Des Moines at Polonsky Shakespeare Center: Brooklyn

"Des Moines" at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center by Denis Johnson                                             Presented by Theater for a New Audience with Evanstar Films.

 Directed by Arin Arbus

"Des Moines" is the final play of the late Denis Johnson, who was also an esteemed novelist and a short story writer. This play have had many workshops and perhaps many things were cleared up but some of them still retain it's mystery, mostly confusion about its construction. Having said that, the play does hold it's intrigue for us. We are keen to know where it is leading us because the characters are very interesting and surreal.

There is a husband, Dan (Arliss Howard ) his wife, Marta (Johanna Day) having breakfast in their kitchen. Dan is a taxi driver who gave a ride to someone who died in a tragic plane crash and he is extremely traumatized by it and keep trying to remember what were the last words spoken by that un-fortunate man. Dan, actually has nightmares about it and keeps shouting during his sleep. Marta,  his  wife is eager and nervous to reveal some important news to her husband but doesn't have enough courage because the news is also tragic. So, she avoids the issue and they both end up talking about mundane things such as butter and margerine. Dan prefers butter. Dan has a friend who is a pastor, father Michael (Michael Shannon) who wears heavy face make up including bright lipstick and was seen by Dan outside a gay bar at the time of bar's closing.

Michael Shannon who is a brilliant actor (great performance by him in the play Killer at the same theater) is kind of wasted here. There is the couple's grand daughter Jimmy (Hari Nef ) a trans woman who's gender affirming surgery went bad and she ended up in a wheel chair. Set designer, Riccardo Hernandez created majestic French doors in the middle of the kitchen and when they open, Jimmy, whom we have not met yet appears in a wheel chair.  Her  rooms is beautifully lit byScott Zielinski giving us a colorful early Christmas like atmosphere. A pleasantly glamorous surprise.

The wedding ring of the person who died in the crash was given to Father Micheal and Dan is waiting for the pastor to bring it to his house because the deceased's widow, Mrs. Drink water has been visiting  Dan to get her ring back.

After Pastor shows up, Dan gets the ring and Mrs. Drink Water arrives shortly after that and then the play assumes a dream like shape. I personally thought that the play was Dan's dream but I dismissed the idea soon after.

They all start to drink, and I mean some serious drinking goes on for a long while. A drink called depth charger is consumed by all. Depth charger is a drink consisting of beer mixed with a shot of strong whisky.  All of them drinkk lots of depth chargers and Mrs. Drink Water (Heather Alicia Simms) even stand up on the kitchen table and sings and do dance like movements.

  I was so afraid that she might hurt herself because she was so drunk like the rest of them but she was a pro and thus kept her balance.

 Mind you it's not a realistic play though the beginning of the play and it's kitchen set is pretty realistic. At the end every one is smashed and  they make a real mess.  Then, they abruptly leave. Jimmy goes back to her make believe early arrival of bright Christmas lights, and Father Micheal also decides to call it a night.

 Next morning Marta clean up the mess as she wakes up from a very strange night. In between all the confusion, there is talk of morality, the belief in life and doubts about the purpose of our existence by Father Micheal without a clear promise or hope of any kind of comforting spirtuality for our troubled souls.

It still held my interest in a an absurd way because the play is kind of absurd which is fine with me.  Actors are pretty good and work very well throughout but can't solve the confusion inherent in the script.

While we were leaving some one in the elevator asked, "What was this play about?" And a wise woman answered, " Everyone was trying to get away from their pain."

BINA SHARIF

ATCA

Editor/publisher: artsinternational.blogspot.com

Email: binashariff@gmail.com

Mobile: 212-260-6207

Facebook

Instagram

NOWISWHENWEARE (the stars) at BAM /Fisher Hall

"NOW IS WHEN WE ARE" (the stars) at BAM/Fisher Hall

Installation/Theater/Performance by Andrew Schneider Part of Next Wave 2022.  

Review by Bina Sharif

"The truth, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars but in ourselves." - Wm. Shakespeare

"NOWISWHENWEARE" Is a captivating audience participation-on foot journey of about 45 minutes done within a pitched, darkroomed, immersive light show, the workings of which occur under a starry (very starry) and celestial canopy, represented by thousands of quite tiny overhanging lights (the stars) all dangling from above whilst one get speckled with voiced comments from within the same ebony environment - of our shared unconsciousness, perhaps,  There are many other sounds, too. I had no idea what to expect- but I have to confess, "NOWIS WHENWEARE" Is entirely original in both its ideas: imaginative, creative and technical and its overall presentation. It is a deeply reflective visit to the mysterious neighborhood of one's faraway imagination. You shouldn't feel bored in any way possible.

This show is bold, imaginative and energetic- and made entirely possible by the excellent artistic and technical skills of its creator, Andrew Schneider.  This show is also extremely brave. It's not so easy to led the audience into the pich- perfect darkness with such care and concern and make them completely comfortable and safe. It's quite surreal and evokes many emotions about the darkness in our own souls which seek light constantly. 

It's a brilliant Infinity Mirror Room created by Yayoi Kusama (lighting), all inspired by seeing the great Milky Way for the first time. Perhaps in the future we will all reflect better upon our existence.

THE PATIENT GLORIA AT St. Ann"s Warehouse

THE PATIENT GLORIA by Gina Moxley; Directed by John McIlduff; Producer: Emma Coen

With: Gina Moxley, Liv O'Donoghue, Jane Deasy

A divorced woman named Gloria gave permission to be treated and filmed by three well established

psychotherapist in three different session with the promise that the film will be only for training

 purposes,  but they broke that promise and eventually put it on Television.

 The Patient Gloria is based on that film. 

The film was called, "Three approaches of psychotherapy."

 Gina Moxley plays all the psychotherapists,

 with her own twisted and hilarious take and performance.

Before tha play begins, she is sitting and sewing something which reveals itself as a penis, actually three

 different kinds,  for three different therapists.  This approach is hilarious for a while but eventually

 become redundant and loses the fun it evoked in the very beginning but Moxely is a great performer

 and still commands the stage.

She herself explains that in her real life in Ireland as a young women she was always told that sex is

 never enjoyable but it's actually violent and relates her experiences of men exposing themselves to her

 and in one of her depiction of the psychologist she just goes right in between the legs of her patient

 Gloria and magically disappears from the couch. That is an amazing bit. Liv O'Donoghue as Gloria

 is quite effective, confused, anxiety stricken, believig in her therapist, revealing her most private

 thoughts to therapists who are non-serious with many problems of their own and un-knowingly become

 caricatures of themselves.

 The play is very much a satire about psychoanalysis.

 Jane Deasy is energetic and plays, electric guitar and sings songs such as.,"In my room" and "Shitlist"

which are quite enjoyable. She also did the choreography. Moxley as a therapist tell Gloria that if any

 one has one disability, such as having a mangled arm should not dislike all her other normal body parts

 and must admire her person as a whole. She brilliantly displays her make believe mangled arm in such a

 brilliant manner that it becomes one of the best scene in the play.   As a whole the play is very

 enjoyable, maybe not for everyone but I imagine it must have been a riot in Ireland.  

                       

DOWNSTATE AT Playwrights Horizon

 DOWNSTATE by Bruce Norris; Directed by Pam MacKinnon

                                    

                                       Francis Guinan and K. Todd Freeman              

Bruce Norris, who won the Pulitzer for Clybourne Park, has come up with an entirely different

subject matter which is quite disturbing as well as gripping throughout.  In the very first scene we

 encounter a very angry and anxiety stricken young man Andy (Tim Hopper ) and Em (Sally Murphy)

 Andy's wife confronting a wheel chair bound older man Fred (Frances Guinan )

We soon realize that Fred is one of the four men convicted of sex crimes against the Minors and Andy is

 one of the victim who thirty years later has found Fred in a group home with three other room mates

 who had been convicted and been sentenced already but now live under the supervision of their parole

 officer Ivy (Susanna Guzman)  who is very strong and caring about their wellfare.

The other three men are, Dee (K. Todd Freeman ) Gio (Glen Davis ) and Felix (Eddie Torres ) . They are

 all convicted of sexual crimes against minors except Gio who served for statuary rape.

These men are not allowed any smart phones or internet leaving a vey claustrophobic life and express

 lots of anger about their situation. In conrast Fred is very calm and in control. He listens to Andy and

 his wife as if nothing dangerous ever happened, but it did and Amdy had been traumatized all his adult

 life.

Fred was a Piano teacher and Andy was his student and Andy's pain is coming across from the stage to

 the audience while Fred still plays Chopin in a very peaceful manner.

Dee on the other hand doesn't believe that he committed a crime. He thinks he had a love

 relationship with a minor who was totally in love with him and used to write him letters during his

 prison stay telling him how much he missed him. Ivy tries very hard to convince Dee that he needs to

 deal with his denial of reality and not hide behind the fake notion of love. K. Todd Freeman, as Dee is 

 very emotional and strong about his belief. He is also the one who takes care of Fred with lot of concern

 about his disability.

Glen Davis as Gio who works at Staples and brings a co-worker, Effie ( Gabi Samels ) home, while he is

 not allowed and they indulge in drugs in defiance and doesn't express any remorse about his past while 

 Eddie Torres as Felix is extremely expressive about his guilt and remorse and try to seek redemption in

 religion, bible is his redemption.

All these characters are extremely disturbing to watch. The play  is about guilt, repentence, redemption

 but there are no simple answers and the playwright deals with all the complexity of these issues which

 are very hard to take with a sense of a razor sharp eye and leave it upto us how to feel about these very

 disturbed and disturbing characters who evoke our disgust and sympathy at the same time.

Pam Mackinnon 's direction is srong and sharp.

                                                      Sally Murphy and Tim Hopper

Reviewed by Bina Sharif (ATCA)

Editor/Publisher:artsinternational.blogspot.com

email:binashariff@gmail.com cell: 212-260-6207

Facebook; Instagram

BOSWELL, A PLAY BY Marie Kohler

                                                                    BOSWELL

                                                           by Marie Kohler

                                                             Josh Krause and Brian Mani

Director: Laura Gordon; Costume Design: Misti Bradford; Scenic design: Jody Sekas;

Lighting Design: Katy Atwell; Wig Artisan: Emily Christoffersen;

In a small theater packed with artifacts of the time, depicting 1763 when Boswell, a Scottish-biographer, diarist and a lawyer visited London and met one of the greatest conversationalist, Dr, Samuel Johnson who was a poet, an English writer who wrote the dictionary of the English language and was also an essayist, moralist, critic, lexicographer and a man of letters.

Boswell was a young ambitious man who had great curiosity and he, made notes of every experience in his every day life diligently and that's how he ended up composing the biography of Johnson called, The life of Samuel Johnson, a rare book which had real quotations of Johnson and it was of a different style of biography because it was based on Boswell's journals and his memory and his conversations with Samuel Johnson.

In Boswel,  a contemporary fictional researcher, Joan (Phoebe Gonzalez ), a graduate student travels from Chicago to Scotland in 1950 being aware of the newly unearthed, scripts, letters, diaries in(1920-1950) to check  out the new material. 

The set by Jody Sekas serve many locations and have many maps, books, old trunks filled with papers, notes, manuscripts, pure gold for the researcher, and also serves as a salon,  meeting places of great literary scolars of London such as Oliver Goldsmith, most famous actor of his times, David Garrick and a reat friend of Samuel Johnson, Burke and Henry Thrale and his wife Hester.

It also serves as an Inn where a certain lady Fiona (Miriam A. Laube, who also plays three different  roles) Has a treasure of gold for Pheobe to dig in. They bicker quite a bit but it's an intersting,  intelligent, and mildly acidic bicker.

Boswell is played by very charming and likeable Josh Krause. He is also very well liked by the ladies he meet and for sure is a ladies man but doesn't shy away from making copius notes of everything he hears.

After 11 years of their friendship, Boswell and Dr, Johnson travell together to Scotland and Boswell ends up writing his journal of a tour to the Hebrides on which the biography, The life of Samuel Johnson is based.

 Brian Mani is excellent as Samuel Johnson and he even looks like him. Majestic and bigger than life,

the greatest conversationalist and wit who ever lived. His costume is also very effective. In-fact all costumes are brilliant. All actors did a wonderful job. The play is very well directed by Laura Gordon. The transition between scenes is smooth and subtle. Boswell is MHK production's award winning play.

It was a great delight to see this play acted with intelligence, skill and wit.  Boswell is MHK production's award winning play.  It's one of the very best play I have seen recently and I have always loved Dr, Samuel Johnson and Boswell and their amazing contribution to the history and literature.  

                                                 

                                                      Miriam A. Laube and Phoebe Gonzalez

Reviewed by Bina Sharif (ATCA); Editor/Publisher:artsinternational.blogspot.com email:binashariff@gmail.com     Cell: 212-260-6207;  Facebook; Instagram

"WHERE WE BELONG" AT PUBLIC THEATER

 "WHERE WE BELONG, " AT PUBLIC THEATER

"WHERE WE BELONG,"

Written and performed by Madeine Sayet who was named for Jeets Bodernasha whic means flying bird who was the speaker of Mohegan, the language spoken by indigenous people.

Madeline Sayet's ancestors were those people and this play is autobiographical.

The actress is extremely fluent and has incredible energy as a narrator of her search to find a place where she would absolutely be comfortable with the most urgent feeling of belonging. That search takes her to England, the land of language, Shakespeare's language. She feels like a flying bird herself landing at many airports, restless, curious, desiring to find a final destination for the Indigenous people who for centuries have been disappearing, being displaced and out of sight.

She feels that the language will perhaps be the saving grace for her people. She enrols in a PHD programe in Shaespeare at the Royal Shaskpeare company where she acts and directs some Shakspeare plays such Tempest and relates with  the character such as Caliban.

Eventually she doesn't complete her studies,  though she finds satisfaction in Shaespeare because she thinks he is anticolonialist. She is a researcher  and very critical of colonialism and is disappointed when she visits British museums where she learns that the museum preserves the remains of at least 12-000 human beings from all over the world.

The play is directed by Mei Ann Teo and the production design is by Hao Bai with a glamorous lighting

which actually doesn't really serve the purpose of the show whic is more like an intellectual recitation

which could have been done a bit more with stillness under one focused light instead of lots of movements which distracts from the seriousness of the piece. Though Madeline Sayet is very energetic,

she somehow lacks emotional depth which prevents her to be intimate with the audience in her extremly important and painful search for belonging.

Nevertheless it's an important show and very informative about the history of Indigenous people.

Reviewed

by

Bina Sharif

ATCA, (American Theater Critics association) member

Editor/publisher: artsinternational.blogspot.com

Co-host: HI Drama

email: binashariff@gmail.com

Cell: 212-260-6207

facebook, Instagram

" 300 el x 50 el x 30 el. BAM'S NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL. FIRST FEATURE FROM BELGIAN FESTIVAL

 300 el x 50 el x 30 el, ( pronounced  300 el by 50 el by 30 el )

 Is the amazing story of an entire village faced with an oncoming flood.

 There is an on stage film crew which takes the audience behind it's closed and broadcast

 the villagers private lives which the audience members watch on screen.

This play/performance art is nothing like any one has ever seen before, especially the New York audience and the performance is mesmerizing from the beginning to the end.  Just the set depicting many cabin like houses in dire need of fixing and the flood is being anticipated on top of it. Beside the oncoming flood and the feeling of devastation, the set implied, at least to this viewer the decay, the waste and the metaphorical horrors encountering us soon about the demise of human behavior under threat of all kinds especially of the enviornment.  There are no words in this play and still the Belgian theater collective FC Bergman with their incredible visuals and an extremely praise worthy set, depict so many emotions such as ever present human fear, anxiety, loneliness, extreme isolation, terror of oncoming disaster and humor and hope as well.  I could never take my eyes away from the set, the performers and even the film crew. They were fast and furious with their energy and stamina and craft.

This show has travelled all over Europe and it was a great chance for me to see it. I wish it ran for a longer period of time because it's worth seeing twice or even three times.

The show becomes a volcano of human energy and stamina when many, many other performers join the group with intense dance like movements witch accompanies the furious fever's highest pitch and  the scary enthusiasm of the flood's approach.

This show is fascinating, unique, engrossing and very funny at times.  I shall think about it for a long time to come.

BRAVO FC BERGMAN COLLECTIVE .

REVIEWED

BY

BINA SHARIF

ACTA 

Editor/publisher: artsinternational.blogspot.com

binashariff@gmail.com

Mobile: 212-260-6207

www.facebook.com

Instagram

Co-host of Hi Drama.

"A KID LIKE RISHI'S" AMERICAN PREMIERE

"A KID LKE RISHI" by Kees Roorda; Directed by Erwin Maas; 

                                    produced by Origin Theater Company

"A Kid Like Rishi," is a Duch docudrama about a racial profiling police killing in the Hague.

While a 17-year-old Rishi Chandrikasing was waiting for a train at The Hague Holland Spoor

station was shot by a police officer who suspected him for assaulting a homeless person who was

 never questioned. Actually he wasn't even identified. Rishi died immediately of a gunshot to the

 head. This play was also inspired by Kees Roorda (playwright), because of a personal racial

 profiling incident about his partner Rob who is black and was unfairly refused entry to the U.S.

That very experience with racial profiling never left Kees Roorda and compelled him to want to

write about the killing of an unarmed 17-year-old Rishi Chandrikasing in 2021.

"A kid like Rishi" is being produced by the Origin Theater Company.

The play is set in a long room with a big wooden table in the center. Audience sits on all sides of

the room. There are couple of microphones set up on the table and throughout the play some

scenes are projected on the walls. Three amazing actors play multiple roles.  When the play starts 

a judge, (Sung Yun Cho, superb) declares the verdict. and the verdict is, "The district court in the

Hague deems legally and convincingly proven that the defendant intentionally inflicted grievous

bodily harm resulting in the death of the victim".  But the defendant, a police officer is not

convicted even after this kind of verdict.  One can only imagine what kind of uproar and protest

 must have gone on after this horror which sounds quite familiar in many other parts of the world

where many murders are because of race and the victim's skin color.   The play presents certain

 witnessess, such as Rishi's mother played by Atandwa Kani in a heart breaking performance, - a

brilliant, sorrowful and passionate rendition of any mother who loses her young, innocent son in

 an instant, never ever to see him again.  Then there is a witness account given by a neighbor

(again played by Sung Yun Cho, who is amazing in all the roles.  Kaili Vernoff also brilliantly and

boldly portray a few parts, such as a journalist, a police shooting instructor,  all accounts gathered

from courtroom interviews and transcripts. They all perform in English translation by Tom

Johnston while the original duch transcripts are projected on the wall.

The scenography is by Guy de Lancey and it is extremely effective.

Some things, the accounts by the police, and of the bystanders are vague and murky. The most 

important fact in this case is that the victim was unarmed.  The police referes to him as a, "young

black man in a white coat."  He is shot dead instantly.  Imagine, after this kind of verdict, the

defendant, a police officer is not convicted. This is an acquittal.  Horrifying, to say the least.

'A Kid Like Rishi" is superbly directed by Erwin Maas.  It's not an easy play to direct but he is

 brilliant in his great effort, and with an extremely successful result.

This play and the whole creative team left me in awe and tears. I have been constantly thinking,

thinking about "A Kid Like Rishi" and his mother and his family and his friends amid the awful

justice system in the world.

Bravo to Origin Theater Company for bringing this important play to New York. 

Reviewed by

BINA SHARIF

ATCA

Editor/publisher: artsinternational.blogspot.com

email: binashariff@gmail.com

Mobile: 212-260-6207