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

How to be An American

9/17/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture

Great acting, Thought-provoking, Relevant, Intelligent, Clever

​​See it if
The 2016 election has importance. An entertaining, intelligent, slyly relevant, well executed & performed reveal of our present thru our New York City past.
Don't see it if You don't like politics, history, electioneering (past or present) or well-executed and performed political campaign songs from the 1900's.

Slight of hand time travel sets up an easing into the gentlest bit of participatory theatre which makes the audience a fifth, very present, active and at times eager character. And in some ways, the most important.

There, in 1905, as immigrants herded into a Tammany Hall wigwam, a shiny American Dream success promised in exchange for a vote for, and participation in, a system of unsuspected corruption and greed; here in 2016, to be educated and reminded that not much has changed in the years since in our politics except, perhaps, the art of the deal.

The actors, still on book for this short run, are excellent, inhabiting their roles with deceptive ease & charming credibility — and great musicality, breathing life into the period songs with great vocal arrangements and harmonies.

The direction was both tight & fluid, a delicate, successful balance encouraging an apt spontaneity. Lastly a quiet authority in the script, based on actual campaign speeches, subtly draws all into the present.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    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