Oslo

It's official - I just saw the Tony award winning play of the year.  Oslo, a new docu-play by J.T. Rogers being presented at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center is a bold, crackling, and humorous new play about the back-channel peace negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis in the early 1990's told with humor, charm, heart, and brutal honesty.

Jefferson Mays (Terje Rod-Larsen) and Jennifer Ehle (Mona Juul) headline the cast as the brains behind the entire idea and operation - an effort in secret to get the two parties to a secret negotiating table Norway where they could exchange real ideas, thoughts, and feelings - not the tried and failed methods of public posturing sponsored by the Americans and others for years.

The cast of characters is broad - heads of state, secretaries of state, foreign ministers, and negotiators - and even a housekeeper and butler.  Top notch performances were turned in by Michael Arnov (Uri Savir - Israeli) and Anthony Azizi (Ahmed Qurie - Palestinian).  Even a worthy Shimon Peres (Daniel Orestes) graced the stage.

The play sweeps through 3 hours before you know it.  Act I is a clever flashback to the origins of the talks that ends where it started - and sets up Act II - the actual peace negotiations.  At times tense, at others humorous, the play effortlessly glides between the two states often and sometimes unexpectedly.  The play sweeps past the accords, reveals video of the actual signing and hand shaking at the White House among all the parties and goes on to provide you with an abbreviated version of events that occurred post-accord all the way up to today.  Jefferson Mays ends the play on an uncertain yet positive and hopeful note.

Award winning performances, direction, and dialogue all combine to make this sleeper that moved upstairs from the Mitzi Newhouse Theater (off-Broadway) a hit that will inform, entertain, and remind us all just how far we've come and how much work is yet ahead.

HIR

Now playing over at Playwrights Horizons is quite the eyebrow-raising new work by Taylor Mac.  Some even say subversive.  I say entertaining and hovering right at the top without overflowing with cliche and stereotype.  Yes, it contains many of the components of the kitchen sink - A transsexual (FTM) son, an abusive husband who has had a debilitating stroke, a military son returning home from the military with a dishonorable discharge for drugs, and a once dominated mother who has transformed her life into the crazy dominatrix of the family.   So I think you see that there is much opportunity for a bit of drama here.  And Mr. Mac does quite the job of weaving this tale - partly farcical - but mostly focused on the underlying message each character bring to the table.

The divine Kristine Nielsen (Paige) helms the cast - ironically the only one who appears as she is (unlike the advertising where she is all made up in a drag like makeup).  Ms. Nielsen appears right at home with her bizarre behavior and crazy ideas - she is a true comedic character actress.  Cameron Scoggins (Isaac) appearing quite svelte and handsome took full advantage of the power of his masculine character and dominated the stage.  Tom Phelan, a remarkable transgender teen actor portraying a transgender teen character, held court as Max or Hir (the neutral pronoun as explained to us early on).  Daniel Orestes (Arnold) didn't get many lines since he had a stroke and was basically two steps above a vegetable but was always a presence on stage with his mumblings.

Kudos to David Zinn for the sets - at first a complete disaster - and the amazing transformation that happens after the intermission.

Fasten your seat belts - this one pulls no punches (well actually it does) and feeds the bizarre to you spoonful after spoonful until either you or Isaac has to throw it all up.

A Perfect Future

David Hay's new work at the Cherry Lane Theatre attempts to explore the "glory days"of a few 1970's college radicals in a Manhattan apartment 30 years later.  Lifetime movie, you may ask?  Unfortunately, worse than than, i regrettably report.

While the cast was aptly chosen for their good looks, the play, rather than focus on the subtleties of the relationships, chose to accentuate the stereotypical and painfully obvious plot twists that these people's lives cold have taken.  John Hudson (Michael T Weiss) is a rude, annoying, pompous, rich, Wall street guy.  Natalie Schiff-Hudson (Donna Bullock) is an over-the-top, former radical turned documentary film maker who seemingly turned "rich guy's wife" allegedly because they used to have good sex and apparently she never bothered to realize her husband was a complete phony, racist, capitalist ass.  Elliott Murphy (Daniel Oreskes) - the radical friend who "kept the faith" and has always "fought the good fight" amazingly comes out of the closet after it's safe to do so and is now a big gay daddy who defends terrorists and fights against AIDS  - and surprise - has lots of relationship issues.   Into this patently obvious storyline comes Mark Colvin (Scott Drummond) a young, good-looking associate at John's office who - get this - looks as straight as a Mormon arrow - but turns out he's gay too.  Over the course of this dinner party, more (expensive) wine was uncorked than at a medieval feast and (surprise) the participants reveal exactly what you would expect them to - that none of them are happy and some of them are not what they seem.

With a blueprint that could make a bad lifetime move look good, even the main prop - the wine - was a disaster.  Someone in the properties department needs a basic lesson in what color red and white wine should be.  (Hint - neither is pink).