"Buyer & Cellar" (at the George Street Playhouse through March 29th 2015)

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John Tartaglia 
(photo credit: T. Charles Erickson)

This amusing and astute play for solo performer by Jonathan Tolins has had quite a remarkable journey beginning in 2013 with its limited run at the Rattlestick Theater Off Broadway and then moving for its many-times extended successful commercial run at the Barrow Street Theater. It closed last summer. The play is unquestionably an enjoyable diversion as well as an essentially show-off vehicle for a talented, personable young actor. It is currently a popular choice for our nation's many regional theaters. Artistic Director David Saint has cast appealing, multi-talented Tony-nominated John Tartaglia ("Avenue Q" in which he originated the roles of Princeton and Rod) as the young, gay out-of work actor who finds a temporary job as a shopkeeper in entertainment icon Barbra Streisand's underground mall.

Notwithstanding the originality of the play's premise, Tartagalia's disarmingly engaging performance is commendable on many levels, but most notable for the way he handles Tolin's battery of chit-chat and his precise, motor-mouthed delivery of them. Tartaglia will certainly keep many in stitches revealing what they might have already suspected about La Streisand in Streisandland, as an obsessive buyer as well as a compulsive custodian of her own famous and presumably fabulous collections. These consist of clothes from her films, rare dolls, and the innumerable tchotchkes that she has accumulated over the years, all peripheral players including a couple of members of Streisand's staff who have their say coming and going.

Also peripheral is an underlying motif in the play of why gay men prefer Streisand nowadays over movie-land's other diva divine Judy Garland. Unlike the tragic, ill-fated, born-in-a-trunk Garland, Streisand is to this day the grandest self-perpetuating example of what a plain-looking, Brooklyn-born girl with lots of talent and loads of chutzpah can and must do to become and stay a star. Streisand is, as many have lovingly said about her, "a legend in her own mind." Given her remarkable talent(s) as a singer, actress, director, author/photographer, (check out her coffee table extravaganza "My Passion for Design" published in 2010.) A collector non pareil, she unwittingly afforded playwright Tolins ("The Twilight of the Golds" on Broadway and TV's "Queer as Folk") a golden opportunity to poke fun at her well-known and also only alluded to idiosyncrasies.

"Buyer & Cellar" has a plot that is often as poignant as it is also paradoxically irrepressibly precious. Although he is not an idolizing member of the Barbra cult,  Alex More (Tartaglia) would rather agree to wear what he calls his assigned "Music Man costume" in her mall than be dressed as Mickey Mouse at Disneyland, where he last worked until he was fired. I'll let him tell you about that. There is no costume designer credited. Tartaglia, however, looks really cool and comfortable in the striped, hooded light-weight sweater over a white t-shirt, gray chinos and sneakers.

There is no denying that Alex is, at first, a little nervous, not only about working for the impossibly demanding Streisand, but also by the very real possibility of actually meeting her. . . will she really venture down to the subterranean "mall" below her home that she built to house her "street of dreams" i.e. boutiques? Of course, she will.

Let's stop right here to praise the artistry of scenic designer Andrew Boyce's setting, a triumph of minimalism, as beautifully enhanced by Alex Koch's projection designs. While I noticed that both these artists are acknowledged in my old Rattlestick program, I have to add that the many different luminous glows provided by lighting designer Christopher J. Bailey (who was not part of the original Rattlestick team) deserve a solo cheer.

Tartaglia has a tour de force with which to contend since he not only plays Alex but also his ultra gay, if relentlessly guileless, boyfriend Barry. But he is also right on target as the graciously condescending mistress of the manor who suggests early on that he call her "Sadie." Don't get me wrong, the playwright has been careful not to make a mockery of any portion of Streisand's life. His forte are the wit-infused conversations between she and Alex that evolve from the whimsical to the fantastical and from downstairs to upstairs.

Thanks to Saint's crisp direction, we are quickly involved in the development of a highly unlikely relationship, even as it ends up in a reality that cannot be sustained for better or worse.  A lot of ferocity also goes into Alex's verbal bouts with Barry mainly over Alex's infatuation with Streisand and his growing obsession with her mall. That you forget Tartaglia is working the room alone is a marvel, a credit to the actor and to the playwright.

The most moving parts of the play are those in which Alex shows his sensitivity in response to Streisand's need to indulge her own fantasies. In the funniest scene, Alex assumes the role of proprietor of a shop with dolls in which he refuses to bargain with her as she tries to get it for a lower the price.  

It becomes clear that Alex is fulfilling Streisand's need to quibble and to kibitz, but not her need to be either open or real with him. She does express her life-long desire to be beautiful in a key scene. She is also willing to let him coach her in preparation for an audition to play Mama Rose in a proposed film version of "Gypsy." (actually agreed upon in real life by Streisand and its book writer Arthur Laurents.)

Interestingly, the downward spiraling of their relationship begins when Alex accepts her invitation to go upstairs into the main house. How their relationship sours and how Alex's severely tested one with the contentious Barry survives provides the play with its bitter-sweet resolution. Oh, and the handsome and very macho James Brolin (you must know who he is....and another choice characterization for Tartaglia) ventures below during a party for a frozen yogurt with sprinkles. That's cool and so is the play. Simon Saltzman

"Buyer & Cellar" (through March 29th)

George Street Playhouse, 9 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick

For tickets ($28.00)- $67.00) call (732) 246 - 7717

"Rocket to the Moon" (at Theatre at St. Clement's, 423 West 46th Street through March 28, 2015)

 

 

 Ned Eigenberg and Katie McClellan
Photo: Carol Rosegg

A program note reminds us how the socio-economic malaise that afflicted countless Americans during the 1930s Great Depression Era was not so dissimilar to that which many are facing today. Clifford Odets' Rocket to the Moon is set in 1938 when there was an early glimmer of light for prosperity for the masses and maybe with it the potential for individual renewal.

We may safely assume that this play about one timid man's fear of creating a new life for himself is not really all that dated. One of the more formidable, socially conscious and lauded playwrights of his era, Odets had changed his focus in 1938 from the far more political plays that brought him early fame to embracing themes on a more personal nature with Rocket to the Moon leading this trend.

Not as highly regarded as many in Odets canon, Rocket to the Moon is essentially a romantic allegory about a man with principles, but without much pluck. Happily, this play has earned more respect over the years without dethroning such stunning earlier works as Waiting For Lefty and Awake and Sing , or diminishing our continued affection for his probably most popular and successful The Country Girl

It is good to report that an empowering thrust of energy, mainly the result of some very fine acting under the sturdy direction of Dan Wackerman, has helped to navigate a safe and sound landing for this Rocket at the Theater at St.Clement's courtesy of the Peccadillo Theater Co (in association with La Femme Theatre Productions).

All of the action takes place in the waiting room of a dentist's office (designed by Harry Feiner with an eye for the basic necessities of this charmless location by) during a sweltering summer heat-wave. There is, as expected from Odets, an in-and-out flow of recognizable, by right of their being typical, working class Manhattan-ites. Best of all, there is the constant exchange of wonderfully down-to-earth, humorously naturalistic dialogue that is Odets' forte. To read the entire review please go to http://curtainup.com/rockettothemoon15.html

(212) 352 - 3101 or OvationTix.com
Tickets: $75.00
Performances: Tuesday at 7 pm, Wednesdays at 2 pm and 7 pm, Thursdays at 8 pm, Fridays at 8 pm, Saturday at 2 pm and 8 pm, and Sundays at 3 pm.
From 02/10/15 Opened 02/23/15 Ends 03/28/15

"The Insurgents" (at the Labyrinth Theatre, Bank Street through March 15, 2015)

 

 

Cassie Beck (Photo:Monique Carboni)
 

It isn't likely that any of us will ever be visited, or haunted to be more precise, by the famous and infamous social upstarts from America's turbulent history who pop with regularity into Sally Wright's (Cassie Beck) head. More precisely, the armed insurrectionist/abolitionist John Brown, Underground Railroad conductor/Civil War spy Harriet Tubman, leader of slave rebellion Nat Turner, and the decorated Iraq war hero/Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh simply plop into the young and obviously possessed woman's kitchen (efficiently evoked by designer Raul Abrego) where Lucy Thurber's unapologetically polemical play is set.

Sally has just returned to live with her lower-income family in the ramshackle home in the economically depressed backwater New Hampshire town where she was raised. She has also recently experienced an eye-opening extended sojourn across the country following an injury that has ended her college athletic scholarship. With her, residing like intimate friends on the kitchen table, are biographies of the above mentioned historical figures. These serve as channels for their subjects' metaphysical appearance, sometimes individually, and sometimes as a collective.

Sally could either be losing her mind or simply becoming increasingly receptive to the provocative messages of these extraordinary activist/visitors who are the revolutionary and titular "insurgents." They're t apparently there to corroborate, support and also challenge Sally's own personal commitment to affecting change as well as address her increasing dismay with the socio-economic progress of the country she claims to love.

What she also loves, and makes clear, is America's love affair with guns, in particular the 12-gage semi-automatic that she keeps close her heart and also wields like an accommodating appendage. Before Beck, the actress, steps into her Sally character and into the setting, she addresses us even as she takes aim at us: "Don't be nervous...you all don't have to be afraid. Like all country girls, I was trained early, how to handle a gun. I'm just giving you a heads up."

This is another opportunity to be engaged, entertained and occasionally enraged by the dramatic fervor and a unique ferocity of Thurber, author of the overlapping cycle of The Hill Town Plays produced by different companies at various Off Broadway theaters a couple of years ago. The Insurgents , as produced by the Labyrinth Theater Company, continues Thurber's display of disenchantment with a social and political system in which the impoverished and disenfranchised are summarily ignored and beaten down.To read the rest of the review please go to http://curtainup.com/insurgents15.html

"Repairing a Nation" (at the Crossroads Theatre Company through March 8, 2015)

 

 

 Landon Woodson and Stephanie Berry

Photo credit: William M. Brown

The Tulsa Oklahoma race riots of 1921 devastated the prosperous Greenwood section of the city famously known as the "Black Wall Street." That terrible event, during which the local sheriff and bands of whites destroyed homes and businesses, the alleged result of an assault on a white woman by a black man, lasted for two days. It  provides the historic background and the inspiration for Nikkole Salter's domestic drama "Repairing a Nation," now at the Crossroads Theatre.

Set in 2001 eighty years after the riots, or as a character insists on calling it "the Greenwood massacre," the play primarily focuses on the trouble created by the fictitious Davis family's most contentious member. Lois Davis (Stephanie Berry) is a confirmed outsider whose unsettling visit to her cousin "Chuck" (Phil McGlaston) and his wife Anna's (Chantal Jean-Pierre)Tulsa home during the Christmas holidays brings the subject of reparations into sharp relief and with it a very personal focus. The handsome living-room setting designed by Gennie Neuman Lambert also accommodates a large overhead video projection screen.

For starters, Lois wants them to become involved in a class action suit instituted by members of the community who are seeking reparations from the government on behalf of the riots' survivors and kin. Long-standing, deep-seated animosities, regrets and hostilities surface with increased tenacity as Lois, a  semi-estranged, economically challenged, political activist makes no excuses for herself. More importantly, she does she pretend to have much love or even affection for her wealthy cousins despite her unapologetic attempt to get Chuck, as head of the family, to sign a document in support of a congressional proposal to study reparations for African Americans.

Also present are Lois's son Seth (Landon G. Woodson) an NYU student who has been raised since infancy by Anna and Chuck, and whose relationship with his feisty birth mother is, at its best, strained. Also helping Lois in her cause is Seth's former girlfriend, a community advocate currently preparing a memorial at the local cultural center. It is there and where opening and closing scenes take place that a statue will be unveiled in memory of the two-day riots.

It is the community's suit for reparations that serves as the springboard for Salter's characters to become more heatedly embroiled in a disturbing recriminations and disclosures that may, indeed, involve past deceptions, lies and now the very real possibility of reparations among the immediate family members. The Davis family business, a successful janitorial service, survived the riots, but who actually inherited it and owns it comes under question when an old newspaper article/photo comes to light.

While the actors have a tendency to direct their speeches, quite a lot of it is unnecessarily expository (the playwright's device), directly to the audience (a directorial decision by Marshal Jones III to be sure), the performances are, however, vividly realized. Most impressive is Berry, as the proudly snippy and snide Lois. McGlaston is excellent as the blustery and fiercely defensive "Chuck" while Jean-Pierre gets points for being more beautiful and conciliatory than her husband deserves. Moore is charming as the perky "Debbie" and Woodson quite fine as the conflicted Seth.

Salter, whose co-written play "In The Continuum" was a Pulitzer Prize nominee and won the 2005 Outer Critics Circle award for Outstanding New American Play, has written this play to dramatically expand upon actual legislative bill proposed by Rep. John Conyers, Jr. a Congressman that has never made it to committee. This, despite the fact that it is proposed year after year. How great for Salter that her plays do make it past committee and get onto the stage: four premieres this season with "Repairing a Nation" being her first to be produced at the Crossroads Theatre Company.

"Repairing a Nation"

Crossroads Theatre Company, 7 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick

(732) 545 - 8100 or  www.crossroadstheatrecompany.org

Tickets: $25.00 - $45.00

Remaining Performances: Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays at 8 pm; Saturdays and Sundays at 3 pm. Student matinee March 4 at 10 am.