Dispelling the Ghosts (Notes from ‘Ghosts of Provincetown’)

WHY I WENT

I have a rule about this blog: No one-acts. I lied. Bad blogger!

I reneged because I’ve always wanted to see “Ile” staged. I have an affinity – no, a lust – for one-act plays from the Little Theatre Movement, of which the Provincetown Playhouse was an integral part.

Forget the love affair between O’Neill and Bryant. These two just don’t belong on the same program, at least not for that connection. She’s a curiosity and nothing more. Better to put her on a program alongside the stronger women writers of Provincetown, Susan Glaspell and Edna St. Vincent Millay.

While I have no interest in attending any of the gazillion one-act play festivals that litter the back alleys of Off-Off-Broadway, I am in awe of a capable dramaturge who can curate a program of one-acts from theatre’s past into a fluid narrative arc.

Anyway, from now on, I’ll stick to my rule of reviewing solitary plays of 90 minute’s length or longer. I prefer seeing new plays, so I won’t have the temptation to constantly refer back to the script.

WHAT’S RIGHT AND WRONG ABOUT THEATRE IN NEW YORK

New World Stage is the granddaddy of all Theaplexes.* Being on 50^th St, it almost seemed like they took a large 1500-seat Broadway theatre and chopped it up into tiny bits. Rather than staging a single multi-million dollar flop, NWS wisely picks small budgets with bigger appeal.

The genius of this particular Theaplex is in booking long-running, tourist-pleasing, bottom-feeding theatrical glitz. New World Stage is thriving while just a few blocks away Broadway is choking on its neon.

Look at what NWS has been presenting lately:

The Toxic Avenger. Trash, but the good kind.
Altar Boyz. Where gay sex is covert.
Naked Boys Singing. Where gay sex is overt.
My First Time. Did I happen to mention that it’s about sex?
Gazillion Bubble Show. A pop sop to the sexless and not-yet-sexual.

On a short term basis, they’re also booking a Hypnotist. Schlocky, you say? Well, this particular Hypnotist uses her power to cloud men’s minds to prevent them from undressing her with their eyes.

No wonder that so-hip-that-it-hurts Time Out magazine has put their brand on the theatre bar.

That said, I have to applaud NWS for leaving room enough for a new theatre company to use one of their stages for something a bit more pedestrian.

*A Theaplex is a conglomeration of small theatres in one large space, the theatrical version of a Cineplex.

THE SET

Less than a week after viewing the wondrously attired set of Greendale G.P., I had to stare at the vast sparse space of “Ile”. Tell me, are walls verboten in modern theatre? I can understand why Greendale couldn’t block off their acting spaces with walls, but for “Ile,” little effort was made to dress the set like a realistically real Captain’s cabin.

In the ersatz cabin there was – out of place on a ship two years at sea – a piano. There are good reasons why “Ile” isn’t staged very often and the availability of decent pump organs is one of them. The script calls for an organ, of course, as a piano on a long ocean voyage would be ludicrous. I mean, who is keeping this thing in tune?

THANK YOU

Following up on my survey of Programmed Gratitude, this program listed a modest six Thank You’s. Simple and to the point.

LATE AGAIN

I’ll give an automatic $100 rating to any play that starts exactly on time.

MY FAVORITE LINE

DEATH: “You’re all alike, you Suicides…”