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[theatrendorphin]

Musical NERD fest at Philadelphia Theatre Company

I think you're a genius—Gates to Jobs I think you're right.—Jobs to Gates

   Kevin Pariseau and Stanley Bahorek in center (Photo credit: Paola Nogueras)

Nerds is drawing plenty of attention at Philadelphia Theatre Company [PTC], where it premiered eons ago in 2007. After resuscitation at North Carolina Theatre [NCT] early this year, it's back, refreshed by its original creators, Jordan Allen-Dutton and Erik Weiner (book and lyrics) and Hal Goldberg (music). Casey Hushion of NCT directs the production with a mostly new New York-centric creative team and cast. A surprisingly traditional song plot for the computer-age musical sets the trajectory. And the engine that drives it is the relationship between two central oppositional figures, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. They provide classic character doubling — born the same year (1955) and starting out with similar visions — their polarized demeanors are exaggerated for theatrical payoff. Jobs (Matt Bradley) is charismatic, while Gates (Stanley Bahorek) is insecure. Jobs is cool, Gates is not. Both of these driven guys under-appreciate their co-founders, Steven "Woz" Wozniak and Paul Allen respectively. And both will co-opt others' ideas and do whatever it takes in their pursuit of revolutionary technologies. Neither rival comes off as sterling. "The world is full of sharks, so strap on a fin." But the two Silicon Valley billionaires who started small and altered everything aren't hardened tough guys. They air their insecurities in song. Perfect for a show steeped in the idea of computer tech wizardry, the sophisticated set features a huge motherboard backdrop with doo-dads, ever-changing winking lights and killer projections. Microsoft and Apple's tech and business matters get glossed over and fairytale-ized in the service of musical comedy. Understandable. Who wants to sit in on business deals or a snoozy courtroom session, for example? So they cut to the lite-love interests (dynamic duo Brianna Carlson-Goodman and Lexy Fridell) who hijack computer/ moral compromise issues and obscure the tedious facts and details. But it might have been good to get the computer/legal-speak clincher down pat before going for the kiss. Nerds, strictly hustle and bustle over substance, is a lot of fun. Scattered like fishermen's' chum to start the nibbles are adolescent nerdy little sexual innuendos that, of course, crack everyone up. There are also good jokes, and the songs are hugely entertaining because, for the most part, the nimble lyrics with their funny riffs presume that the audience gets it and didn't just fall off the old turnip truck. The leads are wonderfully cast, and the strong, energetic ensemble knows how to get down. (Benny Elledge does an awe-inspiring Woz.) Nerdy members sing and dance at the Homebrew Computer Club. The faux villainous MIB staff at IBM performs a sharp, comical dance to "A Step Ahead." The downer song, "Down and Out in Silicon Valley," works. There's an inspiring assemblage of past heroes in "Think Different," and the sign-off number, "I Wanna Get Down and Nerdy," pumps it up. Still, Nerds could use a 'keeper' song that rises above the story's immediate circumstances. The finale lightly addresses Steve Job's passing, which must be acknowledged, and Nerds picks up its gleeful forward momentum again -after the bows-- and ends on an exhilarating note. The standing O at the end was no pro-forma ritual. Based on indications from two scientific barometers, it looks like this thing's got legs:

1) Good ladies room chatter at intermission. (No one talks during a bomb.)

2) My dragged-along "I hate musicals" companion was captivated. 

NERDS  Book & Lyrics by Jordan Allen-Dutton and Erik Weiner Music by Hal Goldberg Directed by Casey Hushion

Cast: Stanley Bahorek, Rob Morrison, Matt Bradley, Benny Elledge, Briana Carlson-Goodman, Lexy Fridell, Blake Segal, Raymond J. Lee, Catherine Ricafort, Alyse Alan Louis, Kevin Pariseau Scenic Design: Lee Savage Choreographer: Joshua Bergasse Lighting Design: Jason Lyons Sound Design: Nevin Steinberg; Orchestrations: Adam Blau; Music Director: Matt Doebler Costume Design: Thomas Charles Legalley, based on design by Alejo Vietti Projection Design: Daniel Brodie 

A CurtainUp Review

By Kathryn Osenlund 12/15/2013

[theatrendorphin]

A Child's Christmas in Wales Stage version review

  And I remember that we went singing carols once, when there wasn't the shaving of a moon to light the flying streets.

Dylan Thomas

Photo: Mark Garvin

The Lantern Theater Company’s performance space is littered with plastic: White plastic bags, inflated like balloons, cling to the backdrop in clusters. Plastic sheeting, bunched and scattered, sprawls across the floor. White constructions representing snow drifts hide more plastic bags. Inside these bags well-made little houses are discovered. The ensemble, like children, will play with them, carry them, and sometimes wear them on their heads. Preciously, small handfuls of “snow” will be sprinkled on houses and heads.

In Dylan Thomas’s A CHILD’S CHRISTMAS IN WALES co-created and adapted for the stage by Charles McMahon, and designed and directed by Sebastienne Mundheim, four actors,Charlie DelMarcelle,  Doug Hara,  Geneviève Perrier, and Amy Smith perform selected details of a recitation with unhurried dance-like moves. Among the show’s many mixed scale props are puppets, a little fire engine, a small model of a room, and an ingenious coloring book page. Yards of fabric cleverly become smoke, but mittens, hat and scarf are made of diaphanous material where warm wool is wanted. But it’s as if each of these separate design projects took on its own life, and thus remains abstracted and disparate in a piecemeal production that never pulls together into a coherent whole. This show may be intended to look like a workshop in make-believe rather than a conventional presentation.

I waited for an atmospheric lighting trick or whatever miracle it would take to transform the mostly flat-lighted set into a space of wonder, and infuse the stage with life. But it never came. Eventually, bottles are lighted and just momentarily they shimmer like snow globe lanterns, but the general lighting doesn’t dim down enough to allow the impact of their much needed effect.

One of Dylan Thomas’s wonderful story moments is handled particularly deftly. The narrator, talking about the category of “useless presents” tells of receiving a packet of cigarettes: “You put one in your mouth and you stood at the corner of the street and you waited for hours, in vain, for an old lady to scold you for smoking a cigarette, and then with a smirk you ate it."  Director Mundheim makes the point simply, with just actors and attitude, and no props other than the candy cigarettes dangling from their mouths.

Robert Kaplowitz’s sound design supports the narrative with an array of well selected and admirably timed noises as well as lovely snatches of original music.

 Innovative theater that takes chances is a great thing. But sometimes we can see that the choices made don’t work. Adults acting like children is not charming. And Dylan Thomas’s work really isn’t a children’s story, but a mature, droll, and warm trip down a Welsh memory lane. This production’s exploratory, extemporaneous take is evidently at its secret heart more about evoking memory in general than building and sustaining the mood of a boy’s long ago snowy Welsh Christmases.

Gender-blind casting is a very good thing, except when it isn’t. This fiction-enhanced show-and-tell remembrance of a boyhood would be better served with a grown man doing the telling and a boy doing the showing. But that would require a children’s cast, which might be one reason why this story hasn’t been brought to the stage until now. Not to take anything away from Geneviève Perrier, a wonderful performer with a clear voice and fluid acting skills, but having a woman narrator perform as a woman and then as a boy, in a work that was written to be a man’s telling of a boy’s tale doesn’t admit the deep resonances of the story.

Despite all the creations and fine custom-made objects that went into this production, it comes up short on magic partly due to the cluttered disarray of the set and the awkwardness of grown up actors cutely playing children. It never gathers the accumulating elegiac quality of Dylan Thomas’s narrative. Although in his 1952 recording he sounds like he may have been half in the bag, his immense charm imbues his story with a rich glow that this production hasn’t been able to attain. Those who have known and loved the story and the famous recording may be disappointed with the Lantern production. Still, audience members unfamiliar with Dylan Thomas’s tale are more likely to find joy in it. 

Lantern Theater Company production

Reviewed by Kathryn Osenlund for CurtainUp.com

[theatrendorphin]

Less tortured soul -- More action figure HAMLET

Josh Carpenter (L) Sean Bradley (R) (Photo credit: Shawn May)

The play opens formally at a long banquet table draped with a white cloth. Claudius addresses the guests. A freeze-frame then holds the company as a sullen, angry Hamlet carries on about the marriage. Compression works well: Claudius dispatches various duties, and short pieces of the story begin to gel. Artistic Director Alexander Burns, who directed the play, opened the performance with a brief welcoming speech about how Quintessence wants to build an audience for progressive, classic theater. For a fairly new company, Quintessence approaches Hamlet in a surprisingly traditional way. Although just about every Hamlet production involves cuts to the text in the interest of time and action, the curious thing in this case is the choice made of what to lose. In an interview with newsworks.org, Burns said he wanted an action-packed play that would proceed "from big moment to big moment." Looks like he's following the Elmore Leonard rule: "Skip the Boring Parts." Just a few things about that. Among the missing are some of the great fun bits. Just one example is Hamlet's riff on being played: Hamlet: "Will you play upon this pipe?". . . Guildenstern: "I have not the skill." . . . Hamlet: "Do you think I'm easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me." Key moments that impact on an understanding and appreciation of Hamlet have also been abridged or axed. Among these would be: Polonius and Claudius's eavesdropping on Ophelia; the audience seeing that Polonius is hidden in Gertrude's closet (or curtain) before his accidental murder; Claudius and Laertes discussing the poisoned sword scheme. Audience lack of knowledge about the secretly poisoned sword lessens key pressures of the duel scene. And the handling of the poisoned cup is so surreptitious that those unfamiliar with the story could be confused. These and other deleted scenes provided clarity and set up dramatic irony and audience anticipation. Without them action scenes don't have the impact that Shakespeare intended. In addition to cropping, things are shifted around and stitched up. Hamlet's "To Be" soliloquy, for instance, is brought in earlier. The rearrangement, which favors certain character dimensions over others, subtly reduces the complexity that is Hamlet. Was the idea to make way for a more energetic and fiery hero by dealing with inconvenient indecisiveness sooner? If the self-questioning treatise on consciousness vs obliteration is handled earlier-on, you can cunningly shape perceptions and clear the way for a more eager, engaging and hearty Hamlet — less tortured soul and more action figure. Josh Carpenter has put in the work and labored over imparting the messages of the soliloquies, and it shows. He lets them play out fast, though, and Hamlet becomes fairly histrionic, where a slower delivery would provide a more Hamlet-like counterpoint to the action. On the other hand, this Melancholy Dane has lots of spark, and Carpenter handles the comedy exceptionally well.(Polonius: "Do you know me, my lord?" . . . Hamlet: Excellent well; you are a fishmonger."") Hamlet, in fighting form, attired in a small faux fur jacket and sunglasses, toys with Polonius, who suspects method in his madness. John Preston's Polonius is a rare treat. This may be the best scene in the show. (Sidenote: Preston's take on the gravedigger is notable.) Rachel Broadeur's low-key Ophelia comes into her own in her mad scenes, and she does justice to David Cope's original song. E. Ashley Izard is a more gracious than usual Gertrude, and Ralph Edmonds' Claudius recalls a quintessential Republican businessman (no offense). Sean Bradley's Laertes emerges well despite a dearth of lines. Matt Lorenz holds his own as Horatio, a kind of thankless role. Daniel Fredrick's Rosencrantz and Osrick are quirky, Alexander Harvey as Guildenstern has good impulses. Griffin Stanton-Ameisen does a fine job in several roles and Sonja Field acquits herself well. Even with lines tightened up, moved, and key scenes dropped, the performance time isn't trimmed overmuch. It still lasts a fairly typical two and a half hours, not counting intermission. It's interesting to note that with all the cuts, Fortinbras is kept in. This is where many a production chooses to chop. I like seeing Fortinbras onstage at the end, showing the larger frame in which this tragedy has transpired. But would I sacrifice the missing pieces for it? Hmmm. Burns's sound design ties everything together with well-timed, striking and appropriate thunder, noises and effects. Music, both stark and luminous enhances the production. The Sedgwick in Mt. Airy was built as an art deco movie palace in 1928. The interior was essentially gutted in the late 60s, except for a few features including some decorative ceilings. Now an arts and cultural center, the Sedgwick offers huge performance spaces. Quintessence, taking full advantage of the deep space, has had two seating areas for the audience constructed at the level of the stage, which runs down the center of the space. The huge, long, wide and sturdy performance platform sits quite high, allowing for groundlings around it. A beautiful piece of construction, the clever and versatile sectional platform is used in a number of ways. During scene shifts a disciplined crew, like a black ops team, moves in, dismantles it, and readies it for the next use. This expert handling between scenes contributes to the professional feel of the show. Hamlet by William Shakespeare Directed by Alexander Burns

Cast: Josh Carpenter, E. Ashley Izard, Ralph Edmonds, John Preston, Rachel Broadeur, Sean Bradley, Matt Lorenz, Daniel Fredrick, Alexander Harvey, Griffin Stanton-Ameisen, Sonja Field Scenic Design: Quintessence Theatre Lighting Design: Ellen Moore Costume Design: Jane Casanave Sound Design: Alexander Burns Original Music: David Cope Oct 9 - Nov 23, 2013 2 hours and 30 minutes including one 15 minute intermission

Reviewed by Kathryn Osenlund for CurtainUp.com based on 10/16/2013 performance, Quintessence Theatre Group at Sedgwick Arts & Cultural Center, Germantown Ave, Mt. Airy, Philadelphia 

http://www.curtainup.com/hamletphila13.html

[theatrendorphin]

People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like

Julie Czarnecki and Danielle Herbert

Is this the play that launched a thousand plaudits and earned the top awards and nominations? I ask because this show, directed by Bernard Havard, moves along more at TV laugh track pace than by character-motivated timing. And the plot line that played so well in NYC seems too thin to sustain a nearly two-hour play. What's up? I know for a fact it's not the cast. These are wonderful actors. Actually I wanted to see this play at the Walnut Street Theatre because I didn't want to miss seeing some of them in their latest venture. In Good People, while we discover that some characters are deep down good people, most of the talk is about "nice" rather than "good," and not all these people are very nice. Margie (Julie Czarnecki) has had a tough and, she believes, unfair life as the single mom of a severely challenged adult daughter. She can be very nice. She can also be mean-spirited to others, although she takes offense when she gets it back from them. Shot through with resentment, Margie goes on the attack when the opportunity presents itself. The first act has the look of literal kitchen sink naturalism. Margie's long conversations with her nice boss (Jered McLenigan), self-serving landlady (Sharon Alexander), and mouthy friend (Denise Whelan), are rife with local color and hokey humor, revealing life in Southie (tough South Boston). However, the gloss of realism quickly recedes in a sustained barrage of stagey one-liners from two characters who are designed to operate only at comic level. The pace picks up somewhat in the second act at the yup-scale home of Mike (Dan Olmstead)— a rather repressed doctor who got some breaks and made it out of the 'hood. He and his upper middle class black wife, Kate, have personal issues to resolve. With all the stereotypes, a cultured black woman provides a nice twist on the typical social class thing. Danielle Herbert's bright Kate is a needed breath of air. Margie shows up at their house, a malicious bull in their upmarket china shop. As things fall apart it's cruel and funny, and people in the theater laugh. BTW, it's curious, isn't it, that onstage the f-word always draws the biggest laughs? Fuck this or that. Ha ha. Never heard that word before. My theater companion who hails from Boston commented that the actors' approximations of Southie accents, while uneven, aren't bad. Visually the Walnut's Good People is great. As in the Broadway production, scene changes are neatly accomplished with an efficient rotating set. In addition, Robert Klingelhoefer's well-planned scenic design incorporates clever, versatile drops and flats that frame the scenes. The social comparison theme dominates. A not-so-secret secret is somewhat guardedly revealed, along with discoveries of who is or is not good people. The Walnut, or WST, defines what constitutes theater for a large swath of Philadelphia's theater-going public. Known for catering to its large subscriber audience, WST generally selects shows with a proven track record for its mainstage. The theater's third and fifth floor stages take more chances. Award winning Good People comes across more sitcom than humorously gritty and real. But as Abe Lincoln (probably erroneously) is credited with saying: People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.

Produced in association with Fulton Theatre, Lancaster PA

Through April 28 at WST

Good People by David Lindsay-Abaire 

Directed by Bernard Havard 

Cast: Julie Czarnecki, Jered McLenigan, Sharon Alexander, Denise Whelan, Dan Olmstead, Danielle Herbert 

Scenic Design: Robert Klingelhoefer 

Lighting Design: Shon Causer 

Costume Design: Colleen Grady 

Sound Design: Jacob Mishler 

Review by Kathryn Osenlund for CurtainUp.com

[theatrendorphin]

Assassin, David Robson's potent play at InterAct

Dwayne A.Thomas and Brian Anthony Wilson                      photo: Rozin

InterAct Theatre Company presents the World Premiere of David Robson's fictional drama inspired by the fateful, but legal, collision of Jack Tatum and Darryl Singley in a 1978 preseason football game. Assassin is not a documentary play about Tatum-Singley, but their calamity serves as the jumping off point, and the playwright takes it from there in his story of Lucas and Turner. Assassin, which is nothing like the acted-out essay it first appears to be, quickly becomes a twisty ride that turns through discoveries, irony, and exposure. For starters, the tale begins as former football star Frank Lucas waits for former football player Lyle Turner to arrive for a meeting. But the man who shows up isn't Lyle. It's his lawyer. Frank (Brian Anthony Wilson) and Lewis, the lawyer (Dwayne A. Thomas) discuss a proposed televised meeting of Frank and Lyle, a "reunion of the legends" at an upcoming Super Bowl post-game show. Motivations for this meeting, some perhaps unconscious and some less than candid, range from deep need to earnest concern to callous self-interest. Frank is loose; Lewis is uptight. Under the direction of Seth Reichgott, Dwayne Thomas holds his own in the tough and uneasy Lewis role, hitting all the marks that need to be hit. Wilson, a suitably big guy, is Frank the football assassin who hates the new rules aimed at attenuating football violence. "The game is about fucking people up." With lightning changes from Mr. Friendly Guy, to troubled soul, to scary, and back again, Wilson is nothing short of mesmerizing. Humor's in the mix too. The Assassin doesn't know what to make of a black man who claims that his all-time football hero is Terry Bradshaw. The engine under the action is fueled not only by the legitimate passions unleashed, but also, regrettably, by the contrivance of on-cue and not entirely credible drinking, aimed at getting the characters where they need to be quickly enough to act on their impulses and connect with each other in stage time. But speeded-up drinking happens a lot in dramas both good and bad. And this one is good. Frank and Lewis discover each other's demons and face their own illusions as their stories emerge, converge, and diverge both in the larger context of sports violence and within the confines of a bland, standard hotel room meticulously designed by Dirk Durossette. InterAct's potent and timely production of Assassin commands attention. In an amazingly apropos coincidence, the NFLPA has just announced their $100 million grant for the brand new Harvard Integrated Program to Protect and Improve the Health of professional football players. I guess our guy, Frank Lucas, won't like that much. Assassin by David Robson 

A co-production with Act II Playhouse.

Directed by Seth Reichgott

Cast: Brian Anthony Wilson, Dwayne A. Thomas Set Design: Dirk Durossette Lighting Design: James Leitner Sound Design: Ashley Turner Costume Design: Maggie Baker Jan 18 - Feb 10.  80 minutes  Adrienne Theater, 2030 Sansom Street. 

Reviewed by Kathryn Osenlund for CurtainUp.com

[theatrendorphin]

The Exit Interview CurtainUp Review

Dan Hodge & Cheryl Williams 

Photo credit: Seth Rozin

Playwright William Missouri Downs applies a Brecht-inspired distancing approach to brazen scattershot comedy in the National New Play Network rolling world premiere of The Exit Interview. Pieces of story collide with extraneous elements and with an array of seriously intended underlying messages. Yet a distinctly non-Brechtian suspense hangs over everything in the ever-present threat of a gunman on the loose. Dan Hodge plays Professor Richard (Dick) Fig, a Brecht scholar who is being let go by his university. The exit interview transpires in a lowly storage room, which serves as the office of Eunice, the uber-devout Catholic HR person (Cheryl Williams). Dick has shown up for the meeting wearing a huge cast on his leg. Prominent among the playwright’s targets are knee-jerk, memorized answers to reasonable theological questions. He ridicules common adamant belief in a fickle personal-service God who favors one person’s fate over another’s. In didactic fashion, the show’s themes are sometimes stated outright, as if you could possibly miss them in context: "People accept a set of arbitrary rules instead of thinking things out for themselves." Yet Seth Rozin directs with tongue in cheek and a light touch. Smart, nimble cast members handle multiple roles in quick succession and in exaggerated pretend-Brechtian style. The playwright’s Pet Peeves, bundled into funny, ridiculous packages, lampoon senseless small talk, commercials, TV (and in particular Fox News). Scientists argue over a protein (Brecht’s scientific inquiry?) and a Mormon convinces a Lutheran leader to give up on her religion. Interruptions, messages, and newly arriving script changes are thrown in to "break the theatrical illusion." These vignettes sometimes illustrate things that have happened – like how the prof’s ex liked her oboe more than she liked him – or they might demonstrate any of a variety of concepts. Although these bits can tend to hammer a point long after it has been made, they remain funny – neat trick. When cheerleaders announce that commercials and product placement will now commence, silly and cleverly placed ads are added to the mix, along with real ads for InterAct sponsors, which are shown on a monitor. Scenic designer Roman Tatarowicz’s set enables the forward momentum. The surprisingly realistic (for ‘Brecht’) storage room-office is designed to be instantly dismantled, re-assembled, and seen from various angles at different times. A low, moveable stage is quickly wheeled out front for supporting scenes that take place in another space, time, or reality level. On this evening the audience, packed into the Adrienne’s mainstage house, appears to be having a glorious time as they respond enthusiastically to nonsensical cheerleader-led cheers. The atmosphere reminds me of a performance I attended at an outlying London theater earlier this month where the audience, as one, lustily sang the entire Marseillaise. Even as it poses hefty questions within an absurd framework, The Exit Interview makes fun of its own intellectual and didactic pretensions. It seems that Brecht is being parodied along with Fox News and the rest of the writer’s hobby horses. Bertolt Brecht, who breathed his last in 1958, won’t just lie down. That’s a good thing. His ideas helped to create a bold way out of the stranglehold that formulaic sentimental drama had on early 20th century stages. He and others cut alternative paths for theater to become more real and at the same time more blatantly theatrical. While much theater still clings to what Brecht would consider outmoded forms that cater to an audience that’s escaping reality, some companies have chosen a route that allows disjointed scenes, hard edges, and in-your-face social consciousness for a thinking audience. As a message-bearing, new play oriented company, InterAct owes Brecht a debt of gratitude for his vision of theater as a laboratory of social change.

Note: Artistic director Seth Rozin’s leadership role in the National New Play Network has introduced Philadelphia to a number of the network’s memorable works in the last few years: Permanent Collection by Thomas Gibbons (which returns in April ’13); A House With No Walls, also by Gibbons; Black Gold by Seth Rozin; The Rant by Andrew Case; and Jihad Jones and the Kalishnikov Babes by Yussef El Guindi.

he Exit Interview >by William Missouri Downs 

Directed by Seth Rozin 

Cast: Dan Hodge, Cheryl Williams, Jennifer MacMillan, Meghan Malloy, David Bardeen, Eric Kramer 

Set Design: Roman Tatarowicz 

Lighting Design: Peter Whinnery 

Sound Design: Mark Valenzuela 

Costume Design: Natalia De La Torre 

Projection Design: Janelle Kauffman 

Oct 19 – Nov 11. Opening Oct 24 

Approx 2 hours with one 15 min intermission 

Adrienne Theatre, Sansom  Street, Philadelphia

Reviewed by Kathryn Osenlund for CurtainUp.com

[theatrendorphin]

Review: The Mirror Show Episode 1: Pilot The Understudy Escapes

A coastal storm sweeps up a girl, last seen sunning herself on the beach at St. Tropez, and drops her into ... the sea? No, into a mirror, which is "full of people like you. White trash," according to The Svengali who seems to hold her captive. Like a variety show carnival barker, he makes announcements on a megaphone.

A formal pattern emerges: Brief dialogue between the Lost Girl and Svengali, then an image-forward song by the Actress regarding the surface reflection of things, followed by a somber ballad sung by the Understudy concerning the inner side. And repeat.

The female personas are wonderfully complementary: the statuesque and empty-eyed Actress with the remarkably strong and bright voice; the Understudy, who sings intimately and plaintively while sitting at an unplayed keyboard; and the Lost  Girl, an appealing and marvelously girly Alice-type who has fallen down this particular reflective glass hole.

No gestures accompany these cool, melancholy songs about girls, drugs, nightclubs; the glamorous life of a cocaine housewife; and lost and missed love in a false, false world.

In this static staging (most of the time each participant is completely still), sound takes precedence over the minimal and marginal visuals. Insistent house music with its muscular hurling beat alternates with haunting melodies and their odd, intimate little elements.

Set in 2512 (Can this be right?) with the potentially dated element of club music, this mystifying and magical experience is the only musical fringe performance I've seen in the last 13 years whose approach to the genre emerges from the last century and begins to inhabit the 21st century.

Levendorf: Book, Lyrics, Direction / Drew: Music, Score, Production

At 440 Studios - Moss Theater-- New York City   FringeNYC 2012

Reviewer: Kathryn Osenlund for CurtainUp.com

[theatrendorphin]

In Philadelphia, Exile nails A Behanding in Spokane

Pearce Bunting and Matt Pfeiffer (Photo credit: Paola Nogueras)

If Martin McDonagh’s expansive, riotous and dire The Lieutenant of Inishmore (Exile, 02/11) is a symphonic work, then his Behanding, a diminutive story that takes place in a mundane hotel room, is a chamber piece. After a killer opening scene, an amazing amount of offensive, desperate, comical, and kind of sweet stuff crams into 90 minutes. Ridiculous piles on ridiculous, as apologies for political incorrectness follow blatant racist remarks and slurs on the mentally challenged. Glimpses of thin layers of larger implications and psychological underpinnings are paired with outrageousness. It gives one pause: It’s damn funny, but is it OK to laugh? If you like things nice and normal, stay home. But, to borrow a line from Billy Joel, if it just may be a lunatic you’re looking for, then Martin McDonagh’s your man and Exile’s your theater.

For complete review see http://www.curtainup.com/behandingphila.html

Directed by Joe Canuso, Theatre Exile Producing Artistic Director Set Design Meghan Jones; Costume Design: Rosemarie McKelvey; Lighting Design: Thom Weaver Sound Design: Michael Kiley; Stump Master: Waldo Warshaw 

Theatre Exile at Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N. American St. Philadelphia, PA April 19- May 13, 2012 www.theatreexile.org

Reviewed by Kathryn Osenlund for CurtainUp.com.