Reviewed on October 10, 2005 by Caroline Smith

She changed the White House. Yes, she was a devoted wife and mother to her children, but who really knew the charming brunette behind her trademark Chanel sunglasses?

Jackie O. is a legend. In a show written and peformed by her mirror image, Andrea Reese, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ life bloomed on a tiny Off-Broadway stage.

For those who know little about Jackie, Reese’s dainty movements suggested a rose of a woman who stemmed from royalty. Conversely, Jackie O’s doting father was an alcoholic and her mother was a woman hardened by the circumstances. Consequently, Jackie’s childhood was framed by her mother’s learned advice, “Your choice of a husband is the most important decision you’ll ever make.”

But young Jackie had dreams of being in the circus. Do fairy tales really do come true? Well, wouldn’t you know it; she ended up in the biggest circus of them all –
The White House. Reese takes us back to Jackie’s first meeting with John F. Kennedy and we are right there with her, gushing over his charismatic Boston accent. And at the moment of his assassination, Reese portrays a woman who died when he died.

Reese has a beautiful understanding of the woman who sustained the polished, public persona but who, when the cameras weren’t rolling, was hurting to the core. Moreover, this show reveals a Jackie O. who is merely someone like you or I yearning to be loved. The men in her life had faded. In a scene when Reese is improvising a dance with JFK, she whispers, “Jack, don’t ever leave me…”

Reese played a woman withering from the overwhelming media attention especially after the death of her husband. In one scene, the mask she wore of herself cleverly mocked the element of “togetherness” of the wife of the former President. Privacy was something Jackie learned over time and coveted. Throughout a domino effect of tragic events, Jackie remained a mother to her children, first and foremost. She was determined to give Caroline and John-John a normal life.

Everything that happened to her: her husband’s affair(s), his death, her marriage to Aristotle Onassis, and then finally her own battle with cancer were all pearls on the string she wore around her neck. Reese is a skilled actress and honored Jackie O.’s unshakable charm. It’s unfortunate that I am too young to remember the real person, but Reese evokes a woman who, through all heartaches, genuinely loved her life. There is something to be said about that.

Andrea Reese is wonderful. She has read up on every book and the inflection in her voice down to the wave in her wrist will give you the chills. In short, I left the theatre feeling a little bit closer to a role model.

Cirque Jacqueline is directed by Charles Messina. www.Jackieoshow.com for ticket info/photos/contacts - Closes April 21, 2005

The Triad Theatre |158 W. 72nd St. |Ph: 212-352-3101

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Deborah Grimberg’s
Cycling Past the Matterhorn
Tuesday – Saturday Evenings @ 8PM
Matinees on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays @ 3 p.m.
Closes December 11th.
HAROLD CLURMAN THEATRE ON THEATRE ROW

Reviewed on October 18, 2005 by Caroline Smith

Our eyes slanted with the slant of the diagonal white backdrop. It was a modern set for a heartfelt, “chicken soup for the soul-esque” story. The play opens with dry, witty British banter between an aging mother and her colorblind, clairvoyant daughter. Shirley Knight, an actress who made her Broadway Debut in 1964 in Lee Strasberg’s Three Sisters and has performed in over 50 plays On and Off-Broadway in regional theater and in England, also boasts 3 Golden Globes, 3 Emmies, and nine Emmy nominations in television and film. Knight is lovely in this new production of Cycling Past the Matterhorn. A bit of a Mrs. Doubtfire, she pattered about in a faded floral apron while juggling cups of afternoon tea. And her incessant bickering with her palm reading daughter was funny and familiar to every mother and daughter in the audience.

This is a play about being blind before actually going blind; having sight without having vision. When Esther (Knight) tells her sister Anita, and daughter Amy, that she is going blind, it’s almost as if a clock on stage begins to quietly tick. How will the rest of them cope? Anita, played by the talented and eccentric Brenda Wehle, orders Amy to stay home and care for her mother. But Amy wrestles with her desire to move out because caring for her mother would mean never leaving the home front. Her decision to jump into a marriage with a man whose palm she knows more than his character is layered with both logic and foolishness.

In true British form, the script was impeccable. There is skill in unmasking the comedy in tragedy and playwright Deborah Grimberg does a great job of it. For instance, in scenes when Esther is in her purple spandex she has us beside ourselves with laughter. During her mortified retelling of the sex affair with the neighbor, we come to understand that the jarring news of going blind has enlarged her small world. The title becomes even clearer when she buys a bicycle and expresses her wonder at cycling past the Swiss mountain, the Matterhorn.

Carrie Preston, who plays daughter Amy, shares some thoughtful and vulnerable quips with the audience and also with the palms of people she touches on stage. The age gap cannot be ignored, but her relationship with her mother manifests new light when sight may have surpassed them. Her father, who caused Amy and her mother pain, and who we ironically, never “see,” becomes smaller and smaller in their conversation until the final scene when both are ready to confront his presence. This is a tender story with your typical ingredients of pathos, humor, and love without ever becoming trite. Director Eleanor Holdridge has succeeded with this sweet new play.

Farm Avenue Productions is a new production company based in the UK and Cycling is their first Off-Broadway project. At the closing of the show, Shirley Knight took her bow and graciously thanked the audience. I felt like I had just left my grandmother’s house, warmed by hugs and kisses.

Tickets for Cycling Past the Matterhorn are priced at $55.00 and are now available from TicketCentral.com (212-279-4200).

For more information, please visit www.cyclingpastthematterhorn.com.

Harold Clurman Theater at Theater Row | 410 West 42nd St.

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Will Kern's
Hellcab
Do You Dare Pay the Fare?
Remaining Shows:
Friday & Saturdays @10:30PM
December 9th & 10th
UNDER St. Marks

Hellcab: The Ride of your Life!

Reviewed on November 5, 2005 by Anusha Alikhan

Ever been in a cab with a couple of nymphomaniacs, a junkie and a sock puppet ventriloquist? Here’s your chance. At Rising Sun’s production of Hellcab you can be part of it all. The play, which opened yesterday, takes its audience on a wild ride through the streets of Chicago, on an at times hilarious, at times freaky, and at times heart-warming account of a cab driver’s wild and wondrous encounters on the most bizarre shift of his life.

Hell Cab is playing at the Under St. Mark’s theatre, located in the Lower East Side of New York City. Laura Jellinek’s set design includes an open concept life size frame of a yellow cab, providing an intimate and realistic setting for the play. Audience members sit inches away from the stage in a living-room size underground theatre, which may not allow for comfortable seats but certainly adds to the experience.

And an experience it is. From the entrance of Nic Melovi, the main character, who provides an honest portrayal of a frustrated but good-hearted cab driver, to the wacky cast of characters who hop into the backseat of his taxi for a lot more than a ride.

There’s the dizzying crackhead (Adam Purvis) who forces the anxious driver around town in search of his next hit. Purvis’ performance both as a spastic junkie and later as a stuttering puppet ventriloquist leaves the audience in splits.

Then there is the rape victim (Elizabeth Burke) who reveals her ordeal to the driver minutes after it occurs. This character is the most dramatic of the players because her experience and pain are so compelling and tangible, one cannot help but recognize the reality that the scene reflects. Burke does an excellent job of conveying tension and loneliness through her quiet resonating delivery.

There are also the Christian evangelists (David Anthony and Crystal Frenchschini) who attempt to drag the cabbie to a Thursday church sermon in a zealous effort to save his soul. While they are unsuccessful in their attempts their keen and comical portrayal keeps the audience hooked.

Through humour, pain, and common experience each of the strange characters communicates a greater connection between human beings and invites the audience to share in this connection.

Director Akia and writer Will Kern put together a bizarre and wonderful production evoking a myriad of emotions from the audience. In fact, by the end of the play one wishes they could take the stressed cab driver out for a beer. The play is endearing particularly because between the tears, laughter, shock, and lure you realize that this is life. Strangers do become friends, lost souls can be found, sex can be had just about anywhere, and good listeners sometimes get into trouble.

Hellcab says it all - it is not your typical night at the theatre. So if the unusual is what you crave head down to UNDER St. Mark’s for the ride of your life!

UNDER St. Marks| 94 St. Marks Place
(Between 1st Avenue and Avenue A)
(No wheelchair access)

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