though she doesn‘t know it yet, the hand belongs to the only non-cannibalistic giant in the world. Still, she’s seen too much, so that hand comes through the open dormitory doors and snatches Sophie from her bed — blanket, book and all — and whisks her away. Sophie is carried hundreds of miles from London, but after a bumpy start and a couple of failed escape attempts, the little girl and the big, gentle, elderly looking chap develop an understanding and friendship that bridges the gap between their sizes.
Her new friend collects good dreams from “dream country” that he delivers to sleeping children. It’s a lifestyle we soon see is endangered by the nine other inhabitants of “giant country,” a dreadful, quarrelsome group of child-eaters who are much bigger and much stronger than the BFG. (This group’s leader is Fleshlumpeater, played with great baritone menace by Jemaine Clement.) They just want to find the children and chow down. What the BFG eats instead will bring a knowing smile to those well versed in the Dahl lexicon.
Sophie witnesses the bullying the BFG endures, the lack of privacy and respect for his work, the utter disregard the other giants show for him and declares that something must be done. There is a lot to be said about bullying in this scene. There’s the question of how you handle it when you’re so much smaller and so very outnumbered. There’s the idea that no matter what you should try to stand up for yourself, or at least protect yourself. There’s the notion that the good guy will always be outnumbered and outmuscled, and the insistence that even then one can triumph over adversity with a little cleverness and cunning.
What follows is a child’s take on international cooperation, the triumph of good against evil, punishment of the chronically wicked, and the delightful effects of fizzy drinks.
The first half of the film is quite slow and, despite several attempts to grab the viewer with perspective tricks, lacks the energy one would expect in a Steven Spielberg movie. The trudging pacing is offset somewhat by the gorgeous, luscious scenery and attention to detail with respect to the titular character. The BFG, played by Oscar winner and Shakespearean actor extraordinaire Mark Rylance, bears many of Rylance’s features. From his sloping eyebrows to his sort of tight-lipped half-mumble, character artists have created an expressive and mostly realistic-looking figure. In close-up you can see pores in his skin, micro-wrinkles, wild hairs growing out of seemingly unexpected places for what is, for all intents and purposes, a high-level cartoon.
Where the filmmakers have succeeded in creating a distinct look and feel, that slow half made me question how members of the young target audience would sit through it. Kids won’t necessarily be captivated by the technological expertise. They want a good, entertaining story. And this is one; it just takes some time to get there.
A series of thoroughly silly scenes set in Buckingham palace kick things up to a really enjoyable pace. Laden with flatulence humor and sight gags, these scenes will no doubt tickle younger viewers’ funny bones and keep them giggling. These same scenes also make some interesting statements about acceptance, inclusion, trust and open-mindedness — something that perhaps we don’t see enough of these days. Penelope Wilton and Rafe Spall make a charming comedic duo as queen and footman, and no doubt kids will find the royal corgis utterly hilarious.
As with so many of Dahl’s stories, the ending is a mixed bag of dark and light, and it doesn’t deny the truth or strength of a child’s feelings and loyalty. It’s a mostly happy end, just tinged with sadness, but that may be more evident to the parents than their children. All in all, it’s a fine translation of a beloved classic and a beautiful look into a world of pure imagination.
In a back room of a small Chinatown gallery, a cadre of charismatic performers use the 90 minutes at their command to create a kinetic spectacle full of humor, music and feeling. The FlexCo production of The Flying Doctor, herein subtitled “Over and Over and Over,” is a raucous and, in the end, surprisingly melancholy take on Moliere’s 1645 Commedia dell’Arteplay Le Médecin Volant.
The play begins as many of its time do, with a love-struck gentleman, a would-be bride just out of reach, and an absurd scheme to win her. In this case, the gentleman suiter, Valere (Patrick Brady), entreats his foolish manservant Sganarelle (Josh Wolonick) to play the part of a wise doctor philosopher to trick Gorgibus (Anya Gibian) into sending his “ill” daughter Lucile (Robyn Adele Anderson) away to recooperate instead of marrying the old man Villebrequin (Michael Doliner). Lucile’s cousin Sabine (Kat Blackwood) is the mastermind behind the plot, though a dubious Lawyer (Jessica Greenwald) and Gorgibus’s servant Gross Rene (Sara Jecko) sense there may be something amiss.
The energy that this cast brings to the show is fantastic, though special mention goes to Wolonick who reminded me of nothing less than Robin Williams at his most manic. Pitching himself around the room, leaping and breaking out strange voices, Wolonick was whirling like a dervish, his high energy bordering on rabid frothing at the mouth. It was easy to feel concerned for his wellbeing in the small, warm room, watching his hair grow ever damper from the amount of sweat pouring from him. The bigness of his performance, however, felt like appropriate homage to the absurdity of the source material, even at its most over-the-top. Big performances were what Moliere’s audiences came for, and in that it doesn’t disappoint.
Blackwood and Brady also gave performances of note. They are both gifted singers, and it was a pleasure to sit in such close proximity as they belted out song after song. Anderson, whose work would be familiar to fans of Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox, was absent the night we visited, but understudy Ashley Gunsteens covered the part dutifully and with a certain deco-age charm.
As is often the case with such stories, the ingénue love interest is rather less interesting a character than the other women present. As a love object she is supposed to be pretty and vulnerable, which she is, and not too bold or clever, which she isn’t. Because of the nature of the role, the character has the potential to fall flat. This company, however, takes advantage of that built-in weakness and uses it to turn the entire play on its head.
Once the show has moved through all the scenes and several pop and rock interludes to its inevitably illogical but tidy ending, the whole thing reboots. The actors take their starting places and begin again. This second time through, however, chaos begins to take over. Like the proverbial butterfly’s wings, a small modification in performance here and a differently delivered line there sets off ripples that grow bigger and more significant as the piece goes on. By the end of the second interpretation and the beginning of the third, the whole thing is falling into chaos that only some of the characters even notice.
The actors are, for the most part, double- and triple-threats. They sing and play instruments while delivering lines directly to the onlookers arrayed around the periphery. If those deliveries seem a bit casual or amateurish at times, the musical and vocal talent is undeniable. With an electric guitar, cello, violin, keyboard, and percussion represented, the room fills with joyful noise time and again.
Props must be given also to costume designer Ellyn Pyne for the Lawyer’s fabulous scroll coat and Sabine’s multilayered confection of a costume. Scenic designers Christopher and Justin Swader played nicely on the repetition theme by aligning mirrors so that characters standing between them were replicated ad infinitum from the viewer’s perspective.
Initial thoughts on the play included words like zany and madcap — and referential, as the versed pop culture buff will pick up on lines quoted from sources like When Harry Met Sally and Les Miserables — but the piece is reflective and has visceral qualities as well. The intensity of the eye contact, the way Sganarelle has of getting right into your personal space, the whisper of Sabine’s skirts stirring the air as she passes, all lend the experience an intimacy that lingers in the mind. Happily, the champagne helps.
The Flying Doctor by Moliere (Over and Over and Over) Playing at Central Booking 21 Ludlow Street, NY Through June 30, 2016
Based on Etgar Keret’s 2012 book of the same name, Suddenly, A Knock on the Door is a fast-paced work comprising several stories glued together by an unlikely standoff between a flustered writer in his home and the armed invaders who, like his little son, just want him to tell them a story.
The book features a very stripped-down way of storytelling that relies on surrealism, symbolism and the magical to hold up the emotion. For the most part, the play follows suit. There are a few props and only a few pieces of costume, so for the most part it is up to the actors to deliver on a promised feeling. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they do not.
What works on the page does not always work in the stage. In this case, and the six actors playing a variety of characters are required to pantomime their surroundings, and one must even play the part of a goldfish. Two guitarists sit stage right playing accompanying music, playing the roles of the apartment doors, and playing the peanut gallery. It’s a fun attempt to work around the set’s special limitations, and the occasional commentary was entertaining.
There are really eight stories told over the course of 90 minutes. The hostage-taking story has within it three stories by the author — assumed to be Keret — and three stories by the gunmen and knife-wielding pizza delivery girl. Each of these is different in tone, and each in their own way moving. There are some that linger in mind, like one with the goldfish and another about a woman who is brought by police to identify the body of a man she technically married, but who ran away from the alter, eight years prior. Others I recall for the awkward presentation. The story of a divorcee speaking with his young son about his mother-in-law’s abuses would have hit with much greater impact if the actor playing the son hadn’t been as much a caricature as a character.
Despite the awkward way in which the stories are presented, the work as a whole moves surprisingly quickly and with good humor. Much of that humor is rooted in the various Israel-isms scattered throughout the play, words or characters that may make sense only if you’re familiar with the place and the language. The question is how those moments translate to a New York audience.
In the end, the show succeeded in that it made me want to pick up Keret’s books and start reading so I could imagine the scenes for myself. And if that’s the worst that can be said, it’s good enough.
Photos by Peter Welch
Suddenly, A Knock on the Door Through June 19, 2016 Theater for the New City 155 First Avenue
The name of Alan Ayckbourn’s 1974 play is Confusions, but the title doesn’t quite describe the ethos of the scenes that unfold. The vignettes that comprise the show — five in all — deal with the pains of intimacy, sexuality and the illumination of the human condition. In scene after scene, trust breaks down, denial falls to the wayside, and characters make discoveries about themselves and those around them that will forever change their lives. But, you know, with laughs.
Each of the first four plays is connected with the others. The missing husband in the first makes a drunken nuisance of himself in the second. The waiter who brings the drinks also bears witness to dissolution of two dysfunctional marriages. One of those angry wives later finds herself a part of a rapidly disintegrating community fundraiser where chaos reigns while a soaking rain begins to fall. Lastly, five solitary souls on separate park benches rebuff each other’s attempts at connection, none of them realizing they all crave the same thing.
The plays are each striking in how they can convey, beneath the comedy of manners, the inner workings of some very sad, very lonely people. Some, like the isolated mother of three treating her neighbors the best way she knows how, like children in need of a firm hand, stoically carry on. Others are swept away in a tide of thoughts and feelings beyond their control, like the womanizer secretly, desperately wishing to escape thoughts of his failure of a marriage, or the village spinster whose loneliness leads from one mistake to a bevy of unexpected consequences.
Elizabeth Boag
On one hand, there’s plenty of old-fashioned casual misogyny at work. Women are expected to be in the kitchen or in the bedroom. If they’re on their own, it’s because they can’t catch a man. Young, vibrant women have affairs with crusty old men — the kind of men who wear socks with sandals, who pinch ladies’ bottoms in passing, blowhards and big fish in small bowls — a situation that, in reverse, would be seen as thoroughly inappropriate. There is nothing to recommend these men to the women they’ve somehow captured, and yet there they are.
On second thought, however, what we see is a series of women who, despite their circumstances and their uncaring or philandering husbands, find truth and confidence in who they are and what they want. Or do not want, as the case may be. The lonely mother is harried and has no option but to continue being a mother, but that doesn’t mean she can’t take control when she needs to. And she certainly doesn’t need her husband to keep her house in order. The young perfume seller remains polite to the increasingly inebriated would-be suitor, but that doesn’t mean she’ll let herself be talked into doing anything she doesn’t want to.
It could be easy to take one side of the argument or the other, and perhaps this is why Confusions is one of Ayckbourn’s most studied works. There’s more than enough evidence to proclaim it a work stuck in the past, but also enough to declare it a subtly feminist piece that offers women who make the best of what they can, pulling themselves up and getting down to business instead of despairing over what was, what is, and what could have been.
Elizabeth Boag, Stephen Billington, and Russell Dixon
The play is full of humor and amusing situations, but the most outright hilarious vignette, “Between Mouthfuls,” is a fantastic study in perspective. Moving between two sets of diners, a waiter slowly witnesses the unraveling of a shared secret all the while trying to do his job in increasingly awkward circumstances. It’s brilliantly staged and uses silence to tremendous effect. The punctuation that brings the scene to its close is a bit much, but overall Ayckbourn is extremely smart in taking advantage of the main character’s near silence and his constant movement around the room to create a high farce that will keep the giggles rolling.
The play’s conclusion, while lacking the fancy footwork and fast-talking of some of the earlier pieces, is a thoughtful rumination on how we interact. Once again, perspective is everything. It’s easy to remain silent when you think there’s no one who cares about what you have to say. However, a nudge in the right direction may show that we’re more alike than it seems on the surface. Everyone needs to communicate and everyone wants to feel heard. In the end it’s all about connection, even when we get lost in confusion.
Photos by Tony Bartholomew
Top photo: Richard Stacey
Confusions Written and directed by Alan Ayckbourn Playing at 59E59 Theaters Through July 3, 2016
Patrick Modiano has built, in Villa Triste, a short, sharp, engrossing story about two of the bitterest emotions: lost love and the nostalgia it brings. Using an impressionist’s skill with images, he paints luscious tableaux of a time in his narrator’s younger days, where light, color and shadow create a feeling as important as the figures they touch. His narrator’s memory has grown blurry with the passage of time and forgiving in nostalgia’s rose-colored lens.
On the surface Villa Triste appears to be a bright, shiny, appealing story about youthful romance told as a remembrance of things long past. A curious young man—something of an odd, neurotic fantasist—has been sent by his family to spend the summer holed up among pensioners and pot-scrubbers in a hotel situated in a popular lakeside resort town. He alludes to mental health issues as the reason, though Modiano hints that it could also be the threat of having to enlist in an unfolding war in Algeria that has brought him within sight of peaceable, neutral Switzerland.
The town’s proximity to Switzerland is of great importance to the narrator, who sees it as a place of escape, though we are never quite sure what he thinks he will need to escape. Perhaps his own lies, like when he tells his new love and all the chic people he meets that he’s a count thrust out of his home, without a nation and alone.
The indolent youth spends his time doing little but observing the hotel’s other oddities until one day he happens to meet a beautiful would-be starlet, Yvonne, and her mysterious friend Dr. Meinthe. Suddenly he is pulled in among them, basking in the glow of their fame, their fortune, and the orgiastic revelry of the rich and unencumbered. That’s how it feels, at least.
What begins as a random encounter quickly becomes a relationship. What follows is a whirlwind of elegant parties and drink-fueled escapades around the lakeside, days and nights of wine and roses and the constant stroking of impressionable egos. There is passion in abundance, but behind it lurk the lies on which both his and Yvonne’s lives in town are based, which neither party is willing to admit.
The shadows are always darkest where the sun is brightest. Though the story is bright, the tale takes its name from Meinthe’s mostly empty, dilapidated family home. It is here that the half-forgotten or mostly ignored darker side begins to be revealed. That house and its forgotten state is the first inkling of what is to come, a dilapidation that spreads through the town as time wears away all of the gilding. Think of Fitzerald’s East Egg after forty years have passed and all the glamour has dried up, replaced with some cheap imitation—or not even replaced at all. The hotels and casinos have shuttered, and not simply for the winter.
When the narrator of Villa Triste recalls the past, his summer of love on the banks of a lake nestled between France and Switzerland, it is through thirteen years worth of self-delusion. He returns to the town, a mere shadow of what it once was, only to find his one-time friend Meinthe, also a shadow of his former self. So what are we to think of our narrator? That he has escaped time’s brutal onslaught? That he is just as he was, only with a decade of learning and development bolstering him? Or is he, like Meinthe, doomed to return to where he spent the greatest days of his life, wishing to recapture something beautiful and lost?
“…faith steps in when all facts fail…love leaping unafraid into the empty spaces between us and the unknown—“
The titular metropolis of James Phillips’ City Stories: Tales of Love and Magic in London, now playing as part of 59E59’s regular Brits Off-Broadway series, is a minor but important character in a collection of deceptively simple narratives. Her narrow old streets and tireless river wind their way through the accounts of events both massive in scale and momentous in their profound intimacy. It is the loom on which Phillips has spun some lovely, captivating yarns.
Phoebe Sparrow, Matthew Flynn in Pearl
Each short tale begins in a small moment, the carrying out of one’s daily routine or a single act of noticing, and unfolds to become expansive—in emotion if not in scale. There is simplicity and elegance in their telling, mysteriousness bordering on confessional delivery that reels one in seductively, enchantingly, like a lover. And if there is one core notion on which City Stories balances, it’s love. Love that, for better or for worse, when harnessed in all its potential, can open eyes and change lives.
Rosabella Gregory
There are six tales in all, four presented at each performance. (See the 59E59 website for a schedule.) The night I attended the selection was Occupy, Lullaby, Narcissi and Pearl. Singer/songwriter Rosabella Gregory took her place at the baby grand piano in the corner and played before, after, and during each of the Stories. Her voice is high and clear—reminiscent of Kate Bush without all those reverberating production effects. It’s a sharp and highly evocative voice that can soothe or sting, and it does both over the course of the two-hour production.
Daphne Alexander, Tom Gordon in Lullaby
The setting is something different for 59E59. The theater has been transformed into a cabaret-style lounge, with tiny cocktail tables, each topped with a single soft candle. The set is simplicity itself, consisting of two tall bar stools—and even those sometimes seem extraneous. The actors take their places, the words begin to flow, and suddenly it isn’t just a small, dark space but a river of memories as expansive as imagination if you allow yourself to be swept away.
Louisa Clein in The Great Secret
There are seven actors carrying the weight of six pieces. Though the sheer volume of words could have made it feel like heavy lifting for some, the performances never felt anything but graceful. Considering the caliber of actors, that isn’t a surprise. What was a nice surprise was how much the show depends on women. Of the four stories, only one, Occupy, came completely from a man’s perspective, and even then a woman was the driving force behind the action, her actions becoming the reason for the narrator’s personal development.
The other wonderful thing is how sure and unapologetic these women are. Even when they suggest a wrong decision had been made, that they could have taken another path when given a choice, that they could have lived to make others—and maybe even themselves—happier or more comfortable, they stand by their choices.
Daphne Alexander, Sarah Quintrell in Lullaby
With no fourth wall to speak of, each performance felt as much a conversation as a performance, with rhetorical questions, jokes and the occasional sly wink sent directly to the audience. They look you in the eye and feel unashamed. That sustained eye contact made it easy to let go and slip into the world behind the words to see it through the characters’ eyes. And being full of magic and tranquil gardens and soaring architecture and secret notebooks, a wonderful world it is.
Photos by James Phillips
Top photo: L-R: Tom Gordon, Rosabella Gregory, Sarah Quintrell in Narcissi.
In Francesca Pazniokas’ KEEP, older sisters Kara (Jenna D’Angelo) and Jane (Madison Comerzon) decide once and for all to intervene on behalf of their youngest sister, Naomi (Kim Krane). She’s got a major hoarding problem, and they know that while part of the challenge will be picking through and cleaning out a nightmare of an apartment, the bigger challenge will be getting Naomi to accept their help and cooperate.
Kara and Jane know they could find some distressing things in there, and they do, but there’s more to uncover than the rotting remains of a pet cat. There’s a secret buried among all the piles of accumulated history, and an answer to the family’s most painful question: What happened to Margo?
Margo (Leslie Marseglia) never left Naomi’s side when they were kids, but no one has seen or heard from her in so long that they’ve just about given up hope of ever knowing the truth. As it turns out, Naomi has just been keeping piles of discarded junk to herself.
D’Angelo and Comerzon work nicely together as mismatched siblings, Kara full of anger and resentment as much as love and worry for Naomi, Jane highly ordered and always attempting to keep the peace and diffuse tension. In particular, Comerzon has a good sense of subtle comedic timing, bringing a number of much-appreciated moments of humor to the otherwise dark and tense play.
The reactivity between the two works really well, each sister dealing with the stress of the situation in a way that feels real and natural. Kara gets frustrated and wants to charge through and just get rid of everything without dillydallying about Naomi’s feelings. Jane wants to be supportive and kind, even though she knows there’s a problem. She’s delicate with Naomi, ignoring some of the bigger issues as much as she tries to ignore what she may be stepping on (or in) at any given moment.
Krane, for her part, makes Naomi feel bratty and combative, but also gives her the passion of someone who feels that she must hold the weight of history—her family’s as well as what she sees as the world’s—on her tiny shoulders. She sees her lifestyle as a sacrifice more than an illness that can be treated, and she will fight for every broken piece of furniture or stained rug in the place. She’s frustrating, but in a way that also elicits pity.
Pity because she seems so misguided. Things do not innately contain history—only what history we assign to them. Relationships, likewise, are only as strong and secure as we let them be. As pieces of the greater puzzle about Margo are revealed, the less and less sympathetic Naomi becomes as a character.
Director Stephanie Cunningham has made some surprising choices, especially when it comes to how to present Margo. After an initial shock, a complex character is revealed through something akin to a series of flashbacks, a missing sister’s surprising fate emerging out of the darkness as a sister’s jealousy is brought to light. It may make you wonder what comes next for these siblings, but that must be a story for another time—a story I would be curious to see.
Photos by Russell Rowland
KEEP Playing at TBG Theatre 312 W. 36th Street Through April 30, 2016
The energy that this cast brings to the show is fantastic, though special mention goes to Wolonick who reminded me of nothing less than Robin Williams at his most manic. Pitching himself around the room, leaping and breaking out strange voices, Wolonick was whirling like a dervish, his high energy bordering on rabid frothing at the mouth. It was easy to feel concerned for his wellbeing in the small, warm room, watching his hair grow ever damper from the amount of sweat pouring from him. The bigness of his performance, however, felt like appropriate homage to the absurdity of the source material, even at its most over-the-top. Big performances were what Moliere’s audiences came for, and in that it doesn’t disappoint.
As is often the case with such stories, the ingénue love interest is rather less interesting a character than the other women present. As a love object she is supposed to be pretty and vulnerable, which she is, and not too bold or clever, which she isn’t. Because of the nature of the role, the character has the potential to fall flat. This company, however, takes advantage of that built-in weakness and uses it to turn the entire play on its head.
The actors are, for the most part, double- and triple-threats. They sing and play instruments while delivering lines directly to the onlookers arrayed around the periphery. If those deliveries seem a bit casual or amateurish at times, the musical and vocal talent is undeniable. With an electric guitar, cello, violin, keyboard, and percussion represented, the room fills with joyful noise time and again.
There are really eight stories told over the course of 90 minutes. The hostage-taking story has within it three stories by the author — assumed to be Keret — and three stories by the gunmen and knife-wielding pizza delivery girl. Each of these is different in tone, and each in their own way moving. There are some that linger in mind, like one with the goldfish and another about a woman who is brought by police to identify the body of a man she technically married, but who ran away from the alter, eight years prior. Others I recall for the awkward presentation. The story of a divorcee speaking with his young son about his mother-in-law’s abuses would have hit with much greater impact if the actor playing the son hadn’t been as much a caricature as a character.
Krane, for her part, makes Naomi feel bratty and combative, but also gives her the passion of someone who feels that she must hold the weight of history—her family’s as well as what she sees as the world’s—on her tiny shoulders. She sees her lifestyle as a sacrifice more than an illness that can be treated, and she will fight for every broken piece of furniture or stained rug in the place. She’s frustrating, but in a way that also elicits pity.