Robert Encila-Celdran - Page 2

But while Marlowe and Goethe's protagonist utilized his diabolical powers to serve their ambitions, Johanna uses hers to make the world a better place. Surprisingly, her pact with the devil begets a deep sense of altruism as she travels through centuries to navigate human progress, conferring with future movers and shakers of the world (chiefly women of distinction) to advance civilization.

RED HOT PATRIOT is a one-woman play based on the life and times of Molly Ivins. Written by twins Margaret and Allison Engel, both journalists, it premiered off-Broadway in 2012, starring Kathleen Turner (why, of course!). Nancy Davis Booth directs.

Not to get carried away, but in this current political storm that appears to put women on defense, it's heartening to find sisterhood as an emerging national motif. The underrated monolith is galvanizing to topple a perverse establishment - and LEGALLY BLONDE, with its tongue-in-cheek, goofy affectations, is no less a clarion call for a political makeover. Whether or not the connection was a conscious part of the selection, the choice turns out to be a prescient one.

The confluence of Ben's songwriting eloquence and his gritty tale of survival makes THE LION a worthy visit to the theater. Max Alexander-Taylor delivers a commanding performance that features a resonant tenor and a remarkable facility with five guitars. A confident actor, he has a natural gift for storytelling, though much of the nuanced execution can be ascribed to the deft staging ideas of Alex Stenhouse and Sean Daniels, who collaborated on THE LION'S revival.

GHOSTS OF BOGOTÁ is the first production in Stray Cat’s intrepid lineup. Playwright Diana Burbano (also an accomplished actress), has fashioned a dark, irreverent comedy, riffing on the incongruous motif of sexual trauma and unholy exorcism. It thumbs its nose on conventions of space and time — as it should, given the task of probing the collective unconscious and whipping up a contentious dialogue with deceased relatives.  Consider Kushner’s – or Ruhl’s – penchant for magical realism, but through the unique lens of  the Latinx experience. Burbano dispenses a delectable sass while flouting the spectral realm of departed kin. She checks the boxes, if you will, and treads where lesser dramatists might opt for a quick detour.

ALEX: You were playing Ben, you weren't playing Benjamin. That's a big distinction. In the writing of THE LION in various iterations of the show, you turned your life into various crafted anecdotes for the best dramatic effect for the story. There's always gonna be a slight level of making the story a little bit more compelling for an audience. What we did is we took what's on the page and built a character around it. So we built the character of Ben out of the script organically, with Max in the rehearsal room, rather than trying to recreate who Benjamin was. We created Ben off the page.

The play's timing is rather canny given our current global scrimmage with 'alternative facts.' We live in an age where information is obtained with a mere suggestion of a keyword, where unfettered access to data wields personal power but rarely makes for enlightened, critical thinkers. In certain political quarters, no amount of fact-checking can penetrate the most stubborn epistemic cocoon. That said, verifiable information is critical to journalistic integrity, but facts alone aren't sufficient to inspire a reader. So what gives? D'Agata argues that accuracy is not the same as truth, that a cogent essay may demand some fudging of statistics to 'track the development of consciousness on the page.' Denounce him as a fabulist, but he's nowhere close to a conspiracy theorist.

Here lies a critical distinction between Middle Alison and Bruce. In spite of the initial tumult around her sexual revelation, she revels in her transparent admission, only to discover that her father has been harboring secrets as a homosexual. His enduring shame from illicit affairs, coupled with his inability to accept the pain caused by his gradual unmooring of ethics (sleeping with hired help and seducing underage students) leads him to a tragic decision to end his own life.

The script is clever, replete with snide banter befitting a satire of the Bard’s illustrious tragedy. We meet the usual suspects - the upright, the guilty, and the aggrieved - primed to settle a score or two. As they move through various gates and a chaotic mess of random earthly objects, actors are made to piece together a set of uneven stairs, a theatrical metaphor inspired by the work of Polish theater artist Tadeusz Kantor.

Even so, what sets her apart from fellow actors is the catalog of engagements she drums up away from the spotlight. Sam (as locals fondly call her) is a gifted, do-it-all thespian: a scenic designer who thinks like a director, a choreographer who innovates posthaste, and a handywoman with a soft spot for power tools. That's not all. A buoyant charm that conspires with a quicksilver pace makes Samantha Cormier the quintessential youth leader of many a theater camp, a role she relishes during the off-season. I'm not sure there's someone more absorbed in various aspects of the theater year-round.

'I see THE LION very much about what it was like for me to turn thirty, about how I became myself. When I began writing the show, in 2012, I was very much the-son-to-the-father. As of now, in London 2022, my wife and I are expecting our second child, a son. When I performed THE LION one last time (Southwark Playhouse, May 2022), it was the first and only time I've performed the show as a father. During that performance, I understood the character of 'Dad' in a very different way. I also realized that young-writer-me wrote Dad and Cancer as very similar characters; quasi-mythical external forces that controlled Ben and couldn't be reasoned with.'

While vacuous debates are brewing about Critical Race Theory, and noxious mobs are chanting Don't Say Gay, Chris Pena's play reminds us that America is not only a work in progress, but a fragile ship at risk of capsizing. Cries of Replacement Theory are a clear indication of America's Potemkin meritocracy, where political optics have a way to whitewash the squalor within. Beyond the cutural lessons of immigration and the endearing tale of a father and a son, HOW TO MAKE AN AMERICAN SON unveils a nasty old game, one that is rigged incesantly against the perceived minority in favor of existing power brokers.

The central allure of every iteration is Hornsby's self-absorbed protagonist, Rob Gordon, a 30-something owner of a vinyl record store who suffers from a deficiency of emotional refinement. The first-person narrative gives us a torrent of insights into Rob's pedestrian existence and relationship complications induced by his lack of accountability. Hornsby endows Rob with self-deprecating wit and a listless regard for social norms that we end up liking the guy anyway.

What's brewing at ATC is nothing short of providential. JUSTICE feels profoundly earnest in its development, and even as the piece is rendered concert-style we're left with a fierce sensation that Arizona's regional theater company has struck gold, albeit mining is still in progress. If Broadway is in the cards, don't be surprised and remember where it all started.

There's a lavish public appetite for musicals these days. Chalk it up, perhaps, to a creative vengeance after a stifling pandemic. In any case, it's great news to theater artists with a bent for collaboration. And when a musical takes on the urgency of the moment, the creator's inspiration becomes a genuine point of interest.

The Island of The Proud Circle floats merrily along on the open sea. It’s the microcosm of organic affluence, an idyllic home to settlers who live their simple lives “from the middle to the outside.” Babies are born in the center and grow old to retire on the waterline, where the sea awaits their first and final dive. 

In A MINISTER'S WIFE, the composer's collaboration with Austin Pendleton (book), and Jan Levy Tranen (lyrics) dilutes his influence on CANDIDA's transcription, relegating the audience to a compendiary version that eliminates, among other elements, Candida's businessman father - a staunch capitalist foil to her socialist husband, the Reverend James Morell. Just as well, I suppose, given the daunting task of mixing up politics with a love triangle.

In FOUR WOMEN, history reminds us there's no rest for the weary, and the call for racial justice is a collective effort requiring sustained vigilance. The irony here is not so subtle. Ms. Ham's play thumbs its nose at the growing political hysteria over which segments of American history should be taught in schools. It's a volatile nation that tiptoes between insight and shame as it reexamines its sordid past. Nonetheless, FOUR WOMEN is dauntless in its appeal to uphold historical reality amidst current grievances about a manufactured problem.

ADA AND THE ENGINE is a sprawling narrative that dabbles in the intersection of mathematics and a love triangle - and it does so eloquently while shedding light on the immortal shadow of a father's abandonment. It's a handful, but it's one way to alleviate the esoteric chatter of binary codes and algorithms. Given the playwright's prodigious gift in mixing it up, the upshot is a convoluted brew of scholarly discourse and ill-fated matters of the heart.

With HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH, Johnson will remind audiences of his theatrical pedigree and style: edgy, innovative, controversial, and proud. The show is a shrewd piece to punctuate his timely comeback. A rock musical memoir by John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask (directed by Shana Nunez), HEDWIG is the primal scream we need to take us out of a global nightmare. Ready or not, the electrifying musical will jolt people out of their Covid-induced stupor, courtesy of the rapturous genderqueer singer of a fictional rock and roll band.