It is, however, lots of fun.

Benjamin Walker plays Jackson–the seventh President of the United States–as a strutting, hip-swinging statesman, a real cock-of-the-walk. (If Elvis ever went to Washington, this is what he would look like.) In broadly funny strokes, his early years are brought to life: first as the son of Injun-hating parents (who are quickly dispatched, in slapstick fashion, early on), then as the young populist who takes the plunge into politics in order to help the common (read: white) man. Soon he’s negotiating with the Indians, grabbing land back from the Spaniards–who have themselves taken over a chunk of the South–and up to his bleary eyeballs in all the problems that you would expect a busy nineteenth-century Chief Executive to have to face.

The whole thing could have been played out as the driest of history lessons, but it isn’t. Instead, it’s played almost entirely for comedy, and the people surrounding him are portrayed not as characters, but caricatures, particularly the power brokers in Washington, who are–all of them–buffoons. (Were the writers making a point about the state of affairs in D.C. today? Probably) Only at the end do the laughs stop and the serious questions about Jackson’s presidency begin: already in trouble for some of the decisions he’s made–chief among them the blatant land grab that led to the displacement of countless Cherokees–he finds himself wondering, as do we: could he have handled it all in a less hateful, less harmful way?

Walker is excellent–young, trim tousle-haired, he begins his macho posturing even before the first number is performed, and until the script demands it, never stops. His supporting cast shines, too, some of them even tackling instruments and joining the rockin’ onstage band. The score by Michael Friedman is exciting, the direction by Alex Timbers (who also penned the book) keeps things moving almost as fast as the rise and fall of Jackson’s meteoric political career, and the set–featuring, among other things, a slew of spectacular chandeliers hanging over the heads of the audience and portraits of grim-faced men, no doubt Jackson’s contemporaries, adorning the walls–was every bit as eye-catching as the frenetic action onstage.

“Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” might not be quite as much of a blast as some other rock-influenced musicals–”The Rocky Horror Show” and “Return to the Forbidden Planet” come to mind–but at only ninety minutes (without an intermission), it goes by in a snap.

A rumor is circulating that it might be moving to Broadway, but you never know.

THEATER REVIEW by Stuart R. Brynien

A hard-charging lawyer from New England struggles with demands made by her Indian heritage while forever fighting the perception that all dark-skinned people with foreign accents are terrorists, a late forty-something African-American woman just wants to go home to the South, but instead gets caught up in what she perceives is racially-based con game at a local garage (a tale told in the tradition of Ulysses); and a 23 year-old girl from Taiwan (and recent American citizen) happily imagines how her life will turn out, but is stymied on how to go after what she wants, as she contemplates her own experiences with racial injustice.

These three inward journeys, all dealing with racial immigration and integration, appear together under the umbrella title of Three American Women: A Trilogy. Loosely connected with one another, these stories, written by Lori Marra and directed by Vincent Scott, will begin performances on July 13 at the June Havoc Theatre, located at 312 West 36th Street, as part of the Eleventh Annual Midtown International Theatre Festival.

“What drew me to these stories was the dark thread of irony running through each of them,” director Scott explained. These are women who are initially in a place of finally getting what they want, be it having a career, to be able to go home, or just being able to glide through life, when circumstances, or their own inactivity, threaten to destroy all they believe is rightfully theirs. The big question, of course, is how they react to these situations.”

The three individual pieces are entitled “Indian Summer,” “Hold Up At The Continental Garage,” and “Maid-en Taiwan,” and feature Paulina Brahm, Nalini Sharma, Iftiaz Haroon, Antoinette Dailey, James Heaphy,* Masha Mendieta and Jarett Karlsberg. Three American Women is an Equity Showcase.

With writings that cross several genres, including a book of prayers for animals, short stories, poetry, and technical papers, Lori Marra began her career as a playwright in 1999. This year, her full-length play, Mystic Castle, about serial killer Arthur Shawcross, won top honors at Geva Theatre’s Regional Writers Showcase Last year, Hold Up At The Continental Garage ran at the American Theatre of Actors and Manhattan Repertory Theatre in NYC. Her work No Smoking premiered at the Guernsey Amateur Dramatic and Operatic Club in the U.K. in 2006 and was seen at the Spokane Civic Theatre in 2007. Rochester’s Spotlight Theatre has produced three of her works, including the comedy Indaba. The Italian-American Community Center in Rochester recently named Lori the Italian-American Woman of the Year in the Arts. A member of the Dramatists Guild, her current work Dinosaur Man, centers on an elderly Italian grappling with growing old. For more information, go to www.lorimarra.com.

Vincent Scott most recently directed Two Alone Too Together by Peter Welch at Theatre for the New City. This is his second year at the MITF, having helmed The American Black Box last summer. Other New York directing credits include Hold Up At The Continental Garage (American Theatre of Actors, Manhattan Repertory Theater Festival), A Trip to the Orient, Barbed Wire, Blithe Spirit, Aesop Rocks, Waiting for Lefty, The Dining Room, Dillon, The Wager, Laundry and Bourbon, Line, The Indian Wants The Bronx (the last three at the 13th Street Theatre) and House, an original opera. He has also directed productions for Theater Rapport Company in Los Angeles, the Joan White Theater School in London and Trinity College in Dublin.
The Midtown International Theatre Festival, now in its eleventh year, welcomes theatrical storytelling across a broad spectrum of genres, forms, identities, cultures, and appetites. The MITF seeks to nurture these new ideas, perspectives, and stories on its stages, with an eye set on guiding these productions toward future success and longevity. The MITF proudly hosts production companies from across the country and around the globe, uniting talent in one of the biggest theatre capitals in the world. For more information, go to www.midtownfestival.org

Running from July 13th to August 1st, Three American Women will be performed at the June Havoc Theatre, located at 312 West 36th Street (between 8th & 9th Avenues) on the first floor. Show times are: Tuesday, July 13th at 8pm, Friday, July 16th at 5pm, Sunday, July 18th at 2:30pm, Saturday, July 24th at 5pm, Tuesday, July 27th at 6pm, Saturday, July 31st at 8pm and Sunday, August 1st at 3pm. Tickets to all shows are $18.00, $15.00 for students and seniors. Reservations: at 866-811-4111 or www.midtownfestival.org. Running time for Three American Women is 90 minutes.

Members of the press are invited to all performances.

* * *

Information for Listing Editors

WHAT:
Three American Women: A Trilogy
Written by Lori Marra
Directed by Vincent Scott
Assistant Director: Reuben Goldman
Original Music composed by Christian McLeer
Stage Manager: Charles Casano
Producer: Harold Dow
Part of the Eleventh Annual Midtown International Theatre Festival

Featuring:
Paulina Brahm, Nalini Sharma, Iftiaz Haroon, Antoinette Dailey, James Heaphy,* Masha Mendieta, and Jarett Karlsberg. The production is an Equity Showcase.

Synopsis:
A lawyer from New England is pressured to by her traditional Indian family to follow the demands of her heritage; a late forty-something African-American woman encounters what she is sure is a racially-based con game at a local garage; and a newly-minted American citizen from Taiwan knows exactly what she wants to happen with her life, but has no real plan to make any of it come true. The stories (all very loosely connected) form a trilogy of tales looking at racial immigration and integration in the United States with the specter of prejudice always present. Part of the Eleventh Annual Midtown International Theatre Festival.

WHERE:
June Havoc Theater
312 West 36th Street (between 8th & 9th Avenues)
1st Floor

Please note: the theatre is wheelchair accessible

WHEN:
July 13th-August 1st
Tuesday, July 13th at 8pm
Friday, July 16th at 5pm
Sunday, July 18th at 2:30pm
Saturday, July 24th at 5pm
Tuesday, July 27th at 6pm
Saturday, July 31st at 8pm
Sunday, August 1st at 3pm

TICKETS:
$18.00, $15.00 for students and seniors.

RESERVATIONS:
866-811-4111 or www.midtownfestival.org

SUBWAY INFO:
Take the A, C, E, 1, 2 or 3 train to 34th Street

* – member of Actors’ Equity

Now, “Iron Man II” has exploded onto our screens, and, in the hands of returning director Jon Favreau, it’s still got all the depth of a curbside puddle, all the razzmatazz of the comic book.

Unfortunately, it’s also got a couple of disappointing villains, some truly cringe-worthy scenes, and the kind of lame repartee between Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) and his pals that’s supposed to sound witty, but instead comes across as just a whole lot of improvised filler.

In other words, unlike the Armored Avenger’s remarkably accurate laser blasts, it misses the mark by a mile.

Reprising his role as Stark, Robert Downey Jr. is, once again, the master of the underplayed moment, the throwaway line, the lightning-fast quip. He’s still fun to watch, although–as usual–it’s when he’s zooming around in the old red-and-gold that the movie really (and literally) takes off.

Acclaimed film vet Don Cheadle is Colonel Jim Rhodes, Tony’s best friend and confidant who eventually dons a second suit of armor and joins Tony as the aptly-named, weapons-laden War Machine. Cheadle does his best, but it’s hard to watch him play second banana here and not believe he’s merely slumming. (It could be argued that Downey is, too, and has been since the first installment, but at least he gets to play the lead.)

If anyone is truly slumming, though, it’s Mickey Rourke as Russian-physicist-turned-Stark-nemesis Ivan Vanko, aka Whiplash. Obsessed with killing Stark after the death of his father (whom he is convinced Stark’s own father destroyed) he builds a suit to rival Tony’s and goes after him with a vengeance. Unfortunately, fresh off his turn in “The Wrestler”, this time around Rourke is all puffy face, corny Boris Badanov accent, and mysterious lopsided smile. He hasn’t much to do here, and even less to say; indeed, we see so little of him after awhile that he might as well have been written out of the script altogether.

Faring even worse is Sam Rockwell as Stark’s business rival and eventual Whiplash booster Justin Hammer, an arrogant, fast-talking little twerp who made us wish that Steve Buscemi had been offered the role…and accepted it. Buscemi, at least, would have given the character just the right amount of crazed malevolence. Rockwell merely comes across as a spoiled brat with a Napoleonic complex who thinks he has all the power in the world because he’s managed to bully a few kids out of their lunch money. In the first movie, uber-villain Jeff Bridges had an aura of menace about him, a gravitas; Hammer is the kind of smarmy bad guy you just want to slap all the way back to his limo.

Gwyneth Paltrow does what she can as Tony’s assistant–and, early on, hand-picked successor–Pepper Potts; Scarlett Johansson has little to do but look beautiful–and then, super-tough–as Tony’s new assistant, who eventually turns out to have as many kick-ass moves as…well, that foul-mouthed little girl from “Kick-Ass”; and director Favreau even injects himself into the action occasionally as Tony’s obedient chauffeur, Happy Hogan.

Tony, every inch the rock star and media darling, turns a Senate hearing on weapons-making into his own personal circus (if anyone in real life behaved that way, they would have locked him up and thrown away the key)…in full battle regalia, he gets drunk at a party (his “secret identity” is actually no secret, at all) and Rhodes, as War Machine, has to step in and save him…SHIELD head honcho Nick Fury (an underutilized Samuel L. Jackson) actually meets with Tony at a donut shop, of all places…the silliness just never ends.

Bottom line: Who would have thought this once-promising franchise would be showing signs of rust so soon?

FILM REVIEW by Stuart R. Brynien

By the time they return from the meeting at the start of the second act (they went off to it–finally!–at the end of the first), their parenting skills have been called into question, their devotion to each other is in doubt, and a social worker is due to visit them the following morning because Jessica, apparently, has told her teacher that Judy is not quite the ideal parent.

As the temperature in the room rises yet again–he accuses her of pandering to their daughter, when she pays any attention to her, at all; she accuses him of shouting at the child without reason, spanking her without restraint, of too often coming within one slap to the rump of being an “unfit Dad”–it becomes clear that not only do they have issues with their daughter, but also with each other. Thought-provoking questions bubble to the surface like lava: What IS excessive punishment when you’re disciplining your child? What DO you tell Child Welfare Services when they come knocking on your door the next day? Do you lie in order to keep the family intact (Michael is afraid that Jessica will be taken away from them), or do you tell the truth, “talk things out” as Judy puts it, and hope for the best?

Nicholson, as Judy, starts off slowly–chained to the bed for most of the first act, she has very little to do early on–but acquires some much-needed intensity in Act II, when you can see her anger, her hostility, her steely resolve.

Waterston, unfortunately, starts off lamely and–in the big second act showdown–mistakes histrionics for acting, shouting for emoting. We understand that he’s a yeller and a bit of a blowhard; playwright Bathsheba Doran hammers that home for a good part of the evening–but once he starts, there’s no respite from it, no change. He’s on the offensive, she’s on the defensive, and like a one-sided and ultimately boring boxing match, it goes on like that for far too long.

Bottom line: If you enjoy playing Peeping Tom, and watching married couples fight–over their child, over their affection for each other, over anything–then “Parents’ Evening” is the play for you.

Otherwise, this lackluster production–from the title on down–merits a “C” at most…on anyone’s report card.

THEATER REVIEW by Stuart R. Brynien

Stage vet Norbert Leo Butz plays Jeffrey Skilling, the money-hungry, ego-driven mastermind of the billion dollar scheme who, at the beginning of the play, is just a nebbishy Enron accountant but is soon taking over as president and COO. Butz undergoes a remarkable transformation: as the company starts to rake in the dough he begins to trim down, firm up (even as his bank account fattens up), and radiate confidence as surely as the sun radiates heat. (There’s even a scene on a treadmill that Butz–lean and mean in a form-fitting gym suit–manages to pull off without even breaking a sweat; the Skilling we saw at the beginning of the play would have needed paramedics and an oxygen tank.)

Butz, as Skilling, tosses around his macho mantras like a guy trying out pick-up lines at a bar: life in the cutthroat world of big business is all about the survival of the fittest; businessmen vs. the bureaucrats determined to regulate them is simply a contest between “greed (even he’ll admit that) vs. ineptitude”; morality has no place in the corporate world.

It was Skilling’s show, his brainchild–according to Prebble, he pulled the strings; everyone around him was merely a puppet–which was precisely why he came crashing down the hardest and most painfully of all…while Ken Lay, the company’s founder and CEO, who gave Skilling the keys to the kingdom, died before he could begin serving his own prison sentence. Skilling had no such luck: ratted out by the men and women who worked for him, reduced in Prebble’s docudrama to staggering around in the street yelling at hookers, he was eventually sentenced to twenty to twenty-five years in prison. Unapologetic to the end, defiant even in defeat, Skilling paid the price for the billions of dollars he cost his employees and stockholders, and for Enron’s headfirst dive into bankruptcy.

Butz, who is never anything less than entertaining, is very good. The manic energy is still there, and you still wait for him to flash his musical comedy chops and break into song now and then (and though “Enron” is by no means a musical, there are some darkly funny song-and-dance numbers to enjoy), but he is, indisputably, the cold-hearted, avaricious Jeffrey Skilling. In smaller roles as his chief enablers, Gregory Itzin (of TV’s “24″) and Stephen Kunken–Ken Lay and CFO Andy Fastow, respectively–do fine work, too, as does Marin Mazzie as Claudia Roe, Skilling’s one-time squeeze and principal business rival whom he eventually convinces Lay to fire.

The real second banana, though, is the set, with the single word–ENRON–looming over the action for much of the opening act, and endless stock quotes streaming across the rear wall (high at the beginning, disastrously low at the end) most of the rest of the way. If the action weren’t so compelling–and it was; the two-and-a quarter hours flew by faster than you can say, “Where’s my money?”–we probably would have been perfectly happy enjoying the imaginative visuals that director Rupert Goold and his crackerjack team of designers had created.

In fact, what “Enron” lacks in heart (if it had been about the victims of the scam, it would have had plenty of heart–we would have had characters to root for, at least–but it focuses instead on the perpetrators, which makes for another kind of show altogether), it makes up for in pure spectacle.

It also, of course, serves as a cautionary tale about what can happen when crooks control the purse strings.

THEATRE REVIEW by Stuart R. Brynien

We caught up recently with the show’s emcee, Matt Alspaugh–a bookshop staffer (hey, even Clark Kent had a day job) and stand-up comic in his own right–and talked to him about acting, comedy, stage fright, and how important it is to check yourself out before you go onstage.

VIVA: How did you get started in comedy?
ALSPAUGH: I guess I was always into making people laugh… I remember watching Mel Brooks and Woody Allen movies with my father. Then I had these “public speaking” jobs–I was a tour guide in college, a substitute teacher for awhile–and I found myself resorting to humor every now and then. One day, I just decided that I’d like to get paid to make people laugh.

V: Is your father a funny guy?
A: He’s funny to me! He uses humor as a kind of self-defense mechanism. If there’s an awkward pause in a conversation, for example, he’ll always tell a joke.

V: Were you the class clown?
A: I got picked on a lot in grammar school. Having a sense of humor kept me going… I remember I wrote a story about my Irish heritage… It was about the “McDougal” family. I read it to the class in this real bad Irish accent. They liked it so much, I was told to go read it to other classes! Soon, I was taking “requests”–kids were asking me to do other funny voices. That’s when I started doing impressions.

V: You’ve also been an actor. What’s harder, acting or stand-up?
A: Acting, because I was always wondering if I was doing it right. There are so many different techniques, so many different notions–it was hard to figure out where I fit in. With comedy, I know I fit in.

V: So even as an actor, you preferred doing comedy?
A: Yes. Drama was always very hard for me. My best experiences as an actor were always when everyone was collaborating on a comedy.

V: The age-old question: what’s harder, comedy or tragedy?
A: It’s harder to be dramatic, because I don’t always have a lot of sympathy for the character I’m playing. In drama, you’ve got to be honest and open with your character, and that’s very hard to do… In comedy, as difficult as it is, there’s a reward–the laugh… If you’re a control freak, I think, you’re probably more into comedy.

V: Writing or performing?
A: Writing. Most of the time, you feel like you’re spinning your wheels. When you’re performing, though, once you’re up there, you’re up there.

V: Now that you mention it, have you ever had stage fright?
A: Oh, yeah–before I go up there, I definitely feel stage fright. I think, what if this joke doesn’t land, what if that joke doesn’t land…

V: How do you overcome it?
A: By focusing on the laugh, and thinking about what I’m working on. Using a baseball analogy, I treat each gig as batting practice, not an actual at-bat. I also try to have a sense of humor about the whole thing. I try to minimize it–to take my work seriously, but not myself. Never myself. Know something, though? It’s still nerve-wracking.

V: Describe your writing process.
A: I write on the subway. Whenever I think of something funny, I write it on a scrap of paper, so that later I can try to break it down–figure out why it’s funny. Over a day, I’ll write for an hour or more, but it’s twenty minutes here, half-an-hour there… And sometimes it’s frustrating. You could end up working for a long time on the wrong joke. That’s when you’ve just got to step back… Seinfeld once said that the most important thing for a stand-up is the ability to sit down and write… Comics are very bright people, very astute.

V: How about your rehearsal process?
A: I was rehearsing a piece on my way here!…I rehearse at home, too. This one rehearsal… I’d booked a ten-minute gig at a club. That’s a lot of material. Problem was, it wasn’t just one ten-minute gig. It was two five-minute gigs. I didn’t know that. They didn’t tell me… I don’t work in front of a mirror. I try to stay very self-aware, keep a mental notepad. I like to try stuff out on my friends and co-workers, sometimes. I’m a very visual person, too, so if I can see the words on a page, it’s much easier for me to memorize them.

V: What is life like for a young stand-up?
A: Frustrating. You give yourself the responsibility of trying to figure out what humor is. Yet you’ve got to keep it simple, and try to decide what you like about a joke, what makes it funny.

V: Your opinion of open mics?
A: You’ve gotta use them, but you can’t be totally dependent on them. Plus, clubs rotate their open mic schedules all the time. That’s why it’s nice to know that every Monday night, there’s an open mic here at the store at nine o’clock.

V: You do a lot of open mics?
A: For rehearsal. I also do “bringer” shows, where I have to bring my own audience.

V: Tell me about your worst stand-up experience.
A: I went up to the mic, and my fly was down… I had just gone to the bathroom. It’s a good lesson–always check your fly before you go onstage. Now I always, always, always check to see if my fly is open. That night, I couldn’t see the audience–I was under the lights, and they were in the dark–but I could feel that they weren’t with me, at all. I finally get offstage and this guy says to me, “Yo–your fly was down.”

V: How about your best?
A: In general, the times I’ve hosted here, and gone off on something that someone else said, turning it into my own joke.

V: What was your worst experience hosting the show here at the shop?
A: This one woman came on and just ranted at the audience. It disheartens me to see comics using the stage as a platform for social change. You don’t want an open mic in which people do badly because they came in with the wrong intentions.

V: Favorite old-time comic?
A: Richard Pryor.

V: New comic?
A: Ted Alexandro.

V: What do you think of working blue?
A: If that’s your shtick, and you can get a laugh…but I don’t do it.

V: Insult comics?
A: A good comic sees what the audience brings to his act–a great comic capitalizes on it.

V: Gimmick or prop comics?
A: They need to die!…No, seriously–it’s almost like they’re hiding behind stuff, rather than exposing themselves. .. Prop comics are remembered for the stuff they do, not for their perspective on things.

V: Ever been heckled?
A: Not by a fan. By another comic! I did a joke about Ricky Martin coming out of the closet, and this guy in the audience, a comic, said, “He really did? Wow! You lying?”

V: Let’s look ahead a few years. You’re a huge success. Lots of big-time comics end up doing sitcoms. What would be the ideal sitcom for you?
A: A combination of “Seinfeld”, “The Simpsons”, “Arrested Development”, and “The Office”. They all have lots of characters, but each show has an underlying intelligence, too. I enjoyed moments of “Everybody Loves Raymond”, but I never liked the way everything always worked out. I like comedies where everything doesn’t always work out.

V: Finally–heard any good jokes, lately?
A: I’ve got two. I just wrote them… You know, my Dad is retired now and living in Florida. I was really happy for him, until I found out that now, it’s MY responsibility to call HIM. And every time I call him, I ask the same thing: “What are you doing?” And he always says, “Aw, nothin’–just drinkin’ and watchin’ TV”… And every time I hear him say that, I think, “Wait a minute. When you’re drunk and doing nothing, isn’t it your job to call me?”
One more. I just read this in the paper. If you’ve got $6,000, you can book a ten-minute sitdown with Robert DeNiro at the Kennedy Center in DC. Only problem is, he doesn’t say much, so you won’t be talking with him, you’ll be talking to him. And he isn’t doing it for charity, either. He’s doing it as part of his research for his next movie… “THE WORLD’S BIGGEST IDIOT”!

(The Drama Bookshop is at 250 W. 40th Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues, and can be reached at 212-944-0595. Matt Alspaugh can be contacted there, or at 203-217-8355.)

For most of the movie–even as he’s trying to shake off the effects of these horrifying, mind-bending episodes–he’s also trying to solve the mystery: What DID happen to the woman? How could she have wandered off, past all the doctors and attendants and guards? And why do the doctors in charge of the place (ably played by Ben Kingsley and Max von Sydow) appear to be so intent on stonewalling him?

Ah, if only the answers didn’t turn out to be so predictable (we’ll leave it at that–there’ll be no spoilers here); and if only Scorcese didn’t take so long (in excess of two hours) to reveal them. The whole thing looked a tad too artsy as well, with one dream sequence featuring black ash falling on DiCaprio and his doomed wife like coal-colored confetti, and another treating us to the incongruous sight of reams of paper swirling about a doctor’s office like hundreds of frightened birds. DiCaprio is fine as an Everyman at the end of a very short and very frayed rope–and, in a much smaller role, Mark Ruffalo does yeoman-like work as his partner…but “Shutter Island” isn’t DiCaprio’s movie, or Ruffalo’s, or Kingsley’s or von Sydow’s–it’s Scorcese’s, from first overloaded frame to the last.

But is the movie scary, at least? Well, let’s put it this way: when a film is set in a looney bin, and the scares are as scarce and the jolts as infrequent as they are here, then there’s something wrong. Scorcese had a chance to make a truly frightening picture, and settled for a mostly engrossing, but ultimately plodding and disappointing one, instead.

Bottom line: visit “Shutter Island” if you like–just don’t expect to lose any sleep over it.

The stuff of nightmares it’s not.

FILM REVIEW by Stuart R. Brynien

The Story Pirates’ specialty is turning the stories submitted to them by grade schoolers (some as young as six or seven) into exciting–and funny–performance numbers, complete with lyrics, music, choreography and costumes. A recent show featured a mix of the new and the old, as the Pirates premiered three new stories to go along with a handful of older favorites. To the delight of everyone, parent and child alike, the stage was taken over by roaring dinosaurs, nasty frog goblins, prank-playing grannies and talking socks. Costumes were casual but colorful, the songs were tuneful (“Why Would You Do What A Dog Does?”, a song about a little boy who’s just a tad too eager to mimic the family pooch, was among the catchier ones), and serving as the “narrators” were a couple of puppets who would have been right at home with Kermit and Miss Piggy.

To cap it all off (the show runs about an hour, without an intermission), the Pirates came out and improvised a story, “Whose Line Is It Anyway”-style, “written” by the kids in the audience. (To the best of our recollection, it had to do with thirsty monsters, bottles of soda, and cauldrons of boiling hot water. Confused? The kids weren’t–including our seven-year-old daughter, who sat glued to her seat throughout.)

Bottom line: if you’re looking for some good, clean family entertainment, go see the Striking Viking Story Pirates at the Drama Book Shop. And if you have a budding Shakespeare on your hands, send in your kid’s story because, who knows–you just might see it on stage one day!

THEATRE REVIEW by Stuart R. Brynien

The story is a familiar one: born normal, but turned deaf and blind after an early bout of scarlet fever, Helen grows into, quite literally, a “wild child”–uncontrollable, uncommunicative, and, for the most part, unwanted…even by her parents. It is the 1880s, and there aren’t a whole lot of things that can be done with her. Torn between institutionalizing her–which their older son James is adamantly in favor of–and seeking help for her at home, they eventually decide on the latter, and hire young Annie Sullivan to tutor her…if she can.

Annie, of course, brings her own physical and emotional baggage to the Keller family table–she has only recently had her own sight restored, having been blind for a number of years herself, and is haunted every day by horrifying memories of the orphanage in which she and her younger brother grew up–and for most of the play she finds herself engaged in the most delicate kind of balancing act, as she tries to fulfill Helen’s needs even as she struggles to meet her own. The give-and-take, tug-of-war relationship between teacher and pupil is gritty, angry, and raw; Annie senses there is something deep inside Helen–an intelligence worth sharing–that she must somehow coax out of her. But Helen is an unwilling partner at best, and the question soon becomes: does Annie have the strength to succeed?

In the role of Helen–one of the most challenging ever devised for the stage–Abigail Breslin is excellent, all thrashing limbs and inarticulate rage nearly all the time. Equally as tricky is the part of Annie, who almost never leaves the stage and is nearly always accompanied by young Helen; by necessity, Annie has all the lines–it’s a high-wire act of the highest order, a role that requires a tour-de-force performance every night, and Alison Pill pulls it off beautifully. Kudos, too, to film vet Matthew Modine as Captain Keller, Helen’s newspaper publisher father, a man who works with words, understands the importance of words, yet is convinced he is doomed never to hear his own daughter utter a single one. Modine is beleaguered in some scenes, bombastic in others, and never anything less than believable…as is his wife, the frightened but far more fair-minded Kate Keller (it is she who decides to give Annie the chance she deserves), who is ably played by Jennifer Morrison (co-star of TV’s “House”).

Of course, everything leads up to the big breakthrough at the end, the moment at the water pump when Helen reveals that she has learned much more than anyone–even Annie–had thought. It’s a moving moment in a real tear-jerker of a production, and in case you’ve been sitting there wondering: Why revive THIS play? Why NOW?–it does a fine job of providing you with the answer.

In show biz parlance, “The Miracle Worker” has “legs”–it’s a survivor–and it has lasted long enough to stand tall as one of the most memorable plays ever written.

Sadly, dramas–especially ones as serious as “The Miracle Worker”–don’t run for long. This production is scheduled to close April 4th.

Don’t miss it.

THEATER REVIEW by Stuart R. Brynien

That’s the wafer-thin plot of French playwright Yasmina Reza’s 2009 Tony-winning comedy, “God of Carnage” and, by evening’s end, we have indeed witnessed carnage–mostly of the emotional kind. Before their chat is over, tempers explode, accusations are hurled about like poisoned darts, marital bonds are ripped to shreds–and nobody is any the wiser as to WHAT might have happened on that playground. (The boys themselves could probably shed some light on the matter, but they’re nowhere to be seen.)

It takes a little while for the action to get underway–the first fifteen minutes or so are pure set-up, as the two couples, like a pair of boxers, circle and jab, circle and jab, trying to feel each other out–but once it does: duck. All the actors had their moments, but the undisputed star (at least on the evening we saw it; by now, the cast has changed yet again) was stage and TV vet Christine Lahti as the hyper-intense, ranting and raving, delightfully over-the-top Veronica. As her quieter, more respectable husband Michael–desperate for much of the evening to rein her in but largely unable to–British actor Ken Stott was very good; Jimmy Smits as Alan, the smug, self-satisfied lawyer who enjoys a closer relationship with his cherished cellphone than with his own wife (keep an eye on that cellphone, by the way; it plays such an important role in the action, it might as well have been credited in the program), was excellent; and Annie Potts as Alan’s wife Annette, who has the misfortune early on of puking in the wrong direction (yes, puking) was alternately vulnerable and feisty, weak and wrathful, and altogether much, much bigger than her diminutive size would suggest.

If shows about marital warfare are your cup of tea–or for that matter, plays about the perils of parenting–see “God of Carnage”. Thanks to Matthew Warchus’ crisp direction, a taut script by Reza, and the wonderfully funny, no-holds-barred relationships among the characters, it’s the fastest-moving (intermission-free!) ninety minutes on Broadway.

THEATER REVIEW by Stuart R. Brynien