I just got back from seeing Howard L. Craft's Freight: The Five Incarnations of Abel Green at the Castillo Theatre.
The production, directed by Joseph Megel and starring J. Alphonse Nicholson, was previously in New York at HERE Arts Center. In my opinion, it was one of the best plays of 2015.
Unfortunately, this is the last day of the show's run at the Castillo, where it was produced by the New Federal Theatre. If you missed it, perhaps the play will be back in the future. It certainly deserves to be. This one-man drama, which shows the same character in different incarnations from the 1910s to the 2010s, should have another incarnation of its own.
Megel will be directing a different one of Craft's plays, Miraculous and Mundane, coming up at ManBites Dog Theater in Durham this January. Will that play also have a New York run? We'll have to wait and see!
Showing posts with label Howard L. Craft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Howard L. Craft. Show all posts
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Best Plays of 2015
It's the end of the year, and like many others, I'm putting together a round-up of the best new productions I saw that opened in New York City in 2015. Some of my choices might seem unconventional, while others will surprise no one. Here they are, in reverse order:
10. Allegiance - With all the great new Broadway musicals opening this year, Allegiance is in danger of getting lost in the shuffle. It shouldn't be.
9. 'Tis Pity She's a Whore - Red Bull Theater Company usually does good work, and their production of John Ford's masterpiece was no exception. 'Tis Pity proved once again that you don't have to have the budget of The Royal Shakespeare Company to put on good classical drama.
8. Wolf Hall - Of course, if you do have the budget of the Royal Shakespeare Company, it doesn't hurt. The RSC's adaptation of Hilary Mantel's first two novels about the life of Thomas Cromwell didn't gain as much attention (or fill as many seats) as it did in London, but it was still worth seeing. Wolf Hall was a magnificent display of skilled theatre professionals doing precisely what they do well.
7. Amazing Grace - Speaking of shows not embraced by Broadway, Christopher Smith and Arthur Giron's fantasia on the life of John Newton drew the ire of critics, but thrilled those who had enough good since to ignore them and come anyway. I cried more at this show than at anything I've seen in years. As with Allegiance, the songs did not always rise to level one might hope, but the storytelling was both moving and timely.
6. Cymbeline - Though The Public Theatre seems to misfire with their Shakespeare productions as often as they produce a hit, this summer's Cymbeline was a delight. Hamish Linklater and Lily Rabe were hysterical as the play's romantic leads, but the best thing about this production was how the small cast came together to create a true ensemble. Tasteful audience interaction and superb music by Tom Kitt also served to make this a memorable production.
5. Something Rotten - Even more memorable than some of the many Shakespeare productions I saw this year was Something Rotten, the Broadway musical making fun of the Bard. Yes, I saw Fun Home, which beat it out for the Tony this year, but I found myself seated where that play's ill-conceived direction showed nothing but the actors' backs. Something Rotten by contrast has not only a great score, ingenious lyrics, and a creative book, it's also well directed and a pleasure to watch.
4. Freight: The Five Incarnations of Abel Green - Howard L. Craft's one-man play featuring J. Alphonse Nicholson, probably hasn't made it onto a lot of people's top-ten lists, but that's because they didn't see it. Beginning at the dawn of the 20th century and proceeding to the present day, Freight manages to examine the American experience (and more specifically the African-American experience) in ways that are constantly surprising. Each of the play's five scenes move forward through history, yet we seem to revisit the same set of characters over and over again, reminding the audience that even as some things change drastically, others remain tragically the same.
3. Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe - Though Nevermore came to New York once before, this creation by Catalyst Theatre had evolved since then, and it's production at New World Stages counted as a Broadway premiere. It didn't hurt that I saw the play on Mr. Poe's 206th birthday, but my own fan-boy-ing aside, this is one of the most creative and innovative plays I've ever seen. Bretta Gerecke's production design is a goth's dream come true, and Jonathan Christenson's text sounds so natural we hardly notice the play is almost entirely in verse. Like one of Poe's characters, Nevermore doesn't want to stay buried, and we should all be thankful for that!
2. Hand to God - I admit that I came late to this party. Hand to God was a hit off-Broadway way before it opened this year on the Great White Way, but this production was astonishing. In spite of the fact that he is clearly one of America's great playwrights, a Broadway hit still has not allowed Robert Askins to give up his bar-tending job, but that's just the state of the economics of this country's theatre. Never mind. This tale of a high-school misfit engaging in "puppet ministry" in a church basement continually goes to darker and more unexpected places, and Askins' voice deserves to be heard. I'm a sucker for puppets, and this show uses puppetry in ways that are dirtier than Avenue Q and yet with more skill than is hardly ever seen.
1. Hamilton - Okay, no surprise here. Since it opened off-Broadway at the Public, Hamilton has been the hottest ticket in town, but not without reason. Lin-Manuel Miranda has crafted a magnificent show out of American history and American popular culture. The music is exciting, the lyrics are smart, and the story of Alexander Hamilton's life and death, even to those who already know it, is enough to break your heart. Count me along with politicians as diverse as Barack Obama and Dick Cheney as one of the many fans of this show. If you can't see it right away, get the cast album. Listening to it reminds you of so much that the American musical is and can be. Ten dollar tickets (a Hamilton for a Hamilton) are still available through a lottery before each show, but good luck getting them. Spring for a regular ticket. It's worth it.
So that's my list! Honorable mentions this year to Doctor Faustus, I Will Look Forward To This Later, and Spring Awakening!
10. Allegiance - With all the great new Broadway musicals opening this year, Allegiance is in danger of getting lost in the shuffle. It shouldn't be.
9. 'Tis Pity She's a Whore - Red Bull Theater Company usually does good work, and their production of John Ford's masterpiece was no exception. 'Tis Pity proved once again that you don't have to have the budget of The Royal Shakespeare Company to put on good classical drama.
8. Wolf Hall - Of course, if you do have the budget of the Royal Shakespeare Company, it doesn't hurt. The RSC's adaptation of Hilary Mantel's first two novels about the life of Thomas Cromwell didn't gain as much attention (or fill as many seats) as it did in London, but it was still worth seeing. Wolf Hall was a magnificent display of skilled theatre professionals doing precisely what they do well.
7. Amazing Grace - Speaking of shows not embraced by Broadway, Christopher Smith and Arthur Giron's fantasia on the life of John Newton drew the ire of critics, but thrilled those who had enough good since to ignore them and come anyway. I cried more at this show than at anything I've seen in years. As with Allegiance, the songs did not always rise to level one might hope, but the storytelling was both moving and timely.
6. Cymbeline - Though The Public Theatre seems to misfire with their Shakespeare productions as often as they produce a hit, this summer's Cymbeline was a delight. Hamish Linklater and Lily Rabe were hysterical as the play's romantic leads, but the best thing about this production was how the small cast came together to create a true ensemble. Tasteful audience interaction and superb music by Tom Kitt also served to make this a memorable production.
So that's my list! Honorable mentions this year to Doctor Faustus, I Will Look Forward To This Later, and Spring Awakening!
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Three Solos
Yesterday, I went to see a triple-header of one-person shows as the 19th Annual New York International Fringe Festival began to come to a close.
Not all solo shows can be as good as Howard L. Craft's Freight, but these three plays were all performed both with humor and an emotional core. While some were more successful than others, they were all worth seeing.
Last week, when I went to see the Fringe production of Fuente Ovejuna, I overheard an audience member talk up a show he had recently seen. "It's called The Absolutely True Science of Nerds," he said. "You've got to see it! This dude gives all the science behind Batman, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Godzilla. It's great!"
Though this show wasn't one I originally planned on seeing, my friends Holly and Laurie had convinced me to go, so by the time I heard the word on the street (and it might have literally have been on the street) I had already arranged for tickets. Written and performed by Shyaporn Theerakulstit, The Absolutely True Science of Nerds was probably the best thing I saw at the Fringe this year.
Technically, this was a two-person show, since in between Mr. Theerakulstit's "completely scientific lectures" there are two dance breaks. In the first one, the playwright and actor proves he is also a mean tap dancer. The second dance break is performed by one of several burlesque artists. I saw Tiger Bay perform a strip tease as Carl Sagan. It was wrong. So very wrong. And I loved it.
Later that afternoon, I saw Mark DeMayo's The Broccoli Murder, DiCaprio Dance and Other Stories From My 20 Years as a NYC Cop. The show was precisely what it sounds like, but very funny. I particularly enjoyed DeMayo's account of a man who robbed the laundromat downstairs from where he lived, and just around the corner from the police precinct. Not the brightest guy in the world.
Then in the evening, I was happy to run into Dennis Gleason, who directed my short play The Trade at Gallery Players this summer. Dennis was the venue manager for the space where Venus and Adonis was playing. This one-woman show by Misha Bouvion took its text from the (sort of) famous poem by Shakespeare, with a few pronoun changes so Bouvion could perform the whole piece in the person of Venus. Her voluptuous body and melodious voice added a great deal to the poem, even though there isn't much dramatic action in Shakespeare's text.
If you missed these performances, don't fear! I have a feeling all three of them will be back at some point in the future.
Not all solo shows can be as good as Howard L. Craft's Freight, but these three plays were all performed both with humor and an emotional core. While some were more successful than others, they were all worth seeing.
Last week, when I went to see the Fringe production of Fuente Ovejuna, I overheard an audience member talk up a show he had recently seen. "It's called The Absolutely True Science of Nerds," he said. "You've got to see it! This dude gives all the science behind Batman, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Godzilla. It's great!"
Though this show wasn't one I originally planned on seeing, my friends Holly and Laurie had convinced me to go, so by the time I heard the word on the street (and it might have literally have been on the street) I had already arranged for tickets. Written and performed by Shyaporn Theerakulstit, The Absolutely True Science of Nerds was probably the best thing I saw at the Fringe this year.
Technically, this was a two-person show, since in between Mr. Theerakulstit's "completely scientific lectures" there are two dance breaks. In the first one, the playwright and actor proves he is also a mean tap dancer. The second dance break is performed by one of several burlesque artists. I saw Tiger Bay perform a strip tease as Carl Sagan. It was wrong. So very wrong. And I loved it.
Later that afternoon, I saw Mark DeMayo's The Broccoli Murder, DiCaprio Dance and Other Stories From My 20 Years as a NYC Cop. The show was precisely what it sounds like, but very funny. I particularly enjoyed DeMayo's account of a man who robbed the laundromat downstairs from where he lived, and just around the corner from the police precinct. Not the brightest guy in the world.
Then in the evening, I was happy to run into Dennis Gleason, who directed my short play The Trade at Gallery Players this summer. Dennis was the venue manager for the space where Venus and Adonis was playing. This one-woman show by Misha Bouvion took its text from the (sort of) famous poem by Shakespeare, with a few pronoun changes so Bouvion could perform the whole piece in the person of Venus. Her voluptuous body and melodious voice added a great deal to the poem, even though there isn't much dramatic action in Shakespeare's text.
If you missed these performances, don't fear! I have a feeling all three of them will be back at some point in the future.
Monday, August 3, 2015
If You're Going to Do a One-Person Show, Here's How You Do It
I'm generally not a big fan of one-person plays. I've seen my fair share of good ones, and not-so-good ones (though considerably more of the latter), and I've even written a couple of them, but after a while I came to the conclusion that if I never saw another one-person play for the rest of my life, I would be okay with that.
Then I saw Howard L. Craft's play Freight: The Five Incarnations of Abel Green, performed by the remarkably talented J. Alphonse Nicholson. Theater artists take note: If you're going to do a one-person play, head down to HERE Arts Center to see how it's done. This extraordinary production directed by Joseph Megel gets it right.
As the title implies, Freight follows a young man named Abel Green through five different incarnations, from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. We watch essentially the same character, a young, African-American man with artistic aspirations, trying to get by in a cruel world that seems all too much the same even as it progresses across decades of history.
In the first scene, Abel is a minstrel-show performer hopping onto a freight train as he travels from town to town. By the time Nicholson performs the famous Bert Williams song "Nobody" he has already led us through the horrors of lynchings and brutal racism. Craft is certainly not the first theater artist to juxtapose seemingly light-hearted minstrel shows with the inhuman conditions in the country that gave rise to them, but he manages to deal with the material with a finesse and subtlety many critics found wanting in such pieces as the Broadway musical The Scottsboro Boys, for instance.
The second scene shifts to a passenger rail car in Depression-era America, where Abel Green has been reborn as a phony faith healer turned Pullman porter. Again, the faith healer trope is something we've seen before many times, but Craft gives the story a new twist, where Abel doesn't realize he's a fake. Tricked into believing he really is an instrument of God, he falls blindly into the role provided for him by a corrupt church. Abel is once again playing a role, as surely as a minstrel-show performer. Through what seems to be a miracle, however, he survives a near fatal assault and finds a new life, making us wonder if he might be an instrument of God after all.
A third scene set in the late 1960s shows Abel Green as a small-time crook turned FBI informant on the Black Panthers. Instead of seeing the grand rise and fall of the Black Panther movement, the audience is shown one sliver, giving us a taste of heady dreams of revolution and a collapse into chaos. Set on a subway train (sensing a trend?) the play captures both optimism and cynicism, and sucks the audience into a paranoid world where it seems impossible to tell whose side you are really on at the end of the day.
A fourth scene (also on a subway train) remakes Abel Green into an actor in the 1980s. Stuck playing ridiculously stereotyped roles that seem no better than minstrel-show acts, Abel follows his friend and mentor to try to do real art, only to see the lives of those around him crumble in the AIDS epidemic. An unexpected theme of homosexuality emerges in the piece as something surprisingly new, and yet with the feeling that it had always been there, just never discussed.
In the final scene, Abel is transported to the present, where he recounts his role in the housing bubble in the early 21st century and his descent into homelessness that is also an ascent into dreams of a better world. All five of the scenes make use of video projections by Eamonn Farrell, but this one rises far above the rest, enveloping the audience in a sense of the vast reaches of human potential.
One of the fun aspects of the piece is that certain off-stage characters appear again and again, always with the same names. A mentor/friend, a smart and sexy seductress, and others crop up from scene to scene, each time reborn, just like Abel Green, ever old and ever new.
Freight is only playing until August 9th, so get your tickets while you can! For more info, go to:
HERE
As the title implies, Freight follows a young man named Abel Green through five different incarnations, from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. We watch essentially the same character, a young, African-American man with artistic aspirations, trying to get by in a cruel world that seems all too much the same even as it progresses across decades of history.
In the first scene, Abel is a minstrel-show performer hopping onto a freight train as he travels from town to town. By the time Nicholson performs the famous Bert Williams song "Nobody" he has already led us through the horrors of lynchings and brutal racism. Craft is certainly not the first theater artist to juxtapose seemingly light-hearted minstrel shows with the inhuman conditions in the country that gave rise to them, but he manages to deal with the material with a finesse and subtlety many critics found wanting in such pieces as the Broadway musical The Scottsboro Boys, for instance.
A third scene set in the late 1960s shows Abel Green as a small-time crook turned FBI informant on the Black Panthers. Instead of seeing the grand rise and fall of the Black Panther movement, the audience is shown one sliver, giving us a taste of heady dreams of revolution and a collapse into chaos. Set on a subway train (sensing a trend?) the play captures both optimism and cynicism, and sucks the audience into a paranoid world where it seems impossible to tell whose side you are really on at the end of the day.
A fourth scene (also on a subway train) remakes Abel Green into an actor in the 1980s. Stuck playing ridiculously stereotyped roles that seem no better than minstrel-show acts, Abel follows his friend and mentor to try to do real art, only to see the lives of those around him crumble in the AIDS epidemic. An unexpected theme of homosexuality emerges in the piece as something surprisingly new, and yet with the feeling that it had always been there, just never discussed.
In the final scene, Abel is transported to the present, where he recounts his role in the housing bubble in the early 21st century and his descent into homelessness that is also an ascent into dreams of a better world. All five of the scenes make use of video projections by Eamonn Farrell, but this one rises far above the rest, enveloping the audience in a sense of the vast reaches of human potential.
One of the fun aspects of the piece is that certain off-stage characters appear again and again, always with the same names. A mentor/friend, a smart and sexy seductress, and others crop up from scene to scene, each time reborn, just like Abel Green, ever old and ever new.
Freight is only playing until August 9th, so get your tickets while you can! For more info, go to:
HERE
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