Wendy R. Williams' Theatre Column

Greetings Theater Lovers,

This month was a very sparse month for theater attendance. I saw a fun That Time of the Year at the York Theater (see review) and a fun, beautifully sung version of Jacques Brel is alive and well and living in Paris (at the Zipper Theater). It was the holiday season and a time for fluff and fun!

But I would like to use this month’s column to give a shout out to two theater companies that have done some outstanding work in the last few years by showcasing plays that are both entertaining and politically relevant: The Flea Theater and The Culture Project.

First The Culture Project: The Culture Project will be moving to a new home on January 4, 2007- 55 Mercer Street @ Broome in Manhattan. (They were formerly located at 45 Bleeker thus the website www.45bleecker.com.) The Culture Project’s motto is "Culture first then politics" and every show I have been privileged to see there has lived up to that standard. Throughout the last two years I have seen thought provoking shows like: Victoria Brittain and Gillian Slovo’s Guantanámo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom (See review - scroll down); Larry Moss’ RFK (see review); and Anne Stockton’s The Speed Queen (See review).

RFK

Guantanámo told the story of the civil rights abuses (from spoken evidence) we are perpetrating on the prisoners at Guantanámo Bay . RFK was a one man show about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his decision to admit that he had made a mistake supporting the Vietnam War. It told the story of his campaign to become President and get us out of Vietnam and how he literally died trying. This was definitely a show that has many parallels today. And Speed Queen was a death penalty story but about a woman whose crimes were so horrific it was hard to have even a shred of sympathy for her, making the dilemma even more wrenching.

All of these shows were provocative, but none of them were preachy or boring. As MaryPoppins sings, “It takes a spoon full of sugar to make the medicine go down.”

Back of the Throat

And now about The Flea ( 41 White Street between Broadway and Church): The Flea is Jim Simpsons’ (as in Sigourney Weaver’s husband) theater. Here is quote from their website, www.theflea.org: “Founded in 1996 by three of New York’s most acclaimed downtown theater artists-- director Jim Simpson, designer Kyle Chepulis, and playwright Mac Wellman—the award-winning Flea Theater was originally formed out of the purely artistic impulse to create “a joyful hell in a small space”.  Brash, energetic, and dedicated, we soon became a downtown beacon for creative artists of every discipline, and for audiences seeking bold and inventive work.”

This year I saw two provocative plays at The Flea: Yussef El Guindi’s Back of the Throat (See review) and A. R. Gurney’s Post Mortem (See review).

Back of the Throat was a truly scary story about how our much vaunted Department of Homeland Security has been using their authority to terrorize any Arab American that they deem to be funny looking. And A. R. Gurney’s Post Mortem told the tale of a totalitarian society that is suddenly liberated and it asks the question of how much of our liberty are we just giving up voluntarily just because we are scared.

And as is the case with The Culture Project, both of these plays were interesting and very watchable. Congratulations to The Culture Project and The Flea for continuing to produce politically relevant theater at a time when we really need to think.