“Tokio Confidential’s” unlikely combination of styles

You see all kinds of theatre in New York, but you don’t see that much Noh, the classical Japanese form that uses ritualized music, movement, and costumes to depict warriors, ghosts, and other epic folk. Playwrights like Brecht and O’Neill have been intoxicated by Noh and incorporated elements of it into their own work, and beginning on Sunday, audiences will have a chance to see how Noh blends with a traditional musical.

Presented at Atlantic Stage 2, Tokio Confidential might seem familiar and strange all at once. On one hand, it tells the relatable story of Isabella Archer (Jill Paice), a Civil War widow who tries to overcome her grief by traveling to Japan. Thanks to a surprising relationship with a tattoo artist and a personal decision to turn her body into art, she undergoes a physical and spiritual transformation that releases her from the past. Give or take a tattooing scene, this story should resonate with fans of everything from Gypsy to Hairspray to Grease.

But then again, there are no warrior ghosts haunting the kids at Rydell High, and the songs in Hairspray don’t suggest the lush, contemplative style of Japanese music.  That’s what makes Tokio Confidential so striking.

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“CQ/CX” mines the metaphors in Jayson Blair’s story

In his incendiary interview with The New York Observer, Jayson Blair is quoted as saying: “So Jayson Blair the human being could live, Jayson Blair the journalist had to die.”

For Gabe McKinley, a similar scenario was true as he wrote CQ/CX, now playing at the Peter Norton Space in a production from the Atlantic Theater Company. In order to dramatize the Blair scandal, McKinley had to distance himself from facts about the former New York Times journalist who plagiarized and fabricated stories. Instead, he focused on telling a larger tale about a media disaster that rocked the world’s trust in a top newspaper.

“It’s important to remember that as a playwright, sometimes getting away from the facts, you actually get closer to the truth,” McKinley says. “I definitely took the step of moving some of the characters away from real people. The show became something of its own. It’s not a historical document; it’s a play.”

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Director Lynne Meadow juggles laughter and tears in a play about cancer, life, and death

In retrospect, it’s a very strange place for a laugh.

Near the end of Margaret Edson’s Wit, the 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning play now making its Broadway debut with Manhattan Theater Club, Vivian Bearing is just a few heartbeats from death. We’ve known this was coming from the very first scene, when she strolls on in a hospital gown, bald from chemotherapy, and tell us she has terminal cancer. But somehow, even as she takes us through her arduous hospital routine, it’s easy to overlook that Vivian’s dying. She’s just so forceful, wryly commenting on the silliness of medical bureaucracy and reflecting on her passion for the poetry of John Donne. Yes, her reveries are interrupted by tests and examinations, but still, she seems bigger than that. (This is partly due to the gusto of Cynthia Nixon’s performance.)

Eventually, though, just like Vivian promised, death slides into the room. The walls of her intellect and humor crack open, and her pain is laid bare. But just when she’s at her weakest, she’s visited by another character. For a few moments, they have a tender scene that’s dotted with intellectual curiosity. There’s even a clever observation about a children’s book that pulls a giant laugh from the audience.

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A theatre makes an asset of its unusual space

Actors have clambered up it. Paintings have hung on it, as have flags and bunting. It has been a fence post, a ship mast, a tiny house and (on numerous occasions) a tree. No matter what it is, though, the pillar looming in the downstage right corner of the Irish Repertory Theatre’s stage is always the elephant in the room.

“It’s an old friend by this point,” says artistic director Charlotte Moore, who has wrangled with the pillar on dozens of occasions. “When you design for this space, that’s where you have to start.”
Luckily, she and her producing director, Ciarán O’Reilly, use the same designers repeatedly, among them James Morgan, Tony Walton and Klara Zieglerova.

A pillar in the far corner would attract little notice in most theatres, but the odd configuration at Irish Rep’s cozy Chelsea venue draws attention. At stage right, where actors typically can exit into the wings, there’s a small side pocket of additional seating. These 40 seats—”the jury box,” Moore calls them— make the pillar seem to be dead center in the stage.

She and her set designer, Antje Ellermann, have gone the tried-and-true route of turning the pillar into a tree for their acclaimed revival of Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa, which closes Jan. 29. “We often set up ladders next to it,” Moore says, “and this time we have Gerry Evans, the ne’er-do-well in the play, climb up it at one point.”

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How Kate Skarpetowska created striking dances of her own

Buoyant, vivid movement; sensual partnering; and relatable themes have made Parsons Dance a New York staple since 1985. With his stable of sexy, muscular dancers, founder David Parsons has crafted 50 trademark works, often including of-the-moment elements like contemporary rock music. Through January 22nd at the Joyce Theater, audiences can catch both Parsons’ work (including the premiere of his Round My World), as well as the choreography of a former company member, Kate Skarpetowska. “To be able to produce young artists is a complete joy,” Parsons says. “For me, it’s a part of dance.”

In the haunting and aptly titled A Stray’s Lullably (pictured above), Skarpetowska explores the world of the underdog. As car horns and street noise drift in and out, four dancers torque and twist in rounded phrases, hands reaching out and eyes focused down. They move in unison and then writhe separately, melting into hunched positions in slow motion as if floating in sea water. The two solos and duet tell the stories of four downtrodden pedestrians, each with yearning gestures and space-gobbling phrases.

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