Dark of the Moon

Rarely professionally staged, Dark of the Moon—a mythical story of witches and farmers set in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina—enjoyed a run on Broadway in the 1940s and has since lived on mainly in high school, college and community theaters. Thirsty Turtle Production’s take on this classically problematic play conjures up a cohesive and atmospheric look at the perils of prejudice and unquestioning adherence to religious dogma.

Reviewed by Ilena George

A Southern Gothic fairy tale with a dark side worthy of a Shirley Jackson story, Dark of the Moon offers a kind of story-telling that feels much larger and more epic than the space it's housed in might suggest. Based loosely on the 17th century folk song "The Ballad of Barbara Allen," Dark of the Moon presents a Romeo and Juliet-esque story about a woman and a witch-boy who fall in love and pursue a doomed relationship that both humans and witches oppose. John the witch-boy (Noah Dunham) makes a deal with Conjur Woman, an old woman with magical powers, who agrees to make him human for one year with the stipulation that he may remain human only if the beautiful (and loosely moralled) Barbara Allen (Sarah Hayes Donnell) stays faithful to him for one year. John must learn to live like a man—chopping wood, caring for his wife—but is forbidden to enter a church, which will almost instantly cast suspicion on him in the highly religious community he attempts to penetrate.

Atmospherically, the production uses simple sound and lighting tricks to great effect, from a string of lightbulbs in mason jars during a lightning and thunder-filled barn dance to rain sticks and an eerie plinking percussion during the scenes with Conjur Man and Woman. Hands down the best new take on the play was the decision to represent Conjur Man and Conjur Woman with seven foot tall wire and cloth puppets, helmed by four actors apiece. Appearing in the first scene of the play, their otherworldliness and mythic proportions set the tone for what followed.

Some other innovations worked less well: at the beginning of the second act, when John's witchly (and wicked) compatriots draw him out to cavort with them, the heavy black drapery blocking the light from chashama's 42nd street-facing windows was pulled back and the goings-on inside theater were visible to passers-by. A risky and gutsy move, to be sure, but one that detracted from the show for its "You're on Candid Camera" prankiness.

Crawford's direction and the strong cast of vivid characters nimbly avoid many of the play's pitfalls. The townspeople as a whole, and in particular the terrifically smarmy Preacher Haggler (Jake Thomas), optimistic and flirtatious Ms. Metcalf (Jessica Howell) and Barbara Allen’s bellicose jilted lover Marvin Hudgens (Matthew Hadley), take what could have been two-dimensional characters and instead provide a chilling portrait of how fear, prejudice, and the hive mentality can push an otherwise vibrant community into terrible acts. The witches provide creepiness during the first act, but the humans dish it out in the second with the evocative and unsettling scene where Barbara Allen gives birth and the religious revival where the town sanctifies rape in the name of God.

One spot where the play does occasionally falter is with the overabundance of rural, folk-speech that easily tips over into ridiculousness. Between the dozens of uses of "I reckon" to the many "that don't make no never mind," as well as references to stereotypically hick practices—drinking moonshine made from corn, eating squirrel meat and so forth—the play becomes, at times, difficult to take seriously. This isn’t helped by the play’s odd pacing, where scenes with fighting, singing and magic will be interspersed with scenes that barely further the plot. But the strength of the two leads—who are completely riveting to watch—the often joyous (if sometimes oddly timed) musical interludes of folksy songs, spirituals and ballads combined with the unexpectedly thought-provoking themes and images that give the play life, make Dark of the Moon worth taking a chance on.

.....................................................................................
Dark of the Moon by Howard Richardson and William Berney
Directed and adapted by Ian Crawford
Collective P.A.S.T. @ chashama (217 East 42nd Street)
June 15th through July 7th
Tickets ($15): Smarttix.com or 212-279-4200

Escape from Bellevue

Rocking music and a heartfelt autobiographical confession about a rocker who falls prey to drug and alcohol addiction and finds a way back from the abyss, Escape from Bellevue is one not to miss.


Christopher John Campion in Escape from Bellevue
Photo by Carol Rosegg

Reviewed by Ilena George

“It’s like a surprise party for fuck-ups,” Christopher John Campion says of the intervention staged by his friends and family to try and get him into rehab. Campion, lead singer of the band Knockout Drops, recounts his experiences with drug and alcohol addiction, hospitalizations in the psychiatric ward of New York’s Bellevue Hospital and eventual recovery in Escape from Bellevue—a series of monologues interspersed with rock songs currently in an open-ended run at the Village Theatre.

Campion is charming, frank and wryly funny as he candidly explains the consequences of his former lifestyle, from losing his spot in his band, to losing his connections with family and friends. “I call these years the wonder years, because I’m still wondering what the hell happened,” he says. That’s not to say Campion does not seem to get a kick out of recounting some of his wacky encounters with rodeo clowns, psych patients, and benevolent deli owners. The show grew out of Campion’s autobiographical asides to the audience during Knockout Drops performances and the Drops’ music punctuates and adds depth to the narrative while the venue’s relatively small size makes the production feel like a personal rock concert.

The intimacy of the Village Theatre perfectly serves Escape’s confessional tone, as does Cameron Anderson’s spare but evocative set, reminiscent of an abandoned building—complete with stained old windows and exposed rivets—gives the production that unexpected but not unwelcome closeness of a stranger spilling out his life story in a dark bar. Between Escape’s content and settting, it is as if Campion and the Knockout Drops are speaking directly to each member of the audience; this connection and Campion’s charisma allows him to get away with discussing faith and “finding [his] light” without coming off as corny or clichéd.

Running at about ninety minutes without an intermission, Campion manages to cram in a lot of material, from the origin of the Knockout Drops, to three hospitalizations at Bellevue for threatening suicide (including one attempted hospitalization that ended instead with Campion being the first man in years to smooth-talk his way out of the hospital—giving the show its name), to drunken antics on the streets of New York. Lighting designer David Weiner similarly finds a way to unobtrusively fit in a range of neat tricks. Particularly effective are the harsh fluorescent lights signaling Campion’s first incarceration within Bellevue, which nicely bookend the show and provide a visual context for Campion’s eventual commitment to rehabilitating himself and his life, when they return during Campion’s third and final stint at Bellevue. This time, the fluorescents are joined with some warmer floor lamps as Campion discusses his change of heart. Although the ending feels a bit abrupt and less detailed than some of his other exploits, Campion’s compelling humor and pathos brings a dark time of his life into the light.

.........................................................................................
Escape from Bellevue by Christopher John Campion
Directed by Alex Timbers
The Village Theatre (158 Bleecker Street)
Thursday-Friday 8 pm, Saturday 8 and 11 pm
Tickets ($30-45): Ticketmaster, (212) 307-7171

Sessions

One of the tag lines for Sessions, Albert Tapper's new musical about a therapist and his patients, is “Couldn’t we all use a little therapy?” Maybe we all need a little therapy, but to make it through this show, heavy sedation might be more useful.

Reviewed by Ilena George

Enclosed in the glass cage of therapist Peter Peterson’s office in Manhattan, Peterson’s patients engage in a group therapy session where all the participants loudly try to out-complain each other. Each character gets his or her turn to sing out their troubles and each tale of woe is more insipid than the last. Together, they manage to embody or describe every clichéd dilemma that drives upper-middle class Americans into therapy, from seeking and never finding Daddy’s approval to coping with Mommy’s alcoholism and neglect to making excuses for remaining with an abusive spouse. Set to forgettable music more appropriate for an elevator than a stage and with lyrics that are at best uninspired and at worst tortured rhymes (Examples: “I haven’t been feisty since my birth/But now I have a sense of my own self-worth.” “Think of me as a chocolate éclair/Let me run my fingers through your hair/I’m not wearing a sign that says, ‘Beware’”), Sessions has as many flaws as its characters have mental health issues.

The fact that the characters are almost all unlikeable exacerbates the triteness of their problems. From cowardly and twitchy George (Scott Richard Foster), who can’t get over breaking up with a college girlfriend and who looks up to Dr. Peterson as the bastion of masculinity, to seductive but shrill Leila (Amy Bodnar), who unsuccessfully attempts to seduce the morally stalwart Peterson, the actors aim for flawed-but-human but hit only flawed instead. Two characters distinguish themselves as more sympathetic than the rest: affable Dylan (David Patrick Ford) who believes he is Bob Dylan (complete with harmonica, guitar and a toothpick hanging out of his mouth) and holds himself above the rest of the group, teasing them for their problems and refusing to his acknowledge his own and Trisha Rapier as the wounded but dignified Mary, who gives her character humanity despite having a stereotypical storyline as the victim of spousal abuser.

Playing mother hen to this unruly brood is Dr. Peterson (Matthew Shepard), a man who takes his work to heart and wears his heart on his sleeve. More sympathetic friend than impartial facilitator, Shepard’s Peterson is easily overwhelmed with emotion by his patients’ problems and his tortured navel-gazing—complete with “therapy sessions” with his subconscious (voiced by Ed Reynolds Young)—oozes with melodrama. Despite being credited by his patients as being far more composed and capable than they are, there is little proof he’s any good at his job, as several of the characters have major breakthroughs at the only group session the good doctor does not attend.

Sessions disappoints in part because the production does not lack talent. Most members of the cast, as well as director Steven Petrillo, are Broadway veterans and the quality of the singing is the play’s strength. But even excellent vocals cannot compensate for the tedium of so many woeful (and woefully similar sounding) ballads, broken only by the occasional ensemble number.

Aside from a few sight gags—a businessman chuckling at an issue of Highlights for Children, a Tom Cruise-inspired moment of couch-jumping—and Peter Barbieri, Jr.’s well-designed but clumsily operated set—complete with the mental health metaphor of an opaque glass wall—Sessions makes a series of bad choices it never bounces back from.
....................................................................................
Sessions
Music, book and lyrics by Albert Tapper
Directed by Stephen Petrillo
Peter Jay Sharp Theater (416 West 42nd Street)
May 30th to August 18th
Tuesday to Friday 8 pm, Saturday 2pm and 8 pm, Sunday 3 pm
Tickets: TicketCentral.com, 212-279-4200 ($50)

You Can't Take It With You

The T. Schreiber Studio's charming production of You Can't Take it With You brings us directly into the living room of a family who loves each other but can't seem to stop themselves from accidentally mortifying each other, getting one another arrested or nearly burning their house down. In other words, the kind of family one would hesitate to bring a significant other home to meet, rather than the other way around.



Reviewed by Ilena George

Before Meet the Parents’ Fockers and My Big Fat Greek Wedding’s Portokalos family, there were the Sycamores in Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's You Can't Take it With You. The Sycamores are a deliriously eccentric family whose young daughter, Alice (Jacqueline van Biene), tries to keep a close rein on her family’s brand of free-ranging quirkiness when she brings her fiancé, Wall Street heir Anthony Kirby Junior (Jushua Sienkiewicz), and his parents home to meet her family for the first time. Only the stuffy Kirbys could resist the charms of the dozen people living under the Sycamores’ roof and the T. Schreiber Studio’s production of the classic play makes the Sycamore family innocent and endearing rather than frivolous and vapid.

From candy making to fireworks manufacturing, the Sycamores collect hobbies, most of which they do not excel in (to put it mildly). Mrs. Sycamore (Margot Bercy) starts but never finishes melodramatic plays while her husband Paul (Jerry Rago) builds fireworks in the basement and their adult daughter, Essie Carmichael (Jamie Neuman), has spent eight years trying to learn to pirouette from an overly enthusiastic Russian ex-pat who enjoys wrestling strangers to the ground. When not adding to their hobby collection, the family accumulates unplanned long-term residents, such as the milkman and the ice deliveryman, who show up one day and stay for years. The man behind the curtain of all this benign madness is the Sycamores’ patriarch and resident philosopher Martin Vanderhof (Peter Judd), whose personal philosophy is that everyone should pursue what makes them happy and not spend their life toiling away at work they despise.

Grandpa’s follow-your-heart message is not a subtle one, but what the character and the play as a whole lack in subtlety this production makes up for in kindheartedness. Judd’s performance lends sincerity and gravity to Grandpa, just as van Biene’s Alice is alive with the enthusiasm and innocence that lets her get away with overly naïve lines like, “Is there much rice in China?” Nearly all the adults display this childlike innocence, and the best moments come from their sweet quirks. Mrs. Sycamore, suffering from writers’ block, says, “I've sort of got myself in a monastery and I can't get out,” to which Essie replies, “It'll come to you, Mother, remember how you got out of that brothel.” There are moments when all the zaniness spills over into slapstick territory, particularly once the Kirbys show up, but they are mercifully few.

T. Schreiber Studio’s intimate theater makes the audience part of the family, bringing us right into the Sycamores’ tastefully, if erratically, furnished living room, designed by Ryan Scott. At times this up-close view may be a little too intimate: it is easy to see where the production cut some corners. But it also affords us a look of where they didn't scrimp: the simple but elegant costumes designed by Summer Lee Jack effectively capture both the time and the characters.

Elaborate and enthusiastically performed choreography set to period music covers the transition between some scenes; although the play’s characters are still fresh, more directorial additions such as this could have helped compensate for the many outdated jokes and references that do not have the same longevity. But while references to Childs or Schraft’s restaurants no longer resonate the way they once did, Grandpa would agree that a few hours in great company is something you can take with you.

........................................................................................
You Can't Take It With You by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman
Directed by Peter Jensen
May 24th through June 24th, Thurs-Sat at 8 pm, Sun at 3 pm
T. Schreiber Studio, 151 W. 26th Street, 7th Floor