Review: “Tania in the Getaway Van”

The Pool, pop-up theater company brings a 70s-flavoured feminist play by Susan Bernfield to the Flea. 

As the audience assembles in the Flea’s Siggy Theater for Tania in the Getaway Van, 1970s commercials are projected on the wall upstage (projections design by David Bengali). Young white women with perfect hair giggle and smile seductively, advertising deodorants, Kool-Aid, hosiery and cake mix. The news announcements about the kidnapping of Patty Hearst pop up from time to time but get cut off as if somebody is switching channels.

Madeline Wise, Caitlin Morris and Courtney G. Williams in Tania in the Getaway Van, photo by Ilyce Meckler

Patty Hearst, or rather her “brainwashed” alter ego, Tania, is a hero for 11-year-old Laura (Caitlin Morris). Frankly, the moments of impersonating the famous victim of Stockholm syndrome are the only time when the kid is vibrant and interested in life. Tie-dye t-shirt, braids and bandana covering her eyes, Laura hides in the closet pretending to be the granddaughter of a publishing magnate. At the age of 19, Patty was kidnapped by the radical left-wing group known as SLA (Symbionese Liberation Army) and after months spent in captivity, turned terrorist herself and changed her name to Tania. 

           

Laura might not know what “feminism” is, but she has an embodiment of it in front of her, namely her mother, Diane (Annie McNamara). At the age of 36 and with three kids on her hands, she decides to go back to school and get a job, an ambition unheard of amongst her circle of San Francisco Bay Area housewives. Restless and sputtering with waves of self-liberation, Diane seems unsympathetically neurotic at first. It is tempting to side with the mellow Laura, embarrassed by her mother’s eagerness to get to the core of things and people.

It is gradually revealed that Laura is uncomfortable with herself in the first place. Torn between her role model, Patty Hearst, and the images of women with perfect hair from TV shows she watches daily, Laura enters puberty confused and unhappy. Her friend Stacey (Courtney G. Williams, who also doubles as Katelyn in act two) seams to take life easier. She rushes to Laura’s house to share the news that her boobs finally started growing and views stewardesses as a higher cast of women.

The kids’ babysitter, Carol (Madeline Wise) also wants to be a stewardess, of which she sings a cappella in a spotlight of her private thoughts. Each girl sings her inner monologue at some point, which helps the show with its playful and fast moving dynamic.        

Tania, propagating women empowerment, starts strong but falls flat in the 2nd act, which takes place in 2012. Diane, now 73 and a politician and Laura, a 47-year-old professor at Columbia, sit at the table of an outdoor café in Manhattan, drinking wine and calling each other amazing. Later, Diane’s assistant, Katelyn, joins them and they talk, seemingly forever, about the fruits of women liberation movement and the effect of it on their lives.

Both McNamara and Morris give it one hundred percent and are convincing as snarky, privileged women. But their lengthy dialog wanders in circles and confining them to a restaurant table kills the performance’s energy. Casting Courtney G. Williams as both Stacy and Katelyn is a bit confusing. I don’t mind double casting when it comes to the episodic roles, but since Stacy is an important character, I couldn’t stop thinking that it is the grownup version of her sitting at the table.

Tania, the most important off-stage character, is gone from the second act. Even the supposedly oppressed Ms. Marinkovich, who drove her car into a creak in 1975, gets mentioned. It was a wakeup call for Diane back then. According to 47-year-old Laura she never received hers. Hearing it from a woman who has it all is a little pathetic.          

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Tania in the Getaway Van plays at Flea Theater, 20 Thomas St., through December 16, 2017. The running time is 1 hour and 35 minutes with no intermission. Tickets are $25 and $35. The performance schedule varies, for more information visit thepoolplays.org.

Tania in the Getaway Van is written by Susan Bernfield. Directed by Portia Krieger. It is produced by The Pool. Music by Fan Zhang. Projections design by David Bengali.

The cast is Annie McNamara, Caitlin Morris, Courtney G. Williams, and Madeline Wise.

Review: “Illyria”

A new play by Richard Nelson takes an endearing look at the origins of The Public’s Shakespeare in the Park.

Have you ever wanted to peek behind the curtain of New York’s beloved Shakespeare in the Park, by the Public Theater in Central Park? Illyria, written and directed by Richard Nelson, currently running at The Public gives us an opportunity to do just that. Set in 1958, the young theater company led by Joe Papp (John Magaro) battles both inner and out dragons while trying to keep the festival running.  

cast of Illyria, photo by Joan Marcus

The city parks department insists that the festival should start charging money from the audience, calling the current policies “a communist thing”. But as Merle Debuskey (Fran Kranz), the press rep, explains to the rest of the group, the officials’ strategy is to make the festival slowly fade away. Ticket fees mean different contracts with unions, which will make Papp lose money and audience in the long run.

From the auditions to the curtain of the final show of the season, the theater strives to survive. Although a tightknit group of friends, the company experiences inner turmoil and disagreement, fired up by Papp’s straightforward personality and manipulative inclinations. But you have to lean closer and hold your breath in order to hear everything said in the room. Nelson writes and directs in a very “close-to-real-life” manner. Multiple people might say their lines simultaneously, voices are soft, and some actors might spend the entire scene with their backs to the audience. 

Consider the cozy architecture of the U-shaped Anspacher Theater at The Public and the voyeuristic approach may limit your approach to hear and see, but it works in a way. It draws you in, offering hot gossip of the theater world of New York in the 50s. That is if you hear it. Just be aware that the person scratching his face behind you or a phone vibrating three rows down will most likely drown out a line or two. Yes, the talking is that subtle.

The scenic design by Susan Hilferty consists of a number of mismatched desks, wooden chairs, benches and rugs, which the cast reassembles between scenes. Two out of three scenes involve eating, giving actors a chance to move around, while setting up tables, pouring drinks, etc. These acts of everyday life are beautifully executed, with small gestures and details that build the very fabric of human interactions. Illyria is a refined piece of theatre and might disappoint those who came for rapidly escalating passions and a cathartic payoff.

It is not entirely clear why Nelson downplays the conflict, perhaps because in the 50s Papp and his friends and colleagues didn’t entirely understand the significance of their project. His wife, Peggy (Kristen Connolly), starts to realize it towards the end of the play. “The festival is not about the money”, - she says. “It’s not about owing anything to the audience or them buying something. It’s like a dialogue, person to person, human being to human being”.        

    

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Illyria is playing at Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St, through November 26, 2017. The running time is 1 hour and 40 minutes with no intermission. Performances are Tuesday through Sunday at 7:30, Saturday and Sunday 1:30. Tickets start at $75. A limited number of free tickets is distributed in the lobby of The Public beginning 90 minutes prior to each scheduled performance. An additional number of free tickets is offered through TodayTix. For more information visit publictheater.org.

Illyria is written and directed by Richard Nelson. Scenic Design by Susan Hilferty and Jason Ardizzone-West. Costume Design by Susan Hilferty. Lighting Design by Jennifer Tipton. Sound Design by Scott Lehrer.

The cast is Rosie Benton, Will Brill, Kristen Connolly, Blake DeLong, Emma Duncan, Naian González Norvind, Fran Kranz, John Magaro, John Sanders, and Max Woertendyke.

Review: “17c”

Combining dance, drama and video art, the new show by Big Dance Theater reads a 17th century diary, some tendencies of which are scarily recognizable in the modern world.

A seventeenth century English man, Samuel Pepys, although a successful administrator in the navy and a member of parliament, is mostly known for his diary, which he kept from 1660 until 1669. Writing in it nearly every day, he doesn’t hold back as he talks mostly about his everyday life. I wonder if his choice of subject matter and tone would change if he anticipated a public reading from the stage of Brooklyn Academy of Music three centuries later? Would he feel at home in a modern culture heavily influenced by social media? Deservingly, Big Dance Theater calls him a predecessor of the Instagrammers, in their new show, 17c.   

Elizabeth DeMent in 17c, photo by Bylan Douglas

“Up, I bless God being now in pretty good condition, but cannot come to make natural stools yet; and going to enjoy my wife this morning, I had a very great pain in the end of my yard when my yard was stiff…” This excerpt form Pepys’ diary, voiced by Cynthia Hopkins in a curly 17-th century wig and shiny blue pants, ignites a little stand up comedy routine in the beginning of the show. Microphone in one hand and book in the other, Hopkins encourages audience members to shout out synonyms for penis. But even when pretending to be vulgar, 17c never misses the mark and stays witty, charming and intelligent.   

Sam’s diary became an inspiration and base of the multi-media piece. Three performers: Cynthia Hopkins, Aaron Mattocks, and Paul Lazar (also a co-director), alternate in playing the author. Leafing through the pages of busy life of the 17th century dandy, they evoke his obsession with garments, theater, dance lessons, bowel movements, mistresses and so on. The man talks about himself so much, they need three actors to deliver the lines. Jokes aside, multiple actors represent Sam’s “split” personality, not clinically but morally. On the one hand, he strives to become a better man, on the other, he cheats on his wife Elizabeth and gets violent with her.

Elizabeth DeMent portrays young Ms. Pepys, fourteen years old at the time of marriage. She is mostly voiceless throughout the piece and expresses herself through beautiful dance numbers (co-directed and choreographed by Annie-B Parson). Parson is inventive in her ways of representing the speech of an oppressed woman. Elisabeth’s lines pop on the screen as title cards in one scene. In another she speaks in a different person’s voice as if she is possessed and is doomed to repeat what men say. She is given a beautiful, poetic monologue towards the end of the play, a fantasy of what her diary would read if her husband didn’t destroy it.  

Parson introduces other female voices in 17c, counterbalancing the misogynistic egocentrism of the main character. There is a play within a play, The Covent of Pleasure, which spouses read. Written by Margaret Cavendish (Kourtney Rutherford) in 1668, it tells a story about a community of women, who chose to live without men. It’s a pity that Sam (Cynthia Hopkins) asks Beth to skip through most of it. He doesn’t enjoy it, annoyed at the two female characters together, and only accepts the play when learning that one female character was actually a man in drag. Interesting fact: the ending was written by the playwright’s husband – another woman silenced. Two feminist vloggers, commenting on the passages from the diary from time to time, represent the liberated women of modernity. But even they are robbed of freedom of speech, once their platform is literally taken from beneath their feet.

The seamless blend of dance, text, music and video is a signature style of Big Dance Theater. Combining different media seems appropriate for the show, which interweaves the 17th and 21st centuries. With props and costumes visible on the wings, actors quickly transform into different characters. The costumes by Oana Botez are impeccable and full of self-irony. She uses recognizable historical wardrobe elements as a starting point, and makes them into futuristic sci-fi garments with an addition of modern day clothes. Playful and inventive, designs by Botez are in perfect unison with the directors’ vision.

What struck me the most was not the pink sweatshirt with kittens, or shiny, layered skirts. It was the plain sweater and pants worn by Paul Lazar playing Samuel Pepys, sharing his sexual adventures that I found exceptionally on point. Sitting in a recliner by an electric fireplace, Lazar delivers the longest monologue in the play; a series of diary entries about sleeping with the housemaid. The casual way in which Pepys writes about abusing his power is perfectly mismatched by the cozy setting. Lazar occasionally adds an anachronistic line or two to the original text of the diary, making us forget in which century we are now. 

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17c played at BAM's Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton st, Brooklyn, November 14-18, 2017. The running time is 1 hour and 10 minutes with no intermission. Performances are Tuesday through Saturday at 7:30. Tickets are $30-$60. For more information visit bam.org.

17c is conceived and choreographed by Annie-B Parson. Produced by Big Dance Theater. Directed by Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar. Sound Design by Tei Blow. Set design by Joanne Howard. Lighting design by Joe Levasseur. Costume design by Oana Botez. Video design by Jeff Larson.

The cast is Elizabeth DeMent, Cynthia Hopkins, Paul Lazar, Aaron Mattocks, and Kourtney Rutherford.