"The Lion" and "The Bullpen"

"The Lion" and "The Bullpen" are two very different one-person shows but both are worthwhile and entertaining. "The Lion" has returned to New York for an extended commercial run at the Lynn Redgrave Theater at Culture Project. It was acclaimed during its brief sold-out run last summer at the New York City Center Stage II. "The Bullpen" continues to extend and extend again its successful run at the Players Theater.

"The Lion" 

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Benjamin Scheuer (photo: Matthew Murphy)

Having missed seeing "The Lion" during its short run last summer at the New York City Center Stage II, its return has afforded me the opportunity to appreciate as well as embrace this emotionally effecting solo musical autobiographical journey written, composed and performed by Benjamin Scheuer. Weaving through its mostly sung narrative is a cycle of pop-rock songs by which the good-looking, amiable, personable and charming (what more could you ask for?) thirty-something Scheuer musically relates to us his difficult childhood, his terrible relationship with his father, his estrangement from his family, an unhappy marriage and his long, debilitating and painful bout with stage 4 Hodgkins lymphoma. But he easily captures our attention as he wins our hearts from the moment he sits on a chair playing the first of the five guitars with which he is surrounded.

Accomplished with all of the guitars at easy reach, excluding the significant toy instrument - "Cookie-tin-Banjo" - which he nevertheless sings about in a song and that frames his musical narrative. That instrument now locked in his memory was given to him in his youth by his father, a man who loved playing music but who suffered from severe depression. He sadly took his suffering and pain out on Ben, the oldest of three boys who grew up unable to reconcile with him before his untimely death. Scheuer covers a lot of territory in only seventy minutes that include his adventures traversing between New York and England where he was raised and where his semi-estranged mother lived and then back to New York to work through difficult familial relationships, a disastrous love affair, and surviving a horrifying illness. . .   through which he learns what it means to roar like a lion. The songs are tuneful, and the lyrics captivating, a winning combination in this mini-bio musical that has been fine tuned by director Sean Daniels. Scheuer's story-in-song is as rewarding and inspiring as any you are likely to hear told from any stage this season.

"The Lion" (at the Lynn Redgrave Theater, 45 Bleecker St. New York, NY)

For Tickets ($26.00 to $75.00) call 212 - 260 - 8250

 "The Bullpen"

Joe Assadourian (photo: Bella Muccari)

Serving as well as surviving significant time in a prison cell sadly doesn't always reform, change or redefine a criminal. But it definitely helped to make a terrific actor out of Joe Assadourian whose twelve-year stint behind bars evidently gave him time to develop and polish what appears to have been an innate talent for impersonation,  differentiating body language and insinuating human behavior that is as often as appallingly funny as it also appropriately repelling. In "The Bullpen," under the abetting direction of Richard Hoehler, Assadourian plays eighteen characters including himself. Before being convicted of shooting a friend in the derriere during an argument, he is confined in the proverbial bullpen where he hopefully awaits his bail hearing. There, he has plenty of time to listen and interact with what seems to those of us safely in our seats as the dregs of humanity, that is excluding this husky lug who quickly takes us into his confidence but more humorously and vociferously into the  personas of his inmates. . .of both sexes and of both sexual persuasions. Out of this experience comes his play, a compelling exercise of humanity in exile.

During the interminable waiting time, these savvy but unsavory types put on a mock trial in front of a mock judge. Assadourian makes no concessions or allowances for either the illiteracy of some or for the surprisingly brainy streetwise rhetoric of others, but each has a distinct voice, although some are hard to understand. He has the most fun playing the creepiest of the lot (I won't be a spoiler) but he also makes sure that he pokes fun and holes in the justice system as he takes on the roles of the defense and prosecuting attorneys who apparently know more that the real ones that he also confronts and portrays. Assadourian may not have the handsomest face on the block, but he is ultimately ingratiating and is as invaluable and informed a guide into an underworld that we are grateful to only observe from afar...with the little black box that is the Players Theater as close to a bullpen as most of us are likely to see.

"The Bullpen" (at the Playroom Theater, 151 West 46th Street

 212-967-8278, stepinthebullpen.com.