Dark Matters was an MTC production that recently transferred to the Rattlestick Theatre for a limited engagement. It’s a new play by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa starring Reed Birney, Justin Chatwin, Michael Cullen, and Elizabeth Marvel. It’s a family drama about a woman who disappears, only to return to her husband and son to claim to have been abducted by aliens. While she’s been away, her family finds evidence (years of journaling) of her previous encounters with aliens. Has she really been abducted? Or is something else going on? Is the woman who returned actually an alien herself (a “shapeshifter”)? Is the police officer investigating the case really on their side? Will their son be abducted too as she claims he will?

The show poses all these questions and many more. Most are left unanswered. This might leave audiences feeling unfulfilled, but I liked the ambiguity of the piece. It explores a situation and shows characters in heightened emotional times, without giving you too many specifics. It is solidly directed by Trip Cullman. The use of creepy mood music (composed by Michael Friedman) adds to the darkness of the piece.

The performances are mostly great. Elizabeth Marvel is perfect as Bridget, a complex woman who comes off as rational and insane, dangerous and loving, all at the same time. Excellent scene work with her husband Michael (Birney), the flawed everyman character. The weak link of the cast, unfortunately is that of their young son Jeremy (Chatwin). Much more suited to film acting, he didn’t seem nearly as connected to his role as the rest of the more seasoned cast. Perhaps with time he’ll surprise us.

Side note - it was freezing at the Rattlestick. Be sure to dress warmly for any wintertime viewings here!

This show frequently pops up on Audience Extras. Hence, cheap tickets for me. Also, Stacey Yokoyama, with whom I sometimes work at Bergdorfs, plays the onstage magician’s assistant. She had told me a few things about the show at work, and thought it might be interesting to see.

Esoterica is the brain child of Eric Walton, who also stars in what is essentially a one-man magic show. He uses traditional bits of trickery and is heavy on the card tricks. Some we’ve seen before, some are a bit more avant-guard. The best thing about the show is how dependent it is on audience participation. Almost every trick requires someone from the audience to come onto the stage and help out. Both myself and my date for the evening were invited to come onstage and be wowed. It’s one thing to view magic from your seat - it’s quite another to have it happening right in front of you, to be involved in it, and to still not understand it’s secrets!

Overall the show is a lot of fun. Eric’s on stage persona is that of a hyper-intellectual magician who gleefully uses massive words in his overly presentational style of performance. It’s a nice contrast to what are essentially very simplistic (read; not intellectual) card tricks! He also plays a bit with the supernatural element, and his final trick of the evening, which is actually a math trick, is beyond impressive.

Something incredibly surprising must be addressed at this time. Approximately 1/3 of the audience, for some reason, didn’t seem to understand where they were, or how to behave. As it was a 10pm weekend show, naturally some audience members arrived drunk. That’s understandable. But the sheer disrespect that they showed to Eric was unlike anything I’d ever seen. From the first second of the show, before Eric had even spoken yet, there was heckling and jeering from the audience. Clearly having had to deal with these kinds of people before, Eric was really hardcore about asking people to be quiet and respectful during the show. Even so, he had to do it several times. Most aggravating, however, were the 2 young girls sitting directly behind us. They were more appropriately dressed to be performing in a Jersey strip club, not to attend the theatre. Clearly they were B&T Trash, were wasted, and ready to cause problems. From the first moment they sat down they were threatening violence on the usher. Throughout the show, they were popping their chewing gum so loudly it was like mini-gun blasts behind me every 10 seconds. And constantly, they were talking, laughing, mocking the performer, and essentially ruining the show for everyone around them. What really, really bothers me the most is the fact that they were with their family - which was doing nothing to curb this behavior, as they were also trashy people. I just don’t understand how people like this end up at the theatre? They weren’t enjoying or understanding it, and were ruining it for those of us who were. Extremely confusing.

My excellently connected friend, Daniel Felsenfeld, will be writing a review of this show for The New Yorker, therefore he snagged some press seats for this show. A childrens opera (an oxymoron?) by composer Engelbert Humperdink (not the lounge singer…I know…there are two!) this follows the story of the traditional Brothers’ Grimm fairy tale.

I’m amazed that the hundreds of small children in the audience were able to sit still through a 2.5 hour opera, because I was certainly having trouble. Yes, the music is sweeping and lovely and grandiose but nothing earth-shatteringly unique. The production definitely looks good. But it lacks drive and spark and drags at times. And why do they always have to throw in a god damn childrens’ chorus? I mean, come on.

The singers are all great, particularly Hansel and Gretel themselves, who sing roughly 75% of the show. And the concept of the show is a nice change - the title characters live in a Lower East Side tenement, and the evil Witch is an Upper East Side society lady, dripping with diamonds. Other than that, it’s the same story we know and love.

Honestly though, they shove the old lady into an oven and cook her, then do a dance about it and cheer and get all happy, not seeming to care at all that they’ve just murdered someone. That’s messed up. One could argue that she’s not human at all, but really - the ramifications of killing a human are totally ignored here - a common thread in most fairy tales I suppose.

I have to complain about the State Theatre, yet again - I sat in the first row of the first circle - officially, the best seats in the house - and yet I felt I was miles away from the stage. Seeing any show in this theatre leaves you feeling totally detached from the action. A horrible space to stage any opera, let alone a cute, kids opera with an intimate feel.

It’s nice to spend the afternoon at the opera in the best seats in the house. But material a bit meatier would be welcome for next time.

The Evil Dead movies, known mostly to horror film afficianados (and not many others), aren’t an obvious choice for a recreation into a stage musical. But wow, it works.

I had some of the best fun I’ve had at the theatre in a very, very long time. The music is catchy, the jokes are good, the cast is fantastic, and so what if the plot is a little thin? It mostly follows the plot of first two films, with a bit of the 3rd thrown in there as well.

Ryan Ward does a great job as Ash without doing a Bruce Campbell impersonation, but throwing just enough of him in there to make the purists happy. Jenna Coker as Cheryl might be the most insanely energetic girl on the planet. Everyone else is great too.

Originally showcased at The Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal in 2004, this show really has the potential to become a cult classic in the vein of The Rocky Horror Show. Any show where the first three rows have to wear ponchos and is referred to as “the splatter zone,” is bound to collect some rabid fans. This really is a show for anyone who loves horror, or who loves campy musicals. Other than that, I don’t think your average theatre goer is really going to get it. We went to the 11pm Friday night show and the audience was exclusively young people. As shows usually sustain themselves by a steady audience of senior citizens, I worry how long Evil Dead will be able to stay open. But I’m going to help them along by going back and bringing all my friends. It’s an experience not to be missed.

This show is a retelling of Kafka’s story about an unfortunate man who gets wrongfully accused of a crime, and convicted, without ever discovering just what it was he had been accused of. Typical Kafka; existential and dark. A friend of mine, Brenda Cooney, is in this show, explaining my choice to see it - I’m generally not so hot on Kafka being translated to the stage - the few I’ve seen just really haven’t worked at all. Black Moon Theatre Company, using a great blackbox space on the Lower East Side, staged this bit of drama. Unfortunately, they decided to use a Middle Eastern actor in the leading role, bringing to it all the elements of modern day terrorism and Muslim bashing. It is a mistake to place The Trial into a specific time and place - the whole point of it is that it could take place anywhere at any time! So a major conceptual design flaw.

Also - opening a theatrical piece with 8 minutes of video, which begins (first 5 seconds) with the tape of the plane going into the tower and then the towers collapsing, instantly made me hate the production and the director. I’ve been exposed to that visual time and time again and have no need to ever look at it again, and being forced to watch it yet again, angered me to no end. So they lost points within the first seconds of the show.

The video art concept was interesting - but didn’t add anything to the show. Furthermore, actors would be engaged in a scene, behind a scrim, and there were video projections of contorted, ghostly faces on the scrim in front of them. It was so distracting that you couldn’t even watch the actors! Perhaps if the scrim had been behind them, it might have worked a bit better. Leaving it out completely would have been preferable.

The stylistic concept of the show was visually appealing. Everyone was in white clown-face, and many actors (but not all - a directorial mistake) used a very stylized, grotesque movement style - creating a scary world of mutants, psychos, and freaks, in which the leading man is the only ‘normal’ one. This needed to be more clearly carved out.

Originally over 2 hours, the version I saw was 90 minutes with no intermission - and it still needed to be cut at that. Some scenes were painfully slow and unengaging, and then out of the blue there would be a fantastically interesting, well acted scene. Brenda as the wife, toward the beginning, created a fascinatingly bizarre character, and it’s the first moment in the show that’s really interesting, then the character disappears and we don’t see her again! Similarly, the artist scene toward the end, followed immediately by the scene with Block the merchant, are excellently acted and directed, and seem out of context with the rest of the show, which is mediocre at best.

This is a little show with a lot of really excellent performances, which is quite an accomplishment, considering it’s clearly spotty direction and conceptual problems.

Note to self and to others - do not, I repeat, do not try to get tickets to anything worth seeing on a weekend at the TKTS booth. I was truly amazed that there was not a single show that either my mother or I wanted to see. And don’t expect to win the Spelling Bee or Wicked ticket lotteries. Too much competition. So we went over to the Spamalot theatre and got some restricted view seats for 66 bucks. Additional note: they really, really mean restricted view. So much of that show, visually, is up high - in the last row of the mezz, you’re crouching down as low as you can in your seat so you can get a brief glimpse of what’s going on up there. I suppose that’s why the tickets are discounted.

Regardless it’s still a great, fun show, for mom’s and kids alike. The new cast is strong but it lacks the excitement of the original star-studded lineup. I was very excited to see Harry Groener, aka “The Mayor” from Buffy’s season 3! He’s great, but he’s no Tim Curry. Sorry Harry. There was an excellent moment where the main Knight who says NI got caught on a set piece, Groener ad libbed and set him free, then the actors on stage ad libbed for a while before getting back on track…this is why we go see live theatre; for unpredictable moments like that.

Lesson learned: plan ahead when family members come into town who want to see Broadway shows.

Timothy McCown Reynolds unofficial sequel to Moliere’s The Misanthrope, in it’s second full-scale production, is just as fun as it was the first time around. I wrote about it two years back in it’s first inception. This time around, some changes have been made. The mostly different cast and different space made a familiar work into a new experience.

The same elements of Restoration Comedy are still present, but this time they’re running parallel to an even deeper sense of darkness and horror, making the production feel more fully rounded out. And this time around the cast seems much more connected to the text. In addition, a great deal has been cut, making it shorter and sweeter, and therefore more enjoyable and accessible even to the casual observer.

The character of Arsinoe, played this time by Cathy McNelis, is a completely different realization of the character. In fact, it’s hard to believe that two such drastically different character developments could have been derived from the same text!

Bob Laine is back with a vengence as the foppish, vain Clitandre. This time around he seemed more pathetically funny, and you feel sorry for him while laughing at his word-play.

Randall Middleton as King Louis is deliciously slimy, yet somehow sweet. This time around, it made more sense as to why Celimene would love him and take his abuse so willingly - he’s so much more charming.

The character of Alacoque (the only new character) was very different as well. She was more sweet and unassuming at the start, so her transformation into the wolf was a much more clear change.

Timothy’s Alceste, John McConnell’s Philinte, and Bob’s Clitandre are the three actors reprising their roles from the original production, and they all fare well with the new cast. Interesting choice by Kelly Spitko to play Eliante with a more modern feel than the other characters - appropriate because she’s more of a commoner.

One problem.
When Alacoque enters the room in the last scene, she steps over Celimene’s dead body and doesn’t seem to notice it or care. Do werewolf/humans not care about these things? This really bugged me. Brendan Turk’s directing is mostly seemless (a bit stodgy and stiff, but clearly a choice in order to represent the fully presentational staging style of Moliere) but this bothered the heck out of me!

Other than that, it’s still a lot of fun. I never would have thought to combine campy horror with Moliere!