THEATER REVIEW

BY

BINA SHARIF

HARD TIMES

By

Charles Dickens'

The Pearl Theater Company

"Hard Times" A novel by Charles Dickens' about the industrialization and factory workers in a fictional Victorian city called Coketown which exposes the economic and social hardships of factory workers and other inhabitants of that city.

In a wonderful,clear and fluid adaptation by Stephen Jrffreys and a minimalist approach in staging by J.R. Sullivan the play which is three hours and fifteen minutes long moves along smoothly and powerfully keeping all of us awake and concentrated. I say this because in today's theater expectations this play is a long one and people are getting used to mere ninety minute

long plays. Its a great achievement on the part of Pearl's creative team to not only do the classics but to do them well.

The central character in Hard Times is Thomas Gradgrind (T.J.Edwards) headmaster of Coketown school.

He is determined to live by facts and teach his students nothing except facts. To create, to imagine, to dream. to have a fantasy is not part of the lessons delivered by Gradgrind.

This kind of dry and sterile training at a young age leaves his students to lead unhappy lives.

That Includes his own children Louisa (Rachel Botchan) and Tom (Sean McNall)

The other main character in the play is Josiah Bounderby (Bradford Cover) factory owner and

a banker of ferocious power and greed very much resembling the present time bankers with the whim of demolition of the human spirit.

The headmaster, Gradgrind's children end up having wasted lives. Louisa, the daughter ends up marrying the much older banker Bounderby and Tom, the son who works for Bounderby in his bank ends up being into heavy debts which the sister often take care of and into drinking.

There are other subplots such as factory workers and a circus in town which provides most of the humor in the play. Stephen Blackpool (T.J.Edwards) a weaver in the factory owned by Bounderby, an honest man with a pure heart ends up in a heartbreaking tragedy.

Six actors in this Superb production play more than twenty characters and the director keeps the pacing fast and sharp.

My favorite actors (though all actors did a great job as an ensemble) were Bradford Cover as

Bounderby, Harthouse and a stern law clerk and T.J.Edwards as Gradgrind and Blackpool.

Bradford Cover got every tick, every gesture, every move of the character right and he had the toughness and the elegance of a Baron whom one wants to hate but is also mesmerized by.

T.J. Edwards was clear, coherent, a strict father determined to follow his beliefs as a good father and a good teacher no matter how harmful those good actions of his turned out to be.

Both these actors gave elegant performances.

The Lighting design by Stephen Petrilli created the perfect mood for the play.

This is by far the best adaptation and the best direction I have seen in a long time of a classic novel for the modern stage.

Reviewed by

BINA SHARIF

ARTSINTERNATIONAL

BLUE SURGE

BY

Rebecca Gilman

REVIEWED

BY

BINA SHARIF

Blue Surge by Rebecca Gilman is at the Wild Project on East third Street.

I missed the play when it ran at the Public theater. Rebecca Gilman is a Joseph Jefferson award winner playwright whose many plays have been produced at the Goodman theater in Chicago and elsewhere.

One thing very admirable about the playwright is that she takes her time. She is not in a rush to write a mere 85-90 minute play because the attention span of the today's audience is so in flight to rush out of the theater to get to that cab or to that drink and steak.

Blue Surge is two and a half hour long and a lots of it is worthy of its length. Only one problem

is apparent here in this production by EXTANT ARTS COMPANY.

Most of the actors are not equipped to handle the poetry of the playwright for a sustained period of time and thus it sounds like that the actors are repeating themselves in various

scenes especially between Curt,(Pete Caslavka) and Sandy,(Lauren M.Nordvig) when they exchange stories of their respective mothers, one with many dogs and the other with burdens of many marriages including a last one with a woman.

Somehow or the other one feels as this has been heard before. The main reason for this is

the pacing. Its extremely slow. It needs to be picked up. It drags the poetry of the writing.

Once in a while, to create a nostalgic sadness its fine but its constant and makes the play seems longer than it actually is.

The BLUE SURGE is about a cop named, Curt who is a very decent fellow with a good heart

who wants to help the good people who by some tragic stroke of luck have been reduced to doing jobs they don't want to do. But thats what he thinks. Some people want and like the jobs they are doing like Sandy who works as a hooker in a massage parlor which is being raided by

the cop Curt one day and by Doug, (Justin Gallo) another cop who works with Curt and is a close friend.

The day Curt is visiting the massage parlor Sandy suspects him that he is a cop because he doesn't take his underwear off and thus doesn't agree to go any further than a very tender back rub. Curt who has an upwardly mobile fiance named Beth,(Bridget R. Durkin) gets smitten by Sandy and for the rest of the play wants to save her soul while Sandy just has the heart of a hooker and ends up having her own business while Curt destroys his Upcomin marriage and his job and ends up like a big nothing....

There is a side plot where Doug falls for another hooker named Heather,(Louise Flory) who works with Sandy and they end up having a family together which is much more positive an ending.

Though I liked Ms. Gilman's writing...At certain moments it really draws you inside the souls of the lost and lonely and you feel lots of tenderness for these characters but at some other moments you want Curt to save himself and not be so Naive and good hearted for others.

These moments have the danger in the writing and the acting to make the lead character into a victim.

The show drags a lot in the first act but moves a bit faster in the second act.

Some actors such as Justin Gallo as Doug and Louise Flory as Heather has more of a spark to their acting.

Bridget R. Durkin as Beth is excellent in her first scene at the police station but then fades away afterwards.

Pete Caslavka as Curt and Lauren M. Nordvig as Sandy are good also but they are in so many scenes which sound similar to their previous ones that they begin to feel tired and tedious to us.

I would like to see this play one more time with very fast pacing and some editing because there was a, "FEEL" in the play that I admired much.