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Review
Expatriate
Culture Project
July 11, 2007
Morgan Wycks
mwycks@nyconstage.org |
This week I attended two two-person shows - Expatriate and Bash'd, A Gay Rap Opera - that use music as a metaphor for lives lived on the edge. Besides dealing with homosexual themes, both productions have major problems but the attempts are worthy ones. |
Expatriate concerns two women whose friendship is cemented from childhood on beginning in a city project. The one, Claudie, is shy but intellectually curious, the other, Alphine, is extroverted and wild. Both experience poverty, abusive relatives and crime and when Claudie escapes to Juilliard on scholarship, Alphine arrives one day to make herself a permanent guest. New York opens up new worlds to them but both follow different paths of interest. Claudie then escapes to Paris to pursue an entirely different environment and Alphine arrives, this time a year or so later, and once again makes herself a permanent guest. Only this time, Claudie has a female lover and is deep into composing music. As always, the two characters complete and complement each other which also holds true for their singing voices. They begin appearing in Paris cabarets and rise to notoriety eventually becoming a famous recording duo that leads them down unexpected avenues. Through their life-long journey tragedies occur: Claudie's brother, once the boyfriend of Alphine dies of a drug overdose; Alphine allows herself to be used again and again by the wrong sorts and also develops a drug problem. Claudie's lover leaves her because she can't handle the onslaught of fame; and Alphine lets fame go to her head becoming an abusive and demanding diva. There's more and during it all there's always the elephant in the room - will these two ever get it on since it's clear they love each other?
The author of the show, Lenelle Moise, who also plays Claudie, creates exotic music with slow Latin rhythms that cascade on top of each other mesmerizing the ear. Unfortunately, that mesmerism lulls one into tuning out the lyrics and slipping out of the play and it doesn't help that that kind of repetitiveness is also in the text itself. Claudie lets her intellectual curiosity take her again and again to new places where her avid exploration of her art ultimately leads her into isolation, while again and again Alphine chases after her and grabs onto her coattails as well as the spotlight ultimately leading her into an empty existence. At more than two hours in length, Expatriate gets way behind itself and the show, for all its good intentions and talent, becomes a slog. It doesn't help that the Culture Project allows poets from the Nyuorican Café perform work before the production begins making it an even longer evening.
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Other Reviews of Expatriate
Know of a link you'd like to see added to this list? Email us at listings@nyconstage.org
http://www.nypost.com/seven/07172008/entertainment/theater/great_depth_of_characters_120259.htm
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117937749.html?categoryid=33&cs=1
http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/14493
http://www.gomag.com/article/theater_review_expatriate/
http://www.curtainup.com/expatriate.html
http://www.timeout.com/newyork/articles/theater/42361/expatriate
Review
Bash'd, A Gay Rap Opera
Zipper Factory
July 18, 2008
Morgan Wycks
mwycks@nyconstage.org |
This week I attended two two-person shows - Expatriate and Bash'd, A Gay Rap Opera - that use music as a metaphor for lives lived on the edge. Besides dealing with homosexual themes, both productions have major problems but the attempts are worthy ones. |
Bash'd! A Gay Rap Opera concerns a small town boy, Dillon, who leaves his right wing parents for the big city where he finds a culture that fits him like a lavender glove. Finding true love in the arms of another man, Jack, whose parents are gay, Dillon finds happiness and the couple get married. By the end of the wedding party even Dillon's parents come around to acceptance. One night out on his own, Jack encounters some gay bashers and becomes the victim of a hate crime. When Dillon arrives on the scene he turns the tables on the bashers by whipping out a gun. The scene ends in a hail of bullets involving the cops. The narrators of the piece, T-Bag and Feminem, are the couple's reincarnation of Dillon and Jack and are required to tell the tale again and again until everyone gets the message.
Written and performed by Chris Craddock (Jack/T-Bag) and Nathan Cuckow (Dillon/ Feminem) the idea and the performance are smart but unfortunately the script is not. By using rap and its association with street war and animosity, the authors unite the hate crime of gay bashing to the pure form that often engenders it, and though gay epithets are used not unlike the "n" word is used by rapsters, there is not much bite in the lyrics. In fact the under 60 minute piece is often simple-minded, cornball and at times puerile. And though not a fan of rap, def poetry jam and the like, I was longing for some truly astonishing verbal dexterity. One can't help but want some of Feminem's namesake's own nasty spew (though it's hard to top Eminem's lyrics like "I'll put anthrax in your tampax" which in my book is brilliant vitriol).
What makes both Expatriate and Bash'd work to some extent is who's on stage and how they present their material. Ms. Moise and especially Ms. Mosley have stage presence galore (at least in the small Culture Project theatre), not to mention engaging singing voices, and an ability to convey the emotional push/pull of the characters with great command. They are also expertly directed by Tamilla Woodard who uses the set and lighting design of Deb O and Stephen Arnold and the choreography of Nathaniel Nicco Annan to maximum effect. Mr. Craddock and Mr. Cuckow have energy and insouciance to spare throwing themselves into what must be an exhausting exercise of concentration and movement. They are magnificently showcased on the wide, thin stage of the Zipper by Ron Jenkins' staging and Bradley Clemens' lighting design.
These four talented writer/performers are experimenting in creative and envelope-pushing ways and it's commendable that they have come this far. Hopefully their talents will mature into more substantive ventures.
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Other Reviews of Bash'd!
Know of a link you'd like to see added to this list? Email us at listings@nyconstage.org
http://www.afterelton.com/theater/2008/6/bashd
http://www.nowtoronto.com/stage/story.cfm?content=161276&archive=27,19,2008
http://theater2.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/theater/reviews/25bash.html
http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/14309
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117937488.html?categoryid=33&cs=1
www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/nyc/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003819865
http://jam.canoe.ca/Theatre/2008/06/23/5965456-ap.html
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