@ THE CONNELLY THEATRE
As part of the for the annual
Chekhov NOW Festival!
Presented by the Lite Company
220 East 4th Street-NYC
(Between Avenues A&B)IN NOVEMBER ON THESE DATES:
Mon 4th @ 8pm, Tues 5th @ 8pm, Mon 11th @ 8pm, Tues 12th @ 8pm, Fri 15th @ 8pm, Sat 16th @ 5pm, Mon 18th @ 8pm, and Fri 22nd @ 10 pm.FOR TICKETS OR INFORMATION CALL 212-414-7773
Or e-mail us at tickets@chekhovnow.org
Ticket Prices: $15.00 Regular, $12.00 Student/SeniorMOSCOW by Nick Salamone & Maury R. McIntyre was originally developed and produced at Playwrights' Arena,
Jon Rivera, Artistic Director,
and directed by Jessica Kubzansky
MOSCOW
by Nick Salamone and Maury R. McIntyre
directed by Jessica KubzanskySeptember 22-October 28, 2001
LA Theatre Centre
What Back Stage West said:
MOSCOW
Reviewed By Anne Kelly-SaxenmeyerThe creators of this absurdist musical--Nick Salamone (book and lyrics) and Maury R. McIntyre (music)--couldn't have hoped that it would become as topical as it has, with cultural pundits daily discussing art's role in the face of fundamental crisis. For the play's three characters the crisis is being indefinitely trapped in an abandoned theatre. They don't know how they got there, if they're alive or dead, of if they're there for a reason or by a cosmic mistake. For diversion they have a makeshift game called "sockball" and a copy of Chekhov's Three Sisters in Russian.
A failed playwright among them, Jon, decides to direct a translation of the play. But as the men begin to mingle with the sisters, Chekhov's play becomes integral to their lives. Through songs that are at once lovely and densely character driven, deft staging by Jessica Kubzansky that marries play space with real space, and intimate, visceral, nuanced performances, this production manages to merge theatre's most theatrical form--the musical--with plainest reality.
Jon (Clay Storseth) casts himself as "dried-up, fusty, disapproving old" Olga, the eldest and most resigned; though Matt (Wilson Cruz), a virgin coming of age in oblivion, sees in Jon the potential for a wistful Vershinin. Matt takes on Masha, while Luke (Nic Arnzen), a young hustler from Mobile and the most unwilling thespian, is the restless Irina. None really assumes his role until a painful love triangle develops and their several escape routes--control, sex, love--are annulled. The actors share an emotional consistency that weaves song seamlessly into dialogue, but there are star turns for each: Arnzen's rendition of "Touch" in which Luke tries unsuccessfully to seduce Matt; Cruz's "So Long, Matt" in remembrance of the character's mother, and Storseth's "Behind Me" in which he recalls passionate memories of Fire Island.
Just as Salamone and McIntyre's songs ease us into the "musicalness" of the show--with piano accompaniment that swells to include violin and flute, and vocals that move from chant to aria--so Kubzansky blends the play's prose with its poetry. The characters play sockball onstage as the audience enters. Dramatic lighting effects (Robert Fromer) are built up, then used sparingly. John H. Binkley's set, a theatre in disuse, expands to include backstage, house, and implied lobby. Kitty McNamee's choreography is pedestrian in the best sense, and, in the few stylized bits, the trapped men peek through the sisters with the implication that, unbeknownst to us, the real actors are peeking out, too.
These explicit links between performance and reality testify to art's enduring relevance. The sum recalled something I'd heard on the radio hours earlier. "If you think that art is not worth doing at a time like this, it probably isn't worth doing at any time," said poet Marie Ponsot. This production certainly makes her point.
Nic Arnzen...Luke
Wilson Cruz...Matt
Clay Storseth...JonWhat the LA Times said:
MOSCOW
Curiouser and curiouser. It's not often that one thinks of existentialism and musicals in the same context. Yet "Moscow," the second offering in Playwrights' Arena's inaugural season at the company's Los Angeles Theatre Center space, is exactly that—an existential musical.
The brainchild of Nick Salamone (book and lyrics) and Maury R. McIntyre (music), "Moscow" was first produced in Los Angeles in 1998 and went on to win the top honor at that year's Edinburgh Festival. Recently returned from yet another stint at the Fringe, the play is scheduled for several more productions both here and abroad.
Pared down and reworked since its debut, the plot remains an exercise in pure eccentricity. Three gay men, trapped in some indeterminate limbo, mount a cross-dressing, musical production of Chekhov's "The Three Sisters" in a desperate attempt to make sense of their existential dilemma.
It plays a lot like "No Exit" with solos. But don't expect the sour erudition of Sartre in this case. Existentialism with a heart, the show melds typically antithetical extremes—such as intellectualism and sweetness, for instance—into one richly diverting oddity.
The characters in the play represent a melding of extremes as well. Jon (Clay Storseth), a scholarly playwright who has lost many loved ones to AIDS, has retreated into cerebral celibacy. Luke (forceful Nic Arnzen), a sexually needy male hustler, lives solely for the next fleshly encounter. And Matt (Wilson Cruz), a shy virgin, struggles to balance the conflicting urges of love and lust.
Trapped, uncertain if they are alive or dead, the men soon become emotionally embroiled. Naturally, romance is rocky in this limbo: Luke loves Matt, who is resolutely inaccessible to Luke's advances; Matt loves Jon, who is resolutely inaccessible to Matt's advances, and so on, circularly.
In fact, resolute inaccessibility is key to the plot, a lot of which revolves around a strained "Chase me! Chase me!" dynamic. These guys are past masters of the Doris Day demurral, and that proves dramatically problematic at points. Problematic, also, is the fact that the performers tend to be drowned out by the live music.
However, Jessica Kubzansky's streamlined staging, enhanced by Robert "Bobby" Fromer's lighting, minimizes the flaws of this imperfect but uplifting piece. Unlike the tormented trio in "No Exit," who spiral into despair, the characters in "Moscow" rally, recoup and bond. It's a timely tribute to the redemptive powers of art, a reminder that even the most apparently hopeless lives can be transformed through the unifying fellowship of the theater.
--F. KATHLEEN FOLEY, Special to The Times
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