Creature

GRADE: B

By Heidi Schreck. Directed by Leigh Silverman. At The Ohio Theater. (CLOSED)

Acclaimed (and Obie award-winning) actress Heidi Schreck makes her New York debut as a playwright with this P73/New George's co-production. Creature, a not-really-factual take on 15th century wannabe mystic Margery Kempe, earns generally high marks from the reviewers for its blend of contemporary and classical idioms and Leigh Silverman's deftly comedic direction. Grumbling arises about the failure of the play to quite cohere at the end. Patrick Lee and David Barbour bring up the rear. Lee generally thinks the show is alright, but finds the characters hard to connect to, while Barbour (clearly a fan of the show's source material) pans the play as a messily-written disaster.

OffOffOnline A+
(William Coyle) Creature does everything right, managing to be historically fascinating, loaded with depth and entertaining, all at once. I recommend it to anyone who relishes compelling new theater.

That Sounds Cool A
(Aaron Riccio) Schreck has also done a terrific job in spinning a great deal of research on this era into comic gold. Silverman would never have been able to add so much physical comedy if it were not for the richness of the script itself, in which a drunk, worn down John can have a serious conversation with Father Thomas regarding the safety of his wife (they're burning women for heresy) one moment, and then ask whether it's true that priests have "extra large merchandise" the next. Without throwing in Margery's mood swings--particularly one where she attempts to cry, as a saint would, only to laugh at her success, working herself into a fit--we would not be able to make as much of her attempts to quote Juliana of Norwich (Marylouise Burke, commandingly dotty): "For me, Love has always been terrible and implacable, devouring and burning."

Blog Critics A
(Jon Sobel) The play belongs proudly to Margery, and we left the theater feeling that we personally knew this complex and fascinating woman. Ms. Gomez gives a suitably dangerous and sometimes screamingly funny performance. Put simply, she plays the hell out of her, and with a terrifying Hell (along with Purgatory and Heaven) ever-present in the anxieties of the age, this feels like exactly the Margery we ought to have. One can read a proto-feminist strand into this lusty and freethinking depiction of the character, but any sense of anachronism is made palatable – fun, in fact – by the script's unabashed honesty. The comic dialogue and the flow from scene to scene feel effortless.

NYTimes B+
(Rachel Saltz) Absorbing... Creature, directed simply and imaginatively by Leigh Silverman, seems at first too broad and too modern (a lot of “what the hells” and Converse high-tops). But after a while the play finds its tone, at once lighthearted and serious. Ms. Schreck uses unadorned contemporary language, and the set, by Rachel Hauck, is handsomely minimal, with deft touches (a cradle hanging near the ceiling, a window frame floating in Juliana’s room). It’s as if Ms. Schreck and Ms. Silverman were clearing away distractions, making the play like a monk’s cell: a proper space to contemplate the mysteries of faith.

The New Yorker B+
(Unsigned) Heidi Schreck’s script, directed by Leigh Silverman, though somewhat incoherent, makes religious fanaticism look like a lot of fun. Some wonderful performances, too—in particular, those of Gomez, Goldstein, and Shamos—add to the high energy.

Variety B+
(Marilyn Stasio) The superstitious fears and horrors Heidi Schreck conjures up in her offbeat historical play about the 15th century English mystic Margery Kempe are largely psychological -- and not unfamiliar to any modern woman stressed out by the demands of a new baby and a childish husband. Without denying the significance of religious faith in the intellectual darkness of the Middle Ages, scribe coyly suggests that having mystical visions was a great way for a clever woman to escape her onerous domestic duties and become a celebrity.

NYPOST B
(Frank Scheck)In a sense, playwright Heidi Schreck is somewhat like her subject. This promising author -- who's also an actress, now appearing in off-Broadway's "Circle Mirror Transformation" -- has ambitiously taken on historical and religious themes when most of her contemporaries are content to write about relationships. If she's not entirely successful, she certainly deserves points for trying ... Director Leigh Silverman isn't able to make it all coherent, but Creature certainly indicates that this talented actress is also a playwright to watch.

Village Voice B-
(James Hannaham) Schreck's juxtaposition of the modern middle class and the Middle Ages could be funnier, but in a shaky effort to acknowledge the real Kempe's humanity, the production lurches between lampooning her shallow side and sentimentally lauding her spirituality. The Winslet-like Gomez gets no blame; she whizzes through the character's inconsistencies like an Olympic luge champ. And loose-limbed Marylouise Burke's ninth-inning appearance as fellow visionary Julian of Norwich (renamed "Juliana" here to emphasize her female-ness) provides a burst of humor and balance that proves almost revelatory.

Time Out New York B-
(Helen Shaw) Schreck’s script has narrative simplicity, contemporary zing and lyrical flights of startling loveliness. Unfortunately, her hallucinatory, shimmering language desperately needs medieval murk for contrast and mood, and director Leigh Silverman—ignoring the stage’s many candles in favor of big, music-hall light cues—refuses to give it to her. The production, despite championship acting, treads too lightly, and sheds its mysteries along the way. In this sort of vision, it’s sometimes best not to see the light.

TheaterMania C-
(Patrick Lee) The characters speak in mostly contemporary idioms and move on stage with modern physicality, often costumed in sneakers in contrast to the plain garments that suggest the period. While these deliberately anachronistic choices seem intended to emphasize both the continued relevance of the theme and to draw current-day associations with our heroine's behavior, we aren't given a reason to connect emotionally with Margery. Indeed, while the themes in Creature intrigue, too often, the characters do not.

Lighting and Sound America F+
(David Barbour) When I first heard about Creature, my first thought was, I wonder why the playwright, Heidi Schreck, wants to write about a 15th-century mystic. Having seen Creature, I'm still wondering....Kempe lived a singular life of controversy and achievement, and she was actively caught up in the important spiritual dialogues of her times. She could have inspired all sorts of plays; the treatment she gets here is thin, sketch-comedy stuff, informed by a casually derisive attitude toward the Middle Ages.

OOO A+ 14; TSC A 13; BC A 13; NYT B+ 11; TNY B+ 11; V B+ 11; NYP B 10; VV B- 9; TONY B- 9; TM C- 6; LSA F+ 3 TOTAL = 110/11=10 B

Read On »

I Have Been To Hiroshima Mon Amour

GRADE: B-

By Chiori Miyagawa. Directed by Jean Wagner. The Ohio Theater. (CLOSED)

Chiori Miyagawa's exploration of Hiroshima's place in the popular consciousness proves somewhat divisive amongst the critics. Martin Denton swoons over the layered text (which expands upon the French New Wave classic it takes its name from) while Helen Shaw actually despairs for the next generation of experimental theatre artists. Sitting in the middle are mostly respectful takes from the Times, Backstage and the Voice.

Nytheatre.com A
(Martin Denton) Miyagawa considers memories and their owners in this complex, layered work... a rich, challenging, sometimes difficult (though always accessible) piece. On its surface the play seems to be about appropriation of memories, in the manner that the French Woman in the dialogue quoted above suggests that the world has somehow assumed Hiroshima's mantle of sadness out of regret. The question is, does that equate to assumption of responsibility? Is it, instead, usurpation?...The play is performed by Joel de la Fuente, Juliana Francis-Kelly, and Sue Jean Kim, all of whom do superb work. Innovative multimedia design by Glenn Reed, Rick Martin, Hap Tivey, and Du Yun contribute much to the ethereal feel of the show.

Backstage B+
(Leonard Jacobs) The play makes brittle poetry of unimaginable horror... Miyagawa's goal isn't to re-inflict old wounds—World War II was hastened to a close, historians say, by President Truman's decision to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Rather, it's to replace Resnais' romanticizing of mushroom clouds with newer, more complex metaphorical arrangements. For Hiroshima is not just one story among many; it's the story of our age. She also creates especially well observed characters—you might detect slivers of yourself in the performances, none of which hits false notes. No doubt the actors were nurtured by Jean Wagner's staging, which is pretty as a lilac, and by Hillary Spector's choreographic diversions.

Village Voice B
(Sharyn Jackson) A contemporary dialogue about history and personal memory around re-enacted film scenes in which Resnais's two lovers engage in bedside physical and psychological therapy—while the ghost of a lost betrothed delivers gory details about melting skin. In the present-day sections, the malleable actors (Joel de la Fuente, Sue Jean Kim, and Juliana Francis-Kelly) play pals gathered for movie night, where Hiroshima's consequences are confined to a Netflix envelope; though they bicker, they never come to a consensus about who has the right to feel angry or moved by the horrors of the past. Shifting screens surrounding the stage invoke the motion-picture theatricality of history, but director Jean Wagner's use of explosive graphics is the only cheap shot in this play. Stark descriptions of the bomb's aftermath are graphic enough.

The New York Times B
(Wilborn Hampton) A mostly effective but occasionally affected exploration of Alain Resnais’s 1959 film... Three fine, understated performances by Joel de la Fuente as the architect, Juliana Francis-Kelly as the actress and Sue Jean Kim as the Japanese victim, under Jean Wagner’s subdued direction, give the play a quiet dignity. In the end, of course, as the actress is frequently told, we know nothing of Hiroshima. Only those who were there can know what it was like. But Ms. Miyagawa’s play is a reminder of how little we understand.

Theatermania C+
(Andy Buck) As intriguing as many of the playwright's concepts are, they are undermined by a cast -- directed by Jean Wagner -- who don't quite connect to their roles or to each other. The performances of Joel de la Fuente and Juliana Francis-Kelly may be intended to be a mere comment on the film's central romance but, in order to do that effectively, they still need a certain chemistry that they lack. Sue Jean Kim fares only a little better with her ghostly utterances. And all three actors look awkward and halting in the evening's occasional movement passages, which are choreographed by Hillary Spector. They do, however, possess some nice comic timing. The production is well-supported by its design team.

Lighting & Sound America D
(David Barbour) There's a lot on Miyagawa's mind, including the horror of the bombing, the meaning of similar incidents (such as the firebombing of Dresden), Japan's role in its own downfall, racism, gender identity, and the role of art in romanticizing the horrors of war. But bringing up issues isn't the same thing as exploring them -- and it becomes frustrating to see so many fascinating ideas mentioned, then dropped, as the author moves on to other things. Nothing acquires any weight, and the script begins meandering in search of a meaningful conclusion.

Time Out NY D
(Helen Shaw) What must have seemed, in the planning stages, like an audacious reworking of the 1959 Alain Resnais film, fails depressingly on all fronts. Miyagawa borrows from the Marguerite Duras screenplay—a star-crossed story of a French woman falling for a Japanese man—and then pans beyond the frame, showing us the relationships left out of Resnais’s storytelling. This results in a clamor of voices, including modern-day deconstructions (“I think it’s politically questionable”) and commentary from one of Hiroshima’s dead. The project is interesting; Miyagawa’s problem is entirely in execution. The playwright doesn’t solve—or really address—the transition between media, and thus the doomed love affair so gorgeously melodramatic on screen bloats into absurdity.


NYTR A 13; BS B+ 11; VV B 10; NYT B 10; TM C+ 8; LSA D 4; TONY D 4; TOTAL: 8.57 (B-)

Read On »