Lewiston/Clarkston

B- (Lewiston C+/Clarkston B+)

These two separate but thematically related plays by Samuel D. Hunter (The Whale, Pocatello) are being presented together for the first time at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Each involves a descendant of Lewis and Clark trying to find meaning by retracing the steps of their forefathers. Both have a scene set on the Fourth of July. 

In the first play, Lewiston, we meet Alice (Kristin Griffith; Animal, Da), a crusty older woman who has sold off most of the ranch that had been in the family since 1850 and is barely hanging on. The few dollars she earns from her roadside fireworks stand are supplemented by the Walgreens earnings of her 50-ish closeted roommate Connor (Arnie Burton; The 39 Steps, Machinal). She is planning to sell her remaining land to the developers of Meriwether Terrace, the condo estate going up next door. The unexpected arrival of her estranged granddaughter Marnie (Leah Karpel; The Harvest, Pocatello), whom she has not seen in over 15 years, disrupts these plans. The abrasive, condescending Marnie has sold her share of an urban farm in Seattle and wants to buy what’s left of the family property. Marnie likes to play the tapes her late mother recorded during her hike following Lewis and Clark’s steps to the Pacific. The three reach some kind of equilibrium. I found the characters less fully developed than I would have liked and their motivations less than clear. 

For the second play, Clarkston, Hunter, affectionately nicknamed the Bard of Boise because all his plays are set in Idaho, actually moves the setting across the border to Washington State. Jake (the ever youthful Noah Robbins; Brighton Beach Memoirs, “Master Harold”…and the Boys), a distant descendant of William Clark, is a recent arrival in town who has taken a job as night stock boy in the local Costco where he is being shown the ropes by Chris (Edmund Donovan; The Snow Geese), an amiable employee also in his 20’s. After graduating Bennington with a major in post-colonial gender studies, the privileged Jake has suddenly left home to follow the historic trail to the Pacific. He has stopped short of his goal to earn some money before pushing on to the ocean. Jake tells Chris that he has recently been diagnosed with early Huntington’s disease which will probably kill him before he reaches 30 and shortly after his diagnosis was dumped by his boyfriend. It turns out that Chris is furtively gay and the two begin a relationship of sorts. We next meet Chris’s mother Trish (Heidi Armbruster; Time Stands Still, Disgraced), an allegedly recovering meth addict, from whom Chris has desperately been trying to cut the cord. The climactic confrontation between mother and son is gut-wrenching. Chris and Jake find a way to comfort each other, at least for the time being.

As usual, Hunter is very compassionate toward his characters, all of whom must struggle for freedom, whether economic or sexual or from addiction. His look at life in the new West is a bleak one.

For this production, Rattlestick has gutted the theater. Dane Laffrey (Once on This Island) has designed two different performance spaces. For the first play, the audience of 51 sits on three sides of the action with a fireworks stand on the fourth. For the second, seating is in two longer facing rows with Costco shelves on both short sides. The costumes by Jessica Wegener Shay (A Kid Like Jake) are appropriate to the characters. The actors are all superb and are so close that you can practically touch them, a proximity that magnifies your connection. Between plays, the audience shares a communal meal during the 45-minute break. You can order barbecued chicken or tofu or bring your own food.

At three hours 45 minutes, it’s a very long evening, especially sitting on barely padded metal chairs. I felt that the direction by Davis McCallum (Pocatello, The Whale) was more than a little sluggish. Each play is 90 minutes, a full evening by today’s standards. I would have preferred skipping Lewiston and just seeing Clarkston, which I felt was clearly the better play.

The Government Inspector

B+

Red Bull Theater is presenting Jeffrey Hatcher’s clever adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s 1836 comic masterpiece about corruption in a provincial Russian town. One of the strengths of the play is that it is simultaneously deeply Russian and universal. Hatcher has wisely decided not to update it or deemphasize its Russianness. He lets the audience find their own similarities to our times. This production’s biggest plus is the casting of Michael Urie (Buyer and Cellar, TV’s Ugly Betty) as Hlestakov, the wastrel who is mistaken for the visiting inspector. He demonstrates a previously unseen talent for physical comedy that is prodigious. As the mayor, Michael McGrath channels his inner Nathan Lane to our delight. Mary Testa is a hoot as the mayor’s wife. Arnie Burton chews the scenery as the postmaster and is droll as Hlestakhov’s servant Osip. Most of the other ten actors (Stephen DeRosa, Ryan Garbayo, Kelly Hutchinson, David Manis, Ben Mehl, Talent Monohon, Luis Moreno, James Rana, Tom Alan Robbins, Mary Lou Rosato) create vivid characters and work well as an ensemble. At two hours, the comedy wears a little thin. Alexis Distler’s set design is problematic. While the sets for each of the play’s three locations are effective, presenting them as a bilevel unit seems to be an inelegant and unnecessary solution. I advise against sitting in the first two rows, because you might get a stiff neck from looking up at the set’s upper level, where the last 3/4 of the action takes place. Tilly Grimes’s period costumes are wonderful. Red Bull’s artistic director Jesse Berger keeps things moving fluidly. If you enjoy farce and slapstick, well-performed, you will have an enjoyable time. Running time: two hours including intermission.

Lives of the Saints ***

When Primary Stages offered a near-perfect production of “All in the Timing,” David Ives’s collection of six hilarious short plays, two years ago, I awarded it five stars. Now they are back with an evening of six more Ives playlets. Those expecting a reprise of Ives’s delicious word-play based sketches will be disappointed. The current collection is more substantive, but less stylistically successful. Most of the six plays (a seventh listed in the program was dropped to shorten the evening) are loosely tied together by the theme of goodness. “The Goodness of Your Heart” examines what one can expect from a good friend. “Soap Opera,” a pun-filled extended sketch about a repairman (think Maytag) who falls in love with a washing machine, shows the downside of perfection. “Enigma Variations” did not seem to fit the evening’s theme. With doubled characters and reversing roles, it was more frenetic than coherent. My favorite was “Life Signs,” in which a newly deceased mother thought to have lived an upright life suddenly begins talking to her grieving son and vividly disabusing him of that notion. “It’s All Good” shows a successful New York writer the life he might have had if he had never left southside Chicago. The title play, which closes the evening, demonstrates the simple goodness of two older Polish Catholic women preparing a funeral breakfast. Although the evening does not reach the delirious heights of “All in the Timing,” there are still lots of laughs. Returning from the previous production are director John Rando, set designer Beowulf Boritt, costume designer Anita Yavich and actors Carson Elrod (a comic genius) and Liv Rooth. They are joined by Arnie Burton, Rick Holmes and Kelly Hutchinson, who are just as adept at animating Ives’s characters. Although a bit disappointed that lightning did not strike twice, I had a good time. Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes, including intermission.

Tail! Spin! **

The sexual peccadillos of four of our politicians form the basis of this comic romp at the Lynn Redgrave Theater. Idaho’s Sen. Larry Craig (Josh Eakright, u/s for Sean Dugan), master of the wide stance; Florida’s Rep. Mark Foley (Arnie Burton), enthusiastic pal of underage congressional pages; NY’s own Rep. Anthony Wiener (Nate Smith), sexter par excellence, and South Carolina’s Gov. Mark Sanford (Tom Galantich), who turned up far from the Appalachian Trail, are captured through their own words. Rachel Dratch portrays “wives, tails, beards and Barbara Walters.” Most of the material will be thoroughly familiar to anyone who hasn’t been hiding in a cave, but playwright Mario Correa has sliced and diced it in amusing ways. Caite Hevner Kemp’s attractive set has all the right patriotic trimmings and is well lighted by Ryan O’Gara. In addition to their main characters, each actor has other roles. Projected surtitles remind us who is portraying whom at any given moment. Director Dan Knechtges maintains a lively pace. The enthusiastic cast are very good, but the material seemed to me only marginally funnier — and racier — than a series of above average Saturday Night Live skits. At 70 minutes, it was both too short and too long — too short to justify the effort and expense of attending and too long to remain fresh. 

The Mystery of Irma Vep: A Penny Dreadful ****

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 30 years since Charles Ludlum’s satire of Victorian melodrama was first staged. Red Bull Theater is celebrating this anniversary with a hilarious revival now at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. The play’s main gimmick is that all seven roles, both male and female, are played by two male actors — Ludlum and his longtime partner Everett Quinton in the original production. Ludlum died tragically three years after the play’s opening, but Quinton is fortunately still with us and has lovingly directed this revival starring Robert Sella and Arnie Burton. The play holds up surprisingly well and the actors acquit themselves quite honorably in all their roles: Lord Edgar and Lady Edith Hillcrest, the masters of Mandacrest; loyal servant Jane, one-legged swineherd Nicodemus, Egyptologist Alcazar, the mysterious Pev Amri, and, of course, Irma Vep. The convoluted plot is ridiculous in the extreme — just know that it involves the deceased first Lady Hillcrest, a vampire, a werewolf and a mummy. The language is floridly archaic (think “fain” and “gibbous”) with nods to Shakespeare and Poe, among others. The fast character changes are very funny, with one brilliant tour de force in the second act. And it’s not often you get to hear a dulcimer duet. The play’s Egyptian scene is side-slappingly funny. Scenic designer John Arnone, costume designer Ramona Ponce, lighting designer Peter West, sound designer Brandon Wolcott and wig designer Aaron Kinchen have all made delightful contributions to the production’s success. Be forewarned — if your tolerance for silliness and high camp is limited, you will not enjoy this show. There is absolutely no redeeming social value, just a lot of laughs. Running time: 2 hours including intermission.