Vanessa Redgrave to Star With Jesse Eisenberg in His New Play - NYTimes.com

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/vanessa-redgrave-joins-the-revisionist/?pagewanted=print[9/21/2012 9:55:57 AM]

SEPTEMBER 20, 2012, 9:00 PM

Vanessa Redgrave to Star With Jesse Eisenberg in His New Play

By ALLAN KOZINN

Vanessa Redgrave has joined the cast of "The Revisionist," a new play by the actor Jesse Eisenberg thatis scheduled to open Off Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theater on Feb. 6 and run through March 31. Mr.Eisenberg, an Oscar nominee for his portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in "The Social Network," will also starin the three-character play, which will be directed by Kip Fagan and staged by the Rattlestick PlaywrightsTheater.

"The Revisionist" is Mr. Eisenberg's second play for the company, which put on his"Asuncion"last year.In the new play Mr. Eisenberg will portray David, a young science-fiction writer who visits Poland in thehope of overcoming a particularly dire case of writer's block. There he meets his 75-year-old cousin,Maria (Ms. Redgrave), a Holocaust survivor who is driven by a desire to connect with the American sideof her family. The play explores their relationship, which becomes complicated as Maria reveals thedetails of her post-war past.

Ms. Redgrave's last stage appearance in New York was in the 2010 Broadway production of AlfredUhry's "Driving Miss Daisy,"in which she played opposite James Earl Jones.

Brian Long, Rattlestick's managing director, said that no commercial producers were attached to theproduction of "The Revisionist," but said he hopes the play will repeat the success of "Asuncion," whichwas extended by three weeks beyond its initial seven-week run. Ms. Redgrave and Mr. Eisenberg areavailable "until at least April 20," he said.

Mourning a Beloved Cat and the Road Not Taken - The New York Times

http://theater.nytimes.com/...otter-at-the-cherry-lane-theater.html?ref=theater&_r=0moc.semityn.retaeht&pagewanted=print[9/21/2012 9:57:13 AM]

September 20, 2012THEATER REVIEW

Mourning a Beloved Cat and the Road Not TakenBy CHARLES ISHERWOOD

If your favorite time killers include overindulging in cute kitty videos on the Web — you know who you are,and you are legion — you will surely lend a sympathetic ear to the befuddled and bereaved hero of “Red-Handed Otter,” a modest but nicely observed comedy by Ethan Lipton that opened on Thursday night at theCherry Lane Theater, in a production from the Playwrights Realm.

Paul (Matthew Maher, of Annie Baker’s “Uncle Vanya”), who works as a security guard, has just lost hisbeloved cat, Jennifer, who was a youthful 17. Sitting zombie-eyed before a bank of monitors as the hours crawlby, poor Paul cannot help brooding on the world’s cruelty, responding to all attempts at cheering him up withbitter gusts of self-pity.

“I mean, I’ve had other cats,” he says with exacting clarity. “As a kid we had cats, they were great cats, butcompared to Jennifer? If you just look at it objectively? We’re talking about one of the best cats in history!”

His friend and co-worker Donald (Bobby Moreno) offers sympathy and support, listening with nary a flicker ofboredom in his doggy eyes to Paul’s recital of Jennifer’s many wonders. These reflections naturally segue intomorose complaints about the rut Paul’s life has fallen into: the six months he planned to spend in his dead-endjob have somehow stretched to 15 years.

Scarcely mentioned between these pals is the fact that Donald is now dating Angela (Rebecca Henderson), whowas once Paul’s girlfriend. This makes for a sense of simmering tension at the casual party Donald arranges tocheer Paul up, held somewhat improbably in the small office where they all work, along with their fellow clockpunchers Randy (Gibson Frazier) and Estelle (Quincy Tyler Bernstine).

Mr. Lipton, a playwright and a performer who won an Obie award for “No Place to Go,” a song cycle heperformed with his band at Joe’s Pub last year, has a keen sympathy for the little guy, his diurnal woes andmodest pleasures. Among the slender satisfactions of the daily grind, the care and tending of small animalsfigures prominently — perhaps a little too prominently — in “Red-Handed Otter,” which has been directedwith an appropriately light touch by Mike Donahue.

In addition to the much eulogized Jennifer, we hear tales of the title critter, a beloved pet of Donald’schildhood, who inspired his odd ideas about the potential benefits of massage on the otter population, andmore widely on the general animal population.

In another scene Randy regales Estelle with the story of the hermit crab of his youthful adoration, “the perfectcombination of a wet and dry pet.” Later, at the party, all turn on Estelle in shock and disapproval when sheconfesses she never had any pets.

To Paul’s outraged question, “What did you have?” Estelle seethingly replies: “We had people! The house was

Mourning a Beloved Cat and the Road Not Taken - The New York Times

http://theater.nytimes.com/...otter-at-the-cherry-lane-theater.html?ref=theater&_r=0moc.semityn.retaeht&pagewanted=print[9/21/2012 9:57:13 AM]

full, and everybody in it was a person!”

Eloquent as they can be on the subject of the comforts of pets, Mr. Lipton’s characters have a harder timeexpressing themselves when it comes to emotions of a more complicated order. The tender bonds betweenthese genial underachievers and their nonhuman companions is gently contrasted with their more awkwardattempts to relate to one another. To a man and woman — with the possible exception of Angela — they havetrouble negotiating human relationships.

Mr. Maher’s aspect of an overgrown toddler often imbues his performances with a disarming sweetness andeccentricity. As the grieving Paul, he’s funny and touching, but with a hint of misanthropy that gives hischaracter a piquant edge. Mr. Moreno’s Donald, with whom Paul establishes a prickly rapport born of theirmutual hard luck in loving Angela, exudes his own affecting air of being not quite ready for full adulthood.

Mr. Frazier and Ms. Bernstine also find the appealing innocence in their characters, while Ms. Henderson’sAngela stands alone among this bunch in evincing a determination to keep her life from stagnating. OnlyAngela breaks free from the comforting but stultifying room in which they all work (expertly realized by the setdesigner, Andrew Boyce) and finds the courage to quit and go back to school.

With its long stretches of dialogue about offbeat subjects — it doesn’t get more offbeat than hermit crabs, afterall — “Red-Handed Otter” has the feel of a slightly self-consciously quirky indie film with modest aspirations.It doesn’t push its ambitions too hard, while engaging your sympathy for characters you hope will eventuallyset aside their self-defeating obsessions and, like enterprising little gerbils or hamsters, break free from theircages.

Red-Handed Otter

By Ethan Lipton; directed by Mike Donahue; producing director, Renee Blinkwolt; sets by Andrew Boyce;costumes by Moria Sine Clinton; lighting by Lucrecia Briceño; sound by Jill B C Du Boff; video by DanielVatsky; production stage manager, Joanne E. McInerney; production supervisor, James Cleveland/ProductionCore. Presented by the Playwrights Realm, Katherine Kovner, artistic director. At the Cherry Lane Theater, 38Commerce Street, West Village, (212) 532-3101, redhandedotter.com. Through Oct. 6. Running time: 1 hour 25minutes.

WITH: Quincy Tyler Bernstine (Estelle), Gibson Frazier (Randy), Rebecca Henderson (Angela), MatthewMaher (Paul) and Bobby Moreno (Donald).

When Justice Makes You Gasp - The New York Times

http://theater.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/theater/reviews/the-exonerated-revived-at-the-culture-project.html?pagewanted=print[9/21/2012 9:58:35 AM]

September 19, 2012THEATER REVIEW

When Justice Makes You GaspBy KEN JAWOROWSKI

There’s a distinct sound made by audience members watching “The Exonerated.” It’s a sharp exhale, partincredulous, part angry, and delivered with a wince or a shake of the head. That sound is a visceral reaction tostories of people unjustly sentenced to die. It staves off the compulsion to cry out, or maybe just to cry.

Ten years after its New York premiere “The Exonerated” still has the power to unsettle. This documentary playrecounts the tales of six former death-row inmates, using their own words, from court transcripts, interviewsand letters. Some of those convicted were nowhere near the scenes of the crimes. A few were connected to thevictims by the thinnest of threads. Whatever the case, their stories remain troubling.

“I finally volunteered to give what they call a ‘vision statement’ — a hypothetical account of what I would havedone if I had killed my parents,” says Gary Gauger, a former inmate played here by a wisely understated BrianDennehy. Such an account might jog memories of where he was on the day of the murders, he was told duringsome 12 hours of interrogation.

Exhausted, Gary agreed to give the statement, all the while denying his involvement. That version was thenused by the police as his confession. Years later two other men were found guilty of the crime.

Similarly somber, mind-boggling tales are made increasingly intense by being delivered in a matter-of-fact wayin this dark, spare reading, directed by Bob Balaban. Issues of race, law enforcement and the death penalty areraised, of course (though conflicting accounts and other gray areas are skirted). But by focusing primarily onindividuals, the play, by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, packs a greater wallop — the personal is always moreaffecting than the polemic.

“So I’ll just give you a moment to reflect,” Sunny Jacobs (a gentle, marvelous Stockard Channing) says of hertime in prison. “From 1976 to 1992, just remove that entire chunk from your life, and that’s what happened.”

Again, you hear that sound from the audience.

This production features 10 actors; 6 are full-time, and 4 roles are filled by rotating cast members (Ms.Channing, Mr. Dennehy, Delroy Lindo and Chris Sarandonon the evening I went). There’s not a falseperformance in the 90-minute show. (The theater at the Culture Project, however, was uncomfortably hot, adistressing — and, I hope, rectified — oversight for a stationary work that demands your complete attention.)

In the end, despite horrific situations and years of incarceration, a few of these former inmates seem to havefound a kind of peace. You may wonder how that’s possible, given their ordeals. Perhaps, as one suggests,they’ve just let go of the malice in their hearts. Or, perhaps, they think of others who were innocent but whoweren’t released in time.