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DATE: Wednesday, October 30, 2013

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Among the Huddled Masses, Doing Good Can Come With a High Price - The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/...eater/reviews/brechts-good-person-of-szechwan-opens-at-public-theater.html?pagewanted=print[10/30/2013 9:05:10 AM]

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October 29, 2013THEATER REVIEW

Among the Huddled Masses, Doing Good Can Come With aHigh PriceBy CHARLES ISHERWOOD

Some shows are just too good to go away for good. And no, I’m not referring to the mechanical juggernautsthat are parked on Broadway like so many hyper-expensive theme park rides. I’m talking about the FoundryTheater’s sublime production of Bertolt Brecht’s “Good Person of Szechwan,” which was a highlight of the lasttheater season, when it opened in February at La MaMa, and now becomes a highlight of the current one,having reopened Tuesday night at the Public Theater.

I hope all the Brecht-o-phobes out there haven’t already stopped reading, because this frisky production,directed by Lear DeBessonet, could make a convert of just about anyone. If you associate Brecht with heavy-treading, messagemongering nights at the theater, you may be taken aback to find how purely entertaining hiswork can be when it is delivered with invention and a spirit of inquisitive exuberance, as it is here.

This is not to suggest that Ms. DeBessonet and her collaborators are burlesquing Brecht’s fable about the highcost of doing good deeds in a misbegotten world. True, the central role of Shen Te, the prostitute turnedshopkeeper in ancient China, is portrayed by the bald, lanky drag performer Taylor Mac, which might suggestmischief in the making.

But despite the sloppy red dress and the gold strappy heels worn over black socks and the Marlene Dietrichmaquillage, Mr. Mac is giving a sincere, smart and disarmingly moving performance. His vibrant turn as ShenTe brings out the beating heart and the bristling humor in Brecht without in any way obscuring the play’sspirited critique of a punishingly mercenary social order. (The production conflates two translations by JohnWillett, trimmed here and there with witty contemporary flourishes.)

Shen Te earns the titular distinction when a trio of gods descends upon her city in search of an honorable manor woman; rumors have reached the higher realms, it appears, that “no one can stay on earth and remaingood.” Clad in tattered white finery — as if purchased from some celestial thrift shop — these dodderingfigures, played by the terrific Vinie Burrows, Mia Katigbak and Mary Shultz, are shepherded around town bythe Water Seller (David Turner), who has taken it upon himself to find them free lodging.

Played with impish humor by Mr. Turner (his razzle-dazzle solo is a musical highlight of the show), the WaterSeller knocks on the doors of the miniature houses of Matt Saunders’s charmingly funky set, only to discoverthat, ahem, nobody’s much interested in offering hospitality. The only willing soul in town is the poorprostitute Shen Te, who is rewarded for her goodness with a thousand silver dollars .

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Among the Huddled Masses, Doing Good Can Come With a High Price - The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/...eater/reviews/brechts-good-person-of-szechwan-opens-at-public-theater.html?pagewanted=print[10/30/2013 9:05:10 AM]

Sudden prosperity brings nothing but misfortune upon the softhearted Shen Te, who soon finds her tobaccoshop infested with more freeloaders than customers. Her unhappy but necessary solution: the invention of amale cousin, Shui Ta, who will sternly set things right by taking a ruthless attitude toward making the shopprofitable.

To portray the shadow half of the central character, Mr. Mac dons a natty pinstriped suit, a bowler hat and acurlicued mustache that dangles comically from his nose like a charm on a bracelet. His arrivals to clean up themesses made by Shen Te’s charitable instincts are heralded by a thump on the drums from the house band, theLisps. The music, written by César Alvarez and the band, blends classic American folk redolent of the WoodyGuthrie era with more exotic influences. (The declamatory percussion could be a nod to Chinese opera.)

Simple moral fable though it may seem upon the surface, Brecht’s play grows more nuanced and complex asShen Te tries to reconcile her two personas — or rather eliminate the spiritually pernicious one — and findsome happiness in love, which turns out to be just as big a drain on the coffers as everyday good works.

Many of the play’s supporting characters are drawn as Hogarthian comic caricatures , and ferociously playedas such. Lisa Kron, whose acclaimed musical “Fun Home” is playing in another theater at the Public, is flat-outhilarious in two roles, as Shen Te’s grasping, nasal-voiced landlady, and as the grasping, talon-nailed tigermom of Yang Sun (Clifton Duncan), Shen Te’s fiancé. But even the comparatively noble characters — Shen Te,of course, but the Water Seller, too — cannot remain entirely uncorrupted by the brutal imperatives of theirworld.

When Mr. Mac’s bewildered Shen Te ultimately exposes the truth about her divided existence to the gods, shesays, “Your original order, to be good while yet surviving, split me like lightning into two people.” As shemournfully adds, “Goodness to others and to myself could not both be achieved.”

In less inspired productions, such passages might come across like a sledgehammer to the forehead. But Ms.DeBessonet, Mr. Mac and their altogether excellent collaborators have created in this production a frame forBrecht’s philosophy that allows his admonitory ideas to make a soft landing. They sting, nonetheless, becauseMr. Mac’s superlative performance imbues Shen Te with such unaffected humanity.

The laughter that ripples throughout this production — I still find myself smiling at Mr. Mac’s comical tusslewith an inflatable chair — doesn’t obscure the sad truths at the play’s core. The final moments are piercing, asShen Te is abandoned by the gods to continue fighting the proverbial good fight, and still doesn’t feel up toit. Gazing into the audience with a glitter of fear in her eyes that outshines the glitter on her eyelids, Shen Tesoftly cries out, “Help!” This moment is unforgettable, too, but it certainly doesn’t raise a smile.

Good Person of Szechwan

By Bertolt Brecht, translated by John Willett; directed by Lear DeBessonet; music by César Alvarez, with theLisps; sets by Matt Saunders; costumes by Clint Ramos; lighting by Tyler Micoleau; sound by Brandon Wolcott;choreography by Danny Mefford; dramaturge, Anne Erbe; stage manager, Megan Schwarz Dickert; wigs andmakeup by Dave Bova; production manager, Gregg Bellon; found-percussion design by Eric Farber; housesbuilt by Petra Floyd. A Foundry Theater production, presented by the Public Theater, Oskar Eustis, artisticdirector; Patrick Willingham, executive director. At the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place,East Village, 212-967-7555, publictheater.org. Through Nov. 24. Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes.

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Among the Huddled Masses, Doing Good Can Come With a High Price - The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/...eater/reviews/brechts-good-person-of-szechwan-opens-at-public-theater.html?pagewanted=print[10/30/2013 9:05:10 AM]

WITH: Vinie Burrows (God #1), Kate Benson (Mrs. Shin), Ephraim Birney (the Nephew), Clifton Duncan(Grandfather/Yang Sun), Jack Allen Greenfield (Boy/Priest/Carpenter’s Son), Brooke Ishibashi (the Woman),Paul Juhn (the Man/Mr. Shu Fu), Mia Katigbak (God #2), Lisa Kron (Mrs. Mi Tzu/Mrs. Yang), Taylor Mac(Shen Te/Shui Ta), Mary Shultz (God #3), David Turner (Wang the Water Seller/Waiter) and Darryl Winslow(Carpenter/Policeman/Unemployed Man).

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The Sex Therapist’s Story, From Calamity to Cliché - The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/.../reviews/becoming-dr-ruth-with-debra-jo-rupp-at-westside-theater.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print[10/30/2013 9:03:24 AM]

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October 29, 2013THEATER REVIEW

The Sex Therapist’s Story, From Calamity to ClichéBy DAVID ROONEY

“People don’t look at the elderly as sexual beings,” says Debra Jo Rupp as the title character in “Becoming Dr.Ruth,” a solo play about the celebrity sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer that opened on Tuesday at theWestside Theater. “Worse, some older people don’t see themselves that way.”

Nor, it appears, does the playwright Mark St. Germain (“Freud’s Last Session”), who assembled this talkingWikipedia page. He neuters the woman whose remarkable life it depicts, reducing her to an adorable bundle ofinnocuous jokes, sentimental clichés and over-explained metaphors. The Dr. Ruth onstage is a cartoon, aStehaufmaennchen doll — you push her down and she bounces right back up!

No disrespect is intended to the real Dr. Westheimer, whose courage, resilience, humanity and intellect aremuch in evidence here, nor to the tremendous suffering she endured on the way to becoming the belovedmatron who taught 1980s America not to be ashamed of sex. But such a fascinating subject deserves a lesssuperficial bioplay than this one, whose lackluster writing is matched by Julianne Boyd’s pedestrian direction.

The setup is not unlike that of a far superior recent single-character play about another German-Jewishrefugee who reinvented herself in America, “I’ll Eat You Last.” As indicated by the subtitle of that Bette Midlervehicle, “A Chat With Sue Mengers,” the protagonist welcomed the audience into her living room to gab,exposing her vulnerabilities while celebrating her triumphs.

Here, Dr. Ruth cuts short a phone call with her publicist when she looks up and realizes she has company.The time is 1997, two months after the death of her third husband, and she is packing up the WashingtonHeights apartment they shared, preparing to move the next day. With a stash of memorabilia, photographs anddocuments at the ready, Dr. Ruth shares her reminiscences.

Her story is certainly a stirring one. Born Karola Ruth Siegel in 1928, the diminutive girl saw her childhood inFrankfurt cut short when her father was taken to a labor camp soon after Kristallnacht in 1938. At 10, she wassent on a Kindertransport train to Switzerland, never to see her Orthodox family again.

When she was 17, she moved to a kibbutz in Palestine, and then to Jerusalem to study kindergartenteaching, just as the conflict between Jews and Arabs was escalating. She joined the Haganah, the Jewishparamilitary organization, and became an ace sniper, receiving nearly fatal injuries in a bomb blast on her20th birthday. Next stop was Paris, where she continued her studies and taught at the Sorbonne beforetraveling to America in 1956.

Mr. St. Germain connects the dots in a rudimentary fashion to explain how Dr. Westheimer found her way

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The Sex Therapist’s Story, From Calamity to Cliché - The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/.../reviews/becoming-dr-ruth-with-debra-jo-rupp-at-westside-theater.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print[10/30/2013 9:03:24 AM]

into sex therapy and became a popular media figure. The play, which comes to New York after being seen atthe Barrington Stage Company and TheaterWorks in Hartford, provides no nuanced exploration of the Dr.Ruth phenomenon, instead simplifying her vocation into a survivor’s sense of obligation to repair the world.That sentiment might have been lifted from the subject’s own words, but it doesn’t make for an illuminatingportrait.

Ms. Rupp, who is best known as the mom on “That ’70s Show,” gets close enough with the accent and does anice job conveying the warmth and humor of Dr. Ruth. But rather than this well-meaning tribute, I keptwishing that the woman herself were onstage reflecting on her life and taking questions.

Becoming Dr. Ruth

By Mark St. Germain; directed by Julianne Boyd; sets by Brian Prather; costumes by Jennifer Moeller; lightingby Scott Pinkney; sound by Jessica Paz; projections by Daniel Brodie; production supervisor, Production Core;dialect coach, Stephen Gabis; general manager, Richards/Climan Inc. A Barrington Stage Companyproduction, presented by Michael Alden, Stefany Bergson, Rodger Hess, Jamie deRoy/Beam ReachEntertainment, Pat Flicker Addiss and LFI Group/Elyse Mirto. At the Westside Theater Upstairs, 407 West43rd Street, Clinton, (212) 239-6200, telecharge.com. Through Jan. 12. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes.

WITH: Debra Jo Rupp (Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer).

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bbb@elbardigital.com_20131030_09402310.30.13 Morning Line.pdfnytimes.comThe Sex Therapist’s Story, From Calamity to Cliché - The New York TimesAmong the Huddled Masses, Doing Good Can Come With a High Price - The New York Times