Hola! My time in NYC is rapidly coming to a close, and because of an intense schedule of performances and research, it's been difficult to get to the internet cafe to update y'uns on my travels. So I'll just get down and dirty with 3 quick show recaps, with more to come soon.

SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE
music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Lapine
directed by Sam Buntrock
featuring Daniel Evans and Jenna Russell
Studio 54

As I approached seeing the new multimedia revival of Sunday in the Park, to quote Mr. S., I was quite "excited and scared." Since I directed the piece several years ago at New Stage with a similar production concept and a production that was very personal, seeing this revival was a bit like going to watch your child who has been adopted by someone else perform material personal to you.

Suffice it to say, the experience lacked that transcendant feeling that so many artists have gotten from this piece, which we treat a bit like attending church. Visually, the production looked sensational, with a stunning forced perspective set, award-worthy lighting and projections sumptuously rendered (just guess how jealous I was seeing real money and a team of designer's culmination of a similar vision to mine!), although at times the specific figures projected (the dogs, the solider) seemed a bit too SIMlike rather than Seuratesque.

The performances and the staging were a different matter. Daniel Evans and Jenna Russell have traveled with this production from across the pond in London, where it was a major hit. However, the British sensiblity has infected the entire production with...well, dullness. For me, Sunday is about tension, sexual and otherwise, which never seemed to appear onstage. While Evans and Russell at least had a relationship and comfortability on stage with each other, they didn't have the inner life to truly bring the music and words of this incredible masterpiece to life.

The Americans that rounded out the cast have seemed to be directed to be as dull and uninnovative as possible. Truly talented performers all, they seem to have been encouraged to only make warmed-over attempts at characterizations similar to the original production, preserved like the 10 Commandments for all eternity on film for every future production to be measured up against. And director Sam Buntrock's staging lacks build and tension, instead making the piece a pastoral, drafty affair.

You may gather that I feel that this production was...well, bad. That's not it. It's a very reverent, visually stunning revival. But it lacks life and power, and that hurts just as much.

SPEECH & DEBATE
by Stephen Karam
directed by Jason Moore
featuring Sarah Steele and Gideon Glick
Roundabout Underground

The Roundabout Theatre Company has a new play developmental initiative, and have opened a new underground 62 seat black box theatre for the development and presentation of new plays. This teeny but swanky theatre with about 10 foot high ceilings, opened this fall with Speech & Debate, which has extended it's run several times due to ticket demand.

The play is a fantastic gem of current high school life, written by a 20 something playwright who clearly has a papable knowledge of the innerworkings of high school dorkdom. Directed with a daringly so-almost-affected-but-true acting style by Jason Moore (Avenue Q) with creative use of chalkboard projections, this comedy of getting back at the man while struggling epically with your own identity is both honest and hysterical. It's closing on February 24th, and well worth the cheap ticket price ($20 bucks!)

SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND
music by Mark Mulachy, libretto by Ben Katchor
directed by Bob McGrath
featuring Peter Friedman and Bobby Steggert
Vineyard Theatre

Well, it was bound to happen. I caught an early preview of a new multimedia musical on Sunday, and it was the first truly, banally bad production of the trip. The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island, or the Friends of Doctor Rushower is the newest musical by cartoonist Ben Katchor, whose work has appeared in several print publications, including the New Yorker.

The show features a sung through score composed by Mark Mulachy, a folkish rockish musician who's single known credit to me was writing the theme song from Nickelodeon's Pete & Pete. His idea of composition is to a make a single musical figure for one measure and repeat it endlessly with repetitive, non-insightful lyrics Katchor sung over it.

This two hour musical verges on absurdism, and a plot so inane and (deliberately) inconsequential that it is neither affecting nor amusing. Katchor's cartoons are projected througout the entire show as the setting, and frankly aren't amusing nor interesting.

Oy. The poor performers.