Review by Martin Denton •
January 23, 2004
Metropolitan Playhouse, one of my favorite
downtown
theatres because of their commitment to thoughtful and engaging
historically-flavored work, has now taken on perhaps its most ambitious
assignment: East Village Chronicles, a sort of theatrical history of
its home
turf, the Manhattan neighborhood(s) variously known as the Lower East
Side,
East Village, and Alphabet City. Nine playwrights and five directors
have
collaborated on ten short plays, divided into two programs. Evening A
takes
place in the 19th century, and Evening B covers the period since then,
up to
the most recent historical roadmarker, September 11, 2001. It's a
wonderful
concept that is fairly well-realized.
East Village Chronicles offers a
sweeping, panoramic look
at a city and a country on the move—snapshots of Americans (and,
consequently,
of America) at regularly scheduled intervals. Herewith, the plays,
their
periods and subjects:
▪ Astor
and Irving by Michael D. Jackson: Multimillionaire John Jacob Astor
engages
writer Washington Irving to write his biography, early 1800s
▪ The
Exploitation of Joice Heath by Trav S.D.: P.T. Barnum's first
"attraction" is a Negro woman whom he claims is George Washington's
160-year-old nurse, 1835
▪ Manhattan
Drum Taps by Craig Pospisil: A black man hides out from the Draft
Riots in
a white woman's home, Civil War
▪ If
Cleanliness by Michael Bettencourt: An Irish immigrant struggles
with cholera,
religion, and Emma Goldman, 1880s
▪
Auf Wiederschen, Kleindeutschland by
Anthony P. Pennino: A German immigrant loses her son and husband in the
Slocum
fire, 1904
▪ Ragtime
Galz by Renée Flemings: Women become aware of various social
issues,
including birth control and unionization, thanks to Margaret Sanger and
the
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, early 1900s
▪ Bring
Back Lillian Wald by Mary Baldridge: Lillian Wald debates the
Devil, time
period unclear (Wald was active from the 1890s until about 1920)
▪ Kosher
Brew by Erica Silberman: The Jewish heir to a kosher winemaking
company
wants to play jazz, 1970s
▪ 225
by Staci Swedeen: A young woman from Kansas moves into an Alphabet City
apartment, only to meet the ghost of an earlier inhabitant, 1980s
▪ Goodbye
to All That by Anthony P. Pennino: In the afterlife, a Cantor
Fitzgerald
employee killed in the World Trade Center attacks meets a Slocum
disaster
victim, 2001
Trav S.D.'s contribution
about Barnum and Joice Heath is delightfully entertaining as it makes a
sucker
out of the man who said "There is a
sucker born every minute" (I won't reveal the particulars of Mr. S.D.'s
nifty surprise). And Michael D. Jackson's play,
depicting a meeting between Astor and Irving, is fun and
illuminating,
particularly when a wealthy businesswoman named Maria Williamson, the
owner of
a chain of brothels, arrives to shake things up. Both of these plays
are
particularly satisfying because they encapsulate American archetypes so
very
well; Jackson, especially, has chosen his subjects cannily, pitting the
rich,
unscrupulous, acquisitive, and very pragmatic Astor against the more
modest,
more spiritual, puritanical Irving to reveal the colorful
contradictions that
comprise the American character.
Other pieces fit more awkwardly into the
tapestry:
Bettencourt's If Cleanliness and
Silberman's Kosher Brew feel very
specific with regard to character but very generalized with regard to
time and
place: Silberman drops in a date (March 8, 1970) and a place (Fillmore
East),
but there's little else in her piece to tie it to the East Village at a
particular moment in history. And Baldridge's Bring Back
Lillian Wald doesn't even try to evoke period, instead
fantastically putting its title character on a contemporary news
program to
debate a devil whose views are alarmingly similar to the current
administration's (itself a sadly reductive notion).
A few plays find their authors trying
something
interesting and/or new, and not quite achieving it, which is par for
the course
in an evening of one-acts such as this. Renee Flemings'
Ragtime Galz is fascinating and admirably conscientious,
but by tackling two very important social issues—Margaret Sanger's
early
efforts to educate women about birth control and the horrendous working
conditions that led to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire—she simply
bites
off more than she can chew in a half-hour play. Craig Pospisil weaves
the
political rhetoric of Abraham Lincoln and the poetry of Walt Whitman
around a
bitter drama involving a black man seeking refuge in the home of an
Irish
immigrant during the Civil War Draft Riots—an intriguing idea that
doesn't
quite cohere. Staci Swedeen's 225 is
built around a terrific concept, that the newcomers reclaiming the East
Village
must not lose sight of the rich and varied history of their
neighborhood. But
it's not developed sufficiently to pack the emotional wallop that it
could.
Pennino, who was the leader of this project, makes a stab at tying
things
together thematically in the final piece, Goodbye
to All That, but it feels incomplete.
But of course kudos to all these artists, who
have
managed to create two genuinely engaging evenings of theatre in a
remarkably
short period of time. All five directors plus designer William Kenyon,
stage
manager Gavin Walker Smith, and the uncredited costumer(s) must all be
acknowledged for pulling things together with enormous professionalism
and
polish, particularly given the tight time frame (Pennino tells me that
all ten
plays were written, cast, and mounted in just four months) and an
off-off-Broadway budget.
Huzzahs, too, to a hard-working company of
actors,
several of whom take three or four roles in the course of the two
evenings.
Among those making strong impressions: Andrew Firda as Astor, Barnum,
and the
Devil (a trio of roles any actor would kill to play, I imagine); Jane
Petrov as
Maria Williamson and as the Irish housewife in Manhattan Drum Taps;
Phillip
Bettencourt, singing beautifully a capella in Auf
Wiederschen, Kleindeustchland; Christina Romanello as a spunky
Margaret Sanger; Lisa Barnes, ditto, as both Emma Goldman (in
Auf Wiederschen, Kleindeutschland) and Lillian Wald; and Laura
E. Johnston, a delightfully buoyant presence as Joice Heath.
I am full of respect for all the artists who
worked
to bring East Village Chronicles to fruition; and it is because of that
that I
offer a couple of closing thoughts about the project as a whole. I
would have
liked more historical consistency—Wald and Goldman seemed to appear out
of
sequence, and most of the mid-20th century was absent altogether; why?
I had a
clear sense of inclusiveness, particularly with regard to women's
issues; yet
there is too much of some things: Emma Goldman figures in no fewer than
three
plays; Irish immigrants dominate (again, three plays). I missed the
richness of
the New York City melting pot: where, for example, are the Chinese,
whose
culture is so integral to the Lower East Side?
Finally, I think it's telling that the
emphasis here
was so much on tragedy: riots, disease, disastrous fires. Boundless
optimism is
relegated here only to bounders like Astor and Barnum: is that the
vision our
playwrights really have for their town?
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