Adobuere Ebiama, artistic director and co-founder of Can't Wait Productions

Adobuere Ebiama is talented and she knows it. She knows some other talented people from her native Dorchester too, like actress Gabriella Ciambrone. The two attended The Boston Arts Academy together. After a few years of ups and downs in the Boston theater scene, Ebiama decided she couldn’t wait around to be “discovered.” She has passion, skills, training and a network and that should be enough to start making the kind of theater she wanted work on and to see. She took her vision to Gabriella and together they founded Can’t Wait Productions.

Now in production for their first full season, the mission of Can’t Wait is to showcase local talent, tell the stories of the underrepresented and draw audiences of the kinds of people Ebiama and Ciambrone grew up with—people who may not have had the means or the inspiration to sit in the plush seats of the established Boston theaters where they might have been deeply moved.

Ebiama spoke to Blast about her “Can’t Wait” epiphany and the company’ s first season.

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BLAST: So what made you decide to strike out on your own?

EBIAMA: I think it was part of my impatience…

BLAST: Hence the name of the company?

EBIAMA: Yeah, (laughs) Can’t Wait Productions. A lot of artists, especially actors and performers, have this idea that I’m going to go to this specific city, like New York or L.A., and I’m going to make it—someone’s going to discover me—and they’re waiting for the right time and the right person to do something. I think that a lot of times talent gets wasted in the wait, because you could sit around waiting forever for someone to find you, and to figure out how special you are as an artist, but I prefer to create the opportunity for myself. I’ve had this energy for a while now and not known what to do with it because I’m waiting to use it for a show.  I should be using it all the time.

Of course I’m still auditioning. I’m still sending out headshots–all that jazz. But I don’t feel like I’m lying dormant, waiting for someone else to take control of my career. I feel like Can’t Wait Productions wants to make that theme apparent—that you can take control of you own career. I want to do the work that I want to see. When I’m looking for castings and that sort of thing, a lot of the same type of shows are being produced—and there are so many things, so many ideas that I have for the kinds of things that should be produced but are not.

BLAST: Like what?

EBIAMA: I grew up in Dorchester and the people that I know, their stories aren’t being told. I’d like to go to the theater and feel like I can relate to what I’m seeing more rather than feeling so detached.

BLAST: What kinds of stories?

EBIAMA: Stories of inner city. Stories of people of color that aren’t always tragic. Stories of Boston. There’s a chunk of people like me who just aren’t being represented enough.

BLAST: So are you looking for a lot of new works?

EBIAMA: We would like to use original works for Can’t Wait Productions because there are a lot of artists out there and a lot of new playwrights that have something to say in Boston and we would like to give them an opportunity to use our stage to tell their stories and that’s what we’re doing with our first season. They’re all original plays written by three women from Boston.

Another part of it is I really want to give actors in Boston who at least don’t know how to get themselves started, a foot in the door—maybe try to cast some actors who maybe haven’t been in too many shows—but are of course still right for the characters—give them that opportunity.

BLAST: Tell me about the first season. What are these three plays about? How did you find these playwrights?

EBIAMA: Well the first play is The Inside by Tasia Jones and Lydia R. Diamond. That’s about a 23-year-old black college student. It’s a one-woman show and she’ kind navigating her way through a post-collegiate party. [It’s] her inner monologue and her inner thoughts about the relationships that she has: her past relationships with men, her present friendships. It’s kind of like some of the things we all think about when we’re in our early 20’s and walking through a party… just observing and analyzing why you’re in these relationships, the people around you, and seeing how that effects you personally. It’s funny. And it’s interactive which I love. It breaks that third wall with the audience.

The second show is set for June. It’s by Paloma Venezuela. It’s called “Show Up.” Paloma is a good friend, who’s teaching in the D.R. right now. She went to school with Gabriella and I at Boston Arts Academy. She also went to Emerson. She’s an amazing playwright and screenwriter.

[“Show Up” is] about what would happen if all of the video vixens in these music videos that we see every day—if they dissapear. So it’s a comedy but it also has this underlying drama. Because it’s so easy every day to just—you watch television and it’s easy to see these women and have a certain perception of who they are based on how they dance and what they look like, but what she’s done is created a play [which] takes on their role and their understanding and their opinions and thoughts as women in these videos. So it’s entertaining, and it’s fun, and it’s light, but it also has some very specific opinions. We’re using multimedia in the piece.

BLAST: Video?

EBIAMA: Video and music—we’re hoping to have an original soundtrack of Boston musicians. So that’s “Show Up.” I’m thinking of directing that myself. We’ll see.

The last play is “Wednesday Double by Gabriella Ciambrone, our co-founder. She’s been working on this piece for a while. It’s about another young college student. A beautiful young waitress/bartender. And it’s set in this little café—this lounge where she’s constantly having to dismiss advances from patrons. [It’s about] how she’s working her way through school and the relationship between her and her customers. It touches on sexual harassment, what’s ok, what’s not ok—does she want this attention?

So the overall theme for this season, which kind of happened by accident, is the inner thoughts of women.  These are women from Boston so I think people from Boston can relate. Sometimes you think to yourself, “is anyone else thinking about this?”

BLAST: Who do you think your audience will be. Do you have a target?

EBIAMA: Well because we’d like to do the shows in Dorchester we really want the people that we grew up with to see the shows. We’d really like to get people 20-30.We want young people in our community to come out and see what we’re doing. That there is a way to channel your artistic energy toward something that you enjoy—we want to show the community that we are two 24-year-olds who created this company, and we want to bring art to you. You don’t have to troop all the way to Downtown Boston to see a good show. We can bring good theater to you, and you can come, and you don’t have to pay $30 for a ticket, and it can be good.

BLAST: What do you think theater can do for the community?

EBIAMA: I think it can give you a way to really channel your energy into something positive. I don’t know what I would be doing with all of this time and energy that I have spent organizing Can’t Wait Productions if I wasn’t doing it. I think a lot of times when people don’t know what to do with themselves they do—a lot of other things—reckless things, you know? When you have something positive you’re working toward—even if you don’t end up doing it for the rest of your life…at least your exercising your mind in some way.

Theater opens up so many great conversations.  If you see a great play you could be talking about it for days or weeks, it could open up political discussions or social ideas. I think a lot of times communities—I mean I’m not a politican or a psychologist or anything—but I think a lot of times in communities, at least where I grew up, people don’t talk about things. They don’t know who to take their ideas to. But I think if you create a base, and a foundation and a presence, rather than them feeling so separate form it, it will create a positive impact.

And it can be entertaining. It doesn’t have to be that deep. It can just be a place that you come on the weekends and you know that the company is there and they’ll bring you a great show and it’ll make your night.

Alan Brinks and Erin Markey in "Green Eyes"

It’s as sexy and dangerous feeling as it gets. A tantalizing bit of voyeurism mixed with first-rate drama.

In their Boston-premier staging of this long-lost 1970 work by Tennessee Williams, Company One takes you to an intimate hotel room several floors up in the historic Ames Building between Downtown Crossing and the Business District.

Seated in one of 25 chairs, you are cordially introduced to your hostess, a femme fatale on her honeymoon (Erin Markey) who soon reveals the naked, bruised body, over which the evening’s argument will be fought.

Why the bruises? That’s what her husband (Alan Brinks), a sullen soldier on leave from Korea, wants to know. Between whiskey swigs, cigarette drags and clenched teeth, he accuses her of slinking off with another man on their wedding night while he was near blotto in a Bourbon Street bar. She parries that the bruises are his doing, and the fantasy, akin to the others he’s been slipping in and out of due to P.T.S.D. Each argument feels persuasive as they roll and tumble for dominance with seduction and violence the alternating currents of their long morning after.

The mortal combat of the sexes is timeless (and dramatized by none better than this master) but “Green Eyes” also zeroes in on 1950’s American gender roles (against which we’re still reacting), by showing the torture a soldier goes through when told he must enact violence against his instincts and without provocation in a foreign land and yet remain restrained and stoic in the face of ultimate provocation in the domestic sphere. Meanwhile, his wife vies for what power she is allowed through mastery of the most powerful weapon at her disposal: her sexuality.

“Green Eyes” is electric and unforgettable—and Company One is really on a roll.

Directed by Travis Chamberlain, “Green Eyes” plays through February 26.

Boston could not ask for more great drama this weekend. Even before a certain athletic competition commences against a team from a certain noteworthy adjacent metropolis, our fair city offers us one last chance to see three remarkable productions of deservedly award-winning plays.

“God of Carnage”

by Yazmenia Retha (translated by Christopher Hampton)

directed by Daniel Goldstein

presented by Huntington Theatre Company

The playwright who brought us “Art,” the tale of two men shifting out of a mentor/protégée relationship and into contention in their middle age, thanks to the catalyst of an expensive abstract painting, comes another tale of squabbling grown-ups.

Off-stage, two children have an altercation on the schoolyard. One has knocked a tooth loose from the other with a stick.

The aggressor’s repressed mother and ostentatiously unscrupulous, cel-phone-addicted father pay a visit to the parents of the victim: two liberals, dripping with self-righteousness, in an apartment cramped with pretentious artifacts which advertise their simultaneous affinities for  the primitive and the sophisticated.

As the couples jockey to see who can come off as the most magnanimous, veneers are stripped bare, alliances are formed and trashed, booze is swilled, insults are hurled and furniture is vomited on and anesthetized. It’s a beautiful spectacle of the socially grotesque, all the more amusing in that you know each and every one of these people—in fact you probably are one of them.

Karl Baker Olson (left) and Thomas Derrah (right) in a scene from the SpeakEasy Stage Company production of Red. Photo: Craig Bailey.

RED by John Logan

directed by David R. Gammons 

presented by Speakeasy Stage Company

RED is a story about Mark Rothko, the great modern painter whom you may, if you’re honest, know as the” solid-color-with-solid-color-stripes, guy. If you’ve seen “a Rothko” in person though, there’s a good chance you were moved by it. They are almost eerily soulful, passionate and affecting compositions.

Through the eyes of a young apprentice who lives out a classical, role-reversing servant/master relationship with Rothko, we watch the artist confront his defining challenge:  fulfilling a commission from the Seagram’s Corporation to create a series of murals for an obscenely posh restaurant in it’s shiny new skyscraper headquarters. Painting is holy for Rothko, and commerce heartless and filthy. It’s another classic conflict.

John Logan is a playwright at heart who has sold an impressive number of trashy screenplays to Hollywood, so this is a conflict with which he’s familiar. He paints Rothko as a capital “A” Artiste in way that can sometimes feel a bit contrived, but he—and Speakeasy’s inspired team of designers and actors—capture painting as a sacred ritual as compelling as an epic athletic competition, with the same strange, irrational feeling of gravity and consequence.  In the role of the eccentric tortured genius, Tommy Derrah shows off his tremendous presence, emotional range and self-effacing humor.

Superior Donuts, Lyric Stage

Superior Donuts by Tracy Letts

Directed by Spiro Veloudus

Lyric Stage Company

Two other masterful former mainstays of the A.R.T., Will LeBow and Karen MacDonald, join some fresh talent in making the characters in this slice of Chicago life unforgettable. LeBow plays an aging hippie of Polish descent, who since the untimely death of his wife, is languishing behind the counter of his recently vandalized donut shop, oblivious to the flirtations of MacDonald’s salt-of-the-earth, Irish “lady cop.”

That which the near-destruction of his shop fails to accomplish—a true shakeup of his life—is initiated by the arrival of a young, black, trickster figure, who is either an unappreciated novelist, a con man, or some combination of the two.

Steven Barkhimer is amusing as always in the role of a the winkingly Chekhovian Russian shop owner,who wants nothing more than to buy our hero’s donut shop in order to expand his adjoining electronics store.

Like RED, Superior Donuts falls back on it’s share of clichés, including some clunky soliloquies, but at its heart are completely winning characters who illustrate the positives and negatives of urban culture clash, and, like “God of Carnage,” “Superior Donuts” is genuinely and consistently funny.

Paramount Center

One and one-half years into its existence, ArtsEmerson: The World On Stage is upping its game. The theater and film series sponsored by Emerson College and headed by former A.R.T. managing director Robert Orchard has already helped to revamp Boston’s theater district with its restoration of the Paramount Center, and brought cutting-edge theater to Boston from the likes of Peter Brook, The Abbey Theater, The Civilians and Mabou Mines. Now, ArtsEmerson has announced the establishment of The Center for the Theater Commons.

L-R) David Dower and Polly Carl in conversation at the CUNY Graduate Center, December 5, 2011. Image by Martha Wade Steketee.

Under the leadership of David Dower, current associate artistic director of Arena Stage in Washington D.C. and Polly Carl, director of the American Voices New Theater Institute (AVNT), which was launched at Arena Stage in 2009, The Commons will be, according to a press release, “a center for research into the processes, challenges, opportunities, and best practices for developing new theatrical work, as well as a hub of communication and collaboration tools for the theatre industry, nationally and internationally.”

Foundational to The Commons are a series of tools for communicating about new plays which Dower and Carl developed in Washington with funding from the Mellon foundation. There’s HowlRound, AVNPI’s online magazine, which publishes new work, editorials and interviews with theater makers; #NewPlay TV, a streaming video channel, and the New Play Map, a collectively revised listing of where new plays are currently be produced.

Robert Orchard calls their work in fostering of new plays, “the most important work in American theater today.” He says of the Center for the Theater Commons,” My dream has always been to explore through academic training, professional production and presentation, and rigorous research, structures that enable and celebrate a healthy theatrical culture, and the underlying respect for creativity and excellence that unites the field. Emerson is one of the few places in America that can host this effort. It’s an immense responsibility, and we are honored and energized to be able to take it on.”

Dave Malloy, Alec Duffy, Rick Burkhardt. Photo Ryan Jensen

“Three Pianos” is an awesome party for music nerds. That is to say, it does a great job of creating a theatrical representation of a Schubertstadt, which was, it explains, an event wherein a bunch of creative depressives would hunker down in the crappy apartment of 18th century superstar composer Franz Schubert, get blitzed, listen to the latest sublime Schubert composition, and attempt to transmute their melancholy into works of art.

The theme of this party is Schubert’s Winterreise (Op. 89, D 911), a 24-song cycle created around poetry by Wilhelm Müller about an angst-ridden Romantic who wonders through a snowy wood, brooding upon the cruelties of existence. The party’s hosts, creator/performers Rick Burkhardt, Alec Duffy and Dave Malloy essentially give this work the Reduced Shakespeare Company treatment: loving yet irreverent.

Inviting their audience to join them in a cup of wine or three (really, there’s wine), they offer witty, multimedia Cliff’s Notes on each of each song in the cycle. Surrounded by snowy trees, colored lanterns, a model of churchyard and of course, one piano each, they jump between tongue-and-cheek lectures, goofy historical reenactments and arguments over music criticism and music theory, which occasionally get personal.

Much of the strength of the trio’s fluid and creative presentation is their gift for modernizing (and often post-modernizing). They sing selections from the cycle in a self-consciously non-operatic style. They create ingenious contemporary analogies for the central image of the tromp through the cold forest. It’s a more active version of what would now be mindlessly refreshing Web pages while stuffing one’s face with processed food. It’s like aimlessly meandering through the aisles of Kmart with no particular purchase in mind. It’s like flitting desperately from one entertainment source to the next. Better, the trio argues, to confront depression head on, explore the hell of it, make something with it, like Schubert and his artistic friends did. Once this argument is offered the pre-curtain music choice of Chicago blues makes wonderful sense.

The other brilliant bit of modern adaptation going on in Three Pianos is its celebration not only of the artistic process by of the art of appreciation. It plays with that fact that in our world of cutting-and-pasting, posting, tweeting and commenting—our world in which “hipsters” are essentially cultural critics— fandom is a highly creative act.

I got so lost, in fact, in the fun of watching this talented threesome try to reckon with this strange, foreign art work which exerts so much power over their lives, that after the curtain fell, I found myself wondering if I would enjoy the actual Schubert piece on its own merits, divorced from the commentary. I’ve been listening to various versions of Winterreise over and over again, ever since. It’s beautiful.

“Three Pianos” plays at the A.R.T.’s Loeb Drama Center through January 8.

Yes, “The Nutcracker” is on at the Boston Opera House, and the Rockettes will be kicking up their heels at the Wang. But don’t worry if sweeping balconies and sky-high ticket prices aren’t quite how you imagined spending your hard-earned shopping funds. Boston offers a wide sparkly spectrum of seasonal shows to choose from this season, from free family-friendly fare to racy renditions of holiday classics.

Christmastime 2011 Reagle Music Theatre

Christmas Time

Reagle Music Theatre

The Robinson Theatre, Waltham

From $25 (student rush available)

December 3 – 11

SEE IF: you’re a fan of the Rockettes, or your parents and grandparents are driving in from western Mass and want to do something fun.

Why dish out for Radio City? Here’s a traditional variety show on a slightly smaller scale with no punches pulled. There’s even a Living Nativity and tap-dancing toy soldiers! The cast of over 40 adults and 150 children, including Broadway actors (and real-life couple) Sarah Pfisterer and Rick Hilsabeck, promise to drum up lots of wholesome family fun.

New Rep Christmas Story

A Christmas Story

New Repertory Theater

Arsenal Center for the Arts, Watertown

From $28
December 11-24

SEE IF: the carols and goodwill are getting to you, and you just want see a kid “shoot his eye out.” The 1983 film didn’t make much of a splash when first released, but now the Red Ryder air rifle, pink bunny pajamas and fishnet-clad leg lamp have become modern holiday symbols. If the thought of zoning out to the TBS marathon (which replays the movie for 24 hours through the 24^th and the 25^th) isn’t thrilling, but still want your yearly dose of 1940’s childhood hijinks, the stage version of “A Christmas Story” will play at the Arsenal Center for the Arts all the way through Christmas Eve. Double dog dare you to check it out.

Slutcracker logo

The Slutcracker: A Burlesque 

Somerville Theatre, Davis Square

December 2-24

$25

SEE IF: you always thought “The Nutcracker” needed more scantily clad dancers and blatant sex jokes. This frequently sold-out burlesque returns to the Somerville Theater this year for the fourth time, bringing all its risqué charm and energy. The dancers jeté, arabesque, shake and shimmy their way through the story of the nutcracker, with more than a few raunchy twists. This production is quickly becoming a Boston institution, and this year’s production continues the sexy, silly tradition in grand fashion. This year, though, they’re not just using “The Nutcracker” as a parody punching bag: the Boston Ballet is offering a 25% discount for “The Slutcracker” audience members. Details here.

GrinchleyChristmasCarol-Poster-Web

Mrs. Grinchley’s Christmas Carol

MACHINE 1254 Boylston Street, Boston

December 3 – 18

From $35

SEE IF: you’re curious to see how the past, present and future of an alcoholic drag queen Grinch will turn out. Certain circles may be shocked that a drag show ripping two holiday traditions—“How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and “A Christmas Carol”—performed at one of Boston’s most notorious gay bars could be such a smash. In fact, last year’s run was completely sold out, and there are a few new surprises peppered in this year. Expect many “celebrity” appearances, puppet shows, musical numbers, and a ridiculously merry time.

Improv Boston

What the Dickens?!

ImprovBoston – Central Square

December 15 – 23

From $17

SEE IF: you want to see Charlie Brown’s Scrooge-like tendencies finally get the better of him.

After all Charlie Brown’s trials and tribulations, it’s not particularly surprising that his adulthood is more than a little whacked. This season, ImprovBoston’s “What the Dickens?!” is probably your best bet for low-key holiday-nostalgia laughs. After years of adapting “A Christmas Carol,” ImprovBoston has added “A Charlie Brown Christmas” into the mix, envisioning Charlie Brown as Scrooge, Lucy as Jacob Marley and the red-haired girl as the woman Scrooge loved and lost—not to mention the incredibly satisfying casting of Peppermint Pattie and Marcie as Bob Crachit and his wife, and Tiny Tim as their adopted son. The production is certainly not classified as family-friendly, but might be a happy medium between wholesome caroling and raunchy drag shows.

Did Fats Waller write every great jazz song of the 20’s and 30’s? It sure feels this way when you peruse the 30-strong song list for “Ain’t Misbehavin’, We’re talking about standard after standard from bluesy songs like “Aint Nobody’s Business” and “Black and Blue, to jaunty dance tunes like “the Joint is Jumpin,” “Honeysuckle Rose” and Jitterbug Waltz,” to satirical songs like “Loungin’ at the Waldorf and “When the Nylons Bloom Again,” to pop songs like “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” and “I’m Going to Sit Right Down and Write Myself A Letter”—all of them lyrically witty and melodically rich enough to be covered by all of the greats for decades.

Waller was quite a character. A brilliant composer and virtuosic stride piano player with a flip vocal style and a propensity to clown at the keys, he was one of the greatest artists to immerge from the Harlem Renaissance. Someday, I’d love to see a play about his life. Actor Calvin Broxton offers an impression of the entertainer, but Ain’t Misbehavin’ is really a straight musical review in the classical Broadway style. The rotund Broxton plus one leading man-type and three women offer what a contemporary audience might think of as music video-style interpretations of Waller’s songs on a beautiful set: a shiny-floored cabaret, framed by a gleaming piano-key archway.

For what it is, this “Ain’t Misbehavin’” is not as musically sharp and polished as it should be. The show is also Broawayitized enough to not be for jazz purists. But it’s impossible to sit through without tapping your toes and cracking a few smiles. Being a matinee in Boston, there were many at the opening who seemed to remember these songs when they enjoyed radio play, and they appeared giddy with nostalgia. Anyone else who is at all wired to receive these kinds of tunes will find themselves tickled by at least a handful of these interpretations.

I loved watching Lori Tishfield, wearing a shimmering dress and clown shoes, transform the goofy song “Your Feet’s Too Big” in which a lover is spurned for her enormous “pedal extremities” into a sexy burlesque number. I also enjoyed watching Davron S. Monroe play an almost 70’s-style pimp in a slowed down, savored version of the reefer-extolling, “Viper Drag.” Good to see some Misbehavin’.

Directed and choreographed by Josie Bray with musical direction by Catherine Stornetta, “Ain’t Misbehavin’” plays at the Lyric through December 17. 

Kathleen Turner and Evan Jonigkeit in "High"

In “High,” Kathleen Turner plays Sister Jamison Connelly, a tough-talking nun with a rocky past, whom a shady priest strong-arms into counseling a hopeless-seeming recovery case: a godless, drug addicted, gay street hustler.

Turner’s character narrates the tale. Arguments with the priest and sessions with the troubled youth are interspersed with soliloquies, in which she offers up memories from her wayward past as puzzle pieces that will ultimately reveal the story behind her strength, vulnerabilities and faith.

When she first speaks, it’s exciting to hear that distinctive voice of hers: a growl that sounds like it’s been caressed by years of cigarette smoke and washed down with whiskey, pinched a little by the slimness of Turner’s nose. She works this instrument into a steady rhythm which serves the caustic quips she constantly fires off, but which never varies much across the play’s peaks and valleys.

Not that there are too many of these. Shortly after Cody Randall (Evan Jonigkeit) our snarling, spiky-haired street urchin enters Sister Connelly’s office, we see how things are going to be. He rolls his eyes at the prospect of being helped and tries to hide behind silence or apathetic mumbles or shock value. She is surly and unimpressed and her tough love approach wears him down quickly. He lowers his guard and reveals more and more elements of his tragic story.

Somehow however, these sessions are being undercut. Connelly knows this has to do with her boss, Father Michael (Timothy Altmeyer) who is of course, hiding something difficult in his own past, but this the Catholic church and hierarchy rules. Not allowed to be as tough with Randall as she would like to be, the only tool she has left to offer his faith. But will this be enough?

I found myself not particularly caring. The tough nun, the shady priest and the troubled youth never branch off far enough from these basic characterizations. They never show much capacity for change and while they sometimes raise their voices, they never really break a sweat. They just each reveal more and more of their emotional damage until the pity party is complete. I suppose the appropriate thing to do is to forgive them. I wish Turner a more inspiring vehicle for her next project.

“High” is written by Matthew Lombardo and Directed by Rob Ruggiero. It is presented by Ann Cady Scott and Timothy J. Hampton in association with The Repertory Theatre of Saint Louis and AE Stages, and plays at the Cutler Majestic Theater through December 11.

Louis Cancelmi and Michael Cristofer in Evan M. Wiener's "Captors". Photo: T. Charles Erickson

“Captors” is the best kind of memory play. It’s the kind in which memory is an action—and it’s the kind in which details have palpable moral consequences. At a time when the fall of a powerful war criminal is almost a monthly event, it’s also a deeply resonant history play.

Cohn (Daniel Eric Gold), a nebbishy-looking young writer working on a book, interrogates badass Mossad agent Peter Malkin (Louis Cancelmi), who, 30 years ago in 1960, pulled off an impossible mission. With a small team, he captured a chief architect and enforcer of the Holocaust, Adolf Eichmann, now an old man living under an alias in Argentina, and convinced him, without the use of force, to sign a statement agreeing to stand trial for his crimes in an Israeli court. Cohn narrates the story of Malkin, painstakingly dictating his version how he painstakingly convinced Eichmann that standing trial would be the only way for the high-ranking Nazi to gain control over his story.

Malkin’s greatest skill as a spy, it turns out, is his mastery of disguises. In fact he comes to bond with Eichmann (for strategic purposes) by revealing some of the tricks of physical subterfuge to this pathologically deceptive man. We watch Cohn strive to detect cosmetic tricks in Malkin’s story, and, in dramatized flashbacks, we watch Malkin and Eichmann grapple with the various metaphorical masks each adversary tries on. Designer Beowulf Borritt foregrounds them against warped glass which both reflects and distorts.

If you remember anything about the actual Eichmann trial to which the plot is a prelude, it’s probably that this man who oversaw the systemized slaughter of millions appeared chillingly nonplussed, that he appeared to be a normal, familiar enough looking fellow, who seemed at peace behind the refrain that he was only following orders. The actor Michael Cristofer (himself, an award-winning playwright), does a masterly job both of portraying Eichmann’s vulnerability, his twisted rationalizations and his sociopathic skills of manipulation. Crisofer’s riveting sparring match with the equally compelling Cancelmi demands some daunting questions.

What do we do with the pity we feel when we see an old man, naked, manhandled and terrified, knowing that this man is responsible for the death of millions of complete innocents?

As we watch Malkin struggle to put a redemptive spin on his story, how are we to feel about that chance he and his cohorts gave Eichmann for public redemption? Was this P.R. move on the part of Israel worth it for them? For the sake of history or the insights we may have gained into the psychology of a mass murder? One thinks of the P.R. debacle that was the trial of Saddam Hussein.

For his part, Malkin  is repelled by the project he is given, but must resign himself to simply follow his orders. What are we to make of this parallel?

Playwright Evan M. Weiner forces all of the right questions in this, his impressive first work for the stage. Catch “Captors” if you can.

Staged by Huntington artistic director Peter DuBois, “Captors” plays at the B.U. Theatre through December 11.

Conor Lovett in Gare St Lazare Players Ireland's Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Photo Credit: Ros Kavanagh

It’s a fish tale. And it’s a great one. It’s epic, without special effects, save for some atmospheric fiddle playing.  It’s a one-man show, but not in the familiar sense of an actor proving his mastery by inhabiting a bunch of characters with varied voices, accents and postures. This “Moby Dick”, from the Gare St. Lazare Players Ireland, just feels like an old man in a pub has been coaxed by its patrons to tell his survival story one more time for the newcomers.

Conor Lovett’s performance is startling in the power of its simplicity. Melville’s words are completely convincing as his own rambling train of thought. His man called Ishmael is humbled, but still schoolmasterly. He’s comfortable in the spotlight, humorous in his phrasing and savvy in his choice of detail, but so cerebral as to be easily sidetracked. His struggle is to communicate some very real, terrifying events that happened on the outside of the mind into which he is so deeply burrowed.

Fans of the novel—particularly those of us who have been prodded to deliver detailed glosses of this tome—will miss many cherished details. I missed:

 “Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.”

I missed the sermon from the whaling chapel, the great descriptions of Stubb, Flask, Tashtego, Daggoo and Fedallah, the mystery of Pip’s transformation after falling overboard, the sinister account of the “Whiteness of the Whale” and  I missed“the great shroud of the sea,” rolling on “as it rolled five thousand years ago.”

This version has no agenda to push on the nature of the search for Truth. It’s just the story: a gloomy intellectual with an exotic companion, set sail on a whaling expedition and find it hijacked by an irresistibly charismatic captain on an unalterable quest to kill one whale in particular.

There’s no question that this enough material to make for a story great enough to lodge in one’s memory and haunt one’s dreams.  It’s a rare pleasure to hear it told so simply, with Melville’s language married to an Irishman’s dramatic sensibilities.

“Moby Dick” plays through November 12 at the Jackie Liebergott Blackbox in ArtEmerson‘s Paramount Center“

Left to Right: Janet Girardeau, Hannah Kritzeck and Maude Mitchell in "Mabou Mines Dollhouse"

You’ve got your graphic sex, your stilt-walking and puppetry, your opera, your naked dwarves, your postmodern meta-narratives, you know—an Ibsen play.

Actually, “Mabou Mines Dollhouse” would probably be Ibsen’s worst nightmare. It certainly uses the look and feel of a nightmare to explode this foundational work of modern drama into flaming pieces of satirical mercury. The bizarre and unforgettable production seems to want to emphasize the play’s moralistic message about gender roles and sublimation by exaggerating its central metaphor to the zillionth degree, while at the same time mocking the work’s sincere tone and the conventions of sentimental realism.

In the climax of Ibsen’s play—a real shocker for 1879 which is credited with changing the face of Modern drama—Nora, the iconic heroine (for whom Central Square’s Nora Theatre Company is named), comes to realize that she’s been hiding her competence and power to conform to societal norms. She’s taken out a desperately needed loan by forging her father’s signature, earned and spirited away some money toward paying it off and quashed a plot to expose her crime, all behind the back of her prideful husband. Now’s she’s tired of being patted on the head by him.

“When I was at home with papa, he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions; and if I differed from him I concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it. He called me his doll-child, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls. And when I came to live with you—

I mean that I was simply transferred from papa’s hands into yours. You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as you–or else I pretended to, I am really not quite sure which…I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life.”

Director Lee Breuer’s conception is to stage the entire play as an extended version of this analogy. His crew erects a flimsy approximation of a literal dollhouse on stage. His Nora, played by Maude Mitchell, acts like a hyperactive child at a tea party (although when she does drink “tea” its actually vodka).

Her husband Torvald (Kristopher Medina) and his male compatriots, Nora’s secret admirer, Dr. Rank (Joey Gnoffo) and the thwarted banker, Krogstadt (Nic Novicki) are played by little people. Presumably this is because they are doll-like in appearance, or perhaps, more troublingly, they are meant to represent the spiritual smallness or powerlessness of the men in Nora’s life.

While Ibsen’s text and story are largely preserved, the play is enacted in the language of dreams. Sexual innuendos are played out explicitly. A threat of death  hangs over the play, Nora’s friend Kristine (Janet Girardeau) is recently widowed, Dr. Rank is deathly ill and Nora and Krogstadt discuss suicide, and so there are visits from grim reapers and death’s heads. Associative and symbolic imagery abounds and sometimes characters fall asleep and hear key speeches delivered in their minds.

If you’ve seen “A Doll’s House” performed numerous times, it’s extremely entertaining to watch it treated this way: utterly without subtlety, propriety or seriousness. But Breuer doesn’t stop there. He doesn’t allow you to simply get lost in his strange Ibsen-inspired dream. By constantly sending up lines, trashing the fourth wall and drawing attention to the artifice of his own spectacle, he seems to be saying, Here we all are in a giant dollhouse: still exploring our identities by playing childrens’ games.

It’s jarring, but ultimately in the right way. I was shocked, moved, tickled and puzzled by this production. I was never bored. “Mabou Mines Dollhouse” has been touring around the world for almost a decade. This weekend’s performances at the Emerson Majestic will be it’s last. I vividly remember reading about this “Dollhouse” with little people in the New Yorker when the tour began. At the time, I scoffed thinking  it sounded like the height of decadent “weirdness-for-the-sake-of-weirdness.” Now that I’ve finally seen it, I recognize a bizarre yet rich experiment. Purists will be horrified. Those unfamiliar with Ibsen may be perhaps less rewardingly confused. Students of theater however, will have their minds blown.

“Mabou Mines Dollhouse” plays at ArtsEmerson‘s Majestic Theater through November 6.

Ross Bickell, Alexis Camins, Kippy Goldfarb, Glen Kubota, and Karen MacDonald in Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro's BEFORE I LEAVE YOU. Now through November 13 at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

We’re in a Chinese restaurant and some nearby apartments, so there’s an element of the familiar here, and yet this engrossing slice-of-life drama offers some subjects we don’t encounter too often on stage.

American theater is full of dominating patriarchs and matriarchs in their autumn years, divvying up their kingdoms or atoning for long-hidden sins against their families. Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfarowho– has just become a Huntington playwriting fellow at the age of 72–focuses this play instead on the present friendships, love lives, friendships, aspirations and fears of a collection of Harvard Square denizens in her age group.

One of them, Koji (Glenn Kubota), is, like Alfaro, a Japanese American working in theater. A director of student productions at Harvard, he is offended when asked to work on a World War II internment camp play. He’d rather direct “King Lear.”  Koji dislikes feeling his foreignness to the point where he envies his son Peter (Alexis Camins) for being half-white. At the same time, he quips about how all Asians age with grace, he plays into the American stereotype of the relentlessly strict Asian father, and he ultimately gets ahead in his career by playing the part he has long rejected:  a supposed scholar of Asian drama.

Koji doesn’t have too many Leareqsue problems. His mind is as sharp as tack and his central focus is his own present happiness. But he does have a late-life crisis when his best friend Jeremy (Ross Bickell), a novelist and English professor, begins to suffer some serious health problems. Koji feels for his friend, and can’t bear the thought that a wit like Jeremy might soon be unable to return the ball, verbally. His reaction seems introspective, though in comparison to those of his wife Emily (Kippy Goldfarb) and their son Peter, who flock to Jeremy’s side.

Koji adoes have a truth-telling jester to contend with in the person of Jeremy’s sister, Trish (the always-wonderful Karen MacDonald). A victim of the recession, Trish has lost her real estate job in New Hampshire and moved in with her brother. She’s less refined in her speech and manners than the Cambridge set, and so she serves as a roving foil for each character.

Her strangeness in the neighborhood is emphasized visually by Allen Moyer’s set, which seems to place the play’s restaurant and living rooms at the forefront of forest of bookshelves. Trish’s greatest clash is with Peter, Koji and Emily’s angsty (and in fact not quite angsty enough) son, who, as a young man in his twenties, earning minimum wage and living with his parents, can likewise be viewed as a squatter.

It’s a distinctly domestic drama, compelling, even with relatively low stakes. Trish, Peter and Emily, who is a (presumably underappreciated) artist, orbit around Koji and Jeremy. When Jeremy’s health falters the whole center of gravity shifts and everyone must adjust their perspectives.

These characters are rich and their conversations are textured with gallows humor and barbs. “Before I Leave You” offers a worthwhile peek into the lives of some of our neighbors on the Red Line.

Directed by Jonathan Silverstein, and produced by the Huntington Theatre Company, “Before I Leave You” plays through November 13 at the Calderwood Pavilion in the Boston Center for the Arts.

Left to right: Johnnie McQuarley, Miranda Craigwell, and Chris Leon. Photo by Liza Voll

This one’s deep. Really deep.

In the first of his three, “Brother/Sister Plays,” playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney has taken “orishas,” archetypal demigods from the Yoruba tradition of West Africa and reincarnated them as the complex and charismatic residents of a Louisiana ghetto.

Their story is more a slice of life than an epic of war or adventure, yet it’s told through epic similes, heighted language, prophetic dreams and sudden snatches of otherworldly music. It’s a domestic legend, epic for the community who lives and universal in its fundamental concerns. It’s told with poetry, pathos, humor and—thanks to director Megan Sandberg-Zakian—cannily simple stagecraft.

Oya (Miranda Craigwell) is the radiant avatar of the orisha of the Niger River, a goddess of wind and storms. But she doesn’t know this. As far as she can tell her only claim to glory is her speed as a runner. She’s a high school track star.  When she’s recruited by a state university at the same time that Mama Moja (Michelle Dowd) her mother, takes ill, Oya must decide between family and personal ambition.

An equally tough decision looms as Oya grows into womanhood. Desperate for a child, she must choose between two suitors who have pursued her all her life. Ogun (Johnny McQuarely) is an avatar of the orisha of war and iron, similar in some ways to the Ancient Greeks’ Hephaistos. He’s a businessman who seeks a family and a life of comfort. He’s the safe choice.  Then there’s Shango (Chris Leon), a version of the Yoruban thunder god, their dispenser of justice.

Shango is the sexy, dangerous choice. He’s a solider, and he’s a player. Oya may be his true love, but he also has his eye on Shun, another river orisha, played brilliantly by Natalia Naman as that cool, popular, fiercely territorial, alpha female you’ve probably learned to hate.

There’ s one more choice. She could also be guided to love by her trifling yet mysteriously prescient neighbor, Li’l Elegba, the Yoruban trickster figure (think Hermes, Coyote, Brier Rabbit). Between begging sweets from Mama Moja and getting local girls pregnant, Elegba seems to have watching over Oya. He might be able to lead her down the right path—or he might just be playing her. Hampton Fluker isremarkable in the role, shifting suddenly and seamlessly between a scamp and a seer.

You don’t need to crack a book, or even a playbill, to appreciate “In the Red and Brown Water” as a well told tale, at once fresh and achingly familiar—but its more than likely that this play will leave you hungery for more on its source material: mythology that has spread with the African Diaspora and indeed claims Louisiana as one of its homes.

At the very least you’ll want to see parts II and III of McCraney’s Brother/Sister trilogy, which will be staged by Company One‘s Summer Williams in December. I know I’m looking forward to it. The images and repeated lines of “In the Red and Brown Water” keep resurfacing in my mind like a song or a dream.

“In the Red and Brown Water” plays at the Plaza Theater in the Boston Center of the Arts through December 3.

Pictured L-R: Robbie Collier Sublett, Jennifer R. Morris, Matthew Maher, Caitlin Miller Production Photos by: T. Charles Erickson

When you tell a story about your parents, you are in large part saying, listen: here’s how I turned out this way. This feels especially true when the stories are about divorce, one of those defining childhood traumas. So there’s something absolutely electric about actors telling their parents’ divorce stories while performing as their parents, in their parents own words, gleaned from child-parent interviews.

On one level, you’re hearing these riveting accounts of how a failed relationship both reveals and alters one’s identity. On another level, you can’t help but thinking: Man, they told this stuff to their children, who had to internalize it enough to memorize and perform it. Sometimes they talk about their sex lives. Sometimes they talk about what a burden their children were.

It’s like some mutant therapy role-play session. It’s also great theater. As much as it’s a conceptual art piece, it’s also the most engaging form of storytelling: people just looking you in the eye and talking through some intense moments from their pasts. Of course, because the subject is divorce, they’re also working hard to build persuasive cases about winners and losers.

The characters are vivid and compelling. There’s a strong, southern aristocrat, played by her son, who comes to learn that her beloved husband has been hiding some truly shocking secrets. There’s an indomitably high-status, New York liberal/socialite, played by her daughter, who appears as comfortable in her victimhood as she is in her self-avowed egocentrism. There’s a pair of ageing hippies—both played by their son—who tried experimenting with the traditional rules of marriage, and there’s a lapsed Catholic, played by her daughter, who married a Harvard intellectual to whom she was never attracted because at the time, it somehow felt like the path of least resistance.

While the topic of these characters’’ stories is heavy and the context of the performance is loaded, the play frequently manages to be hilarious. Its creator’s have done an excellent job of editing the interviews to maximize entertainment value. Plus, the shock of hearing some spicy details or cold-sounding observations come from the mouth of these character’s children, often inspires that uncomfortable laughter you experience in the best dark comedies.

In addition to being insightful and funny, “Tales From My Parents Divorce” does give one a strange feeling of voyeurism. It begs the same questions as a good memoir: to put it crudely, how could they do this to their parents? How could their parents agree? It’s not that these parents are necessarily presented in a bad light; they’re probably more often sympathetic then not—but they are certainly exposed and open to interpretation. They’re also, often telling only one side of the tale.

When, how and to what extent should family history be public entertainment? As usual, the Civilians provoke some great questions.

The Civilians’ “You Better Sit Down: Tales From My Parents’ Divorce” plays at ArtsEmerson

’s Paramount Mainstage through October 30.

Tina Packer and Nigel Gore in "Women of Will"

“Women of Will” can equally be characterized as: the most fun you will ever have at an English lecture, a Frankenstein’s monster of script limbs and discussion thread and an adoring mix tape: the Best of Shakespeare’s Ladies. Shakespeare and Company founder/artistic director Tina Packer explores Shakespeare with wit and vigor through his female characters. The piece, which she received a Guggenheim Fellowship and two other grants to create, pairs Packer’s love of the plays with her insight on the evolution of Shakespeare’s female characters and how their growth coincides with the Bard’s.  This approach to Shakespeare’s work presents unique obstacles for Packer, her co-star Nigel Gore, and director Eric Tucker. At its best, it swivels between skillful performances of Shakespeare’s characters and engaging discourse full of personality and style.

Packer throws out the Writing 101 rule of “show don’t tell.” This is a show-and-tell situation: the actors tell us what it’s all about, and then show us what they mean with a scene. It works. The explanations that stitch together the scenes offer fresh points of view and illuminate rather than ruin the artistic effect of hearing the verse. Packer is indisputably an expert. There is so much material here, in fact, that “Women of Will” will play in two versions. “The Overview,” playing through October 30, offers highlights of “The Complete Journey,” which spans three nights  (November 4-6) and covers the bulk of Shakespeare’s female characters.

“The Overview” features gutsy scene splices, which move quickly between tragedy and comedy. While relishing the women’s words, it intricately explores how they function in the plays and how they relate to the actual events of Shakespeare’s life and England’s history. However, it is the dynamic between Packer and Gore that makes this piece pop. Though it really is Packer’s show, Gore is not just the token male. Their chemistry during scenes and  transitional dialogue allows the audience a heightened level of comfort and closeness—and in some moments, silliness—unique from most theatrical productions. The actors’ age matters not. To the audience members who murmured, I like my Romeo and Juliet to be young: I challenge you to find a Juliet more winning in giddy love than Packer kneeling on her chair “balcony.”

The format does have its limitations. One is variety. By the time Lady MacBeth makes her entrance, for example, Packer’s delivery has become so familiar that the character’s impact is weakened. Then there’s the academic vibe. While the explications are fascinating, their interruption can make it difficult to be engrossed in the performances.

“The Overview” version of ”Woman of Will is approachable for everyone and offers an evening both intellectual and sensual. “The Complete Journey”—a three-day event from November 4-6—is probably best confronted by die-hard Shakespeare fans and scholars.

Seth Lepore

Seth Lepore is a performance artist and member of the C3 arts collective in Northampton, Mass. He’s also a “recovering Catholic” and a “New Age Refugee.” His latest one-man show, “Losing My Religion,” takes a humorous look at the commercialization of ism-based spirituality, alternative healing and self help movements. After successful runs in a number of small theaters and fringe festivals, it plays at the Arlington Center for the Arts, November 11-12.

In a phone call, Lepore spoke with Blast about  the show and the  charlatan gurus who inspired it.

***

BLAST: What’s your background? Is it in acting or comedy or both?

Seth Lepore: It’s in acting and improvisation as well. Not in comedy improv but, structured improv that’s not comedy-based. But I mean, I am pretty funny. It’s what I’m known for, but I don’t like to call myself a comedian, I like to call myself a “humorist” because I like to be able to be serious and I don’t do ‘bits.’ I’m not doing like [cheesy comedian voice] Heyyyyy, have you ever been in a lobster place? I don’t like that shit. Not that I don’t like comedy, I do, I mean Louis C.K. is one of my favorite people on the planet, but that’s because, you know, he’s brilliant. [Laughs.]

BLAST: You do sort of, storytelling and structured improv?

SL: Yeah. The way that this particular show is setup is it’s scripted. So there are 17 characters in it and I play both myself telling stories from my own past—growing up Catholic, I went to a Buddhist school, leaving all that stuff, getting into the whole New Age thing—and then there’s me playing all of these New Age characters that I’ve met, or I’ve made up or I’ve kind of smashed together.

BLAST: How would you define “New Age”? What does the term mean to you?

SL: Well, at this point it’s kind of gone away from where it’s been in the 70’s—away from the whole occult mystical stuff. It’s kind of a daily thing in people’s lives without them even realizing it. It’s basically another term for self-help at this point, and the ways people can try and heal themselves through different means, or an alternative form of spirituality than Judeo-Christian. However, I’ve found that it’s just as dogmatic. A lot of the same guilt and shame techniques that are used in organized religions are used in much the same way.

And it’s very product-based. It’s very much a commodified product. Everything from the Law of Attraction, to chakra clearing—and some of this stuff I’m totally down with. It’s that sort of thing where about 10% of what’s out there and 10% of the people who are doing it are fantastic and grounded and brilliant, and 90% of it is complete bullshit. It’s a bunch of charlatans running around promising people things that they can’t deliver on. Which is a lot of how America works, like: If you by this, you’re life will be way better and all of your problems will be solved, and a lot of it’s just not true.

BLAST: So how did you first get attracted to it? How did you first get into the world?

SL: I was 15 and my uncle had lived on an ashram in California. He was deep into meditation and whatnot but he was also very skeptical of the world. And my mother is like a huge New Age fanatic. So I was reading books and looking at this stuff when I was a teenager. And I had been drawn to more spiritual experiences which weren’t based in Catholicism, which I had left when I was 14.

BLAST: Was there something specific that made you leave the Catholic Church? Was there an inciting incident or was it more that this stuff was around and you were just curious?

SL: No, I just felt drawn to this side of things. I always felt like there was some kind of connection I had to the universe that was different than most people that I knew, but I didn’t know how to explain it or how to explore it, so when I started finding books and whatnot, those things were speaking to me. However at that point I was young, I didn’t realize how simplified a lot of it was. And again, a lot of that stuff was helpful to me at that time, and I’m glad I had it at my disposal to investigate this stuff. Thankfully I grew up on the east coast where people tend to be more skeptical and cynical, so when I moved out to California I brought some of that with me and I was kind of like what are you talking about? [Laughs.] People were just on these other planets.  WHO are you? What?

BLAST: What was some of the weirdest stuff that you came across?

SL: Well, I lived in places where if you threw a rock you’d hit somebody who did some kind of therapy, whether it was real therapy or something that they made up or some kind of energy healing work. Again, some of these people were totally valid in what they were doing and no bullshit about it and great. A lot of them were off their rockers and manipulating people and really checked out. There’s a lot of, like,  sex weekend workshops that happen in the Bay Area where I feel like people are just getting re-traumatized—where they’re like, getting naked and staring at each other’s genitals. I don’t see how that’s helpful at all. [Laughs.]

I mean, I’m being a little crass about it. I think that there’ s much more to these things than that, but what I find is, again this thing of people promising things through these products, through these different DVD sets or MP3’s that they’re selling, or ebooks.  A lot of them are just about promising people things that they can’t follow through on, like “this will bring you financial freedom,” or “this will bring you totally happiness 24/7. I don’t see how that’s helpful. Also this stuff is spreading to the megachurches where they’re not even talking about Jesus anymore, they’re just talking about “the power of thought.” So it’s really starting to infiltrate into the larger culture which is really fascinating to me.

I just met all of these people, who were funny to me, but who just didn’t seem very grounded in what they were doing, who were using the same exact lingo, the same exact language as other people I knew who were actually great. I’m like, Huh. There’s something really wacky and wrong here. I don’t know exactly what’s happening. I was still doing a lot of these practices but I was also watching how I would get drawn into certain things…and how this high that you can get is actually not real. It’s actually something that just gets you to this point where you fall again and you go, Oh, my life’s a mess. I need the next thing.

BLAST: It seems like a lot of the critique of the New Age stuff, at least in the 80’s when it was getting really big, was that the trend was, look inward, and everything is about just coming to a greater understanding of your own ego, rather than looking outward and connecting to society, and focusing on being productive for other people. Is that a critique that you relate to?

SL: Yeah, I do find a lot of what is presented in the New Age movement and Self Help movement as very narcissistic and very focused on self. Which is an interesting thing for something like Buddhism for example, where you’re trying to alleviate the self so you can obtain inner piece and all that. I went to Naropa University, which is founded by a Buddhist monk. I actually play a Buddhist teacher in this monologue and talk about my own experiences. I had a friend who was at a retreat center and I’m basically playing the teacher whom she had this, [laughs], thing happen with, where the person basically said: all of these things that have happened in your life are your karma because you left the center and you had a commitment to us—

BLAST: Oh, wow.

SL: Yeah, it’s such bullshit. It’s such a weird theistic way of turning something that is real, Buddhism, and flipping it so that you can shame the hell out of people. It’s very manipulative and weird. But playing that teacher I can see where she is at the same time. I gain an empathy from playing these people, but I also see the power dynamic in that.

BLAST: So, do you hope that this show will be a cautionary tale? Do you hope that it will appeal to people who have also been sucked into New Age ideologies…

SL: I’ve had a lot of different people come to the show who are involved in the New Age world in way or another, who are interfaith ministers who teach religion at universities, who are Catholics still, or recovering Catholics, or whatever they want to call themselves. They all seem to get something out of it. What I’m trying to do is start a dialogue about why we believe the things that we believe and have faith in the things that we have faith in. For me it’s about presenting what I observe and mirroring it back to the audience and seeing how they react to it.

I’m not trying to kick the New Age in the crotch. I’m trying to show what I see happening within it, underneath it all and seeing of that’s real for other people. The feedback I’m getting is that it’s pretty true.

"Curtains" at Boston Conservatory

If you have any interest in theater, it’s likely you were in or at least saw a high school production of “Oklahoma” or “42^nd Street.” Maybe it’s the young performers, but Boston Conservatory’s production of “Curtains” feels like your high school musical theater director’s wildest fantasy: a high budget, a schoolboard tolerant of bawdy one-liners, and insanely talented students. Set in Boston’s Colonial Theater in 1959, the show maintains the formula and charm of old-time musicals, setting up opportunities for big numbers and short witticisms with minimal attention to story structure. “Curtains” is inherently ridiculous, as most musicals are. It generally takes pure escapism to accept outbursts of song in a semi-realistic setting. But this play’s ridiculousness needs more direction to make it a truly great show.

The story is simple and fun: the (awful) leading lady drops dead on opening night after the final bows, and the entire cast and crew is confined to the theater until the killer is caught. The show’s glaring problem is not the cast or production team, but the book, and how the music fits into it. “Curtains” has identity issues: should it be a comedic, musical murder mystery, or a musical about putting on a musical? I would have rather seen more of the former: numbers like “He Did It” capture the silly whodunit spirit with lyrical cleverness. The only other number referring to the murder case, “The Woman’s Dead,” is introduced so oddly that the potential humor doesn’t play out. The “show within a show” format is a cop-out—an excuse to perform certain songs that don’t really fit into the story. At least, the story the audience expects from the subtitle “a musical comedy whodunit.” Songs like “Show People,” “It’s a Business,” and “What Kind of Man?” (referring to critics) are fun, but are too abundant to keep the story focused in the best places.

That being said, the players are fabulously entertaining. The acting is sound: Michael Tacconi’s theater-loving detective and Malari Martin’s tough-as-nails producer stand out. Director David Gram paid close attention to the texture of the stock characters onstage, and the effect is pleasing and familiar without being boring. While musically simple, composer John Kander’s score is melodic and well-executed. The highlight of the show, however, and what makes it a worthwhile evening, is the dancing. Choreographer Michelle Chassé has created a visual feast of twirling skirts, clean lines and stimulating variety, and the cast’s enthusiasm and precision—not to mention flexibility—makes for a wonderful spectacle. The act one finale, “Thataway!”, was admittedly part of the “show within a show” trope, but genuinely the most fun I’ve had in a theater in a long time.

Unfortunately, the entire package doesn’t hold together as well. There are awkward tone shifts. There are some dull songs and details. But there is also a stage full of energetic, talented show people and high production value. Which is, historically, what musicals are all about.

“Curtains” plays through October 23 at Boston Conservatory.

Ro'ee Levi as William Scott and Stacy Fisher as Aphra Behn in "Or,"

“Or,” is good English-majory fun. With spy/author Aphra Behn, that most fascinating and mysterious figure of the English Restoration as its heroine, it’s like a feminist’s “Shakespeare in Love.”  It’s got the intrigue, the sexiness, the gender-play, and the winking parallels between history and the present.

Just like an English major, however, it often walks a fine line between cleverness and self-indulgent ostentation. Playwright Liz Duffy Adams begins with and sometimes lapses back into her imitation of period verse, and this can be cloying. The play’s preface features an overt display of anachronism to get you in the mood, and then a detailed explication of the play’s title. It’s tedious. Once you get passed this though, you get to some good stuff.

The heart of the play takes place in our heroine’s apartment, with an ex-lover and spy hiding in her wardrobe; a new lover, actress Nell Gwynne, hiding in her bedroom; and her patrons, King Charles II and theatre maven Lady Davenant, coming and going as they please. We don’t get quite as deep into farce territory as you might expect with this setup but we do get see our super spy/lover/poetess negotiate between these roles at a dizzying speed.

Stacy Fisher is up to the task. As Aphra, she finds an eye of calm in a tornado of swift, dire calculations. Each dilemma reads on her face and not a word is lost of the relentless speeches that pour from her lips as she talks herself in and out of each with barely a pause for an embrace or two. With big brown eyes and a nimble tongue she seduces every man and women in her compass.

Her equally talented co-stars, meanwhile, Hannah Husband as the women and Ro-ee Levi as the men, are a flurry of wigs, masks and accents. In a way it’s a shame to tip you off that Levi, in particular stands in for a jailor, a king and a spy, all marvelously distinct, but even if I hadn’t your playbill would have.

“Or,” is definitely the work of a romantic imagination. Its Aphra Behn is a bit too lacking in flaw for so complex a character. Its Charles II is a bit too genteel. For a man of means whose life is threatened, it’s strange that he’s never attended and never armed. And so on. There are plenty of nits but none so meddlesome that they won’t be fun to pick—in an English majory way, that is.

Directed by Daniel Gidron, “Or,” plays at the Lyric Stage Company through November 6.

Fayez Kazak and Nowar Yousef in "Speaker's Progress"

This is a chance to see something revolutionary—in every sense of the word. Performed by a cast culled from throughout the Middle East, “Speaker’s Progress” is not only a rich, layered satire on government censorship but also a work-in-progress negotiation of just what theatrical performances can achieve in an atmosphere of suppression. In many ways, this is the best play that could be staged so close to Dewey Square at this particular moment in history.

Playwright, director and starring actor, Sulayman Al-Bassam created the piece just before the Arab Spring had bloomed. He is the founder of the Zaoum Theatre in London and the head of the SABAB Theater and “The Culture Project” in his native Kuwait. The play is the third installment in his “Arab Shakespeare Trilogy.”

His character is a playwright exiled from an unnamed Middle Eastern country in which theater has been banned as a subversive art form, rife with Western influence. The play beings with this character’s endorsement of the law and renouncement of his former work in the theater. What he proposes to show this audience is a document of a characteristically subversive work: a production of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” adopted into Arabic with built-in revolutionary overtones. The production will be reconstructed, purely for the benefit of historical understanding, through the use of a few surviving film clips, and live performance to fill in the gaps in the audio/visual record. Its performers include a former actress, and representatives from a women’s league, a cultural ministry and a tourism board.

At its beginning, the exercise is quite funny to watch. Petrified of appearing in anyway subversive, the actors strive to keep their presentation of this poetic romance as drily scientific as possible. Positions on the stage are announced in the manner of chess moves. The men are armed with yardsticks to ensure that the head-dressed actresses never step within an inappropriate distance of their male scene partners.

L-R: Amal Omran, Carole Abboud (seated), actor not coming to Boston (Fahad Al AbdulMohsin), Fayez Kazak, Nassar al Nassar (hidden behind), Faisal Al Ameeri

Even in these conditions, even in Arabic with English subtitles, the message and the passion escape. In fact, the more they are restricted and forbidden the more attentive one becomes to them. As this fact becomes apparent, the cast seems to divide among those who wish to further the production’s original cause and those who wish to battle it back.

The greatest threat  to  the cause is the representative from the tourist board, played by Fayez Kazak. This stern figure has been cast as the play’s equivalent of Malvolio, the haughty puritan who gets his comeuppance. In the Arabic adaptation, Malvolio is a Mullah, the very figure who would have censored the play.

Malvolio/The Mullah is undone by falling into a trap in which he is led to believe that he is beloved of a woman more powerful than he—in the Arabic version, her name is “Freedom.” He winds up behind bars, tortured. A similar trap is set for this member of the tourism board. He is seduced by the freedom of playing the juicy role of the Mullah, and while his guard is down, his fellow actors try to strip him of his power.

Like much of “Speaker’s Progress” this drama plays out on at least four planes of reality at once. Engaging with it gives one some sense of how Sulayman Al-Bassam must feel as he strives to create works about conflicting cultures that speak to Arab citizens, government censors and Western audiences. It also speaks volumes about life under censorship and repression. It must indeed feel like a series of theatrical performances, full of  potential for subtle subversions and charged with the constant threat of cages of all kinds.

“Speakers Progress” is a deeply challenging work for a complex historical moment. It’s also funny, engaging and unique. Occupy a seat at the Paramount while you still can.

“Speaker’s Progress” plays at ArtsEmerson’s Paramount Mainstage through October 16.

Sandra Bernhard brings her one-woman show, "I Love Being Me, Don't You," to OBERON Nov. 1-4

Comedienne, rock star and provocateur Sandra Bernhard, is bringing her latest one-woman show, “I Love Being Me, Don’t You,” to OBERON, November 1-4. Bernhard is known for her love of glamour, her acerbic takedowns of celebrities, and her quick-paced, freewheeling, and abrasive commentary on all aspects of popular culture, which she mixes with songs and stories from her life.

She started stand-up at the age of 19, broke into TV on the short-lived “Richard Prior Show” and into film in the Scorsese classic, “The King of Comedy” with Jerry Lewis and Robert DeNiro. In the 80’s she was a frequent guest on the “David Letterman Show.” One characteristically manic and outrageous appearance with Madonna, at the height of the pop-star’s fame, provoked long lasting rumors that the two were lovers. In the early 90’s, Bernhard played Nancy Bartlett on the show “Roseanne,” one of the first openly gay characters on a prime-time sitcom.

Throughout the 00’s, Bernhard continued to appear on television and in live comedy shows. She also incited controversy for slamming the likes of Laura Bush and Sarah Palin in her characteristic style. On her latest live comedy album, she jokes about topics ranging from trying to “be green,” to celebrities Angelina Jolie, Tina Turner and Iman, to taking her girlfriend to a Kabballa Center.

Bernhard chatted on the phone with Blast about Twitter, Occupy Wall Street, observing Yom Kippur and how her show will be “the ultimate hip experience.”

***

Blast: I know you’ve played Boston before. What have the audiences been like?

Sandra Bernhard: Always an interesting diverse crowd there. Obviously there’s a lot of schools. School’s in session so people are engaged and reading. They’re in touch with what’s going on culturally and socially, so, you know, they’ve always been pretty good crowds.

Blast: You’re touring in support of your album, “I Love Being Me, Don’t You.” Where does the title come from?

SB: Actually a friend of mine came up with it for me. I was down to the wire and I needed a good title. You know, just something in keeping with all of my titles that are kind of laced with irony. It’s wordplay. It’s a fun title. Also it’s sort of a reflection on social media because everyone’s so into talking about themselves that they never know what anyone else is talking about. It’s kind of like, listen to me, I’m the one who has everything to say.

Blast: I know you’re a big Twitter-user. How do you use it? What’s the primary use for you?

SB: Well, the main use is, when I come up with ideas and funny one-liners it’s a great outlet. You know, normally, I always keep notebooks of material for my show, so over the years I’ve had pages and pages of one-liners and funny thoughts that maybe I never got to do because they become irrelevant. The great thing about Twitter is that you can get it out there in the moment. It’s a great place to remind people what you’re thinking of.

Blast: So you’ve got these notebooks, I wanted to ask you—for this show will you be drawing from notes? Have you memorized material? How similar will it be to the stuff on the album?

SB: The live show’s very different from the album because the album was recorded live last year in San Francisco and it was sort of an improvisational show. There were a lot of people on the bill that night. It was fun because we happened to be recording it and put it out. So people who come out to see this show are going to see something much different. There’s a band, there’s, you know, set pieces, it’s more theatrical, it’s more musical. So when they buy the album at the end of the night, it’s cool, because they’ll get something totally different.

Blast: Who’s in the band that you’ll be playing with in Cambridge?

SB: Actually, they’re all going to be people from Berklee that somebody put together for me. So I don’t know them yet but supposedly they’re all really good. [Laughs.]

Blast: Do you know what you’re going to sing ahead of time or will you be keeping them on their toes?

SB: Oh, yeah, of course! It’s a set performance with some improvisational elements in it. Basically it’s a show that I did out in L.A. for two weeks that got great reviews in the L.A. Times, and something I really put together in the beginning of the summer. So I’m now touring with it and adding elements that reflect what’s happening in the news and pop culture.

Blast: Speaking of what’s happening in the news, you’re always very outspoken about politics and I know you’re based in New York. I wanted to asked if you have any opinions about what’s happening in the Occupy Wall Street movement and the Occupy Boston movement that you’ll see when you come here.

SB: I think it’s great! I think it’s great to see a grassroots movement in this country again with people out on the streets who are trying to transform this country back to being in the benefit of the people as opposed to the corporations. And I think it’s having an effect. You know, they’ve been out there, and they continue to be out there and I totally support it.

Blast: Is that something you talk about in your act?

SB: Well, you know, I haven’t been performing since the whole thing happened. I might touch on it in Boston.

Blast: How do you know when you’re ready, that you have enough material to go on the road and do live shows again?

SB: Well, you know, when you’ve been doing it as along as I have, you know how long your show is, you have your set pieces, you have your improv, you have your songs, you know? And night-to-night, one of the things I’m very good at is improvising. So you know, the show could be an hour, it could be two hours depending on how much of a roll I’m on. So, you know, when you’ve been doing it for 30 years you kind of know when your show is ready.

Blast: What are some of the big themes for this show?

SB: Some of the themes are political, some of the themes are personal, some of the themes are memory-kind-of-based and fictionalized stories and songs all kind of interwoven. Some of it’s really funny. I keep it moving very quickly throughout the night and so it’s kind of up to the audience to keep up with me.

Blast: It’s interesting that you say “some of it’s really funny.” Are you comfortable having stretches that are more serious?

SB: I mean, most of it makes people laugh but when I say “just funny” I mean there are pieces, or my one-liners, that are just strictly for laughs and maybe a little less there to kind of stir it up. But overall I think my stuff works on a lot of different levels. That’s certainly what I want the outcome to be.

Blast: I was listening to the San Francisco show, which was wonderful—

SB: Thank you.

Blast: And one of things you were talking about was going to a Kabballa Center, and your Judaism. So I wanted to first say, happy New Year—

SB: Yeah, thank you. L’Shanah Tovah. We’re now into Sukkot tonight, so I’ve got to run into a sukkah for half-an-hour tonight.

Blast: Do you do that? Do you make a sukkah?

SB: I don’t. I can’t really make one in New York but there’s a million of them around. So, I’m going to go Sukkot hopping tonight! It’s really fun to go down there and you know, sit there and shake your lulov and your etrog and do all the things you can do to, you know, [laughs] stay connected.

Blast: What did you do for Yom Kippur this year?

SB: I went to services and fasted. And I did my traditional break-fast, which is to make all the family favorites: blitzes and noodle kugel and bean-and-barley soup. We get bagels and lox. You know, the whole nine yards.

Blast: Did you make any New Year’s resolutions?

SB: That’s the gentile New Year not the Jewish New Year. The Jewish New Year’s more of a transformation. It’s kind of like an opening of the cosmos to do a deep spiritual cleansing, to take a good look at your life over the last year and see how you want to shift it, but it’s not about, uh…making false promises.

Blast: Fair enough.

SB: Yeah, right?

Blast: Right on. Well is there anything else you want to tell people about the show to get them out? Anything else they should look forward to?

SB: Well, just that I think I kind of transcend age and like, time. That’s kind of what I’m good at, is keeping my finger on the pulse of what everyone wants to be a part of which is, you know, the ultimate hip experience, which my shows are. I always like to make sure college-age people—who are going to Harvard or B.U. or wherever they’re going—know that this is a show and an experience they don’t get to see very often. I’ve managed to keep my work very contemporary and yet take all those years of experience and make it kind of masterful.

Dan Roach as Luke and Will McGarrahan as Adam. Photo by Craig Bailey/Perspective Photo.

Adam, a candle salesman in the midst of a midlife crises, can’t handle the idea that his lover could place anyone else above him. Even God. Perhaps, especially God, since God, to Adam, is a human invention used to oppress men with lovers like his. His lover is Luke, a struggling young New York actor and a southern Baptist, who knows how to compartmentalize.  Luke accepts the notion that his relationship with Adam is a sin. He’s ok with this. We’re all sinners, after all.

It’s a rich conflict for a relationship drama and SpeakEasy’s outstanding cast proves it to be provocative and compelling—despite the fact that Geoffrey Nauffits’ script probably needed another edit or two. Although we know from the get-go that there’s a hospital involved, there’s a bit too much setup before any ticking clocks are heard. In general, the play has a few scenes too many, but the production is worthwhile because of the depth and insight these actors bring to their roles.

Adam, played by Will McGarrahan is a restless soul with an acerbic wit. Luke is the best thing in Adam’s life and their conflict over religion seems to be their one sore point. Adam picks and picks at the scab. After a while one gets the sense that as impossible a challenge as he makes it seem, he actually wants to be convinced—not of Christian dogma, but that there is an order to things, maybe even a protector of some kind.

How justified Adam is in obsessing over the issue might be more debatable if it weren’t for the fact that Luke, played by Dan Roach, is too frightened to come out to his parents. That which Luke believes God will understand, he can’t imagine his parents will. His fear becomes a bit more comprehensible when one meets his father, Butch, played by Robert Walsh. As the name crudely suggests, Butch is a formidable presence. His swagger, his grin, his steely glare and rumbling growl, project so much confidence that you almost subconsciously feel convinced that he is a man of judgment and wisdom. Then he gets talking and you get the creeping fear that he’s a powerful man who knows nothing.

Luke’s mother is Butch’s ex-wife, Arlene, a kind of aging Maggie the Cat figure. Amelia Broome is nothing short of brilliant in this role. She imbues Arlene’s desperate small talk with wells of subtext, and she rules every space she inhabits with carefully calculated body language.

Adam and Luke each get an ally in their fight. Adam’s is Holly, his boss at the candle store, played by Deb Martin. Holly, like Adam, is restless and searching. She’s a lapsed Catholic who seems to wear a New Age identity like a vintage frock picked up at a thrift store. Luke’s embrace of a religion that condemns his lifestyle is appalling to her, but so is Adam’s inability to get beyond it. So as an arbiter, she’s sort of our stand-in. Holly gets some good banter in. Luke’s ally, Brandon, played by Kevin Kaine, gets less to say. What we know, for most of the play is that he’s close to Luke, grimly serious, and clutches a Bible. Kaine is a fine actor and Brandon’s presence evens the seesaw, but the truth is, he probably doesn’t need to be in the play.

“Next Fall” raises questions about the purpose of religion and offers some familiar answers. The better questions it raises, which good acting helps make challenging and vital, are about which conflicting beliefs can be overcome in a relationship, how they can be overcome, and whether or not they should be.

“Next Fall” plays the  Boston Center for the Arts through October 15.

Bottom to Top: James Andreassi as Sir Toby, Steven Barkhimer as Feste, and Doug Lockwood as Sir Andrew. Photo by Stratton McCrady.

The best thing about ASP’s fresh take on Shakespeare’s most beloved festive gender-bender is that they take this comedy just a little bit seriously. The strongest example is the production’s version of Sir Toby Belch, the drunken uncle to the countess Olivia, who torments his niece’s butler, sleeps with her serving maid, throws raging all night parties in her kitchen and sends an idiotic suitor to woo her, simply for his own amusement.

Sir Toby is often played as a beer-bellied, blustering, buffoon. In this production, the role goes to James Andreassi, whom ASP featured as Marc Antony, in last season’s closer, “Antony and Cleopatra.” On a physical level, Andreassi looks like he’s ready to strap the armor back on at any moment. While his antics are funny, they don’t feel free-spirited. They feel heavy-spirited. His outsized appetites and his roguishness are endearing, but always just a little bit scary.  When he gets backed into a corner that just a little becomes quite a bit.

Before seeing Andreassi’s performance, it had never occurred to me how much Sir. Toby can be seen as a darker, less decorous version of the play’s Duke Orsino. Orsino, played in this production by Jason Bowen, whom ASP last cast as Othello, spends the play wallowing in the passion of his unrequited love for Olivia, who is too busy stewing in her own grief for her recently deceased brother to entertain his entreaties.

Duke Orsino is the speaker of the famous lines, “If music be the food of love, play on/Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,/The appetite may sicken, and so die.” It turns out that his appetite sickens, and so dies, just one line later. Orsino may lack Toby’s affinity for mischief making, but he is an equal in the extremes of his unquenchable desires and in his tendency toward dramatic mood swings. Just like Toby, when it looks like the doom is sealed on having his will, he threatens violence. In Bowen’s performance, the threat is half-hearted, and perhaps this is right; From Orsino, it’s just another show of melodrama.

Allyn Burrows as Malvolio. Photo by Stratton McCrady.

Sir Toby’s foil, Malvolio, Olivia’s puritanical steward, is another character who is often played a bit cartoonishly off the bat. ASP artistic director Allyn Burrows is hilarious in the role but he’s also refreshingly understated. You can tell Burrows has “found his clown.” Burrows is trim, fastidious and composed and you can imagine this wonderfully anal Malvolio, as a stretched-out version of him in is worst moments. He starts as a believable enough busy body with a proverbial rod up his derrière. Once a trick played by Sir Toby and his compatriots gives makes him drunk with imagined power, he wriggles and squirms like a child who’s had fruit loops for breakfast.

Paula Langton is wonderful as Maria, Malvolio’s underling, whose cleverness in tormenting her boss is rewarded with love and worship from Toby and friends. Sparks fly between this Toby and Maria from the first time they share the stage and Langdon’s Maria, like Andreassi’s Toby, manages to be likeable while also betraying a real sinister streak. They can be hilarious in toying with the defenseless twit, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, played as a sympathetic simpleton by Doug Lockwood.

They’ve got a pretty formidable posse as well, with Gabriel Graez as an impish Fabian, leading the charge in gulling Malvolio one minute and bowing and scraping before the Duke, the next, and the very talented character actor, Stephen Barkhimer as Feste, the traveling musician and comedian.

Barkhimer’s mysterious, trench-coated Feste is in some ways, a good step ahead of the pack. Unlike everyone else, he knows that Viola, our romantic heroine, is in fact a woman, even if he doesn’t know why she is serving Duke Orsino in drag. He knows how to make Olivia crack a smile in the depth of her despair and how to make the self-serious Duke Orsino pay him for a jest. He knows when it’s safe to join Toby’s crowd and when its best to shuffle out of the picture. But for all of his cleverness, there is a sadness to him and even a bit of pathos. As a lowly entertainer, he is in many ways impotent. He must duel with Malvolio for influence over their mistress and despite some attraction, he knows he can’t vie for her hand.

Mara Sidmore, a perpetually insightful actor, delivers as Olivia. Her pale skin and fierce blue eyes blaze forth from a jet black dress of mourning as she does her best to clench onto the safety of her grief despite a whirlwind of excitement: her uncle’s antics, her servant’s madness, her jester’s jokes and, the one thing she cannot resist, the presence of the Caesario, Viola’s male alter ego, made in the image of Sebastian, the twin brother she believes has drowned.

Omar Robinson as Antonio and Marianna Bassham as Viola. Photo by Stratton McCrady.

Marrianna Balsham’s Viola isn’t a scene a stealer. She is a laid-back go-between who brings out the extremes in her scene-mates in the way they react to her cool wit. With her even-keeled alto and floppy shoulder-length coif, she’s a bit reminiscent of Keanu Reeves. It’s a very fresh take on Viola, and the most celebrated Viola lines trip nonchalantly off her tongue as new inventions.

Director Melia Bensussen takes a few liberties in the structure of the play and some of them pay off. She helps to clarify the story of the play, for example, by reversing the order of its first two scenes.

A less canny choice is her strange device of giving disguised Viola several of her twin brother Sebastian’s scenes, with Sebastian skulking spectrally in the background. Eventually, I decided that I was supposed to suspend my disbelief and see Sebastian in her place, and that this was supposed to help trick me into seeing them as identical. This was a difficult leap to make. The moments were confusing, and puzzling over them pulled me right out of the story by which I’d been so effectively held.

Bensussen also chooses to end the play by having its cast join Feste in his final song. The song turns out to be a melancholy dirge. It’s a strange note to end on. These experiments are forgivable offenses. By and large this Twelfth is rich, insightful, and funny.

 ”Twelfth Night” plays at the Boston Center for the Arts’ Plaza Theater through October 22.

The cast of the Huntington Theatre Company's CANDIDE. Directed and newly adapted by Mary Zimmerman. Playing 9/10-10/16 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org. Photo © T Charles Erickson

One moment you’re in a sumptuous mansion hearing a lesson on philosophy from an acclaimed scholar. Suddenly, the walls fold away and you find yourself in an alley, shunned, penniless and surrounded by goose-stepping soldiers. Next you’re on a dirty street on a foreign shore, being crawled at by a hoard of lepers. Fate attacks like a tornado, recedes into a gentle breeze and then fans back up into a tempest. There are more palaces, more slums, seas voyages, villas, theaters, a utopian city of gold, a ride on a hot air balloon…in short, director/adaptor, Mary Zimmerman gives “Candide” her signature treatment; It is epic in its scope and endlessly playful in its staging.

Zimmerman is the latest of many to revise the book of the 1956 Leonard Bernstein musical, itself adapted from Voltaire’s work of 1759. The satirical novella illustrates the absurdity of a belief gaining steam at the time, that we live in “the best of all possible worlds.” Zimmerman’s tale is a highly entertaining, humorous, picaresque adventure—but it does not manage to carry with it much satirical bite. The “Optimism” against which Voltaire was railing during the French Enlightenment, was a significant religious/philosophical movement, which threatened social reform. This “Candide” doesn’t tie the ideas to any equivalent contemporary movements, so it’s left just sort of poking fun at optimistic people.

“Candide’s” characters though, are fun. The man for whom the play is named, is our strapping young tenor, an overly earnest fellow who becomes a feather for each wind that blows. Geoff Packer plays the role with an almost frantic energy, which keeps him from being unbearable dashing. Candide attends the lectures of Professor Pangloss (get it, pan- gloss?), who converts the lad to his sacred philosophy that we live in the “greatest of all possible worlds,” that everything that happens is in accordance with a perfect god’s perfect plan. The tall, reed-thin actor, Larry Yando, fills his Pangloss with benevolent bluster.

The professor’s lessons are taught in the home of Ms. Cunegonde, a rich and beautiful woman, way above Candide in social standing. The two of course, fall in love. It is a naive love based upon dreams of comfort and affluence, but being forged with the hearts of the young and then subjected to adversity, it is a love that becomes immortal. Cunegonde is played by operatic soprano, Lauren Molina. The part is a challenging test, vocally and she executes it with absolute virtuosity. Molina’s voice is in fact the gem of this production.

Soon after Candide and Cunegonde meet and fall in love, Candide is expelled from her estate, which is then promptly sacked by an invading army. Such is life in this best of all possible worlds and so begins a series of misadventures with a pack of many more fun characters. The most fun of these is an old woman with one buttock and a million-and-one tricks for survival up her sleeve, played by the wonderful character actor, Cheryl Stern.

As far as the score of “Candide,” well, it’s upbeat and fun and it has its moments. I remember the timbre and the acrobatics of Molina’s voice extremely well, particularly in the song, “Glitter and Gay,” but I can’t say many of the show’s songs have lodged themselves in my mind the way good Broadway tunes are wont to do. I remember laughing at witty lyrics more than tapping my toes. Mostly though, what stays with about this “Candide” is its spectacle. Not glitzy grandeur, but unrelenting whimsical, inventiveness. That’s the fun of having Zimmerman onboard, as well as consistently featuring Boston’s most talented designers.

“Candide” plays at the Huntington’s B.U. Theatre through October 16.

Looks like the controversy surrounding “The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess” is officially over. At least in the Hub.

At 4 PM, Mayor Thomas M. Menino will declare Friday, September 30, 2011, “The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess” Day in the city of Boston, according to an A.R.T. press release.  He will make the announcement at the historic Colonial Theater on Boylston Street, where the original “Porgy and Bess” premiered, 76 years ago. Representatives of the Gershwin family will be on hand as well as director Diane Paulus and cast members Audra MacDonald (Bess) and Norm Lewis (Porgy), city officials.

Emerson College president, Lee Pelton will also speak. Emerson owns the Colonial, which is Boston’s longest continually running theater but has been dark since July due a dispute between the college and programming partner, Broadway Across America. Today’s announcement promoted Pelton to tell the Boston Globe that Emerson is close to an agreement with Citi Center to reopen the venue soon.

“Porgy and Bess” opened at the Colonial at a time when it was common for producers to test out their work in Boston before bringing it to Broadway. The first performance of the opera lasted over four hours, prompting its writers to labor over cuts on an after-show stroll through the nearby Boston Common. “The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess” adapts the original opera into the form of a musical. It features new dialogue written by playwright, Suzan-Lori Parks, which adds new dimension to its characters and new additional music by Diedre L. Murray. The production premiered at the A.R.T. and plays through October 2 at the Loeb Theater in Cambridge. This production too is headed to Broadway—but not before the city of Boston publicly stakes its claim.

John Malkovich in "The Infernal Comedy: Confessions of a Serial Killer" at ArtsEmerson

A live orchestra emits the final thrums and squeaks of its tune-up. Before it on stage, a table is setup with a pitcher of water, a microphone, and a book from whose cover the unmistakable face of John Malkovich stares into the crowd. Suddenly, the man himself strides out, in a resplendent white suit,  a polka-dot dress shirt, is and white leather shoes. He spreads his arms open wide inviting warm applause. Here he is, the guy you’ve been waiting to see, he seems to be saying, it’s OK to show your excitement.

We’re cheering for Malkovich. That’s what you do when a Hollywood star steps onto stage for the first time in a play. It takes a minute to realize that the man who so confidently solicits our love is a fictional version of Jack Unterweger, the convicted serial killer turned author, journalist and celebrity. With all of the characteristic charm, menace and enigma of the sociopath, Unterweger has been turned loose to sell his new tell-all book to the morbid masses. This is a great move because he’s really a people person.

As far Unterweger is concerned, there’s just one problem. His boob of an editor thought it would be usefully dramatic to embed his tale within an opera. As he speaks, the orchestra behind him will swell up into compositions by Vivaldi, Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Boccherini and Weber. Two beautiful sopranos will waft in from the wings to sing arias. This is trouble. Unterweger is an emotional guy. He’s not sure he can handle this kind of music. And beautiful women are his weakness.

The construct of “The Infernal Comedy,” is genius. As Unterweger, the self-confessed fabulist, spins and revises his tale and silently toys with the play’s sopranos (Sophie Klubmann and Claire Meghnagi), we know he is also loosely following some kind of script his handlers have written for him, even as he bristles against it. The question at each moment becomes: which script is he following now and to what extent? The tension is electric, alternately hilarious and frightening.

Often, using this many layers of meta-narrative keeps audiences from feeling too much. But it is impossible to shut off one’s heart in the presence of live music as passionate and beautiful as conductor, Martin Haselbock has put together. The arias in particular are exquisite. Writer/director Michael Sturminger’s script is as funny as it is clever. It describes truth in a Wikipedia world as a war of revisions. Joh Malkovich is absolutely in his wheelhouse. He’s transfixing as a creepy, seductive tortured genius. Catch this one of you can.

“The Infernal Comedy: Confessions of a Serial Killer” plays at ArtsEmerson‘s Cutler Majestic Theater through September 30.

Laurie Anderson in "Delusion" at ArtsEmerson

Laurie Anderson is a master at engineering moods and atmosphere. In her one-woman show, “Delusion,” she uses dim lighting and a touch of hovering fog. Video is projected onto both flat and three-dimensional surfaces. She plays both low, rumbling electronica, and hauntingly sweetl melodies on an electric violin, which seems to emit three voices at once. Sometimes she speaks into a voice-distorting microphone, making her sound like a demon or an ogre. Always, she speaks with a slow, deliberate cadence. Savoring the texture of each word she snaps her t’s and d’s and hisses her sibilants and cocks her head to the side during long pauses for further emphasis. The sum of all of these effects is foreboding, anxiety, awe and wonder.

At Anderson’s best, her atmospherics can woo one’s heart and mind to go exploring. At her worst, they feel like form striving to compensate for flimsier content. The performance is made up of stitched together bits, like a dramatic version of stand-up comedy. It has many peaks and valleys.

The character Anderson creates is a wry mistress of ceremonies in formal, masculine attire. Referring to notes in a binder, she speaks directly to her audience but seldom acknowledges the reactions she receives. She moves fluidly between stories and subjects, often clanging out distorted sounds on a keyboard to accompany her speech. Both her delivery and her sound reminded me of Tom Waits in his Kurt Weill mode.

Anderson’s bits are often both intensely personal and purposefully ambiguous. She shares some emotionally complicated episodes surrounding the death of her mother. She describes some poignant dreams. She relates mediations about moon exploration, ranging from the whimsical to the political, as gray dust and craters fill her stage. She sketches travelogues, and allows herself planned tangents on language and gender roles.

Following Anderson on her journeys requires patience and an open mind. They are full of surprises, of stimulating sights and sounds and some delicious twists and details, but they unfold in an atmosphere of unrelenting intensity and there are few signposts to keep you on her trail.

“Delusion” plays at ArtsEmerson‘s Paramount Mainstage, through October 2.

Jordan Ahnquist as Huck and De'lon Grant as Jim

America has always had a strange duality at its core. We tend to identify ourselves as exceptionally moral and civilized, our high standard of living and technological edge proof of our blessedness. At the same time, we think of ourselves as young upstart rebels, rugged individualist pioneers who serve no mortal master. I didn’t really think about this too much when I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a young child or even when I read it again in college—I rather headed Mark Twain’s notice, “PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished…”

But this was the conflict I saw played out at the Lyric Stage Company in a well-paced creative and thoroughly entertaining staging of the musical version of this adventure tale.  If Huck stays home he has deal with bogus religiosity that seeks to suppress his natural instincts and hamper him with troublesome rules—not to mention justify slavery, but this won’t bother Huck until later. If he runs away, he has to live without protection, from his violent, alcoholic father (who preaches freedom from all government at all costs, or from the talented and unscrupulous hucksters who prop themselves up as the King and the Duke.

With arguments about the role and size of government raging so loudly, this feels like the perfect time for this story—but then, that’s the mark of literary masterpiece, the chances are it will always feel like the perfect time for this tale in America.

While I was looking forward to seeing this story play out again, I have to confess I was skeptical about this format. I have low tolerance for Broadway-style cheese. “Big River” is not too bad of an offender in this regard however. Written by the brilliant Roger Miller, the play’s songs are full of characteristic wit and classic country flavor.

The most dangerous song in the musical is the one given to Jim, the runaway slave, “Free At Last.” The play is guilty of a sometimes-cloying sense of self-congratulation around our hero’s realization that African Americans are indeed full human beings. It could easily be painful to cap this off with a Broadway impression of a 60’s style civil rights anthem. Here, as throughout the production De’lon Grant as Jim is brilliant. He doesn’t belt the anthem, but sings it gently as an almost unthinkable realization that he is trying to let sink in.

As Huckleberry Finn, Jordan Ahnquist is a consistently charming narrator who knows how to hold an audience. He is not, however, as probing or inventive as Grant. Huck should not be quite as scrubbed and frankly, easy to like as Ahnquist plays him. He’s a dangerous kid: irresponsible, rebellious, almost feral. It should be a relief that he turns out to be sensitive rather than a foregone conclusion.

Ahnquist and Grant get a nice assist from scenic designer Janie E. Howland, who not only creates a believable raft for a stage but makes it cruise by projecting a moving scene behind it. It’s one of several clever stage effects that keeps this classic American story rolling.

Mounted by company artistic director, Spiro Veloudos, “Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,”  plays at the Lyric Stage Company through October 3.

Erwin E. A. Thomas (center), Mia Katigbak (right) Photo: Mike Ritter/ritterbin.com All people not named are audience members

Traditional theater often challenges us to think about our values. We see outsized personalities pitched in extreme conflicts, forced into difficult moral decisions. We laugh at these characters, feel “sorrow and pity” for them, and then afterwards, we judge how they did. We wonder how we’d do in their places, maybe argue a case with our dates. This is an ideal anyway—that after being transported for a couple of hours we will find the activity of considering our responses to be equally stimulating, even useful.

Theater artists normally have little control over this part of the process. That’s what makes the Foundry Theatre’s “How Much is Enough: Our Values in Question,” an exciting and risky experiment. The show—and it is very much a show—scraps that whole “play” part, where a story is told to which we then react. It rather assumes that we all have personal stories from which to extrapolate. Audiences are asked to share pieces of these as they dive in to the types of questions they might usually approach in the restaurant, or the bar or the subway car, after curtain call.

Light jazz and dim lighting starts the show, as audience members sit at what appear to be cafeteria tables from an Apple store—they are glowing white plastic, and questions about one’s life and past scroll across them like migrating tweets. Some time is allowed for private warm-up conversations. Microphones hang from the ceiling, a projector looms on a wall, and everyone suspects that something is up.

Enter our show’s main characters: the moderators. A skinny, young-looking white guy, played by Noel Joseph Allain, tells us that his girlfriend is pregnant. He is nervous and seeking advice. He alternates between neutrality and disarming humility. A broad-shouldered young black guy, played by Erwin E.A. Thomas, is somewhat of a foil. He tells us that he is less interested in our considered philosophical opinions than he is in our imaginations. He alternates between neutrality and a fiery intensity that borders on aggression.  Balancing the two somewhat, a middle-aged Asian woman, played by Mia Katigbak maintains warmth and calm, projecting wisdom.

Through brief speeches and ceremonies, these characters try to create an environment in which the audience feels safe enough to respond openly and interestingly, when called upon to answer questions about work, money, possessions, and the things they hold dear. Their success varies greatly. The atmosphere quickly shifts from that of a high-tech jazz club to somewhere between a psychology experiment, a marketing focus group and an improv comedy show.

Certainly a community is forged, a community that feels more exciting to be apart of then the audience for a traditional narrative play on a proscenium stage. But the moderators’ sustained earnestness and artificial neutrality make it feel less intimate.

Sitting in this audience, a nervous thrill comes from the feeling that one could be called upon to essentially perform, at any moment. The evening’s emotional content comes from those great moments when the audience delivers, or the actors are thrown slightly off their scripts.

The questions are good ones. Devised by playwright Kirk Lynn, they begin with preparing for the arrival of a baby, progress through early childhood, student days, work life and retirement, and end with facing death. Some are straightforward, some pointed, some creative, all are worthy of consideration in a place apart from the day-to-day.

The experiment’s limitations come from the fact that the moderators do not react to the answers performed by their guests. There are no follow-up questions and speakers are never asked to respond to previous answers. No doubt this is about making audience members feel safe enough to share, but at the same time, what it facilitates is a more of a survey than a dialogue.

So the results are mixed, but the experiment is a noble one. It will certainly require its own after-show processing, and if nothing else, will challenge your thinking on theater’s goals and methods.

“How Much is Enough: Our Values in Question,” written by Kirk Lynn, co-created and directed by Melanie Joseph and presented by the Foundry Theatre, plays at ArtsEmerson‘s Jackie Libergott Black Box in the Paramount Center through September 25.

Photo by Michael J. Lutch

The first strains of “Summertime” sent chills through my skin. Lullabying the baby in her arms, Nikki Rene Daniels’ Clara lilted the lyric, “and you’re mama’s good lookin’,” with a boastful half grin. Oh yeah, she’s the good lookin’ mama. I had never gotten the joke before. Instantly, the familiar pop song was transformed into the expressions of a new mother with fresh and urgent feelings to convey. That kind of move characterizes this production.  It’s full of strong acting choices that pull you into the play’s present and invest Gershwin’s sublime score with specific, immediate drama.

Audra McDonald as Bess and Norm Lewis as Porgy. Photo by Michael J. Lutch

For all of its mastery, “Porgy and Bess” needs this. There will always be something uncomfortable about watching white artists’ impressions of black life and folk art from 1930’s America. There are also some troubling messages about women in the play. After all, the lessons of Jake’s counter-lullaby, “A Woman is a Sometimes Thing,” are cruelly enacted by Bess, our heroine, who vows her fidelity to Porgy, inspires him to commit a crime that will weigh on his conscience and then slips away once he seems to be in trouble.

Both of these concerns fade however once you’re relating to the play’s characters on a human, rather than an emblematic level, and that is indeed this production’s greatest strength. As Bess, Audra McDonald offers an impressive psychological portrait of a trauma victim desperately trying to find her footing in a challenging moral landscape.  I believed in her Bess and I felt for her and the same went for the other residents of Catfish Row, a collective of individuals rather than a generic chorus.

It must be said that, as written, Bess’s antagonists have some surprising moral shadings. Crown, played charismatically by hulking bass, Philip Boykin, is in many ways a stock villain, yet toward the end of the play, he’s actually given a Calvinist moral argument to explain his behavior. For him, the facts that he’s on the top of the Catfish Row heap and that he’s survived his many risks in life, prove that he’s blessed. He calls God his “big friend” and believes that he’s secured a divine endorsement to take what he wants. In the world of the play, it’s pretty clear that Crown is wrong, but it’s also poignant that his Catfish Row compatriots, who openly root against him, also lament his downfall.

David Alan Grier's Sportin' Life sings "It Aint Necessarily So" Photo by Michael J. Lutch

Even Sportin’ Life, the sleazy, self-interested dope dealer gets one of the play’s best songs in defense of his choices. “It Aint Necessarily So,” with its catalogue of the Bible’s tallest tales makes it seem less than foolish to be wary of the Good Book’s received wisdom.  If it’s doubt worthy that Jonah could survive in a whale’s belly or that Methuselah could live 900 years, it might also be doubt worthy that this Devil guy is a villain.  Best to test it and see, and in fact, the jury’s out on whether or not this villain is himself better off for his moral flexibility.

It’s all in the song and the story, although David Alan Grier plays it mostly for laughs. The comedian is wonderful in the role, sporting a relentless pimp limp, a wriggling neck and snaky sibilance in his speech. While I expected Grier to make me laugh, I was blown away at how absolutely he held his own vocally on a stage full of virtuosic singers.

As far as any fears about watering down the opera for the musical theater format, I certainly had no complaints. There was no shortage of power and vibrato in the singing, but I could understand every word, and the mixture of recitative and added dialogue felt well blended and unobtrusive. I equally appreciated Ronald K. Brown’s choreography, which heightened the motions of shooting craps, fishing, praying and strutting for dominance without ever coming across as inorganic.

I’m sure that some who are more familiar with the opera than I will take issue with some of adaptations. I heard some audience members remark that they missed Porgy’s goat cart, replaced here with a simple cane. I for one, found the image of Norm Lewis’s Porgy, his eyes fixed in a steely gaze as he prepared to limp down the road with a stick and brace, as moving as any in the play. Taken as its own work, “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess” is a finely wrought and deeply moving musical tragedy. See it here before New York gets it.

Directed by Diane Paulus and adapted by Suzan-Lori Parks and Diedre L. Murray, “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess” plays the A.R.T.’s Loeb Theater through October 2. It is set to transfer to Broadway in December.

Big names like Susan-Lori Parks (co-adapter with composer Diedre L. Murray), Audra McDonald (Bess) and David Allen Grier (Sporting Life) were already drawing attention to “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess,” a “musical” adaptation of the classic American opera, helmed by A.R.T artistic director Diane Paulus.

Controversy has brought the production even more attention. Now Stephen Sondheim is involved–but not in a way the production team would like.

Top to bottom: Audra McDonald, Diane Paulus and Susan-Lori Parks. Photo by Chad Batka for the New York Times

At the beginning of August, the New York Times ran a preview of the show as it’s set to transfer to Broadway in the winter. Headlined, “It Aint Necessarily Porgy,” the article by Patrick Healey, frames the production as an experiment. It reveals that the adaptation will include new scenes, invented biographical details about the characters and a more upbeat ending, Paulus, Parks and McDonald are quoted explaining the ways in which they feel these changes will benefit an audience more familiar with Broadway musicals than opera. Healey places this effort in the context of the opera’s checkered performance history and closes by citing an endorsement from the estates of the Gershwins and lyricist DuBose Heywood.

More than a little skepticism has greeted the article’s revelations. According to a post on the Times ArtsBeat blog, “Nearly all the readers who responded expressed some degree of concern over this effort to refresh this landmark of American culture for modern audiences.” The blog post links to a particularly incredulous response from Village Voice critic, Michael Musto. Then it drops the bomb: a sarcasm-drenched Letter to the Editor from none other than Stephen Sondheim decrying the project and ridiculing just about every quoted statement by Paulus, Parks and McDonald.

Stephen Sondheim

“To begin with, the title of the show is now “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess.” I assume that’s in case anyone was worried it was the Rodgers and Hart “Porgy and Bess” that was coming to town,” he offers as an opening volley, adding, “what happened to DuBose Heyward? Most of the lyrics (and all of the good ones are his …”

Sondheim lambasts Paulus for suggesting that some the characters in “Porgy and Bess” need fleshing out, “Ms. Paulus says that in the opera you don’t get to know the characters as people. Putting it kindly, that’s willful ignorance. These characters are as vivid as any ever created for the musical theater, as has been proved over and over in productions that may have cut some dialogue and musical passages but didn’t rewrite and distort them.”

“She fails to recognize,” he continues, “that Porgy, Bess, Crown, Sportin’ Life and the rest are archetypes and intended to be larger than life and that filling in “realistic” details is likely to reduce them to line drawings.”

He’s even more barbed in responding to Paulus’ assessment of her audience.

 “Then there is Ms. Paulus’s condescension toward the audience. She says, “I’m sorry, but to ask an audience these days to invest three hours in a show requires your heroine be an understandable and fully rounded character.” I don’t know what she’s sorry about, but I’m glad she can speak for all of us restless theatergoers. If she doesn’t understand Bess and feels she has to “excavate” the show, she clearly thinks it’s a ruin, so why is she doing it? I’m sorry, but could the problem be her lack of understanding, not Heyward’s?”

He swipes at McDonald for stating that Bess is “often more of a plot device than a full-blooded character,” countering that “she’s always full-blooded when she’s acted full-bloodedly,” and ridicules her for suggesting that there is a great love story she which she feels her cast can bring to life. “Wow, who’d have thought there was a love story hiding in “Porgy and Bess” that just needed a group of visionaries to bring it out?” he wonders.

As for Parks, Sondheim responds to her speculation that if Gershwin, “had lived longer he would have gone back to the story of ‘Porgy and Bess’ and made changes, including the ending,” by saying, “It’s reassuring that Ms. Parks has a direct pipeline to Gershwin and is just carrying out his work for him.”

When asked for comment by the Times, Paulus’s response was terse and diplomatic, “The entire creative team and cast have the most enormous love and respect for ‘Porgy and Bess,’ and we are grateful for the support and encouragement we have received from the Gershwin and Heyward Estates for this production.”

It appeared as if she was trying to end the debate as swiftly as possible—an unsuccessful enterprise. According to the Times ArtsBeat blog, letters poured in support of Sondheim’s critique and, unsurprisingly, arts reporters around the country jumped on the story, eliciting opinions from their own readers.

Certainly, the notion of adapting an esteemed opera into a Broadway musical with a brighter ending, smacks of a watering down with commercial motives. It’s not difficult to understand Sondheim’s skepticism. I’d add that Paulus’ track record with adaptations is mixed at best, remembering in particular her A.R.T. debut, “The Best of Both Worlds,” an adaption of Shakespeare’s the Winter’s Tale which neutered most of the language and relied on hackneyed African American stereotypes like jerry0curled soul singers, and ghetto pimps and ho’s.

Sondheim and Times letter writers may be proven correct, but I still feel that “Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess” is innocent until proven guilty. This is an experiment, and the primary mission of the A.R.T. from its inception through present day is to approach canonized works with fresh eyes. That’s what I will try to do on press night.

Read the Times article the sparked the controversy, here. Read the blog post featuring containing Sondheim’s letter here. Buy tickets for “Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess” and decide for yourself, here.

Currently in previews, “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess” plays at the A.R.T.’s Loeb Drama Center through October 2.

In thinking about this play, the word “hit” has popped up more than usual—as in, a strike, a blow—hitting the mark, hitting its stride, hitting the ground running. A line that hits you between the eyes and works its way down to your heart. I don’t want Orfeo Group’s “Love Song,”to sound like an amateur boxing match, but I mean that it “hits” in the most positive ways. It’s funny, sweet, and strange enough to be compelling and memorable. In short, it’s a summer treat that’s lyric and slightly off, leaving the audience not bruised or sugar-sick but refreshed, if not satisfyingly puckered. It’s like a pitcher of lemonade with one too many lemons.

“Love Song” is the story of Beane (Gabriel Kuttner), who works for the city and exiles himself in a Spartan hovel. After his apartment is burgled, he begins an intense relationship with a woman named Molly (Georgia Lyman). His sister Joan (Liz Hayes) and her husband Harry (Daniel Berger-Jones), get swept up in his lovestruck transformation. Playwright John Kolvenbach’s writing makes “Love Song” truly live up to its name: without falling into an overtly flowery tone, his dialogue and characterization conjure romance—and humor—in unlikely places. The language, particularly Beane’s, is heightened enough to remind us this world is on stage while at once enhancing the humanity we recognize.

It is perhaps for this reason that “Love Song” initially tests the audience’s journey from the real world into the world of the play. “Love Song” takes a few scenes to settle into its groove. For a bit too long, it’s like watching two characters: Bean (understated and weird) and everyone else (brash and maybe too quick-witted). But “Love Song” finds its stride brilliantly and beautifully, with turns that are bizarre without alienating, and speech that’s quick, lovely, and often hilarious.

The talents of the cast—some of Boston’s more recognizable players—are never in question. Kuttner’s poetic portrayal of Beane calmly yet ecstatically pierces through expected renderings of loneliness and longing. His roundabout journey through love is at once fantastic and familiar. Hayes is expertly severe and vulnerable as Beane’s sister, Joan, whose transformation creeps up as she sees herself in a brother she could never reach. The two couples have undeniable chemistry—Joan and Harry as yuppie-ish contemporaries, Beane and Molly as love-starved misfits—and they give us two love songs which end up sounding surprisingly similar.

Therein lies the beauty of “Love Song”: refreshing twists and skillful turns, even if we briefly wince as we see ourselves. It may be a perfect date night—even for first dates. The plot offers enough to discuss in the odd unfolding of events to shift the focus from the inevitable challenges of love.

Free tickets on Thursday nights (on a first-come-first-serve basis), and $20 tickets any other night, plus a series of post-show events, make “Love Song” more than worth the trip.

Directed by Risher Reddick, “Love Song” plays through August 27 at Charlestown Working Theater.

Newport Folk Festival 2011 – Day Two

Sunday, July 31, 2011

The Journey – Part Two

10:15AM

 If you’re lucky enough to score tickets to both days of the Newport Folk Festival, it makes sense to stay overnight in Newport, or elsewhere in the tiny state of Little Rhodey for that matter.  There’s no camping on the grounds of Fort Adams, but there are some reputable campsites nearby.

I myself, had ferried, bussed and subwayed my sunburned behind all the way back to Somerville with strings still pulsating in my brain, and now found myself back on the Peter Pan. This time, with a less festive crowd, by appearances.

Knowing the score now, there was daydreaming to do. I put on my straw hat and my shades and plugged in. At one point a woman at the front of the bus was staring at me with a huge smile on her face. I searched her face for familiarity and then looked away, thinking she must be looking at someone else. Checking back though, she was still staring at me,  beaming away.

I looked her dead in the eye and smiled, plaintively. She pointed at my head. At a complete loss, I smiled and laughed a “now I get it,” kind of laugh, nodding my head without removing my earbuds or sliding down my shades. She laughed and gave me a big thumbs up.  “Right on!” she seemed to be saying.

I still have no idea what the hell this was about. Maybe she recognized my straw hat, shades and earbuds the uniform of Newport Folk Festival goer. Maybe she was mistaking me for one of the acts. This episode remains one of the unsolved mysteries of Newport 2011. I guess it’s good to have a couple.

Today’s Peter Pan ride was speedy and without incident. We pulled in at about 1130AM and I hustled to up the street to the water taxi. No folk legends greeted me on the journey—just the Call Girl—the name painted on the tiny vessel’s side.

The Early Show

12:20

Early Sunday afternoon was the quietest I ever saw Fort Adams. There wasn’t even a crowd at the Stonehill Yogurt booth, and they were giving out free milk and cookies. Milling about toward the Fort Stage with my fellow straw hats, I heard the distinctive voices of the attractive boy/girl front persons of David Wax Museum, a Cambridge band who plays original music heavily influenced by Mexican folk.

“Who wants to live in a nation in decline!” I heard them shout over their closing chords. This group had gotten quite a bit of press for their “breakout” performance at last year’s festival. This year they had the biggest stage, but kind of a bum slot. No one was gathered in the front-of-stage standing area, so the applause felt a bit tepid.

 When I moseyed over to the much more densely crowded Alex & and Ani Harbor Stage, I saw trio of cute, skinny girls, one in a bonnet and specs, making an Enya-like harmony with some live beat boxing underneath it.

 This, it turned out, wasMountain Man.

A quick informal straw poll of their audience thought they were probably The Secret Sisters, another girl trio, who were on at the same time over at the Quad Stage.

But this was Mountain Man. A skilled vocal group from Vermont who alternately chirped, cooed and purred an old timey repertoire that would have been at home on the “O Brother,” or “O Sister” records.

“This is the last day of a month long tour,” said one of the girls, pattered one of the girls, “and my Dad’s here which is pretty cool.

“My Dad’s at home with my cat,” offered another.

I’m telling, you, these gals are NPR-ready!

My Pick for Best act of the 2011 Festival: Carolina Chocolate Drops

12:40

Speaking of NPR, it was their spot on Fresh Air that introduced me the fabulous Carolina Chocolate Drops, a group of virtuosic, multi-instrumentalists, vocalists and folk historians, with a beat boxer. These young indie folksters learned the old, old songs and the old instruments from the original old black dudes on their South Carolina porches. They’ve also dug deep into old used vinyl and wax and they site their sources with evangelical fervor.

For all of their digging through dusty archives, there was not a mote of dust on their sound, or on their live performance, which featured guitar, gourd banjo, mandolin, fiddle, harmonica, jugs, kazoos, bones, panpipe, an array of styles and tempos, instrument swapping, vaudevillesque patter, dancing, scatting and call-and-response.

Not for nothing, these guys had the oft-uptight Newport crowd jumping, screaming, clapping and singing, and they never once had to disparage their audience’s energy to guilt or prod them into doing it.

 The Drops have recently lost one of their three founders, Justin Robinson.

“We lost him to school,” announced the operatically trained soul singer, kazoo virtuoso and fiddler, Rhianna Giddens.

“He decided ‘reading is fundamental,’ bandmate and fellow founder, Dom Flemons quipped.

Huddy Jenkins

They’ve added New York multi-instrumentalist, Hubby Jenkins who most played Mando at the Fest, and beat-boxer Adam Matta, who continues to bring the hip hop flavor that characterizes the band’s best known tune: a cover of Blu Cantrell’s “Hit “Em Up Style,” with a soaring fiddle line.

Caves, Turtles

11:50

In fairness to the acts who played over the next hour, no one was going to top the Drops for me. Their bridging of traditions, their openness and their energy just seemed to embody the best of the festival. There was a grin beneath my brim as I trotted over to the Alex & Ani stage, on which I saw a dude in a neon yellow trucker cap, a sleeveless tee and bluejeans, offering his gentle tenor into a mic. A guitarist was seated to his left, rocking the grundge look, a mop of long whipped hair rendering the rest of his head completely invisible. These were the Cave Singers, with whom I was not familiar. As usual, I had a hell of time penetrating the tent crowd to get a half-decent photo and I was repeatedly shooed away from the perimeters by the perimeter cops.

I didn’t last long. Back through the arch to the tunneled arch to Quad Stage where an equally dense crowd was packed in to listen to Trampled by Turtles, a quintet of string players in plaid button-downs and jeans.

“It’s empty where you are/Just a big gaping hole…” they sang, sliding into delicate harmonies.

It was at this moment that I first realized that for some reason, this The Quad Stage had be relegated as The Bummer Stage. Act after act confirmed this. Not every band that played their was a downer, but every downer act I saw, played there.

I couldn’t handle their melancholy energy. It was time for a drink.

 Now, you can’t bring alcohol to Newport. There’s just two options. There’s a beer tent, behind a rope, way off in a secluded corner where you might be able to hear the Quad Stage but you certainly can’t see a damned thing, and then there’s the press tent, which has luxurious couches, free food, an open bar and often some resting musicians, smoking their cigarettes and pretending they don’t see the half-passed out reporters, who are mostly uploading their photos and their blog posts

 I left the press tent refreshed, passing the turtles, who still sounded subdued but lovely, and headed back through the tunnel, and back passed the—wait! Was this the same band? The Cave Singers!?!

The Alex & Ani tent seemed to be leaping up and down as a collective unit. The yellow trucker cap and slevealess tee shirt were soaked through with sweat, and their owner was red in the face and hollering into his mic like it owned him money.  When the song ended, the crowd roared.

“This is our last song!” the singer yelled and then a thunderous three beat drum pattern just erupted from a kit I couldn’t even see, and the whole tent starting screaming and leaping up and down again.

I guess I probably should have stayed for their whole set in the first place.

Wanda Jackson

2:00PM

I quite literally got thrills and chills from the moment I heard that evil growl emanate from Wanda Jackson, a sorceress with a black bouffant and aruffled  crimson dress. The sounds that came out of this woman-of-a-certain age!—a pioneer of female rockabilly recently rescued from obscurity by guitarist-of-our generation/impresario, Jack White.

Wanda began by paying to tribute a woman for whom she paved the way and then outlived. She sang Amy Whinehouse’s “Like I Knew I Would.”  Chills.

The next chunk of the set was dedicated to Jack and drawn from their recent project,

The Party Aint Over, a reference to her 60’s hit, “Let’s Have A Party,” her closer. “Here’s an oldie Jack asked me to do,” she said, launching into “Gonna Rip It Up.”

“Jack asked me for one song that I really liked and never had recorded, so I hope you like it too. An Elvis Presley song from the the 60’s or early 70’s,” she announced,  singing “You Give Me Love.”

The latter half of her set was dedicated to her original hits and full of charming patter. She revealed that her hit Fukuyama Mama, in which she compared herself to an atomic bomb was bizarrely, a number one hit in Japan, she testified and evangelized heading into her gospel period and she introduced her bandleader Heath Hamels, as the guy who rounds up the band, drives the van “gets you out of jail and pays your child support.”

From bombs to Christ to child support: pure country rock.

Justin Townes Earl

3:00PM

 After Wanda Jackson thoroughly rocked my world, it was time to had back to the Bummer Stage for an act I was truly looking forward to: singer/songwriter Justin Townes Earle, son of Steve, denizen of Brooklyn, a true hipster/honky-tonk hybrid. Earle looks the part perfectly. He’s tall and lanky with tattooed arms and he wears glasses under his old fashioned hats.

He plays the part perfectly too, singing stories and poems in delicate voice while bearing down on the strings f his acoustic with fierce bite.

The first story he told was about his Mama. I guess this was gonna be a country set too.  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began his rhythmic stream of patter, “the first woman who ever hit me was my Mama…for everything I’ve ever done in my life, she’s been there for me. If you ever said anything bad about me she’d take your head off just like that. Here’s a song I wrote for her.”

“I am my father’s son,” began the song, “Mama’s Eyes,”  “I’ve never known when to shut up…”

Earle’s band included a great lap steal player and his set featured some killer harmonies. He has enormous charisma and knows how to arrange. After Wanda though, he was a downer. 

Amos Lee

3:25PM

 I’m going to confess here that Amos Lee had me fooled. In a couple of ways. For one thing, I had him in my head as a black dude. I must of only be half listening when I head him interviewed on Terry Gross a few years back. (Yeah, I listen to a lot of NPR. I also go to folk festivals). He is in fact, what you’d call, a singer of blue-eyed soul, as well as a story-telling guitarist/singer/songwriter.

Here’s the other way he had me fooled: From radio play, I always thought of Lee as a smooth character, vocally. At Newport, he sounded like he’d tried to swallow a burr.

Lee in fact gave one of the most arresting, bone-chilling, soul-tirring performances of the weekend. His voice, powerful and textured, his presence magnetic.  Familiar pop tunes like “Flower” were somehow unrecognizable, not for some novelty of arrangement, simply for unadorned emotional content.

 I got real close to Lee down in the photographer’s pit. I’m worried about him. You could see in his face that a deep and profound pain was bubbling up from the pit of his stomach and soaring out of his mouth.

But Lee was no bummer. No sad bastard music here. He has clearly learned how to transmogrify his pain in the best possible musical way, making it feel soothing and joyous.

His vocals burned off my skin and then rubbed in a balm.

Middle Brother

4:20

First off, for those wondering, there was no evidence of 4:20 being celebrated at the festival in any official capacity—unless you used a port-a-potty.

Second, even though Middle Brother, the “super-group” comprised of Matt Vasquez from Delta Spirit, John J. McCauley III of the excellent Rhode Island-based indie-rock band, Deer Tick and Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes played on the bummer stage, they were most decidedly not bummerific. Especially, as it turned out, to the demographic of girls between the ages of about 18-23.

Middle Brother’s Myspace Page categorizes their music as “Breakcore.” I have no idea what that is. They are an indie rock band. Their sound throws back to simple 60’s garage rock. They’re hooky and catchy and have unbelievable swagger.

I kind of wanted to hate Middle Brother. I could feel McCauley, a short, skinny kid with tatted arms who wore the ultimate hipster uniform of ironic Walmart tee, shades and a captain’s hat, just sneering at everyone.

Vasquez too just readiated smarminess. “We haven’t even practiced!” he yelled out with delirious self-satisfaction. “We haven’t even seen each other since North Carolina!”

I’ve never seen a band more aware of the presence of photographers. It was like this was their first gig.

The thing is, in spite of all this, I could not hate Middle Brother, because they were extremely good and playing rock’n’roll and they absolutely lit the Quad Stage crowd on fire. Also, they invited Mountain Man on stage which was adorable.

 Elvis Costello

4:45

I’m convinced that Elvis Costello had the most fun of anyone at the Newport Folk Festival. He was absolutely ebullient in his seersucker suit, straw hat and shades with his plug-in acoustic.

It’s funny—I wasn’t really sure what Elvis was doing here—how he fit in…I mean, I know he’s covered a lot of generic ground, but he’s essentially a British pop star. I got the sense from Elvis that he felt almost the same way. Like he was a gate crasher at a glorious party. His buoyancy was such a refreshing contrast from the ironic indies, and tortured country stars, and mellow pretty melody makers as he blasted through The Band’s “This Wheels on Fire,” and his own “ Chauffeur to Sugarcane,” a swampy stomper.

“All of the photographers are leaving!” when we’re kicked out of the pit after the second song. “You should at least stay and dance!’

After “American Tears” with some successful call and response and a melodica, he started calling up guests to join in the Elvis Costello Revue. The first were the Secret Sisters, who sang a few backup harmonies on a rag Elvis said he imaged as a 20’s song, “A Slow Drag With Josephine.

“You want sing one of your own?” he offered, classily. They sounded beautiful.

Elvis played some rockers, an up tempo, “Cry, Cry Cry” followed by “Dancin’ the Night Away,” and then he called up Chris Healy of the Punch Brothers and Crooked Still and then he brought of the festival’s closer, EmmyLou Harris, to sing “We Will Rise Above” and an up-tempo “What’s so Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love and Understanding.” The first notes I heard EmmyLou sing absolutely pummeled me in the heart. Way to share the stage, Elvis.

 M. Ward

5:50

Before I got to hear more of EmmyLou, I had one more urgent mission to the bummer stage: M. Ward, one of the most creative and emotional of the indie rock singer/songwriters.

My first look at M. Ward sent me into the same shocked disbelief I’d had with the brothers Felice. That deep, echoing, mournful voice I’d heard in recordings was emanating from what looked like a short, skinny kid! It was inconceivable. I’ve since learned that M. Ward is in his late 30’s. He looks about 16.

Once I got over that, I was deeply impressed. I’m used to hearing M. Ward’s voice mediated by an echo mic and confined to a safety zone of about 2 chords. All the nets were down as he sang “Chinese Translation” (“What do you do with the pieces of a broken heart?”) and “Sway” with blistering whispers and solemn harmonica interludes. It was beautiful. And sad. So, so very sad.

What’s more, Ward spoke as if fighting back a lump in his throat, with ominous ambiguities and long, tortured pauses. He seemed Brian Wilson-like, as if he had just immerged from being locked up in a room for many weeks.

 “This guy is great,” I thought to myself. “I’m calling in a suicide watch. (I might ask them to check on Amos Lee, while they’re here, too.)”

EmmyLou Harris

6:05

EmmyLou Harris, who began her set with “Orphan Girl,” was the perfect Newport closer. She is a heartfelt storyteller with an instantly distinguished, rich, powerful, feminine voice. Storytelling is what she did all night. She described herself as a girl, buying Dylan Baez records and dreaming of what this festival might be like.  She sang “Me and Lilly,” and the gorgeous soliloquy that is Merel haggard’s “Current River” with an accordian underneath.

“This song is about—oh you know this song—by one of our great singer/songwriter poets” she said before letting Townes Van Zandt’s ballad of “Poncho and Lefty” speak for itself.

She told about witnessing civil rights struggles in the south and the need to remember and then sang about Emmet Till…

 My heart was full to the brim as I headed away from the Fort Stage.

Day One, Saturday, July 30, 2011

DAY ONE

Saturday, July 30, 2011 

The Felice Brothers

1:30PM

 While I was playing a beach-blanked bingo in front of the Fort Stage, trying to orient myself and advance toward the action without stepping on anyone’s cooler, or head, I heard the unmistakable voice of Ian Felice.

Ian Felice, photo by Lindsay Tucker

“I don’t think I’ve ever played in front of this many yachts before!” it said.

Then the Brothers laid into a slow one. Spare drums, the swell of James Felice’s accordion, and then, almost reflecting the sound in a fun-house mirror, Ian’s yearning (key adjacent) whine, reciting poetry.

James Felice, photo by Lindsay Tucker

I loved The Felice Brothers from the instant I first heard “Frankie’s Gun,” a beautiful and tortured tale told from beyond the grave in which a criminal relates some touching plans for his loot to his accomplice, who then betrays and murders him in their getaway car. It’s a biting, fast-paced acoustic rocker. But a murder ballad…no wonder these guys were invited to the Folk Festival (twice in a row).

Based on “Frankie’s Gun,” I assumed the brothers were haggard, middle-aged, New York Italians, so I was shocked when I first saw pictures of them, but nothing prepared me for seeing them in person. They are children. Children possessed by daemons of genius. If a legend began that the Felice Brothers had made a deal with the devil to be well worn, wise and wizened before their time so they could be authentic folk stars while still possessing youth, I would believe it. In fact, let’s get that started.

The set was nearing its end when I arrived and it closed with the song “River Jordan” from their new album, Celebration, Florida (“Buy it, please, for the love of God!” whined Ian between songs). These guys know how to write a song, and they know how to orchestrate the hell out of one too, bringing it to a fiery climax with sizzling guitar, accordion and fiddle. So far so good, Newport.

1:40PM

Gogol Bordello

 “Immigrant punk” was a great addition to the festival. Even it wasn’t that punky. Gogol Bordello did their Gypsified eastern European thing acoustically. It rocked, but it didn’t have the chaotic energy I had come to expect from these rabble-rousers, once infamous for shows full of burlesque performers and rowdiness that built to a shuttering climax. Maybe it was the audience. Lead singer Eugene Hutz seemed to think so.

Hutz started things off with a characteristic yodel to lead us down “Avenue B.”

“Oh Sally, my darling, your panic is so charming,” he sang, swilling from a 40 during instrumental breaks. Hutz was backed by some female vocalists, an accordian, a fiddle and some drums—“Yo, I need more percussion,” he howled almost immediately. “Ah! That’s the sound of creation!

After busting out “Immigrant Punk,” and “My Companjera” he started getting a bit punchy.  “To the people over here, I’m sorry, this is not lying down music! There’s always the people over there for inspiration.” Then a few minutes later, “You guys never heard of breaking furniture? A little cultural difference? You know about breaking furniture! Strictly for the right purposes of course!”

These admonitions to vandalism did not quite insight the Newport Crowd, whose greatest level of participation was a little call-and-response and some bopping.

“Alrightski! Loosen up everyone!” Hutz eventually yelled.

Not his ideal crowd. But we were glad he came.

 Clusterfolk

2:45PM

Toward the end of the Gogol Bordello set, I set out for the fast approaching Delta Spirit set over on the Quad Stage on the other end of the U.  On the way there, I passed the Alex & Ani Harbor Stage, and ran into the Song Circle with John Gorka, Ellis Paul, Dar Williams and Queler & Farber, described in Part 1. This was the low key, heartfelt stories told in beautiful voices part of the festival, the most challenging thing to pull off at Newport, because it’s the kind of music that doesn’t have the same impact anywhere that’s not a small bar or coffeehouse. But these are the stars of that circuit and this was enough for taste. Which was all I had time for with Delta Spirit coming on.

 Once I had my fix, I hustled to the tunneled archway that leads to the Quad, but I was soon anxiously policed to one side but a handful of nervous ushers. Something had happened on the tunneled ramp, and someone was being loaded onto a stretcher. This was the moment when the spirit of the crowd and the organization of the festival would be tested.

Altamont speedway, this wasn’t. The folkies kept to their sides with nothing more than some irritated grumbles even during later moments when, bizarrely, we’d be herded to the sides of the tunnel for vehicles to drive through this, the only passage way to the second main stage.

Delta Spirit

2:50PM

It’s a funny thing about Delta Spirit. When you listen to “Ode to Sunshine” and “History from Below,” their first two albums. You can pretty much see why it would make sense to invite them to a Folk Festival. I think the main thing is, you can understand all the words, which are fairly poetic and at times political. There’s storytelling, there are some rootsy anthems and ballads, a gospel stomp.

When you experience them live, however, all of this pretty much fades into the background. You’ve got a loud and exciting rock band fronted by a showman with a  hell of a voice, who is really sensitive to his crowd. Live Delta Spirit is not folk, or folk rock. It’s rock, rock.

Matt Vasquez clearly knew he was fronting the only rock band in the festival that day. His swagger was in overdrive. He even looked different, sporting a shorter haircut, a Eurotrashy facial hair config and dress shirt in place of the standard indie rocker flannel.

“You guys are so polite!” He said, echoing Gogol Bordello. “Hey, Newport!”

A resounding chorus of ‘woos,’ and the band ripped into it. ‘Bushwick Blues,” “Trashcan,” all the rockers. A blistering attack of melodic noise. The open air could not swallow them up. This was a show for the kids and the kids loved it. Me too.

I Almost Miss Earl Scruggs Because Pokey LaForge Swings That Hard.

4:10PM

One of the best things that can happen to you at a music festival is: you discover a new band and fall in love. I was on a mission. Earl Scruggs was playing on the Fort Stage on the other side of the U. A legend. An originator. Indisputably one of the top practitioners of his instrument. This is what I imagined Newport to be about.

 I scampered through the archway as fast as my dirty Crocs would carry me, and tried to barrel passed the Alex & Ani Harbor stage, only to be stopped in my tracks by the sound of lighting fast country swing, something you just don’t hear that much.  At least where I’m from. I whirled around and saw a man who from a distance looked like Leon Redbone honking into a harmonica. “Drinking Whisky Tonight,” the band beside him was singing.

There was scatting, a slide guitar, almost Django-like acoustic—the style that can sounds like a harp one minute, a banjo the next and a train after that—virtuosic harmonica, and rollicking upright bass. It sounded like Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, but it was, as it turned out, Pokey LaForge & the South City Three. After muscling up as close as I could, I was mesmerized by a jam/duel between the instrumentalists. They seemed to be passing around licks and trying to stump each other. You’d here a couple bars from classical masterpiece, then an ambulance siren, then a birdcall. It was awesome.

Pokey, you’re a charmer. If I can ever get the opportunity to buy a ticket for your show, consider it done. I will hit your Myspace page the minute I get home, if such a thing exists. But right now, I gotta see Earl.

I made to the closer of the set. The ancient but very much still chop-possessing Scruggs was playing with a sizable combo. I heard him announce one they played in the 70’s during the airing of “the TV program…”The Ballad of Jed Clampett.”

I rolled my eyes. But I should have known better. Scruggs’ mandolin, vocals and strings arrangement made the tale more gorgeous, soulful and Appalachian than I could have imagined.

Devil Makes Three

4:30PM

After hearing the single greatest cover of a television theme song possibly ever rendered, I decided I needed a break from the relentless scorching sun that had inspired to very many of us at Newport to rock the big straw hat and shades look and had made the frozen treat and beverage venders so very happy throughout the weekend. So I walked over to the water’s edge to check out the aquatic folk scene and get my sea breeze on.

No doubt about it, the sailors and kayakers were having a party. Somewhere, a brass band was throbbing forth. Was there a band on a boat somewhere? Was it the punk horn outfit What Chear? Brigade, who had played the perimeter of the park in the morning, blasting away somewhere out of site? Were we dealing with a phantom yacht with a serious sound system? The mystery lives on.

Refreshed, I headed back to the Alex & Ani tent for one of the bands I had come for: the modern bluegrass trio, The Devil Makes Three. I say bluegrass, I suppose because the California trio play strings only—acoustic guitars, upright bass and sometimes banjo—and   have an olde timey country twang. But they’re not about covering traditionals. They write their own songs—and they’re genius. They’re bouncy, hooky, up-tempo songs with quickly tripping vocal lines which mainly describe misdeeds and misadventures, as their clever name suggests.

Devil Makes Three, photo by Lindsay Tucker

These guys were sick to watch. Every bit as good as I had guessed. The jammed packed Alex & Ani crowd seemed to be leaping up and down for the entire set. Front man Pete Berhard, clean-shaven in a short black, brimmed hat and tatted-up arms, stole hearts as the band’s crooner, with his bandmats jumping in for three part harmonies. To his right, guitar and banjo player Cooper McBean, looking like a Hell’s Angel with crazy amounts of hair and beard, including long Willie Nelson braids, took a wide stance and bared into his acoustic axe. To Berhard’s left, was the angel of the group, Lucia Turino, an adorable brunette who bopped and twisted with wide eyes and toothy grin as she plucked an upright bass into which she could have fit, bodily.  She looked like she was waltzing with a wooden linebacker.

While a PR person passed out cattle skull logo stickers to the hopping crowd, the Trio dug into pieces of all three of their albums, “The Devil Makes Three,” “Longjohns, Boots and a Belt,” and the newly released, “Do Wrong Right.”

Gillian Welsh & David Rawlings

5:00

If Devil Makes Three was red hot, then diving into the photo pit to get some snaps of Gillian Welsh & David Rawlings was a refreshing plunge into the cool waters of the crick. Cool. So cool. This act was a natural for the festival. A superstar of the crossover country world with clear old timey/bluegrassy roots, the honey voiced Welsh has just released “The Harrow and the Harvest, an album of new originals, with the accompaniment of the accomplished guitarist.

David Rawlings & Gillian Welsh, photo by Lindsay Tucker

At first I was a bit startled at the sight of the slender woman in the strapless dress smiling in front of the mic. If I had been a few rows further back I would have sworn she was a teenager. She is aging gracefully, and she certainly sings with the kind of grace that massages your soul, filling your mind’s eye with gently flickering pictures of rural imagery.

“We are pretty happy to be playing folk songs for you tonight,” Welsh said at the top of her set. “I hope they become folk songs.  That means people like ‘em.”

“The Way it Goes,” from the Harrow and the Harvest, was a highlight.

Closing

5:45PM

The last acts at the festival start between 5:30PM and 6:00PM. The last Peter Pan leaves the city of Newport at 7:00PM. Please note that while the posted schedule lists the last water taxi leaving Fort Adams Park at 6:00PM, during the folk and jazz festivals, boats run until the bitter end. Still, I needed to play it safe. This meant that I was only going to catch a couple of opening songs from one of the day’s three closers: Indie folk rock stars, The Decembrists, soul legend Mavis Staples, or Woody Guthrie disciple Ramblin’ Jack Elliot.

 I love all three of these acts. I had never seen any of them perform live.

I chose Mavis.

Crouching in the photo pit for about 15 excruciating minutes of sound-check, I prayed to gods I don’t even believe in that Mavis would come out and start her set some time in the vicinity of the scheduled start.

It was not to be. On my way to the water taxi, I caught a glimse of Ramblin’ Jack, looking and sounding more than a little bit like Mark Twain. He was telling one of his famous, long, winding, humorous tales of the road. I’ll bet it was a good one.

Fortunately, on Day Two, I would find a way to stay until the bitter end. I would experience Mountain Man, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, The Cave Singers, Wanda Jackson, Justin Townes Earle, Amos Lee, Middle Brother, M. Ward, Elvis Costello and EmmyLou Harris.

 Check out Part 3 of the Journal.

The Peter Pan

10:15AM

The journey begins with the Peter Pan. I’m bussing it from Boston. 90 minutes each way. $52 round trip. I’ve never been to the Newport Folk Festival before and the line for the bus offers an informal survey of what I might be looking at in a festival crowd. Behind me, a tattooed waif is loudly describing the composition of her drum kit.  Her companion has broad shoulders and skinny jeans. Near by us is a bald dude with a 3-foot beard wearing a Beatles tee. It’s the clean-cut Beatles with the grey suits.

A teenaged couple is decked out in eye-burning ensembles: white tees tucked into tight white jeans with white socks and white tennis shoes. They’re like White Stripes costumes. There are middle-aged women in loud sundresses, and men with a certain aging boomer look: hair gone on top but long in the back, glasses, slight paunch, khakis. Funnily enough, it’s easy to imagine huge swaths of my musical taste overlapping with these busmates. I guess that’s why the festival works.

Once I’m on the bus, I quickly tweet some findings. Then, I unplug. No podcasts, not even music. I just want to think about my parents’ old records and their tales of coffee houses in Philly and Cambridge, and about the thuds of all those harmonicas that all of those kids pelted at the stage when Dylan asked if anyone had an E harmonica in that footage from ’65.

All this when it’s really Delta Spirit, and Gogol Bordello, and Devil Makes Three that got me out of bed this morning. I guess that’s also why the festival works.

The bus breaks down about 1 mile from the Visitor and Transportation Center in Newport. Everybody off. Horrible smell of burning. The crisis is short lived, but it costs me some opening acts.

The Old Man on the Water Taxi

12:45

 From the Visitor and Transportation Center, you walk a block to the water taxi that takes you to Fort Adams State Park. $10 round trip.  Waiting in line, I noticed an old man in a denim shirt, faded trousers and sandals with a banjo case strapped to his back. His face struck me like a lighting bolt—is that—?

I hung back and listened to him chat with some other line-waiters. “The thing is, I’m supposed to sing at this festival,” I heard him say, adding that he didn’t want to sit in a car in this traffic. His conversants smiled and nodded as if not knowing what to say, and I watched him find a seat on a patch of grass in an island of concrete while he waited for everyone else to board. A beautiful young woman with a guitar case strapped to her back led him onto the tiny boat and they sat together quietly. I tried to restrain myself, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of them. Finally I got the nerve to walk over and ask them if they were playing in the festival.

“I’m here to tell a story and sing a song on someone else’s program,” the man said with a bouncy rhythm that was instantly familiar.

“Who are you going to play with?” I tried.

“Just by myself.” His companion grinned.

I explained that I was covering the festival and asked for his name. He responded in a near whisper.

“Seeger. Pete Seeger.”

Pete Seeger and his granddaughter Moraya Seeger on the ferry to the festival.

So, wow. You don’t want to go up to the first old man with a banjo that you see on your way to a folk festival and say, “Hey, are you Pete Seeger?” But there you had it.

Polite as he was, it was clear that Seeger wasn’t looking for attention during the ride, so I resisted my desire to delve into his stories of the old days and find out where he stood on today’s music and politics.  Not in an ambush with only a few minutes until we reached the shore. But I did ask if I could take a picture for my story.

“Take both of us,” he said, meaning himself and his companion, who introduced herself as Moraya Seeger, Pete’s granddaughter. “You can say ‘Pete Seeger on the ferry to the festival.’”

Pete and Moraya had come to support a performance by Pete’s grandson Tao, with the Seeger Clogging All-Stars. Many of the festival’s headliners were as star-struck by Pete as I was.

“You know you’re in the right place when you’re backstage with Pete Seeger, watching Wanda Jackson!” Elvis Costello exclaimed from the stage on Sunday. EmmyLou Harris, who followed Costello to close the whole shebang started by asking how we’d been blessed with so much sun throughout the weekend. “It’s probably Pete Seeger,” she postulated.

The Scene

Newport seemed to define “folk” as almost anything roots-inspired. True to the crowd on the Peter Pan, the festival drew a range of ages and tastes by booking an impressive mix of legendary traditional folk stars (Earl Scruggs, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot), big-name rock and country crossovers (EmmyLou Harris, Giilian Welsh & David Rawlings, Elvis Costello), indie rockers with singer/songwriter chops and/or acoustic repertoires (Delta Spirit, M. Ward, The Decembrists), up-and-coming traditional folk groups (Carolina Chocolate Drops) and young folkies on the bar and coffee shop circuit (David Wax Museum, Mountain Man).

Festivalgoers were likely to get hit with a mixture of salty air, and the sounds of strings and harmonies from the moment they stepped off of the water taxi.  Near the entrance to Fort Adams, home of the Museum of Yachting, was the Alex and Ani Harbor Stage, a small, densely packed, and tented area, with viciously policed perimeters to avoid traffic jams (murder on photographers). This is where the bar and coffee shop stars played.

And I do mean the stars of the circuit here. So not that woman who strums a few chords and beats her guitar with palm of her hand while singing her one quirky dating song followed by awkward patter and then her tale of the day the stained glass window of the church in her home town was shattered, and wasn’t it symbolic? Nor that sensitive dude in the flannel with the smooth, whispery voice who sings about the hard times outside the window of his Brooklyn coffee shop. Those folks were not represented.

On Day One, I caught a set there by the great Ellis Paul. He was playing in a “song circle” with Dar Williams, John Gorka and Liz Queler & Seth Farber who told a story about playing for a crowd of “five muddy people in raincoats” at their first festival, and plugged “The Edna Project,” an upcoming album which sets the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Malloy to music.

Ellis Paul on the Alex & Ani Harbor Stage

Queler & Farber on the Alex & Ani Harbor Stage

Wrapping along to the east of this tent, a labyrinth of familiar hippie/New Age craft and food venders led the way to the Fort Stage, where most of the biggest headliners play. This is the stage with the giant LCD screens, and the vast patchwork of blankets and tarps brought by those who choice to camp in front of it for the duration. There are a lot of these, and precious few aisles, which makes mobility pretty frustrating. The nice thing is, if you needed a break from the crowds, you could always take a two-minute walk to the shore and watch the sail boats and kayakers.

To get to the third stage, the Quad Stage, or as I came to call it, the Bummer Stage, you had to follow the labyrinth back passed the Alex and Ani Stage (where a good enough band could stop you in your tracks), wrap around to the west and walk up a tunneled ramp in Fort Adams to a separated patch of land.

The Quad Stage did host the festivals two true rock bands, Delta Spirit and Middle Brother. It was also blessed by the Seegers. For some reason though, the majority of its acts, including headliners, Justin Townes Earl and M. Ward, were clearly rocking the sad bastard side of things.

For the goods on these and other acts, including pictures, stories and reviews, check out parts 2 and 3 of the Journal.

We’ve all seen “Good Will Hunting,” right? So let’s do a little stealth math, Will Hunting style. Two hilarious writers. Two talented actors. One skilled production team. One magical script. Add it up: before you can say “How ya like them apples,” you’ve got your summer evening planned.

“Matt and Ben” started in 2001, when recent college graduates Mindy Kaling (of “The Office” fame) and Brenda Withers considered the seemingly overnight success of the two young actors, who had previously shown little promise in writing. What if the script had, say, magically fallen out of the sky, and these two Boston guys had to stop thinking about their laughable adaptation of Catcher in the Rye and make a life-changing decision? From this premise, “Matt and Ben” was born, originally starring Kaling as bro-tastic Ben and Withers as meticulous Matt.

Elements of this buddy tale are oversimplified. There are points in the story when the tension is forced, the arguments repetitive. However, the script of “Matt and Ben” is saved by Kaling and Withers’ snort-inducing diologue and their use of uproarious cameos and references playing on common knowledge of Damon and Affleck. The plot takes ridiculous turns when it needs to, but this remains a relatable story of friendship and the odd ways in which we fulfill our destinies.

It would be easy to dismiss the complicated effects of casting women in the title roles by assuming that Kaling and Withers just wanted to play the characters they’d written, á la Damon and Affleck starring in “Good Will Hunting.” Beyond this though, the cross-gender casting adds an element of universality to the characters and, while they’re not “feminized” per se, an element of irreverence.

Besides, it’s just funny. Dwelling on the gender question is almost irrelevant here since Central Square’s actresses are so brilliant in their parts.  One very quickly gets over the shock of gender bending and accepts this pair as our hometown heroes—or at least as real best buds. Philana Mia dives into Matt’s driven nature, addiction to quality and boyish charm. Marianna Bassham’s Ben could be plucked from any number of Faneuil Hall bars on game night. They have undeniable chemistry, and as sad as it is to have to say, it’s refreshing to see women portraying a friendship that doesn’t revolve around men or stereotypical “female” attitudes and problems.

Which is not to say there aren’t sterotypes at play here. Director M. Bevin O’Gara has definetly brought out the bros in Bassham and Mia. She’s also paced the play to perfection, down to every last “um” and f-bomb. Miranda Giurleo’s costume design definitely sets the 90′s tone, as does Ben’s Somerville apartment, thanks to Dahlia Al-Habieli’s scenic design and properties coordination by Megan Kinneen.

I have to say that I briefly questioned how true these characters were to the real Matt and Ben. I wondered what they would think of these portrayals. I considred how my opinion might differ had I been old enough to be annoyed by their relentless fame in the 90′s. And when those eight seconds were over, I went back to unabashedly enjoying a well-structured, well-acted, delightfully inane show. Whether for the thrill of watching the boys discover greatness just blocks from their home turf, or the secret hope that greatness will literally fall into your lap, or just for laughs: “Matt and Ben” is a wicked smaht choice.

“Matt and Ben” plays through August 14 at the Central Square Theater. 

A goofy turbaned Arab bellows from the marketplace in an accent thick as hashish smoke, to draw audiences in to this deceptively complex look at intercultural relations through the prism of the 1001 Arabian Nights.

Actress Lauren Eicher

Hagglers like these, along with sultans, genies, harems and saber-clutching, camel-riding thieves from the tales of Scheherazade, provided many non-Arab Americans with their first images of Middle-easterners in childhood. These characters were ubiquitous in cartoons and movies as well as storybooks, making it all the more surreal when news reports made it appear as if some version of these characters seemed to hate us and want to kill us.

Playwright Jason Grote plays with this strange relationship in “1001.”  He plays too with the story’s famous tiered structure, wherein a narrator tells a story featuring a character who tells someone else a story about another storyteller, and so on.  It’s a framing technique worthy of the Moderns, a couple of whom pop up themselves, unexpectedly.

Actors Hampton Fluker and Ruby Rose Fox in a photo by Liza Vole.

Somewhere in Arabian nights full of ill-fated and forbidden romances, unfolds the tale of Alan, a stock neurotic New York Jewish liberal, and Dahna, a self-possessed Arab-American fellow-liberal arts student. Inspired by some mixture of passion and politics, they pair pursues a precarious romance forged at a public debate on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, during dangerous times for New Yorkers.

Alan is played by Nael Nacer, last seen at Company One in his brilliant performance as a brooding would-be-novelist, vagabond in Annie Baker’s unique Shirley, Vermont play, “The Aliens.” Nacer is brilliant again here, doubling as the sensitive urban introvert, and Shahriyar, a lascivious and oppressive sheik who threatens the life of a wily young bride. Not long ago, Nacer played Chico Marx in the Lyric Stage production of “Animal Crackers.” He seems to have borrowed a dash of Groucho for the role of this swaggering despot. The extremely canny actress Lauren Eicher plays Nacer’s counterpoint and matches him in talent. She is equally charming as Scheherazade, the dramatic storytelling bride, and Dahna, the modern women torn between cultures.

“1001” is at first bewildering, then funny, then moving, then bewildering again for entirely different reasons. All told, a trip worth taking.

Directed for Company One by Megan Sandberg-Zakian, “1001” plays at the BCA Plaza Theatre through August 13.

“The Mountain Song” will make anyone feel like a kid by a campfire.  It’s American folk theater, an Appalachian fable told through inventive puppetry and well-crafted narrative songs, which are performed live by its actors on banjo, guitar, drum and accordion. The tale is a wilderness adventure with some whimsical twists. It features a lonely mountain, formidable rivers, a friendly giant and some wild predators.

The show’s creator/performers, 7 recent graduates of Carnegie Mellon, call themselves PigPen Theatre. The name implies sloppiness, but the troupe is anything but. Their play is impeccably choreographed and their comic rhythms are well honed.  A true ensemble, each actor wears several hats and takes turns stepping into the spotlight for a few hammy moments each.

PigPen tells a simple story using deeply ingrained iconography and some low-tech yet sophisticated theatrical devices. As hard as they work on stage, they make their audience work too, asking us to project vast terrains and lovable heroes onto shadows and cloth.  There is real emotional power in this kind of imaginative collaboration. “The Mountain Song” is a play for all ages but is childlike in the best possible ways.

Kudos to Company One for taking a break from its usual, deliberately disquieting fare to kick off the summer with something truly playful.

“The Mountain Song” plays through June 25in in Hall A of the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts.

The Arab Spring has turned the eyes of the world to its remaining dictators. We’ve watched them publically flounder, grasping desperately at the myths of divine right and public support constructed over decades, while simultaneously ordering tanks and troops to crush all opposition without distinction or mercy. Hoping we’re witnessing the beginning of the end of the military despot, we’ve been mesmerized watching these once charismatic tyrants exposed and vulnerable.

Shakespeare wrote about this. “Richard III,” is thought to be one his earliest and most popularly successful plays.  It’s title character uses smirking soliloquies to make us his accomplices as he charms and butchers his way to the crown, goes mad trying to hold on to the reins of power and swiftly loses what he so audaciously claimed. It’s the perfect play for examining the methods, motivations and madness of such men, but also our own fascinations with them.

One could not ask for a more compelling, inventive or effecting production than the one on offer from England’s award-winning Shakespeare troupe, Propeller , now playing at the Huntington. While Richard Clothier’s broad-shouldered, toothy-grinned, fast talking sociopath is an imposing and magnificent Richard III, but it’s equaled by the portrayal of the machine he comes to oversee.

Propeller’s English royals drink their celebratory wine from i.v. pouches and when they’re vowing a pact of loyalty, they down vials of one another’s royal blood. A chorus of underlings who are masked in ragged bandages and costumed in hospital whites does their bidding. Models of British efficiency, these ghouls sing jaunty English hymns in four-part harmonies as they carry out their orders with drills, hooks and chainsaws. This business is creepy as hell, but its horror and gore is so over-the-top as to be campy. An intentional gallows humor makes it palatable and even entertaining.

You never forget you’re in a theatrical world in this Richard. For one thing, Propeller, like the King’s Men, is an all male troupe, so you’re treated to a drag Lady Anne and Queen Margaret. These parts, however, are not played for camp. In the very best scenes, you forget.  For another thing, you get surprising turns like the use of puppets to portray the young princes whom Richard imprisons in the tower. They effect is both convincing to the imagination and useful as commentary.

The trick of Richard III is that it has no likable characters, only amusing characters. In the Propeller version, this even holds true for Edward, the play’s liberator, whose violence in the name of freedom for tyranny has to give us some pause.

Directed by Edward Hall, adapted by Edward Hall and Roger Warren and designed by Michael Pavelka, “Richard III” is presented by the B.U. School of Theatre in association with the Huntington Theatre Company. It plays at the B.U. Theatre through June 19, in repertory with “Comedy of Errors.”

It’s got to be fast on its feet and full of slapstick, site gags and as must shtick as can be mustered to keep it popping.  Thought to be Shakespeare’s first stab at the genre, “Comedy of Errors” is built on the outlandish premise that two sets of separated identical twins with the same names—two servants and their two masters—land on the same shore on the same day, haplessly stirring up all kinds of passions. The masters break vows and break hearts and the servants nearly get their brains broken in with blows. While rife with possibilities, it’s a pretty goofy premise and the play’s jokes are not necessarily helped along by heightened and archaic language. But the Propellor gets it. The award-winning English Shakespeare troupe turns out a crowd-pleaser by treating the play more like folk art than fine art. Its cartoon-like characters would almost equally be at home in an English pantomime as they are flinging about blank verse. Certainly they know how to speak the speech, they just never allow it to become precious, spitting out rhetoric, puns and rhymes like they’re simply talking trash. Some easy laughs are born from the fact that Propeller is all male. Their female characters are the kinds of wonderful nightmares in drag who could easily have stepped out of a Kids in the Hall sketch. But the old cross-dressing bit is just one of the comedic tools in its impressive bag of tricks. The troupe brings “Comedy of Errors” to a run-down Mexican village complete with errant chicken squawks and peopled by a sombrero sporting mariachi pick-up band as a chorus. The play’s minor characters get to riff and strut to their hearts’ content. One plot point hinges on the selling of an expensive chain, and in this version its vendor is an incensed pawnshop sleaze, resplendent in silver and gold lamé. Another twist brings a religious exorcist to the stage who here appears as flamboyant tent-show revival preacher. As with the best comedies, it’s unmistakable that these actors are having the times of their lives with these hammy parts and such fun is contagious. Remarkably, the same can be said of the bloody, bloody “Richard III“ which Propeller is performing in repertory with this comedy. To get the full effect of this troupes’ ingenuity and skill, see both if you possibly can. Directed by Edward Hall and designed by Michael Pavelka, “The Comedy of Errors” is presented by the B.U. Department of Theatre in association with the Huntington Theatre Company. It plays at the B.U. Theatre through June 19.