There may be a sweller way to pass an hour on a Tuesday night this fall than at Eisenstein's Monster at the Duplex, but I wouldn't bet on it. This blissful and often touching program of six very short and very grown-up plays and monologues about love and desire by Linda Eisenstein is one of the sweetest and most rewarding evenings of theatre in recent memory; it's also a casebook on how to write and stage for the theatre with economy (in terms of time and money) and excellence.
The evening begins with its silliest and slightest offering, a short solo piece called Zombie Grrlz from the Crypt, delivered by a scary Goth chick named Magda (well-played by Holly Sheppard) who is obsessed with zombie girls and sick and tired of the bad rep she and her fellow zombie-chasers have gotten compared to, say, vampires.
F2F, also a monologue, shifts the tone considerably; this is my favorite of the six playlets comprising Eisenstein's Monster. Stephanie Deliani plays Helena, a middle-aged, admittedly not beautiful but very centered and self-confident writer who enjoys meeting people in chat rooms on the Internet and engages, when she travels, in "F2Fs"—i.e., face-to-face meetings—with some of her cyber-acquaintances. Sometimes an F2F turns out differently than expected, and that's certainly the case with Trudy, who turns out to be younger than anticipated and exquisitely beautiful to boot. Helena finds herself particularly enraptured by Trudy's swanlike neck and soft shoulders, so much so that their conversation quickly becomes strained and awkward. Trudy worries that Helena thinks she's boring; Helena's mind is somewhere else entirely.
What Eisenstein, director Rebecca Longworth, and Deliani do with this tender, intimate little play—I won't tell you what happens—is remarkable: Helena's anecdote resonates with rare authenticity and maturity. The tale takes the turn we're expecting and then a gratifying one we probably don't see coming at all. Lovely.
A Rustle of Wings is another charmer, about a woman who meets a stranger in a bar who has a pair of wings. What could be an ordinary pick-up turns into an extraordinary encounter, from which blossom love and self-affirmation. Anne Ashby plays the woman who is transformed by a unique and surprising experience.
The hilarious one-woman play Acme Temporary Services follows. Performed by Deliani, this satirical monologue is an employee's orientation to a company that believes in telling it like it is. Acme knows that its employees don't want permanent employment, just some bucks; and Acme knows that employers don't care about temps—they probably won't even notice if a different temp shows up each day. Temps, we are told, are the toilet paper of the business world. The audience laughs, but Eisenstein's not done with us; she goes on to spin this somewhat scatological metaphor brilliantly to a resoundingly bitter, comic conclusion. Funny stuff.
The final two items on the program are short plays. The first of these, Gentrification, is a smart, pointed piece about a lesbian couple who have bought a home in one of those gentrified areas in the City—maybe Williamsburg, maybe the Lower East Side—and find themselves surprised and conflicted by the various expectations they feel in this new circumstance from family and neighbors. The second is an Ibsen spoof entitled That Was No Lady from the Sea, in which a number of familiar stock characters from the master playwright's canon are twisted (but only a little) into unfamiliar shapes to tell the story of a young woman who is dissatisfied with her middle-aged husband and instead longs for a sailor with whom she had a long-ago one-night stand; meanwhile, her step-daughter is desperate to escape her home and finds a possible way out in the person of her butch schoolmistress. Kelly Fisher is magnificent as the heroine, Ellida, with her model-perfect beauty a delightful contrast to her Lucille Ball-like flair for broad physical comedy.
But Fisher is really first among equals; everybody contributing to this evening is in top form. The actors I haven't yet mentioned include Mary Louise Mooney, Liz Davito, Bob Cruz, and Morry Campbell, all of whom are terrific in multiple roles; Campbell also provides the evening's music (he is the composer and plays guitar and piano). The simple, spare sets are by Michael Muccio; the witty costumes are by Alicia Andrews. Directors Mark Finley and Rebecca Longworth keep the evening floating along splendidly, cleverly overlapping the individual pieces to eliminate any down time and also, I think, to point up the universality of Eisenstein's message in every one of these six pieces. All that any of us really want is to be loved, or appreciated, or cared about. We jump through all manner of crazy hoops to try to get that. What we need to remember, first and foremost, is to find a way to at least love ourselves. (Martin Denton, NYTheater.com q· October 19, 2004)
oobr
That’s EisenSTEEN!
Eisenstein’s Monster consists of six short plays and monologs. The first is a monolog called Zombie Grrlz From the Crypt. In it a goth girl (Holly Sheppard) rants to the audience that she doesn’t like vampires, but rather is turned on by zombies, particularly zombified corporate women in the office typing pool. This funny scene was a good one to start the show, as it deals with several themes that would be carried on in the rest of …Monster, including anti-corporate sentiment, lesbianism, the longing for love, and, of course, monsters.
F2F was next, and also a monolog. In it Helena (Stephanie Dellani) talks about the anxiety of meeting an Internet friend "Face to Face" (or F2F in net lingo). It isn’t as LOL funny as some of the other pieces in the show, nor was it intended to be all comedy. But it was a great showcase for Dellani (who played a non-speaking zombie in the first scene). Dellani was the standout performer of the evening, and got to demonstrate her comic skills in her later scenes.
A Rustle of Wings was next, a short play that was hip deep in sexual metaphor. Mira (Anne Ashby) meets Jewell (Kelly Fisher), a sexy blonde with black feathery wings growing out her back. It turns out Mira has wings too, and the sexual metaphors really take flight after that.
The highlight of the evening was the fourth piece, Acme Temporary Services. There are no monsters, love, or lesbians in this hilarious monolog. It’s just a hysterical slam against the corporate machine, in which Dellani plays the owner of a temp agency and just doesn’t care about the companies she sends her people to. Her motto: "Acme if I care." It’s rich with catharsis for those who’ve worked as temps (no doubt playwright Linda Eisenstein falls into this group too).
The fifth piece, Gentrification, is the most realistic scene of the show. Liz Davito and Mary Louise Mooney played a white lesbian couple who resent being called "Urban Pioneers" when they move into an ethnic neighborhood.
Topping off the show was That Was No Lady From the Sea, a farcical spoof of the melodrama found in Ibsen's plays.
While several of these pieces were absolutely brilliant, a couple of them were less so. Gentrification seemed a tad out of place with the others, as did Acme Temp Services, though it was so funny it didn’t matter.
Original music was composed by Morry Campbell, who took to the stage for a couple of supporting roles. Campbell’s music was an integral part of the final piece, which was riddled with melodramatic "Dum Dum DUMM!!!" musical gags. Michael Muccio’s set was restricted by the fact that the chosen venue was a tiny cabaret stage (with a piano right in the middle of it). Alicia Andrews’s costumes were at their best in the final piece, though the goth outfit from Zombie Grrlz was great too.
Despite the title, there’s nothing monstrous about this show. TOSOS II is rapidly building a reputation for quality work.
Also featuring Bob Cruz. (oobr - Charles Battersby, October 31, 2004)