Sweater Girl: Lucy Thurber

Welcome to another week of Play in the Drawer, where we feature unproduced plays by our favorite playwrights. This week we offer a selection from Monstrosity by Lucy Thurber. She describes Monstrosity as "a play about fascism and commerce. It is a re-telling of the Hero Story with several girls functioning in the role of the hero.”

Lucy Thurber is the author of seven plays, Where We’re Born, Ashville, Scarcity, Killers and Other Family, Stay, Bottom of The World and Monstrosity. She has had readings and workshops at Manhattan Theatre Club, The New Group, Primary Stages, MCC, Encore Theatre in San Francisco, PlayPenn, Williamstown and SOHO Rep. She is a member of MCC Playwrights’ Coalition, Primary Stages writing group, 13P and New Dramatists.

After the jump, a selection from Monstrosity, if you dare!

Read the blog--or else!: Oliver Twist

On Friday I’ll visit a work-in-progress showing of Young Jean Lee’s Church and then, if time allows, dash over to 3LD for a later performance of The Curse of the Mystic Reynaldo The. On Saturday it’s another double bill, Oliver Twist in the morning and Essential Self-Defense (by OBIE Committee member Adam Rapp) at night. Sunday and Monday I’ll spend the day with my sweetheart. Tuesday it’s off to Losing Something, again at 3LD.

Anything else I should catch?

It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s Man’s World: Propeller Company

This week in the Village Voice’s theater section, Michael Feingold went behind the scenes, spying on the backstage worlds of Curtains and Our Leading Lady. He remarks, “Just as the stage is a standard metaphor for the world, the disorienting realm we call backstage is the mirror of our hidden world, a place where everything stage illusion disguises can get spilled out, and spelled out explicitly, under harsh, unflattering work lights.” Feingold objects to elements of Charles Busch’s writing and Lynne Meadow’s direction, but happily falls under the spell of Leading Lady’s leading lady, Kate Mulgrew. While complimenting its cast, he calls Curtains, “a lot of sound and fury signifying mild diversion.”

Floor Model: Aoi

Saw Takeshi Kawamura's Aoi/Komachi at the Japan Society over the weekend. This year, its 100th anniversary, the japan Society has made a great effort to offer more performance events. Pretty great ones, too: Basil Twist, Big Dance Theater, Koosil-Ja Hwang. The Kawamura pieces are part of Noh Now!, contemporary adaptations of classic noh plays.

Kawamura seems a very cinematic director. The first piece Aoi, could have been a theatricalized and ghosty version of Shampoo, while Komachi transmuted Sunset Boulevard to postwar Japan.

The Man Who Laughs

Welcome to another edition of Dream Play, wherein we ask directors and producers to reveal the plays buried deep within their breasts, what they might work on if cost, space, and rights weren't an option. This week, we feature the cheerfully handsome Davis McCallum (he plans he looks better in miniature, but we distrust this). Davis McCallum directed Quiara Hudes’s Elliot: A Soldier’s Fugue at the Culture Project last season. He has two shows opening in NY in April: Jane Eyre for The Acting Company at Baruch, and West Moon Street for Prospect Theater Company at the Hudson Guild.

If eft to his own devices, Davis would direct...

Oh, my orchard! Sweetie! Darling!

The Articles What I Read and Enjoyed:

In the incomparable Guardian, Michael Billington translates the work and words of playwright/adaptor Christopher Hampton, who currently has three plays running in London. Lynn Gardner reports that Joanna Lumley (my idol!) does an absolutely fabulous job in a current production of the Cherry Orchard. Cheers, darling! Gardner also has good news that the Battersea Arts Center, one of the premiere crucibles for collaborative performance, seems to be surviving a funding crisis. Jay Rayner offers a noble profile of Ian McKellen, who will soon take on King Lear, likely with more success than Kevin Kline. The play will arrive at BAM in September. McKellen’s method: 'Acting is no longer about lying. It's now about revealing the truth. Honesty is the best policy.'

In the New York Times, Joy Goodwin plays around with the puppets of Avenue Q, writing an amusing piece casting Avenue Q's touring company (although as the show has spawned London and Las Vegas companies the piece is perhaps less than timely). The Times also reports on a Connecticut high school that canceled a student written play based on first person accounts of the war in Iraq.

In New York magazine, Boris Kachka annotates OBIE judge Adam Rapp’s resume. Military School? Graphic novels? Bouncer?

Founding father, budgetary enforcer

Since the close of the that peculiar Cambodian restaurant, I've been at a loss for cheap eats in and around the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Sure, Thomas Biesl's fabulous, and while their schnitzel is not prohibitive, neither is it a steal. But last weekend, while enjoying Propeller Shakespeare, my sweetheart and I had our first, but very likely not our last meal at Pequena. My share may have cost just a bit more than a Hamilton, particularly as a glass of sangria was deemed medicinal and necessary, but it was awfully, awfully good. Who knew fish tacos and Shakespeare went so well together. Next time, I may try the wings at The Smoke, once I can forgive it for replacing the Cambodian place.

Also, I'll be revisiting BAM Wednesday to see the Matthew Bourne. Will entertain reasonable suggestions for where to enjoy an post-play drink.

An Undisclosed (okay, fairly disclosed) Location

The super secret members of the OBIE committee (who certainly haven't been named on this very blog), gave up a portion of our valuable weekends to eat thin-crust pizza and discuss the current crop of shows. Conversation ranged from new plays to revivals, young companies to established ones, and we enjoyed a brief and amusing digression into the vagaries of attractive playwrights. Adam Bock and Sheila Callaghan, I trust your eyes are burning. I can't in good faith reveal any more, alas. You'll just ahve to attend our ceremony on the 21st.

Just Say Noh: Aoi/Komachi at Japan Society

As I have some personal commitments to honor, this week will not be quite as jam-packed as the last several--welcome, as I could use a bit of rest for the wicked.

Tonight I see Stay at the Rattlestick. Tomorrow I see long neglected friends. Saturday it's Aoi/Komachi at the Japan Society. Sunday if I'm not too tired I'll see Volume of Smoke. Monday I'm at home. Tuesday it's off to Fugue and Wednesday to Edward Scissorhands.

After the jump, see how I plan to spend my nights off (this is just for you, Jason Zinoman):

Stall Together Now (courtesy theatermania)

This week, with my discussion of assless chaps and fisting, I seem to be horrifying even myself. Especially myself. Since I may never offer such an uncouth week of posts again, I may as well make the most of this one. On that note, I was at Classic Stage Company last night and will hazard that the bathroom stalls there could not possibly be any smaller without leading to unfortunate and unhygienic accidents. They don't win my vote for grottiest bathroom (probably the Kraine or Soho Rep) or even worst lighting (Second Stage), but the proportions there are not classical in the least.

Other worst washroom nominations?