From the pen of the librettist of the 2007 Tony winning musical “In the Heights” comes  “Water by the Spoonful”, the second installment in playwright Quiara Alegria Hudes’ exciting Elliot Cycle stories: three stand-alone plays written over an eight-year period depicting the plight of her lead character Elliot Ortiz.

As back-story for “Water by the Spoonful”, which won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for drama, the character of Ortiz is a bright, but haunted, young Puerto Rican returning Iraq war veteran who has been attempting to put his fractured Philadelphia home life back together.  He is haunted by the “ghost” of an Afghan man he shot and killed during his tour of duty, when all the man asked for was his passport back after being questioned by Elliot.  In this second installment Elliot is solidly played by Rey Lucas, who navigates Elliot’s mood swings both with intensity and humor.

It’s a complex story that revolves around an internet Chat Room/Hotline for crack addicts trying to remain clean.  New York actor Marilyn Torres shines in a wonderfully nuanced performance as Odessa Ortiz (Elliot’s mother) aka Haikumom, and the manager of the chat room.  The entire cast of this powerful, and at times, poignant play, dredge up their personal demons with such moving and insightful performances one gets a real sense what former drug abusers go through and feel in their conflicted desperation to remain clean as they come to grips with their inner demons.  Reality checks can be very scary.  The decisions they make are life altering.

Five other characters fill the Chat Room with their compelling stories that deftly intersect and illuminate   the larger issue of “equal-opportunity offending drugs” in today’s American society.  In playwright Hudes’ revealing play, rich 1-percenters like Fountainhead/John smoothly played by Robert Eli, are also caught in the drug net of crack users along with internet chat room recovering members Orangutan played by Ruibo Qian, and Chutes & Ladders, played by Keith Randolph Smith.  All three turns are nicely drawn performances.  Yazmin Ortiz, a cousin of Elliot played by Sarah Nina Hayon, is the most stable and mainstream of Hudes’ characters.  Hayon who plays the focused “cooler head” in the explosive moments comes across suspiciously like the alter-ego of playwright Hudes.  And that’s not all bad.  “Water by the Spoonful” is a play with several narrative threads that have to come to together at the end.  What better way to accomplish this than to have the playwright infuse her insights.  When combined with the personal vision of director Edward Torres, the audience is treated to a somewhat edgy, but definitely, a very thought-provoking evening in the theatre.  It will be interesting to see the third installment in the “Elliot Cycle” and find out the fate of Hudes’ Elliot character.

The creative team led by director Torres along with one of the Globe’s masterful set designer’s Ralph Funicello, has staged this production in the round without losing a dramatic moment or angle in the process.  Jesse Klug’s lighting is spot on, as are the costumes designed by David Israel Reynoso; who also designed the lush costumes for the Globe’s production “Time and the Conways” currently gracing stage of the Darlene and Donald Shiley theatre.

“Water by the Spoonful”, on the White stage, runs through May 11, 2014.

Show business monologues have been around as long as there have been actors and comedians of every kind to perform them.  The Ruth Draper monologues are legendary performance pieces created by the great lady herself.  She was a New York City socialite with a penchant for incisive mimicry, and a flair for acting that eventually became the format that thousands of young and aspiring actresses in the 40’s and 50’s employed when learning their craft.  Many Ruth Draper monologues were clutched in many nervous hands when eager young women came to their auditions.

In the beginning, the monologues were just a lark performed for friends at parties.  They became so popular among her friends that she was encouraged to take her observations and stories and perform them on the professional stage.

The vignettes are little gems concerning the observation and the understanding of the human condition.  When performed by skillful actors, one would get to see the complete spectrum of the performer’s talent range.   Over the years, however, the Draper monologues fell out of favor as a tool used by young actors. Thank goodness, it didn’t disappear altogether from gifted movie and stage actor Annette Bening’s radar screen.  I haven’t seen Draper’s monologues performed professionally in almost forty years.

The Geffen Theatre of Los Angles is currently staging “Ruth Draper’s Monologues with Ms. Bening as its Star and as its director.  It’s a brilliant and mesmerizing tour de force performance.  Bening’s keen actor/director eye selected four of Draper’s most famous pieces:  “A Class in Greek Poise”; “A Debutante at a Dance”; “Doctors and Diets”; and the famous, ”The Italian Lesson”.

Bening’s complete command of the evening’s four vignettes begin when she steps out on stage in a diaphanous white Grecian gown and begins to conduct a class of obviously very wealthy and very overweight New York City matrons who go through their paces under the watchful and patient eye of Bening.  The battle with food and the consequences of overindulgence through the years is timeless.  Bening’s running commentary is priceless in its execution.  She skewers and chides her students with such warmth and skill, the ladies never tumble to her real feelings concerning the “poise class” experience.

In “A Debutante at a Dance”, Bening plays a talkative, nervous, 21 year-old young woman seeking romance with such ease and believability, one forgets that an experienced major star is performing; capturing the audience in her thrall, in the bargain.  There isn’t a false note in the performance which is lapped up by the adoring audience.

The “Doctors and Diets” piece is a study of a wealthy matron, used to getting her own way, and the conversations conducted at a “ladies who lunch” gathering at a fancy New York 5-Star restaurant.  The gossip flows freely and so do the impressions one gets of the idle rich in 1930’s New York City, despite the devastating 1929 stock market crash and its fall out.  Some things never change.

“The Italian Lesson” is pure Draper and is brilliantly brought to life by Annette Bening.  The aristocratic New York matron played by Bening, is one that audiences love and hate at the same time. We hate how maddeningly self-assured she is; full of orders and demands for those around her.  She knows what she wants, and she knows how to get it; smiling all the while as the butter melts in her mouth.  We also love that Annette Bening knows how to render this complicated woman to the audience in order that we can laugh with the character, while at the same time, laugh at her.

Every gesture, every eyebrow raised, every smile Bening delivers is spot on and in sync with all the characters she creates.  The entire show runs only 80 minutes literally zipping along; leaving the audience craving for more.  It’s a splendid and impressive production which is not to be missed.

“Ruth Draper’s Monologues at LA’s Geffen Playhouse runs through May 18, 2014.  For reservations and ticket information call the box office at 310-208-6500.

It does not get any more unique as: U.S. President Barack Obama has his visit to Japan with a dinner at the legendary Sukiyabashi Jiro sushi restaurant in Tokyo. The local 87-year-old Jiro Ono has an excellent reputation. Only ten guests can be accommodated. A meal typically costs more than 200 Euros. The “Dear Michelin Guide,” has awarded three stars. Among connoisseurs, it is considered one of the best restaurants in the world. To get an reservation is almost impossible. However, for a U.S. president, an exception was made. Obama and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe greeted each other on Wednesday night in front of the basement restaurant. Additionally, on board were the U.S. ambassadors to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, and the National Security Advisor Susan Rice.

One of the perks of being a theatre critic is that one gets to see the world from different perspectives.  As a member of the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) we have the opportunity to not only see and review theatre in our hometowns, but we get to enjoy discussing the state of the American theatre with our colleagues at the association’s annual conference held in a different city each year.

This year the site of the ATCA conference was held in Louisville, Kentucky, during the first week of April.  One aspect of our conference is that we try to hold it in a city that is associated with a national Theatre Festival, like The Humana Theatre Festival of Louisville or the Contemporary American Theatre Festival in Sheperdstown, West Virginia.  The Humana Festival, in association with the Actors Theatre of Louisville (ATL) now in its 38th year, afforded ATCA members the opportunity to see, discuss, and review the new work of emerging as well as established playwrights, directors, actors, and other theatre professionals.  It’s a peek into the future of the American theatre scene.  We saw eight new American plays performed by Equity actors that I will review in a mini-review format.  All the productions are performed without an intermission.

“brownsville song (b-side for tray)” written by Kimber Lee is a play about gun violence in Brooklyn, NY and the fall out from the senseless death of a promising young black  teenager preparing to enter college and then onto a possible career in professional sports.
The premise of Lee’s play may not be new material, but it’s definitely worthy of examination due to the heart-brake of the families affected by this on-going problem in America’s inner-cities.  The story directed by Meredith McDonough resonates in its relevance in the lives of young black men in America today.

The cast is uniformly solid, with standout performances coming from Cherene Snow as Lena; John Clarence Stewart as Tray; and Sally Diallo as Devine (talented 10 year old performer with a future in the theatre if she so chooses).

“Partners”, by Dorothy Fortenberry, and directed by Lila Neugebauer, is a comedy that features four actors: three men and one female.  One couple is in a traditional marriage; the other couple is a gay partner relationship with an eye toward making it into husband/husband relationship.

The first twenty minutes unfold like a pilot for a TV sit/com.  The writing is sharp, witty, funny, and at times, is a little too slick.  All that is missing is the laugh-track, however, the performances are first rate: Annie Purcel as Clare, is an aspiring chef.  Her non entrepreneurial- like husband Paul, is played by David Ross.  Kasey Mahaffy as Ezra, is Clare’s business partner.  The two are trying to launch a food truck business.  LeRoy McClain as Brady, is Ezra’s partner.  Money is always a problem for start-up businesses.  That along with each couple coming to grips with their situations, makes “Partners” a one-act play with promise.  But, alas, the second half of this one act vehicle, shifts gears and suffers from running out of gas, to say nothing of an implausible plot twist near the end.  It might, however, become the basis for a new comedy TV series.

“The Christians” written by Lucas Hnath and directed by Actors Theatre of Louisville, Artistic Director Les Waters, has the best chance of being produced in the commercial arena, and is a strong candidate for Regional theatres and/or educational and community theatre venues.   The play revolves around a charismatic and highly successful married pastor of a Christian congregation, who suddenly announces that he has had a change of heart concerning the Bible’s representation of the place known as “Hell”.  In fact, he claims there is no such place.

This stunning declaration throws the church and its followers into a tizzy.  Sides are taken.  Should the church ask Pastor Paul to leave?  What’s the position of the associate Pastor?  (He disagrees with Pastor Paul).  Even Pastor Paul’s wife waivers on which side of this explosive and dividing religious issue she will come down on.  Will she support her husband’s new position? Or will she stand with the majority of the congregants?  Everyone is on the horns of a dilemma.  Hobson’s choices are rampant in this very provocative and cleverly written play set against the backdrop of religion and The Bible.

Technically, it’s a well produced, one set design production.  The stage literally becomes a church in look and feel with a full choir.  As to how convincing the services are: At the point, where Pastor Paul says to the congregants “Let us Pray”, heads in the audience lowered as if to join in the prayers.  Now that’s really being caught up the moment of the onstage performers!

All of the verisimilitude of “The Christians” is accomplished without any of the actors raising their voices when stating their feelings and positions.  That’s just good old fashion inspired direction on the part Les Waters who wonderfully orchestrates the voices and their pacing.  The power comes from the writing and the acting.  The principal actors are:
Andrew Garman in the convincing and mesmerizing role of Pastor Paul; Larry Powell is equally charismatic as the Associate Pastor; Linda Powell as Paul’s wife; Emily Donahoe as an outspoken congregant, and Richard Henzel as the church Elder.

Look for a production of “The Christians” in a theatre venue near you in the next couple of years.  It’s worth a visit.  This is my choice for Best play of the 2014 Festival.

“The Grown-Up” written by Jordan Harrison and directed by Ken Rus Schmoll is somewhat of a fantasy trip which flashes forward and backward in its telling the story of a “magic doorknob”.  When it’s applied to different doors, it moves the story line and the actors and the location.  Matthew Stadelmann, is the character we follow from childhood filled with bad dreams, through troubled teen years into adulthood, and eventually in to old age. The sea is very important to the narrative of the piece but the ultimate payoff failed to engage me.  I spent too much time trying to figure out what the playwright was attempting to say.

The most ambitious of all the plays presented at this year’s festival is  “The Steel Hammer” written by four different playwrights, in four different disciplines: acting, dancing, musical accompaniment, and classical movement.  The piece is the brainchild of gifted director Anne Bogart.  She asked writers Kia Corthron, Will Powers, Carl Hancock Rux, and Regina Taylor to create a piece about the mythic black folk hero John Henry, the legendary railroad man who drove spikes faster and longer than anyone else in competitions across the country.

Bogart then adds her personal vision of how best to tell the story of John Henry.  The result is a daring and very physically demanding two-hour performance that is not only hypnotic in its execution, but is one that assaults the senses and one’s endurance as well.     There is no doubt, however, as to the power of the piece’s creative force at work. But some may find the visual and auditory experience a little overwhelming.   I was told that this performance piece will be moving to New York later this year, with live musicians, instead of the recorded tracks we heard in Louisville.

“Remix 38” is a 19 actor, 9 playwright effort of the Ensemble Interns of the ATL.  The topics presented covered all of the human emotions that passionate young people care about: The society they’re growing up in and its future; sex; love; family; sex. adventure; sex;  relationships, sex;  Do you sense a theme developing here?  If you do, then you have plenty of company.  My only caveat regarding plays with loads of simulated on stage sex and the directors that stage these scenes is: Remember, sex scenes are not a spectator sport.  Don’t overdo a good thing.

The seventy-one critics and guests who attended the ATCA conference ended their festival participation, with the awarding of the prestigious 2013 Steinberg Play Award which went to San Francisco-based playwright Lauren Gunderson for her play “I & You” along with a check for $25,000.00.   She also was the American Theatre Critics Association keynote speaker on the association’s “Perspectives in Criticism” segment earlier in the week.

All in all, the 2014 Humana Theatre Festival with the talents of the Actors Theatre of Louisville was a rewarding, adventuresome experience with colleagues Charles Guiliano of Berkshire Fine Arts, Eddy Rubin, New York theatre and arts critic, ATCA Chair of the Executive Committee and Chicago critic, Jonathan Arbarbanel, Florida critic Pam Harbaugh, Wendy Parker, Midlothian, VA critic, Ira J. Bilowit, long time New York City  critic and theatre legend, among others.  The general consensus among the group is the American theatre scene is still strong and upbeat.  But we’re ever alert to new trends and shifts in tastes, and we’re all eager to see more creative and exciting writers emerge from the playwriting pipeline.  Next year our conference will be held in New Orleans.  Ah, great gumbo, shrimp, and Cajun cuisine, Bon Appetite!

I was struck by the similarity in tone and back-story of J.B. Priestley’s “Time and the Conways”, now on stage at The Old Globe Theatre and Julian Fellowes’ highly successful PBS –TV series “Downtown Abbey”.  Both stories have characters who come to grips with an England in transition between Europe’s two great wars (1914-1918 and 1939-1945).  Both examine the changes affecting a society and its social structure and its future.  World War I is over.  Life changing choices have to be made.  The air is filled with uncertainty.  The upper classes keep waiting for the good old days to return all the while ignoring the reality of their situation and a future that fails to register with them.  And World War II is just around the corner.

In Priestley’s 1937 prescient play, the melodramatic story of the Conway family, and its siblings, comes in for some incisive scrutiny under director Rebecca Taichman’s sharp and probing direction.  Granted the source material is a solid blueprint to follow, but each character, and there are ten of them, is so sharply drawn that it’s a piece of cake to become fully engaged in their stories.  Good writing ninety percent of the time will produce wonderful performances, and, at least for me, will always trump on stage  “theatrical pyrotechnics”, with rare exceptions, of course – “War Horse” being one.

Taichman’s cast is truly an ensemble effort because their stories and performances unfold so seamlessly.  There isn’t a false note struck among this excellent group of actors that include both Brits and Yanks.  Occasionally, I play a mental game of trying to discern the nationalities of a cast.  In this production it wasn’t necessary.  I was being treated by a group of consummate actors just doing their jobs.

Kim Martin-Cotton as Mrs. Conway, the family matriarch sets the tone of play.  She is pining for the good old days, when the upper classes sat around all day, reading, tending to their gardens, horseback riding, drinking tea, or shopping for more clothes than they could wear.  Her children, however, are a bit of a mixed bag of personalities: There is Adam the somewhat fey older brother of the family, played to perfection by Jonathan Fielding.  His curtain speeches in acts one and two are haunting in their delivery; Kay, a strong independent thinker and the conscious of the family is solidly played by Amanda Quaid; Madge, the socialist-leaning, frustrated quasi- political sister, is excellent in becoming the bitter “old maid” of the family; Rose Hemingway as Hazel Conway, the haughty glamour queen who never in a million years would ever be drawn to Ernest Beevers, a slightly rough-about-the-edges Yorkshire-man of the land, is deliciously played by Max Gordon Moore, and yes, they get married.  Leanne Agmon, as Carol the youngest of the siblings, and Robin Conway, Mrs. Conway’s choice to lead the family and its fortunes back to its glory days is played by Lee Aaron Rosen.   Two outsiders, Joan Helford a giddy and flighty friend of the family who has caught the eye of Robin, is nicely portrayed by Sarah Manton, who ultimately captures her man, as well.  Gerald Thornton, family lawyer and family friend is urbanely, and sophisticatedly played Leo Marks.  It’s a tight and cohesive cast who work as though they are the ten musketeers, instead of the usual three.

Rebecca Taichman is a director with an eclectic flair when it comes her projects.  I reviewed her production of “Sleeping Beauty Awakes” at the La Jolla Playhouse, but didn’t fall under her spell.  In “Time and the Conways”, I took a bite of that apple from Sleeping Beauty, and now I’m under her spell.  It’s a recipe for great production:  outstanding cast, inspired direction, and solid source material.

The creative team led by Taichman is first-rate as well: The absolutely gorgeous Set Design by Neil Patel is a visual feast for the eyes, as is the spot-on costumes of the period designed by David Israel Reynoso.  Thanks to the skills of lighting designer Scott Zielinksi, we can appreciate the costumes and lushness of an English manor house of the period.  Once again, vocal coach Jan Gist’s clever fingerprints are invisible but very apparent.

“Time and the Conways”, directed by Rebecca Taichman is the type of production that just glows and then soars from the footlights; once again underscoring the strength of the Old Globe and its technical mastery of theatre production.  The production runs through May 4, 2014.