The Year That Was

Sage Snakechalmer and her reflection in Private Dancer.

It's been a year of extremes, at least in theatergoing. I wrote my first five-star review for Time Out New York—about the rhythmically rich Gertrude Stein Saints! at the New York International Fringe Festival—and, before the year was out, I would write my first one-star review—the poorly conceived and acted Private Dancer (above).

And Away We Go...But Not Quickly Enough

The cast of And Away We Go

The plucky little Pearl Theatre Company has survived 30 years in the Off Broadway trenches, an amazing feat. To mark the occasion, Terrence McNally was commissioned to write a play that pays tribute to actors throughout the ages, since the Pearl's mission is reviving classic plays. Unfortunately, And Away We Go too often feels like an obligatory assignment. And it's about a half hour too long. Would that the Pearl had just revived one of those classic plays.

Back to Homeland

Homeland promo

You know those halcyon days that dominate the early stages of a relationship, be it with new friend, colleague or lover? They seem to carry a golden glow of perfection. Then something happens...maybe an outburst of inappropriate anger...maybe a broken promise...whatever it is, you discover they have flaws, and they go from extraordinary to ordinary status.

So goes the saga of my love affair with Homeland. As I work my way through the season-two DVDs, I've had to accept that this drama is not the beacon of perfection it was on its maiden voyage.

Things were going along just fine until episode three. Even Damian Lewis's stellar acting couldn't make me swallow the plotline that sends Brody to Gettysburg to take the tailor who made his bomb vest to a safe house. Brody is supposed to be Abu Nazir's secret weapon; his access to CIA officials and the Vice President are key to Nazir's desire to exact revenge on the U.S. Why would he risk putting him out in public with someone the CIA is chasing, especially in a car with a license plate that could be linked to Brody?

Lewis, as usual, was a whirlwind of mad-eyed intensity, panting and sweating as he got ever more bloody and dirty and the situation spiraled out of control. Nevertheless, those scenes marked the first time that I ever laughed at something I wasn't meant to on the show.

And then...two episodes later came one called "Q&A," written by the late, great Henry Bromell. Brody is arrested and spends most of the hour facing Claire Danes's Carrie in an interrogation room. It showed the series at its best. Lewis has got to be one of the most convincing criers on TV, and his scenes with Danes are riveting.

So I'm back in love with Homeland--and also with the person who created the promo above, which beautifully conveys the enigma that is Brody and Carrie's fascination with him--at least until the next DVD arrives from Netflix.

Romeo the Right Way

Daphne Rubin-Vega and Elizabeth Olsen in Romeo & Juliet.

CSC's nervy, nontraditional Romeo & Juliet, which I caught at a Sunday matinee a month after I saw the current Broadway revival, is a welcome surprise. I didn't expect it to be universally embraced, but I'm surprised it was lambasted by so many critics. I'll take Bosnian director Tea Alagic's carefully conceived interpretation over the one full of sound and fury that's on Broadway.

Don't Go to New York, Young Playwright

Christine Toy Johnson and Bernardo Cubria in Philip Goes Forth.

The scion of a wealthy family moves to New York to become a playwright. That's the premise of George Kelly's Philip Goes Forth, as well as the dramatist's own biography. But while things went well for Kelly—who wrote The Torch-Bearers, The Show-Off and won a Pulitzer for Craig's Wife, in addition to being Grace's uncle—Philip's fortunes go in a different (and not especially interesting) direction.

A Hell of Blessing's Making

Edward James Hyland and David Deblinger in User's Guide.

How can a play that features a 9/11 terrorist fucking a Ponzi-scheme master in ass be as tame and trite as Lee Blessing's A User's Guide to Hell, featuring Bernard Madoff? Given the current state of U.S.-Russia relations, Project Y Theatre might have had more success reviving the Tony-nominated author's much more considerate A Walk in the Woods.

You can watch a scene from the original production, starring Sam Waterston and Robert Prosky, starting at 5:50.

Past Doesn't Come Alive

Tony Naumovski and Elizabeth Jasicki in Final Analysis.

Should I ever be lucky enough to get on the TARDIS, time-travel back to early-20th-century Vienna, and meet Freud, Mahler and others of their ilk, I would hope they wouldn't be as dull as they seem in the Off Broadway play Final Analysis.