The Preacher and the Shrink

The Preacher and the Shrink, by Merle Good. Directed by Steven Yuhasz. Starring Tom Galantich, Dee Hoty, and Adria Vitlar. Currently running at The Beckett Theatre at Theatre Row through January 4th, 2014.

"Are women's bodies evil?" Connie, a frustrated poet, asks her pastor father this question, a father she's barely seen in the eight years since her mother's death. Are women's bodies evil? Connie feels betrayed by her own body, convinced she will succumb to the same breast cancer which killed her mother. Michael, Connie's father, suspects Connie of somehow tempting the man she accuses of sexual misconduct. Are women's bodies evil? The poster art, a woman's red lipstick, reminiscent of the art for the 1962 film Lolita, certainly points in that direction. This troubling question, along with the question of a benevolent God in a malevolent universe, lies at the center of Merle Good's new play opening at The Beckett Theatre this month.

Connie, newly returned to her hometown in Pennsylvania after a failed marriage and her seventh rejection from a publisher, tries to sort out what's left of her life, first with her therapist Alexandra (Dee Hoty) and then with her estranged father Michael (Tom Galantich). But when Connie accuses David, a fellow reverend in Michael's church, of touching her inappropriately, her story and her intentions are immediately doubted by both confidantes. David vehemently denies any improper intentions, though he admits his hand may have slipped in the fervor of his prayer. However, when Connie offers to recant her complaint, in exchange for Michael's publicly condemning the loving God he professes to worship, Connie's true wounds come to light, wounds from which she has never healed.

Don't Mess With Me, Delta

Delta Airlines

Attn: Charles In Charge, Director, Customer Care

  

To Mr. In Charge:

On September 29^th, 2013, I experienced one of the most unpleasant travel experiences in my life. I’m not referring to my cancelled flight, though that was of course unpleasant, but more to the unprofessional and dishonest way it was handled.

I was initially set to depart Dallas-Fort Worth for LaGuardia on Delta 5801 at 2pm. After everyone had boarded, they shut down the plane to deal with a just-discovered mechanical problem. I don’t know if you’ve ever spent an hour in a powered-down plane in the 2pm heat of a Texas sun, but I’ll tell you right now that was less than pleasant.

EPICish - A Journey Through Georgia

EPICish, written by & starring Eve A. Butler. Part of the 2013 FringeNYC Festival, playing at Venue #9, Jimmy's No. 43, through August 25th, 2013.

Upbeat pop music with a violent undercurrent leads us into Eve A. Butler's examination of three women in Savannah, Georgia, coming back again in the brief interludes between each story (including Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks" and Lily Allen's "Fuck You Very Much"), reminding us that inside the friendly atmosphere, beneath the veneer of southern charm, and behind the sweet doe-eyed face of Ms. Butler, darker thoughts and actions dwell.

Playwright and performer Butler has written three monologues inspired by some of the great heroes of traditional epic poems - Bea Woolf (Beowulf), Masha Gilyov (Gilgamesh), and Odessa (Odysseus) - all set in Nausicaa, a small coffee shop in Georgia. There is a satisfying interconnectedness of the pieces, though they tell disparate stories, as Masha mentions in passing the fate of Bea, or Odessa and Bea reveals a friend in common.

Einstein: An Absent-Minded Narration

Richard Kent Green and Sheilagh Weymouth as Einstein and
Elsa surrounded by reporters. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

Einstein, by Jay Prasad. Directed by Randolph Curtis Rand. Starring Richard Kent Green. Currently running at Theatre at St. Clement's through August 25th, 2013.

As Act One of Jay Prasad's bioplay Einstein closes, the title character declares to the whirling electrons of reporters circling the nucleus of his press conference (sorry, couldn't help myself; carry on), "Do I think I'm the greatest scientist the world has ever produced? Does anyone doubt it?" The answer, unfortunately, is yes.

All biopics and bioplays face the same problem: they're supposed to stay true to the facts, even when they don't make a particularly compelling story; even when the ending disappoints. What's disappointing here is that Albert Einstein, who revolutionized physics and the way we look at the universe, does have a compelling life story - but Prasad hasn't presented it in a particularly compelling manner. Following Einstein's life from his humble beginnings in a patent office in 1905 through to his death fifty years later, Prasad's play gives us everything without enough editing down to give us a narrative with a through-line - a series of steps down an inevitable path, to the building of the man, the genius, the legend. So Act One in particular is peppered with scenes, not of young Albert on his scientific discoveries, but of him standing with old school friends, with his soon-to-be wife, with his former teacher, and narrating to each other flashbacks to respective youths (including an arbitrary use of accents for Mileva's parents, when no other scene or character sports them), however irrelevant they are to the supposed story being told. There's all too much telling going on here, and not nearly enough showing, and a lot of it feels irrelevant.

Unsolicited

It was 9:45 pm. Hardly witching hour, but still dark out. I was walking up 8th Avenue to meet a friend, reading twitter on my phone. A man I didn't know fell into step beside me.

"I just thought you should know, you look very attractive in that outfit."

I spared a side glance at him, didn't break my stride, then replied while looking at my phone, "I just thought you should know, that makes me uncomfortable."

Now, as NYC catcalling goes, as pedestrian sexual harassment goes, this was fairly mild. Polite, even. So I replied politely but firmly that this wasn't great behavior on his part.

"You can just take the compliment." Again, not an aggressive tone, but he's pressing the issue when he should back away.

"Yes, but you don't know me and I don't know you and so it makes me uncomfortable."

He said something else but I peeled away into a u-turn to cross the street, and I didn't hear it.

Here's the thing - I believe he didn't mean anything cruel by it. He didn't cuss me out. He didn't corner me against a wall. He wasn't a potential rapist. He didn't even call me a bitch (that I'm aware). But he also didn't realize that even what he did was inappropriate, was a quiet form of harassment.