THEATER: "No Second Acts" (A & B)

Democracy's a lovely thing -- everybody ought to have their voice heard -- but it's dangerous, too. After all, popularity, volume, and ideas aren't always enough to string together a coherent thought (as many a Republican candidate discovered this year), let alone to fill out a short one-act, as some of the contributors to No Second Acts: A Collection of Short American Lives are surely now aware of. Each of the two "bills" (A and B) features five playwrights and three directors and an abundance of energy, and while it's wholly remarkable how little common ground there is between them, that common ground is, unfortunately, the rawness of these productions.

The standouts, then, are those shows that come in with a fully developed voice, or an easy-to-convey theme. Jeffrey Lewonczyk's "Shit the Future Says" imagines a world in which Internet memes have replaced politics; our country, led by President Cat (Annie-Sage Whitehurst), goes to war with an angry troll named David (Marc Landers). It's a pop-culture battle, as the heroic Dramatic Chipmunk (Leah Carrell) and Wolverine-like Honey Badger (Timothy Reynolds) face off against Charlie Bit My Finger (Kitty Lindsay) and Pedobear (Cara Moretto), all to save the world from the embittered former YouTube sensation (David After Dentist). South Park may have gotten there first ("Canada On Strike"), but under Pete Boisvert's playful direction, the live version's an enjoyable treat. 

Likewise, while the philosophy in Eric Bland's "Tsipiras in Athens" may have gone somewhat over my head, Michael Criscuolo's steady direction does a fine job in charting this all-too-human discourse; the same can be said for the way Hope Cartelli casually handles the clever banter in James Comtois's "Moving Forward," in which two former lovers (the past) chat awkwardly while stuck in line waiting to vote (the future). There's also Gyda Arber's "Votes for Women! A Stage Play for Grades 3-8," which is, remarkably and unironically, exactly what it purports to be, complete with "Applause" cue-cards and light audience interaction, and August Schulenburg's "All Good Ending," which, as the title implies, salvages much of a tediously performed history play by throwing in a The Shipment-like twist.

More muddled or rushed, then, are plays like Stephanie Swirsky's "Quorum of Friends," in which a college girl settles important issues -- like how to respond to a booty-text -- by having her friends vote, and Justin Maxwell's "I'm in Al-Qaeda," which subverts expectations by having Man (Ryan Shams) continually shock his airline seatmate (Kari Swenson Riely) with his confessions of being a CIA-kidnapped goat-herder turned Al Qaeda member. The premises of both are fine, but the brevity of each makes the plotting seem flimsy and the conclusions unsupported, and neither rises above its own jokes. This applies, too, to Alexis Sottile's "Occupy Poofy," though its inability to make a statement might be the statement . . . it's so silly and ridiculous -- intentionally so, what with the dance montages or soap-opera revelations -- that it has to be intentional . . . but what's the intent? 

As for Crystal Skillman's "Cheer," the idea of two teachers finding love and a way forward in the midst of student protests is a fine one; I just wish it was clearer what they were fighting for. (I suspect I may have missed something here, though there's definitely a vagueness that may be unnecessary.) Finally, there's Ian W. Hill's "The States," which has a lot of blood, abuse, and pain, and is set in some sort of war-ridden world in which sirens blare and lights flicker under the stress of intermittent bombing. The title implies that it's an allegory, perhaps about the ways in which the abuses of our strong country against the weak and innocent will come back to haunt us . . . but it's ill-defined and difficult to watch. But hey, as the theater festival promises, such is democracy, and who can argue with such diverse and ever-evolving results? 

PLAY: "A Very Nosedive Christmas"

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

A Very Nosedive Christmas Carol is to the original as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is to Hamlet. James Comtois is no Tom Stoppard (Comtois is deliberately funny), but once again his Nosedive company strikes to the heart of what audiences really want this holiday season: laughs and eggnog (or eggnog and laughs, I'm sure he doesn't mind the order). In any case, the focus this time is on the supporting characters, Marley (Scott Lee Williams) and his cadre of ghosts, Past (Marsha Martinez), Present (Brian Silliman), and Future (Ben Trawick-Smith). You see, they're sick of haunting Scrooge (a delightfully Shakespearean Patrick Shearer) every year, and they're craving a release from the chains that bind them -- in a sense, they're scrooges themselves, denying what has become a postmodern Christmas staple.

At the same time, they're also actors -- playing a specific part for a specific audience -- and as they talk about their dismal auditions (Bloody Mary, Hamlet's father), they try to find ways to truly live each performance as if it were their first (even if that means putting stickers on a sleeping Scrooge). They all do their job very well, from Williams's mopey chain-rattling and misanthropic narration, to Martinez's endearingly cute performance, Silliman's technical prowess (his vocal warm-up is a scene-stealer), and Trawick-Smith's terrifying presence as some sort of cross between 80s hair metal lead singer and Grim Reaper (in other words, compliments to costumer Stephanie Williams).

As is typical of Nosedive productions, very little is taken seriously, and this play -- which we've all seen a million times before -- is the better off for it. The ghosts (like Scrooge) still learn a valuable lesson about Christmas cheer, but this time they do so in the midst of baby-chucking antics, caroling monkey puppets (and a sock-puppet Tiny Tim), and the most eccentric Cratchit family you've ever seen. Those portions that hew too close to the original, as with Scrooge's nephew (Matt Johnston), serve as reminders of how much more fun it is to watch a grown man (Marc Landers) walk around in a half-crouch so that he can play a little boy. As for the rest of the company, they're in particularly good form too, like Ben VandenBoom's emotional Bob and Jessi Gotta's charming Belle (I mention these two because they've played very different parts in other Nosedive productions).

A Very Nosedive Christmas Carol is now in its third year, and on the fast track to being a NYC staple of the season. So ho-ho-hurry over to the Red Room and get your jolly on.

PLAY: "Suburban Peepshow"

(Photo/Ben VandenBoom)

James Comtois's new play with Nosedive Productions, Suburban Peepshow, is neither suburban nor peepshow. It's also not fine art, a fact the playwright both bravely acknowledges in his notes ("The main goal of me writing this was to make myself laugh") and in the show itself, where he leaps onstage half-naked as "Chubby Guy," there to jiggle for the audience's amusement (and to provide the cast time for a scene change). But as the playwright within this metacomedy tells the Catholic-schoolgirl-clad actress he's trying to bone (them's the rules of the game), "seeing that chubby guy dancing has increased [the audience's] happiness," and with all the prancing around of dismembered carnival barkers, the violent sequins of ninja crossdressers, the cutthroat economy of in-office gladiators, and romantic flings with self-titled characters ("Pool Guy" and "New Girl"), Suburban Peepshow does succeed in making us laugh. (It's also preceded by a comic short, Trailers, which spoofs the Hollywood movie formula, and itself, at the same time.)

A show like Suburban Peepshow isn't asking to be finely parsed: you could say that Bill's transition from suburban father to Roman gladiator represents his inner monologue, the way he dreams himself as a conquering savage. But you could just as easily accept that Patrick Shearer, who plays Office Guy #2, was really just trying to stop his external monologue ("Man, you really are boring") long enough to get some time in the spotlight. Given that the show is satire in good fun, replete with over-the-top performances by everyone outside of the family (they'd be nightmarish if they weren't so funny), I'd stick with the latter. However, it's for this reason that Comtois's work falls short of the literary (like George Saunders) and sticks with the low-brow (think Comedy Central). The humor leaks everywhere, from the absurdity of the narration (killed off faster here than in Into The Woods) to scenes where the increasingly drunken playwright (Anthony Bertram) is berated for not giving an actor a bigger "part" (by which he means the member's member) and for hitting on his cast. This isn't actually how Suburban Peepshow was written (one assumes), but the flow between the external forces and internal forces shows a playwright more concerned with good times than deep meaning.

Suburban Peepshow's greatest strength is that it writes itself: anything someone says about a character winds up becoming true, as if the world around us is shaped by what we think (which, in some ways, it is). Mother (the talented Leslie E. Hughes) considers having a fling with Pool Guy (Ben VandenBoom), and so when she inevitably meets him, he comes clad completely in cliche, all macho swagger and mustache. When Bill (a nicely suppressed Zack Calhoon) compares the "antics" at his office to those of Office Space, the next scene is filled with wry lines that could be ripped straight from our perception of the world. I said at first that Suburban Peepshow was neither suburban nor a peepshow, but that's not accurate: it's the world of both, but as we imagine it . . . and as they imagine it.