THEATER REVIEW
BY
BINA SHARIF

THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES
BY
FRANK D.GILROY
DIRECTED BY
AMY WRIGHT

THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES is produced by Pearl Theater Company (J.R. Sullivan,Artistic Director)
THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES, a Pulitzer and Tony award winner, produced in 1964 a revival by the excellent Pearl Theater Company still holds because the conflicts and confusions of family relationships and the sense of possession by the parents of their children, an only son in this case has never gone out of fashion, neither the love nor the struggle in a universal family drama.

This is a conflict not only in an American family but all families. The children dying to get noticed by both parents and parents individually exercising more authority in the name of love over the kids and thus the bickering and complaining and fighting begins and unfortunately never ever ends especially in this play.
The reasons of bickering between two parents in The subject was roses is not however very clear. Is this a routine bickering between a husband and wife or is there a deep dark secret
of animosity which is oozing out in profusion from the wife especially towards the husband which I hoped will be clarified by the end but actually there was nothing concrete to be mentioned except that the family fought for the sake of fighting perhaps depicting the life of an Irish family where none of the members want to reconcile their inherent differences of personality depicting perhaps of a wrong match between two people thus empahsising the delicate title of the play, The subject of roses which is by far a beautifully romantic title of a very un-romantic relationship.

The subject was roses is about a family, Cleary family, mother, father and a son named Timmy who just returned from the war. Its set in the Bronx in 1946. The whole decore is very 1946.
It can be called a kitchen sink drama, nicely put together and must have been very timely when it was written but seems a bit dated though the production achieves perfection in acting and directing.
I found the father,John (Dan Daily) more interesting a charcter than the mother,Nettie (Carol Schultz) because the cause her conflict and hatred for her husband wasn't clear. I guess she did not like her husband's lack of sensitivity and tenderness which she experienced by her own father who always send her roses on her birthdays. The son tries very hard to patch things up between the two of them even asking for the father to bring roses for her which she does appreciate but only for a short while and is jealous of the son's affection for the father.
The actors did a stunning job and I liked the direction by Amy Wright also but I had a little confusion about the script.
However its extremely admirable of Pearl theater company to always revive the classics.
This company is brave and bold and almost the only one in NY to do that. For this very reason they need to be congratulated because they always do a good job.

REVIEWED BY BINA SHARIF OF ARTSINTERNATIONAL.COM
binasharif@earthlink.net

THEATER REVIEW
BY
BINA SHARIF

THE SHAPE OF THINGS
BY
Neil LaBute

THE SHAPE OF THINGS by Neil LaBute is produced by VARIATIONS theatre group at long
Island City. Artistic directors,Rich Ferraioli and KirkGostkowski.
Getting to the theater in Long Island City was an adventure especially for me who hardly ever venture out of Manhattan theater scene and it was well worth it.
The theater space in itself is a little Intimate gem and the production of THE SHAPE OF THINGS was wonderful. The play is very well directed by Rich Ferraioli.

Neil LaBute has a patience of a saint as the dramatist. He keeps his surprises hidden till the very end unlike most of the contemprary writers of drama.
In most of the plays one can predict the ending of the play in the first fifteen or twenty minutes
but not here. He takes us on a journey of un expected steamy love between a shy nerdy kind of a guy named Adam played by, (Kirk Gostkowski) and a very confident, hip, Cosmopolitan kind of a gal named Evelyn played brilliantly by, (Alice Bahlke)

I missed the original Production of the play when it was done at Almeida Theatre, London
and I am happy that I didn't know the ending till it came.
But I do have to confess that I had an un-comfortable feeling about the love affair between Evelyn and Adam throughout the play because some body like Evelyn, so out going, so charismatic a woman won't fall for Adam who is not much of a love target for her but luckily even I didn't suspect that she was just using him for an art project and was willing to go all the way in the name of art to manipulate and hurt a real un-suspecting, trusting and kind human being. But that's the point of the play that in the name of art one can cross all bounderies and justify the cruelty to advance themselves.

My only hesitation about the plot of this play is that how many times one can see this play knowing the ending and still enjoy it? But still the writing is very sharp and hold your interest.
The whole cast does a very good job but I liked Deven Anderson as Phillip. He had that wit and humor and sarcasm which involves you fully in the actor playing the character.

Scenic artists: Stephanie Ferraioli and India Quimby was very clean and impressive. I loved the
Make believe paintings in those frames.
I just wondered about the platform used in the museum scene if it was necessary because it did work nicely in the first scene but was in the way of many later scenes which seemed cramped.
But all these are minor problems to be thought about in the future productions of the play and also I caught the play on the opening night with some rough spots...I still was very impressed by the whole cast, the crew and especially by Rich Frraioli's excellent direction and the fast
pacing he maintained throughout the play. Every one involved in this production was totally professional and exteremly hospitable. My companions and I enjoyed the evening very much. My Guest from London, Paul Shaw who had also missed this play in London loved it and so did Kevin Martin who is also a theater Critic and publisher of CINEMASTAGE.COM
I hope other theater goers will make an effort and see future productions by VARIATIONS theatre Group. My congratulations to the team for a great effort.

Reviewed by Bina Sharif
of ARTSINTERNATIONAL.BLOGSPOT .COM
binasharif@earthlink.net

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.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO WHEN YOU HAVE NOTHING TO DO?

A POEM

BY

M. Nousan

What a question?

Who dare ask me this kind of question?

I have always managed to do nothing when there is nothing to do

I am not one of those programmed professors who always have to do something

I do nothing even when there are piles of things to be done

Like these days and like always

Since I do nothing all the time

Thats why there are piles of things to be done always

People do their laundry

I put it in laundry bags

And let it wait

Why not?

We are all waiting for something

Why can't laundry wait?

Dishes can wait too.

We are waiting

Why can't dishes wait?

Are the dishes more special than us?

Us...Wonderful human beings...

We have to wait for money, boy friends, husbands, children, In-laws. jobs

What do dishes have to wait for?

Someone's lousy appetite?

So they can dump the half cooked, half uncooked greasy chicken in the dish

And then gulp it in one bite and without wiping their mouths go back to

Their computers because they are all now poets....

Poets my...

Dishes can wait, so can a broom, a mop, a cleaning pad...

Throw these ugly things out...

They have made the house look really bad

Throw it out

Every thing

Every ugly thing, throw it out

And you?

You?

You wait

Wait for what?

Wait for nothing...

Nothing is coming Ok?

Except diseases and death...

"EVENTUALITY." Its called....

Oh! I made you depressed, so very depressed

You, a delicate little flower with delicate little feelings

Who is never going to wither away in the wind...

Oh! I am so dark and so depressing

And the World is so cheery outside...

Only Other's world is cheery honey

Go ask their wives...

They show their naked arms in winter, summer and fall...

You think their dishes are waiting?

You think their laundry is waiting?

You think they are doing the dishes?

They are whispering in her husband's ears all night

"Honey, take us to exotic places

Because we are so exotic....look at our arms...take us...to exotic lands

For folks like us, Unemployed, Un-fashionable Doing nothing is better...

Nothing doing, nothing coming, nothing going...

Everything can wait...for nothing... and then there is nothing...

End is nothing and nothingness.....

For us and for the dishes and the dirt and mops and brooms...

and for the rich wives with groomed, tanned bare arms......

THEATER REVIEW

BY

BINA SHARIF

RICHARD III: AN ARAB TRAGEDY

AT

BAM

PART OF MUSLIM VOICES

       ARTS & IDEAS

Adapted and directed by

Sulayman Al-Bassam

This Richard III: played with gusto and confidence by, (Fayez Kazak who also plays duke of Gloucester) has no deformity at all.  Instead he has an extra ability of being a first rate comedian.  Audience members, especially Arabic speaking laugh loud and often at this 21st Century adaptation of Richard III with cell phones, Tv monitors, text messages, Instant 

coverage of all the carnage which Richard bestow upon his relatives and people.

If any one dared to make Richard III: a historical tragedy into a funny farce about the functioning and mostly non functioning of the leaderships of the Middle East, Its Sulayman Al- Bassam, the director and the leader of Sabab, an International touring theater.

His approach in adapting the tragedy of Richard III: into an Arab tragedy is appropriate knowing what's been going on in the Persian Gulf.  Sulayman Al-Bassam seems amused by

projecting the basic flaws of the kingdoms and cultures, corruption, deceit, greed and the hunger for power at the expense of many lives.

Richard III: When at the end  desperately seeking a horse which he would gladly exchange for his kingdom, we all know that all that power and greed was not worth it....And we feel  bad for the fallen king to say the least but in this production one tends to laugh and enjoy more not because the end is not tragic but it had been handled throughout in such a funny manner that

one is almost amused at the folly of most of the Arab leaders who acts first and think later or hardly think at all about their cruelty.

This production's most beautiful effect is that its spoken in Melodious Arabic language.

Just to hear the sound of Azan, (The Arabic and Muslim call to prayers in the major American theater) is mesmerizing.  And the live band creating the melody of lament is sadly thrilling.

Fayez Kazak who plays both parts, Duke of Gloucester and king Richard III:  has enormous

energy and sense of fun and he moves fast and furious and often smiles as If he is Immensely enjoying his ultimate tragedy, but actually calling this play, An Arab Tragedy, he is smiling at the failed Arab leaders and their destructive  ever lasting Un-democratic rules.

Since the actor is having fun, we  the audience are more than willing to join him.

The play doesn't have the opening  famous monologue  delivered by Richard, Its actually 

Queen Margaret (Amal Omram) who  having been abandoned from power has the fury of  madness, curses and spit fire in the opening prologue and that's a very effective Image and a real unexpected change.  She often appears with the same power of fury and revenge throughout the evening.  Amal Omram is wonderful in that role.

As I mentioned earlier that this production has all the elements of modern technology and the character Buckingham played by Raymond el-Hosni is the Chief of staff of Image maker of Richard.  Some of the current events  projected by video simulcasts and events narrated by reporters who make funny faces and grin constantly as if they were all in a circus...

This kind of innovation in  Shakespear's tragedy can be annoying but here the effect is hilarious.

The Music here is a big part of this beautiful production.  The Ominous echo of the music

is everlasting and is the witness of the passage of turmoils in the Arab lands.

The stage is empty except some colorful cushions which the actors themselves bring on stage and sit on them and remove while leaving....This minimal staging gives the feeling of the vastness of desserts of empty hope and corrupt power.

Verses from the Qoran are recited many times and it has a blissful, soothing, exotic and alien effect on the psyche.

But underneath all the fun and the humor and the jokes, there is an Ominous tragedy lurking around which is not only of a Person such as Richard III:  but of the World.  We are constantly aware that something is not right with the World and its leaders and its Inhabitants and its religions and its false fundamentalist's rigid and narrow out look and destructive tendencies

which has kept the planet on a dangerous edge....

There is a constant message of peace in this production as the Qoutes from Qoran are being recited and numerous times the Islamic greeting,  ASSALAAM-O-ALYIKUM and WA-LYEIKUM SALAAM, meaning, "Peace be upon you." "And peace be upon you too,"  is uttered

but then the killing rampage also goes on after the message of peace....

Its Ironic if people and the leaders of this production only heard themselves clearly while uttering  the word, "Allah."  which actually was heard at least a 100 times during the show, they might stop the slaughter. But the message of peace...

was beautiful, soothing, comforting and at the same time disturbing because the events unfolding in the play were disturbing and eventually  deadly.

Beside the tragic events which had to be dealt with, after all the title of the play is Richard III:

An Arab Tragedy, the production was a lot of Un-expected fun and the sound of the spoken Arabic was just amazing, haunting and poetic.

Mr. Bassam and his whole ensemble including the musicians have done a brilliant job.

binasharif@earthlink.net

THEATER REVIEW

BY

BINA SHARIF

The Pearl Theater Company presents

              Tennessee Williams'

               VIEUX CARRÉ

Directed by Austin Pendleton

When Tennessee Williams decided to move away from his mother and his sister to escape his vague anxiety and his pain which was already accumulating in him as a young writer of poems and short stories, he ended up in a dilapidated New Orleans boarding house at 722 Toulouse Street in the French Quarter. The tenants of that shadowy boarding house became the lost, mournful, lonely and aspiring characters of his future plays.  The memory of those Isolated and sad human beings never left Tennessee alone...

Those people appeared in one form or the other in many of his plays and stories but finally in the play VIEUX CARRÉ  he decided that we the audience should meet them fully as he met them when he was 28 years old.

In VIEUX CARRÉ  Tennessee Williams' takes us to the dimly lit, dingy rooms of 

his youth's memory, the vulnerability of love and the pain of its broken threads,

the promise of a future and the fear of the lack of any ray of light to shine on it,

the impending terrors and loneliness of aging and death and the sexual Identity

and the ache of nostalgic sorrow for life's waste.

The boarding house at 722 Toulouse Street, in the Vieux Carré district of New Orleans is run by Mrs. Wire, (Carol Schultz) has tennants in it who are fighting a loosing battle of desire in the name of escape from this no man's land of loss

and hope,  resignation instead of despair over their demise of un-fullfilled promise or a glimmer of light which makes them travel back and forth to their own empty lives and dreams.

The boarding house has a young man, the writer, (Sean Mcnall) who narrates the stories of the rest of the dwellers of darkness and many times become part of the story which he is typing on his old type writer with a candle which many times he can't light because there are no matches to be found and the burnt out bulbs have never been replaced by the land lady.  So their lives are literally reflected from inside out in the dark shadows which cast a spell on the memories of the characters and the audience.

Vieux Carré  is a memory play.  Its about the youth and the old age of the artist

who is lonely and disillusioned and is fighting to Identify himself sexually.

There are runaways and old ladies who some times don't even remember who they are but recite beautiful poetry about their vanished glorious and refined past while they have nothing much to loose because they have lost it all.

There is a young troubled woman named Jane, (Rachel Botchan) who is a nice,

lovely young lady on the run and haunted by demons and is in love with a strip show hustler and a drug addict named Tye, ( Joseph Collins)  whom she wants to get rid of but keep wanting him to stay even after he subject her to emotional and sexual violence.

And than there is an old man, an ailing painter named, Nightingale, (George Morfogen) who draws portraits in a bar called two parrots bar and is dying of loneliness and begs the young writer for company and affection and sex.

To him the sexual encounter with any stranger is the answer to his eternal loneliness.  And then there is a maid named, nursie (Claudia Robinson) who is often needed for help by the land lady mostly to untangle the denziens of  their

emotional turmoil which is constant.

Tennessee Williams startted to write Vieux Carré  in 1939 and must have gone back to it for decades because it wasn't produced till 1977 on Broadway and after horrendously bad reviews closed within one week.

But almost every character in His later plays reflects the people of 722 Toulouse street,  forgotten people. lonely people, nostalgic people, vulnerable people, misunderstood people, people who have tons of poetry in them but no one to recite it to but to their own memory and to their own  Unforgettable  pastwhich

keeps coming back to haunt them

Vieux Carré  is Tennessee Williams most autobiographical play like Glass Menagerie. Its a sad and poetic story of lost souls who are seeking redemption and escape through Imagined promises of hope  and constant despair into one night stands and drugs and encounters with the wrong and rough loosers in the name of loneliness and emptiness of the soul.

The play is wonderfully directed by Austin Pendleton who captures beautifully the sadness, loss, dreams and poetry of these characters wounded hearts.

The play is hauntingly lit by Stephen Petrilli who creates shadows upon shadows

of hopes dimmed.

The whole cast is wonderful and captures the heart and the essence of Tennessee's mood and poetry but, George Morfogen breaks your heart with the ache of Immense loneliness.

Other brilliant performance is by Joseph Collins as Tye who destroys Jane with his sexual Intensity and passion of a man and a true hustler with a soul to sell.

Carol Schultz gives a fully accomplished performance as the land lady,  strong as a whip and loosing her mind at the same time.

Vieux Carré  is another superb performance by the great Pearl Theater Company and there is nothing more beautiful than Tennessee Williams poetry.  Give yourself a chance to hear it.

binasharif@earthlink.net