The Great Recession

GRADE: C



By Various Authors. Directed by Various Directors. At the Flea. Through December 30th.

( UPDATE: Two late breaking reviews say pretty much the opposite of what you'll find in the rest of this paragraph, which was written based on the initial crop of negative reviews.) The Flea resorts to Off-Off Broadway's oldest trick in the ticket selling book, a night of somewhat interrelated short plays by various writers, ensuring larger casts with larger groups of friends needing to see the show while spending less money on labor than a full production with the same cast would cost. This being The Flea, the playwrights are heavy hitters-- Itamar Moses, Adam Rapp, Sheila Callaghan, Thomas Bradshaw and Will Eno-- and the actors are the Flea's non-union apprentice company The Bats. The directors (including Kip Fagan, Jim Simpson and Ethan McSweeney) are no slouches either. The theme is the economic crisis. The results, according to critics, are largely as these things always end up, intermittently entertaining but ultimately less than the sum of their parts. What's left for them to argue about is which shorts work and which don't, with no consensus favorites forming at all.

NYTheatre A
(David Ian Lee) Too often, festival presentations of one-acts play as hodgepodges of intermittently related material, with grievous shifts in tone and quality. Such is not the case with The Great Recession: the evening's connective tissue has been cultivated with fiendish wit and propinquity. Expedient scene shifts are shaped by character (and are sprinkled with good-natured nudity; this brilliantly serves the double purpose of inoculating the audience from the shock of flesh later bared for darker purposes), and though few of the actors appear in multiple roles, the ensemble feels as tight-knit as the tiniest of repertories. Indeed, when the full 50-plus person cast appears for their curtain call, there is additional awe and wonder in the uniformity and collective spirit of such a large company. As a parting salutation, the curtain call itself is staged with humility and genuine gratitude. The Great Recession earned a standing ovation the night I attended, though the production virtually necessitated one after this graceful, final touch.

The L Magazine A-
(Robert Tumas) With six shorts, none harps for too long on any one trope of stereotypically hard times and focus instead on the people involved in experiencing them. There are a few moments in the production that border on a sort of holiday nostalgia and sap that I could have probably done with out, but the total effect was absolutely captivating and left me wanting more. If the recession has affected you in any way, you must go see this play—and if nothing else, they sell Keystone Light cans for a dollar at intermission, so it's the cheapest beer in town.

Backstage B
(David Sheward) In terms of volume, "The Great Recession" is certainly a bargain. Sporting six one-act plays and a cast of more than 50, this program presented by the Flea Theater offers plenty to chew on, though some of the fare is definitely fast food. Played with great energy and specificity by the Bats, the Flea's resident company of young actors, the six plays are fast and furious snapshots of the effects of the world economic downturn. Some are funny and touching; a few are screeds of horror with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Lighting & Sound America B-
(David Barbour) Somebody at the Flea Theatre -- probably Jim Simpson, the inventive artistic director -- had the idea of commissioning a batch of short plays tied to the current economic mess and its effect on today's young adults. It was probably inevitable that the resulting six-pack -- known as The Great Recession -- would be wildly uneven, but it has its moments, and it allows one to get a look at the theatre's talented young acting company, The Bats. The most successful plays are those that get at the theme in sideways fashion, rather than head-on... If The Great Recession is better in theory than in execution, it's an appealing idea, one that I hope the Flea will apply to other themes.

Time Out New York B-
(Adam Feldman)In his recent TONY interview, the monologuist Mike Daisey bemoaned the institutional slowness of American theater, and used the scarcity of responses to the financial crisis as an example of this problem. So the Flea Theatre’s Jim Simpson should be congratulated for corralling six of the city’s best rising playwrights to tackle the subject head-on in The Great Recession, a collection of playlets (each 15 to 20 minutes long) performed by three dozen members of the Bats, the Flea’s below-the-radar acting company...if this topical anthology isn’t always great, at least it is not recessive.

Theatermania C+
(Patrick Lee) For The Great Recession, currently at The Flea Theatre, six of theater's hippest playwrights were engaged to write short plays related to the current recession and its effects on young people. While some are more successful than others, the hit-or-miss evening doesn't cohere nearly as well as one would hope.

Variety C-
(Sam Thielman) Short play collections are always a mixed bag, but rarely are they as mixed as the Flea Theater's The Great Recession. Boasting some of Off Broadway's most popular writers, the anthology varies wildly in tone from dystopian dirge to cynical comedy. The best of the bunch are Will Eno's ruminative "Unum" and Thomas Bradshaw's hilariously biting "New York Living," both of which manage to mine new seams in the much-discussed terrain of the financial crisis.

NY Post D+
(Frank Scheck) Forget the economy. What this well-intentioned but shallow evening shows is that what theater really needs is an intellectual stimulus program.

The New York Times D
(Charles Isherwood) Writing to theme can be challenging, and most of the work here feels sketchy, unfocused or simply banal. Even “Unum” does not represent Mr. Eno, the talented author of “Thom Paine (based on nothing),” at his most inspired.



NYTH A 13; TLM A- 12; BS B 10; LSA B- 9; TONY B-9; TM C+ 8; V C- 6; NYP D+ 5; NYT D 4; TOTAL: 76/8 = 9.5 (B/B-)

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Kaspar Hauser

GRADE: B/B-

Written by Elizabeth Swados and Erin Courtney, Music Composed and Show Directed by Swados; At the Flea Theater. (CLOSED)

Critics don't have particularly strong feelings one way or the other for Elizabeth Swados' opera about the life of Kaspar Hauser. Those that enjoy the show and Swados' "Beethoven-meets-Queen" composing style are respectful; those that don't are simply not particularly taken with it. Ditto the herky-jerky movement style that Swados has directed the company to adopt. Everyone praises the enthusiasm and aplomb with which the Bats attack the show.

CurtainUp B+
(Elyse Sommer) Swados and Courtney are not the first to use the Kaspar Hauser story as a creative wellspring, but what they've created is both original and exciting. Swados, whose orientation is strictly musical and Courtney, who is accustomed to writing dialogue rather than lyrics, prove to be a fine match. The music of their almost completely sung-through collaboration is operatic but with a propulsive rock sensibility or as Swados herself describes it, "somewhere between Beethoven and Queen." The lyrics, as one might expect given that they're penned by a playwright, are unrhymed but succeed in moving the story forward. Call it an opera, a popera or a Weill-Brechtian fantasia, Kaspar Hauser is sung and performed with enormous verve by nineteen members of the best resident artist company in town, the Flea Theater's Bats. They bring the at times feverish swirl of Kaspar's tragic story to vivid life. Their committed performances compensate for the show's failure to deliver the sort of memorably melodic arias that might lead to a longer, more commercial run.

The New Yorker B+
(Unsigned) A joyfully grotesque outing... With its bright period garb and ghoul-faced ensemble, the show could easily inhabit a larger stage; condensed to the modest parameters of the Flea, it glows all the more brightly.

Variety B+
(Marilyn Stasio) Elizabeth Swados has always gone her own way, and her new music-theater piece, "Kaspar Hauser: A Foundling's Opera," is stamped with some of her familiar idiosyncrasies: the childlike perspective; the atonal operatics; the surreal dramatic landscape; the thematic obsession with abused and abandoned children. It's a sensibility that fits right in at the Flea Theater, which maintains a resident ensemble of nimble young actor-singers, the Bats, happy to show off in anything remotely experimental -- like the composer-scribe-director's reworking of the Wild Child legend.

NYTheatre B+
(Russell M. Kaplan) Whatever you may choose to call it, what's certain is the play packs quite a visceral punch. Swados proves adept at directing her own material, and uses the Flea's shallow playing space to its fullest potential. She has also created—along with movement director Mimi Quillin—a slew of impressively complex ensemble scenes depicting a gossip-hungry German society, which The Bats (the Flea's resident acting ensemble) attack with ferocious glee. By now, the energy and dedication of the famously quirky young Bats should be surprising to no one. What does surprise is their powerful singing, as they display vocal chops you simply don't expect to find downtown. The musical climaxes, with 19 voices blaring at you at point blank range, are enough to make your hair whoosh back.

That Sounds Cool B
(Aaron Riccio) While it's a little odd to see an opera and marvel more at the physical direction and acting than the singing, it's hard to complain about two hours of solid entertainment.

JustShowsToGoYou B
(Patrick Lee) The show’s book, a collaboration between Swados and Erin Courtney, shapes the story of the cruelly mistreated lad as both a tale about the fickleness of celebrity and as a metaphor for the plight of the artist, wholly succeeding at neither. Nonetheless, the 90 minute one-act never lags, and bears Swados’ unmistakable artistic stamp... Although the emotional impact of the show’s finale is curiously muted, and the show’s heightened, stylized presentation is not for all tastes even among musical theatre fans, the show is absorbing and accomplished, also boasting a captivating lead performance by Preston Martin.

TheaterMania C+
(David Finkle) The latest is the prolific Elizabeth Swados, who has composed and co-written Kaspar Hauser, now at the Flea Theater. While this new work has its moments, the familiar satirical targets at which it takes aim, as well as the manner in which it's been constructed and directed, will likely keep it from long-term entry into musical-theater annals...Finally, as she continues writing musicals, it has also become apparent that Swados' trouble isn't a deliberate avoidance of facile melody, but a difficulty in realizing melody. Although most of Kaspar Hauser is unrhymed recitative, there are times when a full-blown melody is precisely what's needed to drive a dramatic stake into the proceedings. If anyone leaves humming these songs, it's likely due to sheer repetition.

Time Out NY C-
(Helen Shaw) Despite the wearying sameness of the material (here comes another wall of sound!), there’s magic in Normandy Sherwood’s Fauvist costumes, set designer John McDermott’s reorientation of the Flea’s stage and the resident company’s exuberant efforts. Swados displays more flexibility as a director than she does as a composer. Hey, there’s no shame in changing key

Backstage C-
(Ronni Reich) Kaspar Hauser follows an animalistic child found on the streets of Germany, chiefly through composer-director Elizabeth Swados' relentlessly upbeat oompahs and choruses that furiously repeat the title character's name, as in Sweeney Todd or Peter Grimes...The ensemble's jerky, rigid-limbed movements vibrantly suggest the ugly, vulturelike crowd that intrudes upon Kaspar's life. But the effect is so exaggerated and used so frequently as to give the impression that the performance takes place under strobe lights. Manic but impressive energy is shared by all, and there are some priceless facial expressions.

NYTimes C-
(Claudia La Rocco) There are pleasing moments in this rush, particularly in the work of the movement director Mimi Quillin, who manages to drive an awful lot of bodies artfully to and fro in a tiny space. But the lyrics and music do not achieve a similar dynamism. By keeping the dial turned past high throughout the show, where the lines between good and evil are far too neatly drawn, Ms. Swados misses opportunities to develop any of her themes or arrive at any intriguing insights into human nature. The Kaspar Hauser story is strange enough without being shoved into frenetic fairy tale mode. It is, in truth, far stranger than this musical.

CU B+ 11; TNY B+ 11; NYTH B+ 11; Variety B+ 11; TSC B 10; JS2GY B 10; TM C+ 8; BS C-6; NYT C- 6;TONY C- 6; TOTAL = 90/10 = 9 (B-)

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Love/Stories (or But You Will Get Used To It)

GRADE: B+

By Itamar Moses. Directed by Michelle Tattenbaum. The Flea Theatre. (CLOSED)

Most critics were mightily entertained by Itamar Moses' anthology of five one-acts about the meta-theatrics of contemporary romance, staged in the tiny basement of the Flea Theatre, though more than a few reviews found Moses' insistent authorial presence, from a recorded pre-show announcement to the self-reflexive themes of the playlets, to be close to self-indulgence. Only one critic, Variety's gobsmacked Sam Thielman, adored the play's final, self-revealing monologue; most others either didn't like it or felt it was badly placed at the climax. All the critics gave high marks to the Flea's young Bats and to director Michelle Tattenbaum. Amusing typo of the week: WSJ's Terry Teachout refers to the Flea's young company, the Bats, as "the Rats."

Variety A+
(Sam Thielman) A hell of a lot of fun. "Love/Stories" follows similar well-meaning, if slightly schlubby guys through funny-sad encounters with similar manipulative, unfaithful, histrionic women. With each piece, the writer trots out another ingenious formal device to pick at the knot in his protagonist's heart, but he doesn't seem to be getting any closer to undoing it until at last, he tells us so in the evening's marvelous final monologue...A revelation.

That Sounds Cool A
(Aaron Riccio) Moses works through the worries of a post-modern age by, appropriately enough, getting post-post-modern on them...It's all exceptionally handled by the five-man ensemble of Bats (the repertory actors of The Flea), whose youth allows them to grasp the circuitous and often broken logic of the characters, and Michelle Tattenbaum, whose previous direction of Moses's work has taught her to let the words speak for themselves.

Wall Street Journal A-
(Terry Teachout) Mr. Moses is among the few playwrights who can write interestingly about writers and their work, a subject that is usually dramatic poison, and he's done it again...Michelle Tattenbaum, who has staged several of Mr. Moses' plays but whose work is new to me, has done a terrific job with "Love/Stories," whose postmodern prestidigitation poses some formidable directorial challenges. How, for instance, do you stage a three-character playlet in which two of the characters neither speak nor move? The one comparatively weak link in "Love/Stories" is the last of the five plays, "Untitled Short Play"...This is the fourth show of his that I've seen, all of them different in tone and subject matter and all equally impressive. Is there anything he can't do?

American Theatre Web A-
(Andy Propst) Might very well be one of the smartest comedies theatergoers will find on stage in New York this winter...Unfortunately, Moses concludes "Love/Stories" with his most indulgent piece. In "Untitled Short Play," an author (played with a keenly comic sense of authority by John Russo) describes the process of writing a two-character scene, and the pitfalls and omissions that are inherent with the act of creation. It's certainly smart, but it also feels overlong and something like an excuse from Moses or an act of self-justification, ending the evening on an almost pedantic note.

CurtainUp A-
(Elyse Sommer) I laughed quite a lot at Itamar Moses' quintet of one-acts. To be sure, with that slash and parenthetical add-on, the title hints at a certain authorial pretentiousness that's part of the fun. A minor quibble, considering that these thematically connected playlets showcase the expert comic talents of five of the Flea's resident acting company, the Bats, and that you don't need a stimulus plan to pay for a ticket to the downstairs space that puts everyone in a premium seat. The connection between the plays is forged by Michelle Tattenbaum's polished direction...These playlets lack the substance of the author's full length Bach at Leipzig, The Four of Us and, more recently, Back Back Back...However, these attractive young actors easily wrest every drop of humor and meaningful subtext from their characters.

Theatermania B+
(Dan Balcazo)
Frustrated love affairs and quirky metatheatrics characterize Itamar Moses' evening of short plays...Under Michelle Tattenbaum's deft direction, the playlets...are generally amusing, and at times thought-provoking and emotionally resonant...Unfortunately, the fifth and final play misfires. John Russo delivers a monologue that purports to set up a scene, while instead supposedly allowing the audience into the head of its author...As the descriptions of these five pieces indicate, Moses seems preoccupied with inserting himself or at least some kind of authorial figure into several of the texts.

Nytheatre.com B+
(David Gordon) The plays are just as funny, if not funnier, than the inspired pre-show announcement. They're also thought-provoking, with a strong subtextual sadness. There are three themes that alternate among the five plays: love, lost love, and how authors create and manipulate...The final play, Untitled Short Play, during which the narrator describes what's going on in the heads of two characters staring at the audience, would fare better earlier. It's a lengthy monologue during which our interest goes in and out. Moses has a keen eye for human feelings. There's something innately relatable within these plays...and there's one line in Authorial Intent that really got to me. "In order to get what I wanted," one character begins, "I had to learn so much about it that I ruined forever my ability to enjoy it."

Time Out NY B+
(Adam Feldman) Followers of Itamar Moses’s burgeoning career may have noticed something odd: None of his plays to have opened so far in New York...have featured any female characters at all...Does this clever young man know what to do with a lady? Or will he fumble his passes? Moses begins the date deftly with a meet-cute story set at an audition. In the second piece, he smartly lays on more humor and charm with help from the adorable Maren Langdon, as a woman in the throes of a massive comic breakdown on the phone, and Michael Micalizzi, as the coworker who can’t help listening in. The playwright sensitively changes mood in a metatheatrical triptych...Unfortunately, Moses ends what could have been a lovely evening on a sour note: the kind of dull, rambling, self-obsessed monologue—performed by a too-slick John Russo—that makes dinner companions run for their coats. But there’s more than enough good writing here to make you want to see Moses again.

Edge New York B+
(Susan Reiter) As the 90-minute evening unfolds, two of the overriding themes that link its five disparate works are theatrical gamesmanship, and the messy aftermath of relationships gone sour. Both of these figure strongly in this work, which handily introduces us to all five members of the cast. It also introduces an ongoing concern of the evening: the insular, insecure, needy world of actors...The crisp, nuanced performances the five actors deliver in Moses’ opening salvo are sustained throughout...In Michelle Tattenbaum’s crisp, intelligent production, they fit together smoothly and reverberate smartly off each other.

High 5 B+
(Benn Ellentuck) Jumping jauntily, if not maladroitly, from an audition to an office to an apartment to an interview program to a cafe and all the meta-world in between, from the seemingly unsuspecting naturalistic to the brusque Brechtian, Love/Stories chronicles romance at various points in relationships, from the before very first spark to long after the bitter end, with particular regard to the correlation between love and self-expression. Thankfully, four out of the five pieces not only recognize but thrive upon the integral relationship between love and art...The evening is, at best, enlightening for some, but certainly enjoyable for all...Michelle Tattenbaum's adept direction, which fully utilizes the seemingly overcomplicated set that is, perhaps, a bit ambitious for the size of the space, manages to keep everything and everyone in line.

New York Times B
(Neil Genzlinger) Itamar Moses...has given the cast fine material with which to showcase its abilities: some accents, a few mood swings, a little crying and lots of laugh lines that require perfect comic timing...The final vignette, “Untitled Short Play”...[is] the least satisfying of the pieces—writers should never write about the art of writing—but Mr. Russo makes it relatively painless.

New York Post B
(Frank Scheck) Our enjoyment of these slight but well-written pieces is marred by his injecting himself a little too much into the proceedings. Performed by the Flea's talented young resident ensemble The Bats, the plays reflect a bittersweet attitude toward love. The best vignettes are also the most straightforward - including the one about a playwright who begs an actress to sabotage the audition of an actor who's dating his ex-girlfriend; a brief moment of passion between two temps, one of whom is still distraught over a breakup; and a lecture given by a Russian director in which he bitterly reveals his knowledge of his lover/translator's affair. It's when Moses insists on self-reflexive posturing that the evening suffers.

Village Voice B
(Eric Grode) Bemused resignation gives way here to aggressive micromanagement, and Moses's exactitude has its grating moments: a lengthy pre-show speech recorded by the author himself, a concluding playlet devoted entirely to a stage direction. But the other three pieces (and chunks of that final piece) offer witty, deceptively breezy dissections of what men and women—and playwrights—want...The five actors navigate the virtuosic text with more or less equal skill, although Michael Micalizzi is most in sync with Moses's earnest rhythms: "I'm not as smart as my lack of good looks might have you believe," demurs one of Micalizzi's characters. Tellingly, he appends this line with "A playwright friend of mine gave me that one."

Offoffonline B
(Amy Freeman) The plays all have charm and the actors are all very engaging and energized, but occasionally the meta-nature of the plays gets to be a bit much. “Untitled Short Play” is the most static of the plays, given that no action in the traditional sense occurs—it is a play “hijacked by its opening stage direction.” However, John Russo is vibrant as the Reader, hopping around the Flea's wide stage obsessing over what could possibly happen in the scene that never happens. One would like it if the “play” were to actually begin, but then again, the Reader is quite compelling and his complaints understandable. The strongest of the plays is “Szinhaz,” which is structured as a talk show, with an actress, Marie, interviewing a brooding Russian director.

Total Theater B
(Richmond Shepherd) Moses is a funny contemporary writer of romantic encounters and relationships...Near the end, the show didn’t grow in intensity or interest – it drooped. The [final] monologue could have been left out with its logorrhea speculating on inner thoughts. Why alienate the audience near the finish? We’re trapped while the author’s boring remarks on writing are spoken by the poor actor (he was so long-winded, I began to hate him). I hope Itamar Moses is young and just doesn’t know any better yet. He’s really a bright, funny guy.

Backstage C+
(Leonard Jacobs) Ranging from the comic to the cringe-worthy, these five one-acts by Itamar Moses suit the Flea Theater's downstairs venue because its wide, shallow space renders the fourth wall into a silly convention...Moses' writing goes from a nice mix of head and heart into nutty navel-gazing. In Authorial Intent, a newly cohabitating couple (Holland and Micalizzi) breaks up. Instead of the scene ending, however, they relive the scene moment by moment, declaring to us which lines, looks, or blocking elements constituted a "performative instrument" or "formal device." When this ends, we discover the actors were playing actors in a play within the play. Then the male actor hits on the female...And piece five, Untitled Short Play, is psychobabbling twaddle...Also nice is Tattenbaum's work, which allows the plays to breathe. The trouble is that Moses is gasping for air.

Variety A+ 14; That Sounds Cool A 13; WSJ A 13; ATW A- 12; CU A- 12; TM B+ 11; Nytheatre B+ 11; TONY B+ 11; EDGE NY B+ 11; High 5 B+ 11; NYT B 10; VV B 10; NYP B 10; Offoffonline B 10; TT B 10; BS C+ 8; TOTAL: 177/16=11.06 (B+)

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A Light Lunch

GRADE: C+

By A.R. Gurney. Dir. Jim Simpson. Flea Theatre. (CLOSED)

One of the more unlikely artistic partnerships in downtown theatre--that of brittle WASP chronicler A.R. Gurney with Jim Simpson's mostly edgy Flea Theatre--reaches a culmination of sorts with what we can only assume is Gurney's final Bush-bashing comedy. A few critics were respectfully amused by Gurney's self-deprecating meta-plot, about Bush 43's efforts to suppress a play by Gurney, and nearly all of them praised the performances of the Flea's young actors. But most found the effort insufficiently amusing, inventive, or trenchant. (And for the record, only two critics made timely references to Iraqi shoe-tossing.)

Theatermania A-
(Barbara & Scott Siegel) A model of political theater. The beauty of it is that its politics and its theater could not be more inextricably bound. Exquisitely self-aware, A Light Lunch uses the theater...to make serio-comic points about George Bush throughout the play...Make no mistake, much of the plot is a contrivance, but we are happy to indulge Gurney, because we know that the playwright does not come to praise Bush, he comes to bury him. The play is fluidly directed by Jim Simpson, and the cast play their roles adroitly.

News-Times B+
(Chesley Plemmons) It's clear from the start that...Gurney must have had a high old time with "A Light Lunch." "Lunch" is both an inside joke about the theater and a clever--but not excessively caustic--evaluation of the Bush presidency...Though the issues are serious the youthful nature of all four characters keeps everything light--like the lunch--and airy...A word of advice--if you find yourself in a restaurant in the theater district and your waiter or waitress announces him or herself as your server and has a name that sounds suspiciously like it came from a play--quick!--get another table.

CurtainUp B
(Elyse Sommer) It's an amusing premise and Gurney's willingness to poke fun at himself provides A Light Lunch with its best laugh lines...Hoyt and Lipinski are attractive, capable actors and Havilah Brewster ratchets up the deal making's comic potenial as Viola, their aggressively intrusive wannabe-actor/server. But despite the Flea's artistic director Jim Simpson's best efforts, there's no getting away from the fact that the adjective defining the titular lunch also applies to the play.

Variety B-
(Sam Thielman) A. R. Gurney's jokey new play, A Light Lunch, is refreshingly unlike most contempo American political theater. Sadly, that's more or less all it has going for it--Flea Theater a.d. Jim Simpson's production OD's on wackiness, overplaying Gurney's featherweight humor and shticky characters without pausing to let some of the writer's wiser notions sink in...Ultimately, A Light Lunch feels less like a play within a play than a workshop within a workshop.

Village Voice B-
(Alexis Soloski) Gurney's enjoyably flimsy farce...lacks the bite of Gurney's other Bush-critical political comedies, also directed by Simpson...Though it runs only 75 minutes, the production feels frustratingly overlong, a one-act stretched into a full-length, an appetizer masquerading as an entrée. The metatheatrical gags pall as Gurney searches for more reasons to extend his lunch hour, but largely fails to find them. The cast, however—composed of Flea resident company the Bats—acquit themselves nicely, particularly Hoyt as the amiably unscrupulous Beth.

Backstage C+
(David Sheward) Pointed political observations are mixed with slightly stale cultural stereotypes for an only mildly pleasing confection...Gurney has fun mocking theatrical conventions, and Flea artistic director Jim Simpson gives the staging a breezy spin...This Light Lunch leaves us hungry and unsatisfied.

New York Post C
(Frank Scheck) A mildly entertaining but minor satire that too often seems less concerned with its ostensible target than with the playwright himself...To his credit, the playwright injects generous doses of self-mockery into the proceedings. "Has Gurney written many plays?" the lawyer asks the agent, who replies, "Too many, according to some critics." But even by the loosest standards for satire, this play is too contrived and silly to score its intended points...An unsubstantial repast.

The New Yorker C-
It’s clear, in this trifle of a play, that Gurney has a few suggestions for Bush about how he might handle his exit from office. While the actors seem to be enjoying themselves pummelling Bush, the audience is left to eavesdrop on yet another uninspiring conversation about politics.

Offoffonline C-
(William Coyle) Criticizing A.R. Gurney’s plays for lack of depth is like criticizing your Toyota Prius for not winning NASCAR—you should know what you’re buying right from the start...Gurney is at his best when he's light. His plays are nearly always entertaining—sometimes even exhilarating, if not quite profound. Yet, A Light Lunch...feels like a throwaway, a diversion. At one point it a
lludes to itself as an aborted work. It’s light, even by Gurney’s standards.

The New York Times D+
(Charles Isherwood) The gentlemanly playwright A. R. Gurney casually tosses his own metaphorical shoe—a penny loafer? a Top-Sider?—in the direction of our departing president in his latest politically minded play...I’m afraid Mr. Gurney’s aim is not as true, or his motivation as urgent, as that of the Iraqi shoe-hurler...Unlike “Mrs. Farnsworth,” Mr. Gurney’s likewise forgettable but more sturdily constructed raspberry blown at Mr. Bush, this play is little more than an overextended joke endlessly in search of a suitable payoff, and feels padded at a mere 75 minutes.

Time Out NY D
(Adam Feldman) Gurney acknowledges the play’s skimpiness in his title, but to call this a lunch at all is misleading; it is a picked-over plate of crudités...All four actors are likable; the real main character is the offstage author, however, and he’s underdeveloped. Gurney, who has written several Bush-bashing comedies for the Flea in recent years, uses this one to get in a few last licks at the departing president. But licking is not biting: This is pretty toothless stuff.

Theatermania A- 12; News-Times B+ 11; CurtainUp B 10; Variety B- 9; Village Voice B- 9; Backstage C+ 8; New York Post C 7; The New Yorker C- 6; Offoffonline C- 6; The New York Times D+ 5; Time Out NY D 4; TOTAL: 87 / 11 = 7.9 (C+)

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Dawn

GRADE: B

By Thomas Bradshaw. Dir. Jim Simpson. The Flea Theatre. (CLOSED)

Practiced provocateur Thomas Bradshaw again divides critics with this seemingly earnest tale of an aging alcoholic businessman and the mess of a family he's left in his wake, but this time the discord is less over shock value than tone. Is this a parody of a dysfunctional family play or the genuine article? Has director Jim Simpson's production ladled the irony on too thick or too thin? Above all, is this a breakthrough for Bradshaw, or more of the same audience-tweaking? Wherever they came down, most critics praised either Gerry Bamman or Drew Hildebrand's lead performance (or both).

Theatermania A
(Dan Balcazo) Potent and disturbing...The work wrestles with a number of hot-button topics, and poses moral and ethical questions that would seem to be clear cut, but are surprisingly murky...Bamman is consistently compelling and his non-verbal expressions in the early part of the play do much to lighten the mood of the piece, while his defeated body language in the last couple scenes add to Hampton's sense of loss and confusion...The excellent Hildebrand manages to be both charming and creepy, often at the same time...In some respects, Dawn seems to parody the genre of the dysfunctional family drama...And yet, it's in earnest.

Nytheatre.com A
(Peter Schuyler) This may arguably be Bradshaw's best play. There is a level of nuance here that is not present in his earlier work...There is still plenty of shock value...but it is tempered by the reality of the situation...A large part of this is due to Jim Simpson's expert direction. Simpson has found an almost perfect balance between the humor and horror inherent in the script and as such our attention never wavers...It will be a sad statement about the NYC theatergoing public if there is one empty seat in the house for the rest of this show's run.

Time Out NY A-
(Rob Weinert-Kendt) At first glance, this is a disarmingly straightforward recovery drama, as aging alcoholic Hampton (Gerry Bamman) gets a stab at reformation after his drinking literally stops his heart...Under Jim Simpson’s nuanced but unequivocal direction, Bamman—balding, sloe-eyed, looking a bit like Fred Thompson’s unassuming younger brother—is a perfectly unprepossessing lead for Bradshaw’s bitter, inexorable tragedy. You may find this droopy drunk funny, but the laugh is sure to stick in your throat like the toothpick in a martini olive.

That Sounds Cool A-
(Aaron Riccio) Bradshaw, assisted here by Jim Simpson’s exaggeratedly comic and set-less transparency, defies expectations so as to make the audience question their own ingrained assumptions...All the things that happen in Dawn happen in the same world, with our morality becoming quicksilver in the scorching light of Bradshaw’s drama...It is not about judging these characters so much as it is about understanding them, and in that depth, knowing that we are all connected, as much in our sorrows as in our joys.

The New York Times B
(Neil Genzlinger) The play...spends a very long time rolling out what appears to be an ordinary tale of a man finding salvation through Alcoholics Anonymous...From any other playwright this might seem like bracing naturalism. With Mr. Bradshaw’s reputation, though, it’s likely to prompt a reaction of: "All right, we get it. Now move along to the scandalous stuff"...The shock value here isn’t as strong as in some of Mr. Bradshaw’s other works...which makes the piece more effective in many ways.

CurtainUp B
(Jenny Sandman) This disturbing play would probably be even more powerful were the script not so choppy. Each scene is short and usually requires some sort of set change...Fortunately the cast is strong. Standouts are Gerry Bamman as Hampton and Drew Hildebrand as Steven. Bamman manages to play a sodden drunk without appearing completely pathetic, and Hildebrand plays a charismatic pedophile.

The New Yorker C+
In his most daring and mature work to date, Bradshaw seems to be posing some serious questions about the banalities of the "great American epic family drama" genre. Unfortunately, under the glib direction of Jim Simpson, who seems more interested in the play’s cheap shocks, only a few of the actors (notably Gerry Bamman and Laura Esterman) seem to be in on the joke. The result is a confusing, static treatment of a script that deserves better.

Village Voice C+
(Christopher Grobe) Bradshaw concedes, in an author's note, that there is "irony" in the play, but he asks that it be "underplayed." Instead, Simpson adds cartoonish sound effects and digital supertitles to alienate us from the script—to encourage us, for instance, to snicker at the obsessive rituals of a desperate alcoholic hiding his booze. Gerry Bamman brings an affecting nakedness to the character of this alcoholic, and Jenny Seastone Stern is startlingly earnest as his granddaughter...A more thoroughly ironic production might have made breakthrough moments of earnestness more poignant.

Variety D
(Sam Thielman) Gleefully ugly...The longer you think about the piece's intentionally stilted dialogue and revolting set pieces, the more you may get the sense you've just sat through a bleak, black comedy, without getting the joke...The heaping helpings of irony ward off empathy at every turn, like giant quote marks around some of the most disgusting encounters in human experience--maybe it's art, but it sure does make you want to take a shower...The bottom line seems to be that Bradshaw is less interested in his characters' relationships to one another than he is in his own relationship to the audience.

Theatermania A 13; Nytheatre.com A 13; Time Out NY A- 12; That Sounds Cool A- 12; The New York Times B 10; CurtainUp B 10; The New Yorker C+ 8; Village Voice C+ 8; Variety D 4; TOTAL: 90 / 9 = 10 (B)

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