Preston Montfort: An American Tragedy (Ryan Campbell)

The third installment of this year's Carlotta Festival of New Plays, Campbell's play appropriates the Greek heroic tragedy--there were nods to Euripedes' Herakles and Sophocles' Ajax--and its conventions--most pointedly the doomed hero and the chorus of naive citizens--to comment on the US's repeated global military intrusions to preserve the American way of life while destroying the lives of innocents abroad and the lives of the soldiers it sends. 

The opening monologue and the closing dialogue between Preston and his buddy, Chris, are the most powerful segments of the play. Though the lines are sometimes leaden and off key, some are lyrical: "I'm a breathing gun, a walking bomb, a knife that slithers in the night."  (Scenes involving Preston's brother Edward are tedious; his character and his scenes could be eliminated without crippling the play in any way.)

It is an ambitious play, and we look forward to seeing more of Campbell's work.

Recommended.

The Children (Phillip Howze)

The second installment of the 2015 Carlotta Festival is a musical based on a community of homeless LGBTQ young people in NYC.  Intriguing book. Because we're not fans of musicals, I'll won't comment further. 

Deer and the Lovers (Emily Zemba)

It's that time of year again: Yale's Carlotta Festival of New Plays is in full swing. Tonight, we saw the first of three and were very impressed.

The program notes were limited to a Frida Kahlo quotation and her self-portrait as a St Sebastian- arrow-pierced, antlered deer. Together, they set up expectations for a theatrical piece of feminist surrealism, expectations immediately defied by the pedestrian stage sets. Of course, the sets misled us, and Frida spoke to the heart of the matter.

Seventh-inning stretch: scene change during intermission performed by animal-masked grounds keepers

Zemba's comedy depends upon apparently absurd situations that are explained away with seemingly plausible reasons---until the rational sides is twisted into further absurdity.  Her use of language places her squarely in the school of Will Eno, with the linguistic ground constantly shifting about us. Zemba has a good ear for language, and I look forward to seeing her future work.

The first act was stronger than the second, when the timing was off and the play attempted a bit too much.

Recommend

Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights (Gertrude Stein)

This fine production by the Yale School of Drama students was directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz and earns high marks for being somewhat coherent and, shall we say, illuminating of a very obscure text.

Recommend

A Streetcar Named Desire (T Williams)

Provocative production showing student director Charloote Brathwaite's willing to take risks with a classic. She set the play in a post-Katrina FEMA trailer and, without messing with the lines, re-imagined Stella as a sassy young wife taking no guff off her husband.

Highly recommend.

Eurydice (Jean Anouilh)

This production's director, Devin Brain, provides a sound, lively interpretation of Anouilh's dream-like recasting of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Though set primarily in a train station, the play wavers between the ugly realities of occupied France and the aesthetic pleasures of love and music.

Highly recommended.

Orlando (Sarah Ruhl from Virginia Woolf)

A visually interesting production of a play that could use some tightening up.

Recommend.

Phedre, Jean Racine (trans. Ted Hughes)

In the year of cougars, who could turn down a chance to see Jean Racine's Phedre, especially in a translation by Ted Hughes? The text did not disappoint, though Yale School of Drama's production did. The acting started at a high emotional pitch and had no where else to go. Plus there's the lethal problem of casting a young engenue (and what else will a director find at YSD?) as the fading leading lady.

Recommend. Caveats