Theater review: Gallery Players does August Wilson's 'Jitney'

By Meredith Deliso

The play may be called “Jitney” and set in a gypsy cab station, but August Wilson’s early work is not about driving cars.

Now running at the Gallery Players in Park Slope, the playwright’s eighth installment in his much-heralded “Pittsburgh Cycle” is an imperfect yet engrossing glimpse at the lives of men — young men, old men, failed men, poor men, alcoholic men, ambitious men, generous men, wise men, hot-headed men, all of them black men — working as drivers in the 1970s.

From the start, there’s a sense of familiarity among them, conveyed through the teasing, the debates (who’s prettier — Lena Horne or Sarah Vaughan?) and even the punches thrown. It’ll take some paying attention, but you’ll get familiar with them, too.

There’s Youngblood, a 24-year-old Vietnam vet who’s trying to buy a house for his girlfriend and 2-year-old son; the gray-haired, stuttering Turnbo, who likes to know everyone’s business; Doub, the voice of reason; Shealy, who uses the incessantly ringing phone to “take numbers”; Fielding, a former tailor who made suits for Count Basie back in the day, but now risks job and health by drinking; and, at the helm of this tired ship, Becker, a retired miner.

Essentially two things happen in the play — first, Becker breaks the news that, in two weeks, the city is tearing down the shop’s block in an attempt at urban renewal. That, though, is almost an afterthought; a latter rallying cry against the destruction plays as insincere and pat.

The main meat comes from the second news — Becker’s estranged son, Booster, is being released from prison after serving 20 years for killing his rich, white girlfriend after she falsely claimed that he raped her.

That father-son relationship, and, in turn, the moving performances by Lawrence James, a Wilson veteran, as Becker, and Gil Charleston as Booster, make for the show’s best moments. There’s a tearjerker of a speech from James on being known as the man who raised a murderer — it elicited a few audible “wows” at Sunday’s matinee —followed by a glimpse of Charleston’s tear-streaked, helpless face, one of director Gregory Simmons’s beautifully crafted moments.

It’s an ensemble piece, so thankfully, the rest of the cast turns in solid performances. Kwaku Driskell is a weary yet charming Fielding, and Terrence Charles Rodgers is funny as Turnbo — though his inexplicable stutter only seemed to serve as a cover for more than a few flubbed lines.

However rich the performances, the technical aspects of the play left much to be desired. The pace is intentionally contemplative, but it dragged nonetheless. It also didn’t help that even though there are no necessary scene changes — the play takes place entirely in the station — the multiple scene transitions left us sitting in the dark for much too long while canned music — street sounds or period music — attempted to fill the awkward silence.

I was impatient to get back to the otherwise fine drama at hand.

“Jitney” at the Gallery Players [199 14th St. between Fourth and Fifth avenue in Park Slope, (718) 832-0617], now through April 3. Tickets $18 ($14 for children and seniors). For info, visit www.galleryplayers.com. 

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Theater review: Nothing 'Drowsy' about this show

By Meredith Deliso

The mousy man in the Broadway memorabilia-filled apartment just wants to be entertained by a story and a few good songs.

And when he’s feeling blue, nothing cheers him up quite like his favorite musical — “The Drowsy Chaperone.”

When the man drops the needle onto a cast album to this fictional musical, characters enter his apartment and the show begins.

“The Drowsy Chaperone,” of course, is not a fictional musical, but an actual one. And its ingenious show-within-a-show construct helped it win the Tony for best book in 2006. But beyond the clever staging, this homage to bygone musicals — the ones with overtures, rousing numbers, and, of course, a happy ending — is filled with all of those things.

The Gallery Players’ new production would certainly not disappoint its narrator, thanks to a plotline right out of one of his cherished Broadway hits. In short, Robert Martin, an oil tycoon, is about to marry Janet Van De Graaff, a Zeigfeld-esque showgirl who’s quitting the stage once she says her vows. Her producer, Mr. Feldzieg, can’t afford to let that happen, and neither can Janet’s guardian, the “chaperone” of the title, who keeps a flask in her furs and a saucy line at the ready. This being a send-up of 1920s musicals, obviously mistaken identities, gangster jokes, spit takes and over-the-top numbers ensue.

At the helm of the ensemble, Craig Treubert is extremely affable as the man in the chair, even as he regularly interrupts the show with commentary. As Robert, Eric Weaver is a quadruple threat — he sings, acts, tap dances, and even skates. The drowsy chaperone may be the narrator’s personal favorite, but Edward Juvier easily wins the audience over as the ridiculous Lothario Adolpho, earning laughs in his entrance alone.

It’s an uproarious production that revels in playing with its construct — at one point, the man’s record “skips,” causing the cast to repeat a dance sequence until remedied. Another big number gets cut short by a power outage.

Not all aspects are as winning. The gangsters’ pastry puns got old fast. Feldzieg and a dim-witted showgirl, Kitty, yelled most of their lines, but it was more grating than funny. A bad line isn’t funnier if you say it louder. And some of the charm of the big budget Broadway

production — especially the way the actors entered from inside the refrigerator or from off the bookshelf — couldn’t be attempted here.

But the show is so charming and the cast so talented that those are minor grievances. And it’s selling well, so get your tickets now if you want to be taken away by this highly entertaining production. Because, in the end, aren’t we all just the man in the chair?

“The Drowsy Chaperone” at the Gallery Players [199 14th St. between Fourth and Fifth avenue in Park Slope, (718) 832-0617], through Feb. 20. Tickets $18 ($14 for children and seniors). For info, visit www.galleryplayers.com.

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Theater review: Gallery Players’ ‘Lughnasa’ is something to dance about

By Alex Rush

The last thing anyone needs is another “Dancing at Lughnasa,” the Brian Friel drama that made its debut 20 years ago before earning three Tony’s on Broadway and more acclaim for Meryl Streep in the subsequent movie version.

Fortunately, the drama about a rural Irish town in the Great Depression is in good hands on 14th Street, as the Gallery Players do a great job of making the work seem fresh and lively again.

This dialogue-driven drama centers on 7-year-old Michael Evans, who lives in a cottage with his single mother and four aunts. The schoolboy version of Evans never actually appears in the play; when the family addresses him, it is Evans the narrator who sets the scene, letting the audience know what his young self was thinking.

This Evans (played by Zac Hoogendyk) remembers certain events around the time of the harvest feast at Lughnasa, an annual pagan celebration that his aunts and mother want to attend. But their Catholic piety, poverty and lack of dates hold them back. Instead, they dance around their kitchen to their faulty radio.

Evans also muses on his uncle, Father Jack, who has just returned from missionary work at a leper colony in Uganda. Jack had been a local legend due to his travels, but Evans sees him reduced to a malaria-stricken man who can’t seem to adjust to life in Ireland after 25 years in Africa.

“Back at home,” is how Father Jack starts many stories about his time abroad.

Some of the strongest scenes involve Evans’s flaky father, a wandering Welshman named Gerry who always has some new job, new silly story and new promise to never keep. His casual comings and goings drive Evans’s mother, Chris, into bouts of depression. She is very much in love with Gerry, but rejects his annual marriage proposals because she knows he’s prone to disappearing for months at a time.

The play’s storylines are entirely dependent on the skills of the actors, who do a great job of unveiling their characters’ complexities. Susan Ferrara is particularly notable for her role as Kate, Evans’s oldest aunt and self-appointed family matriarch. Kate proclaims herself to be a “self-righteous bitch,” but shows that she is vulnerable when she confides that she may lose her job and worries about her simple-minded sister, Rose.

In addition to monumental occurrences, “Dancing at Lughnasa” explores religious conflict, as Kate’s stern monotheistic beliefs clash with her sisters’ interest in the pagan harvest festival, and also with Father Jack’s love for African rituals.

Another important theme is industrialization, which hits the household when Rose and her sister Agnes lose their jobs as knitters.

During his final monologue, Evans says that in his memories, “atmosphere are more real than incident.” But with “Dancing at Lughnasa,” The Gallery Players make both the poignant story’s atmosphere and its incidents seem as vivid as one’s own memories.

“Dancing at Lughnasa” at the Gallery Players [199 14th St. between Fourth and Fifth avenues in Park Slope, (718) 595-0547], through Dec. 19.

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Theater Review: Embrace this 'Madness'

 Photo by Bella Muccari.

By  Meredith Deliso

The Gallery Players have gone to pot — but you’re the one who’ll get high.

The Park Slope theater troupe brings “Reefer Madness,” a musical based on the 1938 propaganda film of the same name, to the stage this month, and this smoke-filled room is a laugh-a-minute affair.

The exploitation film was originally a big blunt of Acapulco gold for Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney, who turned “Reefer Madness” into a musical in 1998, embracing the film’s over-the-top seriousness and ridiculous scare tactics for an uproarious performance.

In the Gallery Players’ silly, kinky production, the sparse set comes alive quickly after The Lecturer takes to the stage to warn us about “true events” that transpired as a result of the demon weed. And it starts off with a bong, er, bang, thanks the raucous opening number, “Reefer Madness,” featuring zombified teens — the victims of marijuana.

The Lecturer (Greg Horton, whose mustache should also get its own credit) goes on to tell the “true” story of the wide-eyed Jimmy Harper, a 16-year-old who, with one puff of the ganga, goes from a good egg to a bad apple, much to the dismay and confusion of his girlfriend, Mary Lane. He becomes a regular at the reefer den of Jack Stone, Mae Coleman, Sally Debains, and Ralph Wiley, who prey on the local teens to support their own bad habit.

As Jimmy gets deeper and deeper into their world, becoming a sex-crazed creep who ecstatically steals from his mom and the church’s collection, we learn some valuable lessons, such as “reefer makes you sell your babies for drug money,” and “reefer kills poor old men.” Not even Jesus (played with great charisma by Jose Restrepo) can save him.

It’s a quick-moving performance, with great sight gags, that goes off without a hitch. The comically choreographed numbers use the space well, especially with the full ensemble (“The Orgy” is a stand out), and there’s as many costume changes as a Lady Gaga concert, as the fresh-faced ensemble easily transforms into flesh-rotting zombies, high heel, corset-sporting cherubs (men included), and wholesome, milkshake slurpin’ kids.

Jason Edward Cook makes Jimmy’s own embellished transformation believable, with little more than an untucked shirt and tussled hair. The innocent Mary Lane is appropriately doe-eyed — so the fun really starts when she gets her turn in the inhibition-destroying drug den.

Michele Scully is sultry as Sally, and, in a show without many stand-out vocal moments, Jaygee Macapugay steals the stage as the maternal Mae during “The Stuff” and its reprise. Zak Risinger also earns his laughs as the strung-out Ralph thanks to his wiry physical comedy.

For all the high times, the musical isn’t without some downers. The cast is unmic-ed, so some singers, especially the soft-voiced Cook, are difficult to hear. And in such a silly show, the violence is difficult to react to. A rape joke fell completely flat, and the abuse between Jack and Mae, played straight, wasn’t really funny until an outlandish prop was brought in. In a production as sardonic as this one, where pot turns teens into zombies, it’s at its best when it keeps it over the top and embraces the madness.

“Reefer Madness” at the Gallery Players [199 14th St. between Fourth and Fifth avenues in Park Slope, (718) 595-0547], now through Nov. 14. Tickets $18, $14 for children and seniors. For info, visit www.galleryplayers.com.

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What it's all about

The musical “Reefer Madness” is based on a 1938 film originally titled “Tell Your Children,” which was made by a church group to warn folks that weed ruins the lives of unsuspecting teens. Soon after the film was shot, it was picked up by the exploitation circuit — a nod to its campy nature and overall ridiculousness — and retitled “Reefer Madness.”

But “Reefer Madness” the movie truly became a cult classic in the 1970s, when it was re-released by the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws to give stoners one more thing to giggle about. The musical version was written by Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney in 1998, and had a brief run Off-Broadway in 2001. It was even made into a Showtime movie in 2005.

Don't miss a production of the musical by the Gallery Players, opening this Friday.

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High times with the Gallery Players

Rebecca Dealy stars as Mary Lane
in the Gallery Player's production
of "Reefer Madness."
Photo by Stefano Giovannini

By Alex Rush

Pot is so omnipresent, that even a Park-Slope based community theater troupe is reviving a marijuana-themed play.

This month, the Gallery Players presents the musical, “Reefer Madness,” a hilarious spoof on the anti-Mary Jane propaganda film of the same name. The play’s producer, Heather Curran, said that the live, stoner-friendly satire, which had a short Off-Broadway run nine years ago, is more timely than ever.

Think of it as “Weeds” for all of you without cable.

“With the growing marijuana legalization movement, now is the perfect time to revive ‘Reefer Madness,’ ” Curran said (see a video with the cast talking about the play here).

Indeed, a play that makes fun of outrageous marijuana myths — like the ones that say the drug turns clean-cut kids into sex-crazed, murderous maniacs — is more relevant now that weed carries less of a stigma. 

“Marijuana has become much more popular and accepted, especially in the last 10 to 15 years,” said Naomi Braine, a sociology professor at Brooklyn College who studies drug policy. “One of the things that de-stigmatizes drugs that are relatively safe is widespread use.”

Weed is the most commonly used illegal drug in the United States, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. About 44 percent of Americans are in favor of legalizing marijuana, up from 25 percent in the mid-1990s, according to a 2009 Gallup poll. New York State is considering legislation, supported by state Sen. Eric Adams (D–Fort Greene), to legalize marijuana for medicinal uses, which is allowed in 14 states and the District of Columbia. California may go a step further this November, when voters will decide on an initiative that would allow for recreational usage of marijuana.

The “Reefer Madness” musical uses most of the plot and dialogue from the original movie, but incorporates it into a play within a play, wherein the bow tie-clad Lecturer tries to scare clean-cut students away from the dreaded “demon weed” by presenting a “re-enactment of true events,” which he claims were caused by pot-smokers. 

Those “true events” include attacks by cannibalistic zombies and orgies with a Goat-Man. And tongue-and-cheek song lyrics say that weed is “turning all our children into hooligans and whores” and “savagely deflowering the good ol’ U.S.A.” 

“The humor in the play is that marijuana is pointed to as the root of all evil,” said director Dev Bondarin.

Marijuana as public enemy number one is especially laughable given the fact that the drug has been portrayed in movies, TV and music as harmless fun in recent years. For instance, Brooklyn hip-hop duo Smif N’ Wessun are known for lyrics about “puffin’ la,” and the Brooklyn-set HBO series “Bored to Death,” features Ted Danson, Jason Schwartzman and Zach Galifianakis sparking up before moonlighting as private detectives.

“There’s been a big change in the way marijuana smoking is shown on TV,” said Jay Goldsteain, the executive director of the New York Chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. “Ten years ago, it seemed as if television shows were committed to showing these cartoonish consequences of marijuana, but we don’t really see that anymore.”

TV characters’ reefer-induced fun is a far cry from what many adults preached about weed decades ago.
“I actually heard warnings growing up that weed would rot my brain,” said Horton, who came of age in the cannabis-crazed 1970s. “So ‘Reefer Madness’ definitely resonates.”

“Reefer Madness” at the The Gallery Players [199 14th St. between Fourth and Fifth avenues in Park Slope, (718) 595-0547], Oct. 23–Nov. 14. Tickets $18 for adults, $14 for seniors and children under 12. For info, visit www.galleryplayers.com.

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Two takes on theater

Two of Brooklyn's community theaters launched their new seasons last weekend, and we were there.

See what we had to say about the Gallery Players's production of "What The Butler Saw" (pictured) and the Heights Players's production of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" to help you plan your next date night.

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