This is the closing– or almost closing weekend for three shows now on stage in town so I thought I’d give you a quick last minute guide in case you are deciding to catch one of the below:
IT’S A MOTHER F**KING PLEASURE to recommend this hip, hot satirical take down of identity politics and PC pundits gone nuts (some folks would call this the Democratic Party). This slick, smart 65 minute show features 2 chairs, a video screen, 2 disabled actors, one abled actress, and one unseen captioner whose personal issues overflow the subtitles. This award-winning company will disable your discomfort making you laugh even as you squirm and maybe refreshing your outlook.
Samuel Brewer, Aarian Mehrabani, and Chloe Palmer are FlawBored, a theater company which puts on a show within a show designed to make money off the guilt of abled folk who twist themselves into pretzels trying not to offend around the disabled. I barely know how to write this review, but it was a relief to laugh out loud at my own anxiety and that of everyone around me. I also applaud the show for going past easy laughs to the unease of confronting the dark side: what to do with the moral and ethical conundrum around championing a disability to the point of unintentionally causing someone to disable themselves?
Fresh from the Edinburgh Fringe Fest and Soho Theatre NY IT’S A MOTHER F**KING PLEASURE has arrived onstage at the EMERSON PARAMOUNT CENTER Jackie Liebergott BLACK BOX THEATER through SUNDAY APRIL 13! According to the website, even if it’s says SOLD OUT– keep checking back because more seating may become available!
CAROUSEL, that Rodgers & Hammerstein classic about life, love, death, and redemption set in a small coastal town in Maine– falls short. This 80th Anniversary production is on stage at Boston’s Emerson Colonial Theatre exactly where its 1945 pre-Broadway tryout took place, this time mounted by BOSTON LYRIC OPERA with a big bold orchestra conducted by David Angus. The gorgeous “You’ll Never Walk Alone” score is exceptionally well-sung. Superb voices soar along with most of the performances especially Edward Nelson’s sexy, swaggering yet vulnerable Billy Bigelow, Anya Matanovič as Carrie best friend of Brandie Sutton’s sweet Julie Jordan who is charmed by the flawed Billy who beats her. When Billy discovers Julie is pregnant he decides to support his growing family by executing a robbery.
It’s a tough and thoughtful show, with a lot on its mind about what counts in life. Unfortunately Anne Bogart’s direction and ill-conceived and inorganic conception has been foisted on this unsuspecting cast stranded in tulle and tights, ruffles and rompers, looking like a sad, lost circus. They are supposed to be itinerant migrants putting on a show imprisoned by guards behind huge gates. I think. Read the program for clues.
But this show doesn’t need a topically “relevant” veneer– it stands on its own unlike the direction. That “real nice clam bake” robustly sung by Jamie Barton in her BLO debut as Nettie finds the cast heaped in a dismal pile on the ground as though having fallen ill after consuming more than a few bad bivalves. The tragic climactic robbery is awkwardly staged with David Bascombe as Theophile Victoria in a small role and in dire need of guidance in this pivotal moment. See what you think — CAROUSEL now onstage through Sunday 4/13!
Finally, HER PORTMANTEAU presented by Central Square Theater and Front Porch Arts Collective and directed by Tasia A. Jones is the 4rth in the UFOT FAMILY CYCLE of plays by Mfonsio Udofia and based on her American Nigerian roots. This chapter in the cycle feels interstitial and moves the story along, but doesn’t pack the dramatic punch or have the scope and thematic heft of the first two installments– SOJOURNERS and THE GROVE, and absolutely depends on our investment in what went before. The title suggests the metaphorical landscape, an attempt by a mother, Abasiama (Patrice Jean-Baptiste) to bring two halves of her family together– her daughter Iniabasi (Jade A. Guerra) whom she left in Nigeria to be raised by the girl’s father and Abasiama’s ex-husband, and her daughter Adiaha (Lorraine Victoria Kanyike) whom she raised in America where Abasiama stayed to pursue her dream.
All excellent performances, though it’s hard to buy the physicality of Jean-Baptiste’s Abasiama no matter small they say she’s gotten. She also looks younger now in 2014 than this character did in 2009 only 5 year’s earlier in THE GROVE. The crucial issues around mothering, loyalty, betrayal, conflicting cultural values, don’t feel supported here by the plotting. Why so little contact between the mother and the Nigerian daughter, despite the availability of phones, computers, etc in 2014? Contrivance is the issue for me, which was not an issue in either SOJOURNERS or THE GROVE which kept us guessing and felt alive. We know exactly what’s inside HER PORTMANTEAU from the minute Abasiama’s Nigerian daughter walks through the door with her baggage. At Central Square Theater through ARPIL 20!
