Frigid 2009: How Does a Drug Deal Become a Decent 3rd Date

Photo/Kevin Zemnickis

Note: At the final performance I attended, they had run out of programs, so all cast/crew information is cribbed from the listings at NYTheatre.com.

As a monologue, Kelly Aija Zemnickis's How Does a Drug Deal Become a Decent 3rd Date would be just another whining comedy about how disgusting men are. However, as a demonstrative two-person show, it's a lot easier to empathize with our desperate--but thankfully not that desperate--hero. Jesse Bond's excellent portrayal of three of these men provides us with a frame of reference (and an opportunity to marvel at one actor's range), and Carmine Lucarelli's direction modulates the exaggeration, but never to the breaking point. As a result, when Girl (Neale Kimmel) jokes about her current date isn't talking about memorization when he says he's off to do some lines, we're right there with her. Her life isn't the aftermath of the rock concert she makes it out to be, but it'd fit nicely with an comedy club.

Frigid 2009: Are We Freaks?

Bricken Sparacino titular question, Are We Freaks?, is both rhetorical and serious. This isn't bad, it's just unbalanced: the campy presentation of this Tales from the Crypt-like quartet of twisty sideshow stories overtakes everything else. At best, there's a gender-bending adventure in which Annabelle (Sparacino) unwittingly uses a two-wish death mask to turn her best friend Lizz (Uma Incrocci) into the man of her dreams ("I wish I could meet a guy just like you!")--it's clever and energetic. Not as good is the Carrie-like tale of Abby (Joy Gabriel), a socially awkward "freak" who heads off to college, knowing that she can hide her inside-out parts away. Superficial Pam and Devon (Hannah Wolfe and Annalyse McCoy) have been bribed (by Abby's mother) into letting her into a sorority (of all places), and face consequences when the truth comes out. The other two segments--involving the unconjoined Wonder-ful Twins (Sparacino and Jennie Inchausti) and Caitlin the Cat and Leslie the Lobster Girl (Melanie Wehrmacher and Kara M. Tyler)--are just silly. So what?

Frigid 2009: Now and at the Hour

"Do you ever have the feeling that everything that is happening has happened before and will happen again?" To this question, posed by the affable Christian Cagigal, the answer can only be yes, particularly when it comes to "mental" magic tricks. And no, it's not deja vu: if you see a lot of theater, you've probably seen some of these tricks before.

And yet, thanks to his casual showmanship--the deliberate placement of objects, the metronomic pacing of his transitions and tricks, his roll-with-the-punches attitude--we're able to humor him. And, in doing so, we're able to humor ourselves, especially if one stops trying to tear down the wizard's curtain, appreciating the illusions as an extension of our imagination. What's especially nice about Cagigal's performance is that the flair isn't squandered on razzle-dazzle effects; instead, it builds a strong narrative (involving Cagigal's memories of his sick, war-veteran father), one which nicely resolves itself in a metatrick that ties together all the talk of time travel and strange childhoods.

Frigid 2009: Son of Man

The creator of Son of Man, Anna Lidia Umansky, is currently wrapping up her studies in Dramatic Literature and Fine Art History at New York University, so it's not meant as an insult to say that she still has a lot to learn. In this case, it's that dramatic tension is created by the slow revelation of information. Instead, we get six quick introductions (and that's it for character development):

• a people-watcher (played by Alton Alburo, but by the accent, a female character?)
• a Pakistani girl (Milan Sundresan) forced into a violent marriage after her father's death
• a lying husband (Jonathan Abetti) and an insistently truthful Russian (Seref Njemcevie)
• an angry sculptor (Rikki Bahar) dealing with mother issues
• a salesgirl (Allison Ruth) and an odd lady (Michelle Kuchuck) trying to barter away her goods
• a silent, Rabbi-like man (Scott Goldfarb), showing his assistant (Luke Gilson) how to mop

Flickering lights and the clustering of actors on stage illustrates some sort of freak accident where they all die; the next scene, in which some actors are casually sleeping in body bags, makes it even more obvious. For good measure, a painting of Magritte's "Son of Man" hangs from the ceiling, illustrating that Goldfarb, now eating apples, is actually the gatekeeper of a train station limbo. This all makes about as much sense as you'd expect, and if it went somewhere, this compression would be great (especially in an age of stretched-out reveals, ala Lost).

Instead Umanksy replays the same scene three times, going a little bit further each time. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, perhaps this is what limbo is like. However, for some reason, in the second repetition, the characters have all switched parts--considering the lack of character to begin with, this only makes things even harder to understand (as does some of the mumbled acting). Exposition from Gibson's character reveals that to "move on," these strangers will need to resolve their differences--unsurprisingly, they don't. Exposition from this review reveals that for Umansky to "move on," she'll need to first find some way to actually create tension (arguing over coffee? and a stained Burberry shirt?) and develop character . . . you know, so that there are differences to actually resolve. After all, according to her own character-swapping scene, we're all already the same.

Frigid 2009: habeas corpus

When Kim Harmon and her collaborators Denzil Meyers, Lauren Briggs, and Wilson Novitzki, ask you what you'd like to get rid of, they're not talking about our physical tendency to be consumerist pack rats. Instead, namedropping Kierkegaard, they're talking about what sort of habits, hindrances, and haunting memories we want to get past. It's PostSecret Live, performed with random musical strums on a guitar, weird renditions of the Beatles ("I'm So Tired"), and random koans ("ego is the keeper of my soul"). It's a loose collage of memories, from that of a man jerking off on a public bus ("mental rape") to a stranger's crazy, intrusive conversation while on the train. It's not that good, but it's at least interesting.

In avant-garde tradition, these thoughts are physicalized--blue tape is laid down to map out boundaries and keep out intrusions. (So are headphones.) Meyers becomes a saran-wrapped mummy, modeling the way in which we freeze--and how we need to find the strength to move on. An abstract scene in which a woman takes a hammer to her lover's gift is replayed with several variations, as we consider what it means to so casually throw something away. And, of course, actors speak over one another, theoretically showing the way everything happens all at once--that we do not live in little worlds of monologue bubbles.

There's a nice, heartfelt twist, but it doesn't stop the play from feeling rather preachy, nor does it help the various pieces coalesce into anything more than the amateur hour. The company is grasping for something, but by so easily throwing out anything--including audience-submitted information--they fall a little bit short.

Frigid 2009: Oens

Earnest as Wilson Loria is, it's not enough for his one-man show, Oens. His ideas are thinly developed, which makes things difficult for such a broad comparison--Columbus's trip to India (which inadvertently discovered America) is conflated with Bush's modern colonization of the Iraqi savages and also with Greek mythology (although only in name, like Athena Rice).

Loria's performance doesn't give us anything more specific: his ballooned costume and clownish makeup seem to reference a foreign culture that is never addressed by the play, and this translation gap even extends to some pantomimed scenes. Even if we correctly interpret his actions to involve scuba diving, we have no idea why he is doing so. (It did not help that his transitions were filled with awkward pauses or that there seemed to be technical problems with his sound cues.)

What was most compelling about Oens was Loria's post-show plea to the audience to remember the actual atrocities that had been committed by our government. Of course, his feeling the need to emphasize the "point" of his play only serves to further illustrate that there was never one to begin with.

FRIGID '08: Diversey Harbor

There's not much theatrically going on in Annie Coburn's direction of Diversey Harbor, but she's really nailed down the acting, which in turn has cemented playwright Marisa Wegrzyn's very young, very talented voice. Her monologued play feels like a cross between Brooke Berman and Connor McPherson; I only wish that the ghost story she introduces late in the game tied more into the other loosely connected narratives, or better still, remained grounded in the sort of grim reality that can call craigslist "a dark alley littered with crack pipes," sum up a character with "I'm off to watch Jerry Springer with my thumb in my vagina," and honestly depict the cavalier attitude of some Lotharios: "It's entirely possible that I'm about to fuck up someone's life. And I can't wait." From the laid-back, drinking dog-walker James (Avery Pearson) to the selfish and angry Dennis (Dorien Makhloghi), to the high-strung Grace (Dana Berger) to the carefully poised and meticulous Stephanie (Amanda Sayle), Wegrzyn presents four very human chapters in life and loss, and, up until Stephanie's encounter with some muddy footprints, has a very funny and fresh look at kids today.