Theater: Erik's thoughts on "Standing On Ceremony", "Venus in Fur", and "Silence: The Musical"

Standing On Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays - Light, funny, and touching, this series of one act plays, each running a brief ten minutes, are as much about gay as they are hetero marriage. In many cases, setting up a civil union can be a headache. A staged reading where the actors only occasionally glance at their scripts, this production at the Minetta Lane theater features some top notch performances (Harriet Harris is the obvious standout: she has the best roles and lines of dialogue, and she possesses the ample amount of energetic hysterics to supply them with) and comedic scripts (the best ones involve Harriet Harris, one a monologue by Paul Rudnick and a later piece involving a competitive mother so excited about the approval of gay marriage that she announces a faux ceremony in The New York Times for her son). As for the other works, Neil Labute's addition, poignant as it may be, tries to do much in too little time, and an experiment involving a Facebook chat transcribed for the theater piques your interest even as you question parts of its authenticity. And Richard Thomas, with a late-in-the-evening performance eulogy taking place at a Jewish funeral, is a thought-provoking, if ultimately reaching character study. All this said however, the production whips by and is worth your time. It's for a good cause, and it has the necessary talent and chutzpah to prove it.

Venus in Fur - Life imitates art in David Ives' new play, titled after and incorporating the famous German novel by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. A two-character erotic mystery, one of the central themes of Ives' play, currently presented by Manhattan Theater Club, pertains to the popular idea of connecting an artist's personal life to the work he produces. The Ives' surrogate, a playwright/director played by Hugh Dancy struggling with casting his adaptation of the Sacher-Masoch novel, hates when people try to relate an author to his text, an actor to his character. Why can't the two be separate from one another? Why must we understand one to get a grip on the other? Against artistic reflexivity and auteur studies, he notes than when inquiring minds ask what his work is about, he's afraid of not knowing. Paired with a very forward actress by the name of Vanda (a name that ironically — or not —  hearkens back to the original source material) at an impromptu audition on a dark and stormy night, the playwright finds himself dealing with the subtext of his own work. Questions of gender identity and power struggle ensue. Dancy is quite good in his role, taking real chances in the play's concluding ten minutes, but the obvious standout is Nina Arianda, filled with so much energy that you're, umm, bound to stand erect with attention; the way she's dressed doesn't hurt. Seamlessly going from one character to another (and one accent to another, one nasal, one grand), Arianada's performance is all Red Bull-powered at the beginning — at first, it's a little too much — before eventually settling down and revealing something deeper. At least, we think it's something deeper. Of course, an actress that uses her body to get a role is not a new narrative to go along with, but Ives' play, with its love of literature and dramatic character analysis, makes it fresh. It's often funny and, by the play's end, empowering. But empowering for whom? Sometimes we must allow ourselves to get dominated a little to get hard. Or in this case, a little wet.

If the current trend of movies being adapted into musicals for the stage doesn't cease to exist, let us hope that they all follow the example set forth by Silence!: The Musical. Contrary to some critics' reservations, I happen to believe its cheap, community theater-like mise en scene is both a virtue and its crudely broad selling point. An exaggerated retelling of Jonathan Demme's 1991 film, this production isn't like the other parodies of Anthony Hopkins' iconic screen performance. It is as much infatuated with Hannibal Lecter as it is with Clarice Starling and her cinematic originator, Jodie Foster. Jenn Harris as Foster/Starling sports an accent that is essentially a one note joke, but its delivery is so spot-on that we anxiously await her in every scene. Her timing and facial expressions make the show. David Garrison, as Dr. Lecter, makes the smart choice of playing things straight — his performing of "If I Could Smell Her Cunt" is oddly elegant, but appropriately so — although, like the movie, his character is essentially a rich supporting one. And special mention must go to the able ensemble, playing a multitude of characters, all strong, producing everything from lambs, FBI agents, and, in one instance, a helicopter propeller. One character doesn't even hand hands! (so stop handing him your damn business cards.........) And yes, the "throwing of the semen" scene is intact, and on the night I saw the show, it became fascinating to watch just how long it stayed lingering in Harris' hair.

Standing On: The Gay Marriage Plays: Highly Recommended 

Venus in Fur: Highly Recommended

Silence!: The Musical: Highly Recommended