COME FROM AWAY - Tony Winning Musical Pays Tribute to Humanity

There is a defining timeline in our recent history.  On Sept. 11, 2001, the world was forever altered by  terrorists attacks on the Twin Towers, the pentagon, and aboard Amer. Airlines flight 77 that crashed in PA while passengers & crews fought courageously to gain control & overtake the hijackers. More than 2,600 innocent people were killed and countless lives destroyed.  This heinous terrorist act defies humanity marking a demarcation in history that continues to reverberate. There's intensified scrutiny for travel, at public venues and growing mistrust & animosity towards people unjustly presumed as terrorists.  The devastating loss of so many including our brave first responders insures this day of infamy will never be forgotten.  The 9/11 Memorial & Museum serves as a testament to honor those who died and those who acted selflessly & heroically.  Time diminishes memory and the significant impact of events.  The highly awarded musical COME FROM AWAY (book, music & lyrics) by Irene Sankoff and David Hein is a transcending reminder of the horrific events of 9/11 by portraying the best of humanity.  The chronicling of actual accounts of magnanimous acts of kindness bestowed to unwitting passengers & crew on 38 flights compelled to land by the locals on the tiny island of Gander, Newfoundland is utterly inspiring.  The population of fewer than 13,000 people in Gander took in more than 7,000 wayward strangers.  Several accounts are expounded with a rousing score and compelling drama.  Homage is paid to the many remarkable people whose acts of generosity & ingenuity who welcomed thousands of strangers over several days into their town, their homes and their hearts is presented in earnest.  The 1st female Amer. Airlines pilot, Beverly (Jenn Colella) sings of her love and determination for flying and her desolation at the immense tragedy, personal loss and despair knowing her love for planes that were used as bombs.  The friendship between local Beulah (Astrid Van Wieren) and Hannah (Kenita Miller) a passenger trying to reach her firefighter son in NYC was especially poignant.  It speaks intensely of grief and  if compassion provided by others'  concern & listening.  There is levity,  camaraderie & love forged between wayward strangers and locals.  Kevin (Chad Kimball) a stranded passenger was a welcomed source of humor & irony.  The Company sings a stirring number "Something's Missing" prior to the finale.  It's a solemn reminder of catastrophic loss on 9/11.  COME FROM AWAY is a profound & inspiring reminder of what was recovered as a beacon for the best of mankind.

Rangers Lose to Coyotes in New OT Rules that Suck!

Last night's Rangers game at MSG ended in a 2-3 loss with the winning goal scored in overtime.  The rather tame lackluster game but for the new rule changes for overtime.  The Rangers had very few shots on goal in the 1st period and fell behind the AZ Coyotes 0-1.  The 2nd period brought new energy to the team.  The Rangers score 2 goals both coming from Tony Deangelo.  The Coyotes also scored in the 2nd heading into the 3rd period with a 2-2 tie.  Neither team scored in the 3rd ending regulation play tied heading the game to a 5 minute sudden death overtime (OT).  NOTICE:  New rules in play for OT allow only 3 players per team on the ice not including the goalie.  Should a penalty be called on a team, a 4th player on the opposing team will be brought on the ice.  There will never be fewer than 3 players on the ice. This looked like miniature golf for hockey.  And, should the 5 minute OT also end tied, play goes to a 3 shot shootout with 3 shots on goal.  If a team pulled their goalie during regulation play this will cost the team a point in the shootout.  If the shootout ends in a tie - play goes back to a 5 minute sudden death overtime and it's deja vu all over again.  Why the new rules?  I'm thinking it's intended to speed up the end to tied games.  To that extent, I suggest get rid of these new silly rules.  They're ridiculous! What should be adjusted is the lagging time between periods.  I'm not saying shorten the 20 minutes for the Zamboni to refurbish the ice with a kid strapped backwards which looks pathetic.  I'm talking about an actual 20 minute interval.  Skip the T-shirts shooting from the ice.  Send them to the crowds by standing in the aisles and eliminate the not a chance in hell shot at someone getting a puck through a minuscule hole to win a signed hockey stick or a car shooting from further out.  Start the 20 minute time clock as soon as the players get off the ice.  Shows us highlights from the game on the screens or clips from concerts at MSG.  These new rules do no apply during the playoffs.  The old rules apply which are the rules that should still apply in regular season play.  Stop with the juvenile 5 minute play with 3 players and the hokey hockey entertainment.  Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!

Newly Opened MoMA Features Betye Saar's Artwork

The MoMA has just reopened after months of renovation.  The changes provide more free flowing space, outside light and a fresh approach to curating.  The artworks are grouped not by epoch but by interconnections.  The curation is minimal.  The guest is induced to drawn their own ideas & impressions.  There are floor to ceiling windows in a galley showcase a large, immersive installation by David Tudor and Composers.  The windows draw the architecture outside in creating a heightened awareness.  The MoMA designated more open spaces and the large staircases with lucite rail guards.  Artworks are installed from walls & ceilings outside galleries utilizing more space and making the art more accessible and the viewer more astute.  The gargantuas space on the 2nd floor houses a dazzling exhibit of Haegue Yang's "Handles".  From everywhere you look or walk you become part of this intoxicating groupings of sculptures, glimmering geometrics and interactive light and sound.  The luminescent chandler in the lobby is a welcoming beacon for visitors.
The featured exhibition is Betye Saar "The Legends of Black Girl's Window."  Saar (b. Amer. 1924) is a master printmaking.  The recent acquisitions of her remarkable skills for printing and her work in the medium of assemblage are on display.  Some of the prints are of serene, colorful landscapes and glimpses into the working mind.  Her self-portrait made towards the end of her pregnancy portrays a contemplative respite.  The print of her 3 daughters indicates complexities of sisterly relationship and their own individualities.  Included with her prints are several of etchings which demonstrate the technical skills of her intricate craft.  Several repeating motifs in many works include symbols of mysticism and spirituality.  Saar's work also addresses racism, stereotypical degradation of blacks and heinous images of lynchings.  There were two works that spoke most to me.  One is her iconic wooden window frame "Black Girl's Window" 1969.  The head and hands of the black woman encased is haunting.  The only visible feature on her face are eyes that shift quietly but omnipotently and mystical symbols in red & yellow on her palms that implore you to touch (but don't) - and stop taking selfies in front of it.  This is a very moving work makes the viewer feel both the oppressor and the oppressed.  The other window frame that captivated me is an assemblage of faded photos and mementos spilling over onto the frame that offer a yearning for family and nostalgia.

THE SOUND INSIDE with Mary-Louise Parker

THE SOUND INSIDE written by playwright Adam Rapp ("Red Light Winter" a Pulitzer Prize finalist) is a hushed play about loneliness that accumulates in emotional power like a soft snowfall that swept into mountainous drifts.  Bella (Mary-Louise Parker in a searing performance) is a tenured writing professor at Yale.  Bella speaks to the audience from a park at night where she writes when battling insomnia.  She ruminates on observations and feelings which also serve as fodder for her writing.  The barrier between her life and her creative writing jettison in and out of context.  She informs us she's in her 40s, never married or had children, she has no no parents or siblings and was in seemingly excellent health until felled by an excruciating pain.  She was able to call 911 before passing out.  She woke in the hospital after emergency surgery which revealed advanced cancer and given a dire prognosis for survival. The timeline of events are hazy.  Her writing student Chris (Will Hochman) stops by during her office without having pre-arranged a meeting.  The two banter over books & broach into each other's personal lives.  She informs him in the future he needs to set up a scheduled stop.  This doesn't stop Chris from dropping by again unannounced. Bella is drawn to Chris and invites him to join her for dinner.  The two find they share a lot in common besides being bibliophiles.  They're both find solace in books over company.  Chris shares that he was raised by a single mother who is a successful mystery writer with agoraphobia. At times Chris (Will Hochman) also addresses the audience.  The accuracy of events is dusted under shifting ambiguity.  Bella depicts a scene while talking to the audience where she meets someone in a bar and goes back to his shabby motel  room for sex. The first time in 2 years she tells us. The scene is simultaneously amusing and melancholy.  What's clear is the profundity of hunger "the sound inside" which roars unheeded by others.  Clarion  cries to be seen and heard and touched bellow like muted falling snowflakes.  Rapp's elegiac writing, pitch perfect acting by Parker & Hochman, and dim yet inviting staging  create a visceral theatrical experience that rages with human longings.

Mac Wellman's The Fez and TheSandalwood Box

"The Fez" and "The Sandalwood Box"are two one act plays running in concert as part of Mac Wellman's Perfect Catastrophes, A Festival of Plays.  "The Fez" begins as "My Fair Lady".  Eliza Doolittle (Rora Brown) is debased as less than human by a fiendish Prof. Higgins (Jimmy Dailey).  She washed her hands she did before coming to Prof. Higgins for voice lessons to elevate her station in life. The startling staging goes haywire in a fez frenzy.  The trajectory projects into a deafening & undecipherable melee that morphs into absurdist theater with logic to its madness.  Hats off to choreographer Jose Rivera, Jr. and scenic designer Frank J. Oliva who manage to orchestrate an interesting intersection of free for all spirit with pizzaz and a medley of music & dance styles.  Actors planted in the audience add an element of immersive theatrics that add to the madcap fusion of fun & theatrics.  "The Sandalwood Box" is a pandora box of bedlam that is ominous, poetic and bizarre.  This surreal production has a nightmarish tilt that sprouts paradoxical poetry with euphemism of woes.  The sandalwood box contains a collection of historic catastrophes foretold by Prof. Mitchell (an ominous Ashley Morton).  Wellman throws out existential questions and questions who possesses the knowledge for determining right from wrong, truth from lies.  Marsha Gates (Dorothea Gloria) lost her voice at the start of the play but finds it at a ferocious decibel sporting a menacing Cheshire Cat grin.  Gloria falls through the looking glass and shatters the avant-garde drama into a daring quandary.

THE GREAT SOCIETY - Stars Brian Cox as LBJ

"The Great Society" is an ambitious and arduous play about LBJ (Brian Cox) that technically span the years from 1964-74 although the program gives the TIME as 1965-1968.  Therein lies a hidden detail to wag the dog to derail from the copious political characters and social upheavals that ravaged our nation.  The years 1965-1968 are the confluence of domestic civil liberty issues LBJ was contending with as he led our nation into escalating the Viet Nam War.   There's an army of politicians for a feeding frenzy of political pundits.  One might benefit from cliff notes or a cheat sheet.  Cheating being the modus operandi that keeps churning the Presidency and constituencies that parallel with today's bully in the White House.   LBJ sets up his character by offering up a bull story; literally a rodeo bull riding story.  LBJ tells us "Everybody gets thrown.  Sometimes you don't get up."  LBJ uses a lot of animal analogies to drive home his message along with bullying and wheeling and dealing not often done in good faith.   "All the Way"also written by Pulitzer & Tony winning playwright Robert Schenkkan starred Bryan Cranston on Broadway.  "All the Way" was a more cogent play and a more complex character study.  Cox plays LBJ with one pounding dimension until the end when we see vulnerability expressed to Lady Bird and in his defeat declining to run for re-election.  However, this is a crucial & painful epoch in our nation's history.  Schenkkan delivers emotional punches on the pressing social issues that plagued our nation that systemically persist in today's society.  The Voting Rights Act signed into law under LBJ is a major comprehensive civil rights legislation the eliminated obstructions that fettered African 's from exercising their rights to vote.  LBJ's concessions were made with seemingly quid pro quo negotiating.  LBJ felt betrayed by MLK's stand against the Viet Nam War and Stokely Carmichael (Marchant Davis) derailing of peaceful protests made a burning impact.  Why LBJ seemed to submit to McNamara's demands for troops & funding for the Viet Nam War is baffling.  VP Humphrey (Richard Thomas) seemed heroic  on issues in opposition to LBJ until he cowered under pressure in front of the press.  LBJ recognized "racism as becoming respectful" but failed to commit the National Guard to combat the atrocities he knew would be perpetrated on protestors.  There's much to benefit & learn from in "The Great Society."  LBJ intimates to Nixon damning info during the campaign was withheld.  How was it obtained was Nixon's concern. History often repeats itself.  Seeing Trump become the 2nd president to depart office in disgrace should likely take place.

THE PINK HULK Written/Performed by Valerie David

"The Pink Hulk:  One Woman's Journey to Find the Superhero Within" is Valerie David's one woman show of her personal journey with her bouts with cancer.  Valerie is the writer/performer of this highly charged show sharing her experiences and emotional scars.  Valerie's energy is infectious and uplifting.  Valerie plays more for comic relief than pathos.  Having been cancer free for 14 years post her bout with Stage 3 Hodgkins Lymphoma, Valerie & her bf Belinda are vacationing and celebrating in Aruba.  Valerie unabashedly boast she always scores sex on a beach or campgrounds.  What she finds is a lump that is confirmed by Belinda who urges her to get checked out as soon as they return.  The gall of getting a diagnosis of breast cancer is confounding for Valerie whose bound and determined to get ravaged by a lover before her body is ravaged by cancer treatments.  The marathon search for a hook-up took-up too much time.  While its Valerie's tale to tell,  her pursuit of tail derails from the gravitas of her prognosis.  Valerie has aspirations for being on a Broadway stage and missed out on her big break to be in "Urine Town".  She does find her calling & support in improv.  The play is a defiant depiction of a strong willed woman.  She's filled with humor & rage overflowing onstage in buckets.  Valerie claims her treatments and needs on her own terms.  We sympathize with Valerie's abandonment by her friends (especially Belinda) and her feelings of anxiety and depression.  Surgery, radiation and chemo did exact a heavy toll on Valerie's self-confidence and femininity.  The play is performed not for laughs nor pity.  Any diagnosis of cancer is shitty.  Valerie's approach is lighthearted amidst adversity.  Everyone's experience is unique and complex.  "The Pink Hulk" is a sobering and soothing antidote for feeling alone in struggling with cancer.

Matthew Lopez's THE INHERITANCE - Part I

"The Inheritance" by playwright/screenwriter Mark Lopez is at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in a marathon performance in 2 parts.  Lopez best known for his play "The Whipping Man" which earned an Obie.  "The Inheritance" opened in London and received the Olivier and London Critics Award.  The play is cleverly structured around a group of young men who are budding writers. The play is set in NYC in the near present and tips its poetic license in homage to E M Forster who appears as their friendly professor willing to work with a student claiming writers block or as Forster says "a writer's tool - procrastination."  The young man bemoans narrative today can't compare to that of the epoch in the early 20th C England.  Forster steps in and tells him themes of love and requited love are timeless and persists in prodding his protege into setting up characters and plots.  Toby Darling is selected as the main character and his lover is Eric Glass.  Toby is at a party in the Hamptons surrounded by famous celebrities and calls Eric cajoling him to join him as he continues to consume martinis.  The facade of structuring a story melds into the play unfolding.  Toby is the budding writer and Eric his partner/fiancee.  The live in a spacious rent controlled UWS apartment, for now.  Eric is the unassuming character whose heroic triumphs have yet to be revealed.  Happenstance brings Eric together with the older, Henry Wilcox while both their partners are out of town.  Over dinner & wine, Henry is coaxed into sharing how he and his partner have remained together for nearly 4 decades.  Henry's love story is shrouded during the AIDs epidemic, its horrors and fears.  It seems that fear that was a major factor in sustaining their relationship.  Eric and Toby inhabit an era liberated from AID's fatalities and gay persecution and face seemingly more banal issues that plague all relationships.  Lopez's clever play is staged on a minimal set with engaging actors.  But, the dramatic impacts falters in comparison to "Angels in America" and "The Normal Heart."  The comparisons with these masterful plays and E M Forsters' brilliant writings may be unfair but this is the inheritance "The Inheritance" is built upon.  

"The Owl" by Arthur Sze - MTA Poetry in Motion

Poet Arthur Sze (b 1950 NYC) is a prolific writer of poetry.  His poem collections have earned him numerous honors including an American Book Award and was named Poet Laureate for NM.  Coming across this tranquil and soft poem while riding the subway stirred a serene feeling while amongst my fellow strap holders.  I like this poem for its simple beauty and colorful imagery.  The poster paints a regal owl perched on a branch .  The owl is brazenly & unabashedly scrutinzing you.  This lovely painting has a blazing background awash in golden sunshine & crimson autumn leaves.  It draws consideration of the wondrous colors enveloping us.  Awaiting as we burst forth from underground.


The path was purple in the dusk
I saw an owl, perched
on a branch

And when the owl stirred, a fine dust
fell from its wings I was
Silent then, And felt

the owl quaver.  And at dawn, walking,
the path was green in the
May light

The Owl
Arthur Sze

FOR COLORED GIRLS..by Ntozake Shange at Public

The full title of this revival by poet & playwright Ntozake Shange (b Amer. 1948-2016) is "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf".  The play was first performed off-Broadway in 1975 where it earned and Obie and quickly moved to Broadway.  The play is a choreopoem; a pastiche of music, drama, poetry, storytelling and music.  The exceptional cast of women are only referred to by the varying chromatic colors dress.  The outfits all have a motif of a black woman's face. The immersive staging is performed in the round with some seatings on stage.  The Ladies move through the aisles, encouraging participation and making contact with those wishing to dance & move their hands. The Ladies enter the stage from the aisles and commence dancing in an exuberant free for all that resembles a tribal Macarena accentuated with tap mired in jazz.  The 7 Ladies tell us of their lives of hardships, abuse, longings and desperation with raw honesty in an elegiac style.  The Ladies speak in a profoundly poetic style that emphasizes their sufferings, defiances, sorrows & joys.  Music and dance flows continually uplifting and sustaining the women.  The rainbow of colored women adhere together.  The Ladies recognize their combined strengths and experiences creates something much more powerful than themselves.  The rainbow of colors epitomizes a combined energy; a beacon of beauty & sustenance.  The Lady in Blue (Sasha Allen) singing voice was astonishing and the Lady in Brown (Celia Chevalier) was adept at orchestrating the interwoven storytelling.  The play paints a dire portrait of black-men.  But, it's more complicated and magical than a plight of woes. "For Colored Girls" is a theatrical experience that blends poetry that lingers in the air, music & dance that blend the body and spirit.  The Lady in Red's requiem scorches one's soul.  The Ladies tell us "I want for you to love and I don't want to dance with ghosts.  I am not impervious to pain or sensual pleasures."  Shange's masterful play is audacious and alive.

AMERICAN FABLES - 5 Short, Startling Plays by Eric Fallen

"American Fables" is a compilation of 5 short, one act plays that deliver a powerhouse punch.  Playwright Erick Fallen's plays are construed with unrelenting dramatic suspense and contentious interactions between two characters.  The dialogues are fast, furious, ominous and elegiac.  The first play "Prefect Weather" is a seemingly benign, happenstance interaction between a man & a woman seated on a bench in Central Park. The parallels between Edward Albee's "The Zoo Story" resound like a clarion bell.  The innocuous encounter between 2 strangers turns aggressive & antagonistic with menacing undertones of prejudice and distrust.  The ending is ironic & unexpected.  Themes of distrust, discomfort and deceitfulness are all cleverly imbued in Fallen's plays.  "Paradise" is no picnic for a man being sequestered and interrogated.  The interrogator has an accent & appearance that may be Middle Eastern.  The surprising twists to this play are shocking.  The double-talk from both the one in charge and his detainee is humorous and menacing.  The relentless questioning uncovers alternate facts.  "Friendly Fire" is a fierce display of determination from a mother of a fallen solider demanding the army's release the file on her son's death.  The mother's obdurance & convictions surmount the stall tactics of a military officer.  Having fought to obtain the file she's overcome with confusion & pain by what is revealed.  "The Fixer" is the most ominous and poetic of the 5 plays.  Sean, an attorney is beside himself with worry.  Files were just raided from his office along with everything, including the office lights.  The fixer, someone known to Sean comes into the officer wearing rubber gloves and somehow soothes Sean's fear of reprisal.  He quotes from Romeo & Juliet to Sean (and quotes from Trump) "Facts don't matter.  The past diminishes their impact and significance."  Hark, for never was a one act play of more woe!  The final play amongst these brilliant, concise, well-written and superbly acted short plays was "Basic Plumbing."  As in the previous acts, there's a fueled stand-off between 2 people.  A vexing woman demands a book from the librarian.  He tells her the library is closed and she'll have to return tomorrow.  Their combustible dialogue provokes & excites as in all these plays.  The ending is also surprising, but it's a kinder, gentler outcome.  Eric Fallen's "American Fables" playing at HERE  portend a politically savvy & talented playwright.  Fallen's ear for dialogue and flair for ferocious drama place him in the pantheon of playwrights along with Edward Albee.

NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY at A.R.T./NY Theaters

The long one act play "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Chad Bekim appropriates its title from Frost's famous poem portending the ephemeral fleeting of beauty.  The opening scene is of a young couple Clay (Michael Richardson) and Jess (Talene Monahon) bantering & laughing.  Jess reads aloud from Clay's high school year book as Clay is packing his satchel.  Clay is headed for college.  Clay's kisses & pleas with Jess to come with him are futile.  Jess is steadfast in staying put but insists Clay attend  and their plan is "to stick to the plan."  Jess asks Clay to leave her with his golden t-shirt.  "...Gold, her {nature's} hardest hue to hold." (RF)  Their idyllic plan diverges soon after Clay starts college.  Jess is working a menial, demeaning job in the town with little to offer.  They Skype each other at the start of the semester but their connection wanes.  Clay's mom Susan (Mary Bacon) has kindly welcomed Jess to live in her home as a haven from her mom's abusive boyfriend.  Clay returns at Thanksgiving and finds Jess hanging out with friends getting high.  He's frustrated and their relationship frays.  Sesame Street has just introduced a new character to educate young people on the opioid/drug addiction crisis.  Bekim's play dissects the downward spiral of addiction and the vortex of pain ensued.  The fragmented scenes lend a frenzied pace. Jess' drug problem becomes all consuming.  Susan kicks Jess out of her home.  Clay becomes ensnared in a spider's web of drug dependence with Jess. People have pain.  For some, drugs are a way to numb the pain.  It's difficult to fully fathom the circumstances & choices that lead people to using narcotics for an induced altered state of consciousness ostensibly destroying all aspects of a normal, productive life - for a passing reprieve from reality.  The impact of Jess & Clay's addiction resonates most powerfully from Clay's mom Susan and Jess' brother Jamie (an excellent Peter Mark Kendall).  Susan's love and compassion for her son and Jamie's for his sister don't suffice to ward off the omnipotent lure of addiction.  "Nothing Gold Can Stay" makes it painfully clear that one of the worst aspects of a self-destructive illness is the toll it summons on those most intimate with the addict.

Jonathan Pryce and Eileen Atkins on Broadway The Height of the Storm

Sir Jonathan Pryce and Dame Eileen Atkins alight upon the Great White Way in a play by French playwright/novelist Florian Zeller, "The Height of the Storm."   Zeller at age 40  is wise in the creative art of play-writing and the ways of the world.  Zeller tells us as the play begins "We need to know when to let go."  Andre' (Jonathan Pryce) has been married forever to Madeleine (Eileen Atkins).  The couple's 2 daughters are Anne (Amanda Drew) & Elise (Lisa O'Hare).  This family dynamic is never in doubt but the clever & devious structure of the play is nebulous as to whether Andre or Madeleine or perhaps both have died.  We know the family is in mourning but who is grieving and for whom we're uncertain.  Andre, a highly acclaimed write has advanced dementia.   What is a mirage and what is real remains clouded in a stifling mystery.  We're left to drift through the detritus of these people's live to ascertain the truth?  The muddled sequence of events are mired in such cunning fashion the audience experiences vertigo & confusion.  We're not alone in asking what is going on?  These multi-layered manifestations come fast & furious, tender & slow.  Life is short - except for when it's oppressively long.  This brilliant & provocative play examines the burdens of becoming elderly.  It looks at the complex issues that arise when adult children of parents become the generation responsible for caring for their infirm and geriatric parents.  Both Pryce & Atkins give tour-de-force performances and the supporting cast is flawless.  "The Height of the Storm" is a tempest of mounting issues that deal with aging & dying with dignity.   The play examines truths from many pensive perspectives.  One needs to know the truth is oftentimes ugly and too oftentimes not confronted in a timely or diplomatic manner.   "The Height of the Storm" lingers like a cyclone long after the curtain falls.

SINCERITY FOREVER by Marc Wellman at FLEA

Teens in a small southern town are consumed with their appearances, their social status and their teen trysts amidst Ku Klux Klan conductivity.  Self-Obsession during high school years is all too common but it's shocking to see youngsters go about their quotidian vapid lives often nonchalantly dressed in their heinous Ku Klux Klan garb.  Their banter flows from current crushes to questions raised about the existence of a heaven or hell and God's plans; should there be any.  Identical dialogues are repeated between different pairings which resonates a repetitive cycle of thinking & behaving. The quality teens consider omnipotent is sincerity.  Sincerity seems to offer a hall pass to these KKK teen members for their adorations as well as blind hatred of others.  There's a lot these teens admit to not knowing including the difference between good art or bad.   But, they've been convinced their sincere Christian beliefs condone their putrid racism and bigotry.  An omnipresent fuss ball or celestial presence seems to permeate all their senses.  The fuss ball appears as a vehement black woman toting a satchel far too heavy for anyone else to bear.  She ends the play with a blazing pontification of disgust for mankind.  The anger being directed at supplicating God's name to uphold hatred.  Playwright Mac Wellman's writing captures teens' angst and curiosity.  Wellman also exposes how being raised entrenched in white supremacist society, the freedom to choose, question and change is laden with perpetrated hatred sincerely viewed as privileged and therefore manifests unchallenged.

BAD PENNY at The FLEA by Marc Wellman

Staged outside under strung lights amongst a parklike venue, BAD PENNY places the audience onstage and into a peripatetic performance of happenstance encounters.  Guests park themselves on blankets and beach chairs while several people are enjoying a game of bean bag toss.  A young woman breaks into a soliloquy pondering celestial mysteries and perceptions of reality.  Her poetic and seemingly rhetorical pontification is rudely interrupted and she's told to shut up by a hostile young man holding a tire. He's focused on crossing through the park to find help fixing his tire. Unperturbed by her brazen interloper & maintaining a cheery disposition she continues her open dialogue saying she expected a bad turning point in her day for having picked up a penny with its face side down portending bad luck.  The man holding his flat tire & blown-up ire when is confronted by a man in orange sunglasses who questions his veracity & sanity for abandoning his valuable,  vintage car to cross the park when there are garages closer to where he's left his car.  A mounting cacophony of varied conversation spring forth from a motley mix of people haphazardly situated in the park.  Three time Obie winning playwright has written a symphonic chorus that challenges the conventions of theology and metaphysics.  BAD PENNY is an immersive thought provoking and provocative play.  It's simultaneously beautiful and gruesome and puzzling.  It's worth every penny.      

FLEABAG Phoebe Waller-Bridge Nat'l Theater Live Filmed Broadcast

The Brits wan away with this year's Emmy Awards going to the phenomenal Phoebe Waller-Bridge  (PWB) for her writing, acting and best comedy series FLEABAG.  The genesis of the impregnable series FLEABAG airing on the BBC network began as a one woman show written/starring (PWB).  The humble beginnings in 2013 at the Edinburg Fringe Festival as a one woman show gained notoriety for a woman contending with her sobriety, liberated & unsure sexuality, sibling rivalry, relationships and maintaining a flailing guinea pig themed cafe with a mixed bag of irreverence, omnipotence, vulnerability, neediness, independence, humor and guilt.  The taping of a live broadcast from the Nat'l Theatre takes the audience to the skeletal beginnings of Fleabag's character in her original one woman format.  Fleabag splays open a pandora box of contrition, confusion, comedy and pain.  PWB breaks down the 4th wall dousing the audience in a pandemonium of coherent chaos that leaves one agog with repulsion & reverence for her behavior, on-going dialogue within herself and with you.  Fleabag's interview to get a bank loan shows defiance in lieu of her debacle.  Fleabag claims she's unable to read her sister but her insights are cunning and comical.  Fleabag speaks of her best friend who passed with poignancy & longing.  Some characters leave us befuddled but all are memorable.  PWB's alter-ego Fleabag simply can't contain her churning thoughts or snide commentary causing us to chortle with chagrin.  Not that we mind in the least.  Nor is it possible to repress this impregnable force.  Fleabag power to shock, makes us titter and still connects us to her humanness of remorse is staggering.  PWB fabricates a gamut of colorful characters on stage orchestrating a cacophony of lively discord.  PWB's BBC series benefits from an exceptional ensemble cast of talented actors including Andrew Scott and Olivia Colman.  PWB is a blazing artist whose gifts transcends a kaleidoscope of emotions entrenched with laughter and longing.  People make mistakes.  Don't make the mistake of missing the spellbinding broadcast of FLEABAG or its inspired Award winning series.