YOU PEOPLE review

New Theatre Corps

Monday, December 10, 2007
You People

In five short glimpses of people you've seen before but possibly never considered, The Shalimar have painted an impressive mosaic of American life -- through the eyes of the disaffected, the obese, the immigrants, and the religious. From comic parables like "Deseret Desire" to the bleak realism of "Tostitos," it's time to meet You People.

Reviewed by Aaron Riccio

Be they religious, obese, foreign, rebellious, or illegal, they're still people first, and The Shalimar's latest production You People aims to remind us of that, whether it's by doing a few rock numbers or a few one-act plays. This approach, while a bit sloppy and not as put together as LA FEMME EST MORTE (or Why I Should Not F!%# My Son), succeeds at being a lot like a melting pot of ideas, and there isn't a bad play in the bunch.

The first playful piece is Josh Liveright's Deseret Desire, in which we see two lovers getting all worked up with some serious kissing. Unfortunately for John (Justin Okin), Desiree (Laurie Naughton) will only take things so far on account of her religious beliefs ("butt stuff" is apparently OK from time to time -- ah, the vagaries of interpretation), and thanks to director Camilo Fontecilla's clever direction (the two sit at a distance from one another, responding to each other's kisses without actually giving or receiving them), we can actually see his frustration. It isn't long before John's agreeing to marry her, bring his kid up in the Church, hell, go to church himself -- anything for God, ahem, sex -- which says a lot about how some people treat religion in this country, especially when the sheets come off.

The next piece, Sharyn Rothstein's Miss Morley's Revenge is a more straightforward piece, and while it's nothing we haven't seen before, it's always a pleasure to see someone stand up for themselves, even when it's through the gaze of an impenetrable smile. In this case, Marilyn Hardy (Dawn Evans) is one of those self-righteous offenders who suggests "diets" and "moderation" like they've never been considered before, and Laura Morley (Kelli Lynn Harrison) just smiles and nods, being endearingly sarcastic as she plots her revenge. It's not a particularly deep play, but R. J. Tolan directs it without any menace, making it ordinary enough to remind us of just how often this well-intentioned discrimination goes on.

In Nastaran Ahmadi's Splinter, the discrimination is a bit more opaque. Man (Charles Semine) is an Irish student whose visa in America is about to run out. Woman (Jen Taher) would rather he didn't, as she's in love with him, but despite her desperate offers to marry him, he doesn't want to stay: "Being in America's only fun if you're American." It's an insidious comment, especially since Jessi D. Hill directs him as being so well-adjusted, happy, and normal; if we can't make this sort of visitor like us (the air has a smell, he says), who will like us?

Taking a more comic approach to the same thought is Hilly Hicks Jr.'s Blanco, in which an illegal immigrant, Blanca (Nina Freeman) tries to Google her American dream, with the help of her electronics store friend, Daryl (Blaire Brooks). Their discovery, through a gay video chat site, is that in America, you can not only achieve anything, but you can be anyone, and be accepted for it. Samuel Buggeln uses two unnamed actors (Chris McKeon and Chip Brookes) to bring the open gates of the Internet to life, but manages also to achieve a level of solemnity when "El Blanco" and "Army Cock" reveal who they are when they're not dreaming.

The best piece of the night is Michael John Garces' Tostitos, which is a rather frightening glimpse at disaffected youth in this country. Red (Andres Munar) rides around the stage on a bike, snarling at everything, while his punk hanger-on, Annie (Jenny Gomez) follows on a skateboard. Tanya (Barrett Doss), a good girl, has unfortunately fallen for Red, and he berates her even as he takes free sodas and candies from her, refusing to make any emotional connection. When Tanya's father, Danny (Edwin Lee Gibson) shows up, the two violently collide, and the lack of respect and understanding on both sides is frighteningly palpable. May Adrales doesn't hold anything back in the physical staging of this piece, which means she doesn't attempt to explain or justify the way these characters behave, and the piece is better for its mysterious bursts of anger, its violent teasing, and its aggressive banter (all of which Mr. Garces has refined far better in this short piece than in his last disjointed play, Acts of Mercy).

The evening transitions through each of these plays with songs from Davide Beradi and Tommy Smith, but with the exception of the last number, "You People," which actually engages the audience, these songs serve only to give the cast enough time to change the sets, and simply aren't clear enough; the direction from Shoshona Currier and Joey Williamson doesn't help either, as the 80s costuming doesn't fit the modernity of the other pieces, nor does it really speak to those people -- what they're doing is too easily identified with, too much a part of our culture. But if the play's the thing, then You People's got it.

-----------------------------------------------------
The InterArt Annex (500 West 52nd Street)
Tickets (212-352-3101): $10.00
Performances (through 12/16): Thurs. - Sun. @ 8:00

Posted by Aaron Riccio at 12/10/2007 11:33:00 AM

Edinburgh Festivals Magazine review

La Femme est Morte Review
Written by Imogen Thomas
****

Fast-paced, physical and sexy, this frenzied interpretation of Phaedra is a thrilling theatrical rollercoaster. The dynamic, American cast presents a vibrant adaptation of the Greek tragedy, complete with exciting dances and a Greek chorus in the form of the Paparazzi, who perform covers of Take That and the Spice Girls songs, whilst adding a humorous touch of celebrity obsession to the piece. Although some of the numbers do sound like karaoke, this adds to the kitsch undertone of the piece, and on the whole this is an energetic and stylish musical-comic-tragedy.

La Femme est Morte
Pleasance
5 – 27 August
4pm

our first FIVE STAR REVIEW!

from SCOTSGAY!

THEATRE
La Femme Est Morte (Why I
Should Not Fuck My Son)
Pleasance Dome
*****
Amazingly raw and sexy production! This multi-faceted show is simply dripping with talent. A Greek morality play, a political message about the merits (or not) of war and a deep insight into the animal that is celebrity – both from the celebrity and papparazi perspective. Featuring wonderfully choreographed dances and comedy moments
like the Janet Jackson nipple incident, this production manages to combine the serious with the hilarious in an explosion of red-hot genius. I personally thought the 3 papparazi characters excelled in the show – firstly the outstandingly elegant female dancer/gymanist with a voice which rivals any I’ve heard in the charts; a stylish male with a beautiful voice and great hair, who throughout the production plays both guitar and a harp; and a hot punky looking girl who plays violin. A must-see show!

Jodie Fleming

OnstageScotland review

"Performances
that are pitch
perfect in tone
and style...
it's a blast"

La Femme est Morte or Why I Should Not Fuck My Son
Shalimar

Seneca's ancient Greek tragedy Phaedra done as a satire on American celeb and macho cultures, with pop songs and boxing – frankly this should have been a complete mess. Well it's not.

It's a constantly exhilarating, entertaining, surprising show, and the biggest surprise of all is that what you end up with is a powerful reading of Phaedra itself.

She's married to Theseus who is away fighting to impose American masculinity on wrong thinking infidels. In the meantime she falls in lust with her stepson Hippolytus (“I'm not his mother”, “She's not my mother”), under the constant gaze of a chorus of paparazzi. Then Theseus returns and it all turns very nasty indeed.

Throw in liberal use of a blood gun, boxing, mincemeat, the best mobile phone joke ever, terrific dancing, dialogue that switches from rhetoric to dude-speak in an instant and musical presentation that would grace any West End or Broadway stage and you have something very close to the top of my Fringe treat list.

You also have a company of eight, all of whom produce physical and vocal performances that are pitch perfect in tone and style from the very start to the very finish. Kim Gainer is a brittle, sexy Phaedra; Joe Cumutte a wondrously virginal dude Hippolytus; Atticus Rowe a frighteningly upright Theseus; Jen Taher glorious as the spin doctor from hell and Craig Peugh as best friend X powerfully delivers the traditional bad news messenger's speech while moving through the audience.

Last but most certainly not least are Joey Williamson, Laura Lee Anderson and Marissa Lupp as Tiresias and his paparazzi chorus, zapping out their musical numbers with precision of movement and terrific musicality.

Outstandingly well directed by Shoshona Currier, this young American company delivers one of the most successful mixing of theatrical style I've ever seen. It's a blast.

Victor Hallett

Culturewars review

I was lucky enough to meet the very smart and very sweet and often very drunk Mister Haydon at our splendid VIP bar. He is highly educated and really cool and had some great things to say about our show (which yes, always makes me love someone a little more than usual...). Below is what he wrote about our show on culturewars.org. He also has his own blog which is a great resource for the London theater scene. He wrote about us there too. And there. Read all his blogs, he's a total star.


La Femme est Morte
Pleasance, Edinburgh

Andrew Haydon
posted 28 August 2007

It seems to be a Fringe tradition in recent years for one American company to become toast of the town for the month. For the last couple of years it has been the T.E.A.M., and before that the Riot Group. This year’s undisputed winners must be Shalimar Theater, a New York-based group on their second British outing with their irreverent assault on the Phaedre story: La Femme est Morte – or why I should not fuck my son.

Bursting onto the stage like the kids from Fame turned sleazy ‘trailer trash’, they proceed to build the story using a clever mix of registers from ‘dude’-littered dialogue through to some pretty elevated poetic declamation. The action is frequently punctuated or commented upon using a brilliant selection of trashy pop classics. The overall effect is like classical tragedy moulded from cultural detritus. The action of the piece itself has been loosely relocated to contemporary America, so the central royal characters – Theseus, Phaedre and Hippolytus, are modern celebs continually dogged by paparazzi while Oenone becomes Phaedre’s PR manager or image consultant.

It’s a neat aesthetic decision that enables the company to make a wry comparison between Classical tragedy and the modern world’s obsession with celebrities’ car-crash lives. The piece also uses Theseus’ role as a warrior to advance some not-very-veiled criticisms of the US war effort: ‘We’ve ‘liberated’ Crete!’ While I could quite happily never see another anti-war play, this being a US-based company, it at least avoids the usual lazy anti-American slurs which usually come with the territory.

What really lifts this show several notches above its competitors is the subtle use and sheer range of the pop-cultural quotation deployed by Shoshona Currier’s sharp script: Phaedre compares her early love of Theseus to ‘Katie watching Tom in Risky Business’; there are allusions to Britney, Paris and Diana (no, not the Greek goddess); there’s even a blink-and-you’ll miss it visual reference to Janet Jackson’s ‘wardrobe malfunction’. These manage at once to be very funny and neat comments on the poverty of our modern celebrity culture. The music is deployed in a similar fashion. 'Back for Good' and 'Two Become One' (Take That and the Spice Girls respectively - pay attention) are both milked for all the schmaltz they can yield as incidental music. Elsewhere a whole-cast performance of 'My Humps' is both funny and raunchy as a reconciliation scene, while Guns and Roses’s 'Don’t Cry' played on a harp deals neatly delivers the play’s own funeral scene.

And while maybe not all the performances from the energetic and, frankly, sexy cast are technically perfect, there are more than enough jokes, ideas and sheer enthusiasm here to cover for any occasional lapses. Revelling in trash and kitsch while dealing with a classical text is a simple idea, but the way it is treated here, as a powerful and acute commentary on our media-dominated lives is something very special indeed.

New York Sun review!

you can read the whole article here. we are on the second page. WOOOOO!

Another unlikely musical is the Shalimar's version of èacine's "Phedre" Â-- "La Femme Est Morte or Why I Should not F%!# My Son." Artfully updated by Shoshona Currier, the doom-laden tragedy becomes a slick modern parable about celebrity and power. Theseus is a war veteran with a returning soldier's ambivalence toward the loved ones he fought for, who are also the softies who stayed at home. Phaedra's confidante is her lifestyle guru and publicist. hippolytus is a gorgeous hunk of gym-toned masculine beauty who takes on his stepfather in a briskly choreographed boxing bout and makes his final and all-too-fitting appearance as a heap of raw meat. Joey Williamson, the musical director, plays Tiresias as an androgynous snake-in-the-grass gossip writer, leading a chorus/ chorus line of hacks and paparazzi. Thehard-rocking musical numbers last too long, but the performances are polished and the script is marvelously clever. For all its glossy modernity, " La Femme Est Morte" captures the themes and moods of the Euripidean original faithfully, making a snazzy but thoughtful contribution to an ancient debate about public honor and private passion.

the Financial Times review

The Financial Times really raved. I attached the scan because there was nothing more magical than opening a major national paper and seeing an enormous picture of our show. Truly incredible.

It's a great article about the state of the Fringe and it goes on to mention a mere three shows. LA FEMME, Subway (which Joey and I are going to see in an hour), and another show that I fear I will miss but which sounds fun and simple. It is a great article by a highly respected writer. Click on the image below to get it to blow up.

as bad as it gets

We got spanked. Again.

And we then got this from Hairline:

La Femme Est Morte or Why I Should Not F**k My Son

In direct contrast to the other production at this year's Fringe which recounts the tragic Greek myth of Phaedra in the much more conventional tradition of Racine, Shalimar's version of events brings the story kicking and screaming like a Jerry Springer guest right into the modern age. Their production takes in gaudy Heat magazine style celebrity glamour, the phenomenon of mobile communications and the scourge of sensationalist paparazzi journalism, as well as the brute force of American foreign politics, as it recounts the tale of the love triangle between Queen Phaedra, her husband Theseus and his son from a former marriage, Hippolytus.

The audience is impressed by the lively contemporary musical score, containing a number of up to date chart toppers by various over produced manufactured pop artists, performed live by a perfectly vacuous trio including the musical director Joey Williamson as the lead singer. The trio also double up as the vulture like media manipulators, feasting on the rotting carcass of society’s morals with a maniacal pleasure. Excellent characterisation in all honesty. In addition to this, Phaedra is presented as a regular Jenny from the Block bling queen, bored and lonely wife of a military man gone to war, Neevee is her PR and stylist, Theseus is the all American buzz cut GI Joe, and Hippolytus is here seen as a confused, hormone ridden adolescent frat boy who pours out his heart to his buddy X over boxing spars. The performances are excellent.

A rollercoaster of a play, the acting is great, and give a real depth to the production, using a mixture of traditional and modern dialogue to satirise today’s shiny consumerised, celebrity obsessed society, as well as highlighting the gung-ho approach to world affairs that modern America has made its name with. “America hates losers…We are He-men”.


4/5

Robert May


Truthfully, the reviews don't hurt anymore. I deeply believe in this show and the work we have done on it, so it has become masochistically intriguing, reading what people think of us. Jen always said this play is love it or hate it and I always thought that was bullshit. We encountered very little hate in New York. Pretty much everyone who saw it at Fringe and at 59e59 understood the satire, were thrilled by the spectacle, and were very willing to ride with us. The reviews here are not mixed, they are split down the fucking middle. Not a single three star review, they are all either 4 stars (spectacularly magical genius satire!) or 2 stars (let's assassinate The Shalimar from behind while they're walking away, those fucking motherfuckers).

The split is thrilling. I mean who wants to make middle of the road work? Is it not better to enrage than induce apathy? However, the thing with apathy, is it's expected. In this enormous arts festival if Joe Shmoe reads a 3 star review that is middling at best, he may still attend that show to see the fair writing, decent acting, and adequate costumes. But if Mr. Shmoe reads a review that calls out a piece as "a dud of epic proportions" and "a truly awful, misguided and forgettable hour of theatre", well it is just harder to justify seeing that piece of shit.

Whereas I find it entertaining to read the reviews by people who absolutely refused to go with us to the exciting world this play lives in, reviews by little rich girls from Conneticut who were longing to see a piece of reverential Greek Tragedy, and reviews by fucking FOOD CRITICS who admitted the not knowing that much about theater (!!!), I also fear the power of the print. I know our work is good. The 30 or so people who populate our audience on a daily basis are nothing but complimentary. We were nominated for a prestigious award. We have more 4 star reviews than I can even remember off the top of my head. And yet, people read these slams and decide we are not worth an hour of their festival weekend.

And who can blame them? When was the last time I read a positively shitty review and went to see the show anyway, figuring the reviewer was just misguided? It doesn't happen. And yet, I wouldn't change this. I wouldn't erase our 2 star reviews from memory. I wouldn't go back and remove the meat. I wouldn't change a damb thing about this show to make it easier to understand or stomach. This is by far the best work most of us have done and I stand by pushing some boundaries and making a mess.

And fuck it. Today the Financial Times ran a huge picture of us and called us "the most exciting young American company I have seen up here so far this century."

Eat that with your ground beef. Give a 2 star show a fucking chance. Maybe it's genius. Maybe it's a piece of shit. But I guarantee you won't be able to take your eyes off it.

Making Theater History

And once again, a Fringe First OR EVEN THE POSSIBILITY OF IT evades us. Read it, if you dare.

But then we also got this rave from British Theatre Guide. A good reminder that reviews are very subjective.

La Femme Est Morte or why I should not Fuck my Son
Shalimar Productions
Pleasance Dome
****

Seneca never looked so good. Shalimar's production of Phaedra updates the action to modern day America and retells the story in a highly irreverent fashion. The story of the Phaedra the Celebrity-Queen and her love for stepson Hippolytus is told with a giggle and a whimsy that befit the situation all too well, as they try and fail to avoid each other's amorous glances until absentee King Theseus returns from waging war in a far-off but undisclosed land.

What struck me immediately as genius was Joey Williamson's inspired use of popular music, sung by the trio of paparazzi musicians, and set to articulately choreographed dance routines. By interspacing the action with these numbers, the tone is kept jolly and fun even when the doom becomes ever more apparent. In fact, the one moment where the play slips into the tragic mode of the source material comes as such a shock that it genuinely becomes affecting, before being transformed by the most brilliantly inspired visual gag of the play and a Harp rendition of Guns and Roses' Don't Cry.

The acting is decent, but with a carelessness at times that is welcome in an outright comedy as funny as this. Despite all of the comedy, underneath the play still manages to evoke a cutting satirical swipe at the modern celebrity culture and the invasions of privacy and spin used by the mass-media. As such it succeeds on both levels without ever seeming cloying or heavy-handed.

Graeme Strachan

The Guardian blogged about us (a little)!

Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - theatre

What do you think The Bacchae is about?
Mark Fisher

August 14, 2007 11:23 AM


The Bacchae
Coochie coochie coo ... Tony Curran and Alan Cummings in The Bacchae. Photograph: Murdo Macleod



What's The Bacchae about? It seems it depends on what paper you read. If you take the Daily Telegraph, you will believe it is about "the horrors of religious fundamentalism still being unleashed on the world today". That's the assessment of Charles Spencer who sees in the National Theatre of Scotland production a metaphor for the global tensions of 2007.

If, on the other hand, you are a reader of The Scotsman, you will be in no doubt that Euripides was writing about the challenges to a civic society. In her assessment of the show, Joyce McMillan argued it is "a political parable about the terrible fate that awaits a state which cannot acknowledge and find a balance between the different aspects of human nature."

Or maybe you read my over-night review in the Scotland on Sunday. If so, you'll see the production as a clever bit of programming by Jonathan Mills, artistic director of the Edinburgh International Festival: a play about the bacchanalian excesses of festivals in which the hangover is never far behind the party. "As the Scottish capital heaves with revellers, drinking in the cultural excesses of the world's biggest arts festival, The Bacchae stands both as a defiant shout of "yah-boo-sucks" to those who would rather the whole shebang was buttoned up and put away, and as a salutary warning to the fun-seekers that it is possible to have too much of a good thing," I claimed.

If you stick with the Guardian, however, you will know, like Michael Billington, that it is about "the dangers of repression" and the "fatal result of surrendering to animalistic impulses".

So which is it? Fundamentalism, civic society, festivals or psychological repression? The answer is yes to all of the above. The reason The Bacchae is a classic - 2412 years old and going strong - is that it reveals itself afresh to each new generation and even, in this case, each new viewer. Those of us who have written about this production have revealed our own pre-occupations - mine with the nature of festivals, McMillan's with society's political make-up, and so on - but each reaction is valid. The Bacchae is big enough to take them all.

It's the same with a great little show running at the Pleasance called La Femme est Morte. In Euripides' Hippolytus and Racine's Phèdre, the spirited actors of Shalimar have found a parable about today's celebrity culture and the war in Iraq. They show us the ancient Greek myth filtered through the world of Britney Spears and George W Bush. And they are thrillingly right.

So if they are so open to interpretation, what do these classics mean to you? Is there an aspect of John Tiffany's staging of The Bacchae, for example, that the critics have missed? Or have you come across different meanings in other versions?

4 stars from THREE WEEKS!

theatre review
La Femme Est Morte or Why I Should Not F**K My Son
Shalimar

This energetic and stylish production transfers Seneca's 'Phaedra' to the modern age of American celebrity obsession, taking the usual stereotypes - the overeager publicist, the bitchy paparazzi, the sex-obsessed best friend - and turning it into something a bit special: a well-performed, genuinely funny, and profound adaptation of the classic Greek tale of forbidden love. The chorus' musical interludes, all beautifully performed, complement each moment of the plot's dire situation perfectly, with delicious dry humour - the 'Date Rape' song forms a particularly lasting impression. The script drags slightly, lingering a bit too long over Iraq (sorry, I mean Crete) but still makes for a compelling visual feast, with an honest, heartfelt message about the perils of love and war.

Pleasance Dome, 1 - 27 Aug (not 14), 4:00pm (5:10pm), prices vary, fpp 201.

tw rating: 4/5

published: Aug-2007

one4review.com gave us 4 stars!

This tale is reworking of the Greek myth of Phaedra brought bang up to date to include the likes of paparazzi, mobile phones PRs, the ‘glamour’ world of Heat magazine and of course modern costumes as the story of the love triangle between Phaedra, her husband Theseus and his son Hippolytus.

From the opening moment, until the finale the eight strong cast serve up a non-stop feast of dance, music, both recorded and live together with some fine acting, somehow controlled by the direction of Shoshona Currier.

This New York based company deserve to have a huge hit on their hands if only for the effort they put into each performance, and were as purists may not be so happy with the interpretation, maybe another generation could possibly be made aware of the classic story through productions such as this.

The Stage "A Must See!"

La Femme est Morte or Why I Should Not F%!# My Son

Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh

The Shalimar brings the Greek myth of Phaedra right up to date with a telling that encompasses R’n’B, paparazzi, mobile phones and Hello! style notoriety for the golden triangle of Phaedra, her husband Theseus and his son - her lover - Hippolytus.

As such, it is superbly choreographed by Isis Masoud and Marc Santa Maria to a well constructed score from musical director Joey Williamson. The result is tightly directed by writer Shoshona Currier into a loud and furious blast of pure pop entertainment.

If the surface shimmers very brightly indeed, there is real depth here. Found dialogue combines with the modern setting so that it talks specifically about modern America and the attitude that its citizens have to their country’s current overseas military operations.

The performances, too, are top of the range. There is not merely huge physicality to the ensemble work and strong interpretation of the songs. The creation of character, particularly bored Phaedra (Kim Gainer), confused Hippolytus (Joe Curnutte) and Phaedra’s protective PR, Neevee (Jen Taher), goes way beyond that which you might expect. Laura Lee Anderson and Marissa Lupp’s chorus works superbly well with Williamson as arch media manipulator Tiresias to ensure that both glitter and depth are always in focus.

4 stars from THE LIST

We're on the HITLIST this week, in really amazing company. And we got a 4 star review. Ouch. Things are getting better...

LA FEMME EST MORTE OR WHY SHOULD I NOT FUCK MY SON
4 stars

* Publication: The List (Issue 582)
* Date: 9 August 2007 (Last updated: 9 Aug 2007 10:56 BST)
* Written by: Nicola Husband

Phaedra/Britney an unlikely comparison?

Britney is in a state of crisis. She split from her husband, shaved her head, drove with her son on her lap and allegedly tried to have his teeth whitened, and of course it’s all the media’s fault, just as they are held responsible for Phaedra’s demise in this adaptation of the classic. Celebrity du jour Phaedra awaits the return of her husband from war and, on a break from her Kabbalah and pilates, gets distracted by her stepson, accompanied by live renditions of music by the Spice Girls and Take That (we all know how the rest of the story pans out).

Updating the classics usually results in a painful audience experience, but not so here; the merging of the original script with the new never jars and the concept is utterly believable. The energy of the company and the frantic dance routines would have been enough, but it’s also teeming with ideas on the importance of appearance, American identity, the function of the media and our obsession with celebrity. Beauty and grotesqueness in one, this is a must see.

Pleasance Dome, 556 6550, until 27 Aug (not 14), 4pm, £9–£10 (£7.50–£8.50).

The Evening News review

Four Stars from the Evening News!

Makings of a modern classic
JO CAIRD

La Femme est Morte ****
Pleasance King Dome, Potterrow

THIS show starts with two young men boxing, segues into an energetic and tightly performed eight-person dance routine and then morphs into a mini press conference before the audience has time to realise it is an adaptation of the classic tragedy Phaedra.

In this production Phaedra is a celebrity mother of the Victoria Beckham school.

Brash, sexy and irreverent, this show is hugely entertaining.

New York-based theatre company Shalimar have created a new and exciting piece of work from an ancient tale

Until August 27.

Show Show Down Review

Or read it here!

Thursday, July 26, 2007
EAST TO EDINBURGH: La Femme Est Morte

So much more than any of the other shows currently running at the "East to Edinburgh" festival, La Femme Est Morte captures what it means to be a fringe show. A lighter adaptation of the classic Greek myth of Phaedra, La Femme Est Morte balances between the bloody conclusion of Sarah Kane's Phaedra's Love and the rock band nature of Chuck Mee's First Love by gyrating through the seven levels of pop circle hell. Assembler and director Shoshona Currier has the chorus sing "Date Rape" one moment, and has Theseus quoting Patton the next; Phaedra seduces her stepson, Hippolytus, to the chorus's rendition of "My Hump," and not to be outdone, there's ample samples of the Spice Girls ("2 Become 1"), too. It's like an avant garde take on Moulin Rouge: for all the derivations, the energy and creativity manage to sell the show. The show stands out, however, because of the exceptional choreography from Isis Masoud and Marc Santa Maria (bodies crucified and spun in mid-air), and from the multifaceted performance of Joey Williamson, who plays the effeminate leader of the paparazzi chorus with such exuberance that the story itself makes perfect sense. Great fun!

nytheatre.com review

La Femme Est Morte
reviewed by Pete Boisvert



Pick up a newspaper, flip through a magazine, or turn on a cable news channel. Odds are the first story you encounter will be on one of two topics: war or celebrity gossip. These twin themes provide the yin and yang of 21st century corporate media. In Shalimar Productions' LA FEMME EST MORTE or Why I Should Not F!%# My Son, a very modern adaptation of the Phaedra myth by Shoshona Currier, military jingoism and the lifestyles of the rich and famous collide, with fascinating results.

Currier's Phaedra is that most modern form of royalty: a celebrity, worshipped by all. Reclining on her bed throughout the first half of the play, she juggles pilates and kabbalah lessons, gives interviews to sleazy celebrity gossip hounds, and harbors secret desires for Hippolytus, the son of her warrior husband Theseus from his previous marriage to an Amazon. Hippolytus has sworn off women in order to keep himself pure for his boxing regimen—and also to hide his own feeling for his stepmother ("Not my mother!" as both he and Phaedra frequently exclaim throughout the buildup of the show).

This unspoken love rises to the surface quickly, with Phaedra and Hippolytus confessing their mutual lust over a bag of fast food. Believing Theseus to have been killed while on military duty in Crete, the unlikely lovers consummate their desires in the absent husband's bed. Of course Theseus isn't really dead, and when he makes his triumphant return from the war to a crowd of flashbulbs and microphones, all manner of hell breaks loose.

Kim Gainer commands the stage as Phaedra, with all the self-obsession, charm, and magnetism of the modern celeb. She sucks in attention from everyone around her like a black hole of narcissism. As her husband Theseus, Atticus Rowe delivers a solid, exciting performance, bringing an "invade first, ask questions later" attitude to the latter half of the play.

Hippolytus is slightly underwritten here; he begins the evening all repression and restraint, but once he succumbs to his affections for Mother, there isn't a lot left for him to do. Joe Curnutte fills the role with enthusiasm, particularly in his sparring sessions with Craig Peugh as his best friend X. Boxing is a recurring motif throughout the play, and Curnutte, Peugh, and Rowe pull off these scenes with pugilistic grace and brutality.

Joey Williamson's paparazzo Tiresias brings a wicked sense of humor to the piece, wallowing in the Page Six dirt gleefully and drinking one too many mojitos along the way. Complementing Williamson, Jen Taher shines as Phaedra's press agent Neevee, nailing one comedic moment after another.

Music and dance play a central part in the evening. Williamson, Laura Lee Anderson, and Marissa Lupp form a paparazzi chorus that comments on the action through karaoke-style pop covers. These numbers are often clever and entertaining, creating a witty counterpoint to the action, but at times the combination of miked singers and prerecorded music becomes distracting, swamping the scenes they are supposed to accent.

I can't say that celebrity gossip and warmongering are two of my favorite themes, but they are certainly preoccupations of our time and country. LA FEMME EST MORTE is being presented at the East to Edinburgh festival at 59E59, and when Shalimar makes the jump across the Atlantic in a week or so for the Edinburgh Fringe, America will be fairly (if savagely) represented by Currier and her crew.

"The play celebrates the basic human need to connect, to be cherished, to be understood."

from offoffonline.com


Meeting Cute, Online

by Kirthana Ramisetti
stirring reviewed March 16, 2007

	The cast
	Photo Credit: Serge Cashman

Have online personal ads become passé? There was a time when nearly everyone seemed to be trying for luck on dating Web sites. Yet now it appears the trend has begun to nosedive. People are steadily logging off these sites, no longer convinced that the Internet is the best way to meet Mr. or Ms. Right. Even Match.com seems to recognize that online dating is waning in popularity and is trying to entice singles back with its new slogan, "It's O.K. to look."

The characters in stirring are wary of the online dating stigma, but they can't help logging on to look for love anyway. On the surface, their taste in music (Mogwai, Devendra Banhart), the clothes they wear (vintage Converse high-top sneakers and thrift store jackets, ballerina flats, and leggings), and their place of residence (Brooklyn's Williamsburg) advertise that they are too cool for personal ads. Nevertheless, these lonely hipsters are registered on Match, Jdate, and Nerve.com, risking potential humiliation for a chance to meet that special someone.

Shalimar Productions's performance of stirring memorably captures the search for connection through modes of technology that keep people separated from one another. The play originally enjoyed sold-out runs at the 2004 New York International Fringe Festival and the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and is now being restaged at the InterArt Annex for a limited time.

The seven lovelorn Brooklynites are James and Sasha, whose long-distance relationship thrived on titillating e-mails but soured once they moved in together; Sasha's ex-boyfriend Ryan, who generates sparks with Daniel based on their mutual love for the same books and bands; Daniel's friend Joy, who lovingly derides her neighborhood on her widely read blog; and romantic Laura and darkly charming Trip, who quickly fall in love without having ever met.

Kim Gainer and Matt Bridges
Photo Credit: Serge Cashman

The script, by Charles Forbes and Shoshona Currier (also Shalimar Productions's artistic director), adeptly captures the online dating world, specifically the carefully cultivated personas men and woman create to woo each other in cyberspace. The play is based on and heavily influenced by Currier's research on actual online personal ads, which is why the characters' ads are so hilarious in the way they mirror real-life dating profiles.

All of the hipsters are well versed in the rules of writing profiles, such as "start with a hook" and "supply a narrative." The play is most exuberant in its recounting of these rules and the difficulty of cramming one's sprawling personality into neat categorizations like "favorite sex scene" or "five items you can't live without."

The affable and talented cast members play well off of one another, whether harmonizing slightly off-key to a Smiths song, chanting their personal ads in overlapping dialogue, or lustfully circling and even chasing each other around the stage in an entertaining visual demonstration of the online mating dance, where they woo one another by e-mail and instant messenging.

All give wonderfully real performances, but Jen Taher's sardonic yet vulnerable Joy is a standout, especially when skewering the wannabe artistic pretensions of Jersey City denizens or talking about meeting a cute guy in a bar and desperately trying to reconnect with him via his MySpace page. Rachel Plotkin infuses Laura with a lovable goofiness, and the character's dreamy notions of romance are both funny and surprising.

	Joey Williamson and JenTaher
	Photo Credit: Serge Cashman

Kim Gainer's Sasha shows great dramatic range as she struggles with her excitement and guilt over meeting someone new on the Web as her boyfriend withdraws into his own world. And while Matt Bridges is appealing as James, his recounting of the Pygmalion myth and musings on binary codes feel odd and out of place. You feel too acutely that the playwrights are using him as a mouthpiece to express their ideas about love and disconnection, causing James to seem less three-dimensional than the others.

The stage in which the characters interact off- and online is intentionally sparse, with props and sound used inventively to signify setting in terms of physical space and cyberspace. Desk chairs indicate that characters are communicating via laptop, while bar stools under Christmas lights show they are interacting face to face.

The characters giddily fall for each other online but fear meeting in the real world, worried that the illusion will be broken (as it often is). Some of them meet and some do not. Yet the play is not about what happens when two people finally see each other; instead it celebrates the basic human need to connect, to be cherished, to be understood. And no matter what future advances in communications technology occur, in the end we will always seek a beating heart over a blinking cursor.

Following three of the performances, there will be speed dating sessions for single theatergoers and cast members (two are for straight singles, the other for gay singles). So after watching the play's characters reflect on finding love in New York City, audience members will have the chance to do the same—but in person.