Review: “Breitwisch Farm”

In this complex and timely play, personal meets political as the struggling American middle-class is seen through the life on one farm.   

Breitwisch Farm by Jeremy J. Kamps is ambitiously monumental in its scope. The play comments on issues of immigration, racism, local politics, global peacemaking, fracking and organic farming, to name just a few. A macrocosm in a microcosm, this story about a family running a vegetable farm in Wisconsin attempts the daring task of showing the reason Trump was elected.      

Will Manning and Danaya Esperanza, in Breitwisch Farm. Photo by by William Edward Marsh.

An homage to Cherry Orchard, Breitwisch Farm borrows the premise from Chekhov’s play: a family is about to lose their rural land because of debt, but the inhabitants are not in a rush to act upon it. Indulging in vices and self-pity, holding onto the past, or fantasizing about the future, they refuse to live in the moment. Only this time it is not the Russian aristocrats that are threatened to vanish, but the American middle class. The parallels between a Russian province of 1903 and Wisconsin of 2011 only enrich this absolutely original, feisty, and new American play.    

Webster (Joe Tapper) returns from his peacemaking assignment in Africa to the family farm on the outskirts of Goose Creek. During the years of his absence the place and its inhabitants have changed. The matriarch of the family (existing only offstage) is not well and the land is put up for foreclosure. The farm is mainly run by two field hands, Zai (Danaya Esperanza), a woman of Tanzanian decent adopted to the American family as a kid, and Dolores (Maria Peyramaure), an illegal immigrant from Mexico. The bitter irony is that they are the most invested in the farm and can’t imagine a future without it.

Characters like Dolores and her son Oscar (Alejandro Rodriguez), a rising school football star and a Dreamer, are not often seen in theater. Trump’s presidency made these characters bleed with sorrow. Both Peyramaure and Rodriguez give a wonderful performance, making us reflect on cultural heritage as both a source of strength and shame. On a minor note, both actors should watch their volume when yelling, especially in this tight space.                  

The family members of Web’s credit-card-addicted sister, Leena (Katie Hartke), and her anxious teenage daughter, Bree (Katie Wieland), focus mainly on their personal and immediate needs. Yet both Hartke and Wieland portray such compelling characters that we root for them and feel their pain. Along with Leena’s ex-husband and redneck Randy (Will Manning), they create a nuclear family that is both disturbing yet heart warming at times. Their obsession with the Packers and the Super Bowl is endearing, making the opening of the second act one of the most memorable scenes.  

The cast of charracters is completed with the conservative Feucht (Charlie Murphy), the principal of the local high school. This seemingly well-meaning and endearingly shy man ends up causing a lot of trouble for the family, with which he is bonded in multiple ways.

The entire ensemble of the Esperance Theater Company, directed by Ryan Quinn, is simply incredible. The ease with which the members of the cast connect, and the nuanced portrayal of each of the characters, charges this family saga with electrifying truth. The set design by Alexander Woodward cleverly takes an approach opposite to realism by avoiding crowding the tiny space with heavy scenery pieces. The lighting design by Leslie Smith involves a lot of varied, practical lights, giving the everyday objects an almost magical quality.

The household items, taken from a large pile in the back of the stage, serve as props, often in a poetic and absurdist manner; the strips of photographic film are kindling and the newspapers are lettuce. Sometimes this allows for clever transitions between scenes: pillows that served as firewood become a kneeling bench in a church and the white sheet that was a frozen pond becomes the bedding for a couple of lovers.     

The tight space of the freshly opened Town Stages provides intimacy with the audience but presents its own challenges. No matter which of the three sides of the audience you will end up sitting, an obstructed view of some scenes is inevitable. I am usually very forgiving of this since you cannot see every side of a conflict in real life. But in Breitwisch Farm there were crucial scenes in which I couldn’t see any of the actors well! The director, Ryan Quinn, tried his best to change the axis of the action multiple times throughout the scene and make actors move, but the staging clearly requires further polishing. The imperfections of it, however, don’t obscure the overall quality of this very timely play.

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Breitwisch Farm plays at Town Stages, 221 W Broadway, through March 16th, 2018. The running time is 2 hours 10 minutes with one intermission. Tickets are $30 and are available at esperancetheatercompany.org. The remaining performances are: Friday 3/9, Monday 3/12, Tuesday 3/13 and Friday 3/16, all at 7:30.

Breitwisch Farm is by Jeremy J. Kamps. Directed by Ryan Quinn. It is produced by Esperance Theater Company. Set Design by Alexander Woodward. Lighting Design by Leslie Smith. Costume Design by Kaitlyn McDonald. Sound Deign is by William Neal. Stage management by Emily C Rolston, Kelsy Durkin, and Jenny Plackemeier.

The cast is Danaya Esperanza, Katie Hartke, Will Manning, Charlie Murphy, Maria Peyramaure, Alejandro Rodriguez, Joe Tapper, and Katie Wieland. 

Review: “BRAVO 25: Your A.I. Therapist Will See You Now”

Eliza Gibson stars as six humans and one artificial intelligence therapist in a moving and profound solo show about the nature of emotions.

If you need to patch up your soul or restore your faith in humanity, Bravo 25: Your A. I. Therapist Will See You Now is just the right medicine. Sheryl (Eliza Gibson) is looking for an AA meeting; to her surprise, the gathering in room B25 is actually an A.I. meeting. An experimental support group of colorful characters is led by an artificial intelligence therapist named Amber, all performed by Gibson (also the writer of the piece). This hilarious and incredibly touching solo show has a therapeutic effect itself, maybe because of Gibson’s background as a clinical social worker. 

Eliza Gibson in BRAVO 25: Your A.I. Therapist Will See You Now.

Gibson is phenomenal in portraying a variety of characters. Each is distinctly nuanced yet none are caricatures. Without costumes or props, she effectively uses her body language, voice and facial expressions to nail such parts as macho Tony, anxious Marsha, polyamorous lesbian Victoria, job-hunting Jeremy, lost Sheryl, grieving Little Bit and, of course, the A.I., Amber. Occasionally she addresses members of the audience, making us all a part of the support group. Gibson is a virtuoso of seamless multiple-character dialogue, especially when it comes to heated arguments between group members. At the performance I attended, she only skipped a beat once or twice, because the audience was laughing so hard she couldn’t continue.

The supervision and guidance of the avatar Amber at first proves ineffective in helping humans to fix their broken lives. As Little Bit reasons, how can somebody who is “not a real person” help humans cope with emotions? But Amber learns fast and soon is able to detect irony, taste food and venture into multiple conversations at different locations simultaneously. To steal the words from one of the characters (even though I was specifically threatened not to), “Bacon doughnuts and rollercoasters—what’s next for the A.I.?” 

The therapy group only proves that openness, compassion and willingness to be there for each other is the best way to get over hard times. They are also helpful in training the artificial intelligence, which may or may not oppress humanity with its secret A.I. society in the future. But as opposed to the dystopian Black Mirroror Electric Dreams, BRAVO 25 provides a more optimistic view of the development of technology. As Amber teaches us, feelings are the way you choose to look at things. And while it often goes the other way for humans, whose views are influenced by their moods, it is sometimes useful to put on pink or yellow glasses to adjust.

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BRAVO 25: Your A.I. Therapist Will See You Now plays at UNDER St. Marks, 94 St. Marks Place, through March 4, 2018 as a part of 2018 Frigid New York Festival. The running time is 1 hour. Performances are Fri 2/16 at 7:10, Sun 2/18 at 1:50, Mon 2/19 at 10:30, Sat 2/24 at 5:30, Wed 2/28 at 5:30, and Sun 3/4 at 1:50. Tickets are $15 and are available at horsetrade.info.

BRAVO 25: Your A.I. Therapist Will See You Now is written and performed by Eliza Gibson. Directed by David Ford.

Review: “Lady With a Lapdog, With Jokes and a Happy Ending!”

The Russian Arts Theater and Studio introduce the lesser-known side of Chekhov in an evening of short stories.  

Anton Chekhov, famous mostly for his plays, was also an avid writer of short stories. With Lady With a Lapdog, With Jokes and a Happy Ending, The Russian Arts Theater and Studio gives New York audiences a wonderful chance to get acquainted with the funny and loving side of this chronicler of Russian temperaments. The piece, based on eleven stories and anecdotes by Chekhov, is adapted and directed by Aleksey Burago. Eight actors impersonate an ever-swirling carousel of colorful 19th century characters, making for an evening of amusing sketches.   

Roman Freud and Lana Stimmler in Lady With a Lapdog. Photo by Jared Biunno.

The core story, "Lady With a Lapdog," is not a comedic one however. It starts as a summer fling between Gurov (Tom Schubert) and Anna (Di Zhu), both taking time off from their spouses at the Crimean resort town of Yalta. When back in Moscow, Gurov finds that he can’t stop thinking about his little affair despite his active social life. What was planned as another quick romance becomes an obsession, causing him to seek another meeting with Anna. The chemistry between the two lovers is magical—perhaps starring as the title characters in a summer production of Master and Margarita together helped.

As the season changes and the action moves from a sunny pier in Yalta to the snowy streets of Moscow, the interwoven comedic short stories also change settings. The suspenseful "Fish" has a sudden homoerotic charge as a group of half-naked men enthusiastically pull something unseen from under the dock. Another fishing scene, "Daughter of Albion," receives a questionable adaptation commenting on issues of immigration. The farce "Surgery" gets a little out of hand when a priest’s visit to the veterinarian/dentist practically turns into rape.

The winter stories, "Over-Spiced" and "A Little Joke," are delightful and touching, especially the latter. The naïve and romantic beauty of "A Little Joke" stands out against the crude humor of the village scenes and has a breath of “longing for something different,” meaningful and true. "A Chorus Girl" looks at marital infidelity from a comedic angle, cleverly providing a counterweight to "Lady With a Lapdog." The mirroring plot helps to differentiate between lust and true love, which is precisely the trajectory that Anna and Ganin’s relationship takes. 

The secret lovers reunite at the theater, joined by the characters of two stories, "Death of a Government Clerk" and "Confessions," that are unfolding in parallel. It becomes evident in "Death of a Government Clerk" that the most pressing social issues are often at the heart of Chekhov’s jokes. In this little tale, a low rank government clerk (Michael Dona) sneezes on a general (Roman Freud) by accident and becomes so worried about assaulting an authority figure that begging for forgiveness becomes his solemn life goal. This tragedy of a “small man” has an almost Kafkaesque anxiety, but with a bitter fatalist sense of humor. Freud and Dona also play central characters in "Daughter of Albion" and "Surgery" and are certainly a memorable duo worthy of their own sketch show. But the exuberant, over-the-top style of their performances gets a little redundant over time.               

The “bacchanalian carnival” of village life comes off as somewhat startling, especially considering the homophobic and nationalistic tension in modern day Russia. Chekhov’s short stories, which seemed funny and naïve when I read them as a child, appear in a new light after Burago's risky staging, with the help of the beautifully nuanced performances of the entire cast. Under the veil of sheer entertainment lies a heavy question: What are we laughing at as a nation?     

As Chekhov put it, paraphrasing Shakespeare, “Brevity is the sister of talent.” Lady With a Lapdog, With Jokes and a Happy Ending might certainly benefit from the advice of its source—even at only 90 minutes, some trimming around the edges would only make the point clearer. But even in the current production, Chekhov’s wit is handled with care and great skill. This is something not to be missed!

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Lady With a Lapdog, With Jokes and a Happy Ending plays at Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue, through March 10, 2018. The running time is 90 minutes with no intermission. Performances are Tuesdays through Fridays at 8; Saturdays at 2 and 8; and Sundays at 3. Tickets are $35 and are available at russiantheater.org. 

Lady With a Lapdog, With Jokes and a Happy Ending is based stories by Anton Chekhov. Adapted and Directed by Aleksey Burago. Set Design by Olia Rogova. Lighting Design by Conor Mulligan. Costume Design by Di Zhu and Aleksey Burago.

The cast is Michael Dona, Roman Freud, Conor Andrew Hall, Ariel Polanco, Luisa Menzen, Tom Schubert, Lana Stimmler, and Di Zhu.