Lear

Grade: B-


Photo: Sara Krulwich

Written and Directed by Young Jean Lee. At Soho Rep through February 6

Young Jean Lee's latest has sold out its initial run and been extended, all before the reviews came in. And what a mixed bag they are! From Matt Windman's outright disgust to Sam Thielman's glowing enthusiasm, it seems that Young Jean Lee's deconstructed take on the younger generation of protagonists from Shakespeare's tragedy is a bit of a rorschach test. David Cote's review in Time Out makes for juicy reading, given that he folds into a defense of the play an impassioned argument for what he believes theatre in America should be.

Variety A-
(Sam Thielman) Meanwhile, back at the palace, everyone's trying to avoid discussing the way they blinded that one old man and kicked the other one out into the storm. Young Jean Lee's deceptively free-form "Lear" starts out as a bug's-eye view of Shakespeare's great tragedy, exploring some of the Bard's pettiest characters as they pick at each other during the moments they're not onstage in "King Lear." But as the show moves forward, Lee uses that play and some beautifully unconventional additions to flesh out Shakespeare's themes of loneliness, mortality and filial responsibility in gratifying and moving depth.

Time Out New York A-
(David Cote) In Lear, Young Jean Lee’s self-described “inaccurate distortion” of the classic, she banishes the title monarch and Gloucester to the wings and focuses on the younger generation: Goneril (Okpokwasili), Regan (Matthis), Cordelia (Workman), Edgar (Lazar) and Edmund (Simpson). The absurdist, meta-Shakespearean results are by turns irreverent, grotesque and morally harrowing. The writer-director and her outstanding actors plumb the depths of a bona fide existential crisis: hating unto death those who gave you life.

Village Voice B+
(Michael Feingold) Lee's Lear, it turns out, is indeed both inaccurate and distorted vis-à-vis the original. Its virtues come from its free-hearted willingness to pursue either path—inaccuracy in its version of Shakespeare's story or distortion in its effort to make that story fit the one Lee wants to tell. Its shortcomings, inevitably, stem from trying to follow both roads at once, ultimately shortchanging both Lee and her source. But the zigzagging route she takes to this ultimate failure is full of exhilarating, illuminating moments.

That Sounds Cool B+
(Aaron Riccio) Asking Lee "Hey, what's the big idea?" is exactly the point--what, in King Lear, is the big idea, and does it require any of King Lear, let alone Lear himself, to express it? Instead of struggling with the weight of Shakespeare, Lee chooses to follow the Buddhist leanings of her characters, which is to say: "When a thought runs into your head, you just label it thinking and it helps." So why not have Cordelia (Amelia Workman) whine about bedbugs? The subtext, at least, remains true to the biggest idea of all, the one secretly under all our thoughts: our mortality.

Gothamist B+
(John Del Signore) All in all, it's a slippery, elusive hour and a half, and though her Lear is ultimately baffling, Lee's digressive script is executed with hilarious precision by her all-star ensemble, comprised of some of downtown theater's brightest minds. There are moments of soulful contemplation about the pain of watching parents move closer to death, but the dominant motif is that of eccentric, stream-of-consciousness over-sharing. In the end, the non-narrative Lear dissolves into a verbatim reenactment of the 1983 Sesame Street episode in which Big Bird learns of Mr. Hooper's death. It's as strange and unexpected as it sounds, and while Lear might defy comprehension, it's never boring or predictable

TheaterMania B
(Patrick Lee) Thanks to stretches of textured poetic writing, the show's bizarre novelty, and the wow factor of David Evan Morris' set, the play steadfastly holds the audience's interest even if it's not always as thematically coherent or emotionally fulfilling as one would wish...There are wonderfully vivid flashes of savagery even in the characters' pleasantries -- Lee's gift for lacing language with startling juxtapositions keeps the ears open -- but the overwhelming selfishness of these characters wears thin very quickly in the deliberate absence of dramatic movement. The monologues, strikingly written and performed, afford us momentary glimpses into the depths of the characters' souls, but they are disconnected from the rest of the play's action by design.

Lighting and Sound America B-
(David Barbour) I'm sure there's a rigorous theory behind all this; watching it, however, I was dogged by the image of Young Jean Lee throwing ideas at a wall in order to see what would stick. Sad to say, many of her topics fall solidly into the "banal" category, and none of them are enlivened by their treatment here. It would be easier to dismiss Lear in its entirety if the production wasn't so accomplished.

Backstage C+
(Mitch Montgomery) Lee's able staging presents these detached children within the opulent confines of David Evans Morris and Roxana Ramseur's traditional Elizabethan scenic and costume design. Content to submerge themselves in the excellent fopperies of their lives (who looks fat, who looks old, who's not feminine enough anymore—any signs of age or decline that might one day get them thrown out into the storm), they come across with hilarious catty nastiness. But soon Lee's Shakespearean proxies dissolve, as though she has tired of the exercise, leaving the actors to play themselves in direct address to the audience. Though the cast members acquit themselves with sincerity in this transition, it proves too jarring a maneuver even for Lee, and the overall weight of her material feels diminished.

NYTimes D+
(Charles Isherwood) [an] intermittently funny but mostly flailing attempt to excavate new meanings from the consideration of a celebrated text. From perhaps the most imposing something in the theatrical canon, Ms. Lee has constructed a big, fat nothing...If you set aside any hopes that “Lear” will illuminate Shakespeare’s original, you can enjoy the lurches from loony lyricism to blunt contemporary speech. And there are a few affecting moments, in which we can see glimmers of Ms. Lee’s more general purpose, to write her own meditation on the painful fact of mortality, and the enveloping darkness from which we come and to which we will return.

NYDaily News D-
(Joe Dziemanowicz) It’s a cocky writer, or maybe just a foolhardy one, who crafts a scene in which an actor trots into the theater and pointedly asks the audience: “Is this really what you want to be doing with your life? Being here?” Playwright and director Young Jean Lee creates exactly such a moment in Lear at Soho Rep. And since she’s put the question out there, the answer is no way.

NYPost D-
(Frank Scheck) Lee, the playwright/director whose "The Shipment" was a scathing, periodically brilliant satire of race relations, seems to be foundering here. Although at times deeply felt, particularly in one wrenching monologue concerning the mortality of aging parents, "Lear" often undercuts its thematic ideas with silly provocations. After a while, the relentless onslaught of raunchy behavior, scatological language and period anachronisms is more tiresome than illuminating.

On Off Broadway F-
(Matt Windman) Few moments in drama are so emotionally wrenching as the final scene in "King Lear." Lear, Young Jean Lee's five-person adaptation of the tragedy, is also painful to endure, but in a very different way. You see, Lear is simply a really, really bad play.

V A- 12;TONY A- 12; TSC B+ 11; GOTH B+ 11; VV B+ 11; TM B 10; LSA B- 9; BS C+ 8; NYT D+ 5; NDN D- 3; NYP D- 3; OOB F- 0; TOTAL: 95 / 11 = 8.63 (B-)

Read On »

Rambo Solo

GRADE: B-

Conceived and Directed by Pavol Liska and Kelly Cooper. With Zachary Oberzan. (CLOSED)

Does the idea of someone talking about why he loves the book version of Rambo for 90 minutes thrill you or give you the howling fantods? In downtown darling Nature Theater of Oklahoma's new show, one man stands onstage discussing his love of Rambo while a triptych of videos shows him reenacting the book in his apartment. The critics are split on the show, with Variety and Time Out loving Rambo Solo and both finding surprising depths amidst the laughs, while The New York Times, Backstage, New Yorker and the Post find themselves increasingly infuriated at it.

Variety A
(Marilyn Stasio) Nature Theater of Oklahoma, which has forged a sharp, witty and utterly distinctive performance style from elements charitably called garbage, has hit the mother lode in Rambo Solo. Conceived and made flesh by company founders Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper, the idiosyncratic one-man piece is performed with hilarious conviction by Zachary Oberzan, whose maniacally funny (and quite touching) obsession with the story of "Rambo: First Blood" inspired the show. A snug fit at SoHo Rep, which collects all kinds of artistic oddities, the lunatic creation is enhanced by a meticulously filmed chronicle of Oberzan's Odyssean efforts to explain himself.

Time Out NY A
(Helen Shaw) As with their matchless No Dice, Nature Theater of Oklahoma's Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska have coaxed something profound and delightful out of an extemporaneous conversation—this time, company actor Zachary Oberzan's meticulous retelling of David Morrell's novel First Blood... The show winds up being a portrait of a lot of things besides the titular Green Beret, including the longueurs of an actor's life ("I…feel…listless and lethargic and useless and…fat"), the thrills of artistic mimicry and the formation of male identity.

OfOff Online A-
(Doug Strassler) Oberzan... completely immerses himself as the narrator with enough octane to fuel this avant garde monologue piece. He makes the speaker a three-dimensional man, odd enough to be hopelessly devoted to a dismissed pulp novel yet passionate enough to think that perhaps the work is worth re-examining. He makes his persona’s boneheadedness oddly lovable, and his exuberance absolutely contagious. After a while, the speaker’s gruff rhythms make the dialogue sound like its own kind of poetry.

Gothamist B+
(John Del Signore) At times, Oberzan reminds one of the excitable stoned geek whose rambling you indulge because he keeps passing around the primo herb. But there aren't any drugs proffered here; Oberzan pulls it off on the strength of his quirky charm and guileless passion for a beloved book, which he keeps onstage in a plastic bag. In fact, he's so persuasive that we're searching for a copy of our own, as soon as we finish working on our own magnum opus: Die Hard Solo. (For that, you'll definitely need drugs.)

Village Voice B+
(Alexis Soloski) Poignant and jocular...explores obsession, masculinity, and our reluctance to recognize how little we resemble our heroes. Oberzan admits that by the time he acquires the money to make a version of First Blood more faithful to the novel, he'll be too old to play its lead...But in a triumphant reversal, Oberzan discards such considerations and decides to make the film—which he has subsequently released—in which he plays all the roles and uses his tiny apartment for all the settings

TheaterMania B+
(Dan Bacalzo) Oberzan is an engaging and likable performer, and he provides an energetic retelling of the story of John Rambo, complete with mock fight sequences. Although the content and pacing of the actor's text is clearly set, he'll occasionally break into a smile or non-verbally acknowledge how people are responding to certain segments of the show. There's even a bit of audience participation. As with No Dice -- which revealed the poetry within the most banal, everyday conversations -- Rambo Solo walks a fine line between parody and sincerity. While the show contains plenty of humor, Oberzan presents an intelligent and insightful case, and you just may leave the theater agreeing that there really is far more to the story of First Blood than you ever thought possible.

NYMag B
(Dan Kois) The effect can be mesmerizing, and viewers will come away reminded of the power of even the cheapest myths. And though Oberzan and Nature Theater of Oklahoma—the avant-garde troupe that created this oddball piece—never quite elevate Rambo Solo past the level of accomplished stunt, it’s still a weird and touching testament to the potency of pop culture and the poetry of incoherence, an entertaining high-low crash that suggests a Wooster Group adaptation of the talk-backs on website Ain’t It Cool News.

That Sounds Cool B
(Aaron Riccio) Now, with Rambo Solo, Pavol Liska & Kelly Copper have seized upon company member Zachary Oberzan's obssession with Rambo (he made his own film Flooding with Love for the Kid), and in doing so, have recreated and refocused the idea of a "memory" play. Guided by audio cues and synchronized video footage of three "rehearsals" of this story (enacted within Oberzan's 220 sq. ft. apartment), every night is a recreation of Oberzan's original stream-of-consciousness remembering of reading David Morell's book, Rambo: First Blood. By emphasizing every awkward "um," every breathtaking pause (including the actor's bathroom break), and the naked honesty of Oberzan's self-correcting, the show not only avoids the Hollywood bullshit of the film, but manages to appropriate the theatrical bullshit so that while things are obviously staged and rehearsed, they are also honest and fresh.

American Theater Web B
(Andy Propst) It's a charming conceit that, thanks to Oberzan's winning performance, serves up more than its fair share of chuckles and smiles, even if one's never encountered the novel or Sylvester Stallone's interpretation of it, and the show's video finale, best left as a surprise, takes the piece to a point of wonderful hilarity.


CurtainUp B
(Jenny Sandman) The show is a literal blow-by-blow retelling of the story, complete with many vacant pauses——an "uh, " "um" or "you know" can turn into a hilarious moment, as you can almost see Oberzan's fanatic fan brain whirring along at high speed, often getting ahead of his tongue. Only a true fanatic would find value in telling us the entire story of Rambo, and his fan love is evident and abundant. Overall, it's whimsical, with several moments of unrestrained laughter. Things do drag a bit between the laugh-out-loud sections.

NYTimes C+
(Charles Isherwood) Mr. Oberzan’s sweetly vacant persona and his doofusy earnestness are often very funny, as are his makeshift attempts to evoke the book’s violent battles with just a few wild kicks and pinwheeling arm movements. But at half the running time the show would probably be twice as enjoyable. The dumb, numbing thoroughness of the enterprise is intentional, but eventually it becomes less amusing than exasperating. A passion enacted is not necessarily a passion communicated, and at no point do we really move beyond the mania to glimpse the human being possessed by it. Although you can extrapolate from the show a portrait of a mind withdrawing into a strictly circumscribed fantasy world to banish the pain or frustration of the real one, Rambo Nut is more conceit than character.

Backstage F+
(Mark Peikert) As talented as he is, the whole evening feels like 90 minutes spent cornered at a party with the world's most colossal bore, the kind of blithe monologuist who has no sense of when his audience has had enough. Or perhaps the evening more readily calls to mind an interminable elementary-school speaker, as the audience sits on the carpeted floor looking up at Oberzan as if it's story time (I used my miniscule pull as a critic to snag a chair).

NYPost F
(Frank Scheck) Have you ever had a friend who's just seen a new movie proceed to bore you with every single detail of the plot? That's how it feels watching Rambo Solo, in which Zachary Oberzan spends 90-plus minutes relating the story of First Blood, both the novel and its film adaptation, in excruciating detail.

New Yorker F
(Hilton Als) Anger mounts at the sheer hubris of this enterprise. It may be a commentary on the nature of performance, but it is itself an utterly objectionable one, reflective only of a certain kind of chic-inflected privileged-white-boy solipsism. Watching “Rambo Solo,” you learn less than nothing about absurdist theatre, but, as you leave the show, you may feel absurd for having sat through it.

V A 13; TONY A 13; OOO A- 12; TM B+ 11; GOTH B+ 11; VV B+ 11; ATW B 10; NYMAG B 10; TSC B 10; CU B 10; NYT C+ 8; BS F+ 2; NYP F 1; TNY F 1;. TOTAL: 101/11= 9.18 (B-) Read On »

Blasted

GRADE: A-

By Sarah Kane. Dir. Sarah Benson. Soho Rep. (CLOSED)

Sarah Kane's landmark 1996 shocker makes its long-overdue NY premiere, and critics were stunned--mostly with admiration--by the graphic play and Soho Rep's fearless production.

New York Times A
(Ben Brantley) As impeccably staged by Sarah Benson and acted by a three-member ensemble with the bravery of hang gliders in a storm, Ms. Kane's fierce study in the human instinct for inhumanity still registers off the Richter scale...There is deep satisfaction to be derived from this 90-minute work, which contracts and expands time beyond easy measuring. It's the pleasure that comes from being compelled to follow an authentic and original voice into theatrical territory you have never visited before.

NY Times A
(Charles Isherwood) A superlative production, directed by Sarah Benson, that does full justice to the integrity of Ms. Kane's singular vision...Descriptions give little sense of the play's impact in the theater, just as reading the script would provide only a sketchy impression of its potential to latch onto the viscera and squeeze tightly...Each moment of the play feels like a moment in real time, depicting actual experience, even when the play dissolves from naturalism into something closer to expressionism.

Variety A
(Marilyn Stasio) Would that we still had the innocence to be shocked by the atrocities depicted in helmer Sarah Benson's uncompromising revival for Soho Rep. More than a dozen years after the play's initial production and almost a decade since the 28-year-old playwright's suicide, her metaphorical vision has become literal reality.

Time Out NY A
(David Cote) Here is a vision of contemporary Western horror delivered with full force and total commitment, in a blazingly lucid production...Benson's fearless actors all give intensely raw yet technically adept performances.

New York A
(Dan Kois) Less a drama than a cleverly constructed series of escalating assaults on its characters and audience, Blasted has lost none of its power, thanks not only to the punch of Kane’s writing but to Sarah Benson’s production—especially her technical team, whose mid-show transformation of the hotel room into a hellish netherworld is as shocking and revelatory as all the dead babies Blasted can throw in your face.

Theater News Online A
(Andy Buck) [Sarah] Benson assembles a fine ensemble of performers and designers to bring this frightening story to life. It's difficult to imagine many established actors willing to go the lengths that Reed Birney does in his role of Ian, a physically and morally decrepit journalist. Marin Ireland does her usual remarkarble work as a simple young woman who, against all odds, cares for Ian. And Louis Cancelmi is simply mesmerizing as a wild-eyed soldier intruding on Ian's world.

Village Voice A
(Marc Robinson) Among the many virtues of director Sarah Benson's Soho Rep production is its dissent from the conventional wisdom about Kane: Far from being "in yer face" (that awful phrase, coined by the play's first British critics), this Blasted is indifferent to us...Kane's rational structure becomes increasingly prominent as Blasted seems, deceptively, to devolve into pure instinct.

MetroMix A
(Aaron Leichter) Blasted is a European's reaction to the return of conflict after 50 years of cold warfare. But it's more than a visceral response to a specific historical moment, a formal experiment in subverting expectations, or even a juvenile attempt to outrage audiences. Kane sees a link between domestic violence with military brutality. After the terrorist attacks on New York and the moral morass in Iraq, Americans are recognizing the depths of human depravity in ourselves, as well as others.

New Yorker A
The forceful and always daring SoHo Rep mounts the long-awaited New York première of the late Sarah Kane’s groundbreaking and excruciating drama, in which the attempts of an aging journalist (Reed Birney) to seduce a dim-witted young girl (Marin Ireland) quickly spiral into an increasingly nightmarish series of events. The director, Sarah Benson, has assembled a topnotch team of designers and a cast of equally brilliant actors; the results are simultaneously devastating and sublime.

New York Post A-
(Frank Scheck) Under Benson's superb direction, the actors give such fiercely committed and brave performances that one wonders how it's possible for them to go on night after night - and whether they're prone to the nightmares one might have after watching them in this brilliantly hellish production.

Superfluities A-
(George Hunka) Director and actors are...unsparing in the depiction of Kane's own cruel world: none of the myriad violent bodily transgressions of the play are minimised, and the determined physicality of the achievement is shudderingly powerful. A production this extraordinary, however, unearths weaknesses as well as strengths in Kane's text, weaknesses that may not be evident on a mere reading of the play.

Curtain Up A-
(Jenny Sandman) Sarah Kane's Blasted is not an easy play to watch. Nor is it a play to see on an empty stomach. But it's definitely worth the effort, though you're likely to be haunted by it for some time...Though all this might give the impression that the violence in Blasted is gratuitous, it isn't. The fact that it's hard to watch is exactly the point--violence and rape should be hard to watch. The play points out not only our own desensitivity to violence but the parallels between sexual assault and the atrocities of war.

New Jersey Star-LedgerB+
(Michael Sommers) An extremely disturbing play from England, Blasted jolts viewers with shock treatment-style theatrics meant to re-sensitize their dulled awareness of the world's horrors. Toward this goal, scenes of sexual abuse, rape, mutilation, death and cannibalism are rendered with graphic realism...For all of its serious intentions, it's a difficult show to stomach.

AP B+
(Michael Kuchwara) Unnerving in the extreme, which makes the evening's fleeting moments of human connection all the more potent...The theatricality is undeniable, thanks to Sarah Benson's astute, tension-savvy direction, but the gruesome doings are hard to watch.

Theatermania B+
(Andy Propst) Soho Rep's first-rate production, helmed by artistic director Sarah Benson, confirms the piece's reputation as an audacious work seemingly designed for those theatergoers able to withstand an assault on the senses and emotions...On one level, as the atrocities mount, the action proves riveting. At the same time, though, there comes a moment when the sheer profusion of ghastly behavior becomes almost ludicrous, as if to eschew stunned contemplation. Still, Benson's staging is taut and rhythmically beautiful.

AMNY B+
(Matt Windman) Blasted remains a raw, horrific work that is not meant for anyone with a weak stomach. But if you're up for the challenge, it's a gripping theatrical experience portraying the shock and awe of the warzone.

Newsday B
(Linda Winer) I don't remember leaving a theater feeling as beaten up as I was by director Sarah Benson's excruciatingly realistic production. There's no space for noble abstractions about battlefields here, no marches for glory...How awful it must have been for [Kane] to live in such a mind. But how tragic for political theater to have lost such a voice.

Backstage B-
(Gwen Orel) What makes Blasted worth seeing is its haunting, lovely, and equally brutal first third...Here Kane makes sharp observations about misogyny, power, brutality, and racism with deadly accuracy. Her imagination and flair for language shine...Director Sarah Benson, Soho Rep's artistic director, has an eye for striking pictures and gets clear and persuasive performances from her cast. Unfortunately, she lingers too long on each moment, highlighting—like the gore-ridden stage—the messiness of the play itself.

Bloomberg News D+
(John Simon) To alleviate the Grand Guignol quality...there would be need for some psychological insight or more distinctive dialogue, which we do not get. We do get some fancy visual effects...The cast...does heroically under Sarah Benson's direction. You may be amazed at what an actor is willing to expose himself to for the sake of employment or, if sufficiently gullible, art. I myself question Kane's artistry; I believe there are limits to what needs to be shown, and where shock prevails, art has scant chance.

NY Times A 13; NY Times A 13; Variety A 13; New York A 13; Theater News Online A 13; Time Out NY A 13; Village Voice A 13; Metromix A 13; New Yorker A 13; New York Post A- 12; Superfluities A- 12; Curtain Up A- 12; New Jersey Star-Ledger B+ 12; AP B+ 11; Theatermania B+ 11; AMNY B+ 11; Newsday B 10; Backstage B- 9; Bloomberg D+ 5; TOTAL: 222 / 19 = 11.68 (A-)

Read On »