The Jew of Malta

I hadn't planned on seeing Red Bull Theater's reading of The Jew of Malta by Christopher Marlowe, but when my friend Susan told me she had an extra ticket, how could I resist?

Matthew Rauch starred as Barabas, the titular character who might have influenced not just William Shakespeare's Shylock, but also a slew of villains from Aaron the Moor to Richard III to Iago.

Like Shylock, Barabas is a victim of unfair treatment, but his quest for revenge goes outside the bounds of what can be considered reasonable. At the beginning of the play he is stripped of all his possessions by Ferneze, the Governor of Malta. Ferneze was played in the reading by Derek Smith, who gave a memorable performance as Lodovico in Red Bull's previous production of the John Webster tragedy The White Devil.

While Barabas and Ferenze give unflattering depictions of leaders of the Jewish and Christian worlds, the Islamic world is represented by Selim-Calymath, the son of the Ottoman Emperor. While Marlowe doesn't make any of these leaders come off very well, I found Calymath to be the least odious, at least as portrayed by Jason Bowen, who was excellent a couple of years ago in Lynn Nottage's Crumbs from the Table of Joy.

By far, however, the most sympathetic character is Barabas's daughter Abigail, played by Priyanka Kedia. Her father first forces her to become a nun so that she can retrieve a treasure hidden in a convent, then makes her the center of a love triangle that kills two young men, including Ferneze's son Don Lodowick, played by Samuel Adams. Distraught, Abigail converts to Christianity so she can enter a convent for real, earning the scorn of her father.

Barabas's partner in crime (who later foolishly betrays him) is a slave from Thrace named Ithamore. Steven Boyer, who is perhaps best known for playing an emotionally disturbed teenager with a penchant for puppetry in the Robert Askins play Hand to God, was delightfully evil in the reading as Ithamore.

The play, which had its first recorded performance in 1592, is famous for its use of a cauldron in which the protagonist is boiled alive. Philip Henslowe's prop list for the Lord Admiral's Men listed a cauldron that was likely used in the play's premiere and subsequent revivals.

Red Bull is not slated to revive the play in a full production anytime soon, but they will be presenting a new adaptation of Molière's The Imaginary Invalid beginning this May. It's on my list of things to see!

Hand to God

Sometimes you're lucky, and you see a hit Broadway show while it's still off-Broadway (Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson) or even off-off-Broadway (I tried to get tickets to the first workshop of Bloody, Bloody!), but sometimes you just can't get to it (in spite of all those times trying the Hamilton lottery).

Robert Askins' play Hand to God was one of those shows I should have seen while it was still off-Broadway, but (like Avenue Q) I just didn't. I corrected that last night at the Booth Theatre. Better late than never! This little play, which started out at E.S.T. and graduated to the off-Broadway mainstay MCC, is surprisingly at home on the Great White Way.

Comparisons to Avenue Q are inevitable, since both are hysterically funny as they utilize adult-themed puppets, but Hand to God is a very different play, and not just because it isn't a musical. In Avenue Q the puppeteers dress in black, and while they are in full view of the audience, we are meant to forget their presence at times. Hand to God offers a different conceit. We watch both the puppets and the puppeteers, unsure throughout whether they are really separate characters or not.

Steven Boyer does an amazing job playing both the mild-mannered teenager Jason and his seemingly possessed puppet Tyrone. Some of the scenes feature only Boyer and his puppet on stage, giving the audience a peek at some truly amazing acting. Like the puppeteers in Avenue Q, Boyer allows his mouth to move (as his character would have, anyway) but we quickly forget that his lips are in motion. Our attention is focused entirely on the id-filled Tyrone.

Also wonderful to watch is Avenue Q veteran Sarah Stiles, who plays Jessica, another teen with a penchant for puppetry. At the beginning of the play, Jessica is still building her puppet, and we do not see her creation until the second act. When she does enter, puppet in (on?) hand, the audience knows it is in for a treat. The scene that follows is really among four character, Jason, Jessica, and their respective puppets. In spite of the fact that they are apparently in control of their puppets (or are they?), Jason and Jessica are largely bored as their nasty alter-egos engage in behaviors they themselves wouldn't dream of doing.

The character/puppet dichotomy serves as a metaphor for adolescence, or perhaps for that long adolescence called life that frequently extends well past the teenage years, when supposedly adult human beings engage in behaviors they know they should have outgrown. (Jason's mother and Pastor, played by Geneva Carr and Marc Kudisch respectively, are cases in point.) The teenagers watch on, sometimes with indifference, and sometimes with horror, as a part of themselves goes crazy, trying to indulge in the darkest of desires.

Moritz von Stuelpnagel directs the show beautifully, and the multiple scene changes, which could have really slowed down the play, are handled wonderfully by the flexible set designed by Beowulf Boritt. I'm not sure how long a quirky show like Hand to God will last on Broadway, so see it soon!