Monday, January 7, 2013

New Shows: Jan. 7-14

Contact sports meet Mad Men
in the Ike-era action-thriller
The Jammer
The first full week of 2013 has a massive amount of theater starting up, from 19C intersex diarists to the original robot uprising. But I can't pass up the chance to shine my spotlight on a period drama—about roller-derby! Set in 1950s NYC, The Jammer investigates an underground pro circuit with hard-boiled style. Men and women competing in contact sports for fame and cash! The script's by Rolin Jones, whose The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, a witty '04 adventure about a girl and her robot, was shortlisted for the Pulitzer.

The Jammer
where: Atlantic Stage 2

first night: Wednesday, Jan. 9

And here's what else starts a run off-Broadway this week:

where: Irish Rep
first night: Wednesday, Jan. 9
A period piece set in 1920s England, where two young women are incarcerated in an asylum for having illegitimate children. This Beckettian absurdity was the debut effort by Charlotte Jones, a Brit who won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for Humble Boy a few years later.

where: City Center Stage II
first night: Friday, Jan. 11
The redoubtable Women's Project returns with this dark comedy set in the deserted exurbs of the Great Recession. It stars America Ferrara, who won an Emmy as Ugly Betty, as a woman trying to keep the hearth burning in the face of foreclosure, even if that means moral compromise.

where: The Wild Project
first night: Thursday, Jan. 10
Subtitled “John Fucking Proctor”, and summarized on the website as “Pregnant Catholic school girls destroy American theater”. I'm not sure you need to know anything else to tempt you to get tickets!

where: 59E59
first night: Tuesday, Jan. 8
A sort of staged lecture on urban life around the globe. The performer traveled from the slums of New Dehli & the markets of Marrakesh to the skyscrapers of Tokyo and the megalopolis of Buenos Aires. Now he returns to America's cultural capital to share his observations.

where: various stages in NYC, Brooklyn, & Queens
festival run: Jan. 3-19
PS 122's annual winter series showcases over a dozen experimental works. It's a great primer on the state of the avant garde. I can already recommend one peice, Inflatable Frankenstein by Radiohole. Another, There There, has been drawing good buzz for its subversive take on Chekhov.

where: Rattlestick Theater
first night: Thursday, Jan. 10
A black comedy set on a campus in Middle America from the Amoralists, that over-earnest company of hungry artists on the make. Curiously, it's also the latest play by Lyle Kessler, a stalwart of the 1970s scene, whose greatest success (Orphans) will soon be revived on Broadway starring Alec Baldwin.

where: Walkerspace
first night: Saturday, Jan. 12
I can't nail down much about this drama. Publicity materials suggest that it's set on a parallel Earth, at a campus where a love triangle starts to spark. TFINWIW marks the debut of the Kindling Theater Company, a troupe of 20-somethings.

where: The Duke on 42nd Street
first night: Friday, Jan. 11
An intro to Shakespeare's comic villain for children & an entertaining reversal of Twelfth Night for their parents. This comedy is part of Tim Crouch's I, Shakespeare series, which also takes the perspective of Caliban, Banquo, and even Peaseblossom. Crouch himself did charming work in his “hypnotist” act, An Oak Tree, Off-Broadway several years ago.

where: Pearl Theater
first night: Thursday, Jan. 10
The Pearl presents a one-man show based on Ian McKellan's own monologue on Will's power to transform actors and transport audiences. A Long Island longshoreman provides his own take on Shakespeare, representing speeches in the context of his own second career as an actor.

where: Theater Row
first night: Wednesday, Jan. 9
Co-winner of the Best of Edinburgh award (with Mies Julie, now closed). I really like the playwright, David Greig, who wrote the book for this hybrid drama/musical based incredibly loosely on Shakespeare. It follows an ill-advised love-match on a lost weekend of weddings, bondage, car chases, and more zaniness.

where: St. Ann's Warehouse
first night: Wednesday, Jan. 9
Already nearly sold out, this work comes to Brooklyn from Moscow's Theater School of Dramatic Art. Expect it to shoulder bruskly past your preconceptions of theatrical design and performance. Advance word paints a show of breathtaking originality and scenic ingenuity. The subject is quintessentially, morbidly Russian: the legacy of Soviet Jewish artists under Stalin.

where: Here Arts
festival run: Jan. 9-15
Here Arts curates this festival of the avant-garde, heavy on the musical end of theatrical performance. It all sounds tempting. One work (Aging Magician) is a collaboration between Rinde Eckert and Julian Crouch; another (Timur and the Dime Museum) stages a galactic punk-opera that name-drops Bjork and Screamin' Jay Hawkins.

where: Theater Row
first night: Wednesday, Jan. 9
Two dramas about robotics playing in rep. The first is a rare glimpse of Rossum's Universal Robots, a 1920s Czech Expressionist drama famous for coining the word “robot”. It also popularized that hoary trope of a robot uprising. The second show is a contemporary drama that has a wealthy, lonely bachelor buy a fembot.

where: The Public Theater
festival run: Jan. 9-20
The third of this week's festivals, UTR presents fare that's only conventional in comparison with the others. With acts such as the Nature Theater of Oklahoma and the Debate Society as well as Iranian deconstructions of Shakespeare and the ever-popular Belarus Free Theater, this Public Theater-curated fest has bona fides that're just as edgy as Prototype and COIL.

where: 59E59
first night: Thursday, Jan. 10
Inspired by a 1977 Italian film, this pocket drama stages a Roman romance against the backdrop of fascism. A harried housewife and a mysterious bachelor meet cute on the day that Hitler visited Mussolini in '38. This revival is the show's second airing, after a test run at the Flea a year ago.

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