Martini Talk: Wintuk, Things We Want & Peter and Jerry

To most of the country the phrases Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway might as well be code for "not as good as Broadway" which any regular New York playgoer will tell you is simply not true.  These days a typical Off-Broadway season easily surpasses Broadway in terms of the quality of the new material produced and, so long as underqualified celebrities are giving sub-standard performances in leading roles, the quality of the acting.  And while the quality of Off-Off Broadway productions may greatly vary, there's usually a good chunk of them that'll give you just as good a night out as any other show in town.

Now if only we can get the thousands of disappointed ticket holders who are finding their performances canceled during the current labor dispute to believe it.  Have you heard some of the comments being made? People are replacing their theatre plans with extended shopping trips, eating out and taking the kids to FAO Schwartz.  Yes, Broadway is historic, magical and the pride of New York's theatre community, but even without Broadway, New York is still this country's top theatre town.

I wish the fellow from Long Island who bought his girlfriend tickets to Saturday's matinee of Grease as a birthday present knew that he could have walked just five minutes away from the O'Neill Theatre and joined me and seven other audience members at The Instant Shakespeare Company's terrific (and free!) reading of the rarely performed The Two Noble Kinsmen, about a stud and his emo cousin fighting to the death over a hot babe who likes them both.

Or those poor little girls who were crying in front of the Lunt-Fontanne because they've waited all their lives to see The Little Mermaid.  I wish their parents knew there were still seats available for The Looking Glass Theatre Company's production of Lesbian Bathhouse.  Hey, there's water and there's strong female role models.  That covers the basics, right?

But regardless of labor issues, my favorite producers this week are the ones who provided a festive winter wonderland party before Wednesday night's press opening of Cirque du Soleil's Wintuk, dressing up the hockey rink at Madison Square Garden with ice sculptures, cotton candy carts, numerous huts loaded with cheery folk distributing tasty goodies and lots of arty types tossing plastic snow all over unsuspecting guests.  If I wasn't such an objective and responsible journalist I would have just quickly penned a rave review somewhere in the middle of my third complimentary blueberry vodka cocktail, but fortunately the show itself is such a charmer that no alcohol prying was necessary. Appreciated, but not necessary.

This one's a pretty good alternative for parents trying to console their disappointed children who had their hearts set on seeing The Little Mermaid, How The Grinch Stole Christmas or The Farnsworth Invention. (Hey. what kid doesn't love television?).  Director Richard Blackburn has supplied a bit of a plot about a young boy's disappointment with the lack of snow in his neighborhood, an attractively icy unit set (by Patricia Ruel), the type of music that has the same calming effect as a cup of herbal tea (composed by Simon Carpenter) and a colorful array of whimsical costumes (François Barbeau), but the main attraction is, of course, the gravity defying acrobatics of the world famous circus troupe.

Starting slow and continually building to more daring and eye-popping feats, the first act opens on a neighborhood scene featuring skateboarders, bicyclists and a laundry line just perfect for high wire walker Jamie Adkins.  After one of the enormous white shaggy dogs shorts out one of the singing electric street lights by relieving himself on it (Hey, it's whimsical!), electrician Alexandre Monteiro comes to the rescue, but not before handstanding on growing stacks of cylinder pipes while twirling one of the bigger ones on his feet.

Body contortionist Elena Lev bends herself into seemingly impossible shapes while spinning hula hoops on any spare appendage.  Aerial strap artists Kylee Maupoux and Anke van Engelshoven gracefully fly with balletic beauty and a troupe of acrobatic daredevils bounce high in the sky off of long flexible poles.

Does all this help grant the lad's wish for blizzard of snow?  Let me just say a guest of mine insisted I warn the ladies to not wear anything low cut.

If you try not being overly concerned with things like unexplained details and seemingly unmotivated changes in characters you can have quite a good time at director Ethan Hawke's rather solid mounting of Jonathan Marc Sherman's interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying Things We Want.  The author's smart dialogue and dark humor, delivered by an excellent cast, might even get you out of the Acorn Theatre and waiting for the light to change in front of the hot dog place on the corner of 42nd and 8th before you start thinking, "Wait a minute..."

Three brothers share equal ownership of an apartment left to them after mom and dad committed identical suicides, though years apart.  Sty (Peter Dinklage) is an alcoholic who, despite attending AA regularly, still heavily indulges.  Teddy (Josh Hamilton), the eldest, is a go-getter who works for the self-help guru, Dr.  Miracle, whose method, "The Primes", instructs those seeking happiness to, "use your seven chakras and your five senses to figure out the right three words which reveal your one goal."  The first act, taking place in one evening, begins with youngest brother Charles (Paul Dano), looking for a place to stay because he's dropped out of college after suffering a "heartbreakdown."   Sty sets him up with fellow AAer, Stella (Zoe Kazan) and the two of them, sharing a sullen, fatalistic vulnerability, hit it off.

Though Dinklage effectively underplays his funny business, Hamilton nicely blends smugness with sibling affection and Dano and Kazan are both adorably protective of their wounds, the second act, taking place exactly one year later, requires sharp changes in three of them that seem too complete to be believed without further support from the author.  The latter half does have its sexy and farcical moments and the production never fails to entertain, but after its interesting setup Things We Want is in need of further exploration of its characters' emotional scars and the healing process.

I do believe that Friday night at Second Stage was the first time I had ever seen Edward Albee's The Zoo Story performed by grownups.  His breakthrough 1958 two character one-act, a favorite at scene study classes and college drama departments for decades, now serves as the second act for Peter And Jerry, a full length piece that prefaces The Zoo Story with a new one-act, Homelife.

Let's start with what's familiar, shall we? The Zoo Story, which has been given minor updates to set it in the present, involves quiet, button-downed textbook publisher Peter (Bill Pullman), trying to take in an afternoon of reading in Central Park when he's interrupted by the grungy and loquacious Jerry (Dallas Roberts).  Though Peter tries to politely ignore Jerry's impromptu monologue of his life story, he is eventually drawn in when his riffs turn frightening and ultimately threatening, forcing the bookish bystander into a self-horrifying act of violence.

In his program notes, the 79-year-old Albee explains that, looking back at his first successful project, he felt that Jerry so dominated the piece that Peter required further exploration.  Thus Homelife, taking place just before the second act's events, shows what drives him to Central Park to begin with. As in The Zoo Story the play opens with Peter trying to get in some reading, this time on the living room couch.  His wife Ann (Joanna Day) interrupts him with those words that no sitcom dad or Edward Albee husband wants to hear, "We should talk."

While beginning innocuously enough, the conversation soon turns to subjects like Ann's desire to have her breasts removed as a way of avoiding cancer and Peter's concern that his circumcision may be reversing.  Feelings of inadequacy are revealed, as is a violent act from the past that foreshadows the second act.

Does it work?  Perhaps there's more fascination in watching an old master revisit a work from his youth than there actually is in Homelife, but Peter and Jerry greatly benefits from a superb cast executing Pam MacKinnon's attention-drawing minimalist production.  Bill Pullman's tranquil underplaying, where he seems to surprise himself with off-hand utterances and gradually building emotions, is just perfect, as is Joanna Day's guarded frustration.  Dallas Roberts deftly communicates discomforting danger.  Neil Patel's set is dominated by a dark imposing green, suggesting Central Park to be a wild habitat where humans run free.  Most appropriate for a playwright who never settles into the comfort zone.

Michael Dale's Martini Talk appears every Monday and Wednesday on BroadwayWorld.com.

Top photo by OSA Images:  Elena Lev in Wintuk; center photo by Carol Rosegg: Zoe Kazan and Paul Dano in Things We Want; Bottom photo by Joan Marcus:  Bill Pullman and Dallas Roberts in Peter and Jerry