PLAY: "Tom Crean: Antarctic Explorer"

It took a long time for me to warm up to Aidan Dooley's portrayal of Tom Crean, one of the unsung "heroes" of Ireland (this, assuming that there is something heroic about plunging into the unknown whiteness of the Antarctic not once, not twice, but three times). Ironically, it was at Crean's coldest moment--the approximately 40-mile solo trek through the snow, blizzard at his back, that he undertook to save his companions--that warmed me to the survivalist narrative. I can't say, either, that Dooley oversold the role: his wild gesticulation and shrill, incredulous commentary at his own accomplishments seem a bit hyperbolic, but not any less believable. What I can say is that Dooley's writing was held back by his own slurring, stumbling performance in the second act: short of that, I was on the edge of my seat at the odds-defying account of an 800-mile voyage with Captain Shackleton (all undertaken in a tiny, wooden rescue boat), not to mention the pitch-dark slide down the side of an icy mountain, nor the depraved conditions of their various camps. There are a few anachronisms that Dooley should remove ("like banshees on a roller coaster"), and the show would be better as a 90-minute one-act, but Tom Crean: Antarctic Explorer is pretty arresting stuff.

PLAY: "Gypsy"

Photo/Ari Mintz

After hearing all the praise for Gypsy, I was expecting to drop dead of excitement watching LuPone channel all of her estimable skill into the role of Rose. Maybe I suffered from a case of overexpectations. Maybe there were too many fawning fans in the audience--a celebratory praise party--for me to enjoy the oft-interrupted performance. Maybe I was sitting too far away from the stage to appreciate the phenomenon happening on it. But I don't like to make excuses: maybe the show just wasn't as good as it was hyped up to be.

There are certainly many good things about Gypsy: the story is sharp (especially for the time), the script is explosive, and the lyrics give a glimpse of Sondheim's growing ferocious playfulness. And there are certainly good things to be said for this production: Arthur Laurents, having written the book, understands how to hit the running jokes as a director, and Boyd Gaines manages to simmer more than simper, which gives a nice humanity and complexity to his opposite, Patti LuPone. And I like LuPone in this role: she doesn't try to be technically perfect with the lines (though she can, puttering and pattering through "Some People" and "Mr. Goldstone"). She sings with heart first, cracking with emotion, and then raising her voice even higher to fill those cracks with pure soul.

But, and this is the big, diplomatic but: Gypsy is a repetitive musical, trapped in vaudevillian rhythms and one-off tunes. Based on a memoir, the focus is tangential at best (see how June disappears, look how undeveloped Tulsa is). Nor does the intimate staging play to the rafters: this is not a big, razzle-dazzle show (as the lame "You Gotta Get a Gimmick" proves). Lousie's corrupted blossoming (in "The Strip") is pretty tame in today's world, and Laura Benanti's best moments in this role are her far subtler pleas to be noticed in "All I Need Is the Girl." After all that, "Everything's Coming Up Roses" winds up being a better song for LuPone than "Rose's Turn": the second act strains and bucks with attempts to stretch the story. And while I'm glad to see a full orchestra right there with a set and a memorized script, there were so many gaps -- such emptiness on the stage -- that this might as well have been the "normal" concert version of the Encores! series.

Did LuPone fill that stage? No. She tried. And perhaps if the audience hadn't been quite so supportive, she might have found that extra spark in Rose's personality that would have truly blown me away.

PLAY: "Commedia Dell' Artemisia"

Photo/Joseph Belschner

That rape could be funny, not tragic, who knew? The producers and writers of Stolen Chair, that's who. With swagger and grace and a man who's ribald, the show woos us and flatters us, we're never appalled. Commedia Dell' Artemisia, what a wonderful name; if only bringing back classical comedy alone brought one fame. But I'll drop the old rhymes now (they're far better than me), as I must stress the point that this show's a must see. (Besides, it's not as easy to rhyme David Bengali's name as you'd think, nor Cameron J. Oro's, Layna Fisher's, or Liza Wade White's, all of whom are well worth mentioning.)

Like typical works of commedia dell' arte (think Moliere), Kiran Rikhye's taken what could be a tragedy (the historical rape of Artemisia Gentileschi) and made it into a comedy -- an old-school (for wives) affair, with rhyming couplets, slimming corsets, and masks, too. Follow the innocent yet willful Artemisia (the isabella) as she tries to escape her doting, daft painter of a father, Orazio (the pantalone), by accepting the advances of the lusty Agostino Tassi (il capitano). This is done at the behest of her more...ahem...experienced chaperon, Tuzia (the columbina), whose wide-eyed gapes are perfect for the double-takes required of her stock part.

Jon Stancato's direction is filled with little nuances of the form, and when he can squeeze in an extra pratfall or continue a running gag (an accidental grope, an intentional ass slap), he does so with panache. He also handles his actors well (courtesy of designer Jonathan Becker): Bengali slouches his way up from the earth into his mask, notching his head to call out in high-pitched befuddlement, and Oro finds a nice comedic clash by mixing a sincere gravitas in his posture with the monkey-like face he's wearing. On the feminine side, the ladies are lovely, their porcelain makeup giving a nice contrast with their zestier, full-bodied performances: Tuzia's a bit underwritten, which is unfortunate for the talented Fisher (she makes up for it with her body language), but White gets to play both the inamorata and the dottore, and relishes in her long-winded spiels as a drunk judge (think Boston Legal: The 1600s).

The only sad part about Commedia Dell' Artemisia is that it's condensed to stay under an hour, which means there's no romance and no real comeuppance. The climax simply dissolves into a bawdy song with a hasty conclusion: I say, if you've got it, flaunt it, and there's no reason the Stolen Chair Theatre Company can't turn this one-act into an even bigger crowd pleaser.

PLAY: "33 to Nothing"

Photo/Jaisen Crockett

33 to Nothing's billing is a bit misleading: this isn't "a play with live music" so much as a recording session with a play. There really is a band, 33 to Nothing, and they really did just release an emo-ish rock album, and they really are in a play called 33 to Nothing (with the exception of drummer Tim Valli, replaced here by actor Ken Forman). If nothing else, it's a nice branding strategy and marketing campaign, especially since the run at the newly minted Wild Project is an open one.

As it turns out, the show is actually better than the album; the only problem is that the "dramatic scenes" that fuel the raw emotion for the eight songs of the show burn all too quickly into smoke, and choke the progression of the show. The best thing would be if the play within the gig could be performed internally so that all the audience had to sit through were the songs; seeing as that's not likely, I'll settle for director Randal Myler tuning the show a little better. If in the show, lead singer Gray (Grant James Varjas - keyboards), can keep changing his lyrics; there's no reason Myler can't fix a few notes now.

Then again, Gray's an alcoholic, struggling to keep his band together as his life apart. He's lost the man he loves--his bandmate Bri (Preston Clarke - lead guitar)--he's been evicted, and his mother has just passed away. What's left of Gray's family is the band, but as Tyler (John Good - rhythm guitar) seeks more control, and Tyler's wife Alex (Amanda Gruss - bass) runs out of ways to broker piece between them, even that seems tenuous. Barry (Forman), as the drummer, is well suited for comic relief, and given the stifling tension, he's called upon quite often for his misguided complacency.

What's really interesting about 33 to Nothing is how well the music is worked in to the story. Granted, setting the show within a recording studio allows you some freedom, but it's interesting to see the fictional history behind these songs: for instance, the way all of Gray's latest songs are melancholy ways of crying over Bri, or for blaming him. Of course, the problem is that there's little theatricality in this realistic staging, and the range of music is rather limited to that which best serves the story. Not much is up-tempo, and while the focus on lyrics is nice to see in a musical, the verses are erratic. There's nice poetry on "Happy Moral Suicide" ("He keeps his heart in the frozen food aisle/not because he has a cold heart/but because he wants it to last a little while") but only banality on their title track ("Don't be scared when I need a drink/It's just something that I go through/Nothing bigger than my thirst/nothing bigger than my love for you"). So far as staging goes, not to mention the big picture of drama, 33 to Nothing is a huge step back from Spring Awakening and Passing Strange.

33 to Nothing is, in many ways, a trivial musical playing off-off-Broadway. At the same time, it's an innovative debut for an album, and it's a concert with real meat (and some chops) on songs like the elegiac "Lost to Me" and the show-stopping "28 Bars." With more variety -- both in the staging and the song choice ("The Same Old Song" winds up standing out as anything but) -- this show might find some real soul, and not just the commercial application of one.

PLAY: "The Magic of Mrs. Crowling"

The real magic of Brian Silliman's new play, The Magic of Mrs. Crowling, is that he's managed to work his way through the sardonic silliness of a Harry Potter/J. K. Rowling parody and find a sincere story beneath the blunt humor. This slight-of-hand works by means of an amusingly distracting first act that manages to keep raising the energy, like a magician drowning in scarves so that he can conjure up a dove. In this case, that dove is the soberer second act (just a bit too expository), which pulls the curtain back and releases all that comic tension.

Director Abe Goldfarb keeps the pace moving at a whimsical speed, and he counterbalances all of his choices to make a greater effect. The quick cuts between scenes make the long, awkward pauses stand out (silence is always a great punchline), and the exaggeratedly epic scenes from the book (complete with a movie-quality score by Larry Lees) really punch up how mundane Kicken Petchio's (Paul Wyatt) life is. Of course, it's no wonder Kicken is so obsessed with the fate of "Henry Shields and the Groglog Imperium": in real life, he's dying of a rare cancer, his mother's already dead, and his father's fear of death has made him a sports-obsessed tyrant. Also, if I had friends like Dazzelin (Patrick Shearer) and Valiaare (Dennis Hurley), who so trippingly enunciated their wizarding words while battling eye-popping evil like Charcana Charcane (Ronica V. Reddick), I'd probably "wax fantastic," too.

The charm of the play comes from combining the two worlds: Kicken's father Ramsey (Brian Silliman) brings A. R. Crowling (Shelly Smith) so that she can reveal the end of all this "geeky shit," only to find that she's on the literary steroids of cocaine, and that her case of writer's block is only worsened by her own characters' constant criticism. Smith has the choice part here, growing from an eccentric loon to a Hulk-like warrior and a defeatist New Yorker, all in powerful spasms of text. Silliman, meanwhile, has the advantage of also being the play's author, and along with Goldfarb's precise directions, manages to milk out all of his laughs without straining them. Finally, Wyatt's the heart of the show, one of those rare actors who understands the desperate need of children to believe, and his frustrations are what give substance to what is essentially a peanut gallery of wizards.

Right now, The Magic of Mrs. Crowling can ride the cusp of Pottermania to draw audiences who feel a bit ashamed of their own fervor for more "Pot." Even after the glamor fades, Silliman's show can hold up: he just needs to cut out his unfortunate mimicry of Rowling's all-too-real exposition.