René Grayre
  • Home
  • Theatre Reviews
  • Galleries
    • Philippe Staib Gallery
    • The Space at 8 Greene
    • Rostaing/Steinitz/Grayre Gallery
    • Chautauqua Institution
    • Robert Steele Gallery
  • Gallery Press
  • From Me 2 U
    • FM2U Exhibition
  • The Steamroller Project:
  • Contact

Angry Young Man

3/24/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture

Funny, Extremely relevant, Inventive & clever, Great ensemble, Great direction & staging, Sharply funny, Fast paced Edgy

See it if

You can open up to just listening to a story rather than the idea of being presented with a "play." Terrific cast, perfect timing, very fun


Don't see it if

You absolutely need a proscenium, clearly delineated  plot, characters and costumes — or If you've forgotten what running once felt like, or that a broomstick at one time might have been a sword, or spear or a means of flight.



We're told at the top that "the actors will now tell you a story;" this they do, with gusto, abandon, wit, seamless ensemble work & timing. An example of the purest joyful & theatrical invention which is the stuff of imagination most of us leave in childhood.

A totally fresh &remarkable choice in presenting a tale of the modern Immigrant Experience, two identically dressed pairs of men&women present & act out a young surgeon's arrival & initial misadventures in contemporary London. As the story unfolds, each actor rapidly assumes & switches from narrator to supporting characters, even objects & pets


There's a lot of play here, rather than "a play;" this is the stuff of Picasso's leaps of association where handlebars become bovine horns and cardboard cutouts guitars—all in service of moving the story towards a universal truth.


Go, by all means—& listen for the geese who, like immigrants in the cultures they find themselves in, fight, squawk yet in the end integrate well into the whole.

0 Comments

C.S. Lewis On Stage: The Most Reluctant Convert

3/23/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture


Well acted, Well written, Uninvolving, Flat



See it if
You're a Lewis fan, or are up for a good looking, well written & acted if ultimately uninspiring evening of religious inquiry & philosophy.

Don't see it if
You'd rather experience an actual play or drama rather than a lecture, however intelligent, well-reasoned and smoothly performed.

 
Max McLean clearly knows his CS Lewis, and delivers a solid and convincing — if highly theatrical — iteration of the late author, relating in detail the logic and reasoning of his religious conversion to Christianity. 

Erudite and intelligent as this Lewis is, however, he lacks any convincing passion or spark that might inspire or persuade us of this life changing event — the leap from atheism to faith and through to devout belief. Much is said, but little is shown: a weakness in the script, the dramaturgy and thus his argument. What should be a climactic moment is simply one more reminiscence by an interesting, if not particularly pleasant or engaging character out of P.G. Wodehouse.

The attractive set of Lewis's study is underused and never quite convincing. In spite of the detail and thought put into it, it never quite looks like much more than a set or a model room at Ikea.

In the end, McClean's retelling of this road to Damascus could learn focus and brevity from Saint Paul's

0 Comments

The Other Plays: Short Plays About Diversity and Otherness

3/21/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture

Intelligent, Relevant, Thought-provoking, Well done but uneven, Ambitious

See it if 
A disparate group of short plays, at times little more than extended scenes, fits your attention span. LaBute piece & Barnes solo stand out


Don't see it if
Quick dramatic sketches & ideas aren't enough. Though some have more potential, most are smart well presented scenes celebrating diversity.


A funny, quick-paced and clever evening of extremely short plays that explore the challenges presented by diversity and otherness in many of its forms, The Other Plays proves that in the end, actors are actors. Despite whatever physical disadvantages or challenges may exist, onstage the only disability that counts is a lack of acting ability.

But no problem here; though the range of experience onstage makes comparisons unfair and unevenness certain, there’s much joy here, much wit, and much to consider.

0 Comments

The Light Years

3/20/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture


Flat, Dull, Tedious, Disappointing, Ambitious
   

See it if
You have patience for a leaden show that has none of the awe, wonder & spectacle it tries to conjure & tie to hope, dreams, failure & time.

Don't see it if
You're wanting resolutions, least of all happy ones, in any of its three parallel narrative arcs of ambition, aspiration, hope and failure.


​Browning's line about "reach exceeding grasp" applies not only to the central characters here, but as well to the collaborative team that devised its script. 

The many interesting, myriad & serendipitous facts they’ve uncovered about time, stars, the world's fairs of the 19th & 20th Centuries, the aspirations & light that connect them all might, in other hands, have resulted in a theatrical moment that astonishes, the stuff of Stoppard or Sondheim, but here fall flat: collaborators too taken with the results of their research; what feels like a concept in search of a plot.

There aren't nearly enough sparkly lights to coax wonder out of this story of aspiring failure — though even inexpensive xmas lights over audience & house would have helped considerably. Delight's an ephemeral thing, but a nudge towards childhood can often whisk us back pretty quickly.

The cast does what it can with the material, while set & light design could have done with fewer props & more soaring imagination

0 Comments

The Penitent

3/11/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture


Banal, Flat, Predictable, Low key
 
See it if 
You'd appreciate a stretched out writing exercise or a mostly advanced scene study class with third year directing/second year staging.

Don't see it if
You're expecting a fully realized play, sensible plot and dramatic structure or want to see vintage Mamet.

Short, with a creaky, sieve-like plot whose anemic machinations are obvious a mile away, The Penitent has all the earmarks of a graduate acting class: effective if basic lighting, ambient sound & minimal, actor-supplied props & scene changes.

Because it's a Mamet show, however, the most fascinating thing here, by far, is Rebecca Pidgeon—the actual Mrs Mamet—here confronted by Chris Bauer as an obvious Mamet stand-in, complete with Mamet glasses & beard.

Her voice has an interesting lilt, but her delivery is so incredibly stilted, so either very deliberate or inept, that it seems to speak volumes about her relationship with Mamet, at the same time serving to reveal and deconstruct the rhythm & form of the dialogue, its structure & technique; like being shown how a card trick is done.

Contrast that with Bauer and Laurence Gilliard Jr.’s smoothly-timed and seamless repartée in the best scene of the evening, or Bauer and Jordan Lage's conversational scenes, the difference is stark.

0 Comments

THE LAST DAYS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT

3/10/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture

Refreshing, Thought-provoking, Great staging & acting, Clever, Ambitious
  
See it if 
You know the Judas tale well & can deal with a 3 hour meditation on the consequences of love, choice & despair. Solid Act I, unfocused Act II.

Don't see it if
​
You neither care or know of Judas & Christ, or want clear resolutions to either the plot or arguments raised in this ingeniously framed drama.

Adly Guirgis has obviously done his biblical & historical homework, and as well knows his way around the afterlife. Set in an overworked Purgatorial courtroom, The Last Days takes up the case of Judas Iscariot: was his betrayal of Christ choice, chance, foreordained, or the inevitable result of a dehumanizing despair?

As Defense attorney & Prosecutor, DiDonna & Grimaldi are terrific, each methodically building their cases, calling witnesses across history, from Reynold's energetic & down St. Monica, Gantt's imposing Pontius Pilate & Molina's scarily charming Satan.

The writing is serious, funny, deft & moves surprisingly quickly, Estelle Parson's direction both tight & spare. With the cast very free, game & giving, Act I flies by. After its gospel/rap opening, however, Act II stalls, veers off into DiDonna's upsetting relationship with Satan and ends with an out-of-place, out-of-narrative, way-long perhaps improvised monologue that never resolves the play, its action or narrative. Lots of good here but needs work

0 Comments

Ring Twice for Miranda

3/9/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture

Predictable, Great singing, Indulgent, Clichéd, Quirky

See it if
You’re up for an affable, good looking mostly well acted but thin script that crosses Pinter and Beckett with an alt/indie song tossed in.

Don't see it if
”Should I stay or should I go” situations leave you anxious or bored, or if you prefer your possible apocalyptic futures clearly resolved.

Good lighting & sound design, a minimal set & and an attractive, engaging lead actress aren’t enough to compensate for a pretty lean situational melodrama that never really develops past the scene study stage, deliberately coy and contrary.

The long table, old-fashioned wall of servant’s bells & dramatic lighting at rise, combined with the four-poster-looking set place us “below stairs,” and visually, what feels like “below bed.” Add in the formally dressed maid & butler, & the immediate thought is British manor house — an idea snapped away as soon as the actors start speaking American: we are displaced.

Indecision & despair run rampant below stairs & in the outside world, all very much Beckett, while upstairs with Sir, the tension, talk and mental games are pure Pinter. It's an interesting contrast, but Husk's script never reaches any narrative or philosophical bite. Katie Kleiger breathes life into Miranda; but her climactic song inaudible, we're left hanging.

0 Comments

Linda

3/5/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture


Disappointing, Relevant, Engaging, Great set, Great acting

See it if 
A dynamite lead & good performances are enough to make up for an unevenly directed & thematically overwritten script that reverses itself.


Don't see it if
 
You want to see female empowerment & self-determination rewarded, or a pertinent, important subject resolved in any meaningful way.


As a production, Linda looks as good, sharp, attractive & dynamic as its leading lady, the terrific Janie Dee. The modern contemporary set on its revolving stage is used well, smoothly changing locations & time; costumes are attractive, doing double thematic duty; lighting & sound are great.

Ms Skinner's script, however, despite its snappy, quick paced dialogue fails rather spectacularly and strangely; its second act renounces its first in a burst of melodrama, & goes out of its way at the end to rebuff its own main premise — twice. A tight Act I that speaks directly to & for a very wide range of women's rights & issues, tells us at the end that nothing has changed. A strange position coming from a woman in 2017.

Ms. Dee goes all out for it but can't overcome the character's sudden & immediate breakdown — a false, jolting note in the character & in the narrative line. Jennifer Ikeda fares better as the troubled daughter, acting out the invisibility mentioned in the opening speech, making the skunk suit she wears that makes it possible convincing.

0 Comments

    Author

    RGrayre
    ​   eviews

    Archives

    June 2021
    March 2020
    February 2019
    July 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

© René Grayre All rights reserved