I spent 12 days (and an undisclosed sum of money) in New York seeing a total of 16 shows, attending the famed New York Comic-Con, and catching up with friends. It was, frankly, a bit mental but then I’ve never been very good at “do nothing and relax” holidays. Despite being a semi-regular visitor, it’s the longest I’ve ever spent in New York in one go so there was a lot of time to cover a lot of shows as well as do everything else.
Let’s start Off-Broadway.
The Big Gay Jamboree (Orpheum Theatre) ★★★
Book by Marla Mindelle & Jonathan Parks-Ramage. Music & Lyrics by Marla Mindelle & Philip Drennen.
With the success of the hilarious Titanique, I was keen to see the new show from Titanique co-creator Marla Mindelle and this one looked just as camp and ridiculous. The premise sounded fun. When a recently engaged former-wannabe-actress wakes up in the town of Bareback, Idaho, she finds herself in a 1940s musical that she can’t escape.
It’s as if dirt-bag Elenor from ‘The Good Place’ ended up in ‘Schmigadoon’ with a touch of a certain sci-fi TV show on Apple+ which if I named it would probably be a spoiler. The humour is what you expect from a straight woman who’s spent too much time surrounded by gay men. Jokes about bottoming, ethical non-monogamy, cruising, PreP, Real Housewives, RuPaul etc. In an odd twist of fate it shares two simple gags with the much bigger Death Becomes Her – making fun of Idaho, and the fact that if you want to succeed “you’ve got to get the gays”. They’re delivered in different ways in both shows but are essentially the same jokes. The Big Gay Jamboree is not particularly clever but it holds on to the dumb fun energy of a drag performance with some clever set and costume design.
Teeth (New World Stages) ★★★½
Music & Book by Anna K Jacobs. Book & Lyrics by Michael R Jackson. Based on the screenplay “Teeth” by Mitchell Lichtenstein.
Two names got me interested in seeing Teeth – star Andy Karl and writer Michael R Jackson whose A Strange Loop was a real highlight of my last trip to Broadway. Good word of mouth didn’t hurt either.
This is classic, off-Broadway cult classic material. An adaptation of the film of the same name, in which a young woman cursed/blessed with vagina dentata sinks her teeth into her hypocritical church before unleashing a riot across the town. I’m going to keep some elements vague because the real joy of the show is its shock value. The staging is simple but effective with the real treats coming from the excellent cast. If the sight of severed prop pensises isn’t your bag then this might be too much, but it has total Carrie/Bat Boy vibes. I’ve never seen that much dick on stage (if you see it, you’ll know what I mean).
Oh and the splash zone is a serious thing, they take great delight in spraying blood from the stage.
Life and Trust (Conwell Tower) ★★★½
Produced by Emursive.
From Emursive, a group of immersive theatre makers who worked on the acclaimed Sleep No More, Life and Trust take the story of Faust as its starting point and places it in 1929, the day before the Great Wall St crash. It helps that they’ve taken over multiple floors of Conwell Tower, a grand building just off Wall Street and turned it into a labyrinthine tower of dark delights.
I’ve not seen Sleep No More (although now I want to) as I’ve always had an aversion to non-linear immersive narratives. I’ve never seen/experienced one that works. And Life and Trust doesn’t really work as a story, it’s more of a sumptuous mood filled with sex and money and betrayal.
But the quality of the work is clear, the multistory set is glorious and worth wandering around all on its own. While I followed a few characters I found myself happily wandering off and jumping tracks to see new snippets of story with included Dorian Gray getting shirtless and sweaty in his boudoir, a tall boxer fighting a match (and then having very athletic sex with Dorian), two lesbians in a fraught relationship, a crooked doctor manipulating people and being manipulated and Faust tormenting some others one-to-one. To be honest, I have no idea what really connected it all, but it was definitely enthralling. Although the crowd was sometimes too intense and the usual complaint of couples holding hands and walking slowly was very evident.
Deep History (The Public Theatre) ★★½
Written and Performed by David Finnigan.
I wanted to see a show at the Public Theatre as I’d never been before and it’s the birthplace of so many future hits and I was excited to see an Australian work playing. Turns out this one man monologue by David Finnigan (writer of Scenes from the Climate Era at Belvoir last year) was part TED Talk, part biography. Essentially a fringe show with Finnigan talking about his own history as the son of a climate scientist. This lecture is played out against a story of the 2019 bushfires that ravaged New South Wales and Finnigan’s best friend who lived in the area.
Sadly the premise hits rocky patches as the story telling device falls apart in front of the audience. The moment of revelation never lands as the set up is weak and unconvincing.
Cultural Binge 
Leave a comment