QUICK TAKE REVIEW By Beverly Creasey My Own Private Idaho

Not much to do in the Idaho wilderness. A city kid (Jake Orozco-Herman) could learn a lot from a kindly old man (Peter Brown deftly playing against type, with halting steps and bent frame). That’s the bare bones of A GREAT WILDERNESS by Samuel D. Hunter (@ Zeitgeist Stage through May 21^st). The old guy’s quote unquote “friends” (one of whom is his ex-wife) want him to move into “a home” where he can be taken care of but he prefers cabin life: walks in the woods, no one to tell you what to do.

It’s all about the environment and the solitude for Walt and he finds real meaning in life when troubled kids are sent to him for counseling. “Just talk,” he says. It’s all so bucolic you might be drawn there yourself EXCEPT this is a Reparative Retreat for “misfit[ing]” gay kids to get “straight.” Pardon me while I scream. If the Bachmanns lived in Idaho, they’d be right at home with their “conversion” therapy. (You may recall a while back, Michele Bachmann was running for President, decrying all the money the government wastes on pork barrel projects while AT THE SAME TIME her husband’s conversion business was funded with federal dollars!) But I digress.

The only excitement in the play is when the boy runs away and everyone, including a ranger, lights out after him, the action, which includes a forest fire, now being off stage. We don’t even get to see the pivotal “burning bush” scene. We’re just told about it. BUT the extremely strange thing about A GREAT WILDERNESS is that there’s no one in the play to denounce this vile practice masquerading as “therapy.” The play just ends as slowly and laconically as it meandered throughout.

               

As always, director David Miller has assembled a talented cast and designed a nifty log cabin set. J. Jumbelic’s sound for each scene change makes you sit up and take note. Now that I think of it, the music may be the one dissenting element.

As always, Wednesday evenings are pay what you can.

QUICK TAKE REVIEW By Beverly Creasey INADEQUATE

Spoiler Alert! I’m going to divulge what happens (or doesn’t) in Yussef El Guindi’s unsatisfying THREESOME (@ Apollinaire Theatre through May 7^th) so stop reading now if you prefer not knowing. El Guindi spends an inordinate amount of time having his one female character (Alison Meirowitz Mc Carthy) rant about women as third class citizens and about the “toxic relationship” women have with their bodies. In fact there’s a whole heap of talk but scant insight into any of the characters.

The joke in the First Act is that the trio of adults about to have a three-way sexual experience never stop talking (about bodily dysfunction among other topics) long enough to do it. Now maybe Ryan Landry could write a scene (about diarrhea in the midst of intercourse) so outrageous that audiences would find the squeamish material hilarious but El Guindi can’t pull it off. It’s just gratuitous and repulsive.

Ordinarily a naked man ( Geofff Van Wyck) on stage with little to do but stand about and wait is rife for comedy but not in THREESOME, mainly because El Guindi keeps the pace glacial and because he wants to say something significant about the Arab spring. How is this connected to the comic coupling (or tripling), you may ask? Well, two of the threesome are Egyptian ex-pats who complain endlessly that each has been holding back emotionally and “omitting” information when in point of fact it’s the playwright who is omitting and obfuscating to beat the band.

For one thing, he shrouds a major revelation in confusion: Even when he tries toward the end of the play to connect the dots, they don’t: The female character accuses her lover (Mauro Canepa) of treating her differently after learning about violent attacks on women when both of them returned to Egypt for the revolution BUT at that point she hadn’t told him it happened to her. She only chooses to tell him that piece of news when he is drunk; then she holds him responsible for his nasty, neanderthal, liquor induced (?) reaction. Perhaps El Guindi ascribes to the notion of “in vino veritas.”

For another, El Guindi reintroduces the naked man, now fully clothed, and he turns out to have a vile secret as well, not to mention that he’s undergone a character transplant I just couldn’t believe. You really have no one to root for in THREESOME, not even the woman…. because it’s revealed in Act II that the she has screwed her lover (in the “betrayal” sense of the word) out of a job. And the ending where she bares her soul (if indeed that’s what happens metaphorically – I couldn’t say) comes out of nowhere.

Just give me a juicy Pinter threesome like BETRAYAL or OLD TIMES and I’ll show you a shattering ménage a trios. All of El Guindi’s prurient preoccupation with sex doesn’t add up to anything, least of all a coherent lesson about the Middle East.

REALLY QUICK TAKE REVIEW By Beverly Creasey ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS

When you’ve seen a show numerous times, you’re always hoping for something new, a fresh approach to the material. Director Daniel Borque and company provide it with the Hub Theatre’s production of Yasmina Reza’s ART (closing, alas, this weekend). Their production is grounded in humor. Bourque even bumps it up a notch with hilarious touches like white gloves for the pretentious, proud new owner of the $200,000 white on white painting… and when his best friend has the polar opposite view of the pricey acquisition, the two men separate abruptly, as if they were oppositional magnets. Bourque scores again when the three friends have exhausted themselves in a dust-up and sit hopelessly eating olives, side by side, like naughty boys outside the principal’s office.

Lest you worry, the comedy never overpowers the script. In fact, I think it brings affection and humanity to the (rather stilted) story of three friends on the verge of a break-up over an artistic opinion. Victor Shopov is all angles, posing for just the right combination of light and shadow for his painting. When stressed, he literally lets off steam with an incredulous “pfffffft” when his friend dares to disparage both the painting and his artistic acumen. The elegant John Geoffrion as his disapproving friend is most amusing when trying to conceal his contempt. Bob Mussett is sensational as the sad sack caught in the middle of his friends’ feud. When they both turn on him, it’s the stuff of great comedy. Like Stan Laurel or Lou Costello, Mussett’s expressive face is up to the task.

QUICK TAKE REVIEW By Beverly Creasey Then again, Maybe it’s the Gin…

In case you didn’t know, this week has been proclaimed “Jazz Week” and Moonbox Productions has a fierce, down and dirty jazz musical to kick it off. THE WILD PARTY carouses at the BCA through May 1^st. Inspired by Joseph Moncure March’s sardonic 1926 poem, George C. Wolfe and Michael John Lachiusa have crafted a musical which doesn’t so much set the earth on fire, as scorch it.

Guests at Queenie’s “wild party” all have “one thing in common,” as Bob Seeger would say. “They’ve got the fire down below.” Director/choreographer Rachel Bertone’s production triumphs, despite the dark, debauched story. Queenie (Katie Anne Clark), the chorus tells us, is “sexually ambitious,” a penchant not overlooked by her jealous husband (Todd Yard), an unhappy minstrel (picture Al Jolson) on the vaudeville circuit.

Everyone is on the make: If not for sex, for glory. From Meredith Gosselin’s wonderfully intense performance (“I need somebody with spunk!”) in hot pursuit of Janelle Yull’s hilariously drugged out, barely functioning zombie to Ricardo D. Holguin’s charismatic cocaine fueled party animal to the two downtown producers (the highly amusing duo of Ray O’Hare and Michael Herschberg) who can’t wait to change their names and take on Broadway And the sensational Shana Dirik who dogs their footsteps in hopes of a comeback (What she can do to five strikes of the kettle drum!) — Every character packs a punch (especially Steven Martin’s ex-boxer).

Terrell Foster-James and Davron S. Monroe have a showstopper with “Uptown” which gets even better when Yard joins in. “Blame it on the Gin” is another. So is the “Black Bottom” dance number but my favorite is Clark and Cristhian Mancinas-Garcia’s gorgeous, heartbreaking “People Like Us.” Music director Dan Rodriguez and Bertone get the cynical rhythms just right. The story may be cold but the performances are hot.

QUICK TAKE REVIEW By Beverly Creasey Feed Your Head

Matthew Woods and the Imaginary Beasts are at it again, turning their wild imaginations loose, this time with ALICE IN WONDERLAND (playing until April 23^rd). Woods works by finding a departure point, then runs round, over and through it until a cohesive whole lands at the BCA fully, fantastically, formed. This means weeks and weeks with the company, experimenting until the material has worked its way into their DNA… which is why the Beasts are unequaled in ensemble performance.

For this production, Woods uses the historical 1970 Andre Gregory version of ALICE as a baseline, concentrating as Gregory did, on the raw physicality of the Carroll stories, eschewing the cloying, popular Disney version. Woods and company stress Alice’s trepidation as she faces the unknown and the downright horrifying. You can’t hear the Red Queen’s irrational edict these days and not cringe. “Off with his head” used to be funny before ISIS. It’s not anymore.

The Imaginary Beasts’ ALICE is as inventive and witty as all their creations are but it’s not a walk in the park. There’s a dark, dangerous edge that underscores the familiar story. You’ll recognize the adventures but you’ll have pause. Cameron Cronin’s precarious Humpty Dumpty is nastier than you recall. (Dumpty even quotes Trump’s “They love me.” And you know he doesn’t care that it’s a lie.) William Schuller’s Mad Hatter, poor fellow, has ingested so much mercury that he’s tied into a straightjacket. (When he’s the rabbit, the ties of Cotton Talbot-Minkin’s ingenious costume become his long, floppy ears.)

Woods says he wants to make the story “relevant to today.” Well, you can’t get any more relevant these days than threat of violence. “Beware the Jabberwock… the jaws that bite, the claws that catch” wasn’t taken literally in less perilous times but it is now. Even Kiki Samko’s Cheshire Cat has a demonic side. And drowning in a sea of tears? Not so whimsical. Perhaps the story always has been dark and we just didn’t notice. (Carroll’s fascination with little girls is pretty creepy. Years ago parents didn’t delve into his private life. Now they make films about it.)

Thank heaven for the lighter moments in the Beasts’ production: Amy Meyer’s cheery persistence in the face of adversity; Michael Chodes’ upended, soporific dormouse; Cronin’s cheeky, condescending Frog Footman; Samko’s adorably twitchy lady mouse; Talbot-Minkin’s endlessly pleasing costumes (which appear sooty and distressed for this brooding version). You’ll be amazed at the transformation of ordinary objects, like hoops for the rabbit hole and trash bags transformed into billowy clouds by Christopher Bocchairo’s lighting.

QUICK TAKE REVIEW By Beverly Creasey Let Slip the Dogs of Vaudeville

It has happened, as we feared. Something (a Trump presidency perhaps?) has brought about the apocalypse. Liz Duffy Adams’ fiercely intelligent DOG ACT (@ Theatre on Fire through April 16^th) about the aftermath is named for a vaudeville act because in the (not so) distant future the cream has risen to the top. The arts have triumphed at last. Actors are the treasured survivors. Scavengers roam the scarred countryside, taking and killing prisoners but they’re not allowed to touch theater folk.

Diego Arciniegas’ exquisite production for TOF should be on everyone’s must see list. Adams’ opulent script crackles with energy in the hands of six extraordinary performers. If you saw the Lyric Stage’s production of Adams’ OR, a few years back, you’re familiar with her elegant prose and her resonant references. DOG ACT is overflowing with wild allusions, hilarious neo-Shakespearian repartee and gorgeous harmonies when the actors break into song, as actors through the ages are wont to do.

Adams’ cautionary tale is set in the Northeast of the former U.S.A. Two “vauders,” a charismatic singer/actress (Liz Adams) and a remarkable dog (Stewart Evan Smith) “who doesn’t write but has an impressive command of the language” pull their theatrical cart to the side of what used to be a road to rest. They’re on their way to perform for “the King of China,” not realizing of course where China is or that it probably isn’t a place where “all the people are wise.” They’ve heard tell of a “tall tower of a woman you can climb and look out of her eyes.” It would seem that both history and geography have been obliterated along with a vast portion of the population.

They’re soon joined by two “roadsters” who claim tribal kinship as actors: Vera Similitude (Kaylyn Bancroft) who swears she always “tells the truth” but will “obfuscate style” and her sidekick (Marge Dunn), the “short fused storyteller.” When asked what destruction Vera and Jo-Jo saw up north, they reply that they only reached as far as the “great Canadian barrier wall.” Now I know that Adams wrote her play quite a number of years ago, way before the current political free-for-all, but a wall erected by Canadians to keep us out? It’s positively prescient. And so is naming one of the marauders ‘Coke,’ as in Koch Brothers! (Not Adams’ intent, of course; She’s referring to the relics of our age, unearthed by the clueless scavengers.)

Instead of being bombed “back to the stone age,” the apocalypse has left these survivors in the quasi-Middle Ages. Instead of a medieval Morality Play, the troupe performs a Mortality play to explain as best they can how they came to this sorry state of affairs. Everyone loves a play, including the savage “lost boy” scavengers (Avery Bargar and Tim Hoover), who might have been rude mechanicals if this were a few centuries later. They’re certainly rude and delightfully vulgar.

Adams plays fast and loose with time so that Bargar can sport a WWI leather aviator’s cap and Jo-Jo can carry an Etch-a-Sketch by her side. Erica Desautels’ inventive costumes add yet another layer of discovery to the mix. Eric Hamel’s inspired sound design, too, underscores the catastrophic environmental damage done to the planet. Just before the rapid unnatural climate changes in Adams’ brave new world, the earth belches, sounding like it is being sucked into the vortex. There are so many clever twists and turns, so much rapid wordplay, it’s almost impossible to take in at one sitting. I can’t wait to go back and absorb what I missed the first time.

QUICK TAKE REVIEW By Beverly Creasey Theater on the Avenue for a Song!

While small theaters all over town are scrambling to find new spaces as old venues close, Avenue Stage has established a cozy home at the Dot 2 Dot Café in Dorchester. There are at least a dozen reasons to think outside the box and search it out. This year is Arthur Miller’s centenary and there isn’t anywhere else you can see his bittersweet 1987 play, I CAN’T REMEMBER ANYTHING (playing through April 9^th.)

Those of us who remember the halcyon days of Irish theater in Boston will be delighted to see Jennifer Jones back on stage, starring opposite Geoffrey Pingree as two aging friends who lament the loss of their former lives. As they combat their feelings of uselessness, they find fault in each other: He grumbles that she drinks all his liquor. She accuses him of not facing the reality of their hopelessness. He blames her for his hypertension.

Their amusing bickering bubbles below the surface as the two friends try to recall fading memories of their glory days… try to find reasons to go on, as Miller quips “adding triviality to the boredom of existence.” Director Michael O’Halloran and company compose a moving portrait of the stresses in a relationship, working beneath the dialogue to show us the affection, even as the characters threaten never to see each other again.

The highlight of the play is a lovely, sensual dance, a magical moment where Jones brings romance to life. She becomes the young dazzler again, undulating to the rhythms of the sitar, the center of attention, the object of desire. With that dance, Jones creates all that has been lost to them. It’s heartbreaking and triumphant at the same time. And you can imagine what Miller must have felt at the end of his life, when his best plays (best years?) were behind him, as so many critics took pains to point out.

Have I mentioned that this gem of a play comes with dinner…for the price of a fringe theater ticket! A two course gourmet meal invented by master chef Karen Henry-Garrett! If I were a food critic, I’d give the Dot 2 Dot Café and Henry-Garrett my top pick. There are four entrees to choose from and three desserts. The rich, luxurious vegetarian pasta puttanesca was a hearty, savory choice and her tarte tatin was an opulent surprise, contrasting caramel apples with a crunchy crust of puff pastry. Even presentation was a treat at Dot 2 Dot.

This isn’t your grandfather’s dinner theater experience. It’s an event. Don’t miss out on this embarrassment of riches.